Arts & International Affairs: Volume 2, Number 2 | Page 159

De-communization in
Ukraine
Solomiya Shpak
Solomiya Shpak is PhD Student at George Mason University School of Policy, Government, and
International Affairs. Her primary areas of research include transition economics, labor policy
and political economy. Prior to coming to George Mason University, Solomiya received her MA in
Economic Analysis from Kyiv School of Economics and MA in International Economics from Ivan
Franko National University in Lviv. Currently she works on the wide range of projects on Ukraine
including firm productivity, oligarch ownership and political connections, and the impact of internal
displacement on labor markets in receiving regions. She has recently co-authored a paper “The
motherhood wage penalty in times of transition” published in Journal of Comparative Economics
and worked as a consultant at the World Bank and IFPRI.
The Eastern Donbas and Crimea recently joined a growing list of contested
territories in the former Soviet space that are no longer controlled by the
de jure sovereign state of which they are part. In Ukraine, the human costs
of the conflict are already severe, with at least �,��� people killed and more
than �.� million persons displaced since the conflict began in ����. �,� The
war mobilized government efforts to build national identity policy in the
divided Ukrainian society where ��% of Ukrainians still consider themselves
as citizens of the former Soviet Union. � The most prominent element of
these reforms is de-communization or national memory policy aimed at
overcoming the country’s historical totalitarian past.
Despite the fact that the majority of Ukrainians see themselves
as part of Western culture, communist past encountered in
everyday life dilutes their national identity. The goal of the
de-communization laws is to eradicate Soviet myths of the
war, which became particularly important after the Russian
aggression in early ����, when Russian propaganda tried
to mobilize terrorists against Ukrainian authorities using
�
“Ukrainian civilian death toll on the rise in rebel east: UN”. AFP. �� June ����.
�
“Ukraine”. OCHA. August ����.
�
Razumkov Center. National Security and Defense �-�(����): �.
158
doi: ��.�����/aia.�.�.��