Urban Protest

2 Space in Context

Human beings are cognitive creatures. We experience the world around us through our external sensory input, such as touch, smell, and sight, which our brains interpret based on our experiences, memory, and thoughts. One fundamental aspect of the experienced world is space and, consciously or subconsciously, we never stop interpreting the physical environment around us. This does not imply that we are necessarily aware of how this analysis is done, or even that it is being done in the first place. We often are unable to appreciate the full extent and impact of it or to explain how it works to a third party. Nevertheless, we are instinctively aware of our surroundings, sense their uses, opportunities, dangers, and risks, and adapt our behaviour accordingly.1

This keen sense of place has probably played a vital part in the survival of our species. When our early hominid ancestors, millions of years ago, entered new ground, instincts would be activated to provide information about the possibilities and dangers that particular space might provide. Exploring a new location, an individual would be sensitive to whether the space made them feel relaxed and safe, or alert and uneasy.

Over time, as the human capacity for social interaction evolved, space would come to be perceived not just as a place that might provide food and a chance to eat (or, conversely, a threat of being attacked and eaten), but also as a location for the increasingly complex social interactions between individuals within a group. Thus, the instinctive human perception of space would come to include information about other people and about the social interactions and relations occurring in that space. A newly arrived individual would, for example, soon sense whether this was a place to eat, relax, converse, and mate, or to be on its guard against other individuals in the group. It would know—with little conscious effort—where its allies and friends were, find the possible exits, sense whether it belonged in the group, and locate itself strategically according to its position in the social hierarchy: whether funny, loud, and boastful at the centre of the group, or reserved, quiet, and humble near one of the exits. Individuals who were oblivious to such social space would probably end up as outcasts, or worse, killed.

According to the Australian anthropologist Terrence Twomey (2014), our discovery and domestication of fire hundreds of thousands, perhaps even over a million years ago (Gowlett 2016) probably facilitated the evolution of human cooperation. Twomey explains how making a fire and keeping it going was a costly endeavour, yet the result was a good from which all the individuals in a group could greatly benefit. Hence, the domestication of fire would stimulate cooperation (Twomey 2014). We could therefore imagine that, for groups of hunter-gatherers in prehistoric times, the campfire would become one of the first dedicated spaces for social interaction. Here, people would flock together not only to eat and sleep in the relative safety from predators, insects, and cold weather, but also to process past events, discuss gains and risks, and make a plan of action for the day to come.

After the Neolithic Revolution of approximately 10 000 BCE, humans gradually started to live in fixed settlements and the new agricultural technology laid the foundation for explosive population growth (Bellwood and Oxenham 2008). In the new and increasingly urban setting, the locations of social interaction and planning would probably move from the campfire into urban spaces, such as marketplaces, town squares, or other focal points of growing villages and cities. We can find archaeological evidence from the Bronze and Iron ages, for instance, which indicate that social and deliberative spaces were valued to such an extent that they were rganizati as various forms of political institutions. Popular assemblies in urban space could be found in the Ancient Greek Agora (Anc. Greek.: ἀγορά), the Roman Forum Romanum, and the Slavic Veche (Rus.: вече); or, conversely, in the outskirts of settlements, such as the Scandinavian Thing (Icel.: þing).

However, urban spaces have some significant limitations as formal places of deliberation and public administration. Notably, the central plaza of a large city may not have enough physical space available for all people to attend, and large groups of people are often at risk of being affected by demagoguery. For these and other reasons, in most societies, public rganization moved into the remit of formal political institutions. Yet the cities’ urban spaces have remained as necessary parts of the landscape, needed in order for people to move from one place to another. Additionally, they function as places for trade, recreation, and social interaction. Urban spaces are often the location of joyful activities such as festivals and public entertainments, but also, sometimes, of floggings and executions. Some rulers might use the city’s focal point to display their might, too—for instance, in the form of army drills and parades. Moreover, although the majority of formal decisions now occur in buildings, the potential use value of urban space for people to discuss, deliberate, and decide on a course of action has not gone away.

Throughout human history, people have tended to congregate in central places in times of trouble. Such gatherings sometimes occur on the initiative of rulers to collectively find a solution to a shared problem (such as how to respond to an imminent invasion or the death of a prince). Yet, every so often, the ruling elites are themselves perceived as the problem, and the urban squares and marketplaces might be seized by the people and turned into arenas of opposition.

Figure 4: Althing, Iceland

Iceland’s form of popular assembly (Icel.: Alþingi) was first located on Thingvellir (the Assembly Fields, Icel.: Þingvellir)/Lögberg in the tenth century CE. Photo: Andrei Rogatchevski

2.1 Complexities of Urban Contention

Urban contention has a large number of aspects, and several of these are discussed in the next chapter. But there are three ways to look at and categorise urban collective actions that should be mentioned here to provide the reader with a sense of the complexity of the phenomenon: 1) the various forms of urban contention, 2) the motivations people have for action: and, 3) the local, regional, and global tendencies or waves of contention of which the collective action is part.

2.1.1 Form

One form of urban contention is the violent mob, wholly or partially controlled by powerful individuals such as politicians, religious leaders, and oligarchs. The mob has often been used as a tool to incite violence in cities against political opponents and so change the political landscape. In the Ancient Roman Republic, for example, groups of discontented plebeians often became an important force in the frequent (and often violent) transitions of power (Brunt 1966). Another example might be the veche (popular assembly) of the Medieval East Slavic Novgorod Republic (1136–1478), where the crowd were often more powerful than their prince. Historical chronicles recount how the Novgorodians, under heavy influence from wealthy boyars, sometimes removed ineffective leaders by force (Paul 2008; Evtuhov, Goldfrank, Hughes, and Stites 2004, 88–89).

Urban contention can also be seen in the uncontrolled violent crowd which, under pressure, stands up to the ruling elites and overthrows them in violent riots, uprisings, and revolutions. The French Revolution (1789–1799) is a particularly prominent example because it shows how space can both foster discontent and provide a suitable environment for insurgencies.2

Conversely, urban discontent can manifest as nonviolent protests, such as the 1913 Women’s Suffrage Parade on Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington, D.C. (Lumsden 2000), or the 1919 May Fourth Movement at Tiananmen Square in Beijing (Wasserstrom 2005).

2.1.2 Motivation

Another way to look at urban contention is by considering the motivation for the action. The US is a fitting example to illustrate that urban contention can have a wide range of different motives, ranging from a wish to improve living conditions, e.g. the Great Railroad Strike of 1877 (De-Michele 2008), to the many movements against wars and military interventions (see for example the protests against the war in Vietnam [History.com 2019], and in Iraq [Chan 2003]). Cities in the US have also seen multiple protests for the equal rights of oppressed groups in society, such as the 1969 Stonewall Riots and the birth of the Gay Rights Movement (Kuhn 2011), the feminist movements of the 1970s (Spain 2016), and the more recent Black Lives Matter protests (Karduni 2017); collective actions aimed at causing harm, such as racially motivated violence in Southern US cities (Olzak 1990); religiously inspired protests, such as the Washington for Jesus rally in 1980 (Flippen 2011, 1–23), and social movements against economic inequality, such as the 2011 Occupy Wall Street protest movement (Gillham, Edwards, and Noakes 2013).

2.1.3 Waves

A third approach to urban discontent is to see it as waves that come and go, sweeping through periods in history, changing power structures and the layout of societies. A large number of such waves of contention have occurred throughout history in cities across the globe. In Eastern Europe, for example, we can identify at least four waves, shown here together with their political aftermath:

1917

Eastern Europe did not become part of the three European waves of revolution of the 1820s, 1830s and 1840s that followed in the aftermath of the French Revolution. But the radical new ideas of European thinkers, combined with the grievances of war and deep inequality in society, turned into a series of urban uprisings in the Russian Empire and eventually into the October Revolution of 1917. The Soviet Union was created in the aftermath of this revolution.3

1950s and 1960s

The second wave of urban discontent in Eastern Europe started during the period of thaw introduced by Nikita Khrushchev in the aftermath of Stalin’s death in 1953. A series of mass protests against poor standards of living and political repressions broke out in the streets and squares of major cities in the Eastern Bloc. Notably, uprisings and demonstrations occurred in 1953 on Leipziger Straße in Berlin (Ostermann and Byrne 2001, 163–165), in 1956 on Adam Mickiewicz Square in Poznań (Grzelczak n.d., 98–101) and on Kossuth Lajos Square in Budapest, also in 1956.4 The public spaces of cities in several of the Warsaw Pact countries also featured in the worldwide protest movements of 1968, four years after the thaw ended. 5

1985 to 1991

From the second half of the 1980s, triggered by the 1986 glasnost (transparency/openness) and perestroika (restructuring) reform policies, urban protests started to appear in the Eastern Bloc. In the Baltics, for example, protesters actively used music in what would later be known as the Singing Revolution of 1987–1991 (Smidchens 2014). Opponents of the Soviet regime rganized numerous concerts in city centres and formed a human chain between the three capitals, Tallinn, Riga, and Vilnius, to demonstrate their unity in their discontent with the USSR (2014, 249). These actions inspired similar protests, notably in Ukraine (Hansen, Rogatchevski, Steinholt and Wickström 2019, 36–37). Between 1989 and 1991, the Warsaw Pact gradually fell apart as series of both nonviolent and violent anti-communist revolutions occurred in capital cities across the Eastern Bloc. Notable events include masses of East Germans tearing down the Berlin Wall in November 1989, and the failed military coup of August 1991, which was partly stopped by the masses of people who went out into the public spaces of Moscow and other Russian cities (Marples 2004, 84). The Soviet Union was dissolved later that same year.

2000s

Following a somewhat chaotic decade in the 1990s,6 a new wave of social movements and mass protests hit the Balkans, Eastern Europe, and Central Asia in the 2000s (see fig. 5). Inspired by the Eastern European protests of the late 1980s, the demonstrators used nonviolent means to occupy central public squares in capital cities. The protests were often triggered by election fraud, and they demanded (and often achieved) the resignation of the elites that had managed to hold on to power after the breakup of the Eastern Bloc. The social movements of the 2000s are usually known as colour revolutions, with reference to the bright colours and symbols employed by the protesters. Although not in the former Soviet Union, the Yugoslavian Bulldozer Revolution, which overthrew President Slobodan Milošević in 2000, is often regarded as the first of the colour revolutions (e.g. by Tucker 2005).

Figure 5: Notable protests and colour revolutions in post-Soviet states in the 2000s

The above three categories (form, motivation, waves) are not intended to be exhaustive, but to illustrate that “urban contention” is a multifaceted term with historic and contemporary relevance to most regions in the world. The following section serves two purposes: 1) to provide a justification for choosing Kyiv, Minsk, and Moscow as case studies for the three articles in this study; and 2) to show that space and protests are important factors which have affected, and continue to affect, the political situation in the East Slavic area.

2.2 Ukraine, Belarus, and Russia

Since this study is limited by a number of factors, such as time, funding, and space available, the project has been narrowed down geographically. The case studies are limited to the capital cities of Ukraine, Belarus, and Russia for three main reasons. Firstly, the three countries have many similarities. Secondly, despite these similarities, there are some interesting differences between the respective national opposition movements. Finally, two outside factors have pushed me to select these cases. I shall return to these shortly.

Furthermore, each case study has also been geographically limited to one or two urban public spaces, as the word limitations provided by the journal article format rarely allow for more. The choices and delimitations for each case study are discussed more thoroughly in each of the three chapters.

Similarities

Kyiv, Minsk, and Moscow are the capital cities of the countries often referred to as the Slavic Triangle (see e.g. Godin 2014), a term originating from the countries’ shared history. The territories of Ukraine, Belarus, and Russia each cover parts of Kievan Rus’ (pprox.. 882–1240), the Tsardom of Russia (1547–1722), and the Russian Empire (1722–1917), and they were all signatories to the Treaty of the Creation of the USSR in 1922, which was dissolved in 1991 by the collective decision of the three heads of state. In post-Soviet times, the three countries have struggled with many of the same obstacles: a brutal transition from planned to market economy, widespread corruption, autocratic leadership, popular discontent, etc. Moreover, there are strong ethnic, linguistic, cultural, political, architectural, economic, and criminal similarities and bonds between the three countries.

Figure 6: The Slavic Triangle (map)

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Map: Júlio Reis/Wikimedia Commons. Licensed under CC-BY-SA 3.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/deed.en) (edited by Arve Hansen)

Differences

However, the differences between the three countries are significant, too. Ukraine was one of the countries upended by a revolution in the 2000s, as the Orange Revolution of 2004–2005 resulted in regime change. Conversely, Belarus and Russia avoided becoming part of the wave of colour revolutions.7 This tendency repeated itself in the 2010s, as protests in Minsk and Moscow at the start of the decade all ended badly for the protesters,8 whilst the latest Ukrainian revolution of 2013–2014, centred on Maidan in downtown Kyiv, led to regime change for the second time in nine years.9 Today, protests continue to exert an influence on local and regional politics.10

Moreover, whereas the opposition in Kyiv has Maidan as an urban space designated for protest, the opposition in Minsk has very limited access to the city’s urban spaces; and in Moscow, although the authorities do allow protests, they carefully select which spaces to sanction for such actions, most probably to restrict the impact of the protests.

Outside factors

This study forms part of a research group studying Russian space (broadly understood to include Belarus and Ukraine).11 I have also lived in each country for an extended period of time (in Belarus, 2006–2010; in Ukraine, the first half of 2011 and 2013–2017; in Russia, 2011–2013). I thus have first-hand knowledge of, and a network of friends and acquaintances in, each of the three cities.