Minorities at War: Cultural Identity and Resilience in Ukraine

This collection focuses on Ukraine’s ethno-cultural minorities who in recent years have undergone forced displacement, emigration, the destruction of familiar ways of life, and a transformation of identity and language behaviour. The book examines the impact of Russia’s war against Ukraine, which began with the annexation of Crimea and the war in Donbas in 2014. It shows what happens to the cultural identities of minority groups and considers the mechanisms and components of their resilience in times of crisis. Key themes addressed include minorities’ collective memory and coping strategies, mobilisation and humanitarianism, forced displacement, and the preservation of identity. While most works on the Russo-Ukrainian war focus on the international context and the causes of the war and its humanitarian consequences for the population of Ukraine and the region as a whole, this book seeks to mainstream the issue of ethno-cultural minorities, which is often neglected in the coverage of this type of conflict. The book will be of interest to academics, researchers and policy-makers working in the areas of Law, Political Science, Anthropology, Human Geography, Religious Studies and War and Peace Studies.

Elmira Muratova is a post-doctoral researcher at European Centre for Minority Issues, Germany. She was previously an Associate Professor in the Department of Political Science and International Relations at Taurida National University in Ukraine. She is the author and editor of several books and has more than 60 research articles and book chapters in the areas of Crimean Tatars’ identity and religion as well as ethnic and religious developments in Crimea.

Nadia Zasanska is a research fellow at the Interdisciplinary Center for European Studies at Flensburg University, Germany. As a postdoctoral researcher, she worked at the Ukrainian Catholic University in Ukraine, studying digital religious media in Ukrainian and Russian contexts. Her research interests are Digital Religion, Religious Studies, and Media Studies and she has published widely on these and related subjects.