Sporting Independence. Ukrainian Sport from Perebudova to Decoloniality

Research poject
as part of the Leibniz Women Professors Program by ZZF department head Juliane Fürst

When 16-year-old Oksana Baiul from Dnipro won the women’s singles figure skating competition during the 1994 Winter Olympics in Lillehammer, it turned out that no recording of the Ukrainian anthem was available. The organisers proposed using the Russian or Soviet anthem instead, but the Ukrainians refused. This incident highlights how, after proclaiming its independence, Ukraine not only had to find an internal consensus on its identity and unity but was also constantly challenged in its existence on the international stage by various actors in the new post-Soviet realities. 

This project analyses the path from perebudova (the Ukrainian word for perestroika) to decoloniality in the field of sport as an intriguing and enlightening prism through which to understand broader social and political changes on the way to Ukrainian independence. As elsewhere, in Ukraine, a country known for its prominent athletes and teams, sport was perceived as an important promoter for expressing political ideas and creating public moods. From the late 1980s, sport increasingly became a carrier of Ukrainian separate identity and ideas of independence. The field of sport became an important motor for the process of decolonisation in the transition period and served as a site for debates of what independence should mean. Studying major sports allows us to explore this period from a variety of perspectives: from the viewpoint of Ukrainian sports representatives and athletes, through their relations with the (former) center in Moscow as well as with the international community, and by analysing the role of international sport institutions in this regard. This project aims to tell the story not only of how Ukrainian sport was transformed, but also of how it transformed those connected to it.