Право/ 9. Гражданское право

Shopin P.Y.

Luhansk Taras Shevchenko National University, Ukraine

The implications of the fact that a significant number of Ukraine's population do not consider themselves Ukrainian either in the national or civic sense

The Canada-Ukraine Parliamentary Program Washington Conference “Model Ukraine”, which took place at the George Washington University on Feb. 12-14, 2010, was a perfect opportunity for CUPP Alumni to discuss their vision of Ukraine and see if they can arrive at common goals and values which could be shared by every Ukrainian. I am very grateful to Mr. Ihor Bardyn, Director of the Program, and all the organizers of the conference and believe that the meeting there was both rewarding and useful for all the participants. Here I present my address to the Alumni at the Washington Conference.

Recently I have been to the Consulate General of Ukraine in San Francisco to cast my vote in the first round of the Presidential Election, and noticed two things. I saw that all the election committee members were wearing traditional Ukrainian shirts and was not surprised at all. But when I left the Consulate, I wondered if Germans would wear their Trachten for the same occasion.

Secondly, people who came to vote were asked to complete a questionnaire compiled at Oxford University and we spent a considerable amount of time in a small room trying to answer all those numerous queries. One of the older ladies was having trouble with the question about identity, a foreign word to any Ukrainian, as you may probably know. She did not hesitate to ask a young man beside her, “What is “identychnist” [identity]?” “Well, being identical, being similar, I think.” “You know, that’s what makes you Ukrainian,” another helpful Ukrainian prompted. The CUPP Alumni gathered to try to find an answer to a similar question and I hope that we have achieved at least an understanding of the initial (or ultimate?) question and will work towards further interpretation of what it means to be Ukrainian. I would like to believe that our generation of Ukrainians, having experienced the governance, civil society, education abroad and the reality of life in Ukraine can work towards developing a better if not new Commons and Commonweal for Ukraine.

In my paper I would like to present some of my deliberations on why many Ukrainians do not have the identity we expect them to have and what it means not to identify with “typical Ukrainians”, living in Ukraine.

At the very outset of this short presentation, I would like to state that for me the national and civic senses of being Ukrainian are the same. If you are a citizen of Ukraine, you are Ukrainian. Ukrainian citizenship is what defines me as a Ukrainian in the modern sense. I speak Russian as my native language, celebrate the Victory in Europe Day, denounce heroization of Stepan Bandera and Roman Shukhevych and still feel Ukrainian. It is quite natural. However, the attempts to make me and millions of Ukrainians feel not Ukrainian, feel alienated from the state have not been in vain. Many Ukrainians do not consider themselves Ukrainian because of the economic and social conditions in Ukraine. It is legitimate to posit an important question, “What are the implications of the fact that a lot of Ukrainians do not consider themselves Ukrainian?”

Let me start with a salient example. Having spent several months on my own abroad, I understood a lot about my being Ukrainian and also grew addicted to chess, playing it online with my brother and discussing every move in the Skype. No matter what you think of chess, the game is popular in Europe and all over the world. There are prestigious chess tournaments in the EU, Russia and China. Last year a Ukrainian grandmaster Sergey Karjakin “defected” to Russia. This 19-year-old prodigy holds the record for the youngest grandmaster in history, achieving the title at the age of twelve years and seven months. Now he lives in Moscow and at the 2009 World Chess Cup Sergey was asked how the Ukrainian side let him go and here is what he said, “My colleagues understood my decision. We still have very good relations. As for the chess authorities of the Ukrainian Chess Federation, they were indifferent to my change of citizenship. They did not truly support us in Ukraine: no coaches, no help. That is why I left” [2]. What he also said was, “A lot of my relatives are Russians and they live in Russia. I have just come back home and I don't consider it to be a radical change” [2]. Some nationalists may say “Good riddance!” but I absolutely disagree with them and this difference of opinion is crucial. If to paraphrase Michael Ignatieff, current leader of the Liberal Party in Canada, "I believe that a Ukrainian is a Ukrainian, is a Ukrainian, is a Ukrainian”. Every citizen of Ukraine has equal rights and should be equally important for the state and even more so for the whole society.

We all know about Ukrainians, leaving their country to seek better future. Millions of Ukrainians have left Ukraine since the independence. Why? This is the question I will try to answer in a nutshell. During my second visit to Canada, I learnt from my hosts that they “defected” to Canada because as Ukrainians they did not feel comfortable in Poland. However, I did not see any prejudice towards the Poles on their side. They had Polish friends and never actually mentioned any hardships they faced in Poland. They expressed long-nourished hatred towards Russia but no animosity to Poland. Some of my relatives left Ukraine for Russia and to do so they also had to tell the Russian authorities that they “felt uncomfortable” in Ukraine. They still plan to return to Ukraine some day but right now it makes no sense to them because economically Ukraine is a worse place to live in. These people consider themselves Ukrainian, but they may not come back and be Ukrainians in a civic sense. For me a Ukrainian is someone who lives in Ukraine because being Ukrainian in a civic sense is what makes a society. Ukrainian nationalists claim that a lot of Ukrainians are not real Ukrainians. These “fake” Ukrainians do not speak Ukrainian and live in the “imaginary” international post-Soviet world. I must admit that I belong to this group of “fake” Ukrainians. Oleksandr Kramarenko calls us “пануючий в нашій країні внаслідок тяжкої хвороби українців інтернаціонал” (“as a result of a grave disease of Ukrainians a ruling internationale”) [1]. He also calls us a minority and he is mistaken. It is the Ukrainian nationalists who are a marginal minority. Nationalists are “Schwarzfahrer” (remember the award-winning German short film) on the Ukrainian tram but they manage to make a lot of Ukrainians feel uncomfortable and doubt whether we are Ukrainians.

Looking back at the question which I have to address I can see that a lot of Ukrainians do not consider themselves being Ukrainian in the sense worked out by a nationalistic minority .The idea of a mono-ethnic state seemed to prevail during the presidency of Viktor Yushchenko. Consequently, a lot of Ukrainians did not feel “Ukrainian” in the sense the President wanted to promote. As a result, the President lost like no one had lost before him. It was poetic justice. The vast majority of Ukrainians do not consider themselves to be victims of the Soviet Union and they do not have any ill feelings towards Russia. The President failed to understand this.

A lot of Ukrainians are led to believe that being “really” Ukrainian means being xenophobic and nationalistic. These Ukrainians do not welcome the decorations of Stepan Bandera and Roman Shukhevych and feel that Ukraine has become a hostile land to them. There are numerous implications of this state of affairs in Ukraine but I will mention only several of those.

Firstly, these Ukrainians may leave the country for good. Ukraine has lost millions of people but the reason may appear to be different. The majority of Ukrainians left Ukraine because they could not live a decent life here. It means they saw that they were let down in a civic sense, they were let down as Ukrainians by Ukrainians. Thus, the social-economic issues need to be addressed by the whole society and every individual should be involved. These issues include both living wages and the language you speak, and they constitute social life of an ordinary Ukrainian.

It is clear that Ukrainians who do not consider themselves Ukrainian are in opposition to any government in Ukraine. These Ukrainians play a powerful destructive role in the state politics. Their aim is to express their discontent but the more alienated they are from Ukraine the more counterproductive their political activism is.

These Ukrainians also become disappointed in the social life in Ukraine, which gives way to passivity and indifference in their attitude towards the Ukrainian politics. I believe that passivity and indifference are the worst symptoms of civic alienation in Ukraine.

Finally, being not part of the Ukrainian society leads these Ukrainians to misery and unhappiness. Homeless at home, they refuse to see the light at the end of the tunnel and turn back to the Soviet past. The unhappy consciousness leads to such extremes as protests or apathy.

It could be presumed that citizenship is what unites all Ukrainians. Moreover, the Ukrainian citizenship is evidently a liaison opportunity for most of us due to the immense diversity of cultures, beliefs, attitudes, lifestyles, views etc. It is overt that such an assumption may seem diabolical for those who prefer cultural and political grounds when defining one’s identity. But in my view, the Ukrainian citizenship is to unite a great abundance of various mentalities which constantly interact and form the new concept of a Ukrainian, create the new cultural facets of being Ukrainian. Otherwise, a lot of Ukrainians will not feel at home and what we can see today is that a vocal nationalistic minority manages to impose ideas not accepted by the majority of Ukrainians.

There is no way back to the rustic charm of traditional Ukrainian culture and identity. The Ukrainian “Bourbon Restoration” is not possible. Ukraine is not a mono-ethnic nation and every citizen of Ukraine is Ukrainian in the most authentic sense. Ukrainians are a tolerant, multicultural, multilingual, well-educated society and we cannot go back to the days of serfdom, illiteracy and “enlightened” elites. This does not mean we have to forsake our past.

Ukraine is in the midst of a profound transformation and much reconciliation and understanding of each other's views ought to be done as soon as possible. Ukrainians are plagued by the wild capitalist globalization. The Ukrainian oligarchs decide our future, plundering the country. The Ukrainian identity is not worth much in this society. Ukrainians have become obsequious consumers and the trends are alarming. However, these challenges cannot be met by the obsolete worldview. On the terrains of Ukraine there is to be created a strong nation which can survive the capitalist progress. There are crucial premises, such as the independence, unique ideas and walks of life for the process to commence. We shall perceive that and toil to develop and nurture unifying tendencies rather than provoke protests and confrontation. It is our common responsibility to find ways for mutual understanding when all Ukrainians will feel at home. Hopefully, the current monopolization of the national identity concept has failed with President Yushchenko’s loss and future cultural politics of the state will take into account the view of a majority of Ukrainians. The majority of Ukrainians will decide the future of the state and every minority should be well-integrated into Ukrainian society to feel an integral part of it.

In conclusion, the gruesome fact that a significant number of Ukrainians do not consider themselves Ukrainian either in a national or civic sense is not arbitrary and the implications of it are not mere trifles that can be ignored. It is common sense that neither the language nor the traditional shirt defines the Ukrainian citizenship. Ukrainians should not believe that they are a unique country where the principles of tolerance and multiculturalism cannot be acted upon and should demand recognition as Ukrainians in every conceivable sense.

References:

1. Крамаренко О. Так жити не можна. Available at: http://maidan.org.ua/static/mai/1260527551.html.

2. Interview with Sergey Karjakin. Available at: http://www.ugra-chess.ru/rus/interv_41.htm.