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Is Ukraine a Multiethnic Country?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  21 October 2022

Volodymyr Kulyk Open the ORCID record for Volodymyr Kulyk [Opens in a new window]
Volodymyr Kulyk*
Affiliation:
National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine, v_kulyk@hotmail.com
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Abstract

This paper critically examines the widespread perception of Ukraine as a multiethnic country with clear boundaries between ethnic groups. It demonstrates that despite the Soviet legacy of rather strong institutionalization and discursive presentation of nationality, the post-Soviet state discontinued or downplayed most of the institutional mechanisms for the reproduction of ethnic distinctiveness and virtually abandoned the use of ethnic categories in official discourse. While several smaller minorities retained some institutional backing and discursive presence, the once very large group of ethnic Russians ceased to be publicly presented and popularly perceived as clearly distinct from the bulk of Ukrainians. At the same time, Ukrainian citizens differ greatly in their ethnocultural practices and ethnolinguistic identifications, hence Ukraine certainly remains ethnoculturally diverse, and this seems to be a more appropriate designation than “multiethnic.”

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Articles
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Slavic Review , Volume 81 , Issue 2 , Summer 2022 , pp. 299 - 323
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Copyright © The Author(s) 2022. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of the Association for Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies

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References

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7. Multiethnicity can be examined at both individual and collective levels; I am primarily interested in the latter. Individuals with multiple ethnic backgrounds and/or identifications can, of course, be part of the multiethnic landscape of their society or community.

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17. Brubaker, “Ethnicity without Groups,” 178, 181.

18. Rogers Brubaker, Margit Feischmidt, Jon Fox, and Liana Grancea, Nationalist Politics and Everyday Ethnicity in a Transylvanian Town (Princeton, 2006), 213.

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21. Martin, The Affirmative Action Empire, chapters 1–5; Slezkine, “The USSR as a Communal Apartment,” 419–40; Francine Hirsch, “The Soviet Union as a Work-in-Progress: Ethnographers and the Category Nationality in the 1926, 1937, and 1939 Censuses,” Slavic Review 56, no. 2 (Summer 1997): 251–78.

22. Martin, The Affirmative Action Empire, chapters 7–11; Bohdan Krawchenko, Social Change and National Consciousness in Twentieth-Century Ukraine (Basingstoke, Hampshire, 1987), chapter 3;Norman M. Naimark, Fires of Hatred: Ethnic Cleansing in Twentieth-Century Europe (Cambridge, Mass., 2001), chapter 3.

23. Slezkine, “The USSR as a Communal Apartment,” 445.

24. Martin, The Affirmative Action Empire, chapter 11; Serhy Yekelchyk, Stalin’s Empire of Memory: Russian-Ukrainian Relations in the Soviet Historical Imagination (Toronto, 2004). Moreover, it allowed those elites to take more or less resolute affirmative action in favor of the respective titular groups, to the detriment of Russians and, especially, ethnic minorities in those republics. Krista A. Goff, Nested Nationalism: Making and Unmaking Nations in the Soviet Caucasus (Ithaca, 2021).

25. Slezkine, “The USSR as a Communal Apartment,” 441.

26. Volodymyr Kulyk, “Constructing Common Sense: Language and Ethnicity in Ukrainian Public Discourse,” Ethnic and Racial Studies 29, no. 2 (March 2006): 281–314.

27. Robert J. Kaiser, Geography of Nationalism in Russia and the USSR (Princeton, 1994), chapter 4; Goff, Nested Nationalism.

28. Kaiser, Geography of Nationalism in Russia and the USSR, chapters 5–6; Krawchenko, Social Change and National Consciousness in Twentieth-Century Ukraine, chapter 5; Paul S. Pirie, “National Identity and Politics in Southern and Eastern Ukraine,” Europe-Asia Studies 48, no. 7 (November 1996): 1079–1104; Volodymyr Kulyk, “Soviet Nationalities Policies and the Discrepancy between Ethnocultural Identification and Language Practice in Ukraine,” in Mark R. Beissinger and Stephen Kotkin, eds., The Historical Legacies of Communism in Russia and Eastern Europe (New York, 2014), 202–21.

29. Kaiser, Geography of Nationalism in Russia and the USSR, chapters 4–6; Kulyk, “Soviet Nationalities Policies,” 203–12.

30. Pirie, “National Identity and Politics in Southern and Eastern Ukraine,” 1085–90. Actually, at that uncertain time Soviet identity was almost equally appealing to alleged Ukrainians, with 43 percent preferring that option.

31. Volodymyr B. Yevtukh, Etnopolityka v Ukraïni: Pravnychyĭ ta Kul΄turolohichnyĭ Aspekty (Kyiv, 1997), 19–21; Viktor Stepanenko, “A State to Build, a Nation to Form: Ethno-Policy in Ukraine,” in Anna-Maria Biro and Petra Kovacs, eds., Diversity in Action: Local Public Management of Multi-Ethnic Communities in Central and Eastern Europe (Budapest, 2001), 310–13.

32. Natsional΄nyi sostav naseleniia SSSR: Po dannym Vsesoiuznoi perepisi 1989 g. (Moscow, 1989), 78–79.

33. Edward Allworth, ed., The Tatars of the Crimea: Return to the Homeland, 2nd ed. (Durham, 1998); Maksym Sviezhentsev and Martin-Oleksandr Kisly, “Race in Time and Space: Racial Politics towards Crimean Tatars in Exile, Through and After Return,” Krytyka, June 2021, at krytyka.com/en/articles/racial-politics-towards-crimean-tatars (accessed July 8, 2022).

34. Taras Kuzio and Andrew Wilson, Ukraine: Perestroika to Independence (Edmonton, 1994); Volodymyr Kulyk, Ukraïns΄kyi natsionalizm u nezalezhnii Ukraïni (Kyiv, 1999).

35. Arel and Khmelko, “The Russian Factor and Territorial Polarization in Ukraine.”

36. Volodymyr Kulyk, “Constructing Common Sense,” 292–304.

37. Of course, presidents were not the only influential actors in these respective periods, but a discussion of all major political forces would make this part of the analysis too long and complex, to the detriment of other parts that are more central to my argument.

38. Volodymyr Kulyk, Dyskurs Ukraïns΄kykh Mediĭ: Identychnosti, Ideolohiï, Vladni Stosunky (Kyïv, 2010), chapter 5.

39. Volodymyr Kulyk, “Language Policies and Language Attitudes in Post-Orange Ukraine,” in Juliane Besters-Dilger, ed., Language Policy and Language Situation in Ukraine: Analysis and Recommendations (Frankfurt am Main, 2009), 15–55; Anton Shekhovtsov, “The ‘Orange Revolution’ and the ‘Sacred’ Birth of a Civic-Republican Ukrainian Nation,” Nationalities Papers 41, no. 5 (September 2013): 730–43.

40. Wolczuk, “Whose Ukraine?”; Kulyk, “Language Policies and Language Attitudes in Post-Orange Ukraine.”

41. Nathaniel Copsey and Natalia Shapovalova, “The Ukrainian Presidential Election of 2010,” Representation 46, no. 2 (2010): 211–25.

42. Olga Onuch, “The Maidan and Beyond: Who Were the Protesters?,” Journal of Democracy 25, no. 3 (2014): 44–51; Iryna Bekeshkina, “Decisive 2014: Did It Divide or Unite Ukraine?,” in Olexiy Haran and Maksym Yakovlyev, eds., Constructing a Political Nation: Changes in the Attitudes of Ukrainians during the War in the Donbas, 2nd. ed. (Kyiv, 2017), 1–33.

43. Volodymyr Kulyk, “Ukrainian Nationalism Since the Outbreak of Euromaidan,” Ab Imperio, no. 3 (2014): 94–122; Volodymyr Kulyk, “National Identity in Ukraine: Impact of Euromaidan and the War,” Europe-Asia Studies 68, no. 4 (April 2016): 588–608; Bekeshkina, “Decisive 2014”; Oleg Zhuravlev and Volodymyr Ishchenko, “Exclusiveness of Civic Nationalism: Euromaidan Eventful Nationalism in Ukraine,” Post-Soviet Affairs 36, no. 3 (May, 2020): 226–45.

44. Volodymyr Kulyk, “Memory and Language: Different Dynamics in the Two Aspects of Identity Politics in Post-Euromaidan Ukraine,” Nationalities Papers 47, no. 6 (November 2019): 1030–47; Olga Onuch, “‘We Want to Simplify Ukraine’: Olga Onuch on Language and Political Preferences in Ukraine,” Hromandske International, July 25, 2019, at en.hromadske.ua/posts/we-want-to-simplify-ukraine-olga-onuch-on-language-and-political-preferences-in-ukraine (accessed July 12, 2022).

45. Joanna Rohozinska and Vitaliy Shpak, “Ukraine’s Post-Maidan Struggles: The Rise of an ‘Outsider’ President,” Journal of Democracy 30, no. 3 (2019): 33–47; Gwendolyn Sasse, “The Uneven First Year of Zelenskiy’s Presidency,” Judy Dempsey’s Strategic Europe (blog), May 19, 2020, at carnegieeurope.eu/strategiceurope/81829 (accessed July 12, 2022).

46. Based on the design of boundary-making institutions, Aktürk classifies Ukraine as one of those states that “combine antiethnic citizenship and immigration policies with some of the multiethnic expression policies” (Aktürk, “European State Formation,” unpublished paper). However, as my analysis of the functioning of these institutions will demonstrate, the multiethnic component has been very weak, except for the first years of independence.

47. Oxana Shevel, “The Politics of Citizenship Policy in New States,” Comparative Politics 41, no. 3 (April 2009): 273–91. Although “Ukrainians from abroad” did receive special treatment in being allowed to immigrate beyond established quotas, that status was defined in an inclusive way to encompass “person[s] of Ukrainian ethnic descent or with origin in Ukraine.” See Zakon Ukraïny “Pro immihratsiiu,” adopted June 7, 2001, at zakon.rada.gov.ua/laws/show/2491-14#Text, art. 4; Zakon Ukraïny “Pro zakordonnykh ukraïntsiv,” adopted March 4, 2004, at zakon.rada.gov.ua/laws/show/1582-15#Text, art. 1 (both accessed May 20, 2021).

48. Shevel, “The Politics of Citizenship Policy in New States”; Maryna Yaroshevych, “Zakordonni ukraïntsi ta pytannia podviinoho hromadianstva,” Portal zovnishnioï polityky, [2019], at fpp.com.ua/topic/zakordonni-ukrayintsi-ta-pytannya-podvijnogo-gromadyanstva/ (accessed May 20, 2021).

49. Here I diverge from Aktürk, who considers the official recognition of ethnic minority status as one of the policies defining membership in the national community.

50. Zakon Ukraïny “Pro natsional΄ni menshyny v Ukraïni,” adopted 25 June 1992, at zakon.rada.gov.ua/laws/show/2494-12#Text, art. 3, 6 (accessed May 21, 2021).

51. This was demonstrated in the first year of independence when the central government ignored the results of a referendum in a Hungarian-majority district in Transcarpathia, where a large majority supported the idea of a Hungarian autonomous unit; Stepanenko, “A State to Build, a Nation to Form,” 315.

52. Volodymyr Kulyk, Revisiting a Success Story: Implementation of the Recommendations of the OSCE High Commissioner on National Minorities to Ukraine, 1994–2001 (Hamburg, 2002); Stewart, Explaining the Low Intensity of Ethnopolitical Conflict in Ukraine.

53. Zakon Ukraïny “Pro politychni partiï v Ukraïni,” adopted April 5, 2001, zakon.rada.gov.ua/laws/show/2365-14#Text, art. 10, 11 (accessed July 12, 2021).

54. Graham Smith and Andrew Wilson, “Rethinking Russia’s Post-soviet Diaspora: The Potential for Political Mobilisation in Eastern Ukraine and North-east Estonia,” Europe-Asia Studies 49, no. 5 (July 1997): 845–64; Volodymyr Kulyk, “Identity in Transformation: Russian-Speakers in Post-Soviet Ukraine,” Europe-Asia Studies 71, no. 1 (January 2019): 156–78.

55. Constitution of Ukraine, adopted June 28, 1996, https://rm.coe.int/constitution-of-ukraine/168071f58b, preamble and art. 10, 11, 53, 119 (accessed May 21, 2021). The notion of indigenous peoples was thus first introduced in Ukrainian legislation.

56. Yevtukh, Etnopolityka v Ukraïni; Stewart, Explaining the Low Intensity of Ethnopolitical Conflict in Ukraine; Volodymyr Yevtukh, Roma in Ukraine: Ethnodemographical and Sociocultural Contexts, at http://enpuir.npu.edu.ua/bitstream/handle/123456789/15465/Yevtukh.pdf (accessed May 21, 2021).

57. Although nationalist deputies objected to such a “denationalizing” move, most other MPs believed that it was important to avoid ethnic divides and mold a united identity of Ukrainian citizens. Stenohrama plenarnoho zasidannia (Verkhovnoï Rady Ukraïny), June 26, 1992, at www.rada.gov.ua/meeting/stenogr/show/4749.html (accessed July 12, 2021).

58. Dominique Arel, “Interpreting ‘Nationality’ and ‘Language’ in the 2001 Ukrainian Census,” Post-Soviet Affairs 18, no. 3 (2002): 223–24. The impact of Soviet practices was also manifested in media reports on census results, which uncritically reproduced the official report referring to the alleged presence in Ukraine of certain numbers of people belonging to certain nationalities. Although the census demonstrated a significant increase in the number of people identifying as Ukrainians and, by the same token, a sharp decrease in the number of self-declared Russians, the media did not interpret this drastic change as evidence of the subjective nature of nationality designations and clung instead to the idea of objectively existing, albeit numerically changing, groups; Kulyk, Dyskurs Ukraïns΄kykh Mediĭ, chapter 6.

59. In contrast to the first post-Soviet years, even the results of mass surveys were usually published without the breakup by nationality, as sociologists did not want to stir ethnic tensions by implying that it was ethnic identity that accounted for differences between ethnically defined “groups” of respondents. The author’s exchange on Facebook with sociologists Volodymyr Paniotto and Mykhailo Mishchenko representing two of Ukraine’s most active survey companies, May 14, 2021, at www.facebook.com/volodymyr.kulyk/posts/4200080000023895 (password required; accessed November 28, 2021).

60. Ismail Aydingün and Ayşegül Aydingün, “Crimean Tatars Return Home: Identity and Cultural Revival,” Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies 33, no. 1 (January 2007): 113–28; Vil S. Bakirov, Alexandr I. Kizilov, and Kseniya Kizilova, “Hungarians in Contemporary Ukraine: Identities and Representations,” Slovak Journal of Political Sciences 11, no. 3 (2011): 229–48.

61. Even the Russian “kin state” was not much interested in emphasizing a distinct identity of its ethnic “compatriots,” seeking instead to make all those Ukrainian citizens whom it considered linguistic and cultural kindred politically loyal. While Moscow pressured Kyiv to ensure the rights of their Russians/Russian-speakers for decades, it recently started granting willing Ukrainian residents Russian citizenship (with or even without relocation to Russia) in pursuit of demographic and geopolitical goals. Igor Zevelev, “New Russian Policy Toward Ukraine: Citizenship Beyond Borders,” Kennan Cable no. 54 (July 2020), at https://www.wilsoncenter.org/publication/kennan-cable-no-54-new-russian-policy-toward-ukraine-citizenship-beyond-borders (accessed July 12, 2021).

62. Dominique Arel, “Language Politics in Independent Ukraine: Towards One or Two State Languages?,” Nationalities Papers 23, no. 3 (September 1995): 597–622; Juliane Besters-Dilger, ed., Language Policy and Language Situation in Ukraine: Analysis and Recommendations (Frankfurt am Main, 2009).

63. Constitution of Ukraine, art. 10.

64. Kulyk, “Memory and Language.”

65. “Novorichne pryvitannia ukraïns΄komu narodovi Prezydenta Ukraïny L. Kravchuka,” Holos Ukraïny, January 3, 1992, 1–2.

66. “Novorichne zvernennia Prezydenta Ukraïny Leonida Kuchmy do ukraïns΄koho narodu,” Holos Ukraïny, January 3, 2001, 1–2.

67. “Novorichne vitannia Yushchenka,” Ukraïns΄ka Pravda, January 1, 2006, at www.pravda.com.ua/articles/2006/01/1/3044851/ (accessed March 28, 2021).

68. “Prezydent pryvitav Ukraïnu z Novym rokom,” Dzerkalo tyzhnia. Ukraïna, January 1, 2014, https://zn.ua/ukr/POLITICS/prezident-privitav-ukrayinu-z-novim-rokom-134933_.html (accessed July 13, 2021).

69. Kulyk, “National Identity in Ukraine.”

70. “Novorichne pryvitannia Poroshenka (povnyi tekst),” UNIAN, January 1, 2018, at www.unian.ua/politics/2327181-novorichne-privitannya-poroshenka-povniy-tekst.html (accessed July 13, 2021).

71. Kulyk, “Ukrainian Nationalism since the Outbreak of Euromaidan.”

72. “‘Davaite kozhen chesno vidpovist΄ na vazhlyve pytannia: Khto ia?’ Novorichne pryvitannia prezydenta Zelens΄koho,” TSN, December 31, 2019, at https://tsn.ua/politika/davayte-kozhen-chesno-vidpovist-na-vazhlive-pitannya-hto-ya-novorichne-privitannya-prezidenta-zelenskogo-1468050.html (accessed July 13, 2021).

73. For each election, I analyze the programs of those parties that cleared the threshold and, therefore, had their own factions in parliament the following years. I examine all elections since 2002.

74. Peredvyborna prohrama partiï “Blok Petra Poroshenka” (2014 election), at www.cvk.gov.ua/pls/vnd2014/wp502pt001f01=910pf7171=202.html (accessed April 16, 2021; access temporarily closed).

75. Peredvyborna prohrama Partiï rehioniv (2006 election), at www.cvk.gov.ua/pls/vnd2006/w6p001.html (accessed April 16, 2021; access temporarily closed).

76. Peredvyborna prohrama Politychnoï partiï “Opozytsiinyi blok” (2014 election), at www.cvk.gov.ua/pls/vnd2014/wp502pt001f01=910pf7171=199.html (accessed April 16, 2021; access temporarily closed).

77. Peredvyborna prohrama Politychnoï partiï “Opozytsiina platforma—Za zhyttia” (2019 election), at www.cvk.gov.ua/pls/vnd2019/wp502pt001f01=919pf7171=393.html (accessed April 16, 2021; access temporarily closed).

78. Peredvyborna prohrama Partiï rehioniv (2012 election), at www.cvk.gov.ua/pls/vnd2012/wp502pt001f01=900pf7171=50.html (accessed April 16, 2021; access temporarily closed).

79. Peredvyborna prohrama Vseukraïns΄hoho ob΄iednannia “Svoboda” (2012 election), at www.cvk.gov.ua/pls/vnd2012/wp502pt001f01=900pf7171=71.html (accessed April 16, 2021; access temporarily closed).

80. Peredvyborna prohrama Politychnoï partiï “Opozytsiina platforma—Za zhyttia” (2019 election). www.cvk.gov.ua/pls/vnd2019/wp502pt001f01=919pf7171=393.html (accessed April 16, 2021; access temporarily closed).

81. Kulyk, Dyskurs Ukraïns΄kykh Mediĭ, chapter 7.

82. For example, annual monitoring surveys by the Institute of Sociology, National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine show that while the share of Ukrainians rose from 69 percent in 1992 to 91 percent in 2018, the share of Russians shrank from 24 to only 8 percent. “Rezul΄taty natsional΄nykh shchorichnykh monitorynhovykh opytuvan΄ 1994–2018 rokiv (tablytsi, pidhotovleni doktorom sotsiolohichnykh nauk M.A. Parashchevinym),” in Ukraïns΄ke suspil΄stvo: Monitorynh sotsial΄nykh zmin 6 (2018), 521, at i-soc.com.ua/assets/files/monitoring/dodatki2018.pdf (accessed May 12, 2021). It should be noted that the usual sample size of most nationwide surveys does not allow an adequate assessment of the number of people identifying with any nationality other than Ukrainian, Russian, or both Ukrainian and Russian. In most publications of results, people of all other nationalities are subsumed under the category of “other.”

83. Kulyk, “Shedding Russianness, Recasting Ukrainianness.”

84. Calculations based on raw data of a survey conducted in May 2017 for a research project by the Research Initiative on Democratic Reform in Ukraine (ridru.artsrn.ualberta.ca/) with the author’s participation. The project was funded by the Kule Institute for Advanced Studies, University of Alberta.

85. Tsentr Razumkova, “Identychnist’ hromadian Ukraïny: tsinnisno-orientatsiinyi aspect,” in Osnovni zasady ta shliakhy formuvannia spilnoï identychnosti hromadian Ukraïny (Kyiv, 2017), 6.

86. Abel Polese and Anna Wylegala, “Odessa and Lvov or Odesa and Lviv: How Important Is a Letter? Reflections on the ‘Other’ in Two Ukrainian Cities,” Nationalities Papers 36, no. 5 (November 2008): 787–814.

87. Andrew Wilson, “Elements of a Theory of Ukrainian Ethno-national Identities,” Nations and Nationalism 8, no. 1 (January 2002): 44.

88. Calculations based on raw data of a survey conducted in October 2020 for the British Academy-funded research project “Identity and Borders in Flux: The Case of Ukraine” (ibifukraine.com) with the author’s participation.

89. Yaroslav Hrytsak, “Istoriia dvokh mist: L΄viv i Donets΄k u porivnial΄nii perspektyvi,” L΄viv-Donets΄k: Sotsiial΄ni identychnosti v suchasnii Ukraїni, special issue of Ukraïna Moderna (2007): 49–51. In Donets΄k, Soviet identity was initially more salient the than Russian one, but its relevance decreased more drastically, from 40 to 10 percent.

90. Kulyk, “National Identity in Ukraine,” 596. In the Donbas, Ukrainian identity became much less salient than it was in Donets΄k in 2004, but so did Russian and Russian-speaking identities, hence the three labels were chosen by a roughly equal share of respondents, 11–13 percent. There, too, ethnolinguistic identifications mattered less than civic/territorial ones, except that the latter were local or regional rather than national.

91. The greater boundary-making utility of Ukrainian nationality and native language compared to their Russian counterparts is also demonstrated by the fact that the identification with the Ukrainian categories has a stronger impact on various identity-related political attitudes than identification with the respective Russian categories. Volodymyr Kulyk and Henry E. Hale, “Imperfect Measures of Dynamic Identities: The Changing Impact of Ethnolinguistic Characteristics on Political Attitudes in Ukraine,” Nations and Nationalism 28, no. 3 (2022): 841–60.

92. Olexiy Haran and Maksym Yakovlyev, eds. Constructing a Political Nation: Changes in the Attitudes of Ukrainians during the War in the Donbas, 2nd ed. (Kyiv, 2017); Kulyk, “Memory and Language”; Henry E. Hale and Volodymyr Kulyk, “Aspirational Identity Politics and Support for Radical Reform: The Case of Post-Maidan Ukraine,” Comparative Politics 53, no. 4 (July 2021): 713–51.