NATIONAL IDENTITY IN THE CONTEXT OF WAR: AN EVENT-BASED AND EXISTENTIAL DIMENSION

Abstract

The article offers a philosophical reflection on national identity under the conditions of the Russian–Ukrainian war, conceptualized as an event-based and existential process that becomes actualized in a situation of historical rupture. The point of departure is a critique of reductive approaches in which identity is interpreted primarily as a set of empirically fixed characteristics or as an instrumental condition of social resilience. Instead, identity is approached as a mode of self-determination of both the individual and the community, formed in the temporal dimension through the interpretation of experience and acquiring radical intensity in moments of crisis. The theoretical framework of the study combines hermeneutic and existential perspectives, which makes it possible to analyze war not merely as a socio-political factor, but as an event that disrupts the habitual order of life and shifts identity from a background mode into the sphere of choice, responsibility, and subjectivity. Particular attention is paid to the postcolonial dimension of the Ukrainian experience, in which the war functions as a catalyst for overcoming imperial models of identification and for articulating one’s own historical position. The article substantiates a distinction between two scenarios of identity formation: a stable scenario (gradual forms of socialization through rituals and initiatory practices) and a crisis scenario (initiatory processes triggered by a threat to the survival of the community). For the latter, a matrix of existential questions («Who am I?», «Where am I in space?», «Where am I in time?», «What am I doing?») is proposed, through which the transition from passive experiencing of history to an active position of subjectivity takes place. It is shown that the war event not only affects already formed identification structures, but also transforms the very mechanisms of self-determination–through practices of action and engagement, linguistic choice, reinterpretation of historical memory, and changes in forms of collective solidarity. Future research will focus on analysing the mechanisms underlying the transition from a passive experience of historical events to an active, subjective stance, as well as on examining the long-term consequences of wartime experiences for the formation of national identity in the post-war period.