The 4th IUFU Winter School “Coping with Difference: Unity, Plurality, and the Public Sphere in Wartime” (11-17 January 2026, Budapest) will bring together 30 selected participants from the IUFU student cohort to the CEU Budapest campus to reflect on and draw on the Ukrainian war experience and contribute to the postwar reconstruction of culture and society. It seeks to discuss the global contexts of Russia’s war against Ukraine and to consider how the Ukrainian cause can be articulated in relation to many other overlapping crises and conflicts.

The School’s modules are built around selected themes of the ongoing IUFU courses, including the Ukrainian connectivities with the global South; the past, present, and future of minorities in Ukraine; the social and intellectual history and impact of feminism; environmental history; and the relationship between civil society and the state.

Along these lines, the schools will engage with key academic and public debates on the political, institutional, and intellectual stakes of negotiating difference in the Ukrainian and global cultural spheres. These include the ambiguities of decoloniality and (de-)Westernization, both historically and in the context of the Russian full-scale invasion; the relationship of ethnicity and civic nationhood; the experiences of uncovering ethnic identity in the Soviet and post-Soviet context; historical traumas and competing narratives of victimhood; the politicization of gender and the repercussions of the global culture wars in Ukraine; and the Ukrainian engagements with the “global public sphere.”

To discuss this, the school involves leading scholars, artists, and civil society activists. It also aims to give voice to the young generation of Ukrainian intellectuals and professionals. The program also explores successful models of civil engagement and considers how academic knowledge can be useful for Ukrainian society during the ordeal of the war and in its aftermath. Rather than just debating these issues, we invite students and lecturers to develop active and innovative strategies on how Ukrainian culture, identity, and institutional practices can be studied and valorized in view of these challenges and how resilient civic and academic organizations can be created and maintained in the context of the war and the postwar reconstruction.

The seven-day program consists of several main components:

i. Thematic lectures and discussions;

ii. Mentoring with the guest professors and faculty of IUFU;

iii. Student workshops and roundtables;

iv. One-day creative writing session;

iv. Visiting institutions and meeting civil activists;

vi. Film screenings and literary discussions.

Organised by

Invisible University for Ukraine