Volunteering Activities of Ukrainians in Germany: History and Modernity

Author

Stishov Vasyl

a postgraduate student, a junior research fellow at the Ukrainian Ethnological Centre Department of M. Rylskyi Institute of Art Studies, Folkloristics and Ethnology of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine (Kyiv, Ukraine).

ORCID ID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8786-428X

Volunteering Activities of Ukrainians in Germany: History and Modernity

Abstract

The issues of volunteering activity, its social essence and significance in the modern world are described in the article. The changes of this concept in response to the global socio-cultural transformations of the 20th century are analyzed. The experience of volunteering in the Federal Republic of Germany during the Russian-Ukrainian war (2014–2025) is considered. The largest number of forcibly displaced persons from Ukraine are located in this country. The main areas of activity of Ukrainian volunteer and charitable organizations in the host country are submitted. The study is based on historical and contemporary experience of the volunteer movement in the Federal Republic of Germany. The interviews from the author’s own surveys of externally displaced persons to Germany are used. The article is aimed at studying the peculiarities of Ukrainian volunteer activities in the Federal Republic of Germany, summarize their main purposes, and present their work they do to preserve their own national identity and traditional culture in a foreign ethnic community.

Keywords

volunteer activity, public organizations, Germany, the Federal Republic of Germany, forcibly displaced persons, Ukraine, ethnic culture, national identity.

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