An Angry Ukrainian Syndrome: Stereotypes About War, Peace, and Injustice

By Olena Komar

In this article, I aim to demonstrate that a set of prejudices exists in Western countries against Ukrainians, which I term the “Angry Ukrainian Syndrome” (similar to the “North African Syndrome”). This is a set of biases that have emerged through the way Ukrainians communicate about the war and how they meet the stereotypical expectations of Westerners[i]. Furthermore, these prejudices are colonial, stemming from an inability to see Ukrainians as independent people, distinct from Russians. This bias is exacerbated by historical myopia influenced by pro-Russian attitudes within Slavic studies, as well as by pseudo-pacifism. Pseudo-pacifism refers to the tendency of those not under threat to refuse to assist those facing destruction under the pretext of not multiplying violence and to direct blame at the victims, denying them the right to self-determination and the ability to make informed decisions about their fate. These prejudices manifest epistemic injustice[ii] that must be confronted by eliminating ignorance. Epistemic injustice is a lack of trust in the knowledge of Ukrainians, which arises from the systemic historical fallacy of interpreting colonized peoples through the perspective of the colonizer. Such ignorance can be deliberate, serving the interests of the oppressor by maintaining a lack of understanding about the experiences and suffering of the oppressed.

There are a few levels of epistemic injustice:

1) The stereotyping of the Ukrainians’ struggle for survival and identity as a manifestation of belligerence;

2) The rejection of war as a negative phenomenon is transferred to the victims of war: their experiences and feelings are undesirable. This leads to silencing or victimization;

3) Testimonial injustice and gaslighting are a result of a blind spot in people’s knowledge: distrust of the testimony and expertise of Ukrainians about their own history and about the Russians;

4) Unfair equalization, coercion to peace, and compromises that benefit only the aggressor.

Negativism or resistance to oppression?

A Ukrainian athlete refused to shake hands with a Russian athlete (1), Ukrainian writers declined to participate in a joint panel discussion with a Russian writer (2), and Ukrainian scientists protested against the idea of delegates from Russian universities attending a conference.  How do Westerners react to such news? Do they see such actions as legitimate, fair, and reasonable? Most often, such events turn into scandals, and the Ukrainians involved are accused of xenophobia, racism or nationalism[iii] (3), cruelty, aggression, and discrimination (4), because Ukrainians distrust talk of peace negotiations, refuse to build ‘bridges of friendship’ between intellectuals, and their comments are deemed to be hate speech.

Is there something wrong with the Ukrainians themselves and with the way they deliver their messages, or is the problem on the side of the listeners, with the way they perceive these messages and their level of trust in the speakers? I want to highlight the latter here. The stereotyping of Ukrainians as angry, aggressive, belligerent, and perpetually dissatisfied plays into the narrative peddled by Russian propaganda, which tries to prove that Ukrainians are simply ‘bad Russians’. In my opinion, without a proper interpretation of hermeneutical injustice[iv] to reduce harm, there is a high risk that the prejudices that already exist, such as the ‘Angry Ukrainian syndrome’, will be further amplified. 

What are the premises for this statement and what is the term’s origin? I use this expression analogy to the one used by F. Fanon, who introduces the ‘North African Syndrome’ in his eponymous essay. It is not a medical diagnosis, but a prejudice that French psychiatrists had against North Africans. Modern science recognizes it as a manifestation of racist colonial prejudice against North Africans, under the influence of which this ‘syndrome’ was thought to be manifested by laziness and excessive emotionality. Yet, this view was not a malicious intent of doctors, but a consequence of the stereotyping of Africans as less mentally able and incapable of mastering their emotions, ideas that were shaped by colonial attitudes. This prejudice was unintentionally formed in them as a result of institutional guidelines, but does doctors’ ignorance of their prejudice absolve them of responsibility? Contemporary philosophers consider such ignorance culpable and irresponsible (5) because it could have been avoided and eliminated through proper behavior. Secondly, such ignorance harms others, so it is not innocent. There are many studies devoted to the specific “white lenses” or “white ignorance” that allow us to “not see” numerous discriminatory manifestations and decolonization of knowledge (6). However, there is no clear understanding of the place of the white Slavic peoples in Europe, who, for most of the last few centuries, have been the oppressed rather than the oppressors.

The absence of a hermeneutical perspective on Ukrainians as Eastern Europeans, who for most of their history have been enslaved, disenfranchised, oppressed, or have had to fight against attempts at genocidal extermination, has extremely harmful consequences when it comes to understanding Ukrainians today. Imposing a Western European lens on Ukrainians leads to dramatic distortions, as Ukrainians have historically been neither a privileged part of the Western world, with its colonialism nor have they ever had the imperial ambitions shown by Russia.

Anti-colonial and anti-racist criticism misses the target, because Ukrainians are not “white privileged oppressors”, so accusations of racism for helping Ukrainian refugees, which are often fomented by Russian propaganda abroad, are baseless (this refers to the thesis that Westerns help Ukrainians more than other refugees because they are white). At the same time, the West has never perceived them as a separate oppressed community because Ukrainians were seen only through the Russian colonial lens of “the edge of Russia” or “little Russians”. Both the Soviet myth of the equality of fraternal republics in the union and the Russian myth of the “younger brother” contributed to this. The current rhetoric of Russian officials towards Ukrainians is even worse, as it consists of a complete denial of Ukrainian subjectivity as bad Russians or ‘vyrus’.[v] Ukrainian identity is therefore extremely blurred in the Western European focus, and there is a blind spot in many respects, including language. In particular, refugee aid centers abroad offer Ukrainians the help of Russian-speaking translators by default. As a result, Ukrainians are invisible and unheard of in their identity. Their testimonies are systematically undermined, and perceived with bias or distrust, and their status as knowers is reduced.

Since many Westerners have only recently gained experience of personal communication with Ukrainians, they often generalize and stereotype them on this basis. This may lead to the impression that most Ukrainians are dissatisfied, negative, belligerent, and intolerant. The current image of Ukrainians is shaped by the exceptional circumstances of confronting the attack and the world’s inadequate response to it and is not their natural state.

Bravery or belligerence

At the beginning of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, the slogan “Be brave like Ukraine” (7) flooded social media and lightboxes in cities across Europe, the United States, and Canada. The world was amazed by the bravery with which Ukrainians resisted an enemy with 28 times the territory, 5 times the population, and the “world’s second-best army” wielding nuclear weapons. However, even this slogan has been criticized by many as “normalizing” and “pushing for the continuation” of a war that Europeans would never want to see again (8). It is easy to ignore the war in the center of Europe: all you have to do is turn a blind eye to the Ukrainians who brought their troubles with them or blame them for what happened.

“They won’t like it. They don’t like war“ – my 10-year-old son visibly tensed up when I suggested supplementing his presentation at a Vienna school about the Ukrainian artist Maria Prymachenko with a slide depicting the museum housing her works. On February 25, 2022, the museum in the town of Ivankiv, with its collection of the artist’s paintings, was destroyed by the Russian army during its assault on Kyiv. Of course, Austrian teachers and students would love Maria Prymachenko’s fantastic animals, birds, and flowers, which the great Pablo Picasso admired. Her paintings are colorful and cheerful. Yet why would they want to see that Russian soldiers destroyed the artist’s museum? They won’t even like it if you say “the Russians” because there is a Russian pupil in the class, and it may be unpleasant for him, and it might be considered “xenophobic.” The fact that the Ukrainians, with “their war”[vi], do not fit into the standards of pacifist countries, especially German-speaking ones, is something that is quickly learned, even by a child at elementary school. Are our feelings forbidden? Of course not. Are they undesirable? Certainly, they are. Silencing does not require coercion; the victim is silenced by themselves, losing hope of being listened to or fearing disapproval. The pacifism of modern Germans and Austrians, their abnegation of nationalism, and their rejection of aggression in any form have an understandable historical basis: the desire to forget and purify themselves, after World War II, of the image of a people who were collectively blamed for the crimes of Nazism or for not resisting evil. However, those who ought to understand better than others how Ukrainians feel, once again becoming victims of the aggression of the conquerors, now do not want to open up the wounds of memory, even if this means ignoring the annihilation of Ukrainians. However, it is one thing to abandon the invasion of other countries, but it is quite another to deny others their right to defend themselves by all possible means when they are attacked.

‘Kriegmüde’ (literally ‘tired of war’) is a new word I learned in German from a letter from another school. Europeans are tired of war, of high prices, of helping refugees, and ask us: “When will there be peace? Why do the Ukrainians refuse to compromise?” Can the Ukrainians afford to get tired of the war? Or do they keep talking about it because they want the war to continue? Si vis pacem, para bellum, peace will come with justice, not with compromise, if that compromise is rotten. According to Prof. Margalit, rotten compromises preserve a regime of cruelty and humiliation (9, р.89). They are morally unacceptable, even for the sake of peace.

This isn’t the first time in world history that Western Europeans have not wanted to know about the destruction of Ukrainians by Russians. Moreover, “peace” for Ukraine in these times under Russian conditions is a slowed-down systematic extermination, as has already happened in previous periods of history. In his 1983 essay, The Tragedy of Central Europe, the Czech writer Milan Kundera, who had to become an exile due to the aggression of the Soviet Union, reproaches Western Europeans “for not appreciating what other Europeans are willing to die for.” He points out that the Russians consider everything they have colonized to be Russian and seek to destroy the cultural identity of the occupied territories: “One of the great European nations (there are nearly forty million Ukrainians) is slowly disappearing. And this enormous, almost unbelievable event is occurring without the world realizing.” (10)

Stabbed in the back by our allies

Ukrainians are really getting angry and annoyed by several topics about misguided support from their allies, particularly when allies simultaneously express support for supposedly good Russian citizens or try to build “bridges of friendship” with them. At the outbreak of the full-scale war in 2022, many Western institutions, including universities and academies, published their position, which repeated the phrase “We support Ukrainians and brave Russians who oppose the war.” A search for the keyword “brave Russians” yields results that include numerous statements of solidarity from Western universities and cultural institutions with Ukraine. The double bind of this phrase is not obvious, because, at first reading, it can be said that it is about supporting all Ukrainians and only those Russians who disapprove of the war. Using the discourse analysis method, it is easy to find out what exactly is wrong with attempts to establish “peaceful dialogues” and “bridges of friendship” between Ukrainians and “brave Russians”, as exemplified by the statement made by USC Dornsife College[vii] (see image for the statement):

1. Supporting both opposing sides in a war reverses the statement’s meaning. The statement reads as “We stand with Ukrainians and we stand with Russians” because human consciousness is prone to generalization error and confirmation bias.
2. Treating the two sides as equal in these circumstances is an act of devaluing the suffering of Ukrainians and perpetuation of injustice because only one side is the aggressor. The reason why this is offensive to the oppressed is explained regarding the thesis “black lives matter” versus “all lives matter” in (11), where the latter phrase is a manifestation of racism.
3. Ukrainians are portrayed neutrally, as the injured party to whom solidarity is expressed, and Russians are portrayed as the bearers of a positive virtue – “brave” – which, given the power that words have, unintentionally fosters a better attitude towards them.
4. At least two expressions in this statement of support for Ukraine spread the traditional theses of Russian propaganda ‘fellow Slavic nation of Ukraine’ and ‘the greatness of Russian culture’.
5. The use of Ukrainian symbols during the war to promote and advertise Russian studies is an unprecedented example of cultural appropriation. If these institutions want to express their support for the Russians[viii], they should have the courage to do so in a separate statement under the Russian flag, rather than hiding behind the Ukrainian flag.

Furthermore, this statement, in the form it is presented, is a vivid illustration of the fact that Slavic studies in many Western universities are still essentially Russian studies and a source of spreading their colonizing views. Even if one assumes that the institutions that disseminated such statements of support with a double message had the best of intentions, in particular, to avoid discriminatory expressions against Russians, it is unacceptable to ignore the damage they caused. By expressing support, they present themselves as allies of Ukrainians. This is supposed to imply the creation of a safe space in which Ukrainians can freely express their true concerns and expect that only those ideas which they agree will be expressed on their behalf. Instead, the use of Ukrainian symbols and statements about Ukraine to support the Russians is perceived by Ukrainians as a stab in the back.  According to Rachel McKinnon, the betrayal of allies is especially painful because they arrogate understanding to themselves and resort to gaslighting, which is at least a manifestation of insensitivity and injustice (12). However, the classical notion of gaslighting as one that involves manipulating reality, scapegoating, and coercion should in this case be supplemented by the notion of ‘Westsplaining‘  and  ‘Russplaining’- the use of Western colonial optics in relation to colonized peoples[ix]. Even in modern universities with the most developed social practices, Ukrainians are still interpreted through the prism of Russian studies, where the dominant point of view is, of course, that of the Russians. The prejudice about the ‘great Russian culture’, which often serves as a justification in the eyes of Western intellectuals for the colonizing ambitions of Russians, is something that causes particular irritation among Ukrainians. As a rule, most Western communicators clearly condemn the armed aggression against Ukrainians, but find many arguments in defense of the ‘great Russian culture’ and wonder why Ukrainians dissociate themselves from it or ‘fight against culture’. This insensitivity to the Ukrainian context is the result of biased ignorance.

How equating the two sides devalues Ukraine and perpetuates injustice

An example of insensitivity due to hermeneutical injustice is the attempt by the Finnish Migration Service to place Russian men fleeing mobilization in shelters with Ukrainian refugees (13). After the announcement of partial mobilization, tens of thousands of Russian men crossed the borders of neighboring states and sought asylum. The Finnish Migration Service (Migri) placed these young Russian men fleeing conscription in the same shelters as Ukrainian refugees, mostly women and children. This appalling insensitivity to the mental well-being of the Ukrainian women, who not only perceived this neighborhood as a threat and danger but also experienced forced retraumatisation, was a result of epistemic myopia that treats all refugees equally. However, this decision has nothing to do with social equality or moral justice. The automatic equating of these fugitives with Ukrainian refugees is a manifestation of hermeneutical injustice, a striking disregard for the context, in which no ‘equals’ sign can be put between men from the aggressor country that started the war, who are selfishly concerned about their own health and self-preservation, and do not necessarily even condemn their state’s policies, and women from the country under attack, while their husbands remain at home, defending the country. It is blatantly insensitive to consider Russian deserters as victims and fugitives affected in the same way as Ukrainian refugees, because both are “fleeing from war”. This story is quite typical, and yet it is much more positive than many similar ones, because in this case, the Ukrainian women’s protests were eventually listened to, whereas, quite often, the unwillingness to stay under the same roof as Russians, to participate in joint events, to shake hands is immediately and harshly condemned as “xenophobia”, “racism”, and “discrimination” (4). The natural and legitimate desire to be safe and avoid retraumatising moments of experience is interpreted as a violation of European civilizational standards and as unacceptable behavior that should be condemned.

Families of victims of terrorist attacks are not compelled to meet the relatives of terrorists, nor are female victims of sexual crimes forced to communicate with ‘good men.’ Then why is this allowed to happen to Ukrainians? This problem is much deeper than moral insensitivity and lack of empathy. On the contrary, those who act in this way are motivated by the belief that they are doing the right thing. An anti-war Russian talking to a Ukrainian at a panel discussion creates a wonderful illusion that peace is at hand and that all that is needed is for politicians on both sides to order the army to lay down their arms. This belief is rooted in colonial blindness, which generates epistemic injustice. Instead of empathy and effective assistance, the position of Ukrainians is used against them: the Western algorithm for an “objective view” is to invite all parties, both Ukrainians and Russians, but to treat Ukrainians as a biased side. Since the victim and the aggressor are unequal sides, instead of objectivity and neutrality, uniting in a common discourse is discriminatory support for the aggressor. In fact, “bridges of friendship” are a collaboration of the oppressors against the oppressed, even if the latter do not realize it. The equalization of injustice requires that Ukrainians be given priority voice, because the aggressor and the victim of an attack cannot be equated, so attempts to compare Ukrainians with Russians on neutral territory from the position that ‘we are all victims’ are not just deeply offensive to Ukrainians, but even formally unfair and discriminatory.

The rhetoric of ‘family dispute’, ‘conflict between two sides’, and other attempts at reconciliation are negatively perceived by Ukrainians, as it gives the aggressor the upper hand and removes the question of the attacker’s unilateral responsibility. That is why affirmative action[x] should be applied. Instead, the typical situation is that Western actors, who provide aid and therefore are dominant and have power towards dependent Ukrainians, define acceptable and unacceptable emotions and thoughts for them, thereby silencing their true voices. This is an exercise of power and a deepening of discrimination and injustice, to which Ukrainians react negatively, thus reinforcing the belief that they might be responsible for the aggression against them.

Ukrainians are a historically discriminated group by Russians for many centuries. Therefore, no equal negotiations are possible until

1) complete cessation of aggression on the part of the aggressor and guarantees of prevention of the next aggression,

2) compensation for systemic discrimination in the past,

3) changing social practices to non-discriminatory ones,

4) favoring the discriminated to equalize injustice.

Parity can only be discussed under these circumstances. All the compulsions to reconcile under the conditions in which Ukrainians are now only continue and strengthen discriminatory practices.

The decolonization page on the topic of epistemic injustice was written relatively recently, but the Ukrainian issue is still almost a tabula rasa. Western Europe has a historical chance to either discover the real Ukraine or contribute to Russian propaganda in shaping the “Angry Ukrainians syndrome”.

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References

1. Gabriela Sá Pessoa, Jeré Longman,  “A Ukrainian fencer is disqualified after refusing to shake hands with a Russian opponent”. The New York Times (July 27, 2023). https://www.nytimes.com/2023/07/27/world/europe/ukraine-fencer-olga-kharlan-russia.html
2. Galyna Dolynna, “Russian Author accuses Ukrainian Authors”. Behind the News (18 May 2023) https://behindthenews.ua/en/manipuliatsiyi/politika/russian-writer-accuses-ukrainian-authors-461/
3. The public statement of the local TEDxUCU community on the termination of its activities (August 16, 2024) https://tedx.ucu.edu.ua/en
4. Лія Достлєва, Ненависть: крик у лісі. Dwutygodnik (November 2022) https://www.dwutygodnik.com/artykul/10413-nenavyst-kryk-u-lisi.html
5. Mitova, Veli Socialising epistemic risk: On the risks of epistemic injustice. Metaphilosophy 54 (4) (2023).:539-552.
6. Sullivan, Shannon, and Nancy Tuana. 2007. Race and Epistemologies of Ignorance. Race and Epistemologies of Ignorance. https://doi.org/10.2307/jspecphil.22.4.0313.
7. Nadia Kaneva. With ‘bravery’ as its new brand, Ukraine is turning advertising into a weapon of war. The World (August 25, 2022) https://theworld.org/stories/2022/08/25/bravery-its-new-brand-ukraine-turning-advertising-weapon-war
8. ‘Be brave like Ukraine’, Hoara Borselli: “La propaganda dell’Ucraina che spinge a continuare la guerra.” Riformista (15 Aprile 2022)https://video.ilriformista.it/be-brave-like-ukraine-hoara-borselli-la-propaganda-dellucraina-che-spinge-a-continuare-la-guerra-18258/
9. Margalit, Avishai, On Compromise and Rotten Compromises. Princeton, (NJ: Princeton University Press, 2010).
10. Kundera, Milan. The Tragedy of Central Europe. Translated from the French by Edmund White. New York Review of Books, Volume 31, Number 7, April 26, 1984.  https://dl1.cuni.cz/pluginfile.php/656024/mod_resource/content/1/Kundera%20The%20Tragedy%20of%20Central%20Europe.pdf
11. Mick Tsikas. “Why is it so offensive to say ‘all lives matter’?” The Conversation (January 13, 2021) https://theconversation.com/why-is-it-so-offensive-to-say-all-lives-matter-153188.
12. McKinnon, Rachel. “Allies Behaving Badly: Gaslighting as Epistemic Injustice.” In The Routledge Handbook of Epistemic Injustice. (2017). https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315212043
13.  У Фінляндії після скарг передумали селити росіян і українців у спільних центрах для біженців Українська правда. (3 жовтня 2022). https://www.eurointegration.com.ua/news/2022/10/3/7147945/

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Footnotes

[i] I’m not going to state that all or most of people from Western countries share these opinions because it is inappropriate to generalize or assign blame for individual mistakes to the entire population. However, I discuss systemic occurrences, attitudes, and prejudices that Ukrainians voice grievances about when discussing the war elsewhere.

[ii] Epistemic injustice is a term coined by Miranda Fricker (Fricker 2007). Injustice is epistemic if it undermines the capacity of knowers and harms them through mistrust, silence or reduced value. Its varieties are testimonial injustice and hermeneutical injustice. The topic of epistemic injustice has helped to draw public attention to various issues such as harassment, gaslighting, obstetric violence, and colonial injustice.

[iii] The story of the Ukrainian Catholic University breaking off cooperation with the American TEDx office because of the accusations against Maksym Osadchuk is illustrative of the allegations of racism. The term racism here has a biased political meaning, as Ukrainians and Russians do not belong to different races. In fact, in the context of this story, the term racism is a direct analogue of the term nationalism, which is more often used by Europeans in accusations against Ukrainians, and the term ‘cave Russophobia’ used by Russian propaganda.

[iv] According to M. Fricker (2007), hermeneutical injustice occurs when someone’s social experience is obscured from a collective understanding, leading to misinterpretations. As a result, the very fact of discrimination and harm is not recognised and acknowledged by the community precisely because of the lack of interpretive tools.

[v] ‘Vyrus’ (rus. ‘вырусь’) is a slang word with the pejorative meaning of a degenerate person of Russian origin who has lost the Russian identity and joined the non-Russians (rus. ‘нерусь’), or a traitor.

[vi] The German dictionary Duden has a new word ‘Ukrainekrieg’, which transfers semantic guilt to Ukraine. It is as inadequate to the situation as the expression ‘Polish death camps’ about the Nazi camps on Polish territory, which Poles are protesting against. What is wrong with the expression ‘Ukrainekrieg’, see https://www.furche.at/meinung/diesseits-von-gut-und-boese/die-verschleiernde-rede-vom-ukrainekrieg-11809831?fbclid=IwY2xjawE-pCpleHRuA2FlbQIxMQABHeYP4mF1QLUTrZFsbuXzARpMJACz1V9eZXKM2JWnKIP6KW2JW9JTNh8aig_aem_OZFUthAoA5hzd4Zpuej-sQ

[vii] See https://dornsife.usc.edu/sll/

[viii] It should be noted that the distinction between Ukrainians and Russians is a matter of political identification, belonging to the state, and civic responsibility, not a matter of ethnicity or nationality. There are still more than 8 million ethnic Russians living in Ukraine, most of whom have Ukrainian citizenship, and therefore they are also Ukrainian citizens who have suffered due to the Russian state. Contrary to the spurious claims of Russian propaganda, there is no ethnic hatred or persecution in Ukraine.

[ix] For a good explanation of how to tell the difference between Westsplaining, Eastsplaining, and Russplaining, see https://geschichtedergegenwart.ch/westsplaining/

[x] Affirmative action (sometimes called ‘Positive discrimination’ (or affirmative action to remedy discrimination) is correcting injustice against a discriminated group – people who find themselves in a more difficult situation than others, so they have to make much more of an effort to achieve the same result.

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About the Author

Olena Komar is an Associate Professor in the Department of Philosophy and Methodology of Science at the Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv, PhD in Philosophy. She is a senior fellow at the Research Training Group Situated Cognition and a research fellow at the University of Osnabrück. She is currently working on a project “Bad beliefs, echo chambers, and the epistemic conditions of moral responsibility” supported by the Philipp Schwartz Initiative of the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation. She has been a visiting researcher at the Institute Vienna Circle and a research fellow at the Ruhr-Universität Bochum.

Her website: https://olenakomar.com/

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Other recent articles in the TRAFO series Rethinking East European Studies in Times of Upheaval:

Julia Buyskykh, Enduring Through Liminality: Across and Beyond the Borders of Eastern Europe in the Wartime, 13 August 2024

Lidia Kuzemska, In Search of Stability and Purpose: Ukrainian (Displaced) Researchers in Germany, 29 July 2024

Illia Ilin, Decolonizing Family Metaphors in the Context of the Russian-Ukrainian War and Beyond, 20 June 2024

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Citation: Olena Komar, An Angry Ukrainian Syndrome: Stereotypes About War and Peace, and Injustice, in: TRAFO – Blog for Transregional Research, 09.09.2024, https://doi.org/10.58079/129q3

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