Yevhen Golovakha on the channel “My Ukraine”

An exclusive interview with the Director of the Institute of Sociology of the NAS of Ukraine, Corresponding Member of the NAS of Ukraine, Doctor of Philosophical Sciences, Professor Yevhen Golovakha has been published on the well-known YouTube channel “My Ukraine”.

Given the continuous attacks by the Russian aggressors aimed at destroying the infrastructure that keeps Ukrainians alive, the journalist Yuliia Halushka began with the pressing theme of endurance and its limits — how much are we prepared to withstand of this daily, round-the-clock torment?

In reply the sociologist recalled the first and most terrible winter of the full-scale invasion and pointed to a paradox, an astonishing phenomenon: it was precisely then that surveys recorded the best mass mood in the history of Ukraine. Yevhen Golovakha, a sociologist and psychologist in one person, calls this the phenomenon of shock euphoria and connects it with the first rapid victories of that year in the Kharkiv and Kherson regions and elsewhere.

Today everything has become more complicated. There are individual brilliant operations and victories, especially in the drone war, yet on the ground everything is difficult, support from partners is not straightforward, and there is exhaustion after four years of continuous war. So the mass mood, the scholar notes, has worsened substantially. Yet, strange as it may seem, on some parameters assessments of the present are better than in the “pre-war” year of 2021. Ukrainians' assessment of the economic situation in Ukraine in 2021 was 3.2 on a 10-point scale. In the 1990s, incidentally, it was rated at 1.5. And now, despite all the difficulties, losses and destruction, the assessment is 3.9.

Turning to the theme of stress, which amid the continuous bombardment of Ukraine and the difficult situation at the front has become a constant background to our lives, the professor noted that prolonged stress is especially dangerous. Last year's survey showed that only 20 per cent had not experienced the severe stress (distress) we associate with significant losses in life. It can be assumed that this year has not been easier and that the 14% who were experiencing distress at the start of the 2020s have, sadly, grown in number, and noticeably so.

Besides the war, the sociologist stressed, the fundamental changes that took place in Ukraine during the period of independence in every sphere of our life — state and social alike — can also be counted as stress factors. So the stress resistance of Ukrainians is something to be envied: we endure with courage all the trials that have fallen to our difficult lot and we have considerable adaptive potential. But it is not limitless, and so, in order to strengthen Ukrainians' adaptive resources, positive events and news are needed, along with the spread of information about heroic deeds and the significant achievements of those on whom the country still rests and moves forward, despite all the difficulties of the present.

In addition, the professor stressed, a system of social and psychological assistance for those who need it must be established and expanded. There are many such people today and, it may be assumed, there will be after the war, when those heroic defenders of ours return home who are holding the front despite extreme exhaustion, physical and psychological. Much depends, though, on the natural resilience of a person's psychological make-up — some have a strong one, some a weak one. But people must know that no one will be left alone. And the guarantor of that must be the state and society.

Horizontal ties within society also matter, as do displays of solidarity, in particular in such a form as volunteering, which has become widespread, especially during the full-scale invasion.

The professor answered a number of further questions from the journalist, using the research of the Institute of Sociology of the NAS of Ukraine and of other colleagues to explain the pressing questions that interest a wide audience.

The interview with the leader of Ukraine's academic sociology showed that the staff of the Institute, and the country's sociologists generally, like all Ukrainian scholars, continue unceasingly, in the incredibly difficult conditions of war, bombardment, shelling and air-raid alerts, to study social and psychological processes in society, forming a research basis for political and administrative decisions and explaining to the wider public the pressing questions of the difficult processes of our heroic present.

The full material is here:

Watch the video on YouTube