Research Colloquium | Valeria Korablyová (Prague) | Getting 'Away from Moscow': Another 'Zelensky Effect'

Abstract:

The lecture breaks through the perception of Ukraine as a ‘cleft country’ (Huntington 1996) that essentialises the pro-European vs pro-Russian cleavage along the regional and ethnic lines (Central-Western vs South-Eastern Ukraine, ethnic Ukrainians vs ethnic Russians, Ukraino- vs Russophones, etc). While Ukraine has always been a heterogenous polity, differences cannot be easily mapped: identities and allegiances are flexible and fluid, while the main salient trend is the steadily increasing embrace of the Ukrainian national identity that goes hand in hand with the pro-European orientation. Another crucial trend is that Ukrainians have refrained from voting for ardent nationalists, vilified by decades of the Russian propaganda (the self-colonization effect). However, while in office, politicians – from Kuchma to Zelensky – elected on a ‘moderate’, often Russia-appeasing, mandate, gravitate towards stronger nationalist rhetoric. (The only exception was Viktor Yanukovych, ousted by a mass protest for that very reason.) Picking up on Onuch and Hale’s idea (2022) that Ukrainian President embodies rather than generates tendencies, I call it “another Zelensky effect”, which will be explicated in the lecture.

Valeria Korablyova:

Dr. Valeria Korablyova is Assistant Professor, Department of Russian and East European Studies; Head of the Ukraine In A Changing Europe Research Centre, Institute of International Studies, Charles University. She works on post-Soviet transformations in Ukraine and the region, with a special focus on mass protests, grassroots nation-building, and performative politics. She received her habilitation (D. of Sc. degree) in 2015 from Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv. Her research fellowships and visiting professorships enlist Stanford U, IWM in Vienna, U of Basel, JLU Giessen, and others. Her most recent publications include: “Russia vs. Ukraine: A Subaltern Empire Against The “Populism of Hope” in AUC Studia Territorialia (#2, 2022); “Who Owns the Ukrainian State: The Elites – People Tensions After 1991” in Regions of Conflicts in Eastern Europe (Harrassowitz, 2022); and editing the special Topos issue “Transformations of Society and Academia in the Wake of the Russian War in Ukraine: Urgent Notes” (#2, 2022).