The Policy of Decommunization in Kharkiv: the Fight for Identity

Abstract

Today Kharkiv is the border region with Russia and the frontline region, which is one of the highest numbers of internally displaced persons due to the hybrid war in the Donbas. The dominant idea of modern hybrid wars is the information wars, which are fought not for territories, but for the recoding and destruction of identity. The process of decommunization, which actively started in Ukraine after the adoption of the package of decommunization laws in 2015, has become the battlefield for identity in Kharkiv.

A key feature of Kharkiv's decommunization policy was its hybridity, which was monitored almost at every stage of the decommunization process. Hybridity was manifested in counteracting the process of decommunization, its sabotaging, delaying, imitation, demonstration of power and disregard for the opinion of different communities of the inhabitants of Kharkiv regarding toponymic policies, etc. In general, the effective public position of carriers of Ukrainian identity contributed to the effectiveness of decommunization in Kharkiv.

The three stages in the implementation of the decommunization policy in Kharkiv are distinguished and the signs of hybridity of the decommunization policy are demonstrated in each of them: the decommunization period, the post-decommunization period, the re-communisation period. Decommunization displaced most of the place names from the Kharkiv map, which were markers of Soviet identity. It was well-reasoned that the processes of reformatting the former type of disappearing Soviet identity into the neo-Soviet type of collective identity were intensified in the post-decommunization period in Kharkiv. Among the basic markers of the neo-Soviet type of collective identity, there are three groups of stereotypes that are actively embodied in the mass consciousness in post-decommunization Kharkiv: Soviet; pro-Russian; Orthodox-Moscow.

Aggressive methods of stereotyping have led to the recoding and updating of stereotypes related to the Soviet past. Zhukov's ideologue became a key marker of the hybridity of decommissioning policy in Kharkiv. Zhukov is a Soviet marshal of the Stalin era, who plays a main role in positioning his own identity for non-Soviet types of collective identity.