Why Is the History of Ukrainian Literature Silent About the Women Writers of the Second and Third Decades of the 20th Century?

The article deals with the problem of avoiding women’s literature of the 1920s and 1930s in the narrative of the history of Ukrainian literature. This period is called the Executed Renaissance and is the key to the nation-making narrative. It is seen as the time of the modern nation formation and the time of the greatest sacrifice in the name of the nation. Women’s literature of that time is selectively discussed in this context, but the bulk of female literature of that period remains out of the attention of researchers, despite the fact that both the previous stage of development of women’s literature and subsequent ones are present in the narrative of the history of Ukrainian literature. The article hypothesizes that the period of the 1920s and 1930s “fell out” because the women’s literature of that time did not meet the needs of the nation-making narrative that dominates the Ukrainian humanities. The aim of the study is to show this discrepancy by analyzing the representation of gender practices in women’s texts of that period. The theoretical basis of the work was the ideas by Anne McClintock, Yuval-Davis, Joane Nagel, Robert Connell, Martha Bohachevsky-Chomiak. As a result of the study, it has been revealed that women’s literature of the time has different topics and problems, which is due to different experiences. Describing the Bolshevik reforms, women attach equal importance to changes in management and forms of ownership, as well as to the new norms of family and maternal law. The women writers remind of the importance of women’s work in enterprises and in agriculture, especially in the absence of men involved in the war. The literature reflects the rapid expansion of the range of characters’ professions, but at the same time shows the complexity of self-realization, especially when it is necessary to combine profession and motherhood. At this time, women speak more openly about cathexis, challenging patriarchal norms. The image of a woman, in particular of a mother, created by the woman writers did not correspond to the symbolic image of the nation’s reproducer, so the return of women’s literature of the 1920s and 1930s did not meet the needs of the nation-making narrative in the post-Soviet conditions.

THE PORTRAYAL OF THE PLEDGE OF ALLEGIANCE IN SCHOOL TEXTBOOKS AND NATION FORMATION IN MOROCCO

This article investigates the portrayal of the pledge of allegiance in school textbooks of middle school with a focus on nation construction. Drawing on the Ethno-Symbolist approach to nation formation, as developed by Anthony Smith, the school textbooks are analyzed qualitatively. The findings reveal that pledge of allegiance is portrayed as a national symbol that characterizes Moroccan nation formation and persistence over a long durée, from ethnie to pre-modern to a modern entity.

National Movements with and without Religion: The Nation and Religion in a Historical Perspective

In order to understand the role of religion in the formation of European nations, we need to differentiate the terms we are using when we analyse their relationship. In the case of nation formation, my point of departure is to distinguish two basic types of process: the case of nation-states, i. e. nations with “their own” state and high culture since the Middle Ages, and the case of “smaller nations”, which emerged through national movements, where the ethnic communities tried to achieve all attributes of a fully formed nation. My reflections focus on the second type of nation formation. Speaking about the “religion”, we have to distinguish the role of the Church as an institution, the participation (or not participation) of the clergy, the degree of integration of the religious teaching into the national programme, and finally the presence of religious arguments in the everyday national thought of small nations. There existed no general model of interaction of these four factors in the study of smaller nations.

POLITICAL MEANING OF CRIMEA FOR UKRAINE IN 1991‒2014

The article considers Crimea’s political meaning within Ukraine in 1991-2014 and analyzes the main chal-lenges in Kyiv-Simferopol relations. Based on the extensive database, the conclusion concerning the illegal joining of the Republic of Crimea to Ukraine in 1990s is made. The article analyzes the destructive influence of the Russian and Russian-speaking population of the peninsula on the Ukrainian statehood formation. The role of the pro-Russian organizations and the Russian-speaking population in Crimea’s breakaway from Ukraine is defined. The author studies the role of the Black Sea Fleet for Ukraine used as a tool to impose pressure on Russia and to increase its power in the eyes of NATO. Crimea’s contribution to the Ukrainian economy is assessed and the key branches of industry and agriculture of the Autonomous Republic of Cri-mea are identified. The article concludes that the conflict between Kyiv and Simferopol and Crimea’s acces-sion to Russia was inevitable and was predetermined by the controversial policy of the Ukrainian authorities. Absence of importance of the Crimean Peninsula for Ukraine from the perspective of economic develop-ment, a single Ukrainian nation formation and security was also traced.

Sacred as an Immanent Principle of a Nation Formation

The article examines the problem of understanding the consolidation principle of nation formation that is relevant to modern social philosophy. At different stages of scientific research, the initial sociobiological unity, the common imagination of the nation, as well as the political, economic and socio Cultural context were proposed in this capacity. However, the religious factor, which includes a transcendent sacred element perceived as the highest value, is not sufficiently studied in this regard. The article offers an understanding of the nation as a quasi-religious phenomenon of modernity, which presupposes the presence of a sacred element as an immanent consolidation principle. A condition for a nation formation and transformations in the understanding of its foundations are the characteristic features of the global secularization process considered in the article. In the development of this process, several stages are distinguished, the study of which reveals the dynamics in the localization of the sacred sphere of reality, which determines changes in the perception of the nation. The first stage of secularization is associated with the spread of Christianity, accompanied by the profanation of the entire field of natural reality and the actualization of the meaning of the individual. The formation of the next stage is due to the mixing of social and natural spheres, which forms a diffuse sociobiological reality associated with the strengthening of the role of the individual. At this period the idea of the nation as a sociobiological community, characterized by the personal legal and political responsibility of its members is formed. The allocation of the third stage of secularization is due to the profanation of the social sphere and the localization of the sacred in the private life of the individual, in this connection, the national consolidation principle is localized in the sphere of the individual imagination. The profanation of the individual sphere, leading to its decentralization, determines the sacralization of a certain context of everyday life, which is perceived as the basis of national identity. Thus, the adoption of the sacred factor as an immanent principle of nation formation and the study of the dynamics of its localization can bring scientific thought closer to solving actual problems of social philosophy related to the understanding of the nation and social identity as a whole.

Death, emplaced security and space in contemporary Timor-Leste

By adopting a spatial approach to analysis, this article examines the significance of death in Timor-Leste and its relationship to security and peace. The main argument is that a person’s security in Timor-Leste is very often made possible via the sustaining of what is referred to here as ‘cognate communities’ which comprise both the living and the spirits of the ancestral dead. Grave-making as a form of ‘emplaced security’ – an expression of agency which results in the creation or transformation of a place in order to mitigate threat – enables a particular kind of space whereby the living as part of cognate communities are able to venerate their dead. In turn, engagement with the ‘spatial turn’ demonstrates how this form of emplaced security is not static, but rather is dynamic and adaptive as communities formed through custom constantly interact with broader social changes and spatial transformations. Even as grave-making represents a micro-form of emplacement, such acts both produce and respond to different spatial orders, including more abstract forms bound up with nation formation. As such, the ‘spatial turn’ shows how burial represents both an intimate and petite act of place-making while also intersecting with different spatial orders and scales that interact with meta-narratives including religion, modernisation and nationalism.