MANIPULATING HISTORY AS AN INSTRUMENT OF UKRAINE'S POLITICS: STRATEGIES AND PRACTICES FOR DESIGNING ANTYUKRAINIAN IDENTITY IN DONBAS

  • V. Lozovyi
Keywords: Ukraine, Donbas, historical memory, historical interpretations, identity, the Great Patriotic War, Donetsk-Kryvyi Rih Soviet Republic (DKSR), Novorossiia, separatism

Abstract

The article covers issues of manipulation of the history of anti-Ukrainian forces in the Donbas as an instrument of the policy of split of society and destruction of the state. The main focus is on clarifying the following issues: promoting the concept of "special Donbas identity", using the concurrent facts of the events associated with the Great Patriotic War, the Donetsk-Kryvyi Rih Soviet Republic (RKSR), and Novorossiia. It is noted that during the period of independence in the Donbas, Soviet and imperial interpretations of history were disseminated, aimed at forming a regional identity, based on the foundation of anti-Ukrainian insinuations. History was understood as a kind of propaganda. Therefore, distortion of the past is one of the main strategies of anti-Ukrainian forces and Russia in the Donbas. An important part of the struggle against Ukrainian identity in the propaganda war against Ukraine is a war of memory on the lines of confrontation between the Ukrainian national and Soviet-neo-imperial narratives. The policy of preserving the Soviet nostalgia of memory and discrediting the Ukrainian national movement as a "nationalist" (often associated with fascism) was embodied here. Political speculation over the region's affiliation is spreading. It is cultivated that the history of the Donbas is just the history of the Russian Empire and the USSR, which is the territory of the formation of the "New Years", "the people of Donbas", which have their own mentality and even the tradition of statehood, and have almost nothing to do with Ukraine. Historical precedents are put forward as legitimizing the political actions of one or the other party, in particular substantiating the non-Ukrainian identity of the population of the Donbas, and, accordingly, the regularity of the quasiparliamentary republics of the “DPR” and “LNR”. The purpose of historical manipulations is the legitimation of separatism in the Donbas, separation from Ukraine and integration with Russia. It was stated that regional-historical differences inspired regional-political contradictions and delineation, which, along with other factors, provoked a military-political crisis in the East of Ukraine.

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Published
2018-12-19
How to Cite
Lozovyi, V. (2018). MANIPULATING HISTORY AS AN INSTRUMENT OF UKRAINE’S POLITICS: STRATEGIES AND PRACTICES FOR DESIGNING ANTYUKRAINIAN IDENTITY IN DONBAS. Strategic Priorities, 48(3-4), 147-154. Retrieved from https://niss-priority.com/index.php/journal/article/view/230