Ukraine is the best example of "nationalizing" nationalism. During its twenty-five year old existence the language question – in addition to historical approach and ethnical identity – has belonged to the unclosed questions of personal and group identity, and represents one of the central themes of political struggle. Official Ukrainian language policy perma- nently wants to promote the use of Ukrainian or Russian by overshadowing one or the oth- er. Measures regulating language use have never been consequently applied, which fact in itself is enough to represent a permanent subject for political campaigns. Political powers unable to solve actual economic and social problems wanted to distract attention by this means. That is why the politicized language question could contribute to the political crisis and the outbreak of the armed conflict at the end of 2013 and at the beginning of 2014 in a politically unstable country facing economic breakdown. The present paper examines the role of the language question in the Ukrainian crisis in the period of 2014–2016.
In Ukraine, having arrived at a critical stage of its history, three areas can be highlighted at the level of legislation during the struggle for the way forward since the end of 2013: the language issue, the constitutional process, and the efforts to eliminate the Soviet legacy. The subject of our analysis is the four laws belonging to the 2015 legislative package on decommunization, with an outlook to the broader context, as well. The four laws in question decide about who are heroes and who are enemies in history; what Ukraine’s relationship is with World War II, as well as with the Communist and Nazi regimes. The laws point out firmly and excluding any further debate the primacy of the country’s independence over all else, and the protection of the ideal of independence by any means concerning both the past and the present. The laws prescribe impeachment as a sanction for denying their contents. This story – hot memory influenced by politics – will be summarized for the period of 2015–2016.
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