European Identities During Wars and Revolutions

Book excerpt: This book provides an up-to-date discussion of the effect of crises on European identities in the post-Soviet states. In doing so, the book presents an original study on dynamics of European identities during four crises in Georgia and Ukraine. More specifically, it considers the comparative impact of two colour revolutions and wars involving Russia on European identity constructions in Georgian and Ukrainian public identity discourses, studied through national mass media. It compares outcomes of change and continuity during such “big bang” events in identity discourses and establishes scope conditions that allow or inhibit change. The major finding of the study is that the selected events can indeed instigate sudden shifts in European identity discourses but only when the elite power structure also changes in such hybrid regimes, as Ukraine and Georgia. These changes include shifts in elite groups and in the relative power they hold in the overall power structure.