Region, Nation and Beyond. An Interdisciplinary and Transcultural Reconceptualization of Ukraine

自苏联解体以来，乌克兰吸引了越来越多的学术关注，因为其不稳定和有争议的政治进程和复杂的文化动态。“乌克兰”一词本身需要澄清：它是指一个地理领土、一个国家、一个民族还是一种文化？“乌克兰”的不一致（尽管是交叉的）维度清楚地表明，单一的学科方法不足以描述塑造和定义20世纪世纪欧洲政治地图上出现的最大国家的话语。这个项目提出了一个跨学科和跨文化的方法，质疑简单化的概念。乌克兰的地区问题是一个公认的事实。然而，人们对乌克兰地区主义的话语形态以及它如何影响更大的变革进程知之甚少。该项目提出了一个假设，即不同社会和文化领域的区域认同模式并不形成一幅有明确边界的地图，而是重叠和/或形成一个群岛。我们期望在该国相当遥远的地区看到类似的态度，相反，在迄今为止被认为相当同质的地区看到不同的做法和价值观。五个子项目将提供深入了解一个政治实体，获得国家只是最近，仍在努力阐明其文化特性。这些次级项目的共同特点是注重区域主义。该项目将开始进行一次社会学调查，以建立共同的概念，并为所有分项目提供一个广泛的共同框架。这项调查将由瑞士国家教育和研究秘书处提供赠款。所有次级项目的结果将综合成一份跨学科分析报告并予以发表。在方法上，该项目将结合联合收割机定量和定性的社会学研究（问卷调查，深入访谈），话语分析，文化历史和解释学。这个更大的项目的首要目标是通过说明国家和区域变化动态之间的相互关系，挑战民族国家范式在乌克兰分析中的主导地位。该项目将展示如何通过其区域最好地了解乌克兰，以及如何将区域与国家联系起来考虑。因此，该项目旨在将乌克兰重新概念化为一个流动的结构，各种话语交叉，一致并最终融合。它显然超越了一个由传统政治边界和文化、经济、历史或宗教陈规定型观念所界定的实体的视角。

Since the breakdown of the Soviet Union, Ukraine has attracted increased scholarly attention because of its erratic and contested political processes and complex cultural dynamics. The term “Ukraine” itself needs clarification: Does it refer to a geographic territory, a state, a nation or a culture? The incongruent, albeit intersecting, dimensions of “Ukraine” make clear that a single disciplinary approach will not suffice to describe the discourses that shape and define the largest state to appear on the political map of Europe in the 20th century. This project proposes an interdisciplinary and transcultural approach that questions simplistic conceptualizations. It is a commonly acknowledged truth that regions matter in Ukraine. Yet, little is known about the discursive shape of Ukrainian regionalism and about how it affects greater processes of change. The project puts forward the hypothesis that patterns of regional identification in different social and cultural realms do not form a map with clear cut borders but rather overlap and/or form an archipelago. We expect to find similar attitudes in quite distant parts of the country and, conversely, diverse practices and values in regions that so far have been considered quite homogenic. Five subprojects will provide insight to understanding a political entity that gained statehood only recently and is still struggling to articulate its cultural identity. The common denominator of these subprojects is their focus on regionalism. The project will begin by conducting a sociological survey to establish shared concepts and provide all subprojects with a broad, common framework. This survey will be financed by a grant from the Swiss State Secretariate for Education and Research. The results of all subprojects will be synthesized into an interdisciplinary analysis and published. Methodologically the project will combine quantitative and qualitative sociological research (questionaries, in-depth interviews), discursive analyses, cultural histories and hermeneutics. The overarching objective of the greater project is to challenge the dominance of the nationstate paradigm in analyses of Ukraine by illustrating the interrelationship between national and regional dynamics of change. The project will show how Ukraine can best be understood through its regions and how the regions must be considered in conjunction with the nation. Thus the project aims at a reconceptualization of Ukraine as a fluid construct where various discourses intersect, concur and eventually merge. It explicitly moves beyond the perspective of an entity irrevocably defined by traditional political borders and cultural, economic, historical or religious stereotypes.