Ukrainian Autonomous Republic of Crimea and then launched a war on Ukrainian territory in Donbass. Since then, the efforts of the Ukrainian state and society, the vast majority of the world community are aimed at restoring the territorial integrity of Ukraine, punishing Russia for its aggressive actions, compensating our state for the damage caused by this invasion. Thus, the research, coverage of the history and modernity of the Crimean issues are one of the most urgent tasks of the Ukrainian scientific and expert community. The Center for the Study of the History of the Turkish and Crimean Tatar Peoples of the Department of Modern and Contemporary History of Foreign Countries of the Faculty of History has a number of international scientific conferences, scientific and methodological seminars, round tables, exhibitions and presentations. Therefore, it is quite natural that the head of this Center, Associate Professor Oleh Romanovych Kupchyk, initiated a number of scientific and methodological seminars “Crimea in the coordinates of history.” It is noteworthy that this initiative arose and began to be implemented during the period of mass concentration of Russian troops on the Ukrainian borders and in fact in the most temporarily occupied Crimea, for a further attack on Ukraine, which eventually took place on February 24, 2022. The first scientific seminar was opened on May 20, 2021 by Inna Stepanets, Candidate of Geographical Sciences, Vice-Rector for Scientific and Pedagogical Work (Humanitarian Affairs) of the Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv. The first section of this scientific event “Crimea in European / World History” opened with reports by Professor of the Department of Modern and Contemporary History of Foreign Countries of the Faculty of History Nataliia Gorodnia and Head of the same department, guarantor of the Bachelor educational program American Studies and European Studies (with in-depth study of foreign languages) Oleh Mashevskyi, who considered the US position on Russia’s actions in the Autonomous Republic of Crimea in February-March 2014 and, accordingly, the problem of annexation of Ukrainian Crimea by the Russian Federation in the policy of US Presidents B. Obama and D. Trump. In today’s world, the countries of the East are becoming increasingly geopolitically important, given their economic, demographic, and political potential. Therefore, the involvement of these states in the pro-Ukrainian policy of resisting Russian aggression, sanctioning the Kremlin, and supplying Ukraine with modern weapons is of paramount importance. Associate Professor of the Department of Modern and Contemporary History of Foreign Countries of Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv, guarantor of the Educational Program Oriental Studies of the Bachelor level Makar Taran in his reports discussed in detail the contexts of Crimea for China’s foreign policy after 2014. Oleh Kupchyk, Associate Professor of the Department of Modern and Contemporary History of Foreign Countries of Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv, Guarantor of the Oriental Studies Educational Program of Master level, spoke about the position of the Republic of Turkey on the annexation of the Ukrainian Crimea by the Russian Federation. The reports of the second section “Crimea in the history of Ukraine” were quite interesting, first of all, which cover Crimean issues in the history of Ukraine in a global context. After an active discussion of Crimean issues in the history of Ukraine and the international context, which was joined by the President’s representative in the Autonomous Republic of Crimea Anton Korynevych, it was decided to publish a collection of scientific papers on the results of this scientific forum and hold a second thematic scientific seminar on Crimean issues in autumn 2021.

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The article deals with the educational project «American Talks», implemented during 2018-2019 by the non-governmental organization Ukrainian Association for American Studies and the Department of Modern and Contemporary History of Foreign Countries of the Faculty of History, Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv. A series of meetings, lectures, discussions on topical issues of American history and politics, Ukrainian-American relations, the place of personality in the modern world, the formation of leaders and their role in American society are covered. Lecture-discussion «Education at American Universities» by Associate Professor Alexander Komarenko was devoted to discussing opportunities for Ukrainian youth to study at American universities, financing American university education, system of management and coordination of educational projects, correlation of local and federal educational systems. The event in the Framework event within the American Talks project, organized by the Chairman of the Board of NGOs Ukrainian Association for American Studies, Associate Professor Makar Taran, on «The USA and China in the 21st Century: Global Competition of the Superpower of the Present and the Superpower of the Future», was devoted to the most important aspects of the current relations between the two superpowers, prospects for their development and the implications of these processes for international relations. It was emphasized that the US-China relations are the most important bilateral relations of global importance and their significance for the whole world, and for Ukraine in particular, will only grow. An opportunity to become a woman in the American society as an individual, her prospects for education and professional development, and family attitudes toward women who have a successful career was addressed by an event titled «Women’s Careers in the United States: Benefits, Challenges, Opportunities» with American filmmaker, lawyer Sharon Rowven, and producer, director and screenwriter Andrea Blaugrund Nevins. In May 2019, at the Faculty of History of Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv, a lecture-discussion was held by a well-known American journalist, a civil servant of Ukrainian descent, ex-director of the Ukrainian Voice of America service, Adrian Karmazin. This meaningful event was attended by students, studying under the American and European Studies program, as well as alumni, teachers of History Faculty, representatives of the Ukrainian Association for American Studies, specialists in international relations and counteraction to Russian hybrid information warfare against Ukraine. Ukrainian-American Educational Dialogue – a discussion about university-based humanitarian education in Ukraine and the USA between students and teachers of the American and European Studies program at the Taras Shevchenko National University and Nazareth College (State of New York, USA), aimed at informing US colleagues about the history and current development of Ukrainian university education, sharing experience in higher education in the humanities and discussing prospects for cooperation.

The authors of the monograph focused on the scientific analysis of an actual scientific and applied topic, which concerns the problem of adaptation of the European Union to the new conditions that have emerged since the UK left the EU. It is symbolic that this process coincided with the crisis of the globalization process due to the pandemic and its challenges to international security. The modern European Union is both an international and a state-like entity, which combines the features of at least three state unions: an international intergovernmental organization, a confederation and a federation. This not only determines the complexity of the subject of study, but also its inconsistency. In conditions of radical social change, it is always difficult to track and adequately analyze them. This titanic task is further complicated by the presence of an in-house methodological crisis in the family of social sciences. Therefore, given all these objective difficulties, we can only welcome attempts to find a new theoretical and methodological synthesis, which should help society to understand the essence of historical time and act in it as rationally and efficiently as possible. The pages of the monograph raise questions about the heuristic potential of the study of the problem of European historical experience; in addition, significant attention is paid to the coverage of a systematic approach to the social vector of European policy. It also addresses the issue of solving key social problems that stand in the way of qualitative deepening of European integration while maintaining the basic guidelines of social market economy. Among these issues, the authors highlight and analyze the most important aspects, which relate primarily to overcoming poverty and combating unemployment. The monograph outlines the range of methodological problems of transformational historical period, involved in its study synthesizing approach, which consists in the use of historical, socio-philosophical, economic, political science, legal approaches. This approach allows to restore the synthesis of scientific knowledge, which is often disrupted not only by the tendency to specialized fragmentation of complex objects of study, but also allows to take into account the specifics of the transitional historical period. In a geographical sense, not all European regions are equally developed, due to their different economic specialization, which has developed as a result of the historical division of labor. Eventually, there is a tendency to shifting responsibility for solving the problems of poor regions to themselves. The same German experience with the unification of East and West of the country has shown that even huge investments in infrastructure development, introduction of new technologies, efforts to increase productivity – all this together do not solve quickly enough the problem of social convergence. The leveling of the social space of richer and poorer federal states is rather slow. Last but not least, these problems became a good reason for the Great Britain’s withdrawal from the European Union. The issue of the monograph is of practical importance for the foreign policy of Ukraine. After all, the European Union is an important neighbor, trade and political partner of Ukraine and accession to it is actually declared as a prototype of a strategic national idea. The European project is essentially postmodern, as it seeks to overcome the modernism with which nationalism is associated and to reach a level of tolerant agreement of different national interests. The intensification of the globalization process has prompted integration structures to perform functions that limit national sovereignty. Historiographical discourse of common foreign and defense policy of European Union proves that this strategic course of European integration depends on the ability of elites and peoples of Europe to find a common European identity and organize around it the process of determining the place and role of the European Union in the modern system of international relations. This process in the distant historical perspective remains an open possibility with an unguaranteed positive or negative result. Britain’s withdrawal from the European Union, which was unexpected for many researchers of European integration, matured gradually. The authors of the peer-reviewed monograph list the main trends that influenced this decision. First of all, we are talking about the unregulated EU development strategy, the fate of the common European currency, the imperfection of the system of decision-making in the field of common foreign and security policy, which led to an ineffective EU response to Russian and Chinese autocratic challenges. Despite the objective problems associated with mutual adaptation of old and new EU member states, the European integration project continues to be seen as the key to addressing the challenges of modern life and finding answers to the challenges of globalization. In particular, in the final sixth chapter, the author focuses on the theoretical, methodological and practical analysis of the problem of democracy. The authors of the monograph are looking for an answer to the question of what the European Union will be like after the exit of Great Britain. No less important is the question of whether Britain will become a “global” Britain after leaving the European Union. Of course, Britain is concerned about turning the EU into a superpower that has not only its own flag, anthem, currency, but also the germ of a common European army and tries to pursue a common foreign and defense policy. London advocates stronger resistance from China and ousting Russia from Europe. Changing regional influences in the EU may create a new structure of conflict of interest not only for individual countries but also for various regional groups. The issue of a clear division of powers between supranational and national authorities at all levels seems ripe. More adequate to this trend will be not so much a more centralized federalist Europe as a decentralized confederative one. By the way, the model of the latter looks more open for further expansion. This work is imbued with the spirit of realistic Europeanism. Therefore, not least because of this, the peer-reviewed monograph will become a notable phenomenon in domestic European studies.

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