Ukraine in Popular Culture - New Issue of the Czech Journal of International Relations

The theme of the issue is the reflections of war, and Ukraine more broadly, in popular culture. Integrating literatures on popular geopolitics, vernacular and aesthetic IR, and Ukraine studies, the issue unpacks the complexities of the knowledge-making about Ukraine that takes place at the interstices of the everyday, the aesthetic, and the international. The issue offers an editorial written by Elizaveta Gaufman and Bohdana Kurylo, and six research articles.

The themes of these articles stem from understanding the reflection of geopolitics in popular culture (ie the articles of Robert Saunders titled Ukraine at War: Reflections on Popular Culture as a Geopolitical Battlespace, and Jacob Lassin titled Vernacular Geopolitics through Grand Strategy Video Games: Online Content on Ukraine in Europa Universalis IV as a Response to the Russo-Ukrainian War), unpacking the narratives connected with the war (as do Anastasiia Poberezhna, Olga Burlyuk and Anja van Heelsum in their piece titled A Superhero Army, a Courageous People and an Enchanted Land: Wartime Political Myths and Ontological Security in the 2022 Russian Invasion of Ukraine), to illustrating the state of the popular culture in Ukraine and its reaction towards the gruesome war (Mark Sachleben’s Contested Identities, Hunger, and Emigration: Themes in Ukrainian Cinema to Explain the Present Day, Yulia Kazanova’s A Solidarity Narrative: The Soft Power of Ukrainian Wartime Poetry and Winter Greet’s “Spiritual Armour”: Crafting Ukrainian Identity through Vyshyvanka).

The whole collection of articles within these themes includes two other pieces, written by Elzbieta Olzacka (Ukrainian Wartime Posters as a Tool of Participatory Propaganda During the Russian Invasion of Ukraine) and Alina Mozolevska (Unveiling the War and Constructing Identities: Exploring Memes in Ukrainian and Russian Social Media during the Russian Invasion of Ukraine), but due to the limited capacity, these will be published as a part of the second issue of 2024.

Lastly, the issue introduces a topical review written by Mila O’Sullivan on the book by Olesya Khromeychuk titled The Death of a Soldier Told by His Sister.

Dear readers, we hope you will find the issue intellectually stimulating.

Pleasant read,

Michal Kolmaš,

CJIR Editor-in-chief