Karel Berkhoff appointed professor by special appointment: ‘Focus on Ukrainian history a milestone’
Appointment image: Nehir Aksel
As of 1 September , Karel Berkhoff has been appointed professor by special appointment in Ukrainian History. In this position, made possible in part by the KNAW, he will focus primarily on dark moments in recent Ukrainian history: the persecutions that have taken place in the first half of the twentieth century.
When Berkhoff first encountered the history of Ukraine as a student of Russian Studies and History, he was one of the few who was captivated by it. ‘I immediately found it intriguingly difficult,’ he recalls. ‘All those languages, ethnic groups, and regions that were sometimes under Polish rule, sometimes under the Soviet Union. Moreover, at the time, virtually no one in the field was explicitly concerned with Ukraine. I jumped into that gap with the idea that I would see where it took me.’
Professorship
After previously working as chief historian for a new Holocaust centre to be built in Kyiv, which unfortunately has come to a virtual standstill, and as a historian at the NIOD Institute for War, Holocaust, and Genocide Studies, Berkhoff now has a position at Leiden University. Since 1 September 2025, he has held a special chair in the History of Ukraine in the Twentieth Century, with a special focus on persecution. This chair has been established in part by the KNAW. The other days of the week, he continues to work as a Ukraine and Holocaust specialist for the same NIOD.
Berkhoff: ‘I think it's great that this chair recognises that the history of Ukraine has a right to exist. Whereas research and education used to focus mainly on the Soviet Union or Russia, we can now add an extra perspective.’ His focus will be on what Berkhoff calls ‘the most tragic parts’ of Ukrainian history, namely the persecutions that took place in the country before and during the Second World War. ‘Ukrainian history has seen a series of incidents of mass violence. There are still all kinds of taboos surrounding this, but people in Ukraine are very much aware that, for example, their grandmother was once deported to Germany. It is precisely with such a painful past that it can be helpful for a foreigner to view it with a certain distance. The current war is, of course, never far away.’
Ukraine in the lecture hall
Leiden students will soon be able to benefit from this perspective too. ‘I hope to be able to give a number of lectures over the next five years on Ukraine and the context in which you can understand that country,’ Berkhoff explains. ‘Of course, there is also much to be said for national historiography, but precisely because of its fluctuating borders, Ukraine often functions as a prism through which to view larger issues, without falling into the traditional Russian or anti-Russian perspective. At some point, there may also be people in the lecture halls who are more closely involved with the country than before. I would really enjoy that, as well as supervising theses or even a PhD.’