Monuments and factories: Rethinking the Soviet past in wartime East Ukraine

Ukraine has been at the centre of geopolitical conflict since 2014. The emergence of the 'Euromaidan' social movement and the military conflict in the Eastern regions reiterated some of the key questions that surrounded the creation of independent Ukraine in 1991: How to address the symbolic, infrastructural and economic legacies of the Soviet past in Ukraine when Russia is implementing a military offensive in the Eastern part of the country? How do regional differences within Ukraine factor in the evolution of local political attitudes and forms of social mobilization? And finally, what are the potential directions of future development for Ukraine and how do citizens navigate these complicated political landscapes? These questions gained more pressing importance with the full-scale invasion of Ukraine by Russia in early 2022. Using the ethnographic data collected for my PhD between 2015 and 2018, the aim of my work during the Fellowship is to show how lived experiences of geopolitical conflict shaped a sense of belonging and anticipations of the future in East Ukraine in the interim period between the start of the Donbas war in 2014 and the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022.
Through a case study of urban transformation in Mariupol, a former centre of the Soviet steel industry that was temporarily occupied by Russian-backed separatists in the spring of 2014, my PhD explored how different categories of residents re-evaluate their relationship to a shared Soviet past and its spatial and environmental legacies as a result of geopolitical conflict and immediate experiences of military violence. In the thesis I argued that despite the significant cultural, linguistic and kinship ties with Russia, the first-hand experience of military aggression prompted my interlocutors to gradually distance themselves from the 'Russian Other' and articulate their belonging to a Ukrainian political nation associated with ideas of freedom and open-ended visions of the future. My findings also demonstrated that the changing economic significance of local steel industry was just as defining for the way people related to Soviet urban legacies in Mariupol as the military conflict. With the start of full-scale war in 2022, the gradual shifts taking place in Ukrainian society since 2014 have experienced rapid and radical crystallization in many cases. My research on Soviet urban legacies means that I am well-placed to develop vital longue durée perspectives on the current crisis, examining how binaries between 'Russia' and 'Europe' over-simplify complex Ukrainian histories, as well as how the longer evolution of urban practices and materialities inflect social allegiances and ideas about the future.
To disseminate my findings within and beyond the academic community, I will produce a monograph to be submitted to the Berghahn Books series 'Dislocations'. Titled In-Between Futures: Urban transformation and life projects in Mariupol before the Russian war, the book will contribute to academic discussions on postsocialist transformation, environmentalism, memory studies and urban planning, and will be written in a style accessible not only for academics but also the wider general public. Besides the monograph and media appearances, the Fellowship will allow me to extend the impact of my research among Ukrainian and UK-based cultural professionals and civil society members through a joint workshop where professionals from the two countries can develop new ideas and collaborations on the subject of memory, heritage and rebuilding. Finally, throughout the duration of the Fellowship, I will apply for new funding to conduct new research on the reconstruction of Ukraine after the Russian war. My expertise on Mariupol and its contested urban legacies makes me ideally positioned to follow this process from its starting point and contribute to the understanding of conceptual and practical ways in which the future of Ukraine is at stake.