Courtesy of Olha Tytarenko

Olha Tytarenko — who began teaching Yale courses in Russian this semester — plans to build a Ukrainian language curriculum beginning in the 2024-25 academic year.

Yale’s ambitions for a Ukrainian program are not new, but Tytarenko and Edyta Bojanowska, Chair of Slavic Languages and Literatures, told the News that in the face of the war in Ukraine, this objective has grown more urgent. Tytarenko, who comes from a background in education and academia, brings to Yale her fluency in Ukrainian, Russian and English, as well as skills in language pedagogy and research in Russian mysticism and mythology.

“I consider it a noble task to start a Ukrainian program,” Tytarenko told the News. “Especially now, during this moment when there is a heightened interest in Ukrainian studies and a need for an understanding of Ukraine, its cultures, history, politics and the relation between Ukraine and Russia.”

Tytarenko received a B.A. and M.A. in English Language and Literature from Ukraine’s Lviv Ivan Franko National University. Initially, she planned to teach English as a foreign language — but when she moved to the United States to earn a Master’s degree in Russian and Comparative Literature at Pennsylvania State University, she opted to stay and pursue an academic career. In 2016, she earned a Ph.D. in Slavic Languages and Literatures from the University of Toronto.

Almost immediately after defending her dissertation, Tytarenko began working at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, where she said she taught for seven years and completely “rebuilt” the Russian curriculum. She was presented simultaneously with an offer for a tenure-track research-oriented position at UNL and the opportunity to teach at Yale.

Tytarenko said that ultimately, she decided to join the Yale faculty so she could build a Ukrainian program.

“I thought it would be a very meaningful way to contribute to the Ukrainian cause,” she said. “Because it was challenging to be here and not to be in Ukraine while everyone was in Ukraine.”

Tytarenko told the News she found it “surprising” that a robust Ukrainian program does not already exist at Yale.

Since Tytarenko was on maternity leave in the fall and began teaching courses this Spring, she plans to introduce course offerings in Ukrainian in the fall, as the department requires both semesters of instruction.

“[Teaching Ukrainian] is something the department has been talking about for a while,” Bojanowska told the News. “But the war in Ukraine made this all the more imperative.”

Bojanowska said the department ran a search for a language lector, seeking a lector who was fluent in both Russian and Ukrainian. She said that Tytarenko, trilingual and a “dynamo in the classroom,” was the perfect fit.

She added that she hopes that, by having the same lector teaching both languages, students can understand that speaking the Russian language does not equate with a Russian nationalist identity.

Tytarenko said she hopes the Ukrainian language department will work closely with the Ukraine House student group, offer extra-curricular community events and become a “hub” for cultural events and exchange.

In the future, she also wants to create an interdisciplinary course on Ukrainian identity, culture and mentality explored through the lenses of art, music, folklore, mythology and literature. She also aspires to teach Ukrainian literature in translation — a skill that she has honed as a translator for several literary works.

Tytarenko added that these courses in Ukrainian studies will diversify the Slavic department’s offerings and help students understand the complexities of Ukraine-Russia geopolitical and cultural relations.

After the war, Tytarenko said she hopes to forge connections with schools in Ukraine and facilitate exchange programs — though she said this planning feels “premature” now.

Alongside being a senior lector and associate research scholar and teaching first- and second-year Ukrainian, Tytarenko endeavors to expand and develop her dissertation — a study of Russian folk mysticism narratives and the mythology behind rebellion — into a full-length book manuscript.

She added that this research has resounding relevance nowadays.

“We can see the political mythology in supporting propaganda narratives and the place of mythology in nation-building and in the current regime in Russia,” Tytarenko said.

In addition to her research in Russian mysticism and mythology, Tytarenko also has experience researching pedagogical practices and curriculum-building.

She uses virtual reality and immersive technology to help her students improve speaking and communication skills. She cited an example of a course she taught at UNL about Russia through art, in which students would use glasses to experience galleries, stores, streets and rooms immersively with visual and audio input.

“I have seen how effective this is as an innovative tool in boosting motivation for students,” Tytarenko told the News. “Students are more engaged with the learning material they have. They have better focus on the task. They demonstrate better retention of the material.”

Tytarenko told the News that the program will have to gauge student interest to determine how expansive offerings in Ukrainian will be.

Bojanowska echoed this perspective, urging students to be receptive to classes in Ukrainian.

“The ball is in your court because students now need to come and take these courses,” she said.

Although Yale currently lacks its own Ukrainian language program, some opportunities for Yale students to pursue Ukrainian already exist.

Jordan Shevchenko ’27 is a half-Ukrainian student taking Elementary Ukrainian II, a Columbia University language course offered to Yale students through a Shared Course Initiative program.

“A lot of my Ukrainian family are unable to speak English, so by learning Ukrainian I can communicate much more with them,” Shevchenko wrote to the News.

He shared that Yale students, who are in a classroom together, use high-definition video conferencing technology to connect to the Columbia language class, which is taught by a Ph.D. candidate there.

So far, Shevchenko wrote that his course focuses on grammar, vocabulary, reading and writing — but students also talk about Ukrainian culture, history and politics through discussions.

“Russia’s full-scale invasion is trying to compromise and eliminate Ukrainian culture, and alongside this the Ukrainian language,” Shevchenko wrote. “By learning Ukrainian, one can help combat these measures, and also express their solidarity with the people of Ukraine more easily.”

Faculty of Arts and Sciences Dean Tamar Gendler expressed excitement at Tytarenko’s plans for the Department of Slavic Languages and Literatures.

She wrote to the News that Tytarenko, who has published extensively on the subject of language teaching, will create new offerings that will dynamically accommodate student interests.

“Ms. Tytarenko is an expert in language pedagogy,” Gendler wrote.

Bojanowska echoed Gendler’s enthusiasm, saying that Tytarenko has the expertise and the passion to build a strong Ukrainian language and culture curriculum.

Yale’s Department of Slavic Languages and Literatures was established in 1946.