Daria Nepochatova, DPhil student in Slavonic Studies at the Faculty of Medieval & Modern Languages, University of Oxford, has been awarded second prize at the 2025 UKRAINET PhD Thesis Presentation Contest, held on 1 October 2025 in Bayreuth, Germany, as part of the Days of Ukraine in Bavaria.
The UKRAINET PhD Thesis Presentation Contest is an international competition that in 2025 attracted 23 PhD applicants from four countries, representing a wide range of disciplines including medicine, sociology, anthropology, law, and the humanities. Six finalists were invited to present their research at the final in Bayreuth, where the jury selected the prize winners.
Daria presented her doctoral research entitled “Ukrainian Women’s Almanacs as Nineteenth-Century Feminist Literature”, supervised by Professor Margarita Vaysman. Her project examines Pershyi vinok (The First Wreath), the first Ukrainian women’s literary almanac, published in Lviv in 1887 by Natalia Kobrynska and Olena Pchilka. The dissertation explores the almanac as both a literary anthology and a feminist intervention, bringing together women writers across the Russian and Austro-Hungarian Empires and positioning Ukrainian women’s writing within broader European feminist and intellectual debates.
Commenting on the award, Daria said:
“Ukrainian studies are not a niche or regional field. They are essential for understanding European intellectual history, especially in the context of empire, resistance, and cultural survival. This prize affirms the relevance of Ukrainian scholarship within the wider academic canon.”
The UKRAINET PhD Thesis Presentation Contest is organised by the German-Ukrainian Academic Society (DUAG)and the UKRAINE Network, with the support of Nomad Bioscience GmbH and the Embassy of Ukraine in Germany.
