Participants
Roman Horbyk2; Gwendolyn Sasse3; Elmira Muratova4; Martin-Oleksandr Kisly1; Oleksii Polegkyi5; Maria Tomak6; 1 National University of Kyiv-Mohyla Academy, Ukraine; 2 University of Zurich, Switzerland; 3 Centre for East European and International Studies (ZOiS), Germany; 4 European Centre for Minority Issues, Germany; 5 Institute of Political Studies, Polish Academy Sc., Poland; 6 Crimea Platform, UkraineDiscussion
“It is language above all that decides about the potentialities of history in actu”, suggested Reinhart Koselleck, and this figures prominently in his model of the historical process in modernity. “Space of experience” encompasses our knowledge of the world and its past, what was possible, what did happen, and how it ties in with our current condition. “Horizon of expectation” is the range of possibilities that lie ahead of us, in the future, as made possible by our space of experience. This is the ontological and epistemological line of thinking that inspired this roundtable, focusing on the discussion of potentialities lying ahead of Crimea, 11 years after its illegal, criminal and violent annexation by Russia from Ukraine, and 3 years after the full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine. Seen from the perspective of 2025, that fateful takeover became the single most important act that triggered a tsunami of consequences, including the limited war in Donbas, the return of a major interstate war to Europe on a scale not seen since 1945, and the timeline where the possibility of a world war is openly discussed far beyond speculative fiction, as a concrete potentiality. But what about Crimea, where this tsunami started in 2014? After all numerous failures, setbacks and stalemates on all involved sides, what are possible futures for the Ukrainian peninsula? This panel aims at extending the range of linguistic “potentialities of history” by discussing – and imagining – a broader range of alternative futures for Crimea. It gathers several leading experts on the history, politics, society, culture of the peninsula, inviting them to fine-tune the horizon of expectation based on the extensive space of experience they have recourse to as scholars. In a world where many hopes are increasingly dashed, what can one hope for Crimea? Where can the past (not necessarily Crimean) offer some guidance, and where is its explanatory potential limited? What futures can we – and what futures do we need to imagine? These are some of the questions that will be discussed during the roundtable. 
