Constructing common sense: Language and ethnicity in Ukrainian public discourse

Abstract

Abstract This article analyses influential presentations of language and ethnicity matters in Ukrainian political and media discourse. I focus on the competing attempts to discursively ‘dissolve’ the ideological propositions in supposed common sense in order to influence the latter. After examining an ambiguous legacy left by Soviet discourse and practice, I demonstrate how the post-Soviet regime's ‘centrist’ project, which retains this ambiguity for the sake of social stability, prevails over the ‘national democratic’ discourse, which seeks to radically transform the Ukrainians’ common sense in accordance with the nation-state norm.