Associate Professor of Mariupol State University presented a draft textbook
Associate Professor of the Department of Political Science and International Relations of Mariupol State University Sergey Pakhomenko made a final visit to Helsinki University (Finland) as part of the scholarship program. In 2023, he successfully passed the competitive selection, having the opportunity to conduct scientific activities at the Aleksanteri Institute.
The final working trip in January-February was marked by the project presentation of the English-language textbook "Historical Narratives in Propaganda" based on the corresponding special course for students. The work still has an electronic format however a print edition is planned.
Summing up his internship, the associate professor of Mariupol University shared interesting observations:
Observation No. 1. In Finland, interest in Ukraine is growing – Finnish colleagues are trying to compensate for the lack of knowledge about our country. However, sometimes there is an absence of professional works in various spheres of social sciences and humanities, written in English by researchers from Ukraine.
Observation No. 2. Working with the Western Academy, presenting knowledge about Ukraine, and deconstructing propaganda narratives, our domestic researchers should not turn into propagandists themselves, it is important to admit and discuss possibly unpleasant pages of our history, recognise the presence of Ukrainian counter-propaganda as a reaction to attempts to undermine our identity.
Observation No. 3. In Finland, there is no such pursuit of publications indexed in Scopus. There is a list of Finnish and foreign journals, if your article is among those publications it is an indicator of your level of professionalism, and they are not necessarily included in Scopus. And one more thing. As a rule, a serious scientific article is written there for a year or a year and a half, but this is high-quality research, without a doubt.
