The Euromaidan Revolution, Reforms and Decommunisation in Ukraine

This article provides a comprehensive analysis of Ukraine’s adoption of four decommunisation laws in April 2015, their implementation and the controversy they generated. The first section analyses changes in Ukrainian memory politics prior to 2014. In 2006, the Ukrainian Institute of National Remembrance (Ukrainskyi Instytut Natsionalnoi Pamiat—UINP) was established but given meagre resources by President Viktor Yushchenko; pro-Russian political forces were opposed to both the Holodomor recognised as a genocide and official recognition of the Ukrainian resistance movement. The second section provides an analysis of Ukraine’s decommunisation process which was made possible by: the Euromaidan Revolution; collapse of pro-Russian political forces; election of a large pro-European parliamentary coalition; and the impact of Russian military aggression on Ukrainian attitudes to Russia and Ukrainian national identity. Together these four factors reduced opposition and energised those who supported decommunisation. In the third section we argue that six criticisms of Ukraine’s decommunisation raised by Western and Ukrainian scholars were exaggerated and misplaced.