Maidan and the Politics of Change: Meaning, Significance, and Other Questions (original) (raw)
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Revolution, Glory and Sacrifice: Ukraine's Maidan and the Revival of a European Identity 1
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The article deals with the Maidan revolution in Ukraine in 2013/14 and how it was connected to the European idea. It analyzes the performative, revolutionary and theopolitical character of the event and raises the question of what meaning the experience of the Maidan can have for the renewal of European identity. In linking the idea of Europe with the struggle for freedom and dignity, the Maidan event unfolds a communitarian and meaningful political force that connects the Ukrainian nation, the idea of Europe, and the desire for self-determi nation, for which people stake their lives. The essay takes a look at the forms and functions of political liturgy as well as the meaning of martyrdom and its ritualized remembrance. The revolutionary appropriation of political sovereignty by the people and the theopolitical dimensions of the event are reflected upon, both in their political power and significance for a European identity and in the associated dangers of mythologizing and idealizing Europe.
Maidan mythologies. Review on Andrew Wilson's Ukraine Crisis
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The Maidan and civil war from the perspective of an EU think-tank. Readers should not expect to find in its pages a balanced assessment of contending arguments or a systematic analysis of the available sources, followed by well-grounded conclusions. For the most part, this is a one-sided, tendentious account of Ukraine’s Maidan protests of 2013–14, the Russian intervention and the civil war, heavily reliant on web-sourced information, anonymous interviews and hectic prose, pieced together to bolster a very specific political agenda. It is driven not by a desire to investigate what actually happened and why, but rather to rebut critics—from all sides—of a Western neoliberal line. The nature of Russian policy, the legitimacy of the Yanukovych government and the character of the Maidan protests are all grist to this mill.
Journal of International Eastern European Studies, 2020
This article presents a review of the literature on the causes and political implications of the 2014 Maidan Revolution in Ukraine. The academic literature on the Maidan Revolution is extensive and multidisciplinary. Even six years after the revolution, Ukraine remains in the world media and academic spotlight, due to its ongoing conflict with Russia and lingering internal instability. However, despite the availability of a rapidly growing body of literature, there is currently no systematic review that problematizes concepts and assesses the explanatory variables used by the students of the Ukrainian politics. By focusing on the existing literature that has strong empirical foundations, and applying iterative research design this study addresses the following research questions: 1. How does the literature conceptualize the Maidan Revolution? 2. To what extent does the literature consider the Maidan Revolution to be successful in terms of its implications for Ukraine's political transformation and resilience-building? 3. What factors are identified in the literature that explain the anatomy of post-Maidan state-building and identity construction? The review does not pretend to be able to evaluate the effectiveness of the Ukrainian leadership in achieving the general goals of democracy, prosperity and security. Instead, it focuses on the main factors outlined by the existing literature that aim to explain the bigger picture of post-Maidan state-building trajectory, with its challenges, opportunities, setbacks and accomplishments.
Consequences of the Maidan: War of Symbols, Real War and Nation Building
In this paper I examine the Maidan and its consequences as a conflict and the process of social construction in the symbolic sphere. I will also try to interpret the Maidan and subsequent events as the historical trigger for Ukraine's complex nation building, a process which is still underway.
Changing Civil Society after Maidan - 2014
Driven by the forms of self-organization created on Maidan Ukrainian civil society has, throughout 2014, taken over spheres of the state’s emergency responsibilities in responding to war, humanitarian crisis and separatism. In the classical state model two functions lie at the core of any political regime’s stability: first, legitimate violence (defense from external danger, law enforcement and information policies critical to political order, i.e., propaganda); second, transition of power between elite groups (elections and public officials’ careers). But since the flight of President Yanukovych and the transition of power into the political leaders of Maidan, these undisputable attributes of government have been functioning with the support and sometimes even the leadership of civic post-Maidan groups.
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The Maidan protests provide us with insights into Ukrainian society and the dynamics of mobilisation more generally. Based on the EuroMaidan Protest Participant Survey, on-site rapid interviews with protesters, interviews with politicians, activists and journalists, and focus groups with ordinary citizens and activists, this essay maps the actors, claims and frames of each phase in the protest cycle. It highlights the diversity of actors and the inability of activists and party leaders to coordinate as the central features of the protests. Our analysis reveals the fluid and contingent nature of cleavages commonly portrayed as fixed and politically salient.
The Ukrainian Euromaidan of 2013-2014 represents both political and aesthetic phenomena, a space of socio-cultural performance where new kinds of identities were constructed -national, social, political and gender. The perception and consideration of the Euromaidan through the prism of the performance theory does not suggest a reduction of the political and ideological substance of the Ukrainian revolution. But, through the means of pseudoaesthetical discourses, its opponents attempt to obscure the perfomative aspect of the Euromaidan by diminishing the political aspects of this phenomenon of civic protest and emphasizing the purely theatrical and entertaining nature of the Euromaidan that occurred in the center of Kyiv. 1 One Russian blogger emphatically claimed that the Maidan was a performance because "'maidowns,' 2 to be more precise, their inspirers were concerned a great deal with the appearance of the Maidan and the behavioral code of its participants to impress their European sponsors and the liberal [liberastvuiushchaiia] public." According to this blogger, for this purpose all necessary elements of performance were at play at the Maidan: the spectators who were in fact the overseers --"sponsors" and "liberasty," the stage ("time, place, and the aesthetics of these ugly tents, tires, and garbage . . . all the conditions were preserved"), the actors (Ukrainian politicians who behaved "like People's