Fighting Fences vs Fighting Monuments: Politics of Memory and Protest Mobilization in Ukraine

Volodymyr Ishchenko

Journal of Contemporary Central and Eastern Europe, 2011, vol. 19, issue 1-2, 369-395

Abstract: This article explores anti-Communist politics of memory “from below” during the last years of Viktor Yushchenko's presidency in Ukraine. Using original protest events data I compare dynamics, repertoire, political actors, and targets of politics of memory protests with protests against illegal constructions privatizing urban public space, as one of the most frequent social-economic protest issues, in the context of the split between institutionalized and non-institutionalized “civil society.” Focusing analysis on attacks against Soviet monuments, I show how state anti-Communist politics of memory provided legitimacy for the far right mobilization. The dynamics of the most successful grassroots anti-construction initiatives, “Save Old Kyiv,” shows how tightly social-economic protests might be interwoven with the politics of memory, although with destructive consequences for the success of the former.

Date: 2011
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DOI: 10.1080/0965156X.2011.611680

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