UKRAINIAN NATIONAL IDENTITY IN CONDITIONS OF WAR
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.32782/2786-9385/2025-6-8Keywords:
national identity, national stability, Ukrainian people, society, war, Russian armed aggressionAbstract
The Russian large-scale armed aggression against Ukraine has unprecedentedly strengthened the importance of national identity as one of the most important factors of national stability. It is identity that has become the basis on which the ability of Ukrainians to long-term, nationwide and consolidated resistance was formed. The study of Ukrainian national identity allows us to understand how deep values, common historical narratives and ideas about the nation were transformed into the practical force of national resistance, and at the same time, how the war transformed Ukrainian national identity itself. The war not only posed extremely difficult challenges to the Ukrainian nation, but also gave a powerful impetus to the strengthening and development of modern Ukrainian national identity, its modernization and integration into broader European and world contexts. During the war, Ukrainian national identity underwent profound changes. These changes affected the self-awareness of citizens, their system of values, models of collective behavior and ideas about the future of the state. In this context, Ukrainian national identity appears not only as a cultural or historical, but also as a socio-political phenomenon, which is actively formed under the influence of existential threats. The article analyzes the determining factors of strengthening and development of Ukrainian national identity: the consolidation of society around the common goal of protecting statehood, a sharp increase in trust in the Armed Forces of Ukraine, a large-scale volunteer movement, a rethinking of narratives of historical memory, a massive return of interest in the Ukrainian language, culture and symbolics. The national resistance, during which Ukrainian society actively builds its own subjectivity through distancing itself from the society of the aggressor state, strengthening the pro-European and democratic vectors of its development, is of particular importance in the process of forming modern Ukrainian national identity.
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