Without delving into academic definitions, identity means the degree to which a given object reflects its true nature. In regard to people, identity means being true to one’s character, ethnic background, sentiments, and upholding them as virtues worth being preserved and appreciated by others. Human individuality is the original identity, but various ethnic, religious, professional, regional, and social communities have their respective identities as well. Under certain circumstances, religious identity may be transformed into an ethnic one (case in point: the Roman Catholic Croats and Eastern Orthodox Serbs, and their Moslem Bosnian neighbors); likewise, a regional identity may become an ethnic one (e.g., Latin American, Arab, African, and other nations).
In fact, the fundamental subject of these reflections may be formulated as the interrelationship between state unity and regional identities, whereby regional identities may acquire ethnic or national features and then demand a new status; and identity can be directly provoked. Of course, this topic warrants discussion and energetic debate by experts, but its relevance was more than amply corroborated by the numerous processes that occurred in various regions of Ukraine during the presidential campaign of 2004. The relevance of this issue has been reinforced by the recently proposed idea of administrative-territorial reform, which has led to the appointment of Mr. Roman Bezsmertny as deputy premier.
It remains to be seen what ideas Mr. Deputy Premier will adopt to enhance Ukraine’s administrative-territorial order, but people are already becoming worried about what may happen to the Ukrainian state. There is too much at stake here, including the existence of our country and its current borders. The proposed reform may have varying consequences, ranging from reinforcing this integrity to provoking separatism, to powerful decentralizing trends, invisible yet very tangible inner borderlines, territorial disintegration, and finally to the state’s collapse.
Let us hope that Mr. Deputy Premier’s proposals will be made public and subject to public debate.
The 2004 presidential campaign brought forth a number of publications whose authors tried to prove that there are such significant, fundamental distinctions between certain Ukrainian regions that it is impossible to resolve this problem other than by federalization. Here the key argument is the polarized attitudes of the electorates in the east and south vs. the center and west of Ukraine. But electoral behavior in various regions is a changeable variable subject to numerous factors. If the territorial reform were to be carried out now, proceeding from the 2004 election results, a new political division might well be on the agenda, proceeding from the 2006-09 results. Not to mention the fact that no one has yet heard any convincing arguments about the real necessity of the reform proposed by Mr. Bezsmertny. Today the weightiest argument for such a reform may be the fact that Yulia Tymoshenko’s former implacable opponent found himself a job. The authors of these pro-federalist publications, as well as certain politicians and former governors of oblasts in the east and south, consciously or not describe the regional distinctions in Ukraine and their problems as a unique phenomenon. In reality, similar phenomena in other countries are the rule rather than the exception. Regional identity is rooted in local distinctions, and every country has particular regions that are distinguished by specific economic, geographic, social, cultural, or other features.
Take unitary Italy. Here we find substantial differences in terms of economy, tradition, mentality, even the language that is spoken in the south and the north. This is what led to the creation in the industrial north of a movement for the establishment of an “Italian Republic of the North” in the Po river valley. The river Po is the Ukrainian Zbruch, which marks the historical border between two cultural-historical zones in Italy. The north-south Italian political arguments sound painfully reminiscent of Ukraine’s eastern-western one. Piedmont and Lombardy say they have to feed the southern ne’er-do-wells and one can sometimes hear emotional voices saying something along the lines of ‘we don’t need the south and its Mafia.” Politicians in the south of Italy insist that the north wields far more political power and has far more influence on the national economic process than it lawfully should — owing to a certain degree of discrimination between Campagna, Calabria, Apulia, Sicily, and so on. However, separatist moods are not encouraged in Italy and the country’s unitary system is not threatened in any way.
In today’s unitary Romania, differences still exist between the so-called Regat (Wallachia and Moldova) and Transylvania; in unitary Poland, subethnic and cultural-historical distinctions are evident between the Mazurs, Kashubians, and Gurals, and between Great and Little Poland (e.g., the western territories that were originally part of Germany). There are more of these examples than not.
However, such regional identities are not always actualized to a radical political level, which threatens the state’s integrity. Here subjective factors are required, as the Marxists used to say. Forces are needed that would strive to exploit these objective territorial distinctions for practical political interests. We all witnessed the Russian spin doctors working hard during the presidential campaign in Ukraine, and we still remember those billboards with a map of Ukraine divided into three color zones, as well as active efforts to foster the speedy (by historical standards) emergence of regional political subcultures. The most vivid example of this was demonstrated in the Donbas.
There are other examples, like the “Novorossiyski krai,” with politicians and even MPs demanding the creation of a so- called “south-east state,” and so on. A letter that was sent to a Kyiv newspaper from Zaporizhia contained the following phrase: “...we are south-eastern people...”
Let’s face it: Such methods can also be used to trigger the emergence of separate state-political identities in Halychyna, Volyn, Zakarpattia, anywhere in Ukraine, in any given administrative district. At the very least, we have been shown how this is done and how this will be done in our lands. However, the objective possibility of forming a regional identity as a state- political one is absolutely not destined to be realized. This takes dedicated efforts on the part of interested political forces, which may be blocked by the state center.
Regrettably, the previous Ukrainian leadership not only failed to counteract such efforts, but openly encouraged them, building tensions between the east and west of this country, making this trend a domestic political priority. The former government in Ukraine felt very comfortable, acting as an arbiter between Halychyna and the Donbas, relying on the good old divide-and-rule principle. That is why certain differences among these regions were artificially supported, although Ukraine’s national interests demanded Herculean efforts aimed at rapprochement and east-west understanding.
In order to realize plans to break up the country by exploiting regional differences that exist objectively requires powerful media resources, financial resources, and support from certain segments of the ruling class, both in the centre and the regions. Another important factor is the presence of a powerful influence from abroad.
But even when the state center acts wisely, energetically, and decisively, this is not a guarantee of success.
There is a positive example from 1995, when separatism in the Crimea was acquiring extraordinarily dangerous features: Crimean President Meshkov was fired and the Crimean presidency was annulled. Everything was done quickly and effectively, betraying the hand of an expert (Viktor Yushchenko would have described it as “elegant”). Meshkov and Co. vanished without any excesses both in the Crimea and in our relations with the Russian Federation. Today, even the peninsula’s pro-Russian circles no longer mention Meshkov, but this is, unfortunately, a single exception that confirms the generally disheartening rule of Ukraine’s faulty regional policy.
Ukraine needs an effective regional policy more than any formal territorial reforms. Although reductions and cancellations seem to be the vogue these days, this author believes that the new government would be better off by setting up a Ministry of Regional Policy that would act as the center of forming, analyzing, and implanting such a policy.
We can only guess how many more identities will be provoked in the next elections, how many more attempts to implement separatist projects will be made with help from abroad. However, it is better to start discussing these issues now, so that we can prepare for possible new challenges.
