Yuliya Yurchuk

After the collapse of the Soviet Union, Ukrainian society faced a new reality. The new reality involved consolidation and transformation of collective identities. The reinvigoration of national identity led to a change in the emphasis on how the past was dealt with – many things which were regarded as negative by the Soviet regime became presented as positive in independent Ukraine. The war-time nationalist movement, represented by the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN) and the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA), became one of the re-configured themes of history.

While most of the studies of memory of the OUN and UPA concentrated on the use of this history by nationalist parties, this study goes beyond the analysis and scrutinizes the meaning of this history in nation- and state-building in relation to memory work realized on the small-scale regional and local levels. Moreover, this book focuses not only on the “producers” of memory, but also on the “consumers” of memory, the area which is largely understudied in the field of memory studies.

Drawing on studies about post-colonial subjectivities and theories of remediation developed in memory studies, this book explores the changes in memory culture of contemporary Ukraine and examines the role of memory in producing new meanings under the rapidly changing conditions after the collapse of the Soviet Union up to 2014.

The book contributes to the studies of memory culture in post-Communist countries as well as to the studies of society in contemporary Ukraine.

Abstract: The main focus of this paper is on the transnational framework of remembering. It is analyzed how memory politics concerning the Second World War were transformed in Ukraine after the mass protests of winter 2013/2014 and during the period that followed. By analyzing new trends in memory politics and new features introduced to commemorate the “Day of Victory,” it is scrutinized why and how these changes were introduced. The aim of the article is to understand what these new tendencies reveal about Ukrainian society today. What is meant when politicians in Ukraine speak about de-Sovietization? How is it realized and by whom? The main focus is on the transnational framework of remembering, which means, first and foremost, the transnationally established ways of remembering to which memory actors refer when they address historical issues. The paper tries to grasp the complex nexus between the national and transnational within the constellation of memories in a country that is in the midst of its most turbu-lent period since the Second World War. It is argued that the transnational framework of remembering is used as a resource both for justification of na-tional memory politics and for claiming a re-orientation in geopolitics.

Reporting from the events of the so-called ‘Euro-revolution’ in Ukraine 2013–2014, the Western media were prompt to point out the excessive use of national symbols, including those connected with the memory of the Ukrainian nationalist organizations ‘OUN’ and ‘UPA’, which for some periods of time had cooperated with Nazi Germany and were involved in the killing of civilians. By using a postcolonial perspective, the article aims to explain this phenomenon, as well as a number of other elements of the politics of memory in contemporary Ukraine, such as the so-called ‘Decommunization Laws’ adopted in 2015. Special attention is paid to Frantz Fanon’s idea of ‘anticolonial nationalism’ and Homi Bhabha’s idea of hybridity and their realization in Ukraine.

There are parallels in discussions about monuments in Ukraine and the USA. The reminder of the Soviet past (or in the American context, of the Confederacy) is an abject that is difficult to assimilate. On the one hand, the abject is our unwillingness to see the past and accept it; on the other hand, for those who associate themselves with this past, this is the threat of castration because through the negation of a given past a certain group is cast out from the space of representation. That is why it is questionable whether a monument can be inclusive at all. Which memory does the monument recall? Which past is castrated when a new monument is built? Which groups are fighting for recognition and representation? Which groups lose this right? These questions confront researchers and memory workers and are discussed in this essay.

Форум новейшей восточноевропейской истории и культуры-Русское издание № 2, 2016-http://www1.ku-eichstaett.de/ZIMOS/forum/inhaltruss26.html 87 Юлия Юрчук Прошлое под прицелом амнезии: память об ОУН и УПА в Волынском регионе на примере памятника Климу Савуру  В этой статье я подхожу к вопросу памяти об Организации Украинских Нацио-налистов и Украинской Повстанческой Армии (ОУН и УПА соответственно) в региональной перспективе. На примере одного конкретного случая построения памятника одному из командиров УПА – Климу Савуру – прослеживается, как героическая память об ОУН и УПА устанавливалась в Ровенской области. Эта область входит в один исторический регион – Волынь. Именно здесь сформиро-вались первые группы УПА в 1942 году, а также именно на Волыни произошли самые трагические события в истории УПА – убийства польского населения в 1943 году, которые потом перенеслись на Галичину. Я не рассматриваю историю самого украинско-польского конфликта (заинтересованный читатель может обра-титься к цитированной ниже литературе), а то, как история ОУН и УПА входила в культуру памяти региона, начиная с 1991 года. Памятник Климу Савуру – пример того, как место и форма памяти могут быть основаны больше на амнезии, чем на воспоминании. Как мы увидим, через про-цесс мифологизации его биографии почти все исторические факты о личности командира УПА исчезли. Единственная характеристика, на которой основывает-ся коммеморация – это архетип, который выражает ценности и интересы деяте-лей, которые занимались строительством памятника и продвижением героиче-ской формы памяти об ОУН и УПА. Такая мифологизация позволила проводить политику памяти через призывы к исторической справедливости, забывая при этом о тех несправедливостях, которые произошли под командованием этой ис-торической личности.

The present paper focuses on relationship between commemoration and new media. My main interest is production of memories through blogs. Paper approaches digital commemorations as digital ‘monuments’. These monuments might be less durable than traditional monuments in bronze and stone but they have a considerable potential for sen¬se-generation and memory-reproduction. My aim is to discuss a theoretical and methodological framework that can give insight on how this new materiality can be addressed by scholars working within a realm of memory studies. As a case study I analyze the representations of World War II in Ukrainian blogosphere. The paper addresses the following qu¬e¬s-tions: How WWII is represented in blogs? How are meanings of the past ge¬ne¬rated through digital forms of remembering? What can we say about the present communities who participate in such digital commemoration? From the methodological point of view I discuss how political discourse analysis might be applied to shed light on the questions posed above.

Contemporary post-secular researchers stress that in the time of multiples modernities, secular and religious systems affect each other in considerable and comparable ways. In the field of public memory this impact seems particularly extensive. There are many communities which use religious lexicon to describe their experience of traumatic events. Various groups and religious organisations construct their own narratives on the 20th-century experiences. The religious interpretations of the past are also used in the field of politics. They affect memory practices and public perceptions of the past. However, within the memory studies little attention has been paid to the religious aspects of remembrance and their impact on cultural and family memory and contemporary politics. Central and Eastern Europe has always been a mosaic of many faiths and it continuous to be a contact zone between a variety of religions. This means that the 20th-century disasters, wars, mass murders and displacements are remembered here differently by various religious groups. Moreover, the beginning of the 21st century brought some significant changes in the relation between memory and religion in the region. We have witnessed mass canonisations of victims of the 20th-century catastrophes by different Christian Churches. Memory and history preservation seem also crucial for Muslim communities, especially as they relate to mass migration of displaced people as a result of the conflicts in the Caucasus and Crimea. Furthermore, one can see the growing gap between the memory of the Holocaust as remembered by the religious Jewish communities and the secular cosmopolitan organisations. All these examples point to an unprecedented interrelation between memory and religion which can be now observed across Europe in diverse cultural and political contexts. This is why, following a series of events within the Genealogies of Memory framework, the 2018 conference will consider the ways in which the public debate, written narratives and visual