Ethnographic Observations of the Wartime Everyday Life of the Population of Southern Ukraine: Post-Expedition Reflections

Abstract

Based on field materials, an attempt has been made to analyze the state of self-awareness among modern residents of the former centre of freedoms of the Zaporizhzhian Army, which included parts of the present-day Dnipropetrovsk and Kherson regions. The transformations taking place in this socio-cultural space and their influence on self-identification processes are traced from an anthropological perspective. Examples of russian imperial attitude towards the cultural landscape of the southern Naddniprianshchyna in different historical periods are provided. Parallels are drawn with the testimonies of the renowned traveller and ethnographer, Alexander Afanasyev-Chuzhbinsky, who, in the mid‑19th century, exploring the region and noted negative trends regarding the economic practices of the new owners of Zaporizhzhia lands. It is argued that a similar destructive impact on nature and culture was the practice of constructing large dams on the Dnipro River during the Soviet period, which generated a distinct conflict between russian imperial and Ukrainian worldviews. Through the prism of the author’s collected testimonies during expeditions to the places of the Cossack Great Meadow visited by A. Afanasyev-Chuzhbinsky, contemporary events during the russian-Ukrainian war are comprehended. The focus is on the issue of the new genocide and ecocide brought by the occupiers to the south of Ukraine as a result of the explosion of the Kakhovka Hydroelectric Power Station. The study reveals family strategies for preserving cultural memory concerning the former landscape and the role of the Zaporizhzhian Cossacks in modern processes of self-identification, through which not only the indigenous inhabitants but also participants of new waves of migration mentally assimilated the Zaporizhzhia heritage. Consequently, the military component of the cultural landscape of the Southern Naddniprianshchyna under the new conditions of the russian-Ukrainian war is capable of indirectly influencing the Ukrainian society. All of this calls for active protective measures regarding the cultural heritage and further comprehensive organization of scientific research in various fields of natural and socio-humanitarian sciences in order to preserve the values of the region and the development of Ukraine as a whole.