Practically 90% of the people living in the Russian Federation consider themselves Rossiyane, Russians. Such keen awareness of the national identity was recorded by experts of the Russian Academy’s Institute of Sociology, proceeding from annual poll turnouts. All things considered, the official Russian sociologists place great hopes in this social trend. Institute Director Leokadiya Drobizheva told Izvestiya that “social optimism quite often fosters economic progress.” She mentioned Poland as an example; it had made better headway at the period of social transformations than the other postsocialist countries. Experts studied the phenomenon and concluded that, apart from the economic factors (the opening of investments, private property dating from past years, etc.), the people were united by the awareness of their national identity: “We are Poles, so we must do this and that together.” This awareness constituted a certain social resource that proved very instrumental for the leadership, the whole nation, in meeting new challenges and responding to them appropriately, setting specific tasks and moving jointly in the chosen direction (as in the case with the European Union).
“Russian identity,” says Leokadiya Drobizheva, “took longer to form than in other countries, one of the reasons being that we all lived through the collapse of the [Soviet] Union and had to reassess our historical past. Russia was practically a country no one wanted, so the formation of the Russian [national identity] turned out to be quite a complicated process. At present, practically 90% of those living in Russia easily identify themselves as Russians (in other words, they consider themselves a nation, identifying themselves with their state and the country they live in). Only a small part of the residents of the Russian Federation ‘primarily’ identify themselves as Orenburgers or Yakutians.”
What about the national identity in Ukraine? What country have we chosen? How can the Ukrainian identity be formed? Do we have to form it? The Day’s experts answer these questions below, also sharing views on the above findings of Russian sociologists.
Yevhen HOLOVAKHA, Ph.D. (Philosophy), Deputy Director, Institute of Sociology, Ukrainian National Academy of Sciences:
Our Russian colleagues have long been monitoring the formation of new identities in Russia. In particular, the Russian Academy’s Institute for Sociology carried out a large project, in the early 1990s, relating to changes in identity, demonstrating that all traditional identities had been dramatically lost in the national, economic, political, and spiritual spheres. It was a perfectly natural phenomenon, considering that the period marked a turning point for all countries arising from the Soviet ruins. Precisely the same process took place in Ukraine. In 1992, the first year of national independence, 45% of the residents of Ukraine identified themselves as Ukrainian nationals; 12% considered themselves Soviet citizens, and the rest believed they were residents of a given region or populated area. In fact, 8% insisted they were citizens of Europe, even of the world. Ten years passed, a rather trying period, and in 2001 only 34% identified themselves as Ukrainians — in other words, they identified themselves with Ukraine in the first place. We asked our respondents, “Who do you consider yourself to be in the first place?” and offered to choose between “Ukrainian national,” “citizen of the former Soviet Union,” “resident of a given region, village, district, or city,” “citizen of Europe,” etc. By the way, Russia also suffered an identity crisis toward the end of the 1990s. Identity crisis, as a sociological notion, indicates a situation in which a person is formally a citizen of a given country, but personally does not agree with the status.
What happened in Russia? That country set a certain course of development. I believe that this course is taking Russia back to the past rather than the future, because it rests on the values of etatism, such that the interests of the state prevail over personal ones; values of a rigid vertical hierarchy. Therefore, I believe that yes, there is an identity in Russia; Russian citizens have adopted this model, this system, and embodied it in the newly reelected president. Is this an optimum way for Russia to develop? The Russians believe so. Yet a totalitarian state can be built even at a high level of national identity.
In Ukraine, a democratic identity model remains to be implemented. In terms of [national] identity, we are back to the 1992 level, as 45% citizens of Ukraine consider themselves Ukrainians in the first place. In other words, a bit of progress has been made, owing to the economic situation getting better in recent years, with people suffering fewer losses and disillusionments, and increasingly often regarding their [national] identity as a matter of course. In other words, four years of economic growth have yielded a very small increment, 10%, although this is statistically significant. However, I do consider our way more promising than Russia’s. The Russians became integrated very quickly, although they did it not on the basis of democratic values, but by rallying round what we call in political sociology a single charismatic personality.
[Russia’s] road can lead to the loss of freedom and the creation of an atmosphere of chauvinism and authoritarianism. In Ukraine, the process of choosing identity is slower, but it is underway. I believe that our citizens will stop identifying themselves as citizens of the Soviet Union if we can keep economic growth for at least a decade; they will no longer consider themselves belonging to a given village or region. Upsetting this fragile stability, this weak economic growth is the worst threat to Ukraine. This stability and this growth cause a series of positive changes in self- consciousness, making people accept the new way of life, the new economy, and the new identities.
Anatoly HUTSAL, First Deputy Director, National Institute for Problems of International Security:
I don’t think that Russian citizens are so given to identifying themselves with the Russian state. Most likely they call themselves Rossiyane the way they referred to themselves as Russkiye [under the Soviets]. In Ukraine, 78% residents identify themselves as Ukrainians and 18% as Russians (proceeding from poll turnouts where the respondents were asked to identify themselves by their ethnic belonging). Although our statistics are similar to Russia’s, there is an essential distinction. What makes the Russian sociologists believe that 90% Russians identify themselves with the Russian state? First, the current high consolidating and mobilizing potential of the Great Russian ethnos. Russia is the successor to this ethnic process of development. The Russian ethnos is still in a state of high passionary energy. This high passionary state implies consolidation not only with regard to physiological needs, but also, and above all, with regard to ideological needs, with regard to symbols.
In Russia, one can see a steady process of consolidation focused on President Putin as a personality, leader, and symbol of the Russian state. Parallel to this, the idea of a powerful Russian state continues being revived. And so 90% Russians consolidate round countless symbols associated with the Russian state, symbols of the state, leader of the state, and less so with religion.
In Ukraine, the situation is more complicated. We used to have the symbolic image of the Soviet man. In Russia, it was transformed into that of Rossiyanin. In Ukraine, that Soviet man image, as a symbol of the “consolidated” Soviet society, disintegrated and did not transform into that of Ukrayinets, Ukrainian. Therefore, all the unifying processes during Soviet times, under the Soviet empire, passed in Ukraine, leaving obsolete consolidating methods dating from epochs before the Russian Empire. Here we see the greatest variety of identifications. Above all, purely territorial, ethnic communal identities, being close to Mother Earth that gave people food, belonging with certain regions. Even now, reading political periodicals, we come across place names, such as Donetsk, Kharkiv, or Kyiv, used as modifiers. This identification is actually present because we lack a new mechanism to unify our society as a single political nation.
In principle, a nation makes breakthroughs and shows outbursts of energy when facing a threat that serves to unify and mobilize that nation in combating that threat. We are faced with no such threats. As a result of our low consolidating resource, there is no opportunity to reach a high level of identity. Evidence of our motley social views is found in examples such as the recent Tuzla conflict. A poll in the Crimea showed that 60% supported the joining of Tuzla to Russia. Similar sentiments [albeit in the opposite direction] are registered in Lviv. In Halychyna, when asked about their reaction if Ukraine joined the Russia-Belarus alliance, 34% respondents wanted independence for Halychyna and 11% wanted it as autonomy in Ukraine. In other words, almost half the populace wanted to sever their ethnic roots and live separately from the Ukrainian nation.
How can this situation be corrected? Of course, a we-are-the-Soviet-people technology could be applied, adjusted, of course, to the current independent Ukrainian reality. We are witness to a process like that in Europe. Although its passionary level is somewhat higher than Ukraine’s, it is no match for the Russian passionary index. In Europe, it is a process begetting the European identity, with a considerable part of the Europeans discarding their previous French, German, and other identities and assuming only one: citizens of Europe. This is especially true of the younger generation. This corresponds to what we call the globalization process — in other words, the formation of a global community of sorts. Personally, I have nothing against the united-Soviet-people myth being replaced by a European democratic one, so Ukraine could unite or form its identity relying on this myth. I think this myth might well strike root in Ukraine. I honestly regard it as a myth, but myths are known to have guided the masses, especially where the majority interests are focused on physiological needs, such as survival and existence, with most people being influenced by images and symbols demonstrating a better living matrix. Europe is doing precisely that, demonstrating a matrix with a healthy, well-fed, clothed, and happy society. I think that the European myth is the most viable today and that it most adequately corresponds to the status of Ukrainian society.
Andriy YERMOLAEV, Director, Sophia Sociological Center:
There is a little catch in the Russian sociological findings. It is both logical and substantial. The point is that the Russian unity idea was installed by, and is connected with, the ideology of a new democratic Russia formed on the Soviet ruins. If my memory doesn’t play me false, first Russian President Boris Yeltsin came up with the notion of Rossiyane as the new national identity. It proved a universal formula making it possible to restructure the identification space within a single political economic cycle of twelve years. The notion Rossiyane comprises ethnic diversity (primarily the civil principle), on the one hand; on the other hand, it preserves the continuity of the Russian-state mentality of the residents of Russia. In general, the Great Russia idea, addressing both the postimperial and post-Soviet state, has turned out the most effective concept in strengthening the civil communal spirit. Russian sociologists are measuring the self-identification index, receiving massive positive readings. Moreover, we should ignore the fact that the current stand of the Russian sociologists is, among other things, related to the conjuncture. This conjuncture has everything to do with the latest statements made by President Vladimir Putin, concerning the new stage in the development of Russian society and the Russian political nation. Of course, this rigid formal approach also yields positive results; when assessing premises originating from an authority (Putin, without doubt, is an authority in the eyes of both the elite and the masses), the sociologists receive the psychological effect, it being that the Russian man in the street is inclined to support the Russian state, the powers that be, and he positively responds to the messages conveyed by the regime (this aspect is especially important when taking into account all such “sociological trifles”).
Regrettably, in mass Ukrainian consciousness, identifying oneself with the state remains of minor importance. I believe that, even if a system of identifications is evolving in this country — boiling down to what we regard as the Ukrainian national identity — most likely this identification is not in the state-citizen, but in the country-individual division. The latter is a more complex amorphous formation. In this sense, Russia could serve as an example of state patriotism. In fact, this phenomenon is peculiar to all kinds of political ideologies and proves a very strong guideline, an anchor in mass consciousness. In Ukrainian mass consciousness, state patriotism comes second, maybe third. In view of this, our study center has on more than one occasion stressed the need to investigate this phenomenon in Ukraine as of civil anarchism. This is a unique phenomenon, whereby the state is rejected as a contractual system of interrelationships. It is also manifest in the specifics of the constitutional process, something Ukrainian society has not mastered, as well as in the phenomenon of shadow economy.
What is really and quickly evolving in Ukraine is the process of identifying oneself with one’s country as a habitat and sphere of life. In the past twelve years, precisely the absence of state patriotism and identification with the Ukrainian state have caused a situation in which Ukrainians abroad are regarded as another kind of Russians. The thing is not that they refuse to see us as Ukrainians, but that the average Ukrainian is incapable of developing political unity at the practical, behavioral level. We have a psychological, mental unity, but state unity, belonging to a political nation forming a state, is, unfortunately placed tenth, even eleventh. That is why we have to constantly worry about improving the image of Ukraine at the level of state policy.
What is to be done? The question of installation of the Ukrainian state remains open. Under our conditions, installation implies a different constitutional process (as a kind of social contract), changes in the political practices of the regime, in the mechanism of forming the elites, including not only the political, but also the humanitarian elite, this time also in business. Unfortunately, business is not regarded as part of the national economic elite. A package of guidelines is required eventually addressing a reinstallation of the state, its acceptance as a contractual system, one of self-organization of Ukrainian society. In that case we would be able to approach — and I stress approach — the issue of Ukrainians as a political nation. We would then be able say that the problem of Ukrainian national identity is being solved the way it is in Russia.
Of course, there is some conjuncture in what the Russian sociologists are saying; they are unobtrusively substituting notions, but the fact remains that they are deal with an actual phenomenon, the phenomenon of the new Russian identity. In Ukraine, we don’t have the prerequisites for converting economic or sports patriotism, local (regional, ethnic) identities into an overall political identity; nor have we solved the problem of citizen-state interrelations. We should study the Russian experience of installing the Russian identity, because it is very useful for Ukraine.
