ABSTRACT
Europe has served as a catalyst, enabler and political horizon for the diasporic pro-democratic engagement of Ukrainians in Poland. This chapter argues that the Euromaidan moment sparked the political imagination and civic engagement of the Ukrainian diaspora in Europe, and that it led to their embrace of European Union (EU) integration as a civilisational goal for Ukraine. By looking at Poland as a case study, it finds that the events of 2013/14 were an unprecedented catalyst for the formation of Ukrainian diasporic civil society. One witnessed an extraordinary activation of large sections of the migrant population in support of Ukraine’s EU integration and democratisation. Our investigation of numerous civil society initiatives reveals how the idea of European integration on a symbolic level and the opportunities afforded by a closer association with the EU on an operational level have been used by the diasporic civil society. We find that the democratic legacy of the Euromaidan is greater than that of the Orange Revolution among the Ukrainian diaspora, and that EU enlargement has now become an enduring focus of their civic engagement and a staple of the democratic agenda for Ukraine. At the same time, we are witnessing how a great deal of that civic energy is gradually being channelled into aiding the war effort in eastern Ukraine.
