Displaced Borderlands: Civilizational Belonging in the Narratives of Kharkiv Residents Relocated to the European Union after February 2022

Abstract

Kharkiv, an industrial and academic center of Eastern Ukraine, has transformed from a Soviet heartland into a new post-Soviet borderland, and since 2014, into a frontline city. As Ukraine has been seeking to join the European Union (EU) and North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and facing Russian aggression, Kharkiv has become a battleground of various civilizationalist discourses conceiving it either as a part of the “Russian World” and a Eurasian capital, or as an outpost of Europe. This article draws on interviews with residents of Kharkiv who fled to EU countries after the beginning of the Russian invasion in February 2022. It explores how the personal experience of the war, relocation, and living abroad affected their feeling of belonging, their interpretations of the city’s identity, and their visions of its future at the border with Russia, and whether they use the vocabulary of civilizationalism to frame these experiences.