The article proposes to view Maidan as a historic event that generated widely influential new meanings. The authors interpret Maidan not only as a political phenomenon, but as an event that rehabilitated the idea of human dignity and solidarity, and demonstrated the possibility of creating a new community where people come together not because they share a common past, but because they choose a common future—it provided people the occasion to make free choices concerning their futures. At the same time, (...) Maidan raised the question of European identity once again. The European idea is that of an incomplete, free individual in search of himself; European culture is Maidan—the space in which people of different cultures communicate. European culture does not create a specific identity and puts any identity into question. The European idea and patriotic idea are the internal contradictions of Maidan. (shrink)