History Works as Texts of Culture, or, Professional Historians in the National Narrative’s Embrace

UDC 323.2 (477) Oleksandr Grytsenko Institute for Cultural Research, National Academy of Arts of Ukraine, Kyiv. ORCID 0000-0001-6936-7765 DOI: https://doi.org/10.37627/2311-9489-17-2020-1.99-115 Keywords: culture of remembrance, text of culture, the basic model of historical narrative, mode of emplotment, narrative substance, discourse analysis, Ukrainian-Polish shared past. Abstract. The article offers a comparative study of Ukrainian and Polish historical…Continue reading History Works as Texts of Culture, or, Professional Historians in the National Narrative’s Embrace

Ostap Vyshnia in Ukrainian Culture of Remembrance: ‘King of Sales’, ‘People’s Satirist’, a Public Institution, a Propaganda Tool, a National Martyr

Abstract. The article offers a study of the evolution of cultural representations, ways of reception and critical interpretations of the work and personality of the prominent Ukrainian satirist Ostap Vyshnia (1889‒1956) in Ukraine’s culture of remembrance and in Ukrainian society in general. Despite the existence of dozens of books and hundreds of articles about Vyshnia, both academic and popular, published in Ukraine and elsewhere since the late 1920s, the subject is still waiting for a comprehensive, unbiased, systemic and interdisciplinary scholarly study. The article is an attempt at such a study, focused on cultural representations of the personality of Ostap Vyshnia and on the reception of some of his important works. Also, it deals with social and political uses and abuses of Vyshnia’s enormous popularity and of the symbolic capital of his public persona as ‘the people’s satirist’.

Models of Cultural Space and the Issue of Identities of Its Elements

UDC 130.02 (477) Oleksandr Grytsenko Institute for Сultural Research of the National Academy of Arts of Ukraine, Кyiv. ORCID 0000-0001-6936-7765 DOI: https://doi.org/10.37627/2311-9489-15-2019-1.66-82 Keywords: culture space, public sphere, semiosphere, national culture, national identity, discursive formation, discursive identity, polyspheric model of culture space. Abstract. The article describes two models of a nation’s cultural space in the age…Continue reading Models of Cultural Space and the Issue of Identities of Its Elements

“Decommunization Laws”, Their Practical Implementation, and Heritage Protection: Legal, Aesthetic and Ideological Controversies

UDC 323.2 (477) Oleksandr Grytsenko Institute for Cultural Research, National Academy of Arts of Ukraine, Kyiv. ORCID 0000-0001-6936-7765 DOI: https://doi.org/10.37627/2311-9489-14-2018-2.148-160 Keywords: memory policy, legislation, decommunization, heritage protection, war memorials, removal of Soviet monu-ments, commemorative practices, remembrance of the World War II. Abstract. The article deals with controversial relations between socalled ‘Decommunization Laws’ adopted by Ukraine’s…Continue reading “Decommunization Laws”, Their Practical Implementation, and Heritage Protection: Legal, Aesthetic and Ideological Controversies

Integrity of a National Cultural Space: an Intrinsic Feature or a Desirable Goal?

Abstract. The article proposes a critical overview of the development of theoretical conceptualization of national culture and national cultural space, based on the concepts of public sphere, civil society, the civilizing process (J. Habermas, J. Kean, N.Elias and others), on theories of nation as a cultural/communicative community (A. Smith, K. Deutsch, B. Anderson and others) which suggest that a nation is a communicative group characterized by unity of its culture as a system of several building blocks (such as language, literature and arts, rites and beliefs, as well as national social, political, economic, cultural institutions) which are supposed to be complimentary. Where such complimentarity (or integrity of sorts) is not achieved, nations tend to fall apart.
This issue is very important for Ukraine, where processes of modern nation-building (and modern national culturebuilding as well) have been much more bumpy than in most European nations. Contemporary globalization, controversial by its nature and characterized by its disjuncture (A. Appadurai), adds still more complications, transforming the very notions of national culture and inter-cultural communication/ and arguably bringing about ‘new feudalization’.