(R)evolution of Identity

This chapter focuses on the initial turn from the ambiguous notion of ethnic identity to the notion of political identity, and its subsequent subversion by the notion of agency, which forms the basis for both resilience and the decolonial spirit in current-day Ukraine. This chapter focuses on culture to interpret the relationship between protests and identity construction. Here, I explore the role of previous protest movements in both Ukraine and Russia through the lens of the transition from the postcolonial condition to the decolonial situation. The revolution of political identity and its evolution into agency in Ukraine have passed two important stages following its independence in 1991: the so-called Orange Revolution in 2004 and the Euromaidan Revolution in 2014. Art activism played an important role in the formation of participatory democracy and reflected the creation of new horizontal relations in civic society. The chapter takes an in-depth look at how Euromaidan constituted the role of Ukrainian culture and society not only as a center of new, liberated epistemic production—but as its epicenter. It also proposes that while the ambicoloniality faced its dissolution with the Euromaidan Revolution, as a profound impulse for detachment from affective ties with Russia and the subversion of the formative power of ambivalence behind it, Russia, upon suppressing any potentiality for its own revolution, remained trapped in postcolonial ambivalence. The chapter includes an analysis of works that highlight the decolonial reinterpretation of belonging and identity, turning instead to the notion of “agency.” It also traces the underlying change in the understanding of the notions of solidarity and consolidation, and discusses how art and activism reflected postcolonial and eventually decolonial developments in postrevolutionary Ukrainian society. I discuss how a decolonial turn brings in syncretic polarization that makes profound changes to the hybridity of colonial expression, as well as aims at dismantling postcolonial ambivalence.