RUSSIAN CULTURAL EXPANSION IN ZAPORIZHZHIA IN THE 1920s AND 1930s

Abstract

The latest Russian-Ukrainian war has actualized the study of Russian cultural expansion and the use of art as a political weapon. The terrorist Russian regime continues centuries-old traditions of propaganda, spreading narratives in its war against Ukraine about the commonality of history, culture, and language between Russia and Ukrainian territories, which include the modern city of Zaporizhzhia. Coverage of Russian assimilation processes is important in the context of destroying myths about Zaporizhzhia and understanding how the processes of Soviet Russified cultural expansion destroyed Ukrainian culture and national identity. In order to characterize the manifestations of Russian cultural expansion in Zaporizhzhia in the 1920s and 1930s, the author analyzes the achievements and failures of Ukrainization in the context of parallel Sovi- etization and Russification in Zaporizhzhia, characterizes the cultural space of Zaporizhzhia residents in the 1920s and 1930s, and highlights the Bolshevik government’s attack on the «counter-revolutionary» tendencies of Ukrainian national culture in Zaporizhzhia. It is pointed out that the cultural life of Zaporizhzhia in the 1920s and 1930s demonstrates all the contradictions and diversity characteristic of the period of cultural construction during the Ukrainian Renaissance, which turned into the Red Renaissance. In parallel to the processes of Ukrainization, the formation of the Soviet identity, which also had a Russified character.