Ukraine

State and Nation Building

Taras Kuzio

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2002
• Print ISBN:
  9780415171953
• eBook ISBN:
  9781134693528
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: Politics
• Index: Politics & International Relations

Ukraine: State and Nation Building explores the transformation of Soviet Ukraine into an independent state and examines the new elites and their role in the state building process, as well as other attributes of the modern nation-state such as borders, symbols, myths and national histories. Extensive primary sources and interviews with leading members of Ukranian elites, show that state building is an integral part of the transition process and cannot be divorced from democratization and the establishment of a market economy.

1
STATE AND NATION BUILDING IN UKRAINE IN THEORETICAL AND COMPARATIVE PERSPECTIVE

This chapter argues within a theoretical and comparative perspective that a Ukrainian ethnos existed prior to the twentieth century in much of what is now independent Ukraine. This ethnos had been allowed to evolve into a nation only in western-central Ukraine because of the differing policies applied by the external powers ruling Ukraine. Military and ethnic conflict, important factors in the construction of nations, only played a role in western Ukraine. In eastern Ukraine the absence of such conflict did not lead to the clear ethnic demarcation found between say Poles and Ukrainians. The borders of the Ukrainian SSR did though play an important role in demarcating the populations of Ukraine and the Russian Federation. Through a comparative approach we can come to appreciate that many of the inherited legacies found within Ukraine which have to be overcome within its state and nation building project are not ‘unique’ to that country.

In search of a definition

Ethnie

As pointed out in later chapters in this book there is no single definition of a ‘nation’ to which all scholars of nationalism subscribe. Often a ‘nation’ is described as the culmination of a process of evolution from a tribe through to an ethnic group (or ethnos).¹

But what then are ethnics? Ethnicities are usually defined as ‘pre-national’ forms of integration that represent ‘historical antecedentsof the modern nations’.² Ethnic groups are a ‘narod’ (a people) that hold a common belief in their descent, Weber argued.³ But ethnic solidarity does not, of itself, signify that a nation exists. Ethnics usually share a history, hold a common myth of descent,⁴ have a distinctive and shared culture, are associated with a specific territory, harbour a sense of solidarity and hold a collective name.⁵ (But not all would agree with Smith. Enbe believes that ethnicities do not necessarily hold single cultural characteristics.)⁶ Barth added that ethnic should also be recognised as somehow different to their neighbours, that is they must recognise that their ‘We’ is different to ‘Others’ beyond recognised borders.⁷

Some argue that ethnicities are also associated with pre-industrial societies.⁸ In other words, those who argue in favour of nationalism and nations as being products of the industrial (or modern) era see ethnicities as predating the rise of ‘modern nations’. As civil societies only appeared in the modern era, with the rise of nationalism, literacy, the media, democracy and universal suffrage one cannot predate civil society to an era where national identity and ‘modern nations’ did not yet exist. This has profound ramifications for contemporary Ukraine. If a modern national identity does not perforce exist, how can there then be a civil society? Civil society and national identity are both products of modernity.

All of these attributes of ethnoses existed in Ukraine to varying degrees by the seventeenth century and continued to exist until the nineteenth/early twentieth centuries. A people who described themselves as rusyny (Ruthenians), Ukrainians or Little Russians (then not yet a derogatory term) recalled a history traced back to Kyiv Rus’ and associated roughly with much of what is today Ukrainian territory, and exhibited a common culture and linguistic group (composed of a number of regional dialects). Anti-statism was a strong component of Ukrainian political culture right up until 1917, as was their categorisation into socio-economic and religious terms (peasant and Orthodox). Few Ukrainians in Tsarist Russia knew who they were, Saunders found, but, ‘most of them knew what they were not’.⁹ This definition of identity in terms of ‘Otherness’ is characteristic of pre-modern nations, Armstrong believes, and had existed in Ukraine since the seventeenth century.¹⁰

In the mid-seventeenth century, when Ukraine and Muscovy signed the Treaty of Periaslav, interpreters had to be utilised because neither side understood the other. At that time, Ukraine represented a more advanced culture than its northern neighbour (the westernisation of Russia came via Ukraine), with the populations of both countries roughly equal at 5 million each. By the nineteenth century this had changed in Russia’s favour—culturally, socio-economically and demographically. The merging of Ukrainians and Russians was implemented through policies of Russification, Little Russianism¹¹ and a Russo-centric historiography that sought to blur any differences between the eastern Slavs. These policies were introduced between the mid-1860s and the mid-1980s (except for a fifteen-year interregnum between 1917 and 1932 when Ukraine struggled for independence and the Ukrainian SSR adopted policies of indigenisation).¹²

The inherited legacies of this 100-year encounter with Russia are largely responsible for the failure of the eastern-southern Ukrainian ethnos to evolve into a modern nation (unlike in western Ukraine where more liberal conditions prevailed under Austrian rule). PostSoviet Ukraine is faced with the unenviable task of attempting to reverse these legacies in total or partially through nation and state building. The domestic debates and policy making within Ukraine discussed in this book centre on whether either of these inherited legacies should be romantically approached, that is, by completely removing them (for example, treating Russian as a foreign language); or only partially removing them through more pragmatic policies that accept the need to maintain some of the inherited legacies as, in effect, a fait accompli? These debates raged throughout all newly independent states and are not therefore unique to Ukraine (see below).

What’s in a nation?

Ethnic solidarities, which exist to varying degrees in both Belarus and Ukraine, should not be construed as implying the existence of ‘nations’, but merely stages in the process of nation building. Soviet Ukrainian dictionaries defined nations (natsii) and peoples (narody) in two different ways. A narod were merely citizens of a state while a natsiya was a ‘concrete-historical form of society’ united through language, territory, economy and race.¹³

It is also perhaps impossible to pinpoint with any accuracy when a ‘nation’ comes into being.¹⁴ Nation formation is a process (and usually a bumpy one at that). National identities and nations are not static, they are continually in the process of change. Smith ascribes similar characteristics to nations as he does to ethnic groups, except that nations also include a mass public culture (sometimes referred to as a ‘common ideology’), a common economy, legal rights and duties for all of its citizens.¹⁵ Other scholars stress homogeneity (or unity) and national will.¹⁶ Seton-Watson and Hobsbawm found no acceptable ‘scientific definition’ of a nation or even which human collectives should be defined as such. They exist, Connor believed, when a significant number of people form a community and consider themselves to be a nation, behaving as if they were one.¹⁷

Even the term ‘nation-state’ is difficult to define because more often than not, as in the Ukrainian case, it is the state which is creating the nation. Therefore a ‘state-nation’ might be a more appropriate term.¹⁸ There is no single type of nation-state, but instead a variety of different examples. The U SA has been described as a nation-state, yet it exhibits ethnic diversity, a weaker federal government and fewer homogenising tendencies than many European countries.¹⁹ Similarly, multi-ethnic Indonesia is commonly referred to as a ‘nation’.²⁰

The modern national idea is also an irrational animal because it is more than usually based on personal disposition while the essence of nations is intangible.²¹ After all, the three concepts that define a nation are subjective (psychological) factors, together with tangible (‘objective’) ones and those of membership of the community.²² Even in cases of common racial and linguistic origins children of the same parents can opt for different nationalities.²³ The language, religion or geographic region into which an individual is born does not necessarily predetermine his/her nationality. Some former Yugoslav and Soviet citizens with mixed parents prefer still to call themselves Yugoslavs or Soviets rather than choose one of their parent’s ethnic groups.

There are few cases in the world where the titular ethnic group encompasses 100 per cent of its territory and none of its co-ethnics reside abroad. Connor found there to be only twelve nationally homogenous countries of the 132 in existence in 1972.²⁴ In Europe perhaps only Hungary, Poland, the Czech Republic, Slovenia and Armenia resemble such countries (although there are sizeable Hungarian and Armenian diasporas). The widely used term ‘nationstate’ is applicable in two very different cases: first, in countries where one ethnic group represents close to 100 per cent of the population (such as the five countries listed above); second, when referring to countries, such as Ukraine, which have instituted inclusive nationality policies and the ‘nation’ in the nation-state refers to all of its inhabitants as members of its civic nation.

War and conflict have always played important roles in the formation of national identities and nation-states because they require national unity, conscription and a focus upon a foreign ‘Other’.²⁵ The struggle of the lower Franconians, then speaking a German dialect, against Spain in the second half of the sixteenth century led to the creation of Holland. Irish, Welsh and Scots identities were forged in conflict with the English whose identity, in turn, was largely forged in conflict with France. German and Italian identities were forged during their conflicts with France and Austria respectively. The Turks can be credited with promoting Serbian and Greek identities during their occupation of the Balkans. The lack of a liberation struggle against the British (for example, for Australia and Canada) has left them still undecided about their national identities. In contrast, the USA was able through its liberation struggle in the 1770s and civil war in the mid-nineteenth century to create a sustainable and coherent national idea. In Central Asia the more peaceful Russian colonisation of Kazakhstan and Kirgiziya is reflected in their more ‘pro-Russian’ attitudes than those found in Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan and Tajikistan, where Russian colonisation was violently resisted.²⁶

In Ukraine conflict helped to forge a national identity in western Ukraine. Germanisation in Prussia’s eastern provinces had aroused Polish nationalism prior to 1914. The Poles went on to use similar nationalising policies in their eastern provinces in the inter-war period. In both cases the results were the opposite to what were intended; that is, these Polish policies helped to consolidate and forge anti-Polish Ukrainian and Belarusian national consciousnesses.²⁷ In eastern Ukraine contact between Muscovy/ Russia and Ukraine had not led to ethnic conflict since the battles at Konotop and Poltava in 1659 and 1709 respectively. In a similar manner to the last battle fought on British soil at Culloden in 1745, the Battle of Poltava sealed the fate of the Ukrainians making them, along with the Scots, ‘younger brothers’ within their respective Tsarist Russian and British empires. The exceptions to the above were the wars of 1917–1921 between the independent Ukrainian state and its Tsarist and Bolshevik opponents. This absence of military conflict since the eighteenth century was reinforced by Tsarist and post-Leninist historiography, which purposefully exaggerated the collaboration and the closeness of Ukrainians and Russians, while playing down any historical conflicts. The rewriting of history within post-Soviet Ukraine will not though ignore historical conflicts in the past between Ukrainians and Russians. On the contrary, these may be played up in a reversal of past policies.

The general absence of Russian-Ukrainian ethnic conflict prior to 1917 has meant that the dividing line between Ukrainians and Russians is more blurred in eastern Ukraine than that between Poles and western Ukrainians. In western Ukraine attitudes are similar to those held in the three Baltic states which all perceive ‘Russians’ as the invaders of 1939 who imported Soviet rule. Nationalist partisan activity in all four states lasted until the early 1950s and its mythology is anti-Russian (as well as anti-Soviet). It is not surprising therefore that the communist parties in these three states and in western Ukraine were largely removed from their political maps in the first parliamentary elections held in March 1990 in the former USSR. In Lithuania, the first former Soviet republic to declare independence, the Communist Party had to rebuild its image along more social democratic and national lines in order to maintain any electoral support.

Nation and state building in comparative perspective

Is the Ukrainian nation-state building project ‘unique’, as some Western scholars have alleged, or are there common threads running through past and current nation-state building programmes in Europe, Eurasia and elsewhere?

Local identities

Are local identities a Ukrainian phenomenon? The simple answer to this question is ‘no’. Regionalism and border identities have remained in most European and Asian states. Some ethnic, local identities (for example, Cornish, Breton, Okinawan, Skanian, etc.) are now resurfacing and exposing the exaggerated claims that they would be lost in the drive to modernisation and national homogenisation within the core, dominant culture as being fallacious. Regionalism is therefore a world-wide and growing phenomenon.

Until the nineteenth century identity was not defined in national terms but as religion, race, colour, locality or allegiance to a monarch. Prior to the late nineteenth century both France and Italy resembled more conglomerations of divided regions.²⁸ Within the German lands there were a variety of dialects and cultures, where border regions often exhibited belts of mixed settlement (for example, Alsace Lorraine). No ‘Germany’ as such existed prior to 1870.²⁹ An overarching Spanish identity is more a product of the post-war era in a country where the Galicians, Basques and Catalans retain strong and legally separate identities.

Border identities are often defined as ‘situational ethnicities’ where a particular period of time may determine which of a person’s collective identities or multiple loyalties are promoted. Static models of national identity cannot accommodate the existence of ‘situational ethnicities’. On the other hand, ‘situational ethnicities’ allow processes of change to be tabled into the analysis, thereby giving a better analysis of the transition at work in a given society.³⁰ ‘Situational ethnicity’ implies that identities are not fixed, but blurred, possibly in a state of flux, dependent upon prevailing economic and geopolitical circumstances.

Prior to the collapse of empires certain peoples, such as the Albanians, the Turks of Anatolia and the eastern Ukrainians, did not have to decide who they were. Prior to 1900 Anatolian Turks were unaware of a Turkish identity separate from an Ottoman or Islamic one. Ukrainians and Slovaks in the Carpathian mountains, Ukrainians in Kholm and Pidlachia, Germans in Alsace, Poles in Upper Silesia and in Lithuania (where they called themselves krajowcy) were also unaware of their national identities or had forgotten their allegiances to their ethnic group by 1914. When Poland became an independent state in 1918 it included Silesians and Mazurians whose identities were confused. In...

Table of contents

• COVER PAGE
• TITLE PAGE
• COPYRIGHT PAGE
• ILLUSTRATIONS
• ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
• NOTE ON TRANSLITERATION AND UKRAINIAN SPELLING
• INTRODUCTION
• 1: STATE AND NATION BUILDING IN UKRAINE IN THEORETICAL AND COMPARATIVE PERSPECTIVE
• 2: SOVIET TO UKRAINIAN ELITES
• 3: FORGING A POLITICAL COMMUNITY
• 4: FEDERALISM, REGIONALISM AND THE MYTH OF SEPARATISM
• 5: THE STRATEGIC SIGNIFICANCE OF BORDERS
• 6: IN SEARCH OF A NATIONAL IDEA
• 7: NATIONAL IDENTITY AND CIVIL SOCIETY
• 8: LANGUAGE POLICIES
• 9: HISTORY, MYTHS AND SYMBOLS
• 10: CONCLUSIONS
• NOTES
• SELECT BIBLIOGRAPHY OF SECONDARY SOURCES