The Discourse of Ideology in Borderlands. Ukraine

Abstract

by Valery Korablyova

The article represents the final part of the comparative study of the discourses of ideology in Belarus and Ukraine based on the methodology of depth hermeneutics by J.B. Thompson, implying the social analysis of the academic field and the discourse analysis of ideological narratives. The heuristic potential of a Borderland metaphor applied to Ukraine and Belarus is revealed. The key tendencies of the current state appear to be façade changes and instrumentalization – both in the political and academic spheres. 
The most significant trends in Ukrainian academia are inertia (continuity with the Soviet practices); commercialization (extrapolating the logic of market onto the academic sphere); individual integration into the global scientific community – amid a lack of institutional integration. The space is characterized by the juxtaposition of the ‘old’ vertical hierarchy structures and ‘new’ horizontal networks as well as by strong personal connections on the back of weak aggregation of ideas. The investigations of ideology can be divided into the ‘academic mainstream’ and ‘marginal researches’. The theoretical core of the ‘mainstream’ conceptions, common to the Belarusian and Ukrainian works, is identified. It is stressed that nowadays the problem of ideology is urgent in a practical way: the lack of unifying ideology is a threat to Ukraine’s national security – in the context of ‘consciental war’ with Russia. Modern mass rehabilitation of ideology occurred within the events marked as #Euromaydan, which can be interpreted as a practical request for an ideology and at the same time as an attempt of its emergence.