Dr. Bohdan Shumylovych

Dr. Bohdan Shumylovych

historian and art historian, researcher (2011 – present), coordinator of exhibitions and Urban Video collection (2008-2011), researcher and head of the Urban Media Archive (2011-2019), head of the Public history projects (2020 – 2021), head of the Educational projects (2022 – 2023)


Bohdan Shumylovych obtained a master’s degree in modern history from the Central European University (Budapest, Hungary, 2004-2005), a diploma in art history from the L’viv Academy of Arts (Ukraine, 1993-1999). He was a fellow of several grant programs and worked with the archive of the Faculty of Visual Arts at George Washington University, Washington (USA) and the archive of Open Society Institute (www.osaarchivum.org), in Budapest. In 2020 he has received a PhD from the European University Institute in Florence.

At the Center for Urban History (L’viv) he coordinates the Public history program, gives lectures, participates in the development of the Centre for Urban History’s thematic exhibitions, and carries out research.

The main focus of his work is media history in East Central Europe and the Soviet Union, as well as media arts, visual studies, urban spatial practices, and urban creativity.

Selected publications:

  • "Fragmenting soviet mythologies: romantic imagery and musical films in Ukraine", Studies in Eastern European Cinema - Special Issue CfP: Popular Music and the Moving Image in Eastern Europe (Taylor & Francis Group), 1 March 2018.
  • “Ukrainian Soviet Musical Films and the Re-encoding of a Soviet Myth,” Ukraina Moderna,” August, 15
  • "Ukraine and Czechoslovakia: Popular Art and Language Policy Opposition in Early 1968 to the Russification in Central Europe." Flashes of the Future The Art of the ’68ers or The Power of the Powerless (Text for the exhibition at Ludwig Forum Aachen, Germany), 2018
  • “The 1960s in Lviv: Socialist Modernism, Conservative Romanticism, and Youth Protest,” “The art of Ukrainian Sixties,” Kyiv, Osnovy Publishing (in Russian)
  • Alternative Spaces in the 1980-2000s Lviv // Urban Studies Series, Kyiv: Smoloskyp Publishing (Heinrich Böll stiftung), 2013.
  • Lviv in Newsreels: the First Post-War Decade of 1945-1955 // Halytska Brama. Lviv, 2011. № 9-10, September-October.
  • Cultural Industries in a Modern City // Sociology of the City (a textbook for universities). Donetsk, 2010.
  • The 2000s Lviv: Quo vadis Lemberg artibus? Lviv: Art Map of Ukraine. Painting. Graphics. Sculpture. 1900-2008. Kyiv: Juvelir-Press, 2008.
  • Visual Irony and the modern Ukr.art // IRONIA: a collection of essays, Lviv: Litopys, 2006.