Lhe Russian invasion of Ukraine brought to screens scenes of war and family separation, exodus and destruction, but also many figures of ordinary citizens taking up arms to defend their country. Seeing one’s neighbors seize automatic rifles and go to the front aroused exceptional empathy and acutely posed to European Union nationals the question of what their own reaction would be in such a configuration.
In Ukraine, the enigma of the passage from a routine, even distant, relationship to politics to a potentially violent engagement has already been studied during the movement in Maidan Square, in kyiv, during the winter of 2013-2014. Based on individual surveys carried out by direct observation, interviews and documentary analysis over the years, before, during and after the occupation of the square, Alexandra Goujon and Ioulia Shukan combined their materials to write an article, entitled “Sortir de anonymity in a revolutionary situation. Maidan and the ordinary citizen in Ukraine (winter 2013-2014)”, published in the “journal of political social sciences”, Politixin 2015. The authors show how citizens who had hitherto kept themselves very far from any political activity found themselves at the heart of an occupation of the square lasting several weeks, then of an insurrectionary struggle in which several of them die at the hands of the police.
True “revolutionary routine”
If the context is very different from the current situation of open war – the citizens then contested the decision of President Viktor Yanukovych to suspend the signing of the association agreement with the European Union – the article makes it possible to understand that Ukrainian society has long maintained systems of solidarity and defence. Maidan Square is only the visible face of a veritable “revolutionary routine” carried out by residents of kyiv and Ukrainians from other regions, based on volunteerism, self-organization and horizontal coordination. Occupying the place is accompanied by accelerated political learning, which gradually makes it possible to speak publicly, and the commitment of the participants is reinforced thanks to the links and the microgroups that are formed. Political resistance has its roots in dense sociability. The struggle does not exist without the party, the confrontation with the police is not possible without popular education. By focusing on ordinary citizens, the two researchers thus manage to understand the driving forces behind this movement, but also the citizen mobilization that continues in the Donbass, and more broadly in the country.
You have 28.17% of this article left to read. The following is for subscribers only.