Zaporizhzhia as a Symbol
Russia Attacks Ukrainian Modernity
Deutsche Fassung
Abstract
Russia’s war is meant to destroy Ukraine as a state. Military attacks also target symbols of modern statehood, which include infrastructure and industrial facilities. Industrial modernisation and technical infrastructure were central to Ukraine’s nation-building process. This is particularly evident in the case of the country’s nuclear power plants and its electricity grid. An important period of Ukrainian nation-building took place in Soviet Ukraine and is bound up in traumatic experiences. This is the source of the fractured and ambivalent relationship that today’s Ukrainians have toward their history of modernisation. Russia completely negates this story.
(Osteuropa 6-8/2022, pp. 135–150)