UKRAINE The collapse of the Soviet Union has left many of its former states struggling to forge new political nations out of the legacy of communist rule. Ukraine is no exception and its transition to independent state led many in the West to predict its collapse into ethnic conflict. Taras Kuzio focuses on post-Soviet developments in Ukraine, analysing the role of nationalism in the forging of a new political nation out of the inherited quasi-state of the former Soviet Union. He examines the new elites of Ukraine, their views and role in the state and nation building project. He also explores other important aspects of the transition to an independent state such as borders, symbols, myths and national histories. Ukraine uses primary sources and interviews with leading members of Ukrainian elites to survey the ongoing debates surrounding the transformation of Ukraine into an independent state. It also compares the Ukrainian experience with that of other emerging nations within a theoretical framework. The study finds that the threat of ethnic conflict and separatism has been exaggerated and that Ukraine can build an inclusive political nation based upon civic and ethnic Ukrainian attributes. Taras Kuzio is Research Fellow of the Centre for Russian and East European Studies at the University of Birmingham, UK. ROUTLEDGE STUDIES OF SOCIETIES IN TRANSITION 1 THE ECONOMICS OF SOVIET BREAK-UP Bert van Selm 2 INSTITUTIONAL BARRIERS TO ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT Poland’s incomplete transition Edited by Jan Winiecki 3 THE POLISH SOLIDARITY MOVEMENT Revolution, democracy and natural rights Arista Maria Cirtautas 4 SURVIVING POST-SOCIALISM Local strategies and regional responses in Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union Edited by Sue Bridger and Frances Pine 5 LAND REFORM IN THE FORMER SOVIET UNION AND EASTERN EUROPE Edited by Stephen Wegren 6 FINANCIAL REFORMS IN EAST EUROPEAN COUNTRIES A policy model for Poland Kanhaya L.Gupta and Robert Lensink 7 THE POLITICAL ECONOMY OF TRANSITION Opportunities and limits of transformation Josef van Brabant 8 PRIVATIZING THE LAND Rural political economy in post-communist societies Edited by Ivan Szelenyi 9 UKRAINE State and nation building Ta r a s Kuzio UKRAINE State and nation building Taras Kuzio London and New York First published 1998 by Routledge 11 New Fetter Lane, London EC4P 4EE This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2002. Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada by Routledge 29 West 35th Street, New York, NY 10001 © 1998 Taras Kuzio The right of Taras Kuzio to be identified as the Author of this Work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloguing in Publication Data Kuzio, Taras Ukraine/Taras Kuzio. Includes bibliographical references. 1. Ukraine—Politics and government—1991–. 2. Nationalism—Ukraine. I. Title DK508.848.K89 1998 320.9477—dc21 97–38904 ISBN 0-203-19759-3 Master e-book ISBN ISBN 0-203-19762-3 (Adobe eReader Format) ISBN 0-415-17195-4 (Print Edition) An open letter to young Ukrainians of Galicia ‘Before the Ukrainian intelligentsia an enormous practical task is opening up now under freer forms of life in Russia: to create out of the vast ethnic mass of Ukrainian people a Ukrainian nation, a comprehensive cultural organism, capable of an independent, cultural and political life, resistant to the assimilatory efforts of other nations, whatever their origin, and, at the same time, a nation open to receive, on the widest possible scale, and at the fastest rate, those universal human cultural achievements without which no nation and no state, however powerful, can survive.’ Ivan Franko, Ukrainian social democratic political activist, writer and poet, 1905 President Leonid Kuchma on the Fifth Anniversary of Ukrainian Independence ‘This event of great significance (the 1991 declaration of independence), which stands alongside only a few other historical dates…will transform the naselennia (populace) into a narod (nation) and the territory into a state.’ Uriadovyi Kurier, 29 August 1996 CONTENTS List of illustrations x Acknowledgements xii Note on transliteration and Ukrainian spelling xiii Introduction 1 1 State and nation building in Ukraine in theoretical and comparative perspective 6 In search of a definition 6 Nation and state building in comparative perspective 11 Conclusions 21 2 Soviet to Ukrainian elites 23 Elites and states 23 Elites in the former USSR 27 Elites in Ukraine 28 Ukraine’s ‘sly fox’ 38 Conclusions 41 3 Forging a political community 43 An atomised and divided society 43 Towards consolidation 49 New values and morals 61 Conclusions 68 vii CONTENTS 4 Federalism, regionalism and the myth of separatism 69 Federalism versus unitarianism 69 Regional allegiances and a Ukrainian political community 72 The myth of separatism 75 National minorities 91 Conclusions 98 5 The strategic significance of borders 100 Borders, state and nation building 100 Contested borders 110 Conclusions 117 6 In search of a national idea 119 Nation building 119 In search of a national idea 135 Conclusions 142 7 National identity and civil society 144 National identity 144 National identity in Ukraine 149 National identity and civil society in Ukraine 161 Conclusions 165 8 Language policies 167 The importance of language to nation building 167 Ukrainian as the state language 170 A problem of definition 179 Bi-ethnic states and bilingualism 185 Official and unofficial policies 188 Conclusions 196 9 History, myths and symbols 198 The role of history, memory and myths 198 History in the service of state and nation building 205 The construction of new, and the revival of old, myths in Ukraine 211 viii CONTENTS National symbols 217 Conclusions 229 10 Conclusions 230 Notes 237 Select bibliography of secondary sources 284 Index 293 ix ILLUSTRATIONS FIGURE 8.1 ‘Status of state bi-lingualism’ in Ukraine 186 MAPS Territorial administrative structure of Ukraine xiv 3.1 Referendum on independence 44 4.1 Ethnic Ukrainians 76 6.1 Ukrainian as native language 128 7.1 Proportion of school pupils studying in the Ukrainian language (1997) 147 8.1 Ukrainian language instruction in schools, 1990–1991 174 8.2 Ukrainian language instruction in schools, 1991–1992 174 8.3 Ukrainian language instruction in schools, 1992–1993 175 8.4 Ukrainian language instruction in schools, 1994–1995 175 TABLES 1.1 Which nation is most sympathetic to you? 17 1.2 To which country do you have the greatest affinity? 17 1.3 Employment by ethnic group (1989) 21 3.1 Political and economic models for Ukraine? 57 4.1 What do you consider to be your homeland? 84 4.2 Which country do you identify with as your homeland? 88 4.3 Russians in the former USSR (1989) 95 4.4 Knowledge of Russian and Ukrainian languages in Ukraine 98 x ILLUSTRATIONS 5.1 To whom should the Crimea belong? 115 5.2 Should the Crimea remain within Ukraine? 116 5.3 Main allies of, and greatest threats to, Ukraine 118 7.1 Sources of ethnic identification in Ukraine 149 7.2 What do you consider to be your motherland (rodina)?150 7.3 What do you consider to be your homeland? 153 7.4 How best do you characterise yourself? 159 7.5 Attitude of political parties in Ukraine to state languages, 1995–1997 163 8.1 School pupils instructed in the Ukrainian language, 1990–1995 173 8.2 Ukrainian as a native language by region 179 8.3 Electoral campaign position on the Russian language by parliamentary faction 183 8.4 The media and national consciousness 192 8.5 Have you witnessed ethnic discrimination during the last year? 194 xi ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS The author gratefully acknowledges the Leverhulme Trust for supporting the three-year research project between 1995 and 1998 on post-Soviet transition in Ukraine undertaken at the Centre for Russian and East European Studies, The University of Birmingham, UK. In addition, the author would like to thank various academic colleagues for their comments on earlier drafts of these individual chapters. I would particularly like to thank Marc Nordberg for providing useful comments and criticism on an earlier draft of this book. There are far too many officials, writers and political activists in Ukraine to list individually who ensured my access to primary sources and interesting ideas. Finally, but not least importantly, I would like to thank my wife, Oksana Jajecznyk, for her patience and solicitude during the course of the writing of this book. xii NOTE ON TRANSLITERATION AND UKRAINIAN SPELLING The transliteration used in this book is based upon the Ukrainian Legal Terminology Commission’s decision number 9 (19 April 1996) which outlined an official English-Ukrainian transliteration system. The system was adopted on the initiative of the Ukrainian Language Institute of the National Academy of Sciences. The decree noted that the transliteration system should be made directly from Ukrainian into English without the use of intermediary languages. The use of this system has meant that ‘Ukraine’ is given throughout this book without the article ‘the’. In addition, Cyrillic soft signs have been rendered by an apostrophe (for example, L’viv). Some traditionally known regions (for example, the ‘Crimea’ and ‘Trans-Carpathia’) have been used rather than their Ukrainian transliterations (‘Krym’, and ‘Zakarpattia’ respectively). The names of Ukrainian oblasts and cities are no longer transliterated from the Russian into English (for example, these now take the form ‘Kyiv’, ‘L’viv’, ‘Kharkiv’, ‘Odesa’ and the ‘Donbas’ instead of the traditional ‘Kiev, ‘Lvov’, ‘Kharkov’, ‘Odessa’ and the ‘Donbass’ respectively).