On January, 22nd 2014, seeing the killing of people during mass political protest for the first time in its post-Soviet transition, Ukraine entered a new period of its history. Then, in spring 2014, began the military conflict in parts of the Donetsk and Luhansk regions. Thus, Ukrainian society suddenly changed from peaceful one into one marked by physical violence and war. This lecture investigates which commemorative practices (both grass-root and state-sponsored) emerged in Ukraine starting from winter 2014; their relationship to the Soviet-era and/or pre-Soviet-era commemorations; and what happened to the images of the Soviet Union and its heroes in the context of Russia’s involvement in what is currently called the ’Ukraine Crisis’.
ANDRII PORTNOV, Professor of Entangled History of Ukraine at the European University Viadrina (Frankfurt/Oder), Director of the PRISMA UKRAЇNA Research Network Eastern Europe at the Forum Transregionale Studien Berlin