November 1, 2018

Appointed as director of Cambridge Ukrainian Studies

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Cambridge Ukrainian Studies

Dr. Olenka Pevny

CAMBRIDGE, England – Dr. Olenka Pevny, university lecturer in Early Modern Slavonic Culture and History, will be director of the Cambridge Ukrainian Studies program as of October 2.

Dr. Pevny is succeeding Dr. Rory Finnin, university senior lecturer in Ukrainian Studies, who will be on sabbatical leave from 2018 to 2020 to complete a series of research projects. Dr. Finnin is the founding director of Cambridge Ukrainian Studies, an academic center launched in 2008 to advance new approaches to the study of Ukraine. Over the past decade, under his leadership, the center has trained over 300 undergraduate and post-graduate students, and organized over 100 public events to become one of the world’s leading academic centers devoted to the study of Ukraine, the largest country within Europe.

Dr. Pevny is a celebrated scholar of the art and culture of Kyivan Rus’ and Ruthenia. Prior to arriving at the University of Cambridge in 2014, Dr. Pevny was associate professor of Byzantine and Medieval art history and chair of the Art and Art History Department at the University of Richmond. She has worked as an archaeologist in Crimea and Greece, and worked in a curatorial capacity at The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City on “The Glory of Byzantium” exhibition. She hails from New Jersey.

“Olenka Pevny has singular expertise in the visual culture of Rus’, Ruthenia and modern Ukraine, and her enthusiastic commitment to the growth of the field of Ukrainian studies is contagious,” said Dr. Finnin, who is also the former head of the Department of Slavonic Studies (2014-2018) and former chair of the Cambridge Committee for Russian and East European Studies (2011-2018). “I am very excited to see her take Cambridge Ukrainian Studies in new directions over the years to come.”

“I am committed to building upon the inspiring accomplishments of Dr. Finnin”, said Dr. Pevny. “He has established Cambridge Ukrainian Studies as a leading center of learning and research in Europe, and in the years ahead, I look forward to helping Cambridge continue to advance the study of Ukraine.”

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