Mismatched Expectations: Eastern Europeanism, the Slow Memory of the Cold War, and Life in the UK for Displaced Ukrainians

A significant number of displaced Ukrainians have relocated to Britain, most through the “Homes for Ukraine” scheme that matched refugees with British hosts. Combining statistical data with narrative interviews, this paper explores the challenges Ukrainians have experienced in their efforts to rebuild their lives in their new communities. The focus is on how “slow memory” (Wüstenberg, 2023) of colonial civilisational hierarchies, the construction of Europe’s east as transitional space, and three worlds ideology shape how movers from the region perceive their reception into British communities. These histories inform cultural imaginaries in the British host community and – in a different way – among displaced Ukrainians. Slow memory is by nature largely unvoiced and unacknowledged but can be traced in inter-community relationships and echoes of the past in the language used to describe them. Identifying the continuity of the past prompts us to unsettle the boundaries (Gallinat, 2022) that locate modernity in the West, (post)socialism in the East, and post-colonialism in the Global South.