Brand new Ukraine? Cultural icons and national identity in times of war

Since 1991, Ukraine has struggled to build a distinctive national identity against a legacy of Russian and Soviet imperial domination. The processes of cultural decolonization, following the country’s independence, intensified after the Euromaidan Revolution in 2014. The subsequent war with Russia, which escalated in 2022, further accelerated these processes. This essay aims to contextualize the evolution of Ukrainian national identity and to highlight how the war with Russia has influenced this process. I focus on the role of cultural icons in the cultural decolonization of Ukraine as well as in projecting a new image to international audiences. I also discuss some tensions between Ukraine’s internal identity building and the country’s international presentation.