Authors

Anastasiya Byesyedina¹;  ¹ The University of Sydney, Australia

Discussion

This study systematically investigates how social movements construct national identity by drawing a comparison between the Ukrainian revolutions: 2004 Orange Revolution and 2013-14 Revolution of Dignity. Revolutions are sites of identity construction, where the identity’s malleable nature makes it susceptible to change. Identity is a subject prone to contestation, and consequently reconstruction, through a process which is rooted in a historical environment and traces of which can be observed through the dimension of education. Education has a direct impact on the construction of identity given that it can transform and consolidate knowledge and national narratives. The aim of this paper is to investigate the ways in which top-down actors can shape education, and consequently construct Ukrainian identity during times of unrest. Furthermore, this study develops the concept of mediated top-down influence that illustrates the complex and significant agency of teachers in constructing diverging historical narratives in the classroom. Using methods of process tracing, archival research and discourse analysis, this paper will analyse the following objects and data: curriculums, Ukrainian school history books and interviews. In order to observe changes in identity construction, this study will focus on tracing the discourses of the following events, figures and organisations: Holodomor, WWII, Bandera, UPA, Orange Revolution, and Revolution of Dignity.