Constructing Ukraine’s public space through preserving the memory of the fallen in the Russian-Ukrainian war

Abstract

Russian aggression, which has been ongoing since 2014, has led to the deaths of both military and civilian citizens of Ukraine. For this reason, the perpetuation of the memory about the fallen in the Russian-Ukrainian war at the present stage of historical development is an important tool for shaping the future generations’ historical memory. The purpose of the study was to provide a comprehensive and holistic analysis of the peculiarities of constructing Ukraine’s public space by preserving the memory of the fallen in the Russian-Ukrainian war. The research was conducted on the basis of a wide range of general scientific (analysis, synthesis, objectivity) and special methods that allowed to analyse the policy and practices of commemorating the memory of the fallen during the Russian-Ukrainian war. The research results indicated that in the period from 2014-2021, the public space was dominated mainly by the practices of commemorating military personnel and individual cases of civilians. It is noted that a significant number of memorial sites after the large-scale invasion of Ukraine by Russia were occupied or in the combat zone, and therefore are probably destroyed and will no longer perform its main function of preserving the memory of the Russian-Ukrainian war. After the large-scale Russian invasion, there is a certain spontaneity in the commemoration of the fallen soldiers and civilians in the Russian-Ukrainian war, especially in the public space. It had been found that the public space practically does not reflect the genocidal dimension of the war, associated with massive Russian missile attacks on civilians, as well as the ways of commemorating the tortured Ukrainian citizens in the discovered torture chambers in the de-occupied territories. The research results are applied in nature, as they can be used by central and local government authorities to make adjustments to the current memory policy and launch a new series of fundamental researches related to the development of a new concept for perpetuating the memory of victims of the genocidal Russian-Ukrainian war