The thesis examines the social memory of Soviet period in Ukraine on the national and regional levels drawing on the conceptual framework of social memory as shared, normative and formative knowledge of the past, subject to contentious interpretations of various groups and reflecting the power structure of the society. The analysis of the law on the rehabilitation of victims of political repressions in Ukraine, the law on the Holodomor as genocide against Ukrainian nation, and the decommunization laws shows that on the official level Ukraine moved from an ambivalent attitude towards the Soviet legacy, in which Stalinism was repudiated, to the condemnation of Soviet power as a whole.
On the regional level, the study reveals the divisive memory of the Soviet past. The analysis of the activities of the Memorial Society, of monuments to the prisoners executed in Lviv by retreating Soviets in June of 1941, of the Museum-Prison on Lontsky street and other museums and monuments shows that in Lviv, as in the Baltic States, the Soviet power is viewed as an alien regime, imposed on freedom-loving Ukrainians by Soviet Russia tyranny.
On the opposite side of Lviv is Donetsk. The analysis of the memorial landscape of the city shows that the Donbas memory of the 1930s, as in Soviet times and in Russia, is based on an official forgetting of the repressions. The general assessment of the Soviet past is positive is incorporated into the collective identity of Donetsk as its integral part.
After the Euromaidan events of late 2013-early 2014 the opposite memories of the Soviet past became even more apparent.
Soviet past in Ukraine is a complex historical period. Examples of post-second world war Western Europe shows that a society, which wants to rebuild itself after a traumatic, divisive past, has to work through this past critically and honestly through an extremely difficult, but necessary open public debate. Only free exchange of opinions, where diversity of perspectives and interpretations of the Soviet experience would be heard, will allow Ukrainian society to grasp the complexity of the Soviet past and to build an inclusive, pluralist democracy.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:uottawa.ca/oai:ruor.uottawa.ca:10393/37974 |
| Date | 10 August 2018 |
| Creators | Mokrushyna, Halyna |
| Contributors | Couton, Philippe, Arel, Dominique |
| Publisher | Université d'Ottawa / University of Ottawa |
| Source Sets | Université d’Ottawa |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thesis |
| Format | application/pdf |
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