РЕПРЕЗЕНТАЦІЇ ІСТОРІЇ УКРАЇНИ В АНГЛОМОВНОМУ НАУКОВОМУ ДИСКУРСІ

Abstract

The article highlights the problem of rethinking international communication about Ukrainian history, taking into account the de-imperialization of the historical narrative and overcoming the Russian optics on Ukraine that prevails in Western academic discourse. Sometimes in Western trends, this process is called decolonization, and the corresponding work is called postcolonial studies. While postcolonialism plays a leading role in foreign scholarly visions, it is only gaining momentum in Ukraine. Given the special attention to Ukraine as a country where a new global political architecture is being created today, there is a need to analyze and systematize foreigners’ perceptions of the Ukrainian past, as this will allow for better communication and potentially improve understanding between Ukraine and the Western world in general. Given the total dominance of Russian historiography and its derivative narratives on the entire history of Eastern Europe, this area is extremely relevant and even strategically necessary, as it allows us to study the worldview of both political elites and the electorate of Europe, which is based on a specific vision of the past and directly affects our present and future. This fact actualizes historical imagology as one of the tools for realizing the above. The study is based on the scientific work of foreign historians of non-Ukrainian origin on the history of Ukraine in the English-language discourse. The purpose of the study is to trace the general idea of non-Ukrainian researchers about Ukraine and its historical development, to analyze the state of scientific development of the topic and the source base of the study, and to highlight the main concepts and approaches to the representation of Ukraine’s history. The chronological framework covers the scholarly discourse that began with Ukraine’s independence in 1991 and continues to this day.