SUMMARY:

The article by Andryi Portnov is devoted to the public usage of history in politics writ large, and the politics of identity in present-day Ukraine. The author explores the historical transformations since the perestroika period to the presidential term of Viktor Yushchenko. The article includes the analysis of the usages of historical memory in political mobilization and legitimation of the post-Soviet Ukrainian state, as well as the division of selectively used memory along the lines of political division of Ukrainian society. Portnov notes that the case of Ukraine stopped far short of the restorationist paradigm of some other post-Soviet states, like the Baltic states, though the multifaceted history of independence, the Orthodox Church in Ukraine, Soviet time repressions, mass famine and World War II collaboration were used to provide a different constitutive frame for the new Ukrainian state- and nationhood. The author argues that the politics of identity (which includes the production of history textbooks and the authorization of commemorative practices) remains fragmented and tailored to reflect the ideological anxieties and concerns of individual regions of present day Ukraine. This provides a partial exploration of the fact that history, though widely used in different forms of identity politics, is not brought into the court or other legal processes.