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Item A Word of Welcome from the Editor-in-Chief(2014) Morenets, VolodymyrIntroductory article of Kyiv-Mohyla Humanities Journal 2014. No. 1. by the editor in chief.Item Postcolonial Modernities(2014) Ashcroft, BillA major feature of post-colonial theory has been its ability to analyse historical developments of culture: expressions of anti-colonial nationalism; the paradoxical dissolution of the idea of nation along with the continuous persistence of national concerns; the question of language and appropriation; of the transformation of literary genres; the question of ethnicity and its relation to the state. But the broader question for this century concerns the way in which postcolonial theory is positioned to approach the continuing issues of global power, global interaction and cultural difference in the coming century. One answer to this has been a growing, and now well-established, interest in cultural and ethnic mobility, of diaspora, of transnational and cosmopolitan interactions. This article goes beyond this to analyse modernity using the tools of postcolonial theory to argue for the multiplicity of modernities. Modernities proceed in various ways, but the process of transformation demonstrated by the literary model can be adapted to examine the proliferation of alternative and multiple modernities. Special attention shall be given to India and China as alternative modernities to help to re-think the nature of modernity itself.Item Rethinking Psychiatric Terror against Nationalists in Ukraine: Spatial Dimensions of Post-Stalinist State Violence(2014) Bertelsen, OlgaThis study focuses on psychiatric terror in the Soviet Union in the 1960s–1980s applied to nationalists who constituted approximately one-tenth of those who fell victim to political psychiatry. More specifically, through the spatial examination of two Ukrainian psychiatric clinics’ practices and the individual history of the Ukrainian dissident Victor Borovsky, this study analyses the effectiveness of silence that surrounded the cases of “psychiatric patients” in the context of increasing discontent in the republic and the national liberation movement. The medicalization of social control, psychiatric abuses, state violence and brutality exacerbated non-violent popular resistance in Ukraine, which culminated in political activism of Ukrainian patriots in the late 1980s, contributing greatly to the collapse of the Soviet Union and the emergence of independent Ukraine. Despite these ultimate outcomes, forced silence through psychiatric terror was an effective tool in the Soviet arsenal of suppression.Item The Theoretical Background of Understanding Urban Identity in the Anthropological Perspective(2014) Karpovets, MaksymIn the article, the theoretical background of the interpretation of urban identity is given using examples from anthropological studies. Urban identity is interpreted in terms of corporeality, memory and history of the city, and community. It is interpreted as a conflict of own and alien, anonymous and public, unique and secondary parts inside the cultural space of identity. The anthropology of the city offers a range of perspectives in the interpretation of identity, particularly in the context of corporeality. Another important thing is the cultural connection with history and memory. The defining feature of identity is the way of creating its own (hi)story of the city. Urban identity also appears to be the preservation of the symbolic capital of the city, including certain values, customs, rules, legends etc. Moreover, it gives rise to a permanent exploration of sustained ways of its transmission to the next generations. The findings of different anthropological studies illustrate the complex character of the phenomenon and introduce possible theoretical frames for further understanding.Item Forgeries and Their Social Circulation in the Context of Historical Culture: The Usable Past as a Resource for Social Advance in Early Modern Lemberg/Lviv(2014) Osipian, AlexandrThe main purpose of this paper is to put the charter – for a long time seen as simply forgery – into a wider context of historical culture of the epoch. It also aims to investigate motive, means, and opportunity, as used by the social actors – the forgers. The examination of the forgeries not only uncovers the historical imagination of their producers but also helps our better understanding of the historical culture of the epoch and its social circulation in a given society. The study of “Prince Fedor’s charter of 1062” examines how urban elites accepted the noblemen’s political and historical culture and used it for their own purposes. The author of the paper examines how the social aspirations and dominant cultural framework in the host society influenced the wealthy Armenian Diaspora to promote some possible options of the usable past and to abandon other ones. Finally, it shows how the elements of all these options were combined into a new narrative in the nineteenth century, in accordance with the historical culture of Romantic nationalism.Item Mapping the Field(2014) Petrovsky-Shtern, YohananDrawing from the new trends in the inter-ethnic and cross-cultural studies, this paper points to several major lacunae in the research of Jewish Ukrainian relations and in the contextual religious, economic, and multilingual literary history of Jews on the Ukrainian lands, the study of which the author considers the major scholarly desiderata. Unlike most of the historiographical studies of Ukrainian Jewish relations published so far, this essay suggests heretofore underexplored or neglected themes, sub-fields, documentary collections, and methodologies, thus, “mapping the field” for the next generation of young scholars and researchers interested in exploring Ukrainian multicultural legacy.Item "As a Father among Little Children": the Emerging Cult of Taras Shevchenko as a Factor of the Ukrainian Nation-building in Austrian Eastern Galicia in the 1860s(2014) Sereda, OstapThis article explores the dynamic and main institutional forms of the emergence of the cult of Taras Shevchenko in Austrian Eastern Galicia, and its influence on the shaping of Ukrainian national identity in the province. If prior to the 1860s, Shevchenko’s works were circulated in limited number of printed editions and manuscript copies among the narrow circle of Galician Ruthenian activists, the decade after 1861 was marked by the growth of public attention to Shevchenko’s poetry and personality. The wide exposure to his texts (through both reading and listening) formed the public of Ukrainian national activists. Since the late 1860s, Shevchenko’s cult began to be institutionalized through the regular commemorative practices and school education.Item The Archival Revolution and Contested Memory: Changing Views of Stalin’s Rule in the Light of New Evidence(2014) Shkandrij, MyroslavThe article discusses the impact on Western scholarship of the opening of secret police archives in Ukraine since the 1990s. The extent of the phenomenon known as the “archival revolution” is surveyed, with special attention to the Stalin period. The archives have answered some old questions concerning the way Stalin exercised power, organized show trials, and forced people to admit to crimes they did not commit. Archival revelations have also stimulated Western researchers to consider new ways of interpreting the Soviet period as a whole.Item Artistic Temporality in Shevchenko’s Lyrics: the Compositional Aspect(2014) Smilianska, ValeriaArtistic temporality in a work has two functions: the semantic – as a time motif, and compositional – as a means of building a model of the world at all of its levels. The author of the article discusses how this description is evident in the lyrical works of Taras Shevchenko. As an author (including the category of “proper author”), Shevchenko does not convey the real course of events of a historical period or event, but rather experiences time by assigning events in his mind to a certain temporality – consisting of the past, present, and future, with their interplay, movement, and juxtapositions, imbuing this temporal scheme into his works on a thematic level, which differs according to genre – the works of Shevchenko clearly show a noticeable connection between temporal composition and the genre variety of the poetry, with various resultant combinations. Thus, artistic temporality in Shevchenko’s lyrical works is a significant factor of the “complex structure of meaning” (Lotman).Item Nechui’s Aesthetic Code: Repetition, Pacing, and Non-Purposeful Narration(2014) Tarnawsky, MaximTraditional and modernist comments on the mechanics of Nechui’s prose style are largely critical, focusing on what are assumed to be errors or infelicities in writing. This article examines these presumed errors and proceed to focus on three central qualities of Nechui’s writing: repetition, pacing, and the absence of purposeful construction. The intention here is not to make judgments about the strengths and weaknesses of his writing but rather to point out its essential features. Two central features of Nechui’s writing that are explored are deliberate repetition and non-purposeful plot structure.Item Gasping for Perspective: [reflection](2014) Agassi, JosephItem Taras Shevchenko at the Maidan in Kyiv: [reflection](2014) Lange, AnjaItem John D. Caputo. Truth: Philosophy in Transit. Penguin Press, 2013: [review](2014) Kvit, Serhii