Imagining Ukraine: From History and Myths to Maidan Protests

In: East European politics and societies: EEPS, Volume 33, Issue 3, p. 631-655

Abstract

This article examines how the Maidan protests of 2013–2014 were a space for the collision of conflicting narratives on what Ukraine is and what it should be, and how past, present, and future were used to imagine contemporary Ukraine. Making use of speech acts by local and international actors and politicians on the Ukraine crisis, historical narratives on Ukraine, Maidan protest slogans, and field work data gathered throughout 2013–2016 in Ukraine, we identify four meta-narratives that enable us to unravel such an imagining: (1) Ukraine as a liminal category between East and West; (2) Ukraine as Russia, Ukraine as non-Russia; (3) Ukraine as Europe, Ukraine as non-Europe; and (4) Ukraine as Ukraine. We trace and contextualize these narratives in four separate sections. Positing all narratives in a discursive battleground and problematizing them as a struggle between stories, the article demonstrates that the imagining of contemporary Ukraine is deeply conditioned by the conflict between all four narratives. Ukraine is simultaneously all and none of them.