Welcome to the ‘brave new world’ – the BEYOND LANGUAGE 2025 conference in Lviv has been moved to an air-raid shelter!
Welcome to the ‘brave new world’ – the BEYOND LANGUAGE 2025 conference for young researchers has been moved to a shelter due to bandit air strikes carried out by Putin’s army.
The third day of the BEYOND LANGUAGE 2025 conference in Lviv had to be partially held in a shelter due to three brutal air strikes carried out on 3 June 2025 by Putin’s army on Ukraine, including Lviv.
As part of the international Beyond Language conference, the Lviv session was held for the first time on June 3, 2025, bringing together participants within the walls of Lviv Polytechnic National University. This event marked a new chapter in the development of international academic cooperation, opening a space for dialogue between Ukrainian scholars and representatives of the University of Wrocław.
On that day, Lviv Polytechnic became an intellectual platform for unity — a place where understanding was built through the language of science, and the discussions reached far beyond purely linguistic themes. The session demonstrated the openness of the Ukrainian academic community to new forms of partnership, uniting researchers from various regions and institutions to collaboratively address the pressing humanitarian challenges of our time.
More than 30 scholars from Lviv, Kyiv, Sumy, and Ternopilparticipated in the conference, representing leading Ukrainian universities and institutions: Lviv Polytechnic, the National University of Kyiv-Mohyla Academy, Borys Grinchenko Kyiv University, Sumy State University, theNational Academy of Sciences of Ukraine, and the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine.
The topics of the presentations were as rich and multidimensional as human language itself. They covered war metaphors, cultural memory, linguistic identity, challenges in translation, semantic transformations, linguocultural dynamics, andthe social aspects of communication in turbulent times. Linguistic, translation, and legal aspects of Ukraine’s European integration process were also addressed.
Presentations, discussions, and open debates created an atmosphere of intellectual freedom and creative spark, undeterred even by air raid alerts. Scholars continued the conference even as sirens wailed over the city — instead of taking a break, they moved the dialogue underground, into shelters, demonstrating resilience and unwavering dedication to science. The conference hall — and later the shelter — became a laboratory of ideas, where words built bridges between professionalism and humanity, between past and future. The Lviv session of Beyond Language once again proved that science is not only about text — it is a meaning-making act capable of uniting the world even amid the sound of sirens.
The conference became another important step in strengthening the academic dialogue between the University of Wrocław and Lviv Polytechnic, and its ideas and outcomes will continue through joint publications, collaborative projects, and inter-institutional cooperation.
Text: dr Nataliia Romanyshyn
Photos: dr Olesia Nakhlik, dr Nataliia Romanyshyn
Date of publication: 10.06.2025
Added by: M.K.
