Plural Frames of Remembrance in Ukraine in Times of War
Collective memory in Ukraine was long portrayed as split between ethnonationalism in the western part of the country and Soviet nostalgia in the East. This dichotomy has mostly been overcome, but it is often replaced by a no less dualistic approach: some scholars identify an antagonism or competition between "old" or "false" Russian or Soviet interpretations and "new" or "authentic" Ukrainian ones, each representing a civilizational choice. In this talk, Mischa Gabowitsch (Professor of Multilingual and Transnational Post-Soviet Studies at Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz, Germany) and Mykola Homanyuk (Associate Professor in the Department of Sociology and Geography at Kherson State University, Ukraine) argue that frames of collective remembrance in Ukraine are actually much more plural. They include multiple narratives associated with different places or regions, different ethnic groups (such as the Crimean Tatars, Ukrainian Roma, or Poles), different professional communities (such as border guards, miners, or railroad workers), and communities bound by common traumatic experiences (such as Chernobyl liquidators or the veterans of previous wars). In the face of Russian aggression, this mnemonic pluralism unexpectedly proved to be a source of resilience rather than weakness, as each memory collective could justify participation in Ukraine's defense with reference to its own memory traditions.
Date, time: Thursday, February 12, 4:00 p.m. to 6:00 p.m. (Paris time)
Location: Université de Strasbourg, Salle Ourisson, Institut Le Bel, Campus de l'Esplanade
Format: hybrid (Zoom link sent the day before)
Coordination of the Europe-Eurasia Axis (WP7): Étienne Boisserie (Inalco), Frédéric Gloriant (Université Paris Sciences et Lettres), Jérôme Heurtaux (Université Paris Sciences et Lettres), Emilia Koustova (Université de Strasbourg), Julien Vercueil (Inalco). With Pierre-Louis Six, postdoctoral fellow, DÉCRIPT program.
Seminar registration open until February 11 at 4:00 pm (Paris time):