Soroka Iu. Denaturalisation of Collective Identities within pro-Euromaidan Discourse (on field of Facebook Representation) // Wladzasadzenia. – 2016, #8. Iuliia Soroka V.N. Karazin Kharkiv University Denaturalisation of Collective Identities within pro-Euromaidan Discourse (on field of Facebook Representation) Abstract The spreading violence beyond Euromaidan space in Kyiv have become one of the main issues of Ukrainian society in winter 2013–2014. For Euromaidan supporters their relatively safe space of every-day interaction came under pressure of discourse which divided the whole world into “friends and enemies”. The naturalisation of collective identities of Euromaidan supporters and their opponents served the purpose of symbolic struggle and provided the simplified social worldview. The last one is, on the one hand, a useful tool of social mobilisation but, on the other hand, this kind of worldview (simplified, “Black and white”) provokes violence. The topic of this article is a denaturalisation as an opposite strategy which creates the complicated worldview. The research issues of this article are the following: does denaturalisation exist within pro-Euromaidan discourse; in what kind of discursive strategies and modes does it appear? Online social networks, Facebook in particular, were chosen as a field of study. The research method is traditional analysis of text. The implication of this research is revealing of internal dynamic of pro-Euromaidan discourse. Keywords: denaturalisation, Euromaidan, pro-Euromaidan discourse, symbolic struggle, nominations, online social networks, internal dynamic of pro-Euromaidan discourse. Introduction Among many questions of the current situation in Ukraine let me focus on the following one: why did peaceful protest on Euromaidan turn into violence (Onuch & Martsenyuk, 2014; Kulyk, 2014)? This question is mostly answered from either ideological or psychological perspective: some groups or categories of people are recognised as aggressive, warlike or dangerous (in case of Euromaidan these are “berkut” and “Pravyi 1 sector” for instance). Another common explanation appeals to geopolitics or money. According to 2 sociological view, action (and violence as such) is influenced by networks of meanings and is supported by cultural symbols. Therefore I propose to study the processes in Ukrainian symbolic space, i.e. naturalisation and denaturalisation, which influenced the escalation of violence. Researchers of Euromaidan symbolic space usually define only two competing discourses: pro- Euromaidan and Anti-Maidan. This view corresponds to the binary vision of mass protest movements, which Disbanded special police unit at the regional Ministry of Internal Affairs of Ukraine. 1 Political party. 2