Historically, Ukrainian diaspora communities in the West have been shaped by their involvement in the struggle for independence of their ancestral homeland, and by their distinct "imaginings" of Ukrainian nationhood. The Euromaidan and subsequent Russian aggression have caused fundamental changes in how Ukraine is "imagined," not only in Ukraine itself but within Ukrainian diaspora communities across the world. While these communities continue to support democratic reforms, they are also forced to "re-invent" their own national belonging in order to embrace new phenomena such as the Ukrainian patriotism of Russian-speakers, volunteer battalions, and the active role of Jewish communities in Ukraine. Based on the findings of qualitative research in Europe and North America, the lecture addresses the interplay between diasporic national "imagination" and its strategies of support for the homeland.
Ivan Kozachenko is a Stasiuk Post-Doctoral Fellow at the Canadian Institute of Ukrainian Studies, University of Alberta. He completed his MA and BA in sociology at the V.N. Karazin National University in Kharkiv, Ukraine, and received a PhD in sociology from the University of Aberdeen, UK. Dr. Kozachenko's current project, "The Ukraine Crisis: Contested Identities, Social Media, and Transnationalism," explores the role of social media in competing social movements, examining the articulation of national belonging in online and offline public spaces.