Mending the divide: intellectuals and intelligentsia in Ukrainian scholarly discourse

ABSTRACT

The manifestation of Russian imperial ambitions in February 2022 caught many around the world by surprise, but Ukrainian scholarly attempts at decolonization had been ongoing for years prior to the invasion. Intellectuals have strived to re-imagine Ukrainian identity beyond the conceptualization of the country in imperial discourse as ‘little Russia’. This paper examines how the phenomenon of the intelligentsia has been re-interpreted, by performing a critical discourse analysis of Ukrainian scholarly discourse on the dichotomy between ‘intellectuals’ and ‘intelligentsia’, a dichotomy previously used by the Soviet Union to juxtapose Western and Soviet academics. The study focuses on scholarship that has been underrepresented in the global science system because its research outputs have been communicated in Ukrainian rather than English. The analysis demonstrates how the scholarly discourse reclaims the agency of Ukrainian intellectuals and challenges the Soviet collectivist understanding of the term ‘intelligentsia’. Ukrainian academics approach the reassessment of colonial legacies critically. They reject the intellectuals–intelligentsia dichotomy by reconciling the two terms to accommodate the identity of Ukrainian scholars who are able to shape their individual purpose through their restored academic freedom and individual agency.

KEYWORDS:

• Intelligentsia
• intellectuals
• discourse analysis
• post-Soviet higher education
• Ukraine

Introduction

Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine has revealed the proliferation of an imperial discourse on issues concerning the former Soviet periphery. The Russian narrative has effectively promoted the association of ‘the Soviet’ with Russia (Delwaide 2011), making other Soviet republics invisible to the Western scholarly community (Kuzhabekova 2020). Attempts by Ukrainian intellectuals to re-imagine their identity beyond that of the long-dominant imperial discourse of ‘little Russia’ have remained marginalized (Zayarnyuk and Sereda 2022). The war, however, has changed perspectives on Ukraine, moving a country once seen as located on the geopolitical frontiers (Plokhy 2015) to the center of the European relationship with the East (Bercoff et al. 2017). It is thus important for Ukraine to become visible not only on geographical but also mental maps (Delwaide 2011). Because changes in the articulation of identity can manifest in discursive practice (Barker and Jane 2016), this study examines the changing interpretations of the dichotomy between ‘intellectuals’ and ‘intelligentsia’ in Ukrainian scholarly discourse.

The definition of the term ‘intelligentsia’ is ambiguous. Some scholars have argued that there is no reason to consider its meaning to be any different from that of the term ‘intellectuals’ (Shlapentokh 1990; Szelenvi 1982); others, however, have argued that intelligentsia is a specifically East Central European phenomenon (Malia 1960; Narvselius 2012; Tromly 2013). In nineteenth century Eastern Europe, educated members of the nobility and clergy became known as intelligentsia – a certain group or class of ‘thinking men in a barbarous society’ (Malia 1960:441). The intelligentsia aimed to civilize the masses by spreading enlightenment and culture (Gusejnov 2018; Tromly 2013). Scholars have suggested that in the Russian Empire, a dichotomy between the notions of intellectuals and intelligentsia developed alongside anti-Western sentiment. The Romanovs failed to modernize the empire at the same speed as other European empires, and the slow economic and political development resulted in a sense of inferiority towards Europe, fueling anti-Western narratives (Zayarnyuk and Sereda 2022). Whereas intellectuals in the West questioned power structures (Tromly 2013) and focused on scientific progress (Gusejnov 2018), the intelligentsia prioritized the use of moral arguments to advocate for social transformation (Kochetkova 2009).

Once the Romanov empire fell to revolutionaries, the Bolsheviks used the intellectuals–intelligentsia dichotomy to juxtapose Soviet and Western academics. Soviet leaders redefined the term ‘intelligentsia’ to legitimize their involvement in building communism (Tromly 2013). The intelligentsia could no longer be identified by contrasting its members with the masses, who had re-emerged as the powerful proletariat; this led the definition of intelligentsia to become increasingly vague (Brower 1967; Pipes 1960) and sub-categories to emerge (e.g. the revolutionary intelligentsia, the toiling intelligentsia, the scientific intelligentsia). Soviet leaders did not consider apolitical intellectuals to be valuable, so they were proclaimed to be agents of Western capitalist ideology (Tromly 2013). Soviet institutions maintained strict control over intellectuals’ interactions with Western and diaspora scholars. Censorship limited opportunities for intellectuals to learn from the ideas of their foreign counterparts because even translated publications were edited to align with policies of the Communist Party (Bercoff et al. 2017). Oleksiyenko (2021) suggested that the occasional acts of dissent (e.g. samizdat, artistic satire, and parody) were insignificant compared with the practice of ‘surrogate academic freedom’, which allowed intellectuals to preserve their social and economic status in exchange for loyalty to the party’s rules of behavior. Thus, writers, poets, and scholars produced publications spreading Soviet propaganda (Portnov 2011; Shkandrij 2019).

Arguably, the dissolution of the Soviet Union gave Ukrainian intellectuals a chance to critically re-examine their colonial past. Ukraine’s independence brought about the liberalization of its political, economic, and social affairs. Academic communities became more autonomous (Oleksiyenko 2016), and their research, publications, and international networks were freed from party control (Huisman et al. 2018; Keen and Mucha 2004). Changes in the socio-political context galvanized the re-interpretation of the intelligentsia as a socially constructed community (Kochetkova 2009; Tromly 2013). Analyses of public and media discourse have shown that the current Ukrainian generation has found ways to remember the past experiences of the local intelligentsia in ‘the Habsburg Empire, Polish Republic, the Third Reich, Soviet and independent Ukraine’ (Narvselius 2012:20). Members of the intelligentsia were credited with articulating the Ukrainian national project and undermining the Soviet regime (Narvselius 2012; Zayarnyuk and Sereda 2022). In contrast, intellectuals struggled to deconstruct Russian narratives about Ukrainian nationalism (Kasianov 2015; Shkandrij 2019), and they withdrew from public debates, which became increasingly fragmented in Ukraine due to competing private and political interests (Bercoff et al. 2017).

The literature has not sufficiently investigated Ukrainian intellectuals’ role in modern society despite the potential of such inquiry to deepen the understanding of the complexities of Ukrainian identity (Andryczyk 2012). This article examines Ukrainian academic publications to provide new insights into interpretations of the intellectuals–intelligentsia dichotomy, intellectuals’ role in society, and their relationship to power. The study used critical discourse analysis to examine 107 academic peer-reviewed articles. The corpus included publications in the Ukrainian language, which are underrepresented in the global science system that privileges research outputs communicated in English. The focus on underrepresented scholarship in the global academic discourse contributes to filling the knowledge gap on changes in the Ukrainian intellectual community.

Ukrainian intelligentsia and the emancipatory national project

Unlike European maritime empires, which defined their colonial subjects through ‘othering’ (Shahjahan 2011), Russian elites denied the separate identity of people on the periphery, making their decolonization a particularly challenging exercise. Russia designed aggressive assimilation policies to prevent the conceptualization of a separate Ukrainian identity (Plokhy 2017). Cossack elites, clergy, and merchants assimilated into Russian nobility ‘socially, but also culturally and linguistically’ (Zayarnyuk and Sereda 2022:39). Russification was accompanied by genocide to assimilate and pacify peasants (Delwaide 2011). Intellectuals daring to challenge the imperial center were deported and prosecuted (Shlapentokh 1990; Shkandrij 2019; Bertelsen and Shkandrij 2014). Soviet repressions against the intelligentsia in Ukraine touched every generation from the 1920s to the 1980s (Kasianov 1995), but Ukrainian intellectuals managed to channel their experiences with a hostile state into emancipatory ideas (Zayarnyuk and Sereda 2022).

Ukraine’s frontier position made individual agency central to forming complex and multicultural intellectual communities composed of ethnic Ukrainians, Russians, Poles, and Jews who chose the Ukrainian identity. Ideas about social and cultural emancipation formulated by Ukrainian intellectuals resonated with other indigenous people in the empire due to their shared experiences of oppression. The Russian political project aimed to impose uniformity, but Ukrainians followed the path of the ‘Romantic Eastern European’ (Zayarnyuk and Sereda 2022:59) states by imagining a national project inclusive of different religions, languages, and cultures. The intellectuals disagreed on their desired form of governance, with some arguing for a Slavic federation (e.g. Mykola Kostomarov, Mykhailo Drahomanov, Mykhailo Hrushevs’kyi) and others proposing an independent state (e.g. Panteleimon Kulish, Yulian Bachynsky, Ivan Franko) (ibid.). However, both groups of intellectuals used the Ukrainian language to express their national identity, leading Russian and later Soviet authorities to enact various policies to discriminate against Ukrainian literature, language, and culture (Bertelsen and Shkandrij 2014; Tromly 2009; Zayarnyuk and Sereda 2022).

Fearing a re-emergence of the national project, Soviet security services prosecuted Ukrainian intellectuals (Plokhy 2015; Plokhy 2017; Ilchuk 2021; Zayarnyuk and Sereda 2022). The Soviet takeover of the Ukrainian National Republic and the later incorporation of Western Ukraine fueled concerns among Bolshevik leaders. Stalin encouraged the fabrication of cases against Ukrainian intellectuals (Bertelsen and Shkandrij 2014). Writers prosecuted during some of the most brutal purges from the 1920s to the 1930s came to be known as the Executed Renaissance, because Ukrainian intellectuals remained open to European ideas (Hryn 2004).

The revival of the Ukrainian intellectual movement after Stalin’s Great Terror and post-World War II repressions surprised scholars, drawing their attention to the Sixtiers’ role in the articulation of Ukraine’s national ideals. The lack of intergenerational continuity among the Ukrainian intelligentsia prevented its members from accumulating symbolic capital, forcing intellectuals to rediscover the ideas of their predecessors (Kasianov 1995). The Khrushchev Thaw temporarily weakened state control, enabling intellectuals to re-imagine their values (Tromly 2012). They expressed political ideas in literature, which served as a space for national self-assertion in the colonial context. The growing hostility of the Soviet state towards the Sixtiers galvanized their political activities and the formation of Ukraine’s resistance movement (Kasianov 1995). Although these efforts remained largely invisible outside of the Soviet Union due to the provincialization and isolation of the Ukrainian intellectual community (Bercoff et al. 2017), the Sixtiers contributed to revitalizing Ukraine’s statehood.

Independence did not erase the Soviet legacy in Ukraine, and intellectuals particularly struggled to overcome the collectivization and institutional control of the intelligentsia. Soviet leaders restrained the intelligentsia through state-run labor unions, cultural organizations, and higher education institutions. A system of state honors and awards encouraged conformism, whereas Soviet ideology promoted the idea that members of the intelligentsia were collectively responsible for discouraging dissent among themselves (Kasianov 1995). The state apparatus dictated teaching and research priorities, and confirmed academic degrees and faculty appointments at universities and institutes (Tromly 2013; Kuraev 2016). Loyalty proved to be a decisive factor in determining career opportunities for intellectuals (Portnov 2011), which encouraged performativity and self-censorship (Yurchak 2006). Ukrainian liberal reforms attempted to create new spaces for intellectuals in private and autonomous public institutions (Oleksiyenko 2014; Hladchenko et al. 2020). However, the state maintained control over funding allocations, workload regulations, and pay grades in public institutions. Especially in public universities, the Soviet legacy of one-man management (Kuraev 2016) turned institutional autonomy into rector-led ‘feudalism’ (Chankseliani 2022). A top-down approach to decision-making continued to limit the individual agency of intellectuals. They remained reluctant to engage in public debate, leading to the fragmentation of public discourse by private and political interests (Bercoff et al. 2017).

The liberalization of the Ukrainian political and social context increased the integration of Ukrainian intellectuals into the global academic community and enabled a proliferation of new narratives and technologies. The collapse of the Soviet Union ended state control over individual mobility and cross-border collaborations. Narratives developed by the Ukrainian diaspora about the national identity, history, and legacy were increasingly integrated into Ukrainian national discourse (Delwaide 2011). Bibliometric studies have suggested that Ukrainian intellectuals increasingly engaged with the global science system, allowing for more collaboration opportunities between Ukrainian and Western scholars (Kozak et al. 2015). Some intellectuals engaged with wider audiences through social media, civil society, and political activities. These new platforms offered greater freedom of expression, allowing a new generation of Ukrainian public intellectuals to emerge (Oleksiyenko 2022).

Methodology

Drawing on the growing body of Ukrainian scholarly literature, this study used critical discourse analysis (Cameron et al. 2017) to investigate the changing understanding of the ideas of intellectuals and intelligentsia. The study focused on the corpus of academic publications authored by Ukrainian scholars over the last three decades (1995–2022) to capture post-colonial transformations in academics’ perceptions of social reality. To identify transformations unique to Ukrainian discourse, these were juxtaposed with the Russian scholarship on the same topic.

The corpus used in the study included 107 scholarly publications from Ukrainian peer-reviewed journals retrieved from the Google Scholar database. This database was chosen for its coverage because it includes publications from Ukrainian academic journals, which are not necessarily indexed in other databases (e.g. Scopus, Web of Science) but play a significant role in shaping local academic discourse due to their accessibility. These journals publish in scholars’ native language, Ukrainian, and are openly accessible without limitations imposed by paywalls. Investigating the discourse published in Ukrainian academic journals is particularly important as it is less represented in the global science system because it is communicated in a language other than English. Thus, all quotes in the next section are translations from Ukrainian into English, made by the author.

Publications were identified using keyword search, including the Ukrainian terms for ‘intellectual’, ‘intellectuals’, and ‘intelligentsia’ (‘інтелектуал’, ‘інтелектуали’, and ‘інтелігенція’, respectively). First, an advanced search identified 355 publications with these key terms in their titles. Next, non-peer-reviewed publications were excluded, along with books, book reviews, and conference papers. Thus, the corpus was a compilation of 107 scholarly articles published in journals designated by the Ministry of Education and Science of Ukraine as belonging to either Category A or B. These designations signal that these journals have established peer-review practices, which lead them to publish quality research outputs.

A critical lens applied to data analysis allowed for the deconstruction of ideological assumptions embedded in the lexical and grammatical structures of the discourse, as discussed by Howarth (2000); this analysis specifically investigated the roles attributed to intellectuals in the discourse. The author read through all of the articles in the corpus in chronological order and coded the texts according to themes, including definitions of the terms ‘intelligentsia’ and ‘intellectuals’, the relationship between these two terms, and the intelligentsia’s and intellectuals’ relationship to power and people. The codes were revised after the complete read-through for consistency across themes. The application and renegotiation of lexical structures applied in the Soviet discourse on intellectuals versus intelligentsia were examined, and power relationships embedded in the discourse were interrogated to answer the following research question: How are Ukrainian academics making sense of the dichotomy between intellectuals and intelligentsia in their post-colonial context, which has been continuously influenced by Russian and now also Western discourse? Because academic discourse could not be perceived independently from the larger social and political context, intertextuality allowed for the identification of other discourses and events influencing unique conceptualizations of Ukrainian intellectuals.

Findings

Ukrainian scholars have attempted to break from Russian imperial narratives by re-examining the historical role of intellectuals in state building; thus, interpreting the dichotomy between intellectuals and intelligentsia in Ukrainian scholarly literature can shed light on the ongoing renegotiation of local intellectual identity. Whereas limited scholarly attention was devoted to re-imagining Ukrainian intellectual identity in the 1990s, the Orange Revolution of 2004 reignited interest in investigating Ukrainian intelligentsia’s contribution to national development. The liberalization of Ukrainian intellectual life increased access to Western traditions of knowledge compared with the Soviet period. Contributions from the diaspora, new partnerships, and novel experiences challenged the Soviet discourse on Western intellectuals, moving the intellectuals–intelligentsia dichotomy to the center of scholarly investigation in 2014. Ukraine’s decision to integrate with the European Union aligned with the anticolonial rationale to include narratives prohibited by the Soviet Union in Ukrainian discourse, as discussed by Narvselius (2015). In addition to the critical assessment of the Soviet oppression of Ukrainian intellectuals, the scholarly discourse scrutinized the marginalization of Ukrainian intelligentsia in the Habsburg Empire and under German occupation. Research on intellectuals’ contribution to maintaining Ukrainian identity and building a nation-state constructed a discourse that reclaimed agency and moved the center of decision-making from colonial metropoles to Ukraine and its intellectuals.

The early discourse of the 1990s and 2000s focused on bridging the knowledge gap about the Ukrainian intelligentsia caused by Russian and later Soviet censorship and propaganda. The language used in scholarship shifted from the Soviet terms ‘intelligentsia of Ukrainian SSR’ or ‘Soviet intelligentsia’ to ‘Ukrainian intelligentsia’, implying its unique identity and history, which scholars attempted to rediscover. In particular, Kasianov (2004:7) stated, ‘[In] the definition that talks about the “Soviet” intelligentsia, “Ukrainian” is either absent or is no more than an integral part of the “Soviet,” that is, it does not exist separately’ (p. 7). To address this challenge, the discourse further constructed the identity of the Ukrainian intelligentsia by explicitly separating it from traditional Russian attempts to claim exclusive ownership of the intelligentsia phenomena. For instance:

First of all, it is necessary to determine the peculiarity of the phenomenon of the Ukrainian intelligentsia itself. In numerous publications, primarily Russian, it is claimed that the concept of the intelligentsia is inherent, they say, only to Russian culture . . . . We cannot agree with this. (Bychko 1995:48)

Publications in the corpus discuss limited sources of information about the experiences of intellectuals and intelligentsia who did not support the Russian Imperial or Soviet government. Censorship had attempted to prevent the development of knowledge about intellectuals involved with the Ukrainian national project. As pointed out by Rublyov (2004:251)

the domestic literature on the Gulag period biographies of many Ukrainian intellectuals is not so representative. The authorities in the totalitarian USSR ‘did not encourage’ the writing of memoirs by people who went through prisons and camps . . . . Strict censorship carefully filtered correspondence . . ..

A series of regional and national studies examined the contribution of individual intellectuals and their organizations to the perseverance of Ukrainian national identity and the struggle for Ukraine’s statehood. For example, Solovyov (2001:26-27) argued:

The official Russian authorities deliberately hindered the development of the Ukrainian intelligentsia in Volyn . . . . The priests of the Russian Orthodox Church in their sermons warned believers against the harmful influence of Ukrainian publications . . . . As we can see, the state policy of tsarism and right-wing forces was aimed at suppressing any form of Ukrainian movement. In such a situation, representatives of the Ukrainian intelligentsia tried to overcome this total pressure on Ukrainians.

Along with emphasizing Russian and Soviet repressions that lasted for generations, the discourse critically examined Western colonial influence on the Ukrainian intelligentsia. The Habsburg Empire and German occupations during the two world wars opposed the aspirations of the Ukrainian intelligentsia for national independence.

In the conditions of the Austro-German occupation . . . in Poltava, for example, all democratic organizations were closed, and the newspaper printed by V. G. Korolenko was persecuted. The Germans and Austrians punished agitations against themselves with execution, and, on the contrary, encouraged measures to renew the previous autocracy. (Sheyko 2018:373-374)

In regional studies that focused on specific parts of Ukrainian territories controlled by various colonial powers, the discourse attempted to reconcile the identities of intellectuals formed under the influence of different imperial contexts. As with Russian imperial policy, the Habsburg empire limited the Ukrainian intelligentsia’s opportunities for educational attainment and career advancement. For instance, language was instrumental in this process.

The formation of the Ukrainian intelligentsia (as a separate social group) was hindered by the politics of the school administration’s politicization, which in the field of secondary education amounted to limiting the access of Ukrainian youth to gymnasiums, real schools, teachers’ seminars and preventing the opening of new Ukrainian educational institutions. The situation in the field of higher education also did not contribute to the formation of a nationally conscious Ukrainian intelligentsia because, until 1914, there was not a single Ukrainian higher school on the territory of Austria-Hungary. Ukrainians could only partially get an education in their native language at Lviv University, which had a de jure Utraquist (bilingual) and de facto Polish character with a tendency to gradually restrict the rights of Ukrainians. (Girnyak 2013:26)

In Ukrainian scholarly discourse, the terms ‘intelligentsia’ and ‘intellectuals’ were often found to be used interchangeably, signaling the interpretation of these phenomena as synonymous rather than dichotomous. However, this discourse also compared and contrasted these terms to re-interpret their meaning. Kaganov (2007:255-256) acknowledged that ‘in modern Western countries, the term “intelligentsia” is rarely used; the term “intellectuals” is more popular there, which refers to people professionally engaged in intellectual (cognitive) activities’. Ukrainian scholars insisted that Russian and Soviet discourses focused on the ‘opposition between the Soviet “spiritual” intelligentsia and Western “spiritless” intellectuals’ (Lysyi et al. 2014:53). However, Ukraine’s independence allowed for the integration of Western scholarly perspectives with Ukrainian discourse to reconcile the two terms, as explained by Kasianov (2004:20):

Western researchers, who turned to the history of the Ukrainian intelligentsia, at one time performed a kind of ‘compensatory’ function, studying those plots banned or deliberately falsified in Soviet Ukraine. At present, when the function has lost its relevance, and Western scientists have gained access to Ukrainian archives and the opportunity to freely communicate with Ukrainian colleagues, new perspectives on the study of the Ukrainian intelligentsia are emerging.

Through scholarly discourse, Ukrainian academic journals emerged as a space for re-imagining the intellectual community, and the discourse within it questioned the universality of the intellectuals–intelligentsia dichotomy. The publications in the corpus attributed the same characteristics to both intellectuals and intelligentsia, portraying them as educated workers representing intellectual elites. However, the Russian and Soviet legacy remained present and influenced the perception of the intelligentsia. ‘The danger of the mind is compensated by powerlessness’ of the intelligentsia (Kebuladze 2014:106). Considering that

[g]eographical and chronological differences, thanks to which it was possible to clearly distinguish these terms at the beginning of the twentieth century now are no longer perceived so acutely. . . . In the context of modern political processes in Ukraine, researchers turn to the topic of the intelligentsia and intellectuals not only academically but also with practical interest, feeling the need to rethink terms with an imperial or Soviet origin. (Rodygina 2017:50).

Rethinking emerged in the discourse through a careful reconsideration of the broader function of intellectuals, who served not only academia but society at large.

The discourse demonstrated how Ukrainian intellectuals reclaimed their agency by focusing on the contribution of the intelligentsia to state building. Publications drew on history to explain the role of the intelligentsia in formulating the Ukrainian national project and establishing the independent state. For example, scholars investigated the role of intellectuals in leading the 1917 revolutionary events:

The intellectual elite of the Ukrainian nation acted as an organizer to create the Central Council. . . . Prominent Ukrainian scientists, cultural and artistic figures, well-known teachers became part of the leadership of the General Secretariat (Ministry) of Education during the time of the Central Council and the Ministry of Education and Art in the Ukrainian State of Hetman S. Skoropadskyi. (Sorochan 2004:135)

Research papers focused on the personal stories of Ukrainian intellectuals highlighted their decisions to assume positions of power to build state institutions. Particularly during World War I, ‘due to the lack of professional government officials . . . professional scientists became politicians, professional writers became government officials, professional journalists became military (M. Hrushevskyi, V. Vynnychenko, S. Petlyura are the most typical examples)’ (Kominyarska 2006:198). At the same time, the discourse critically reflected on the diversity of Ukrainian intellectuals, including intellectuals who chose to cooperate with imperial elites, in addition to promotors of the national idea. Relationships between the intelligentsia and former colonial governments were mostly discussed in terms of ‘stiff resistance’, ‘confrontation’, ‘advocacy’, ‘opposition’, and ‘struggle’. However, the literature acknowledged that some intellectuals preferred ‘neutrality’, ‘non-interference’, and even ‘professional cooperation’. Thus, the discourse suggested a new typology for Ukrainian intelligentsia. It was no longer a unified Soviet-style collective that served as ‘people’s consciousness’ or one that was based on social classes. Rather, intellectuals defined their purpose by exercising their individual agency. The discourse acknowledged their ability to act as either bearers or destroyers of ideologies.

Discussion

Ukrainian academic discourse takes advantage of the post-colonial situation to critically reflect on historic legacies embedded in the terms ‘intellectuals’ and ‘intelligentsia’ and reject an artificial dichotomy between them. This approach aligns with Said (1986) argument about the potential for retrospective critical reflections on colonialism to improve the understanding ‘of the present in newly independent states’ (ibid.: 45). The discourse is closely linked to political reforms in Ukraine, allowing for increased freedom of academic inquiry and international cooperation. Scholarly publications address previously censored aspects of intellectual history. They bridge the knowledge gap on Soviet purges of the Ukrainian intelligentsia by analyzing recently opened archives. The discourse integrates narratives articulated by diaspora and foreign intellectuals through open international cooperation with representatives of different knowledge traditions (Kozak et al. 2015). The 2014 Russian invasion of Ukraine and the 2022 escalation of the war encourage a critical re-examination of both Russian and Soviet narratives. Despite Russia’s unwillingness to acknowledge its colonizing influence, Ukrainian scholars question the power relationship that enabled Moscow to provincialize the Ukrainian intelligentsia through a continuous politics of Russification. The discourse rejects the dichotomy of ‘intellectuals’ and ‘intelligentsia’ by recognizing its ideological instrumentalization to justify limitations of individual agency exercised by intellectuals. The literature reclaims the agency of the Ukrainian intelligentsia by acknowledging the contribution of its members to the articulation of the Ukrainian national project. Agency plays a pivotal role in the decolonization of the Ukrainian context, which remains influenced by the Soviet legacy. Reclaiming individual agency is crucial in addressing path dependency, which enables feudalism, administrativisation, and uniformity in intellectual communities.

The discourse reveals a growing gap between interpretations of the intelligentsia phenomenon in Ukrainian and Russian scholarship. Soviet-style collectivism does not appear to be rejected by the Russian intelligentsia. It struggles to embrace agency and subjectivity while maintaining trust in the state’s political leadership to avoid responsibility (Kuchenkova 2019; Gusejnov 2018). Scholarship suggests that the Russian intelligentsia is more reliant on social and economic capital passed on through generations due to low levels of social mobility within society, which continues to fuel conflicts between the intelligentsia and the broader population without access to the same resources and opportunities (Lankina 2022). The privileges enjoyed by the Russian intelligentsia (Kochetkova 2009) did not extend to intellectuals on the periphery of the Soviet empire. Soviet uniformity strengthened the hierarchy, which kept intellectuals in Moscow and Leningrad privileged, whereas republican researchers struggled to attract interest in their work (Zayarnyuk and Sereda 2022). Thus, Ukraine’s independence brought liberty by allowing intellectuals to re-imagine their role.

Despite a recognition of the danger of Western coloniality of knowledge (Silova et al. 2017; Tlostanova 2015), Ukrainian scholarly discourse perceives closer European integration as an anticolonial tool, which supports further alienation from Russia. The Russian war on Ukraine and increased engagement with Western intellectuals demystify intellectuals’ moral qualities, which are often criticized in Russia. Ukrainian scholarly discourse perceives the Russian and Soviet discourses about intelligentsia to be a tool for subjugating scholars, marginalizing them, and excluding them from most social institutions. It prevents the intelligentsia from influencing the public (see Kebuladze 2014), which echoes the findings of Oleksiyenko (2022) in the case study on academic dissent. Western scholarship does not attempt to idealize intellectuals, but as discussed by Macfarlane (2012), acknowledges academics’ responsibility to contribute to the development of their disciplines and broader society. Similarly, Ukrainian discourse investigates the role of the Ukrainian intelligentsia in the national project, which deconstructs the myth of their ‘powerlessness’. Ukrainian academic discourse does not idealize Ukraine’s relations with the West. It remains critical of approaches used by the Habsburg Empire, the Polish Republic, and the Germans to take advantage of Ukrainian intellectuals. The idea of the ‘pre-Soviet golden ages’ found by Narvselius (2015) in Lviv’s media discourse is not evident in the scholarly publications included in the corpus. Meanwhile, the multicultural heritage that connects Ukraine with a broader East Central European region is present in the discourse.

This study reveals changes in Ukrainian academic discourse that accompany social and political transformations in the war-torn country, but re-interpretation is ongoing. The study showcases how discourse critically re-examines not just one but rather multiple colonial legacies. However, these efforts have yet to empower intellectuals to address internal hierarchies and tensions in Ukraine. The Soviet legacy of one-man management and administrativism encourages collective conformism and still promotes the superiority of state and institutional agency over the individual (Oleksiyenko and Shchepetylnykova 2021). Limited publications in the corpus attempt to critically reflect on the more recent changes to scholarly identity, especially during the period of the Russian war on Ukraine. Little is known about the war’s toll on intellectual communities. The displacement and precarity of intellectuals may encourage some to seek new interpretations of their function in Ukrainian society, while others may find themselves discouraged and silenced. Because the Ukrainian language discourse remains central to the discussion of local intellectual identity, it indicates a certain continuity in the perception of language as a crucial instrument in constructing Ukrainian identity. However, this approach limits the opportunities of international scholars to contribute their ideas to Ukraine’s efforts to decolonize academic discourse. In addition, Ukrainian scholars actively develop verbal discourse during conferences and round tables. For instance, Donetsk National Technical University hosted conferences for researchers interested in studies of the intelligentsia prior to Russia’s full-scale invasion. The analysis of spoken academic discourses may be an interesting direction for future scholarly investigations.

Concluding remarks

Ukraine’s social and political transformations triggered an ongoing re-imagination of the Ukrainian intellectual community in the post-colonial context, but this re-imagination is not complete. Despite the marginalization of the former Soviet periphery and the proliferation of Russian imperial narratives, Ukrainian scholars benefit from the nation’s liberalization, critically re-examining their interpretations of the intelligentsia phenomenon. They integrate research produced by diaspora and foreign researchers in the West to fill the knowledge gap in Ukrainian academic discourse. Intellectuals approach the assessment of colonial legacies critically; they reject the intellectuals–intelligentsia dichotomy by reconciling the two terms to accommodate the identity of Ukrainian scholars who are able to formulate their purpose through regained academic freedom and individual agency. However, this re-imagination does not seem to translate into the mass liberalization of intellectual communities. The Soviet legacy of uniformity, paternalism, and one-man management remains embodied in institutions, which hinder individual agency. The ongoing Russian war against Ukraine may fuel further re-interpretations of Ukrainian intellectual identity; this may deepen understanding of the complex relationship between integration into the global science system and the capacity building needed to interrogate colonial dependencies and avoid nested coloniality.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by Research Grants Council, University Grants Committee: [GRF Number 17615419; PI: Professor Anatoly V. Oleksiyenko].

Notes on contributors

Ielyzaveta Shchepetylnykova

Ielyzaveta Shchepetylnykova is a PhD Candidate at the Academic Unit of Social Contexts and Policies of Education, Faculty of Education, The University of Hong Kong. She is doing research on intellectual leadership in the post-totalitarian contexts of higher education.