Mark Naydorf
Department of Cultural Studies, Odessa National Polytechnic University
“The Sociocultural Dimension of the Postmaidan Crisis, Or, In Search of Mutual Understanding”
Presentation to a council of experts from Odessan Universities (formed after May 2 under the auspices of the Oblast State Administration)
June 4, 2014
1. What has forced us to gather here today?
The sharp confrontation that we have witnessed in clashes between civic groups in the postmaidan period is what brings us here today. We feel that we can no longer simply stand by and do nothing. And yet we are held back by the lack of clarity we have about the situation, and by the absence of appropriate models and patterns that we might confidently follow. This means we have to figure things out for ourselves. There are many opinions. It is difficult to find satisfactory agreement among them on the basis of a more or less holistic understanding of the situation.
2. Framing the problem. We can localize the current situation in time and space in different ways.
The temporal dimension. For different groups the crisis begins at different points in time: the fall of the USSR (“23 years of independence”); the maidan of 2004 that did not achieve its goals; the election of Viktor Yanukovich as President in February 2010. Some think the beating of students during the “new” EuroMaidan on November 30 started the crisis. For others the beginning lies in the Right Sector's attack on the Ministry of Interior troops on December 1, 2013, which transformed the EuroMaidan into the Kyiv Uprising, which ended with the President’s departure. If we come closer to our own concerns and interests, then we should mention the tragic date of May 2, the significance of which we do not need to explain in Odessa and beyond.
The spatial dimension. The current situation can be localized spatially at different scales as well: the city; the country; and the world – if we consider the interests of Russia, the EU, the US, and other countries that have taken a strong position in the conflict such as Australia and Canada.
The more factors we take into account, the more precisely we will be able to ascertain what is happening with us. The picture may also become too complicated for us to draw practical conclusions. However, we need to navigate between Scylla and Charybdis.
3. Understanding the Causes of the Political Crisis in Ukraine
The EuroMaidan and the Kyiv Uprising had their own causes. However, they are not completely obvious. For that reason, there is a great deal of conjecturing and different versions of events. For many of us, it is easier explain the cause of the EuroMaidan in terms of foreign intervention than the explosion of Ukrainians’ anger at the politics of their own president and his government. Here is an example of the latter from Facebook.
This is the commentary of the well-known pediatrician Evgeniy Komarovskiy:
An absolute fact, about which there is no doubt:
- The current political elite of Ukraine has caused an extreme political and economic crisis in the country and threated the very existence of Ukrainian statehood. Further, for ALL residents of the country, the combination of words “Civil War” has ceased to be theoretical, a distraction, or something that is historically or geographically distant: civil war is right outside our window. Those who bear responsibility are not Russians, Ukrainians, fascists, or banderivtsy, Putin or Obama. They are Ukraine’s current politicians.
It is not difficult to list the characteristics of Ukraine’s political class (beau monde): pathological degree of thievery; deceit; a complete lack of principles; a hidden, but well developed capacity to separate their own interests and means from the state’s; and a capacity for betrayal.
At the same time, they lack the following characteristics: genuine culturedness (civility): ability to pay attention to their interlocutor; ability to take part in debates in a mutually respectful manner; and an understanding of the concept of “a honest word.” They are unable to admit a mistake, and are not capable of recognizing that anyone else may be right. They have become accustomed to achieving their goals in ways that do not lead to personal improvement or increased effectiveness but rather by denigrating, persecuting and insulting any possible opponents.
Vadim Chernyi (well known Odessan entrepreneur and politician) writes:
- Over the last 20 years we did not build a state. We consumed what the Soviets left behind. We stole everything. Factories and Cheremushki [Soviet era apartment blocks] have been amortized to zero. We’ve brought up a generation without an education. Our class of bureaucrats is totally – 100% - corrupt without exception. We have a half a million laws. We have no army. This is a country where women want to marry a parliamentary deputy. We are a huge, poor, multicultural state at the juncture of civilizations.
Ser З-М, a popular Ukrainian blogger writes:
- In the last 3.5 years in Ukraine every day unofficial taxes have been collected from and squeezed out of businesses; enterprises without any administrative resource [allies in the bureaucracy] or corrupt land schemes became victims of business raids.
4. The spread of the EuroMaidan across Ukraine (and the world) and the problem of self-definition (self-identification) in relation to the “postmaidan” semantic field.
In one way or another, the EuroMaidan and the Kyiv Uprising that followed it in 2014 have created a new semantic field.
The Kyiv events threatened us with transformation although no one knew which ones. A change of politicians in positions of power? The destruction of the state? A change of economic order? The establishment of a more just society (with “normal” courts, a “normal” prosecutor and a “normal” militia (police force)?
One of the most important issues was Ukraine’s choice between an economic union with Moscow (“eastern” Customs Union) or with the West (“Associative Agreement with the European Union”). In making this choice citizens tried to imagine not only wider economic consequences (external credit, prospects for particular sectors of the economy, importing energy resources, the export of industrial or agricultural products, conditions for innovation, etc.). They also tried to situate Ukraine among the states of the world in terms of personal and family issues (simplification or complication of contacts, international business, visas) and symbolic-value orientations (heroes, state language policy)
As long as the EuroMaidan existed in Kyiv, and as long as the uprising was a Kyiv event with widespread and decisive support on the part of Western (Right Bank) Ukraine – Ukrainians remained divided in their attitudes towards these events. Few considered Yanukovich to be a successful president, but some considered the uprising to be a misfortune while for others it was something very positive (blago). Some supported the maidan in word and deed and some in spirit. Many preferred to be a third side: they tried to act as though this were “not their war” and held back “above it all” taking the position of “a plague on both your houses.”
The end of the Kyiv phase of the confrontation (the president’s flight from the country) and the putting in place of a temporary executive power led to the transfer of the problem and conflict of the EuroMaidan from Kyiv to the whole country. At that point turning political goals (fighting corruption, lustration, transparency of power, change of political elite, weakening the influence of “local/regional masters”) into legal and structural transformation – paid for by the victims among those who rose up – came to affect all citizens of Ukraine, their well being, and their future. We need to remember that at least half the country benefited in one way or another from Yanukovich’s regime: bureaucrats, civil servants, businessmen and their families who received income from corruption schemes, illegal preferences, and protection from the law.
Moreover, the polarization of the postmaidan semantic field became more acute as a result of the interference of Russia. The annexation of Crimea and the threat of invasion in the southeastern oblasts of Ukraine confronted residents of this region with a choice concerning a future “under Putin.” The specificity of the structure of the Russian Federation was attractive for some citizens of Ukraine and completely unacceptable for others.
In this way, after the change of power in Kyiv, citizens of the country were confronted with the issue of self-definition (self-identification) in the postmaidan space. Further, this self-definition was not symbolic (flags, ribbons) but existential as it affected the destiny of each and every person.
5. Contemporary mass consciousness and the unpredictability of individual self-identification.
And so, large numbers of Ukraine’s citizens were dragged into the process of self-identification in a field the existence of which until recently they did not even presume. How do they imagine this field?
The semantic field in a mass society is always constructed in a binaristic, bi-polar, and antagonistic manner. For example, “Are you for the Whites or the Reds?” “Are you for order (Yanukovich) or lawlessness (A Junta of Banderivtsi)” “Are you for the “Ukes” (Ukrainians) or the “Colorados” [the name of a beetle that eats potatoes which was given to people who wear the St. George Ribbon used in commemorations of the Great Patriotic War] “Are you for ‘Sovok’ (Soviet-style) or for a civilized society?”
It’s important to recognize that the formation of a semantic field and the process of identification (or positioning) within it are not sequential but simultaneous processes. The field of meanings is a field of the main semantic positions or meanings that people occupy and appropriate. Self-identification answers the question “who am I?” in this field. For example, am I a supporter of the “yellow-and-blues” (colors of the Ukrainian flag)? Or am I supporter of those who wear the St. George Ribbon. Am I a supporter of those who “commemorate the victors of the Great Patriotic War?” Or am I a supporter of the “descendants of the heroes who fought the Bolsheviks?”
Any self-identification, even a very personal one, concerns the relationship between an individual and some sort of community. Any community is formed through supporters’ coming to adhere to it. This process is two-sided and difficult to predict.
In addition, meanings imply difference. Differences can be subtle and detailed. They can be crude and highly generalized. Differentiation formed through meetings and demonstrations can only be highly generalized.
6. “Maidan” and “anti-Maidan” – mass citizens’ movements motivated by mutual fear.
The result of self-definition processes is a semantic field that many now agree can be described as the opposition between the “maidan” and the “anti-maidan.”
It is important that belonging to each of these sides of this opposition is not tied to any recognized sociological stratum. We cannot predict on which side of this confrontation a person we don’t know (or even a person we know) will be using criteria such as age, gender, education, profession, ethnic and/or national identity, confession, lifestyle, place of residence, citizenship.
In this case, we do not have two political parties, ethnic or national communities, or opposing states. We have here a confrontation between two mass movements. We can describe mass movements as voluntary, anonymous, numerically undefined, temporary large groupings of people who are united by a general socially significant goal and solidarity regarding the realization of certain goals. Consequently a key issue is the goals that are able to temporarily join significant groups of people into a mass movement.
If we approach the participants of these movements with direct questions, we will be very disappointed with the absence of clear responses. The goals of these mass movements are not developed into concepts. They are based not on arguments and facts but on images and impressions. What are “banderivtsi” and “vatniki” [the name of a heavy wadding coat worn by workers and a term used to characterize easterners] but images without any factual meaning? The concepts of Ukraine and Russia in the field of mass consciousness have also been transformed into images that are intrinsically linked to “truth,” “justice,” “force,” etc. This is not the place to analyze political systems and other particularities of the two societies and their social projects. What we have here is attitudes and feelings. Here are some examples from the readers on different sites:
− For me personally, US is a pariah. I have something to compare it with. Who cares who recognized the Russian Federation’s annexation of Crimea? The main result –Ukraine is no more, and Crimea is part of Russia. I do feel sorry for Ukrainians. They trampled their country, destroyed democracy, lost territory, and brought civil war to their country. In the short-term – shit, in the long term – poverty.
− The Ukrainian army ceased to exist after it gave up its oath to the legitimate president (Yanukovich) and began to shoot its own people. Now it is a “terrorist band of the Kyiv Junta.” Yanukovich is the legal Commander in Chief of the Ukrainian Army and these troops changed sides and joined the self-appointed rulers (samozvantsi). Besides that, among the band formations of the Junta there are different punitive brigades of fascists, criminals, maidanuti (derogatory term for Maidan supporters), and others (“Dnepr,” “Donbass,” etc.)
We can see here that when we try to analyze the positions of the different sides that our interlocutors go quiet. People don’t have anything to say because they are positioning themselves not in relation to facts but in relation to phantoms.
Alexander Prigarin (an ethnologist at Odessa National University) has already noted that the goals that unite people in this semantic field are experienced as the negation of something – and vary from a negative attitude to the readiness to denigrate or destroy. (You can compare the situation with how an anti-Semite relates not to a Jew but to the image of a Jew). But how are these negative relations experienced? As fear – “experiences, conditioned by an impending real or imagined disaster.” In other words, the image of anticipated disaster is the semantic centre of both movements. The Maidan as a mass movement anticipates a disaster from continuing the political project of President Yanukovich and his group. The Anti-Maidan as a mass movement anticipates disaster from the new political authorities that they call the “Kyiv Junta.” Both sides expect disaster and hope to be saved through the negation (denigration, weakening, mocking, destruction) of the source of anticipated disaster. We can find different forms of this conflict in social media, in street demonstrations, in vandalism, and in armed conflict, which is localized at the moment in the eastern oblasts of Ukraine.
7. Practical conclusions and Recommendations.
In the interests of resolving the conflict we need to work in two directions.
First, we need to rationalize the motifs of mutual fear. We need to strive to replace phantoms with reality, and images, rooted in poorly understood pasts, with programs of a common future.
Second, we need to strive to ensure that there is space for the opposing side in each of the world orders to which that these mass movements adhere. In this way, the anticipated future will not be connected with an impending disaster.
Translated by Tanya Richardson
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Mark Isaakovich Naydorf has a candidate degree in philosophy, and is associate professor in the cultural studies department of Odessa National Polytechnic University. His most recent book is entitled Outline of Contemporary Mass Culture. His work is available at https://sites.google.com/site/marknaydorftexts/