Interpretive Knowledge and Russia’s War of Aggression against Ukraine

Since 24 February 2022, German politics, the media, and the public have been facing an enormous challenge: First, any activity regarding the war has to address the low level of interpretative and orientational knowledge about its background and context. Second, a significant political and analytical emphasis has been put on the aggressor country, , while the agency, history, and culture of the country under attack, , as well as of other neighboring countries with their own interests and specific needs tend to be neglected. Furthermore, a broad range of speculative arguments, which reflect a lack of basic knowledge about the region, challenge us to bring in well-grounded knowledge to explain the background of the war. A further challenge arises from the fact that the war has been densely documented on digital media, which on the one hand opens up new legal and scientific possibilities, but on the other hand presents researchers with a whole series of new tasks in order to gain some clarity around methodologies and ethics. Hence, Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine poses a number of new research challenges in the humanities as well as the social sciences in general.

The symposium "Languages of War—Interpretive Knowledge and Perspective Debates on the War in Ukraine" was organized by the Giessen Centre for Eastern European Studies (GiZo) and the Herder Institute for Historical Research on Eastern Central Europe in Marburg (a member of the Leibniz Community). Its aim was to broadening the horizon of knowledge on the background and the context of the war and to place Ukraine, its identity, culture, and interests at the center of academic coverage. This event, funded by the Volkswagen Foundation, was part of the Thematic Week "War in Ukraine—Scholarly Perspectives", which took place from 22 to 24 February 2023 at Herrenhausen Palace in Hanover. The symposium primarily addressed the broad implications of language(s) as a medium of war, taking into account multidisciplinary, interdisciplinary, and inter- as well as intra-regional perspectives of Eastern European studies. The aim was to construct a scholarly explanation of the Russian war of aggression on Ukraine and its local, regional, as well as international consequences. The war of aggression has brought about a profound paradigm shift in Eastern European and European studies, as well as in the humanities and cultural studies as a whole, which has not yet been systematically discussed in Germany.

In this regard, the term ‘language’ is to be understood in a polyvalent manner, covering not only spoken and written individual languages, but also other forms and modes, such as language as a medium of war in propaganda and in visual objects. Language can also be seen as a cultural and identity marker (especially in scenarios of conflict), a carrier of content and information, and an epistemic and discoursive power that symbolizes and shapes values and concepts of society. While transporting violence and justifications for war, ‘language’ also serves as legitimation strategies, but might also provide future scenarios for the postwar era. Studying this requires us to reflect upon national and international strategies of argumentation, as well as the narratives and myths that justify and explain the war.

Hence, a paradigmatic shift is to be expected in studies on Eastern Europe, which might change the research landscape in the coming decade in various regards. The main epistemological consequences of the war might involve moving away from the predominant focus on Russia in Eastern European studies. Consequently, from a geographical perspective, a turn towards decentering research and reconfiguring the previous center-periphery dichotomy is to be expected, which might go beyond Eastern Europe and include the Southern Caucasus and Central Asia. As this war is also being fought in the field of (dis)information, from a methodological perspective, the digital dimension of knowledge distribution relating to the war requires improved coverage and skills in areas of media research and digital humanities.

Furthermore, this war has evolved and fed into a struggle on a larger scale between autocratic warfare and the democratic world. Hence, Western research on Eastern Europe is increasingly under pressure to navigate in a surrounding of increased politicization of research on Eastern Europe and with Eastern European researchers. In times of increased politicization, however, science diplomacy is of increased relevance, and soconcepts of knowledge from the humanities, social sciences, and cultural studies have gained more importance. Finally, Eastern Europe studies is expected to enter a period of critical self-reflection on its lack of predictive capacity in relation to this war.

The overall picture of disciplinary and interdisciplinary research on Eastern Europe since 1990 showed a strong focus on Russia1, which had already been broadly criticized prior to 20222. Nevertheless, since 2014, area studies on Ukraine experienced an increase in attention, albeit not sufficient, while taking into account the still remaining blind spots in research.3
 
There is an evident imperative for academic decolonization (for the term, see below), particularly in Ukrainian and Eurasian studies, as these fields must disentangle themselves from the dominance of Russian influence. This decolonization extends not only to academic subjects but also to languages and the broader scientific framework.4

Within a broader academic perspective, Eastern Europe “experiences a dual exclusion” (Müller 2020, p. 736) in academic coverage as it is neither considered part of the ‘Global South’ nor the ‘Global North’.

The challenges encountered within historical studies are equally significant. Notably, the successful revisionism of the Soviet era underscores the need for a nuanced approach to history writing. This revisionism has resulted in Ukraine's integration into the narrative of Soviet history and the framing of Ukraine as a victim of larger nations—a portrayal that requires careful analysis. The current conflict presents an additional obstacle: the potential for self-censorship among academics due to the sensitive nature of the subject matter. The study of history is compelled to reevaluate its starting point, considering the Russian attempt to undermine Ukraine and its historical trajectory. This prompts crucial questions about Ukraine's historical agency and whether it has experienced colonial subjugation. The ongoing conflict invites reflection on how this war is already being remembered and what facets of history are deemed essential to preserve. Simultaneously, the challenge emerges of identifying who possesses the qualifications to document this history in a manner that respects its complexity and nuances.5

Debates on decolonizing the perspective of historical research on Eastern Europe are furthermore linked to self-reflections on the German past.6 This relates, on the one hand, to significant perspectives on the Second World War and the Holocaust, whereby the Ukrainian territory has been predominantly perceived as part of the Soviet Union, which has made Ukrainian issues largely invisible. This fixation on major powers greatly impacted historical research in the following decades.7

If we define decolonization as a “historically unique and presumably irreversible delegitimization of any rule perceived as a subject relationship towards foreigners”8, not only the current war, but also the deterioration of the Russian-Ukrainian relationship since 2000 raises a couple of challenges, including “rethinking one's own standpoint, methodological approaches and, not least, the research topics themselves. [...] A politicized and methodologically unreflected 'decolonization' in times of war could favour a return to a special disciplinary position, which Eastern European history has tried to overcome in the last three decades.”9

As Bert Hoppe10 has pointed out, Russia's war is also directed against Ukraine's historical memory: “The large number of attacks on monuments, cultural institutions, and archives suggests that this is not just so-called collateral damage. They hit pillars of Ukrainian national consciousness. [...] Ukraine's historical memory is largely defenceless against Russia's missiles and shells.” Moreover, the war of aggression against Ukraine represents a more general turning point, especially for historical studies, as it forces us to anchor the war in a historical perspective and to readjust epistemic certainties in terms of the use of terminology. This is shown by the example of a debate between Ulrich Herbert and Martin Schulze Wessel on the use of concepts like "fascism", "genocide" or "war of extermination" in the context of the ongoing war. In the daily Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, Martin Schulze Wessel11 stated that “without an appropriate conceptual apparatus, the historical-cultural foundations of war [...] are not recognizable. [...] Taking a postcolonial perspective from Russia means consistently questioning the knowledge that has been constructed and canonized with the help of the Russian state.”

Florin (2022) suggests three scenarios, challenges, and demands on how to improve area studies on Eastern Europe, with a particular focus on history: 1) to consequently take the perspectives of the marginalized and oppressed seriously and not to step into traps of power holders like Putin, who made himself the center of attention. Hence, to listen more to those who do not have his decision-making power. 2) Linked to this, the structural Eurocentrism of our thinking about Eastern Europe must be overcome. Florin gives an example here: The narrative figure that Europe is no longer defended in the Hindu Kush but in Mariupol and Kyiv ignores principles of self-determination and emancipation in order not to limit the perspective on Ukraine as a victim of expansionist ambitions. 3) History studies on Eastern Europe should stop perceiving this area as a “special case” of study within a global history of decolonization. A broader and improved conceptualization of decolonization is required to properly grasp external rule, occupation, pressure etc.

The war requires us to move more broadly away from the Cold War era’s academic division of labor that implied the politicization and exoticization of the ‘non-West’.12
 
In the field of theory, established concepts such as "hybrid war" and "information war" are no longer entirely applicable, necessitating a conceptual reconfiguration. This shift is essential to accommodate the evolving nature of conflicts and their dynamics. It is more pertinent to consider contemporary conflicts as manifestations of colonialism, particularly evident in the context of Russian colonialism.13

All in all, this process of epistemic self-reflection in the context of the war is largely located in history and Slavic Studies. Meanwhile, within the social sciences, security studies face their own set of challenges, further exemplifying the interdisciplinary nature of these concerns.14 However, this is largely a debate on NATO and the EU and on the (non)validity of one of its main theories, neo-realism. It is less on inside-out perspectives on security within Eastern Europe. To a limited degree, there is self-reflection on the lack of nexus between social sciences and area studies.15
 
The war is also changing the requirements profile and working structure of the historical sciences and raises questions about the authenticity of data and the decolonization of data cultures and digital infrastructures. “Data are never objective and free from bias or ideological convictions, just like historical sources. Data convey conflicts, hegemonies, and colonialisms. They reinforce cognitive biases and subaltern positions […]. One requires appropriate methods and tools not only to critically reflect on these inherited legacies and burdens, but also to bring our new awareness of them back into the research cycle”16. Already in 2020, Susan Drucker and Russell Chun17 pointed out the impact of fake news and disinformation campaigns on entire societies: “As does cancer, fake news hijacks the normal networks that power communication to spread, infect, and mutate. […] the onslaught and speed of potentially untrue, incorrect, or fabricated information (some crafted and weaponized, some carelessly shared), can cause a loss of our intellectual health. If we fail to have a common truthful basis for discussions of opinion, the integrity of our entire community suffers.”

As Miglė Bareikytė and Yarden Skop18 have noted, after Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine, aggression and resistance have also taken place in digital spaces: “Outside of the physical battlefields, the digital dynamics of this war have been put front and center: some call it ‘the first TikTok war’ […]. Ukrainian authorities have said they are fighting a ‘hybrid war’, one that includes both assaults on the ground and countless cyber-attacks, aiming to hurt important infrastructures that allow the flow of communication or flood the digital sphere with contradicting information.” Both authors also point to the fundamentally new quality of this conflict for the West and its social structure: “One of the aims of disinformation is to deconstruct coherence, disrupting collective meaning-making processes. Its intention is to make it difficult to understand the present and therefore harder to build a shared view of the past.”19
 
Against this backdrop we should therefore ask the following questions: What does this mean for digital source criticism in times of fragile facts? What form of digital agency can be observed and what does this mean for the status of classical historical research and curatorial tasks? How does the war influence current developments in the construction, networking, and self-understanding of infrastructures? How should we deal with traditional knowledge and collection orders? How can the historicity and ambiguity of categories and concepts be brought into research data structures? What guiding principles do we have for dealing with contested knowledge? And last but not least: what competencies do we need to foster in future scholars in the humanities?

The discrepancy between language identity and practice prior to 2022 is marked by an increasing identification with the Ukrainian language following the events of 2014. This was fostered by the state's language policy and the promotion of the Ukrainian language through legislative measures. Hence, currently we can observe a drastic post-2022 shift towards even stronger support for the Ukrainian language20 and the reduced dissimilarity among various regions alongside a noteworthy shift in reported and exhibited language usage. A significant shift towards Ukrainian language predominance, even in traditionally Russian-leaning areas, is to be expected.21

Thus, we are now observing a rise in Ukrainian language usage, whereas the level of bilingualism remains constant and the usage of Russian is declining. One of the future challenges relates to striking a balance between language activism and its role in enhancing language awareness and motivation, while at the same time, Ukraine's language diversity requires the preservation of national languages and traditions. The EU-accession process might support this through new legal demands on protecting national minorities. More research is needed on the language practices of displaced people inside Ukraine, including their linguistic interactions with locals, and the potential impact on the economy and reconstruction. Hence, the dramatic development of language attitudes and practices among Ukrainians in times of conflict will be the subject of increased study. Various developments can already be observed, such as an increased usage of Ukrainian, the harmonization of regional linguistic disparities, as well as the impact of language activism on Ukrainian and among diverse minority groups.22

According to Mychailo Wynnyckyj, for the last 30 years, social science has overlooked changes in Ukrainian identity and has remained stuck in a perspective wrongly equating language usage with national identity. This has resulted in a failure to grasp the fact that, in Ukraine’s south and east, Russian-speaking Ukrainians nevertheless saw themselves primarily as Ukrainians. Ethno-linguistic self-identification might be accompanied by a political-institutional dimension of national identity. However, due to strong skepticism towards political institutions, Ukrainian identity is strongly linked with a territorial dimension, hence, the “territory nation”.23

Linguistic signs, indicating a particular affiliation to a language community, are observable indicators of the relative power and the status of linguistic communities in a given territory. Hence, these signs might indicate linguistic and symbolic demarcations between language contact zones, or they may negate linguistic landscapes, for example, those introduced by occupying powers. This is to be observed in the occupied and/or liberated Ukrainian territories. On the one hand, Russian-Ukrainian bilingualism in certain territories has come under increased pressure since the start of the war. On the other hand, linguistic landscapes in the Ukrainian language have become far more symbolic demarcations of self-defense, identity, and national unity.24

According to Putin’s anti-Ukrainian rhetoric, the Ukrainian language is in fact “artificial” and constitutes rather a Russian dialect than a language. This can be perceived as one of the rhetorical framings to justify the war.25 Similarly, from the Russian perspective, this war is being fought to protect Russia’s traditional, spiritual, moral, cultural, and historical past and memories, which are perceived as inherently embedded in Ukrainian territory.26

Russia’s perspective on Ukraine is mainly a historical one, deploying false narratives on the “Russkyj Mir”. A number of falsified justifications for the war relating to the Kievan Rus' and the impact of the Second World War are currently being (mis)used for political aims. In contrast, the Ukrainian debates on self-perception and self-identity among the elites and in the political discourse have tended to be future oriented , a trend that was already established before the war.27

For a comprehensive understanding of the course of the Russian war of aggression on Ukraine, we must also look at the religious dimension. Multi-layered cultural and religious interconnections between Ukraine and Russia have continued to impact relations between the two countries since Ukraine became independent. Hence, Ukrainian attempts for ecclesiastical independence from Russia, i.e. the Moscow patriarchate, has been an issue for years. The emancipation of the new Orthodox Church of Ukraine was recognized in January 2019. However, power struggles continued28. Furthermore, the Russian attack on Ukraine has been largely supported by the Moscow patriarchate and religious buildings have been massively damaged.29

Since February 24 2022, it has become clear that the war has also opened up new fields of activity for digital science: Examples include the documentation of destruction and cultural theft through the systematic archiving of Telegram chats and cell phone documents that record crimes against historical, cultural, and architectural assets and treasures for posterity. This war has already evolved into the most documented war in history to date. One new dimension of real-time war observation is that it hasbrought our focus to people’s every-day life during the war in cities and in the countryside. As a result of these people’s ability to record events and distribute this material online, international criminal justice can now rely on an enormous wealth of sources, documents, and evidence of war crimes. This is also true for Russia's crimes in the field of cultural, historical, and religious heritage. From a research perspective, the large number of digital sources requires appropriate data storage and analysis methods. Ultimately, this has to be a multidisciplinary endeavor.30
 
Challenges include conducting field research during wartime conditions, managing sensitive data susceptible to exploitation by adversaries, navigating the realm of information warfare with its inherent trust issues, and acknowledging the unreliability of data emanating from occupied territories due to the absence of freedom of expression. The motivations of academics have also evolved, shifting from pure objectivity towards a spectrum encompassing roles akin to journalists and activists.31

Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine also represents an attack on the rule-based world order and shows itself as a power struggle between democratic and autocratic orders. Multidisciplinary perspectives from historical, linguistic, and social science interpretations of the war in Ukraine and its causes are needed in order to classify root causes and consequences on a number of layers.

Further investigation is needed to explore links to other crises (crises of political systems through populism, authoritarianism and radicalism, reorientation of value chains and financial systems, energy, climate and food crises, the covid/health crisis) and to pursue the question of how far Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine can also be assessed as the result of an accumulation of these crises.

What remains to be seen and has been under-researched so far, is the impact of the war on further allied or balancing countries in the post-Soviet region, especially in Central Asia. In their foreign policy orientation, the Central Asian countries might become crucial for calculating the overall future power basis of Russia. This is, among other issues of economic dependencies, also a topic of intra-regional postcolonial power shifts away from Russia (as an empirical example, see for example Arystanbek and Schenk 2022).
All in all, academic research on Eastern Europe in Germany is still suffering from its systematic reduction and deconstruction in the aftermath of the Cold War32. Recently, there have been several impulses to strengthen research on Eastern Europe, primarily based on establishing a broader perspective. For example, it has been suggested that a German Historic Institute be set up in Kyiv. Similarly, the founding of the German Historical Institute in Warsaw in 1993 indicated a new focus within historical scholarship on Poland and East Central Europe33.

Despite a gradual decline since the end of the Cold War, Germany still has one of the densest research landscapes and competencies on the subject of Eastern Europe, consisting of a large number of university centers and chairs as well as non-university institutions. As the symposium finally made clear, one of the points of our ongoing discussion must also be on how this landscape can be better networked and also made more visible internationally. The sometimes painful reorientation of the individual disciplines that will be necessary in the coming years should not be limited to internal academic reflections, but should also be used proactively to strengthen the transfer aspects. Lastly, in view of the necessary reconstruction of Ukrainian science after the end of the war, the motto of the symposium "cooperation at eye level" should be implemented in all areas of academic dialogue with Ukraine.