Towards new horizons in the study of identities in Ukraine (original) (raw)

While it is common wisdom that “identity matters” in Ukrainian politics, we still lack a robust understanding of precisely when and how it matters. Reflecting challenges facing the broader interdisciplinary field of comparative identity politics, authors frequently bring to their analyses very different notions of the nature of identity itself, skipping a rigorous examination of these notions in an effort to get right to documenting the effects of identity. Similarly, identity is frequently operationalized in quantitative studies without much discussion of the implications of selecting one particular measure over another or of what precisely each measure is reflecting, not to mention what might have changed over time. While we do have nuanced research on Ukrainian identity, it tends not to address the evolution of identity over time or the moments and conditions of identity change. Such issues are particularly important for current research since identities and their associated meanings may shift or “harden” during severe crises or conflicts like those that unfolded in Ukraine during 2013–14. The five original articles that make up this special issue1 all address these challenges, with important implications for how we understand Ukrainian politics after the EuroMaidan.

Analysis of changes in national identities in Ukraine from the late perestroika period until present times, with particular focus on identities during times of conflict (the Euromaidan and the war in Donbas).

This article studies the historical background that determined the formation of the specific features of Ukrainian, Little Russian, and Russian identities starting from the late 17th century to the present day. It traces the evolution of Ukrainian identity from the notion of "a single Slavic-Russian people" to the current radicalization and consolidation of anti-Russian sentiment as its dominant element. At different stages of nation-building, intellectual elites molded different constructs of this identity. At times these constructs existed in parallel and independently of each other, and at other times they confronted one another. The notion of a single people (or different peoples) constantly changed. The article highlights the key

The present paper investigates and problematises how the discourse of Ukraine's national identity is being constructed. The transformation of Homo Sovieticus into Homo Europeicus, which consists in the modification of the old boundaries of Ukraine with the Soviet Union, along with the delimitation of new ones within the European Union, is traced on both the tangible (material) and conscious psychological) levels. Due to historical, geopolitical and ethnopsychological factors, various material and mental objects, signs, and notions encapsulating and radiating Soviet ideology, are being replaced with new signs and notions restoring a version of the Ukrainian, pre-Russian past, and simultaneously projecting Ukraine's European future.

This paper analyzes the coercive and legitimate forms of power in Ukraine. It describes the crisis of legitimacy in Ukraine as a contradiction between a blatantly cruel system of capitalism dominated by a few oligarchs, and the lingering remnants of a Soviet mentality. Two strategies are used by the Government to stoke the crisis. First, increased identification with ethnic or regional groups are instrumentally used by the Government to take attention from economic and class issues. Second, the incorporation of a Soviet meaning of power into the new national identity and presentation of it as core norms, believes, and values of the people of Ukraine competes with alternative Ukrainian identity concepts. The paper analyzes five main features of the Soviet meanings of power – political, social, and economic paternalism, perception of power as source of profit and violence, and the dual reality of power with the gap between official narratives of power and a real life. The process of i...

The paper argues that the profound identity split strongly influences Ukraine's postcommunist development, precluding effectively consolidation of any political system – either democratic or authoritarian. In most cases, the identity issue supersedes all other issues on the agendas of political parties and largely determines the character and results of electoral rivalry, and the way in which both domestic and international politics is viewed and articulated. The paper examines historical roots of competing identities in Ukraine, their essence and impact on two different visions of Ukrainian past, future, and " Ukrainianness " itself. The use and misuse of identity issues by Ukrainian authorities is a special concern of the paper that stresses the need of alternative policy aimed at a national reconciliation.

Since the Euromaidan debates around shifts in nationality and belonging continue to dominate the media agenda in Ukraine. The post-Euromaidan search for new commemoration practices with a simultaneous attempt to sweep away the Soviet past — which resulted, first, in the massive dismantlement of Lenin statues (Leninapad) and later in the passing by parliament (Rada) of controversial decommunization laws — launched another powerful wave of discussions in the media. At the same time relatively little work has been undertaken to analyze the transformations of identities in connection with historical memories adopting a comparative cross-regional perspective in Ukrainian social studies. Methodology Current sociological and political science studies on Ukraine (both in Ukraine and abroad) are limited by available resources (the size of a survey's sample) and, as a rule, have no choice but to group the largestt Ukrainian administrative units (oblasts) into four macro-regions (East, West, South and Center). Due to the specifics of sampling procedures, the majority of sociological surveys recently conducted in Ukraine can only grasp regional differences at the level of macro-regions and thus provide very little information about local communities in each oblast. The average nationwide sample is N=1800-2000. As Ukraine consists of 27 administrative units (24 oblasts and the Autonomous Republic of Crimea, plus two cities with special status, Kyiv and Sevastopol), researchers have to combine several oblasts into a larger unit – a macro region — to be able to compare data at a statistically significant level. Such studies unavoidably level differences among oblasts included in one or another of the macro-region and stress differences among macro-regions. As a result, they contribute to the formation of stereotypical images of Ukrainian regional divisions rather than help to reconsider Ukrainian regionalism and map more precisely Ukrainian cultural identities and political loyalties. Studies that make use of representative samples of residents of Ukraine on a level of analysis other than the typical four macro-regions (which often are reduced to two: East and West) must involve a much larger number of respondents. The project " Region, Nation, and Beyond: An Interdisciplinary and Transcultural Reconsideration of