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Ethnopolitics of the Ukrainian State in Historical and Political Science Discourses
Studia Europejskie-Studies in European Affairs, 2018
Ethnopolitics of the Ukrainian State (April-December 1918) has for a long period of time remained beyond the scope of historical-political research. The purpose of this article is to draw attention to the policy of the Ukrainian authorities towards national minorities in Ukraine. By relying on little-known historical sources and summarizing the elab-orations of various scientists, the author tried to show how the ethno-national policy was really being implemented in the Ukrainian State and why the Ukrainian-Russian relations had become a decisive factor in interethnic processes. Furthermore, at the beginning of the XXI century the interethnic and interstate relations of Ukraine continue to remain relevant.
Problems and unresolved issues in the field of the Ukrainian political nation consolidation and national minorities rights protection are analysed. The normative legal acts regulating ethno-national relations in Ukraine are analysed. The necessity of reforming the ethno-national legislation, elimination of declarative, contradictory and conflicting norms is proved. Threats caused by separatist manifestations are shown. The main values, guidelines and directions of the Ukrainian state ethno-national policy development are determined. The creation of a legal framework for ethnocultural autonomy in Ukraine will contribute to the formation of an effective system of protection of the rights of citizens belonging to national minorities in Ukraine, which will meet international standards in the field of protection of national minorities. , and will allow to approximate the legislation of Ukraine in the field of protection of the rights of national minorities to the EU law. Each national minority will have the right to create its own ethnocultural (extraterritorial) autonomy in order to address the issues of preservation and development of ethnocultural identity without requirements and claims to the state and the state budget. This will eliminate the declarativeness of the relevant legislation, increase the level of self-organization of national minorities, redirect ethno-territorial requirements to ethnocultural, promote harmonization of ethno-national relations and interethnic harmony in Ukraine, consolidation of Ukrainian society into a political nation based on common citizenship Keywords: ethno-national policy, Ukrainian nation, national minorities, legislation, ethno-cultural autonomy.
Skhidnoievropeiskyi Istorychnyi Visnyk [East European Historical Bulletin], 2024
Novorodovskyi, V., & Kulesha, N.(2024). National Minorities Participation in Public Life of Ukraine Under the Conditions of the Russo-Ukrainian War (2014 – 2024). Skhidnoievropeiskyi Istorychnyi Visnyk [East European Historical Bulletin], 31, 186–202. doi: 10.24919/2519-058X.31.306351 The purpose of the research is to study the peculiarities of the national minorities participation in a public life, in particular, in the political, public, cultural, educational and other spheres under the conditions of the Russo-Ukrainian War, as well as to clarify the possible challenges to the national ethnopolitics during the postwar years. The Methodology of the Research. There have been applied the methods of analogy, comparison, generalization, source analysis, content analysis, systemic and structural functional in the article. The Scientific Novelty. The prospects for the participation of civil society institutions in the processes of the post-war reconstruction have been revealed in detail for the first time, as well as the peculiarities of the social and political activities of public associations of the national minorities under the conditions of the Russo-Ukrainian War. The Conclusions. The ethno-national issue is a crucial component of the state policy. Taking into consideration the experience of the Russo-Ukrainian War, the can state that ignoring the ethno-national issues can cause vulnerability to the external factors and hybrid threats. Despite the lack of systematicity in the implementation of state ethnopolitics, the presence of diverse challenges that induce contradictions in society, the Russian aggression led to consolidation around a civic identity. There are numerous challenges that Ukraine has to face, in particular, for the state authorities, a local self-government and a civil society. During the post-war years, a number of vital issues related to the post-war reconstruction, implementation of reforms, improvement of the national security system, minimization of social contradictions, etc. will intensify. There are challenges to the establishment of relations between state institutions and society as a whole, as well as the development of ethno-national relations in the de-occupied territories.Key words: ethno-national relations, ethnopolitics, civil society, identity, institutions, resilience, security.
Journal of Ukrainian Studies, 2001
Few aspects of Ukraine's post-Soviet transition have interested scholars as much as what most of them call nation building, and few aspects are as controversial. Disagreement over what is being "built," by what means, and with what result, is evident, in particular, in different treatments of Rogers Brubaker's popular concept of nationalizing state. While a number of authors studying ethno-national policies and identities in contemporary Ukraine embrace this concept as a valuable analytical instrument, others insist on its theoretical futility or inapplicability to the case of Ukraine. One obvious problem is that Brubaker's featuring of conflictual relations between the majority-dominated state and noncomplying minorities stands in sharp contrast with the mostly peaceful development of post-Soviet Ukraine, which has been accompanied, moreover, by the marginalization of ethnicity as a factor in policy making. This article, therefore, aims not only at providing an overview of Ukrainian state policies with regard to major ethnic and linguistic groups and their responses, but also at suggesting more appropriate categories and directions of analysis. While seeking to explain to what extent Ukraine can be called a "nationalizing state," I also hope to demonstrate the limited analytical capacity of this concept. Accordingly, I shall begin with a brief presentation of Brubaker's and his critics' main terms and arguments, and then discuss their relevance to the Ukrainian context.
Ukraine belongs among those young countries where the beginnings of democratisation and nation-building approximately coincided. While the development of nation states in Central Europe was usually preceded by the development of nations, the biggest dilemma in Ukraine is whether a nation-state programmeparallel to the aim of state-buildingis able to bring unfinished nation-building to completion. Ukraine sways between the EU and Russia with enormous amplitude. The alternating orientation between the West and the East can be ascribed to superpower ambitions reaching beyond Ukraine. Eventually, internal and external determinants are intertwined and mutally interact with one another. The aim of the study is to explain the dilemmas arising from identity problems behind Ukraine's internal and external orientation.
Ukraine at the Crossroads: Towards More Unity or Further Disintegration?
ISPI Analysis, 2014
After the turmoil of the Maidan protests, the removal of President Yanukovich and the annexation of Crimea by Russia, Ukraine is undergoing profound political changes and is facing difficult challenges. Identity issues and regional dynamics in Ukraine are at the heart of its domestic politics as well as its geopolitical orientation. Although many ethno-linguistic stereotypes often cited in the media do not withstand scrutiny, Ukraine is indeed diverse and pluralistic. This is both good and bad news for its future. The Maidan protests contributed greatly to forging a unifying state-building agenda for Ukraine. If this agenda prevails in the post-revolutionary phase, the inherent pluralism and diversity of the Ukrainian society will be the best safeguard against the centralisation of power by another autocrat. At the same time, a worrying rise of nationalistic discourses and actors as well as tensions in some regions of Ukraine may undermine the newly found sense of unity. A fractured Ukraine is also less likely to remain on the path of further democratic reform.
Historical Evolution of Ukraine and its Post- Communist Challenges
Revista de Științe Politice. Revue des Sciences Politiques, 2018
The current borders of Ukraine arose during the Soviet ruling of the country, different regions were incorporated into their territory from the 20s to the 50s of the last century due to the annexations and territorial transfers, that were made by the different leaders of Moscow. Thus, after the collapse of the Soviet Union, Ukraine achieved independence with a territorial extension that reaches all regions inhabited mostly by ethnically Ukrainian population. At the moment of independence most of its citizens put their regional problems aside to show themselves as a united country and so that Ukraine achieves international recognition as a new independent State. However, as time goes by the disagreements have resurfaced, which shows that these tensions continued existing although they seemed hidden for years. We need to keep in mind that to understand all these issues it is necessary to analyze how the historical evolution of the Ukrainian territory has been, yet it is not only about climatic differences or economic issues. For this reason, this paper aims to study the differences that have historically existed in Ukraine. These differences were caused by territories that once were part of other powers and now are integrated in Ukraine and by the influences received by external actors. It should be considered that most of the current conflicts come from there. Therefore, this contribution intends to show how, from the historical formation of the Ukrainian territory, the conflicts are taking place in the Slavic country. To carry out this study we will focus on a historical reconstruction of the national question.
Inter-Ethnic Relations in Transcarpathian Ukraine : Uzhhorod, Ukraine, 4 - 7 September 1998
1999
Since its opening in December 1996, the "European Centre for Minority Issues" (ECMI) has organised a series of workshop-type seminars on countries and regions in Europe where inter-ethnic tension and ethnopolitical conflict prevail (Trans-Dniester and Gagausia in Moldova, Russians in Estonia, and Corsica in France). The idea to deal with the Transcarpathian part of the Ukraine also stems from a conference "Minorities in Ukraine", held in May 1997 by ECMI together with the Baltic Academy in Lübeck-Travemünde (Germany), and attended by some 50 participants, minority representatives and government representatives from various parts of Ukraine. As heated discussions between Transcarpathian Hungarians and Roma on the one side and the Head of the Ukrainian State Committee for Nationalities and Migration on the other clearly demonstrated, not only Crimea, but also the country's Far West was an ethnopolitical hot spot. 1 This impression was reinforced by a visit of a group of Rusyn activists from all of Carpathian Central Europe to ECMI in November 1997. In January 1998 then, ECMI's newly appointed Regional Representative for Ukraine, Danish anthropologist Tom Trier, carried out a two-week field trip to Transcarpathia and provided ECMI with an indepth report on the situation in the region. 2 In particular, he stressed the urgency of the Rusyn problem in Transcarpathia: "It is apparently only in the Republic of Ukraine that the Rusyns still face a total lack of basic rights as a national group, being deprived of the right to be designated as a distinct nationality. It is hard to ignore the problems of the Rusyns in Ukraine, taking into account that the vast majority of Rusyns in Europe are concentrated in Ukraine's Transcarpathian region." 3 The first ECMI East Central European conference "Inter-Ethnic Relations in Transcarpathian Ukraine" took place at a sanatorium, Perlina Karpat, near the town of Mukachevo in the westernmost region of Ukraine, and subsequently in Uzhhorod, the regional capital of the Transcarpathian region, on 4-7 September 1998. The purposes of the conference were: Ø to familiarise local minority organisations with recent developments in international and Ukrainian minority legislation and to discuss the implications 1 Cf. the conference report by Farimah Daftary: "Minorities in the Ukraine. An International Colloquium of the European Centre for Minority Issues (ECMI) and the Baltic Academy,