The Case of the Russian-Speaking Minority in Ukraine
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CAN LANGUAGE CONSTRUCT A NATION? The case of the Russian-speaking minority in Ukraine By POLINA MYKHALCHYK Submitted to CENTRAL EUROPEAN UNIVERSITY Department of Political Science In partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts Supervisor: PROFESSOR INNA MELNYKOVSKA CEU eTD Collection Vienna, Austria 2021 Abstract This thesis investigates how the language policy contributes to the construction of the national identity in the case of the Russian linguistic minority in Ukraine. The Maidan revolution and the consequent conflict with Russia increased the political saliency of the Ukrainian language as the most important factor constituting the Ukrainian national identity. In 2019, the elites decided to implement the civic-nationalist language policy, which made the Ukrainian language dominant in the public sphere and at the same time weakened the position of the minority languages. This policy, designed to strengthen the Ukrainian national identity for its citizens, received an ambiguous reaction from the minorities. This thesis explores how the civic-nationalist language policy influences the Russian linguistic minority in Ukraine in terms of their language use and, consequently, their perception of the national identity. It discusses the factors that foster acceptance of the national language by the minority and analyses how the national identity is created through the language policy. This thesis uses nested analysis – a combination of quantitative (multivariate linear regressions) and qualitative methods (semi-structured interviews and theory-building process tracing) to offer a complex account of the impact of the civic-nationalist language policy. The key findings of this thesis are that the civic nationalist language policy has both positive and negative effects on the national identity depending on how it is reinterpreted by the members of the linguistic minority. CEU eTD Collection ii Acknowledgements This thesis is the result of the contribution of many people who have supported me throughout the various stages of writing. First of all, I would like to thank my supervisor, Professor Inna Melnykovska, for her valuable advice, support, and the tremendous amount of time invested into checking the various versions of this work. Her expertise and knowledge became the vital pillars of this thesis. I am very grateful to the University of St. Gallen for their wonderful project on Ukrainian regionalism, and especially to Anna Chebotarova. They were very kind to share their data with me, which served as the foundation of my research. I also would like to thank all the people providing me the feedback at the various stages. In particular, I am grateful to my academic writing instructor, Zsuzsanna Toth, for her valuable comments, which shaped the style of this work. Also, I am very grateful to Olena Podolian, my thesis buddy, for her feedback and the precious comments and references regarding the Ukrainian minority laws. I would also like to thank the ten anonymous participants who very kind to share their thoughts and opinions with me what contributed to the main findings of this research and showed a new perspective on the topic. I would like to thank Central European University and the Department of Political Science in particular for this great opportunity which would not be possible without their continuing support throughout my studies. In addition, I would like to thank my family, and especially my mother, Anna, who has always been for me the example of optimism, persistence, and beauty. Her endless love and support contributed to all successes I have had in my life. Finally, and most importantly, I would like to thank my partner in academia and life, Ján Hradický, who has always been for me the extraordinary inspiration. I cannot imagine coming to this stage without his great support and care throughout these years. CEU eTD Collection iii Table of Contents INTRODUCTION ........................................................................................................................ 1 CHAPTER 1. Literature Review and Theoretical Background .................................................... 4 1.1 Nation-building and national identity ..................................................................................... 4 1.1.1 National Identity: definitions and debates ....................................................................... 4 1.1.2 The agents of nation-building ......................................................................................... 6 1.2 Language as a Core of Nation-Building ................................................................................. 7 1.2.1 Theoretical debates .......................................................................................................... 7 1.2.2 Language policy and the Approaches to it: Civic Nationalism and Liberal Culturalism 9 1.2.3 Language policies and minorities .................................................................................... 11 1.3 Language policy in practice: the case of Ukraine ................................................................... 12 1.3.1 The 2019 Language Policy in Ukraine ............................................................................ 14 CHAPTER 2. Research Design .................................................................................................... 15 2.1 Research Questions ................................................................................................................. 15 2.2 Case study: Russian-speaking minority in Ukraine ................................................................ 15 2.3 Methodology - Nested Analysis .............................................................................................. 16 2.3.1 Quantitative analysis – Multivariate linear regressions .................................................. 17 Dependent Variable ........................................................................................................ 18 Independent Variables .................................................................................................... 18 2.3.2 Qualitative analysis – interviews and process-tracing .................................................... 23 Semi-structured interviews ............................................................................................. 23 Theory-building Process-tracing..................................................................................... 24 CHAPTER 3. Empirical Analysis ................................................................................................. 28 3.1 Multivariate linear regressions ................................................................................................ 28 3.1.1 Multivariate linear regression 1 for the 2013 survey ...................................................... 28 3.1.2 Multivariate linear regression for the 2017 survey ........................................................ 36 CEU eTD Collection 3.1.3 Summary of the regression analyses ............................................................................... 41 3.2 Semi-structured Interviews ..................................................................................................... 42 3.2.1 Sample ............................................................................................................................. 42 3.2.2 Interpretation of the national identity and the role of language ..................................... 43 3.2.3 Factors from the regression analyses .............................................................................. 44 3.2.4 The 2019 language policy and its impact on the Ukrainian national identity ................. 45 iv 3.3 The revised Casual Mechanism .............................................................................................. 46 CONCLUSION ............................................................................................................................. 49 Appendix A ................................................................................................................................... 53 Appendix B ................................................................................................................................... 53 Appendix C ................................................................................................................................... 62 Appendix D ................................................................................................................................... 64 Appendix E ................................................................................................................................... 68 BIBLIOGRAPHY ......................................................................................................................... 69 CEU eTD Collection v INTRODUCTION ‘Army. Language. Faith’. These three words were the political campaign slogan of then-acting president of Ukraine, Petro Poroshenko, with which he went for the re-election in 2019 (Surepin, 2018). It indicated that almost thirty years after Ukraine became independent, the so-called ‘language issue ’continues to be one of the major dividing lines of the Ukrainian society. The historical past of Ukraine conditioned that by the time of the independence in 1991, the Ukrainian language was not equally used across the country. It was also significantly challenged by the Russian language as the consequence