Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-4rdpn Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-05T17:08:04.032Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

On the Role of Historical Myths in Nation-State Building: The Case of Ukraine

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  29 July 2019

Anton Oleinik
Anton Oleinik*
Affiliation:
Departmentof Sociology, Memorial University of Newfoundland and Labrador, St. John’s, Canada, and Central Economics and Mathematics Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow, Russian Federation
*
*Corresponding author. Email: [email protected]
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

This article offers an overview of myths that may become a foundation of for shared memories of the Ukrainian nation’s past. According to Anthony Smith, common historical myths play a key role in the “ethnic” model of nationhood that constitutes the East European path to building a nation-state. The list of key myths that help constitute the Ukrainian identity includes Cossackdom, freedom, national independence, individualism, and democracy. It is argued that the existing historical myths have to be carefully assessed and adapted to the needs of nation-state building.

Keywords

historical mythsUkrainenation-state building
Type
Article
Information
Nationalities Papers , Volume 47 , Issue 6 , November 2019 , pp. 1100 - 1116
Copyright
© Association for the Study of Nationalities 2019

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Applebaum, Anne. 2017. Red Famine: Stalin’s War on Ukraine. Toronto: Signal.Google Scholar
Arendt, Hannah. 1969. On Violence. New York: Harcourt, Brace & World.Google Scholar
Barthes, Roland. 1957. Mythologies. Paris: Editions du Seuil.Google Scholar
Brubaker, Rogers. 1996. Nationalism Reframed: Nationhood and the National Question in the New Europe. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Brudny, Yitzhak M., and Finkel, Evgeny. 2011. “Why Ukraine Is Not Russia: Hegemonic National Identity and Democracy in Russia and Ukraine.” East European Politics and Societies 25 (4): 813–833.Google Scholar
Dubovik, Anatoly. 2016. “The Anarchist Movement in Ukraine, 1980s–1990s.” Anarcho-Syndicalist Review 67 (Summer):25–33.Google Scholar
Findor, Andrej. 2002. “(De)Constructing Slovak National Mythology.” Sociológia 34 (3): 195–208.Google Scholar
Gordon, Linda. 1983. Cossack Rebellions: Social Turmoil in the Sixteenth-Century Ukraine. Albany: State University of New York Press.Google Scholar
Hrushevsky, Mykhailo. 1956a. Istoriia Ukrainy-Rusy [History of Ukraine-Rus’], vol. 8, part 1, Vid Kurukivshchyny do Kumeishchyny (1626–1638) [From the agreement of Kurukovo to the defeat near Kumeiki (1626–1638)]. New York: Knigospilka.Google Scholar
Hrushevsky, Mykhailo. 1956b. Istoriia Ukrainy-Rusy [History of Ukraine-Rus’], vol. 8, part 2, Pochatky Khmelnichchyny (1638–1648) [The start of Khmelnitsky’s uprising (1638–1648)]. New York: Knigospilka.Google Scholar
Hrushevsky, Mykhailo. 1956c. Istoriia Ukrainy-Rusy [History of Ukraine-Rus’], vol. 8, part 3, Khmelnichchyny v roztsviti (1648–1650) [The high point of Khmelnitsky’s uprising (1648–1650)]. New York: Knigospilka.Google Scholar
Hrushevsky, Mykhailo. 1992a. Istoriia Ukrainy-Rusy [History of Ukraine-Rus’], vol. 2, XI–XIII vik [11th–13th centuries]. Kiev: Naukova Dumka.Google Scholar
Hrushevsky, Mykhailo. 1992b. Istoriia Ukrainy-Rusy [History of Ukraine-Rus’], vol. 3, Do roku 1340 [To the year 1340]. Kiev: Naukova Dumka.Google Scholar
Hrushevsky, Mykhailo. 1993. Istoriia Ukrainy-Rusy [History of Ukraine-Rus’], vol. 4, XIV–XVI viky—vidnosyny politychni [14th to 16th centuries—political aspects]. Kiev: Naukova Dumka.Google Scholar
Hrushevsky, Mykhailo. 1995. Istoriia Ukrainy-Rusy [History of Ukraine-Rus’], vol. 6, Zhitie ekonomichne, kul’turne, natsional’ne XIV–XVIII vikiv [Economic, cultural and national life in the 14th–17th centuries]. Kiev: Naukova Dumka.Google Scholar
Hrushevsky, Mykhailo. 1996. Istoriia Ukrainy-Rusy [History of Ukraine-Rus’], vol. 9, part 1, Roky 1650–1654 [Years 1650–1654]. Kiev: Naukova Dumka.Google Scholar
Hrushevsky, Mykhailo. 1997. Istoriia Ukrainy-Rusy [History of Ukraine-Rus’], vol. 9, part 2, Roky 1654–1657 [Years 1654–1657]. Kiev: Naukova Dumka.Google Scholar
Hrushevsky, Mykhailo. 1999. History of Ukraine-Rus’, vol. 7, The Cossack Age to 1625. Translated by Bohdan Strumiński. Edited by Sergii Plokhy and Frank E. Sysyn. Edmonton: Canadian Institute of Ukrainian Studies Press.Google Scholar
Kasyanov, Grigorii. 2007. “Ukraina-1990: ‘Boi za istoriiu’” [Ukraine in 1990: Battles for the history]. NLO—Novoe Literaturnoe Obozrenie 1 (83): 76–93Google Scholar
Kluchevsky, Vasily. 1956. Sochineniia v 8 tomakh [Works in 8 volumes], vol. 1, Kurs Russkoi istorii. Chast’ 1 [Course on Russian history. Part 1]. Moscow: Gosudarstvennoe izdatel’stvo politicheskoi literaturyGoogle Scholar
Korostelina, Karina V. 2014. Constructing the Narratives of Identity and Power: Self-imagination in a Young Ukrainian Nation. Lanham: Lexington Books.Google Scholar
Kostomarov, Nikolai. 1861. “Dve russkie narodnosti” [Two Russian peoples]. Osnova 3: 33–80.Google Scholar
Kuzio, Taras. 1998. Ukraine: State and Nation Building. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Magocsi, Paul Robert. 2010. A History of Ukraine: The Land and Its Peoples, 2nd ed. Toronto: University of Toronto Press.Google Scholar
Mann, Michael. 1986. The Sources of Social Power, vol. 1, A History of Power from the Beginning to A.D. 1760. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Marples, David R. 2007. Heroes and Villains: Creating National History in Contemporary Ukraine. Budapest: Central European University Press.Google Scholar
Merton, Robert K. 1995. “The Thomas Theorem and the Matthew Effect.” Social Forces 74 (2): 379–422Google Scholar
Oleinik, Anton. 2011. Market as a Weapon: The Socio-Economic Machinery of Dominance in Russia. New Brunswick: Transaction.Google Scholar
Oleinik, Anton. 2015. “The Value of Freedom: A Case Study of Ukraine.” Southeast European and Black Sea Studies 15 (3): 239–259.Google Scholar
Oleinik, Anton, and Strelkova, Olga. 2015. “The Relocation of a Repertoire of Collective Action: Maidan 2013.” European Journal of Cultural and Political Sociology 2 (2): 146–171.Google Scholar
Plokhy, Serhii. 2010. “Poltava: The Battle That Never Ends.” Harvard Ukrainian Studies 31 (1/4): xii–xxv.Google Scholar
Plokhy, Serhii. 2015. The Gates of Europe: A History of Ukraine. New York: Basic Books.Google Scholar
Portnov, Andrei. 2007. “Uprazhneniia s istoriei po-ukrainski” [Writing history, the Ukrainian style]. Ab Imperio 3: 93–138.Google Scholar
Reid, Anna. 2015. Borderland: A Journey through the History of Ukraine, rev. ed. New York: Basic Books.Google Scholar
Rodriguez, Philippe-André. 2015. “Human Dignity as an Essentially Contested Concept.” Cambridge Review of International Affairs 28 (4): 743–756Google Scholar
Rustow, Dankwart A. 1970. “Transitions to Democracy: Toward a Dynamic Model.” Comparative Politics 2 (3): 337–363.Google Scholar
Shkirda, Alexandre. 2004. Nestor Makhno: Anarchy’s Cossack. The Struggle for Free Soviets in the Ukraine 1917–1921. Edinburgh: AK Press.Google Scholar
Smith, Anthony D. 1991. National Identity. London: Penguin Books.Google Scholar
Smith, Anthony D. 2002. “When is a Nation?” Geopolitics 7 (2): 5–32.Google Scholar
Smith, Anthony D. 2004. The Antiquity of Nations. Cambridge: Polity Press.Google Scholar
Subtelny, Orest. 2009. Ukraine: A History, 4th ed. Toronto: University of Toronto Press.Google Scholar
Tairova-Yakovleva, Tatiana. 2011. Ivan Mazepa i Rossiiskaia imperiia: istoria ‘predatel’stva’ [Ivan Mazepa and the Russian Empire: A history of a ‘betrayal’]. Moscow: Tsentrpoligraf.Google Scholar
Tilly, Charles. 2002. “Violence, Terror and Politics as Usual.” Boston Review 27(3–4), http://bostonreview.net/archives/BR27.3/tilly.html. (Accessed March 8, 2018.)Google Scholar
Wilson, Andrew. 2002. “Elements of a Theory of Ukrainian Ethno-national Identities.” Nations and Nationalism 8 (1): 31–54.Google Scholar
Yavornitsky, Dmitry. 1990–1992. Istoriia zaporiz’skykh kozakiv, u 3 tomakh [History of Zaporozhian Cossacks in 3 volumes]. Lviv: Svit.Google Scholar
Zherebkina, Irina. 2002. Zhenskoe politicheskoe bessoznatel’noe [Women’s political unconsciousness]. St. Petersburg: Alethea.Google Scholar