Olha Kolomyyets
Fellow 2025/2026
Art/Cultural Studies
Ivan Franko National University of Lviv
Volkswagen Stiftung
okolom@gmail.com
Bio
Dr. Olha Kolomyyets is an ethnomusicologist and Associate Professor at Ivan Franko National University of Lviv (Ukraine), where she teaches courses on the various aspects of music and its roles in the lives of people in Ukraine, as well as in other world cultures, including those of the East.
Her teaching extends beyond Lviv to institutions such as Jagiellonian University (Poland), the University of Music FRANZ LISZT Weimar (Germany), and the University of Chicago (USA). Her courses are closely aligned with her scholarly interests, which focus on the intersection of music and identity, music and ethnic minorities, and musical aspects of South Asian studies.
Dr. Kolomyyets is a Fulbright Scholar, having conducted her research project at the University of Chicago during the 2015–2016 academic year. She has also participated in several prestigious academic programs, including the Balzan Fellowship (2024), Joint Excellence in Science and Humanities (JESH) fellowship by the Austrian Academy of Sciences (2022, 2024), a stay as academic guest at the Wissenschaftskolleg zu Berlin (2022), and the National Endowment for the Humanities Collaborative Research program (2008). Additionally, she was awarded the Taras Shevchenko Scientific Society fellowship (2011) and participated in the "Jewish Heritage – The Problems of Common Cultural and Historical Heritage" program funded by the Ministry of Education and Science of Ukraine (2020–2021).
Dr. Kolomyyets has been professionally affiliated with the International Council for Traditions of Music and Dance (ICTMD) since 2007, where she currently serves as Liaison Officer for Ukraine.
Past and Present of the Songs from the Recordings of the Royal Prussian Phonographic Commission: Decolonizing Ukraine by way of the Archival and Museum Practices
The project explores rarely studied recordings of Ukrainians in the Berlin Phonogram Archive, part of a WWI Prisoner-of-War camp collection (1915–1918) created by the Prussian Phonographic Commission. This collection, comprising 125 sound units across diverse musical genres, remains largely unexamined despite its digitization in 2014.
The recordings were made under complex circumstances: Ukrainian performers were officially categorized as Russian combatants and prisoners of the German military. The project seeks to challenge these hegemonic narratives, highlighting the music as part of Ukraine’s independent cultural heritage and the emerging patriotic culture preceding the Ukrainian People’s Republic, reflecting aspirations for freedom and unity.
Research methods include:
- 1) identifying and distinguishing Ukrainian repertoire among multiethnic camp recordings;
- 2) melo-geographical analysis to create a musical atlas;
- 3) studying musical language to demonstrate the repertoire’s uniqueness;
- 4) analyzing compositions from the written tradition and camp cultural-educational context;
- 5) researching performers’ biographies;
- 6) contextualizing findings within 1915–1918 history.
The project is historically significant, culturally relevant, and methodologically innovative, contributing to Ukrainian-German academic exchange and reinforcing recognition of Ukraine’s musical and cultural autonomy.