Historiografia ukraińska i postmodernizm: retrospektywy i perspektywy

Abstract

Modern Ukrainian historiography has been involved in pursuing two contradictory goals. It has been striving to cover a distance that separates it from Western historiography, at the same time trying to create what can be referred to as a canonical interpretation of the Ukrainian past. Many Ukrainian historians perceive postmodernism in terms of a new historiographical trend, failing to see the epistemological innovations that characterize a “postmodern situation”. However, some Ukrainian historians are of the opinion that postmodernism, by undermining traditional ways of practising history and questioning historiography’s contribution to the process of nation-state building, eliminates the very possibility of creating such a canonical view of the national past. The discussion of the theoretical foundations of a new synthesis of Ukrainian history has revealed the contradiction between the intention of following new scholarly trends on one hand and of writing a work that fulfils legitimizing functions on the other. However, according to this author, an attempt to present the national past from new methodological perspectives (cultural, anthropological) is likely to give it a more humanistic “face”, thus enhancing rather than weakening its legitimizing effect. Young Ukrainian historians are open to new methodological novelties and try to adopt them in their research practice (cultural and anthropological approaches). The overcoming of stereotypes and old patterns that permeate Ukrainian historiography appears to be an urgent task for Ukrainian scholars to carry out today.