Epiphany between the Barricades The Ukrainian Maidan as a Sacred Space Heleen Zorgdrager 1. Introduction 1.1. A civil uprising and its bloody end On the evening of February 21, 2014, Independence Square (Maidan Nezalezh- nosti) in Kiev was flooded with an angry crowd. During the day and the night before, snipers, hidden on the roofs of buildings, had bloodily ended the civil uprising that had lasted for three months. In the morning, dead bodies were laid side by side in the lobby of Hotel Ukraina. Over a hundred people were killed. Churches close to the square (the Orthodox Sv Mykhailivsky Cathedral and monastery, and the Lutheran St. Katharina Kirche1) were transformed into hospitals and shelters where the injured were given first aid. Smoke of burnt tires hung over the square. The burnt-down tents and the fumigated Trade Union Building, headquarters of the demonstrators, offered a macabre picture. That night, the people gathered on the Maidan to share their shock, anger and grief. Everything could be watched via live stream through the independent Ukrainian internet channels Espreso TV and Hromadske TV. The uprising had begun with the unexpected refusal of President Viktor Yanukovych of Ukraine to sign the Association Agreement with the European Union, scheduled for November 21, 2013, during the EU summit in Vilnius. His rejection gave rise to a protest movement that was unique for twenty-first century Europe in its size and character. The students who took the initiative called their protest ‘Euromaidan’, after the central square of Kiev where the core of the protest was located. Rapidly, the protest expanded into a mass move- ment that included all generations and social layers of the population.2 A key 1 Church building of the German Evangelical-Lutheran Church in Ukraine (DELKU), close to the Presidential Administration. 2 A. CHEBOTARIOVA: ‘‘Voices of resistance and hope’: On the motivations and expecta- tions of Euromaidaners’, in D.R. MARPLES & F.V. MILLS (eds.): Ukraine’s Euromaidan. Analyses of a Civil Revolution (Stuttgart 2015) 163-176. In February 2014, the socio- demographic profile of protesters is as follows: people in the age of 18-29: 33.2%; 30- 54: 56%; 55 and older: 10.8%. A majority of protesters were well-educated people, while skilled specialists with higher education were the biggest professional group. The presence of entrepreneurs (17.4%) and workers/service-sector employers (19.4%) had increased significantly since December 2013. The regional differentiation: Western Ukraine: 54.8%; Central and Northern Ukraine: 23%; Eastern and Southern Ukraine: 21%. See the statistics in CHEBOTARIOVA, 165-166. Jaarboek voor liturgieonderzoek 32 (2016) 167-185 168 ZORGDRAGER moment was the beating of the students in the night of November 30 by the Berkut, the riot police. The excessive violence against peaceful protesters aroused wide public indignation and changed the nature of the protest. The original pro-European Union protest transformed into an anti-governmental uprising that united people with often contradictory ideological and political views.3 The resignation of the president and a structural reform of the corrupt system became the main goal of the protesters. A renewed patriotic mood pre- vailed amongst them. “We looked for Europe and we found Ukraine,” became a popular saying.4 From there on, the movement of Euromaidan was ever more simply called ‘Maidan’. In icy temperatures, protesters persevered between the barricades that closed off the very center of Kiev. Several times, the armed police force, backed by military, tried to break the protest and attacked the square, while protesters, organized in squads, defended themselves with sticks, rods, stones, shields and Molotov cocktails. The final clashes took place on February 18-21, 2014. That evening after the crushing of the revolt, the gather- ing on the square turned into a collective mourning ritual. In this article I address the following question: in what sense can the protest space of Maidan be interpreted as a sacred space, and what role did liturgical rituals play in the transformation into a sacred space? I will focus on the specif- ic case of the ritualized collective mourning on the evening of February 21, 2014, while including the role of rituals, prayer, religious symbols, clergy, tent chapels, and church buildings in the months before. 1.2. Auto-ethnographic excursus A month before the bloody end, on January 25-26, I was physically present in the Maidan protest zone. I witnessed the diversity of the people (men and women, of all generations, from all strata of society, from the Ukrainian- speaking west and the Russian-speaking center and east of the country). I saw the tent camp, the field kitchens, the barricades, the way Maidan was organized logistically. I was amazed about the outfits of protesters with all kind of creative helmets and shields, and felt a bit uncomfortable at the sight of well-trained men in paramilitary uniforms, wearing black balaclavas and carrying iron rods. I smelled the smoke of burning tires, and heard the hypnotizing sound of rhyth- mical beating on oil drums right behind the barricades. From nearby I could see the armed forces arranged in line. I visited the tent chapels on the square, both the Catholic/Orthodox and the interdenominational Protestant one. On Sun- day morning, in the open air, I attended the prayer service led by priests on the central stage. A couple of my students from the Catholic University in Lviv guided me through the Maidan space and shared their hopes, fears and thoughts 3 CHEBOTARIOVA: ‘Voices of Resistance and Hope’ 170-172. 4 N. OTRISHCHENKO: ‘Beyond the square: the real and symbolic landscapes of the Euromaidan’, in MARPLES & MILLS: Ukraine’s Euromaidan 147-161. EPIPHANY BETWEEN THE BARRICADES 169 with me. This was my real live framework and my sensory memories when a month later I watched the events online on the evening of February 21. 2. Methodological reflections In this article, I will investigate the emergence of the Ukrainian Maidan as a sacred space, primarily focusing on the mourning ritual on the evening of Feb- ruary 21, 2014. I will analyze and interpret the character of Maidan as a sacred space using theoretical approaches and concepts from the field of liturgical ritual studies. The proposed analysis is inspired by the ‘spatial approach’, a the- oretical avenue that is based on the assumption of “the production of space” (Lefebvre).5 The guiding concepts for my analysis are a constructivist and a- centric understanding of the ‘sacred’, and the understanding of liturgical ritual space as a liminal space (see below). For the case study of the collective mourning ritual on the square, I make use of various resources, ranging from internet materials, interviews with some key persons and participants in the events, as well as published and not yet pub- lished scholarly reflections on the social, political, and religious dimensions of the Maidan protest movement. My participant observation can be called indi- rect, mediated through livestream television channels, yet informed by own personal observations and sensory experiences at the spot less than a month before. In my approach, I try to balance the information from the wide range of resources, giving voice to multiple perspectives while reconstructing the social and liturgical ritual dynamics of that evening. 3. Description of the case On Friday evening 21 February 2014, I was watching the events on Maidan through the livestream of Espreso TV. In front of the packed crowd, politicians of the opposition parties appeared on stage. During the outbreak of violence, they had negotiated with representatives of the Yanukovych government, the EU and Russia. They came on stage to present the result of the negotiations, a political compromise between the opponents. Behind them stood a line of priests of different churches of Ukraine. The most popular of the politicians – and certainly the most courageous –, boxing champion Vitaliy Klitchko, took the microphone to address the crowd. He didn’t come through, the people jeered at him. They yelled: “Down with the gang”.6 Suddenly an activist of the Right Sector (Pravyi Sektor), Volodymyr Pari- shuk, came in camouflage uniform on stage, grabbed the microphone, and, 5 H. LEFEBVRE: The Production of Space (Malden 2004). 6 “банду Геть”, by which they meant the Yanukovych gang with its criminal activities. 170 ZORGDRAGER surrounded by comrades with balaclavas. He loudly and clearly announced that Yanukovych had to resign immediately, and if not “we would know where to find him”. In the tumult several priests went to the microphone to try to calm down the people, but unsuccessfully. The chaos and anger reached a boiling point. In a next moment the camera captured how, through the tightly packed crowd, a coffin was moved forward. An open coffin containing the body of a young man with a white bandage around his head. Friends carried the coffin forward and put it right in front of the stage. Another coffin came, and yet one more, almost as an indictment against the politicians: ‘What more evidence do you need?’ Illustration 1: From left to right the politicians Petro Poroshenko, Yuri Lutsenko, Arseniy Yatsenyuk, Vitaliy Klitschko, and the second to last in the row Oleh Tiahnybok7 The confusion on the stage now was complete. At that moment, as I was told later,8 one of the priests said to the others: “Let us pray”. And in a small group they stepped forward and began reciting the Our Father. Instantly a calm de- scended on the square. People took off their helmets, many joined in the pray- ers, with tear filled eyes. 7 http://rian.com.ua/photolents/20140222/340277043_340275946.html [accessed October 24, 2016]. Picture taken by Andrey Stenin, RIA Novosti Ukraina.