POSTCOLONIAL TRANSFORMATIONS IN UKRAINE: AESTHETIC DISCOURSE OF URBAN SPACES

Abstract

The article is devoted to the study of the problem of aesthetic support of the process of decolonisation as one of the leading trends in the internal political life of modern Ukraine. The object is the country's urban spaces, in the locations of which transformations are being carried out aimed at reinterpreting the past society and defining the value foundations of its modern existence. The author's concept is based on the communicative paradigm of interpreting architecture (single buildings and their ensembles) as non-verbal texts-symbols - tools of political communication, socialisation of citizens and legitimisation of the ruling regime. These functions are achieved through the expression of the aesthetic design of the interiors and exteriors of «buildings of power» and commemorative objects. It is argued that the leading actors of the ongoing transformations are tandems of local political and creative elites, which determine the configuration of collective identities of territorial communities through the transformations (dismantling of monuments and symbols of colonial rule). The article demonstrates the lack of aesthetic reinterpretation of urban spaces on the example of Odesa. It is determined that the peculiarities of political and aesthetic discourse in Ukraine are: retrospectivity, dominance of ethnographic clichés and monostylistics of symbolically loaded objects. The idea of the need to update the concept of aesthetic support for the process of decolonisation is substantiated. Its main plot should be based on a creative understanding of the current challenges and tasks of the Ukrainian «integration project» and adequately respond to the cultural trends of our time and the stylistic preferences of the younger generation of citizens. One of the central themes here should be the commemoration of military valour as a collective action of Ukrainian civil society in repelling Russian aggression.