Resistance Through Pop Culture and the Ideology of the “Russian World”: On Deconstruction in Times of War

The article analyses the main trends in pop culture since the full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine. In particular, the paper investigates which tools and elements of ethnic culture have been used to construct the image of Ukraine and new Ukrainian heroes. Moreover, the image of Ukrainians in the global arena and in modern Western pop culture is presented. In contrast, the article demonstrates how the imperialist ideology of the “Russian world” has been deconstructed in contemporary Ukrainian pop culture. The data for the research consists of memes, caricatures, songs, cartoons, merch, and graffiti that have mainly been created since 24 February 2022. The investigation is informed by multimodal discourse analysis (MDA) involving analysis of verbal and non-verbal semiotic sources as well as of discourse and sociocultural practice.