Envisioning Post-Violent Times in Ukraine and Belarus

Session Submission Type: Roundtable

Brief Description

The inhumane ferocity and suffering brought about by the war in Ukraine and, to a lesser extent, by severe repressions in the wake of the mass protests in Belarus necessarily prioritized the issues of trauma and violence in the public discourse and academia. Being utterly important in terms of witnessing the atrocities and giving voice to previously overheard perspectives, these often highly emotional testimonies of violence, however, mostly exclude the prospects of any post-violent/post-war reconciliation, i.a., by promoting the ideal scenarios of “total victory” or “regime collapse.” But is such thinking of post-violent coexistence really so “untimely” and “offensive” to the victims? With our roundtable focusing on Ukraine and Belarus, we would like to initiate this debate, which still remains virtually non-existent, and reflect upon the possible modalities—or even the plain possibility—of post-violent reconciliation. Could warring parties and violence-induced internal cleavages—exiled/refugees vs. non-migrants, civilians vs. combatants, dissidents vs. loyalists, peace-doves vs. bellicists—be overridden culturally and politically, and if yes—in what way? What frameworks might (and should) be built to “disinvent” war(s) and stop violence? What post-violent futures do culture and intellectual elites conceive, if any? What lessons can be derived from other comparable historical situations, e.g., the 19th century confrontations between empires and their national challengers, the peacebuilding after the two world wars, or the post-Cold War military conflicts in Yugoslavia, Chechnia or Nagornyi Karabakh? And, finally, in what way, if indeed, the perpetuation of trauma and violence can be curtailed?

Sub Unit

• Anthropology, Cultural Studies

Chair

• Olga Plakhotnik, U of Greifswald (Germany)

Roundtable Members

• Oleksandr Chertenko, U of Giessen (Germany)

• Roman Dubasevych, Greifswald U (Germany)

• Iryna Ramanava, European Humanities U (Lithuania)