The TWENTIETH-CENTURY Colonialism within Ukrainian Academic and Public Discourse in the Era of Independence

Abstract

The article analyses the notion post-, anti- colonialism in Ukrainian political and public discourse since 1991. The author focuses on the debate about coloniality and its reflections on Ukrainian political thought in ХХ century. The first part of the article devotes to the problems of applying postcolonial theories to the Ukrainian context and the specifics of the relationship between the Soviet Union’s center and the national republics that represented the periphery. The second part analyses the influence of the legacy of Ukrainian national communists on the notion of colonialism in contemporary Ukrainian historiography, while the third part focus on the processes of decolonization represented in public discourse. Finally, the author analyses how Euromaidan launched the politics of decommunization and how it affected the post-Soviet space.