European University Institute Library

Borderlands into bordered lands, geopolitics of identity in post-Soviet Ukraine, Tatiana Zhurzhenko ; with a foreword by Dieter Segert

eng

Includes bibliographical references

mapsillustrations

no index present

non fiction

Borderlands into bordered lands

bibliography

654302022

Tatiana Zhurzhenko ; with a foreword by Dieter Segert

Soviet and post-Soviet politics and society,, vol. 98, 1614-3515

geopolitics of identity in post-Soviet Ukraine

Since 1991, post-Soviet political elites in Ukraine, Russia and Belarus have been engaged in nation- as well as state-building. They have tried to strengthen territorial sovereignty and national security, re-shape collective identities and re-narrate national histories. Former Soviet republics have become new neighbours, partners and competitors searching for geopolitical identity in the new Eastern Europe, " i.e. the countries left outside the enlarged EU. Old paradigms such as "Eurasia" or "East Slavic civilisation" have been re-invented and politically instrumentalized in the international relations and domestic politics of these countries. At the same time, these old concepts and myths have been contested and challenged by pro-Western elites. The main subject of this book is the construction of post-Soviet borders and their political, social and cultural implications. It focuses on the exemplary case of the Ukrainian-Russian border, approaching it as a social construct and a discursive phenomenon. The book shows how the symbolic meanings of and narratives on this border contribute to national identity formation and shape the images of the neighbouring countries as "the Other" thereby shedding new light on the role of border disputes between Ukraine and Russia in bilateral relations, in EU neighbourhood politics and in domestic political conflicts. The study also addresses "border making" on the regional level, focusing on the cross-border cooperation between Kharkiv and Belgorod and on the dilemmas of a Euroregion "in absence of Europe." Finally, it reflects the everyday experiences of the residents of near-border villages and shows how national and local identities are performed at, and transformed by, the new border --, Provided by Publisher

I Remapping the Post-Soviet Space 1 "Eurasia" and its Uses in the Ukrainian Geopolitical Imagination 43 2 Slavic Sisters into European Neighbours: Ukrainian-Belarusian relations after 1991 75 II Bordering Nations, Transcending Boundaries 3 Under Construction: the Ukrainian-Russian Border from the Soviet Collapse to EU Enlargement 125 4 Boundary in Mind: Discourses and Narratives of the Ukrainian-Russian Border 155 5 "Slobozhanshchyna": Re-inventing a Region in the Ukrainian-Russian Borderlands 191 III Living (with the) Border 6 Making Sense of a New Border: Social Transformations and Shifting Identities in Five Near-Border Villages 237 7 Becoming Ukrainians in a "Russian" Village: Local Identity, Language and National Belonging 281