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On the weekend of July 20-21, the second annual Ukrainian Renaissance conference, jointly organized by Czech and European Students For Liberty, Ukrainian Students for Freedom and Operace Kyselac, a humanitarian project by the Czech Liberal Institute, took place in Lviv, Ukraine.
The program was packed, with almost 40 speakers from all over Europe joining us for the two-day conference, and so was the auditorium – over 230 individuals from 17 countries countries, including from as far away as the United States or Brazil, joined us in conversation about the future of not only Ukraine, but also Europe and liberalism around the world.
The conference was also attended by two members of the Ukrainian Parliament – Maryan Zablotsky and Maria Mezentseva (also the current chairperson of the Ukrainian delegation to the European Council), former Ukrainian Minister of Health Zoriana Skaletska and former Lithuanian Minister of Justice and Mayor of Vilnius Remigijus Šimašius.
A number of other speakers and partner organisations joined us too: we welcomed Daniel Freeman from the Institute of Economic Affairs in London, Christian Năsulea from the Institute for Economic Studies – Europe, who came from Bucharest, Romania, as well as his colleague Radu Nechita, several Polish speakers including Mikołaj Pisarski from the Mises Institute in Poland, German libertarian activist Andreas Jürgens from Freedom Today, and Georgian Students For Liberty alumna and currently humanitarian worker in Ukraine, Keti Kartsydze.
Zoltán Kesz, a former Hungarian MP, now a manager at the Consumer Choice Center, was also supposed to come, but a traffic accident just before the Hungarian-Ukrainian border prevented him from doing so.
The conference was held in the Palace of Culture of Hnat Chotkevych, a polymath murdered by Joseph Stalin during his purges.
Guiding the attendees through the event’s agenda were Jan Mosovsky from European Students For Liberty and Anna Tymoshenko, the CEO of Ukrainian Students for Freedom.
“Even more so than last year, the Ukrainian Renaissance conference in Lviv brought in a truly international group of experts, activists, policymakers and students, to discuss together the future not just of Ukraine, but also Europe. We covered many questions in our conversations, but the overarching topic was “resilience”; what are the reforms that can be made in Ukraine to make it freer and richer in spite of Russia’s invasion? What are the international bridges we can build, and changes we can make on the European level? How can we further reinforce the infrastructure for delivering aid? How can we integrate labour and capital markets, to better face illiberalism together? In looking for answers to all these questions, this year’s conference wasn’t just about the Ukrainian Renaissance, but about the European Renaissance,” says Jan about the event.
Because of disruptions caused by targeted Russian attacks on the Ukrainian energy infrastructure, the conference faced repeated blackouts, and several sessions took place without loudspeakers in a dark room, but none of that discouraged our speakers and attendees, nor stopped the discussion about the ideas of liberty.
Besides all the insights that were discussed on stage, the conference also succeeded in another, no less important goal: making connections between the local Ukrainian audience and liberal community, and the broader European movement, which, while supportive of Ukraine’s efforts to defend its sovereignty, can often be disconnected from the realities of life in a country fighting the third year of defensive war against a foreign invasion.
For this purpose, the conference provided many networking activities, including a charity auction, or a tour of Lviv, which naturally included a stop by the house of Ludwig von Mises, a Lviv native.
The Ukrainian Renaissance is bound to return next year, hopefully in a free and sovereign Ukraine.
