Post-colonial Ukraine: overcoming colonial markers in ukrainian legislation

Abstract

The research is aimed at identifying colonial markers in the legislation of Ukraine and substantiating ways to overcome them in the context of rethinking the postcolonial status of modern Ukraine. While scholars debate Ukraine's postcolonial status, Ukrainian legislation still contains colonial markers that remain as a postcolonial legacy of the Russian (Soviet) occupation of Ukraine. The study singles out and analyzes such markers as the constitutional status of the Russian language, the validity of Soviet laws in Ukraine after the attainment of independence, the administrative-territorial structure that does not correspond to the historical and ethnographic division of Ukraine, colonial toponymy in the Constitution protected from alteration by the legal regime of martial law, and the use of patronymics for identifying citizens of Ukraine. Ukrainian decolonization legislation does not contain a definition of colonial markers or markers of colonialism. Therefore colonial markers are proposed to be defined as elements alien to the ethnocultural environment of a colonized state, imposed by the colonizer in all spheres of life (cultural-symbolic, educational, linguistic, historical, political, legal, architectural-urban), which serve as indicators of colonial influence. These include symbols, practices, policies, institutions, identities, and legal norms that were formed during the period of colonial dependence and continue to be replicated in the state of postcolonialism, which is characterized by a complex set of interactions between former metropolises and former colonies, as well as the emergence of new mechanisms and practices of colonization and resistance thereto. It is in state that all the identified consequences of colonialism are overcome. The detection of colonial markers in the legislation of Ukraine, their identification, assessment of the degree of their destructive impact on Ukrainian statehood, and their dismantling constitute the task of decolonization and are a prerequisite for Ukraine’s successful passage through the stage of postcoloniality toward the attainment of full sovereignty. This process is complicated by the fact that markers of colonial affiliation have become habitual to the worldview of Ukrainians who were born and raised in colonial and/or postcolonial conditions.