DISCOURSE OF POSTCOLONIALISM IN THE CONTEXT OF MODERN UKRAINIAN SOCIO-CULTURAL SPACE

Abstract

The article attempts to consider the phenomenon of postcolonialism in the context of the modern Ukrainian socio-cultural space and outline the main directions of its discursive practices in Ukrainian culture. The axiological ambivalence, marginalization, and uncertainty of the worldview orientations of the modern Ukrainian socio- cultural space are outlined, which are a consequence of postcolonial processes that for a long time determined the features of the existence of national culture in conditions of colonial enslavement and stateless status. The postcolonial situation in Ukrainian culture, therefore, concerns «double standards» and cases of outright distortions of Ukrainian historical heritage and cultural patterns. The colonial principles of imperial totalitarian policy towards Ukrainian culture and the people concerned the distortion of Ukrainian history, the theft of artifacts of Ukrainian culture, the extermination of Ukrainian intelligentsia and peasants, in general, the eradication of historical memory, the erosion of national identity, the suppression of national consciousness, etc. The colonial legacy results in processes of marginalization, which often outline the socio-cultural dimension of Ukrainian society as situations of borderlineity, transitional state, uncertainty, etc. In modern postcolonial discourse, the concepts of the «little-russian image» and «schizophrenic» of Ukrainian society (simultaneous orientation to opposite worldview and value priorities) are reflected; often the symptoms of the socio-cultural space of Ukraine are the «postcolonial syndrome» (M. Ryabchuk) and the «post-totalitarian generational symptom» (T. Gundorova). Key aspects of the discourse of postcolonialism that are actualized in modern Ukrainian culture are identified: the restoration of historical memory, the deconstruction of imperial narratives, the renascence of «maps of our losses» (according to the definition of O. Pakhlyovska), etc.It analyzes how postcolonial trends in the modern socio-cultural space influence the formation of Ukrainian national identity, especially in the context of the russian-Ukrainian war.