ZELENKO: “NATIONAL REVIVAL OF UKRAINE IN THE POST-WAR PERIOD”

On August 31, 2022, a session of the Presidium of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine was held. The head of the Department of Political Institutions and Processes of the Kuras Institute of Political and Ethnic Studies of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine, Doctor of Political Sciences, Professor, corresponding member of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine G. I. Zelenko spoke at the meeting with the report “National revival of Ukraine in the post-war period”.

Corresponding member of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine, Galyna Zelenko

She noted that with the beginning of the full-scale Russian invasion, a significant acceleration of nation-building processes began in Ukraine. Changes that used to take decades are now happening in months or even weeks. The state of Ukraine turned out to be much stronger than it seemed before, and national stability, as the war showed, is based primarily on the ability for social self-organization. It should become the basis of the post-war recovery of Ukraine.

It is obvious today that the phase of civil (political) self-identification with Ukraine has been passed. The full-scale invasion of the Russian Federation into Ukraine on February 24, 2022 significantly eliminated those socio-political divisions that have always spawned an identity crisis in Ukraine – linguistic, ethnic, regional, religious, foreign political, etc. The tragic realities of the war contributed to the acceleration of the formation of certain monadic communities among Ukrainians, united around such stable ideologies as a strong nation, a strong state, a single state language, a common enemy, and protection through integration into the EU and NATO.

At the same time, in post-war Ukraine, systemic problems related to the institutional capacity of the state will remain, although the war also demonstrated that state institutions were much more stable than many thought before. Galyna Zelenko noted that the reasons for such success should be investigated, publicly recorded and should be made as a basis for further development and strengthening of these institutions.

The scientist also noted that Ukrainian society is characterized by multifacetedness and the ability to self-organize. These qualities are the basis for the development of consociational democracy in Ukraine, built on the involvement, and not the exclusion, of different communities in the development of state policy with the aim of integrating Ukraine into the global context. After all, against the background of the war and the catastrophic drop in the standard of living, demographic problems, a kind of rollback of that civic identity, which was discussed above,  will inevitably happen, and this will mean the emergence of new – much deeper and more colorful socio-political divisions. Therefore, scientific institutions of a socio-humanitarian type face the task of concentrating efforts for scientific research directed at an accurate diagnosis of the condition of Ukrainian society, which will take into account all the complexities and problems that inevitably appear in the state in the conditions of war and rapid post-war recovery.

Appropriate attention should be paid to the study of the mechanisms of integration of Ukrainian society. Within the framework of this research, it is advisable to focus on the study of the transformation of the value orientations of the population; social factors of democratization of the political system of Ukraine; lines of potential socio-political faults and conflicts; study of the condition of development of social capital; informational policy; ethno-national politics and ethnic minorities; political education (civic education), etc.

In order to integrate Ukraine into the global context, it is obvious that the study of global trends and Ukraine’s place in the changing world is necessary. The priority should be to study the European future of Ukraine in view of granting Ukraine the status of a candidate for EU membership. We should turn to the study of regional and global processes in other parts of the world, which inevitably affect Ukraine and which are extremely episodical in Ukraine. At the same time, it is important to develop a frontier model for Ukraine, so as not to become a country with an economic and social structure completely dependent on the development of the agricultural sector and military industry.