SUMMARY:

On April 18, 2014, sociologists from several Ukrainian cities met in Kharkiv to discuss the new post-Maidan social realities at the roundtable “Regions of Ukraine: What Separates Us and What Brings Us Together?” Ab Imperio publishes in Russian the proceedings of this meeting – one of the earliest attempts by Ukrainian social scientists to grasp the new post-Maidan social realities. The meeting began with a keynote report by Olga Kutsenko, vice president of the Sociological Association of Ukraine. She offered three main themes for the general discussion: how serious are the differences among the regions of Ukraine? What are the prevalent fears in the East and West of the country – either widening or bridging the gap between different parts of Ukraine? And how can sociologists help to mobilize the nation for the defense of the country?
Seventeen scholars joined the discussion. With a few exceptions, the majority tended to relativize any clear-cut regional divides in the public opinion and the idea of the existence of some territorially bound and homogeneous cultural and political views. Several participants employed the language of hybridity to account for the specificity of Ukrainian society. The roundtable participants enthusiastically supported the idea of the civic mission of sociologists in modernizing Ukraine and defending its integrity from internal and external threats, by means of providing professional expertise and playing the role of qualified public intellectuals. These ideas are summarized in the Memorandum of Sociologists adopted in the wake of the meeting and are published following the roundtable proceedings.