Grzegorz Demel | Polish Academy of Sciences (original) (raw)
Papers by Grzegorz Demel
Nationalities Papers
Poland remained a popular destination for migrants from Ukraine for many years before February 24... more Poland remained a popular destination for migrants from Ukraine for many years before February 24, 2022, the outbreak of full-scale Russian aggression on Ukraine. Ukrainian communities in Polish cities, including local autochthonous Ukrainians (the Ukrainian national minority), are already well-established and wellorganized, although they are very diverse. Drawing from anthropological fieldwork conducted in 2021 and at the beginning of 2022, this article seeks to address the nexus of the diaspora and culture and explores the imaginations of "common culture" in diaspora-forming processes. We treat "culture" as diasporic imaginings of naturalized and reified representations of what is to be a Ukrainian in Poland. The essentialized notion of putative "common culture" is routinely discursivized and maintained by diasporic elites. Exploring this as an empirical phenomenon captured in the field helps reveal the internal tensions and that this imagining empowers the production of cultural differences. We argue that imagined "common culture" may actually activate "othering" of the diasporic Other and might not be as unifying a factor in diaspora-forming processes as it appears.
Kultura i Społeczeństwo, 2019
Artykuł powstał w ramach grantu NCN pt. "Kultury historyczne w procesie przemian: uzgadnianie pam... more Artykuł powstał w ramach grantu NCN pt. "Kultury historyczne w procesie przemian: uzgadnianie pamięci, historii i tożsamości we współczesnej Europie Środkowej i Wschodniej" (UMO-2016/21/B/HS3/03415), realizowanego w latach 2017-2020 przez Instytut Studiów Politycznych PAN i Collegium Civitas we współpracy z Centrum Historii Miejskiej Europy Środkowo-Wschodniej (Ukraina, Lwów). Rodina mat' zowiet! to zarówno treść najbardziej chyba rozpoznawalnego radzieckiego plakatu propagandowego z czerwca 1941 roku (proj. Irakli Toidze), jak i nazwa monumentu na Wzgórzu Mamaja w Stalingradzie (Wołgogradzie)-swoistego pierwowzoru dla młodszej o kilkanaście lat kijowskiej Matki-Ojczyzny. ¹ Od utworzenia w roku 1974 do otwarcia memoriału 9 maja 1981 r. muzeum to znajdowało się w innym miejscu (Pałac Klowski w Kijowie).
Journal of International Migration and Integration
This article offers a reflection on heritage in the context of diaspora-forming processes examine... more This article offers a reflection on heritage in the context of diaspora-forming processes examined from an anthropological perspective. Ethnographic fieldwork has been conducted since 2021 in the Ukrainian communities in two Polish cities, where the encounters of autochthonous Ukrainians (Ukrainian national minority members) and migrants from Ukraine have been traced yet before the recent arrivals of war refugees. Basing on the individual in-depth interviews with different Ukrainian communities’ leaders and activists, and on long-lasting participatory observation, the authors argue that for the autochthonous Ukrainians, the heritage has been a set of practices, non-reducible to tangible and intangible legacy. Therefore, they propose broadening of the meaning of heritage in migration studies towards a set of diasporic practices such as diasporic lifestyles, practices of positioning, and lived diasporic experiences stimulated by encounters with migrants. This approach allows going bey...
Kultura i Społeczeństwo, 2023
The author attempts to analyse the ways of constructing the boundaries of sameness and otherness ... more The author attempts to analyse the ways of constructing the boundaries of sameness and otherness in feature films about the 2014–2021 Russian-Ukrainian conflict produced in Ukraine, Russia and the self-proclaimed Lugansk People’s Republic, treated here as cultural texts constituting propaganda. In the course of the analysis, it turned out that the dichotomy of sameness and otherness can also only be used partially in the conditions of war, because in Ukrainian cinema we find clear examples of the inhabitants of Donbas, even separatists, being portrayed
in less clear-cut categories. The application of Zygmunt Bauman’s concept of the “stranger” located between “friend” and “enemy” demonstrated its explanatory power here. The lack of symmetrically assigned roles of friend and enemy in the productions of specific countries was also captured, resulting from the fact that the main enemy shown in Ukrainian productions — Russia — is practically absent from Russian and Luhansk People’s Republic films as a party to the conflict in Donbas (this matter is portrayed differently in movies on the annexation of Crimea).
Journal of International Migration & Integration, 2023
This article offers a reflection on heritage in the context of diaspora-forming processes examine... more This article offers a reflection on heritage in the context of diaspora-forming processes examined from an anthropological perspective. Ethnographic fieldwork has been conducted since 2021 in the Ukrainian communities in two Polish cities, where the encounters of autochthonous Ukrainians (Ukrainian national minority members) and migrants from Ukraine have been traced yet before the recent arrivals of war refugees. Basing on the individual in-depth interviews with different Ukrainian communities’ leaders and activists, and on long-lasting participatory observation, the authors argue that for the autochthonous Ukrainians, the heritage has been a set of practices, non-reducible to tangible and intangible legacy. Therefore, they propose broadening of the meaning of heritage in migration studies towards a set of diasporic practices such as diasporic lifestyles, practices of positioning, and lived diasporic experiences stimulated by encounters with migrants. This approach allows going beyond common-sensical statement of alleged “old diaspora” conservativeness or “immersion in history” comparing with migrants’ different stances and practices. The next step is to propose considering heritage one of the diaspora-forming processes. Such a perspective localizes diaspora in the sphere of social beliefs, imaginings, and cultural practices. To mobilize people as a diaspora, they need to be shared and treated as common, but some of them mobilize only partially, i.e., particular communities, while being contested by others. The authors show that going below the superficial agreement on “common identity” among “the same” people, i.e., co-ethnics, may reveal deep processes of othering and bonding in forming a diaspora that would be hidden otherwise.
Studia Politologiczne 68, 2023
The article investigates framing of the presence of Ukrainian war refugees and Ukrainian immigran... more The article investigates framing of the presence of Ukrainian war refugees and Ukrainian immigrants in Poland in Polish public debate on the empirical basis of selected leading opinion forming weeklies. The action “Stop of Ukrainisation of Poland” launched by far right Konfederacja Korony Polskiej party is considered as an attempt to launch moral panic. The author examines the mainstream media reactions on this activity and concludes (also using results of public opinion surveys), that, so far, neither classic, nor polarizing moral panic has begun. The important part of the analysis is an overview of the visons of further co-existence of Poles and Ukrainians in Poland, as the competing postulates regarding to areas of social inclusion and exclusion are present in the analyzed material.
The Ukrainian Soviet Nation-some remarks from the multicultural perspective. Part 2 In the articl... more The Ukrainian Soviet Nation-some remarks from the multicultural perspective. Part 2 In the article the author discusses the "Soviet nation" as a project of political nation based on the ethno-cultural, not only Russian, but rather Russian-Slavic (including also Ukrainians and Belarusians) core. Th rough the prism of the language russifi cation and collective memory problems of Ukrainians and other nations, the offi cial Soviet ethnopolicy is presented as an boutique multiculturalism, not the values negotiating, but considering the diff erence between russifi cation and sovietisation. Th e role of the Moscow Orthodox Church in the unifying of the borderlands of the SU is also signalized.
Kultury historyczne Polski i Ukrainy O źródłach nieporozumienia między sąsiadami, red. T. Stryjek, V. Sklokin, Warszawa: Scholar , 2021
Kultury historyczne Polski i Ukrainy O źródłach nieporozumienia między sąsiadami, red. T. Stryjek, V. Sklokin, Warszawa: Scholar, 2021
Ruch Prawniczy, Ekonomiczny i Socjologiczny, 2022
The purpose of the article is to examine the initial reactions of the Polish opinion-forming week... more The purpose of the article is to examine the initial reactions of the Polish opinion-forming weeklies to Russia's invasion of Ukraine. The selection of titles includes examples from the conservative, centrist and liberal press. Assuming the constructivist notion of reality as discursively constructed, the author, using unstructured qualitative content analysis, strives to answer the following main research questions: How is Polish and Ukrainian society pictured in press materials? Which values are believed to be core for Poles helping Ukrainian refugees, for Polish, Ukrainian and European elites, and for Ukrainian society? Which of them are compromised by internal and external enemies? The author concludes that despite all the ideological differences between the examined weeklies, the general thematic and interpretation frames are very similar. Among them: 'Poland helps Ukraine and does it efficiently', 'refugees from Ukraine deserve our help and compassion', 'Ukrainian society is extraordinarily united and patriotic', 'there are 'Putin's allies among the Polish and European elites and they should be revealed and neutralized', 'Poland (and/ or Europe) have to change in order to survive'. The main differences are in who is considered to be 'Putin's ally', and what values should be pursued in order to survive the threat.
The Politics of Memory in Poland and Ukraine From Reconciliation to De-Conciliation, 2022
Basing on the results of ethnographic field research conducted in Chyhyryn in 2019, the author at... more Basing on the results of ethnographic field research conducted in Chyhyryn in 2019, the author attempts to trace the involvement of local actors in the policy of memory, in the local as well as in the national dimension, using theoretical approaches proposed by, among others, Aleida Assmann, Anthony D. Smith, and Polish discourse researchers. Chyhyryn has a very rich history (Khmelnytsky Uprising, Koliivshchyna, Ukrainian revolution 1917–21). The main local guardian of memory is National History and Culture Reserve “Chyhyryn.” From perspective of a moderate constructivist, the author critically examines the Reserve’s narrative which operates consistently within the confines of the national paradigm. Nevertheless, the Reserve carries out coherent and functional activities from the perspective of shaping the definite identity model.
Kultura i Społeczeństwo, 2019
This article contains the findings of a study of the narrative of the National Museum of the Hist... more This article contains the findings of a study of the narrative of the National Museum of the History of Ukraine in the Second World War in Kiev as a form of contemporary realization of a historical policy. In independent Ukraine, the Museum departed from the Soviet heroic-romantic narrative and replaced it with a story of war as a universal human cataclysm. At the same time, there was a clear Ukrainization of the narrative, for the pragmatic purpose of building a nation state.
Simultaneously, the Museum is engaged in commemorative and propaganda activities concerning the ongoing war with Russia. The author decodes the palimpsest of symbols and narratives. He analyzes forms of remembrance, the organization of exhibitions, and ways of managing the Soviet heritage and symbolism. He analyzes the narrative about the war in Donbass in categories of familiarity and otherness.
![Research paper thumbnail of "Badania nad badaniami" : prace Sekcji Rasowo-Ludoznawczej Institut für Deutsche Ostarbeit w Komańczy [w:] Antropologia i etnologia w czasie wojny, red. M. Maj, Kraków 2015.](https://attachments.academia-assets.com/41144730/thumbnails/1.jpg)
](
This article contains an analysis of the identity of Russians and Russian-speaking persons living... more This article contains an analysis of the identity of Russians and Russian-speaking
persons living in the Lviv oblast in Ukraine, on the basis of interviews collected by the
author in the years 2011–2012. The article combines anthropological, sociological, and
politological perspectives, and examines the following questions: Is Eastern Galicia,
after the fall of the USSR, treated by the interviewees as a ‘private homeland’, or
is it entirely foreign to them culturally (as being a post-Habsburg, ‘western’ area)?
Did Ukraine become their ‘ideological homeland’ or does only Russia appear in that
role? Did Russia, after 1991, become a ‘foreign homeland’ and did they themselves
enter into the role typical of a national minority, experiencing discrimination in the
‘nationally oriented state’ of Ukraine? The author does not give unequivocal answers
to these questions, but he nevertheless provides convincing data to confirm the failure
of independent Ukraine’s integration policy toward its Russian and Russian-speaking
citizens. In his opinion, it failed at the national level and especially in Eastern Galicia,
whose symbolic sphere has been dominated by the ideology of Ukrainian ethnic-cultural
nationalism.
Krakowskie Pismo Kresowe, nr 5: 2013
The article discusses the problem of the Russian-speaking community in the Lviv district in Ukrai... more The article discusses the problem of the Russian-speaking community in the Lviv district in Ukraine. Basing on ethnographic field research conducted in Drohobych, Borislav and Chervonograd the author speaks in support of the thesis that the Russian in Western Ukraine should be described as a group that differs from the rest of population not only by language, but also by many other signs of cultural identity, especially memory which is in conflict with the dominant Ukrainian national historical discourse. The author also notices the differences in identity discourses: the Russian – speaking people mostly support the thesis of “Slavic unity” in which the essence of being Ukrainian bases on some ethnographic differences. The identity of the Russian-speaking people does not fit into the mainstream of pure ethnic distinctions, which, in turn, for the Russian – speaking group are not necessarily natural and obvious categories to describe social reality. In cities, where the research was conducted, the Russian – speaking people feel themselves as a minority, forced to defend their interests in the view of limited opportunities to preserve their identity which may lead to the collapse of the core values of the group. These problems even intensify with coming to power – at the local level – nationalistic “Svoboda” party.
![Research paper thumbnail of Zakarpacie i Półwysep Krymski - lokalne reminiscencje problemów międzynarodowych (na przykładzie reakcji na ogłoszenie niepodległości Kosowa), [w:] Historia i dziedzictwo regionów w Europie Środkowo-Wschodniej w XIX i XX w., red. M. Stolarczyk, A. Kawalec, J. Kuzicki, Rzeszów 2011, s. 361-375.](https://attachments.academia-assets.com/33473631/thumbnails/1.jpg)
](![Research paper thumbnail of Polityka etniczna niepodległej Ukrainy wobec radzieckiej spuścizny, [w:] Rozpad ZSRR i jego konsekwencje dla Europy i świata, Cz. 2. Wspólnota Niepodległych Państw, red. M. Smoleń, M. Lubina, Kraków 2011, s. 213-228.](https://attachments.academia-assets.com/33473741/thumbnails/1.jpg)
](
Nationalities Papers
Poland remained a popular destination for migrants from Ukraine for many years before February 24... more Poland remained a popular destination for migrants from Ukraine for many years before February 24, 2022, the outbreak of full-scale Russian aggression on Ukraine. Ukrainian communities in Polish cities, including local autochthonous Ukrainians (the Ukrainian national minority), are already well-established and wellorganized, although they are very diverse. Drawing from anthropological fieldwork conducted in 2021 and at the beginning of 2022, this article seeks to address the nexus of the diaspora and culture and explores the imaginations of "common culture" in diaspora-forming processes. We treat "culture" as diasporic imaginings of naturalized and reified representations of what is to be a Ukrainian in Poland. The essentialized notion of putative "common culture" is routinely discursivized and maintained by diasporic elites. Exploring this as an empirical phenomenon captured in the field helps reveal the internal tensions and that this imagining empowers the production of cultural differences. We argue that imagined "common culture" may actually activate "othering" of the diasporic Other and might not be as unifying a factor in diaspora-forming processes as it appears.
Kultura i Społeczeństwo, 2019
Artykuł powstał w ramach grantu NCN pt. "Kultury historyczne w procesie przemian: uzgadnianie pam... more Artykuł powstał w ramach grantu NCN pt. "Kultury historyczne w procesie przemian: uzgadnianie pamięci, historii i tożsamości we współczesnej Europie Środkowej i Wschodniej" (UMO-2016/21/B/HS3/03415), realizowanego w latach 2017-2020 przez Instytut Studiów Politycznych PAN i Collegium Civitas we współpracy z Centrum Historii Miejskiej Europy Środkowo-Wschodniej (Ukraina, Lwów). Rodina mat' zowiet! to zarówno treść najbardziej chyba rozpoznawalnego radzieckiego plakatu propagandowego z czerwca 1941 roku (proj. Irakli Toidze), jak i nazwa monumentu na Wzgórzu Mamaja w Stalingradzie (Wołgogradzie)-swoistego pierwowzoru dla młodszej o kilkanaście lat kijowskiej Matki-Ojczyzny. ¹ Od utworzenia w roku 1974 do otwarcia memoriału 9 maja 1981 r. muzeum to znajdowało się w innym miejscu (Pałac Klowski w Kijowie).
Journal of International Migration and Integration
This article offers a reflection on heritage in the context of diaspora-forming processes examine... more This article offers a reflection on heritage in the context of diaspora-forming processes examined from an anthropological perspective. Ethnographic fieldwork has been conducted since 2021 in the Ukrainian communities in two Polish cities, where the encounters of autochthonous Ukrainians (Ukrainian national minority members) and migrants from Ukraine have been traced yet before the recent arrivals of war refugees. Basing on the individual in-depth interviews with different Ukrainian communities’ leaders and activists, and on long-lasting participatory observation, the authors argue that for the autochthonous Ukrainians, the heritage has been a set of practices, non-reducible to tangible and intangible legacy. Therefore, they propose broadening of the meaning of heritage in migration studies towards a set of diasporic practices such as diasporic lifestyles, practices of positioning, and lived diasporic experiences stimulated by encounters with migrants. This approach allows going bey...
Kultura i Społeczeństwo, 2023
The author attempts to analyse the ways of constructing the boundaries of sameness and otherness ... more The author attempts to analyse the ways of constructing the boundaries of sameness and otherness in feature films about the 2014–2021 Russian-Ukrainian conflict produced in Ukraine, Russia and the self-proclaimed Lugansk People’s Republic, treated here as cultural texts constituting propaganda. In the course of the analysis, it turned out that the dichotomy of sameness and otherness can also only be used partially in the conditions of war, because in Ukrainian cinema we find clear examples of the inhabitants of Donbas, even separatists, being portrayed
in less clear-cut categories. The application of Zygmunt Bauman’s concept of the “stranger” located between “friend” and “enemy” demonstrated its explanatory power here. The lack of symmetrically assigned roles of friend and enemy in the productions of specific countries was also captured, resulting from the fact that the main enemy shown in Ukrainian productions — Russia — is practically absent from Russian and Luhansk People’s Republic films as a party to the conflict in Donbas (this matter is portrayed differently in movies on the annexation of Crimea).
Journal of International Migration & Integration, 2023
This article offers a reflection on heritage in the context of diaspora-forming processes examine... more This article offers a reflection on heritage in the context of diaspora-forming processes examined from an anthropological perspective. Ethnographic fieldwork has been conducted since 2021 in the Ukrainian communities in two Polish cities, where the encounters of autochthonous Ukrainians (Ukrainian national minority members) and migrants from Ukraine have been traced yet before the recent arrivals of war refugees. Basing on the individual in-depth interviews with different Ukrainian communities’ leaders and activists, and on long-lasting participatory observation, the authors argue that for the autochthonous Ukrainians, the heritage has been a set of practices, non-reducible to tangible and intangible legacy. Therefore, they propose broadening of the meaning of heritage in migration studies towards a set of diasporic practices such as diasporic lifestyles, practices of positioning, and lived diasporic experiences stimulated by encounters with migrants. This approach allows going beyond common-sensical statement of alleged “old diaspora” conservativeness or “immersion in history” comparing with migrants’ different stances and practices. The next step is to propose considering heritage one of the diaspora-forming processes. Such a perspective localizes diaspora in the sphere of social beliefs, imaginings, and cultural practices. To mobilize people as a diaspora, they need to be shared and treated as common, but some of them mobilize only partially, i.e., particular communities, while being contested by others. The authors show that going below the superficial agreement on “common identity” among “the same” people, i.e., co-ethnics, may reveal deep processes of othering and bonding in forming a diaspora that would be hidden otherwise.
Studia Politologiczne 68, 2023
The article investigates framing of the presence of Ukrainian war refugees and Ukrainian immigran... more The article investigates framing of the presence of Ukrainian war refugees and Ukrainian immigrants in Poland in Polish public debate on the empirical basis of selected leading opinion forming weeklies. The action “Stop of Ukrainisation of Poland” launched by far right Konfederacja Korony Polskiej party is considered as an attempt to launch moral panic. The author examines the mainstream media reactions on this activity and concludes (also using results of public opinion surveys), that, so far, neither classic, nor polarizing moral panic has begun. The important part of the analysis is an overview of the visons of further co-existence of Poles and Ukrainians in Poland, as the competing postulates regarding to areas of social inclusion and exclusion are present in the analyzed material.
The Ukrainian Soviet Nation-some remarks from the multicultural perspective. Part 2 In the articl... more The Ukrainian Soviet Nation-some remarks from the multicultural perspective. Part 2 In the article the author discusses the "Soviet nation" as a project of political nation based on the ethno-cultural, not only Russian, but rather Russian-Slavic (including also Ukrainians and Belarusians) core. Th rough the prism of the language russifi cation and collective memory problems of Ukrainians and other nations, the offi cial Soviet ethnopolicy is presented as an boutique multiculturalism, not the values negotiating, but considering the diff erence between russifi cation and sovietisation. Th e role of the Moscow Orthodox Church in the unifying of the borderlands of the SU is also signalized.
Kultury historyczne Polski i Ukrainy O źródłach nieporozumienia między sąsiadami, red. T. Stryjek, V. Sklokin, Warszawa: Scholar , 2021
Kultury historyczne Polski i Ukrainy O źródłach nieporozumienia między sąsiadami, red. T. Stryjek, V. Sklokin, Warszawa: Scholar, 2021
Ruch Prawniczy, Ekonomiczny i Socjologiczny, 2022
The purpose of the article is to examine the initial reactions of the Polish opinion-forming week... more The purpose of the article is to examine the initial reactions of the Polish opinion-forming weeklies to Russia's invasion of Ukraine. The selection of titles includes examples from the conservative, centrist and liberal press. Assuming the constructivist notion of reality as discursively constructed, the author, using unstructured qualitative content analysis, strives to answer the following main research questions: How is Polish and Ukrainian society pictured in press materials? Which values are believed to be core for Poles helping Ukrainian refugees, for Polish, Ukrainian and European elites, and for Ukrainian society? Which of them are compromised by internal and external enemies? The author concludes that despite all the ideological differences between the examined weeklies, the general thematic and interpretation frames are very similar. Among them: 'Poland helps Ukraine and does it efficiently', 'refugees from Ukraine deserve our help and compassion', 'Ukrainian society is extraordinarily united and patriotic', 'there are 'Putin's allies among the Polish and European elites and they should be revealed and neutralized', 'Poland (and/ or Europe) have to change in order to survive'. The main differences are in who is considered to be 'Putin's ally', and what values should be pursued in order to survive the threat.
The Politics of Memory in Poland and Ukraine From Reconciliation to De-Conciliation, 2022
Basing on the results of ethnographic field research conducted in Chyhyryn in 2019, the author at... more Basing on the results of ethnographic field research conducted in Chyhyryn in 2019, the author attempts to trace the involvement of local actors in the policy of memory, in the local as well as in the national dimension, using theoretical approaches proposed by, among others, Aleida Assmann, Anthony D. Smith, and Polish discourse researchers. Chyhyryn has a very rich history (Khmelnytsky Uprising, Koliivshchyna, Ukrainian revolution 1917–21). The main local guardian of memory is National History and Culture Reserve “Chyhyryn.” From perspective of a moderate constructivist, the author critically examines the Reserve’s narrative which operates consistently within the confines of the national paradigm. Nevertheless, the Reserve carries out coherent and functional activities from the perspective of shaping the definite identity model.
Kultura i Społeczeństwo, 2019
This article contains the findings of a study of the narrative of the National Museum of the Hist... more This article contains the findings of a study of the narrative of the National Museum of the History of Ukraine in the Second World War in Kiev as a form of contemporary realization of a historical policy. In independent Ukraine, the Museum departed from the Soviet heroic-romantic narrative and replaced it with a story of war as a universal human cataclysm. At the same time, there was a clear Ukrainization of the narrative, for the pragmatic purpose of building a nation state.
Simultaneously, the Museum is engaged in commemorative and propaganda activities concerning the ongoing war with Russia. The author decodes the palimpsest of symbols and narratives. He analyzes forms of remembrance, the organization of exhibitions, and ways of managing the Soviet heritage and symbolism. He analyzes the narrative about the war in Donbass in categories of familiarity and otherness.
This article contains an analysis of the identity of Russians and Russian-speaking persons living... more This article contains an analysis of the identity of Russians and Russian-speaking
persons living in the Lviv oblast in Ukraine, on the basis of interviews collected by the
author in the years 2011–2012. The article combines anthropological, sociological, and
politological perspectives, and examines the following questions: Is Eastern Galicia,
after the fall of the USSR, treated by the interviewees as a ‘private homeland’, or
is it entirely foreign to them culturally (as being a post-Habsburg, ‘western’ area)?
Did Ukraine become their ‘ideological homeland’ or does only Russia appear in that
role? Did Russia, after 1991, become a ‘foreign homeland’ and did they themselves
enter into the role typical of a national minority, experiencing discrimination in the
‘nationally oriented state’ of Ukraine? The author does not give unequivocal answers
to these questions, but he nevertheless provides convincing data to confirm the failure
of independent Ukraine’s integration policy toward its Russian and Russian-speaking
citizens. In his opinion, it failed at the national level and especially in Eastern Galicia,
whose symbolic sphere has been dominated by the ideology of Ukrainian ethnic-cultural
nationalism.
Krakowskie Pismo Kresowe, nr 5: 2013
The article discusses the problem of the Russian-speaking community in the Lviv district in Ukrai... more The article discusses the problem of the Russian-speaking community in the Lviv district in Ukraine. Basing on ethnographic field research conducted in Drohobych, Borislav and Chervonograd the author speaks in support of the thesis that the Russian in Western Ukraine should be described as a group that differs from the rest of population not only by language, but also by many other signs of cultural identity, especially memory which is in conflict with the dominant Ukrainian national historical discourse. The author also notices the differences in identity discourses: the Russian – speaking people mostly support the thesis of “Slavic unity” in which the essence of being Ukrainian bases on some ethnographic differences. The identity of the Russian-speaking people does not fit into the mainstream of pure ethnic distinctions, which, in turn, for the Russian – speaking group are not necessarily natural and obvious categories to describe social reality. In cities, where the research was conducted, the Russian – speaking people feel themselves as a minority, forced to defend their interests in the view of limited opportunities to preserve their identity which may lead to the collapse of the core values of the group. These problems even intensify with coming to power – at the local level – nationalistic “Svoboda” party.