Wednesday, 9.November 2016, 4pm

Organizer: DRA, Heinrich-Böll-Stiftung
Place of Event: Schumannstraße 8, 10117 Berlin
Language: English / Russian translation

Speaker:

• Olena Pravylo - Congress of Cultural Activists Kiev
• Valentina Cherevatenko - Vereinigung der Frauen vom Don, Novocherkassk, Russia
• Igor Semyvolos‎ - International Renaissance Foundation Kiev

The time of the transformation after the disintegration of the Soviet Union was and still is characterized by political and economic instability and crises. These experience obviously impacts on the lives and thoughts of the people of Ukraine. Our question is wheter and how the transformation experience has an impact on the outbreak of the war in Donbass. Often structural differences and different economic capacities of the regions are mentioned. But is there a distinct Soviet identity in the Donbass region that explains the positioning of local elites and the population in the conflict? Did social conflicts in the course of the nation-building of the young state of Ukraine contribute to this? What role plays the continuous experience of structural or 'non-physical' violence (corruption, legal uncertainty, social climate, and discourse shaped by verbal violence) in the post-Soviet society?