From Outlaws to Icons: Crime, Identity and Memory After Communism in Southern Ukraine, 1990

• In Event: Moral Inversion: Value Change, Memory and Culture After Communism, 1990 Onwards

Abstract

Within the broader framework of the “wild capitalism” of the 1990s, this paper analyses how criminal/criminal-adjacent figures and subcultures became, when not key parts of regional identity, at least strong and acknowledged markers of locality. Using examples from southern Ukrainian cities, it will examine how in the upturned moral order following the end of communism, underworld figures, long demonised by the Soviet regime, could acquire positive status, both literally and in various cultural forms – and how this legacy endured over time. It will also investigate the inversion of the “cult of violence”, a propaganda term initially applied by the Soviet Union to the imperialist West, in the widespread popularity of Hollywood action films, martial arts and other expressions of force.

Author

• Francis Kirk, Centre for Contemporary History (Germany)