Introduction

This chapter explores the transformation of resistance, decision-making and spatial practices amongst participants of national-level anti-government protests in Ukraine in 2004 and 2013/14. Specifically, this comparative study looks at the way in which participants at two protest camps – both held at Maidan Nezalezhnosti in Kiev, but ten years apart – transformed the representational space of the square into a protest camp. An analysis of the differences between these two protest camps contributes to our understanding of the current social and political transformations taking place in Ukraine. To this end, by contrasting the (re)production of the space, spatial practices adjusted to the context of the protests and spatial representation, I argue that the particular characteristics of Maidan-Sich 2014 can be interpreted as reflecting the empowerment of the recently emerged civil society.

On 1 December 2013, several hundred people gathered in Kiev's main square – Maidan Nezalezhnosti (Maidan) – in response to the violent attacks that Ukrainian state security forces had inflicted on anti-government demonstrators in Maidan the night before. To show that their intentions were serious, demonstrators made it known that they would not leave the square until those responsible for the attacks were punished. Alongside this demand, a protest camp emerged that would remain at Maidan until 9 August 2014, more than eight months later, when Kiev city officials demanded that it be dismantled. During the protest camp's existence, it underwent a significant transition: it turned from a protest camp with mainly an occupation purpose to what participants themselves defined as ‘sich ’ – a place where people gathered and where collective decisions were taken and common tactics of resistance and defence developed. Both the general public and academics reacted to the resemblance between the 2013/14 Maidan protest camp and the protest camps organised in the same square in 2004 during the Ukrainian Orange Revolution (Salnykova, 2014; Wilson, 2014).