State and Nation Building

By 2000 Ukraine’s existence as an independent state had become generally acknowledged. It was accepted into the international community, and its state served as the primary political framework for its inhabitants.

Essentially, the problem was that that the state was not guided by, and it certainly did not work for, the public interest. In the early 2000s the Ukrainian state was largely under the sway of the new oligarchic elite. When the USSR collapsed, many of the more flexible members of the old Communist elite left politics and concentrated on enriching themselves by privatizing what had once been state property. By the 2000s this new and wealthy elite returned to politics in order to manipulate the state and its policies on its own behalf. To achieve this end, however, a weak state was much more desirable than a strong one. Consequently, although Ukraine possessed all the usual features of statehood, these functioned primarily to serve the interests of the influential. Wealth and connections, not the rule of law or the common good, often decided what policies would be adopted. Reforms that might make the state more effective were not something that the new elite desired. Thus, while the Ukrainian state existed and even expanded, the benefits that it brought to society as a whole were limited.

There were, of course, variations in this general state of affairs. To a large extent they depended on who was president, that is, who occupied the highest level in the state hierarchy.

Formally, the parliamentary deputies were members of political parties. But Ukrainian political parties were not parties in the Western sense. Some had vague ideological platforms, with those on the centre and right of the political spectrum espousing nationalist or national democratic values and a pro-Western orientation, while those on the left supported socialist internationalism and pro-Russian positions. More important, however, was the identification of these parties with the person of their leaders. Thus, politics often had a strong admixture of personality conflicts. Except for the fading Communists, the political parties usually did not have large grass-roots organizations nor did they represent significant segments of society. Instead they were often controlled by major oligarchic clans and their leaders. Most were based in the largely industrial regions of the country.

In 2001 there were about 2.5 million party members, that is, approximately 5% of the population belonged to 125 political parties, most of which were little more than formal entities. Membership in the largest parties comprised Communists – 140,000, Socialists – 60,000, Rukh I – 47,000, Rukh II – 48,000, and Social Democrats (the party of power that dominated the government) – 350,000. The Party of Regions claimed 400,000 members, but this figure was probably exaggerated. Loyalty to one particular party was not great. Between 2002 and 2005 numerous members of parliament, most probably because of bribes or blackmail, changed party affiliation. Ukrainian political parties, therefore, were not a promising base for building a democratic society.

A major change in the prerogatives of the presidency occurred in 2004 during the Orange Revolution. In order to convince his opponents to accept his presidency, Yushchenko agreed to important changes in the constitution that limited the president’s power. Henceforth, the president had the right to appoint only the ministers of foreign affairs and defence. The prime minister and other ministers were chosen by the dominant party or coalition of parties in parliament. Ostensibly this weakening of the presidency and strengthening of parliament brought the Ukrainian political system closer to those of Central and Eastern Europe. However, as formulated in Ukraine, there were serious flaws: their ambiguous wording in the constitution created a competition between president and prime minister for power. This set the stage for continual conflict at the top of the government apparatus and created instability in its branches.

The new government, and specifically Minister of Defence Anatoliy Hryt-senko, did attempt to introduce reforms into the military.

When he was elected, Yushchenko agreed to introduce reforms in local government, by providing it with more funds and greater decentralization. Furthermore, he indicated that he would strive to eliminate the widespread corruption. However, when the 2007 parliamentary elections brought his rival, Tymoshenko, into the office of prime minister, a struggle for primacy between the two erstwhile allies soon broke out. The reforms in local administration as well as the promised assault on corruption were quickly forgotten. Instead of reforms, the government structure of Ukraine remained mired in a “cursed triangle” of competitors: a destructive struggle among the president, the prime minister, and parliament.

How did the population of Ukraine react to these developments? The general response was highly negative. In 2007, only 8% indicated that they had confidence in their government, while 83% stated that the government was thoroughly corrupt. Evaluations of other government institutions and functions were equally low: only 8% trusted the courts and only 18% had confidence in the electoral process. The 33% confidence rating in the military was significantly higher, and religious institutions enjoyed the highest approval rating, 47%.⁵ This sorry state of affairs reflected the growing government bureaucracy’s traditional tendency to bully citizens, unless paid appropriate bribes, rather than help them.

As a new state, Ukraine clearly needed a consolidated society to support it. Given the ethnic, linguistic, and regional differences in the country, creating a sense of national unity and solidarity was a difficult task. Differences between the western and the eastern regions were daunting enough. Numerous other identities – religious, local, regional, Soviet, Eurasian, and even pan-European – also competed with the national one. Nonetheless, the effort to create a widely accepted Ukrainian identity did have one advantage that it never had before: the existence of an independent and sovereign Ukrainian state meant that for the first time the effort to instil Ukrainian national consciousness could utilize the resources of the state and not, as in the past, have to struggle against them.

The politics of identity, therefore, became largely the domain of the Ukrainian state and the political elite and not, as had previously been the case, of the intelligentsia. This meant, for example, that such important institutions as the school system could be utilized, in terms of language use and curriculum, to support the Ukrainian national idea. Nonetheless, the widespread use of Russian and the existence of pro-Russian attitudes still remained prevalent, especially in the large cities and regions of the east and south. Therefore, nation building remained a complicated, slow-moving process, one that depended greatly on those who led the state. When Kuchma was in power, he preferred not to emphasize the issue of national identity, perhaps on account of his own background. However, his successor, Yushchenko, made it one of his priorities.

What it meant to be Ukrainian continued to revolve around the two concepts that appeared with independence in 1991: the one stressed the civic aspect of Ukrainian citizenship and the other was based on ethnic-cultural background.

Of greater concern to most Ukrainians, however, was the language question. It had a strong emotional aspect as well as a practical, career-oriented dimension. Ukrainian was the official language of the country. In 2001 more than 70% of its schools and universities used it and this percentage continued to grow. It was also the language of government. Of the country’s inhabitants 67.5% considered Ukrainian their native tongue (14.5% stated that it was Russian). Compared to the late Soviet period, the status and prestige of the Ukrainian language improved considerably. In the west, 91% considered it their native language, in the centre the figure was about 72%, and in the east and south it was approximately 38%.⁶

While the status of Ukrainian rose, it did not mean that it was the predominant language in the land. Russian continued to dominate in the big cities and large parts of the east and south. While Ukrainian was generally utilized in the government-controlled television and radio, Russian was used most often in the privately owned newspapers and book publications. In short, little changed in language use in Ukraine. Clearly Russian continued to retain its association with modernity, urban life, and cultural richness. Especially among young urban dwellers it was the “cool” language. However, although constantly debated and of great political significance, the language issue was not something Ukrainians were willing to fight about. Indeed, they demonstrated remarkable tolerance as to who chose to use which language. Most probably, widespread bilingualism took the edge off a potentially explosive issue. Regionalism

In a country as large as Ukraine with a history that varied greatly from region to region, it was inevitable that regionalism would be a factor of considerable importance. Not surprisingly, the autonomous republic of Crimea continued to be especially problematic. Its status had both national and international ramifications. The 2 million inhabitants of the peninsula were mostly Russians: they constituted 52% of the population, whereas Ukrainians were 25% and Tatars 18%. In addition, the Russian Black Sea Fleet, with about 15,000 Russian military personnel, was based in Sevastopol. Relatively quiescent during the Kuchma presidency, Ukrainian-Russian tensions mounted during Yushchenko’s years in office. As the president pushed his pro-Western policies, Crimea’s Russian population, which included many veterans of the Soviet military and government, not only protested; its radical elements repeatedly demonstrated pro-Russian attitudes. They were supported by leading Russian politicians, most notably Yuri Luzhkov, mayor of Moscow, who questioned the legitimacy of Crimea belonging to Ukraine. The largely rural Ukrainian population of the peninsula remained passive. However, the Crimean Tatars, resentful of Russian dominance in Crimea, supported the central government in Kiev. Complicating the situation even more were the murky interests of the powerful criminal organizations that operated on the peninsula.

In 2005 Ukrainian students protested the Russian navy’s use of what were formally Ukrainian installations. A year later pro-Russian elements mounted demonstrations against combined NATO-Ukrainian exercises in Crimea. But in the fall of 2008, during the brief Georgian-Russian armed conflict, tensions reached a high point when the Ukrainian government attempted to restrict the access of the Russian Black Sea Fleet, which supported the Russian invasion of Georgia, to its base in Sevastopol. More serious was the Ukrainian insistence that, in accordance with the terms of Treaty of 1997, Russia should prepare to abandon its naval base in Sevastopol by 2017. This confrontation, and Russia’s actions in Georgia, raised fears, especially in Europe and the United States, that Crimea, despite the Kremlin’s assurances to the contrary, would be the next target of Russian expansion.

A much less threatening brush with separatism occurred in November 2004 during the Orange Revolution. Unhappy about the rejection of a Yanu-kovych presidency, about 3,500 deputies of various jurisdictions representing seventeen oblasts gathered in the city of Severdonetsk in the Luhansk oblast to consider their options. They even threatened to break away from a pro-Yushchenko Ukraine and to form a separate South East Ukrainian Republic. However, this idea was quickly rejected by Yanukovych himself and little came of it. In the fall of 2008 another minor manifestation of separatist tendencies emerged briefly in Transcarpathia when a meeting of 107 delegates, led by Dimitrii Sidor, a priest belonging to the Moscow Patriarchate, demanded autonomy for Rusyns in the region. It also failed to mobilize any meaningful support. Indeed, there was a growing tendency among Ukrainians, while recognizing differences among themselves, not to view these as a justification for separatism. Often when threats of separatism arose, many perceived them to be serving the interests of local politicians rather than reflecting the concerns of the people.

In its attempts to strengthen the sense of national solidarity, the Yushchen-ko administration laid great stress on the uniqueness of Ukrainian history. To a large extent this was a response to the old Soviet and modern Russian tendency to emphasize the closeness and interweaving of the Russian and Ukrainian past. In contrast to old Soviet attempts to besmirch the OUN-UPA as Nazi collaborators, the government presented them as praiseworthy fighters for Ukrainian independence. A high point of this tendency occurred in 2008 when Roman Shukhevych, commander of UPA (and viewed in Russia as an inveterate enemy), was posthumuously awarded the Hero of Ukraine medal, much to the irritation of Russia and the many Red Army veterans in Ukraine. But the greatest effort to emphasize Ukraine’s historical specificity was the commemoration of the seventy-fifth anniversary of the Great Famine. This undertaking, which had some success in mobilizing international recognition of the famine, greatly irritated the Kremlin, which interpreted the commemorations not only as a tactic to stress Ukrainian and Russian differences but to blame it for the tragedy. Nonetheless, even in southern and eastern Ukraine, where scepticism about aspects of Ukrainization was frequently expressed, the response to the Famine commemorations was positive, probably because in these areas the tragedy claimed most of its victims. Although the Russian-speaking regions in Ukraine also accepted many pro-Europe aspects of national historiography, they rejected the anti-Russian components that new versions of Ukraine’s past often included, a feature that west Ukrainians often emphasized.

Although many Ukrainians continued to believe that their society was largely fragmented, and although their views on nationhood varied considerably, there were, nonetheless, indications of some consolidation. In 2008 opinion polls revealed that in response to the question whether they would choose Ukraine as their homeland if they had a choice, 76% of those over sixty and 64.5% between eighteen and twenty-eight responded in the affirmative. In a 2007 poll, asked if they considered themselves to be Ukrainian patriots, 44.2% responded with “yes” and 35.6% with “rather yes” (about 14% did not consider themselves to be patriots of Ukraine).⁷ Thus, while regional, ethnic, and linguistic distinctions continued, it was possible to see progress toward the creation of a modern Ukrainian nation.