Igor Serdiuk
Fellow 2024/2025
Social History
Kyiv School of Economics
Centre for Advanced Study, Sofia
Ig.Serdiuk@gmail.com
Bio
Igor Serdiuk, PhD, Doctor of Historical Sciences, Professor, specializes in the history of the Hetmanate, with a focus on historical urban studies, everyday life, the history of perceptions and historical anthropology, and the history of childhood.
He defended his PhD dissertation “Regimental Cities of the Left Bank of Ukraine in the Middle of the 18th Century: Historical and Demographic Dimensions” in 2010 at the National University of “Kyiv-Mohyla Academy.” In 2018, he completed his doctoral dissertation “Child and Childhood in the Hetmanate: Socio-Historical and Historical-Anthropological Dimensions” at Zaporizhzhia National University.
He has taught at Poltava National Pedagogical University and the National University of “Kyiv-Mohyla Academy.” Currently, he is a professor at the Kyiv School of Economics.
Serdiuk is the founder of the Center for Historical and Anthropological Research and the project leader of a National Research Foundation of Ukraine grant (2022–2023). He has been a research fellow at the French Research Center for Humanities and Social Sciences (CEFRES) (2023–2024) and an associate fellow of the Center for Advanced Studies (Sofia).
He is the author of numerous books, articles, and popular science publications. His book “Little Adult: The Child and Childhood in the Hetmanate” was awarded the Ivan Franko International Prize. For his academic achievements, he received the President of Ukraine Award for Young Scientists.
From 2022 to 2024, he was a volunteer with the Victory Drones military-educational initiative and a co-developer of the new school curriculum for the “Defense of Ukraine” course. He has been awarded medals by the Minister of Defense of Ukraine and the Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine.
Quality of Life of the Population of the Hetman Region and Left Bank Ukraine in the 18th and 19th Centuries (Demography, Economy, Medicine)
World historiography offers diverse studies on the history of climate and its impact on human life, with scholars like Emmanuel Le Roy Ladurie, Richard Grove, and Alfred Crosby highlighting the importance of environmental history. However, Ukraine is often absent in these discussions. My project aims to address this gap by focusing on the Hetmanate of the 17th and 18th centuries. I seek to introduce a new field of research for Ukraine, which can be expanded by other scholars in the future.
Rather than revisiting outdated works, I plan to explore human interaction with climate and weather in a broader context. This includes examining ideas about climatic phenomena, the perception of seasons, and the influence of climate on mortality, prices, and quality of life. My research will use various sources, including economic and medical advisors, baroque chronicles, population registration materials, and personal diaries (such as those of Yakiv Markovych). These documents will be analyzed through historical anthropology, cliometrics, and sociological models, exploring relationships between climate fluctuations, grain prices, and mortality rates in the Hetmanate.
This approach will place Ukrainian history within a broader European context, presenting early modern Ukraine as part of the global "world of life." The central research question will focus on how climate and weather influenced the quality of life in Cossack Ukraine, offering a new perspective on the Hetmanate, typically analyzed through political history.
The practical outcome of this project will be the publication of two or three articles, with the potential for a book, as well as presentations and popular science contributions. I will also incorporate the findings into my courses, "Methodology of History" and "Everyday History."