History as a political weapon in the modern multipolar world: challenges for Ukraine (reflections of a historian and a politician)

Abstract

The purpose of this article is to provide a systematic analysis of the range of challenges facing Ukraine in a global and multipolar world since February 24, 2022. The methodology relies on interdisciplinary methods and concepts drawn from global history, sociology, and political science. Scientific novelty. The article examines the recent history of Ukraine within the dimensions of national and global history. It explores key transformations in the historical and cultural consciousness of society. It analyzes the conceptual foundations of the political course of the Donald Trump administration in the context of historical traditions of U.S. foreign policy. The instrumentalization of history as a kind of political weapon circulating in Russian ideological, cultural, and mass media discourses is demonstrated. The Russian strategy for legitimizing aggressive foreign policy, primarily the Russian Federation’s aggression against Ukraine, is outlined. Conclusions. It is demonstrated that contemporary public culture is shaped by the influence of diverse mass media technologies and tools. It is emphasized that such technological transformation of collective memory, particularly of the past, gives rise to a wide range of risks, dangers, contradictions, and conflicts. It is shown that both historical traditions and their destructive revisions exert a significant influence on the geopolitical actors of the modern global world. The role of political culture and its historical components in preventing conflict situations and critical states of social existence has been clarified. It has been noted that it is precisely the dynamic balance between political culture, memory politics, and cultural and educational policies that enables the formation of a vibrant civil society.