Tatiana Liubchenko

Visiting Fellow, Spring 2025

  • AffiliationStarlit Group LLC
    Research Project:
    The Legacy of the Mariupol Greeks: Narrating and Preserving
Contact Info

Tatiana (Tetiana) Liubchenko received her PhD in Modern Greek from the Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv in 2009 and published over 50 articles in various subfields of linguistics. Tatiana was the Head of the Modern Greek and Translation Studies section, an associate professor of Modern Greek Linguistics at Kyiv National Linguistic University (Ukraine). She served as an Expert of the Hennadi Udovenko Diplomatic Academy of Ukraine at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine, an Expert of the Ministry of Education and Science of Ukraine regarding the publication of school textbooks under the state order, and she was the Head of All-Ukrainian School Olympiad in Greek Language and Literature. As a representative of the Greek diaspora of Ukraine, she had been participating in the organization of numerous international events at the diplomatic level for more than 25 years. With the outbreak of the war in Ukraine, she moved to Greece where she works as the Head of translation department of Starlit Group.  In 2023, she was awarded the Wesleyan Allbritton Center Faculty Grant, in collaboration with Nataliya Karageorgos, to work on the project, “The Legacy of the Mariupol Greeks: Preserving the Culture of Ukraine’s Ethnic Minority under the Threat of Extinction.” The project aims to safeguard the heritage of the Mariupol Greeks and was awarded The Innovation Grant of Modern Greek Society Association in 2024. In Fall 2023, Tatiana was invited to read a cycle of lectures on the war in Ukraine and the Mariupol Greeks at Wesleyan University, NYU, Yale University, Harvard University, and Georgetown University.

About the Research Project

The Legacy of the Mariupol Greeks: Narrating and Preserving

The purpose of the project is to preserve the legacy of the Mariupol Greeks, an ethnoreligious group in Ukraine, whose culture and very existence is now in danger. Tatiana Liubchenko is working on launching the website, “Mariupol Greeks,” that would serve as a hub for the information about this group in English, Ukrainian, and Greek. The term “Mariupol Greeks” encompasses two communities: the Rumei, whose language has five dialects belonging to the Greek branch of the Indo-European language family, and the Urums, who communicate with four dialects of the Turkic branch of the Altaic language family. Contemporary representatives of both groups in the Nadazov (North Azov) region identify themselves as Greeks, but the ethnonym “Greek” only gained prevalence in the 20th century, replacing the exoethnonym “Hellenes”. The community of the Mariupol Greeks experienced forced relocation twice, in the 18th century from Crimea, and now with an outbreak of war. Research for the website with the information about the Mariupol Greeks’ history, culture and dialects would help to preserve the knowledge about one of the oldest Greek diasporas that can be lost.

Current Roles

  • Visiting Research Fellow