Ukraine is Europe? Complicating the concept of the ‘European’ in the wake of an urban protest

Abstract

This essay examines citizens’ use of cities as communicative spaces for expressing “Europeanness”–both in everyday life and in moments of mass mobilisation. It critically reflects on the notion of European urbanity as an aspirational, yet problematic ideal and seeks to decentre (Western) Europe as the default source of ideas about what it means to be European by attending to “peripheral” voices at Europe’s edge. It examines the events and symbolism of Ukraine’s 2013–2014 Euromaidan protest and its aftermath as a microcosm that reflects the broader negotiation of Ukraine’s imaginary of Europe and its own place within that imaginary.