ELEMENTS OF THE INTANGIBLE CULTURAL HERITAGE OF UKRAINE IN THE CONSTRUCTION OF THE NATIONAL IDENTITY
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| Year of publication | 2024 |
| Type | Article in Proceedings |
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| Keywords | vernacular culture, intangible cultural heritage, Ukraine, national identity |
| Description | The construction of national identity has been a most discussed topic in Ukraine since 1991 when the second-largest European country gained independence, and particularly since the Euromaidan protests and revolution in 2014. The everyday and political life, various forms of literary and artistic creations, or historical cultural heritage are the areas where it is possible to observe the phenomenon. The paper focuses on the area traditionally dealt with by ethnology—traditional vernacular (folk) culture and selected elements of intangible cultural heritage. The main goal of the study is to show how specific phenomena from the originally vernacular culture of different regions of Ukraine, such as clothing components or traditional dishes, are being actively used, reshaped, and reinterpreted as important symbols in the process of the formation of national identity in the contemporary world. I will discuss three specific cases, which are of high popularity in Ukraine and in the international context: an embroidered shirt known in Ukrainian as the vyshyvanka, a borscht soup, and a decorated Easter egg pysanka. The following text summarizes the initial phase of the study, drawing on scholarly literature and interviews with Ukrainians currently living in the Czech Republic. |