.Project

Although the Russian aggression against Ukraine has been continuing since 2014, only the Russian attack of 24 February 2022 resonated in the global media, which gave the war its proper importance and devoted adequate space to it. Social networks also immediately responded to the escalation of the Russian aggression; Facebook, Instagram or Twitter instantly filled up with content related to Russia and Ukraine, becoming an additional virtual battlefield.

From the very beginning, Ukraine decided to use the concept of imagefare, using images to achieve its current political goals and influence public opinion on the perception of the conflict. The visual campaign which is run from Ukrainian institutions’ accounts serves to create an image of a modern, democratic and civil Ukrainian society in the international arena.

The aim of our research is
  1. to create an archive of the visual communication of selected accounts of Ukraine’s public institutions
  2. to develop a catalog of values linked to these images; the values that build the axiological system of the designed modern Ukrainian society.

We state that the axiological system of the designed new Ukrainian society, which can be read from the published visual materials, is constructed in clear opposition to the set of characteristics ascribed to the mentality of the so-called homo sovieticus. This is because, on the one hand, Ukrainian rhetoric focuses on cultural and ideological convergence with its international audience, and emphasises its closeness to the political culture (and, in general, culture) of the West, while, on the other hand, it constructs a modern image of Ukrainian society in negative relation to the culture and imaginarium of the enemy and aggressor, as well as to the popular image of its society as a set of homines sovietici.

The project therefore pursues two objectives:
  • a documentary one – the creation of the planned archive will make it possible to preserve a fragment of Ukraine’s media communication after the escalation of the Russian aggression as a document of the times;
  • a scientific one – by organizing the material according to a selected key, it provides it with an analytical framework, singles it out from dispersion and creates a thematic collection on the imaginarium of civil society in statu nascendi.

The project goes beyond the current cruel reality of war in Ukraine and is of a prospective nature: it assesses the directions of development of civil society, identifies its most important values, taking into account the cultural codes that result from the post-communist and post-Soviet condition.

The project will contribute to a better understanding of the formation of civil societies in post-communist, or more broadly, post-dependence countries.

The production of such knowledge has the potential to challenge several persistent stereotypes of Ukrainian society as being under the overwhelming influence of post-Soviet culture.

Results