Trends of changes of national-civic identity during the war: narrative analysis

Abstract

Today, in sociological discourse, there is a consensus regarding the formation of a consolidated national identity in Ukrainian society, in which the civil and ethnic elements are indivisible. Studies of changes in national-civil identities in the context of a hybrid and full-scale Russian-Ukrainian war record an increase in the number of those who self-identify as citizens of Ukraine. However, it is unclear how these changes occurred and what happens to those who previously had such an identity. The purpose of this article is to document changes in national-civic self-identification under the influence of war at the personal level. Fragments of 38 in-depth interviews conducted in March-April and September-October 2023 with forced migrants were used as empirical material. Some of the informants continued to remain abroad at the time of the survey, while others returned home. From the narratives about how the war changed their lives, a number of episodes were identified that described the changes that occurred in the awareness and experience of national-civic identity. Changes were recorded in the components of social identification as: self-categorization; evaluation; importance; attachment and sense of interdependence; social embeddedness ; behavioral involvement. During the analysis, the following trends were identified: 1 — a change in the place of national-civic identity among other group affiliations, its transition to the place of the dominant self-identification; 2 — strengthening a positive attitude towards national-civic identity both from within, at the personal level, and from the outside, on the part of other national communities; 3 — strengthening the importance of national-civil self-identification due to its awareness, transformation of hidden importance into explicit one; 4 — increased emotional attachment due to an increased feeling that the fate of the group and personal fate are inseparable; unifying own sense of “I” with the group “We”; 5 — strengthening social inclusion against the backdrop of a general increase in interpersonal support; 6 — growth of behavioral practices (linguistic, cultural, volunteer) aimed at strengthening national-civic identity.