REDS Seminar: Identity and Religion at Times of War in Ukraine, with Oxana Shevel

Date
Thu April 13th 2023, 12:00 - 1:15pm
Event Sponsor
Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law
The Europe Center
Location
Encina Hall
616 Jane Stanford Way, Stanford, CA 94305
William J. Perry Conference Room, 2nd floor

Ukraine has long been considered a divided society, split between Russia-leaning Russian-speaking south and east and west-leaning and Ukrainian-speaking west and center. This talk will explain why the “divided Ukraine” paradigm no longer captures Ukrainian political and social realities, focusing on profound identity transformation within the Ukrainian society that began following the Euromaidan revolution and the start of Russian aggression against Ukraine in 2014 and further accelerated after the February 2022 full-scale Russian invasion. Among the implications of these identity shifts is decisive rejection of a “pro-Russian” orientation in numerous policy areas – from memory to language to foreign policy.

This talk will focus on the impact of identity shifts on religious politics, where President Zelensky’s recent call for Ukrainian “spiritual independence” from Moscow is transforming the relationship of the Ukrainian society and the Ukrainian state with the Ukrainian Orthodox Church-Moscow Patriarchate (UOC-MP), the branch of Orthodox Christianity in Ukraine historically subordinate to the Russian Orthodox Church.