Andrii Portnov (in Ukrainian: Андрій Портнов, in Russian: Андрей Портнов, in Polish: Andrij Portnow; born 17 May 1979 in Dnipropetrovsk (now Dnipro), Ukrainian SSR) is a Ukrainian historian, essayist, and editor. He is the chair professor of entangled history of Ukraine at the European University Viadrina in Frankfurt (Oder).[1] and a director of the PRISMA UKRAЇNA Research Network Eastern Europe.[2] He specializes in Polish-Russian-Ukrainian history and memory studies.
Andrii Portnov was born on 17 May 1979 in Dnipro. He graduated from Dnipropetrovsk National University (M.A. in history, with honors, 2001) and Warsaw University (M.A. in cultural studies, with honors, 2003). In 2005, Portnov defended his PhD (kandydats`ka dysertaciia) at the Ivan Krypiakevych Institute of Ukrainian Studies of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine in Lviv (supervisor Prof. Yaroslav Isaievych).
He was a research fellow or had fellowships at the University of Trier (2004–2006), Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies in Amsterdam (2007), Institute for European Studies of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine in Kyiv (2007–2008), National Institute for Strategic Studies of Ukraine in Kyiv (2008–2010), Center for Russian, Caucasian and Central European Studies (CERCEC) in Paris (2010).
He was an editor of the academic journal "Ukraїna Moderna" (2006–2010),[3] in 2012 he co-founded and co-edited (until 2017) the intellectual web portal Historians.in.ua.[4]
In 2012–2014 he was a Fellow at the Berlin Institute for Advanced Study (Wissenschaftskolleg zu Berlin),[5] in 2012–2016 – Alexander-von-Humboldt Fellow at the Institute for Slavic Studies of the Humboldt University in Berlin and Centre for Contemporary History (ZZF) in Potsdam (from 2015). In 2016–2017 he was a research fellow at the University of Geneva. In 2017 and 2019 he was a short-term Fellow at the Institute for Human Sciences (IWM) in Vienna.
During 2012–2020 Portnov taught courses on Ukrainian and East European history and cultures at the Humboldt University in Berlin, Free University Berlin, Vrije Universiteit Brussel, University of Basel, the Institut d'Etudes Politiques de Lyon, etc.
In 2015 Portnov initiated and became a director of the Berlin-Brandenburg Ukrainian Research Initiative,[6] which transformed itself in 2017 into PRISMA UKRAЇNA Research Network Eastern Europe in Berlin.[7]
In May 2018 Portnov was appointed a professor of entangled history of Ukraine at the European University Viadrina (Frankfurt/Oder).[8]
In 2019 he was also invited as a guest professor to the University of Potsdam.[9]
Prof. Portnov holds membership in the Ukrainian PEN Club[10] and the German Association for East European Studies (DGO).
Andrii Portnov has published six books, over 200 articles, book chapters, and reviews. Their thematic scope includes the Polish-Russian-Ukrainian triangle of history and memory, genocide and memory studies, Ukrainian and Soviet historiography, Ukrainian emigration in inter-war Europe, the Partitions of Poland and the Ukrainian politics of the Russian Empire, the history of Dnipro (former Dnipropetrovsk), the personalities of such intellectuals as Volodymyr Parkhomenko, Viacheslav Zaiikyn, Viktor Petrov, Mykola Kovalsky, Omeljan Pritsak, and others.
His scholar texts were published in Ukrainian, Russian, Polish, English, German, French, Japanese, Czech, Bulgarian, Hungarian, and Belarusian.
In the years of 2011–2016 Portnov produced 99 videoblogs on different issues of international humanities (including interviews with Annie Appelboin, Volodymyr Kulyk, Yuri Slezkine, Maria Lewicka, Alvydas Nikzentaitis, Gerhard Simon, and others) for the web portal net.abimperio.net (does not exist anymore). The majority of them could be seen on Portnov`s personal You-Tube Channel. In 2018–2019 Portnov produced 15 video book reviews for his channel, transmitted also by the Espresso TV Channel. In 2018 the You-Tube Channel of the Chair of Entangled History of Ukraine was created, it contains both videos from various Chair`s conferences, summer schools and colloquiums, as well as Prof. Portnov`s new videoblogs.
