DYNAMICS OF THE UKRAINIAN NATIONAL IDENTITY IN DEBATES ON EURO-ATLANTIC INTEGRATION
This paper analyses changes of meanings of identity in competing projects of national identity in case of debates among the Ukrainian elites on the issue of Euro-Atlantic integration in 2008 and 2018. The author identifies three projects of identity, which are based on a different understanding of foreign policy in relation to Euro-Atlantic integration. The most significant change of identity is the dominant position of the pro-Euro-Atlantic discourse that was contested in 2008 by the opponents of NATO membership. However, after the transformation of the political context in Ukraine in the post-2014 period, some representatives of the elites continue to support the project of identity in which Ukraine is constructed as a non-bloc state. In both periods the elites reach a consensus on Ukraine's representation as a European and democratic country. Despite changes in the domestic and international contexts, discursive representations of Ukraine as a victim and a colonial state, where Russia or the United States presented as aggressors and colonizers, continue to exist. The changes in dynamics of national identity are as follows: expansion of an identity representation on a larger audience, a “shift” of a representation into another category within the same discourse, and “borrowing” and adoption of a representation by competing identity discourses.