Ukraine: Coming to terms with the Soviet legacy

Journal of Communist Studies and Transition Politics

Volumn 14, Issue 4, 1998, Pages 1-27

  Kuzio, Taras ^a  

^a NATO Info and Documentation Centre   (Ukraine)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

ETHNICITY; NATION STATE; POLITICAL CHANGE; STATE BUILDING;

UKRAINE;

EID: 0032433090     PISSN: 13523279     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1080/13523279808415388     Document Type: Article

References (99)

1. David Saunders, 'What Makes a Nation a Nation? Ukrainians since 1600', Ethnic Groups, Vol.10 (1993), p.109.
2. David Saunders, 'Russia's Demographic Policy (1847-1905): A Demographic Approach', European History Quarterly, Vol.25, No.2 (April 1995), p.188.
3. David Saunders, 'Russia and Ukraine under Alexander II: The Valuev Edict of 1863', International History Review, Vol.17, No.1 (Feb. 1995), p.28.
4. Ibid., p.50.
5. T.R. Weeks, Nation and State in Late Imperial Russia: Nationalism and Russification on the Western Frontier, 1983-1914 (De Kalb: Northern Illinois University Press, 1996), p.129.
6. Ibid., pp.46 and 64.
7. See W. Connor, 'Nation-Building or Nation-Destroying?', World Politics, Vol.24, No.3 (April 1972), pp.319-55.
8. Weeks, Nation and State in Late Imperial Russia, pp.12 and 73.
9. See Anna Procyk, Russian Nationalism and Ukraine: The Nationality Policy of the Volunteer Army during the Civil War (Edmonton and Toronto: Canadian Institute of Ukrainian Studies, 1995).
10. Bohdan Krawchenko, 'The Impact of Industrialization on the Social Structure of Ukraine', Canadian Slavonic Papers, Vol.22, No.3 (Sept. 1980), p.338.
11. G. Liber, Soviet Nationality Policy, Urban Growth, and Identity Change in the Ukrainian SSR, 1923-1934 (Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 1992), p.182.
12. Quoted from M. Shkandrij's review of G. Liber's Soviet Nationality Policy, Journal of Ukrainian Studies, Vol.21, Nos.1-2 (1996), p.296.
13. Most Russians identified with the USSR - not the Russian SFSR - as their 'homeland'; as late as 1993 only 41 per cent of Russians identified with the Russian Federation. The Russian SFSR possessed no republican institutions and no republican communist party until 1990: see Mary McAuley, Russia's Politics of Uncertainty (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997), pp.16, 21, 27, 28, 31 and 300.
14. Liber, Soviet Nationality Policy, p.181.
15. Ibid.
16. See Roman Solchanyk, 'Language Politics in the Ukraine', in Isabelle Kreindler (ed.), Sociolinguistic Perspectives on Soviet National Languages (Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter, 1985), pp.57-108.
17. See Taras Kuzio, Ukraine: State and Nation-building (Studies in Societies in Transition Series, 9) (London and New York: Routledge, 1998).
18. Reuters, 6 May 1995.
19. Holos Ukraiiny, 28 Aug. 1995.
20. Victor Stepanenko, 'Natsional'no-derzhavne budivnytstvo i problema sostiokul'turnoi identychnosti', Politolohichni chyttania, 1994, No.1, p.15.
21. Mykola Porovsky, then a leading member of the centre-right Republican Party, makes this point when arguing that the Soviet legacy was not completely negative (Holos Ukraiiny, 7 Dec. 1995).
22. It is probably impossible to ignore the Soviet era. Roman Szporluk believes that 'The intertwined history of communism and nationalism will largely determine the character of the postempire era': see his 'After Empire: What?' Daedalus, Vol.43, No.3 (Summer 1994), p.29.
23. Anthony H. Birch, 'Minority Nationalist Movements and Theories of Political Integration', World Politics, Vol.30, No.3 (April 1978), p.334.
24. Interviewed in Vysokyi Zamok, 25-27 April 1997.
25. S.W. Garnett argued that in 1991 Ukraine 'did not look much stronger than its predecessor': see his Keystone in the Arch: Ukraine in the Emerging Security Environment of Central and Eastern Europe (Washington, DC: Carnegie Endowment, 1997), p.11.
26. In 1918 the Ukrainian Hetmanate did sign a pact with the ancien régime, much to the disgust of the then pro-independence Ukrainian socialist leadership.
27. Petro Kraliuk, 'Kudy zh my iydemo?', Suchasnist, 1993, No.6, p.92.
28. Reuters, 8 May 1995.
29. UNIAR, 2 Dec. 1995.
30. See I.T. Mukovs'kyi and O.Ye. Lysenko, Zvytiaha i zhertovnist'. Ukraiintsi no Frontakh Druhoii Svitovoii Vijny (Kyiv: Knyha Pam'iati Ukraiiny, 1997).
31. Uryadovyi kurier, 29 Aug. 1996.
32. S. Kul'chyts'kyi, 'Genotsyd? Genotsyd!', Demokratychna Ukraiina, 10 June 1993; see also Robert Conquest, The Harvest of Sorrow: Soviet Collectivization and the Terror Famine (London: Hutchinson, 1986).
33. S. Kul'chyts'kyi, 'Genotsyd? Genotsyd!', Demokratychna Ukraiina, 10 June 1993; see also Robert Conquest, The Harvest of Sorrow: Soviet Collectivization and the Terror Famine (London: Hutchinson, 1986).
34. Quoted from Yaroslav Bilinsky, 'Basic Factors in the Foreign Policy of Ukraine: The Impact of the Soviet Experience', in S. Frederick Starr (ed.), The Legacy of History in Russia and the New States of Eurasia (Armonk, NY: M.E. Sharpe, 1994), p.179. James Mace, an American historian now based in Kyiv, described the 'murder-famine' as the 'central question' for Ukraine. 'The enemy number 1 for Stalin and his circle was not only the Ukrainian farmer, or the intelligentsia. The enemy were Ukrainians as such', Mace believes: quoted from his 'Politychni prychyny holodomoru v Ukraiini (1932-1933rr.), Ukraiins'kyi istorychnyi zhurnal, 1995, No.1, p.46.
35. Quoted from Yaroslav Bilinsky, 'Basic Factors in the Foreign Policy of Ukraine: The Impact of the Soviet Experience', in S. Frederick Starr (ed.), The Legacy of History in Russia and the New States of Eurasia (Armonk, NY: M.E. Sharpe, 1994), p.179. James Mace, an American historian now based in Kyiv, described the 'murder-famine' as the 'central question' for Ukraine. 'The enemy number 1 for Stalin and his circle was not only the Ukrainian farmer, or the intelligentsia. The enemy were Ukrainians as such', Mace believes: quoted from his 'Politychni prychyny holodomoru v Ukraiini (1932-1933rr.), Ukraiins'kyi istorychnyi zhurnal, 1995, No.1, p.46.
36. Holos Ukraiiny, 28 Aug. 1995.
37. Kremen' argued that independence had 'brought to life the age-old yearning of our ancestors to be the masters of their own land, the shapers of their own destiny': Ukrainian Review, Vol.44, No.1 (Autumn 1997), p.33. Horbulin said practically the same on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC, Ukrainian Weekly, 18 Sept. 1996.
38. Kremen' argued that independence had 'brought to life the age-old yearning of our ancestors to be the masters of their own land, the shapers of their own destiny': Ukrainian Review, Vol.44, No.1 (Autumn 1997), p.33. Horbulin said practically the same on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC, Ukrainian Weekly, 18 Sept. 1996.
39. Uryadovyi kurier, 29 Aug. 1996.
40. V.F. Verstiuk, 'Rol' i mistse Tsentral'noi Rady v moderniy istorii Ukraiiny', Ukraiins'kyi istorichnyi zhurnal, 1997, No.5, p.22. I. Pivnenko, a deputy naval commander, wrote in Flot Ukraiiny (24 May 1997) that after the crushing by Soviet forces of the Ukrainian independent states of 1917-20 the regaining of this independence 'existed as a hidden dream of our people'.
41. V.F. Verstiuk, 'Rol' i mistse Tsentral'noi Rady v moderniy istorii Ukraiiny', Ukraiins'kyi istorichnyi zhurnal, 1997, No.5, p.22. I. Pivnenko, a deputy naval commander, wrote in Flot Ukraiiny (24 May 1997) that after the crushing by Soviet forces of the Ukrainian independent states of 1917-20 the regaining of this independence 'existed as a hidden dream of our people'.
42. The Ukrainian naval newspaper Flot Ukraiiny (30 Nov. 1996) wrote that Ukrainian independence 'was achieved through the blood and pogrom of thousands of Ukrainian patriots who gave up their lives for its liberty'.
43. As quoted from the then Prime Minister Valerii Pustovoytenko's speech on the anniversary of Ukraine's declaration of independence: Uryadovyi kurier, 28 Aug. 1997.
44. The author is, of course, aware that the Communist Party and certain liberal-leaning political parties, such as the Inter-Regional Bloc of Reforms, may not agree with this comment. Nevertheless, these two constituencies have little, if any, influence within Ukraine's ruling elite and within the Kyiv-based policy-making community.
45. S. Nikolaenko, 'Ideolohiya derzhavy chy ideolohiya peremozhtsiv?' Holos Ukraiiny, 30 April 1996.
46. Piotr Symonenko, 'Rozbudova Derzhavy: otsinky i prohnozy', Uryadovyi kurier, 24 Aug. 1996.
47. Holos Ukraiiny, 6 Nov. 1995.
48. Orest Subtelny agrees with them: 'Given their weakness in 1917-1920, it is extremely doubtful whether Ukrainian national forces could ever have been as effective in maintaining and expanding Ukraine's borders as was the Soviet regime': see his 'Imperial Disintegration and Nation State Formation: The Case of Ukraine', in John W. Blaney (ed.), The Successor States to the USSR (Washington, DC: Congressional Quarterly, 1995), p.188.
49. Three Ukrainian authors wrote that 'The historical paradox is that this was promoted by the communist totalitarian empire which brutally suppressed any kind of national revival': see Vasyl' Boyechko, Oksana Hanzha and Borys Zakharchuk, Kordony Ukraiiny: Istorychna Retrospektyva ta Suchasnyi Stan (Kyiv: Osnovy, 1994), p.104.
50. O. Moroz, '"Naukovyi Natsionalizm" na Derzhavnomy Rivni', Viche, March 1994, p.27. Moroz is, of course, correct to argue that unlike the tsarist and even the Provisional Russian governments the Soviet regime at least recognized the existence of a Ukrainian language which was different from Russian. Moroz's views concerning the progress of the Ukrainian language under the Soviet regime cannot, however, be wholeheartedly accepted within the context of the widespread policies of russification adopted by the Soviet state.
51. Mykola Kyrychenko (Socialist Member of the Ukrainian Parliament), 'My povynni znaty pravdu', Tovarysh (Oct. 1996), No. 42.
52. See Yaacov Ro'i (ed.), Muslim Eurasia: Conflicting Legacies (The Cummings Center for Russian and East European Studies) (London: Frank Cass, 1995).
53. The proportion of Ukrainians giving Ukrainian as their 'native language' in Soviet censuses declined from 93.5 per cent in 1959 to 91.4 and 60 per cent in 1970 and 1989 respectively. This trend was part of a general one towards greater bilingualism, on the one hand, and greater Russian-language proficiency, on the other: see Ivan Dzyuba, Internationalism or Russification? A Study in the Soviet Nationalities Problem (London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1968).
54. Victor Zaslavsky, 'Nationalism and Democracy: Transition in Postcommunist Societies', Daedalus, Vol.121, No.2 (Spring 1992), pp.97-122.
55. Ronald G. Suny, The Revenge of the Past: Nationalism, Revolution and the Collapse of the Soviet Union (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1993), pp.100-101.
56. On this question see Carol Barner-Barry and Cynthia A. Hody, The Politics of Change: The Transformation of the Former Soviet Union (New York: St. Martin's, 1995), pp.85-91.
57. Rogers Brubaker, 'Nationhood and the National question in the Soviet Union and post-Soviet Eurasia: An Institutionalist Account', Theory and Society, Vol. 23, No. 1 (Feb. 1994), p.58.
58. Mark R. Beissinger, 'The Persisting Ambiguity of Empire', Post-Soviet Affairs, Vol.11, No.2 (April-June 1995), p.178.
59. Andrew Wilson, Ukrainian Nationalism in the 1990s: A Minority Faith (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997), p.18.
60. It is surely no coincidence that former leading members of Ukraine's Komsomol have played an active role since the Gorbachev era in new business development in the Ukrainian state (for example, through the Liberal and People's Democratic parties).
61. Wilson, Ukrainian Nationalism in the 1990s, p.17.
62. Mykola Ryabchuk, 'Between Civil Society and the New Etatism: Democracy in the Making and State-building in Ukraine', in Michael D. Kennedy (ed.), Envisioning Eastern Europe: Postcommunist Cultural Studies (Ann Arbor, MI: The University of Michigan Press, 1994), p.135.
63. Yaroslav Bilinsky, The Second Soviet Republic: The Ukraine after the Second World War (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1964), pp. 306-7, and his 'Basic Factors', p.172.
64. Yaroslav Bilinsky, The Second Soviet Republic: The Ukraine after the Second World War (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1964), pp. 306-7, and his 'Basic Factors', p.172.
65. The radical right Ukrainian National Assembly explained its support for Kravchuk as president in the December 1991 elections with the assertion that he was successfully building an independent state, a feat which Symon Petliura and Stepan Bandera, Ukrainian nationalist leaders in the 1910s and 1940s respectively, failed to accomplish, in their eyes.
66. Tetyana Rudnyts'ka, 'Sotsial'no-profesiynoho haluzevoho ta kvalifakatsiynoho skladu zaynyatoho naselennia Ukraiiny', Filosofska i sotsialohichna dumka, 1996, Nos.1-2, p.115.
67. See Taras Kuzio, 'The Sultan and the Hetman: Democracy Building in Belarus and Ukraine in a Grey Security Zone', in Jan Zielonka (ed.). Democratic Consolidation in Eastern Europe: International and Transnational Factors (Florence: European University Institute, forthcoming).
68. Karen Dawisha, Post-Communism's Troubled Steps Toward Democracy: An Aggregate Analysis of Progress in the 27 New States (College Park, MD: Center for the Study of Post-Communist Societies, University of Maryland, 1997), pp.9-10.
69. Brubaker, 'Nationhood and the National Question', p.52.
70. See Taras Kuzio, 'The Perils of Multiculturalism: A Theoretical and Area Studies Approach to the Former USSR', Contemporary Political Studies, Vol.1 (1998), pp.108-23.
71. The Russian Federation is an exception to the remainder of the former USSR. It inherited many of the institutions of the former Soviet outer empire. Nevertheless, these institutions and personnel were top-heavy, dominated heavily by the security forces and inculcated with Soviet Great Power and cold war ideology.
72. Moskovskiy Komsomolets, 26 July 1997.
73. Ukrainianization of Sevastopol is surveyed in Klara Hudzyk, 'U Sevastopoli konkurs na kursy ukraiins'koii movy 2 choloviky na mistse', Den', 12 June 1997.
74. See S.M. Samuylov, 'O nekotorykh amerikanskykh stereotipakh v otnoshenii Ukrainyi', SShA: Ekonomika. Poltyka. ldeologiya, 1997, No.3, pp.84-96 and No.4, pp.81-90. A very critical response was provided by V. Kremen', head of the Directorate on Domestic Issues of the Ukrainian Presidential Administration, in Uryadovyi kurier, 21 June 1997.
75. See S.M. Samuylov, 'O nekotorykh amerikanskykh stereotipakh v otnoshenii Ukrainyi', SShA: Ekonomika. Poltyka. ldeologiya, 1997, No.3, pp.84-96 and No.4, pp.81-90. A very critical response was provided by V. Kremen', head of the Directorate on Domestic Issues of the Ukrainian Presidential Administration, in Uryadovyi kurier, 21 June 1997.
76. See Taras Kuzio, 'National Identity and Foreign Policy: The Eastern Slavic Conundrum', in Taras Kuzio (ed.). Contemporary Ukraine: Dynamics of Post Soviet Transformation (Armonk, NY: Sharpe, 1998), pp.221-44.
77. Argumenty i fakty, 1997, No.27. This compared with 75 and 40 per cent of Russians who supported union with Belarus and Kazakhstan respectively.
78. See Taras Kuzio, 'National Identity in Independent Ukraine: An Identity in Transition', Nationalism and Ethnic Politics, Vol.2, No.4 (Dec. 1996), pp.582-608.
79. Alexander J. Motyl, 'The Conceptual President: Leonid Kravchuk and the Politics of Surrealism', in Timothy J. Colton and Robert C. Tucker (eds.), Patterns in Post-Soviet Leadership (Boulder, CO: Westview, 1995), p.105.
80. AP, 27 July 1997.
81. McAuley, Russia's Politics of Uncertainty, p.34.
82. Omeljan Pritsak and John S. Reshetar, 'The Ukraine and the Dialectics of Nation-Building', Slavic Review, Vol.22, No.2 (Summer 1963), p.254.
83. Brubaker, 'Nationhood and the National Question', p.61.
84. Ivan L. Rudnytsky, 'The Soviet Ukraine in Historical Perspective', Canadian Slavonic Papers, Vol.14, No.2 (1972), p.240.
85. Wilson, Ukrainian Nationalism in the 1990s, p.39.
86. Dominique Arel, 'A Lurking Cascade of Assimilation in Kiev?' Post-Soviet Affairs, Vol.12, No.1 (Jan.-March 1996), pp.73-90.
87. Roman Szporluk, 'The Soviet West - or Far Eastern Europe', East European Politics and Society, Vol.5, No.3 (Fall 1991), p.480.
88. Roman Szporluk, 'Nation-building in Ukraine: Problems and Prospects', in Blaney (ed.), The Successor States, p.177.
89. See Taras Kuzio, Ukraine under Kuchma: Political Reform, Economic Transformation and Security Policy in Independent Ukraine (London and New York: Macmillan and St. Martin's, 1997).
90. See Benyamin Neuberger, 'National self-determination: dilemmas of a concept', Nations and Nationalism, Vol.1, No.3 (Nov. 1995), pp.297-325.
91. John A. Armstrong wrote that 'Gradually these categories shaped the consciousness of their inhabitants, until many people of diverse backing identified with their republics of residence': see his 'Nationalism in the Former Soviet Empire', Problems of Communism, Vol.41, Nos.1-2 (Jan.-April 1992), p.122.
92. The Communist Party of Ukraine does not support separatism per se; in fact, in the Crimea the local branch of the Communist Party was a strong opponent of Crimean separatism, but it, like the Inter-Front-type Civic Congress of Ukraine based in Donets'k, is hostile to Ukrainian independence; the Civic Congress issued leaflets during the 1994 elections which agitated in favour of 'With Russia - forever! Yes to a Union with Russia! Yes to Donbas autonomy! No to Ukrainian independence!'-quoted from Hryhoriy Nemirja, 'A Qualitative Analysis of the Situation in the Donbas', in Klaus Segbers and Stephan De Spiegeleire (eds.), Post-Soviet Puzzles: Mapping the Political Economy of the Former Soviet Union. Emerging Geopolitical and Territorial Units. Theories, Methods and Case Studies, Vol.II (Ebenhausen: Stiftung Wissenschaft und Politik, 1995), p.57.
93. Chrystia Freeland, 'Eastern Ukraine turns its back on Russia', Financial Times, 23 July 1997.
94. Interview with Y. Hrytsak, Kharkiv, 28 Aug. 1996.
95. Szporluk, 'After Empire: What?', p.34.
96. See Taras Kuzio and Andrew Wilson, Ukraine: Perestroika to Independence (London: Macmillan, 1994).
97. Robert H. Jackson, Quasi-states: International Relations and the Third World (Cambridge Studies in International Relations, 12) (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990), p.41.
98. Tadeusz Swietochowski, 'The Politics of a Literary Language and the Rise of National Identity in Russian Azerbaidzhan Before 1920', Ethnic and Racial Studies, Vol.14, No.1 (January 1991), p.62.
99. Kraliuk, 'Kudy zh my iydemo?', p.95.