Description
This article examines how, from the early 2000s, the Russian state has constructed a narrative of cultural trauma surrounding the achievement of Ukrainian independence in 1991. We address the following research questions: How has the Russian state constructed and operationalized narratives of cultural trauma in relation to its foreign policy towards Ukraine? And how do these narratives construct childhood(s) as sites where geopolitical imaginaries are shaped by Russia’s expansionist policy toward Ukraine? We begin by applying a theoretical framework based primarily on the works of Alexander, Volkan, and Bliesemann de Guevara to explain how the construction of narratives of trauma may be manipulated to justify and legitimate specific ‘grand projects’ (in this case, the aggressive war of annexation which began in 2014). Through process tracing of state discourse, including educational textbooks and curricula, public speeches, and government documents, we demonstrate how the Kremlin has institutionalized a paternalistic and colonial narrative of Ukraine as both a rightful part of the Russian state and a misguided entity, amputated from the whole by the collective West. We go on to show that the Russian state targets Ukrainian children and youth as key sites for (re)producing this narrative of cultural trauma, through framing them as both the heirs to an aggrieved national history and the instruments of a future restoration of Russia’s ‘glorious’ past.
