Galicia - Ukraine: the antinomies of one contemporary political discourse

The article under consideration is meant to analyze the contradictions of Galicia region discourse and its self-positioning toward Ukraine. On the one hand, Galicia has own cultural identity and projecting its own influence and discourse throughout Ukraine. It also presumes that the generated and supported by Galicia project of “Cathedral Ukraine” should be accepted by the rest of the country. On the other, Galicia is trying to protect its original regional culture, which are different enough from the culture of the rest Ukraine. Thirdly, the lack of resources and existing cultural differences make it difficult to promote the project “Cathedral Ukraine” formed with the direct and active participation of Galicians. Because of that, the situation in Galicia and the content of its political discourse depend on the overall political situation in Ukraine. This factor determined the controversive internal dynamic of Galician political discours, which have had to balance between liberalism and nationalism, autonomism and territorial integrity of Ukraine, pro-EU reforms and conservative values of Galicia community. To achieve the above mentioned purpose we will deal with the following objectives: 1) to consider the dynamics of public mood in Galician regional community after the victory of Euromaidan in 2014; 2) to describe the reaction of Galician community to Petro Poroshenko regime crisis and its propaganda defeat; 3) to analyze the process of transformation of Galicia political discourse after the coming to power of the new Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky in the context of his new political deal. The research has been carried out within the methodological frameworks of the political discours theory. It has applied modern politologist definitions of the concept «political discourse» within the field of the public policy. This approach allows avoiding the simple empirical description of the current political situation in Ukraine and Galicia and makes it possible to study the prospect strategy and political behavior of the regional community in the context of continuing political transformations. The research relies on a range of published documents. The materials of Galician Internet journals and periodical press have been used. As the result of the research, the author has come to the following conclusions. Euromaidan of 2014 and the five-year rule of Petro Poroshenko, marked the rejection of the “Russian world” on a symbolic level and the formal triumph of conservative-nationalist ideology, initially seemed to provide Galicia with the necessary guarantees of its mission and privileged status in Ukraine, as well as the role of the vanguard force of the Ukrainian political process; moreover, the administration of P. Poroshenko made attempts to ensure the Galician discourse (in its radical nationalist version) almost monopoly status. However, the fall of personal popularity of P. Poroshenko and electoral victory of Vladimir Zelensky recreated the situation of opposition of the “Ukrainian Piedmont” to the rest of Ukraine. The fear of revision and rejection of the new President of Ukraine from the Galician discourse as a key component of the state ideology raised the question of revising the relations of this region with the rest of the country. As the author of the article notes, the Galician discourse is now in a kind of bifurcation point, and further directions of its transformation have not yet been determined due to the general uncertainty of the political situation in Ukraine.

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