The Outpost of Ukraine: The Role of Dnipro in the War in Donbas

This presentation chronicled and analyzed the public discourses of civic nationalism that emerged in the immediate aftermath of the war in Donbas and crystallized in the years since. Drawing upon representations of Dnipro’s role in the war in the local and national media, memory institutions, and new urban spaces, journalist Olena Andriushchenko and the cultural historian Nick Kupensky showed how the metaphor that Dnipro was the “outpost of Ukraine” proved to be a particularly effective new myth, one with the power to signify both strength and compassion and synthesize a wide array of civic activity: volunteering to fight, caring for IDPs, healing the wounded, and facilitating new social relations.