Elite mythmaking on the run: the case of World War Two narrative in modern Ukraine

Abstract

The thesis inquires into governmental memory politics in Ukraine in the aftermath of Euromaidan protests focusing on the representation of the Second World War. At the theoretical level, the thesis has scrutinized concepts pertaining to studies in memory politics: political memory, memory agents, elite-mythmaking, and narratives. It also conceptualized the European discourses on the Second World War in order to evaluate newly forged Ukrainian narrative on WW2 in their light. At the analysis level, the thesis both scrutinized official legislative and administrative measures pertaining to WW2 remembrance as well as applied narrative analysis to the case of newly introduced narrative about the Ukrainians in WW2 by developing a set of narrative analysis categories. As the thesis argues, elite-mythmaking selectively ‘Europeanizes’ Ukrainian representation of WW2 while the narrative follows the essential characteristics of the Eastern Central European (ECE) historical narrative about the Second World War.