A future Ukraine: one nation, two languages, three cultures? (06/06/99)

A future Ukraine: one nation, two languages, three cultures?

by Mykola Ryabchuk

Every time I discuss the problems of contemporary Ukraine with my foreign colleagues, I cannot find a topic more controversial and confusing than who is the "majority" and who is the "minority" in Ukraine, what is the national identity of this folk, and consequently, which cultural and linguistic policy is being, or should be, officially pursued by such the state.

To the foreigners' credit, I must say, however, that the same controversy and confusion exists in Ukraine, where the most diametrically opposed views on the problem are expressed. More often than not, the first view is labeled as a "Ukrainian nationalistic" one, while the opposite view is usually presented as being "universal" and "liberal." Both definitions are questionable, and the things they define are even more questionable. Therefore, I start with an analysis of both pictures of contemporary Ukraine, as presented from opposite points of view.

Virtual Ukraine No. 1: "The nationalizing state"

Consulting an encyclopaedia, or appropriate reference work, any foreigner may learn that Ukraine is a country of approximately 50 million people: 73 percent are Ukrainians, 22 percent Russians, and 5 percent other nationalities. Many might also easily conclude that, within the USSR, Ukrainians were a minority, while nowadays, within the independent Ukraine, they are the majority - one that tends to dominate, as elsewhere in the post-colonial world, oppressing minorities (including Russians) and suppressing minority languages and cultures.

Indeed, this picture can be confirmed by many facts and figures. For example, the Ukrainian language has the constitutional status of a state language - the only state language in Ukraine. This language, however oppressed and marginalized in the USSR (and completely forbidden in the Russian Empire), now is being gradually introduced as the language of instruction in a growing number of schools and even in some universities, in the post-Soviet army inherited and nationalized by Ukraine, in the state-sponsored and/or state-controlled mass media where some language requirements exist, as well as in advertisements, street signs, etc.

The Ukrainian language is compulsory, at least as a second language, in any educational institution; it is the official language of top Ukrainian officials, including presidents (and leaders in their administration), prime ministers (and other ministers), heads of the Parliament (and many national deputies). And last but not least, as opinion surveys show, the number of people who claim they are Russians has been gradually decreasing, so that the next national census in Ukraine will probably find half as many Russians in the country as the last Soviet census, conducted in 1989.

If one remembers that 10 years ago the general tendency was quite the opposite, one might conclude that today Ukrainization is on the march, and nationalism looms large in Ukraine.

I have Belarusian friends who envy Ukraine; they say they would like the Belarusian language and culture to be in the state of Ukrainian. I also have some Russian friends who are deeply concerned about forceful Ukrainization and the plight of the Russian language and culture in Ukraine. And finally, I know many Western liberals who mistakenly believe that Russophones are oppressed in Ukraine, as in the Baltics and elsewhere, and that Ukraine is a nationalizing state with post-communist rulers in the Yugoslavian mold.

I cannot say this picture is utterly false. Yet, it is quite superficial. It can be modeled on stories byWestern journalists (who visit Moscow rather than Kyiv), and Russian scholars and diplomats (who are much more visible in the West than their Ukrainian counterparts).

No Ukrainian "nationalist", however, would ever agree with this picture because he has a completely different idea about the picture in today's Ukraine.

Virtual Ukraine No. 2: "Ukraine without Ukrainians"

In its extreme form, the opposite picture as articulated by Ukrainian "nationalists," is that of a quasi-Ukrainian state dominated by an imperial minority, while the native majority still is oppressed and marginalized, like the blacks of South Africa or the Indians of South America. In their view, Ukraine is ruled by the creolic, i.e. Russian, elite who incorporate and corrupt the native elite and pay lip-service to some Ukrainian symbols, including language, which is employed mostly for ritual purposes and never permeates the depths of the state apparatus.

Russian is still the language of business and industry, the state bureaucracy and higher education, science and mass culture. In the free market, some 80 percent of periodicals sold are in Russian, as well as some 90 percent of books. Most programs on private TV and radio stations are broadcast in Russian; as are most plays in theaters, and nearly all films and videos (mostly American, but translated in Moscow). Russian popular music is second after American (if not the first) in the Ukrainian market, and second-rate Russian pop-stars regularly gather their tribute in the aboriginal wonderland of Ukraine.

In many terms, Ukrainian culture is a culture of a minority that has rather high achievements produced and consumed by the native elite, but which cannot compete in a free market with a dominant imperial mass culture (first, because it is imperial, second because it is mass ). It is not a matter of quality, rather of the mental predisposition of the consumers. They are deeply biased against things Ukrainian and this is the main reason why so few people in urban centers communicate in Ukrainian, despite the fact that nearly everyone can do so if necessary. This mental predisposition is the reason teachers and pupils informally communicate in Russian in Ukrainian schools, as do soldiers and officers in the Ukrainian army.

The Ukrainian language still has a very low social status in Ukrainian society, although many top state leaders use it in their official appearances - (but not in private, the most graphic and telling detail for the majority of the people).

Indeed, this predisposition against Ukrainian can be explained as the gloomy result of the centuries-long policy of russification. Both the Russian and Soviet empires had oppressed, persecuted and crushed the Ukrainophone elite, while the common folk, mostly the rural population, had been successfully marginalized, despised and ridiculed as quasi-feudal "kolkhoz slaves," with "white skin," but a "black" language.

This language, unlike black skin, can be easily changed by those slaves who escape their rural environs and head for urban centers, looking for a better life and serving as street sweepers, garbage collectors, dish washers, builders. Thus, the low social status of Ukrainian language, and Ukrainian culture, is a direct result of the low status of Ukrainians (more precisely, Ukrainophones) in Ukrainian society. The Ukrainophone world has been firmly associated with a narrow circle of dissidents depicted as imperialistic agents, or crazy nationalists), a ghettoized Writers' Union (talentless puppets), and, by and large, with backward, uncivilized villages that have had no prospects for the future.

Myths revisited

Ukrainian nationalists who blame the government as being an "anti-Ukrainian" regime that promotes russification under the guise of political independence and free-market reforms, sincerely believe that everything would change if the proper people - "true Ukrainian patriots" - would come to power, and the proper policy - "real Ukrainization" - would be pursued. They never explain, however, how these people would come to power if urban Ukrainophones are too small in number, and rural Ukrainophones are too undeveloped to accomplish this. Even less clear is why this creolic regime should listen to the demands of the marginalized Ukrainophone minority instead of the dominant Russophone majority.

As regards Russian nationalists, they deny the very existence of the Ukrainian nation, claiming that it is just a regional branch of the Great Russian nation. This view, however, is more widespread in Russia; in Ukraine a special sort of local Russian nationalism has developed - I call it "creolic," or "Russophone." In political terms, it is quite "Ukrainian," i.e., quite supportive of state independence, territorial integrity, and many historical myths and symbols shared with Ukrainophones. In cultural and linguistic terms however it is rather "Russian," in nature, i.e., unsympathetic to Ukrainophones (with their allegedly "western Ukrainian nationalistic obsession," and is strongly biased against the Ukrainian culture and language.

Unlike "true" Russian nationalists, they never deny Ukrainian culture and language completely. Their approach is rather "archeological": they recognize that the Ukrainian language is beautiful, but it has disappeared and will never be revived. They claim that official Ukrainian is artificial, and spoken Ukrainian in western Ukraine is even more artificial. They praise Ukrainian culture - but only as great folklore; the only writer they recognize is Taras Shevchenko, a "national prophet," a semi-legendary, semi-folkloric figure.

Such an attitude is ambiguous: it combines both "Ukrainian" patriotic nostalgia for the "glorious" past (in the style of Hohol) along with creolic superiority to the present "backward" Ukrainophones, plus a bias against western Ukrainians who are not "backward," but who are pretentious, artificial and menacing. They perceive any "Ukrainization" as a personal threat and insist on a kind of linguistic and cultural laissez-faire, i.e., on preserving the status-quo inherited from colonial times that grants them their privileged and superior position. They claim the Russian language and culture are as natural and as important a part of the Ukrainian heritage as Ukrainian language and culture, perhaps even more so.

Ironically, both Russian and Ukrainian nationalists derive an argument for their colonial (or anti-colonial) rhetoric from the same meaningless census data that divides the Ukrainian population into 22 percent Russians and 73 percent Ukrainians. The Russians claim that they never oppressed or marginalized Ukrainians because there are many more ethnic Ukrainians in various top positions than ethnic Russians. And Ukrainians claim that they are a majority that deserves more rights as a titular nationality, while the Russians should be treated as just a minority, like Poles, Jews and Hungarians, whose political and cultural rights are guaranteed but not "exaggerated."

The real problem, however, is that Ukrainian society is not divided into just Ukrainians and Russians, but into at least three major groups: Russophone Russians (about 20 percent), Ukrainophone Ukrainians (about 45 percent) and Russophone Ukrainians (about 30 percent). All other ethnic groups (5 percent) are mostly Russian-speaking as well.

Apparently, the weakest and vaguest sense of national identity is that of the Russophone Ukrainians who are rather "Ukrainian" in political terms, and rather "Russian" in terms of culture. Both Ukrainians and Russians compete for the support this group, and both claim it to be their own. On many levels, this competition looks like a cold civil war, with hardly predictable results. The probable scenarios, however, should be considered - in order to forestall the most dangerous developments.

The solution

First of all, we should recognize some facts and realities that cannot be ignored, however much we may dislike them.

Since 1991, the Ukrainian nation exists as a nation-state and, apparently, nation-building has been hastened and strengthened by this fact. The essence and shape of this nation are more an internal than an external problem, and its future existence cannot be questioned unless we decide to question regional stability and, perhaps, world order.

The Ukrainian nation that emerged in 1991 as a nation-state is bilingual: both Ukrainian and Russian have, more or less, equal currency in Ukraine. For many Ukrainians, as well as for Russians, language is a major part of their identity. However, it is not the case for many Russified Ukrainians whose identity is rather mixed and vague, and who usually identify themselves in pre-modern terms as "locals" ("we are the Odesans," "we are the Kyivans," "we are Donbasians," etc.). Within the Ukrainian state their identity will certainly be modernized; the problem, however, is whether the process of modernization will coincide with linguistic Ukrainization, or whether a Ukrainian-creolic (i.e. Russophone) national identity will emerge.

The first development would probably mean that Russians in Ukraine will become a true minority, concentrated mostly in the southeast, especially in Crimea. The second development means that the role of minority is destined for the Ukrainophones who live mostly in western Ukraine.

One may suggest that a third scenario of "no winners, no losers" is possible, i.e., that today's status quo can be maintained, and even somehow improved. I cannot agree with this assumption for two reasons. First, I do not know any real example where two languages co-exist equally - within the same territory, the same spheres of functioning and the same population. And secondly, today's status quo in Ukraine is far from equal; it is based on the political, cultural, economic and financial dominance of the Russophones, and the colonial marginalization of the Ukrainophone part of population.

This is a social rather than a linguistic problem: therefore, it cannot be eschewed or fixed by laissez faire policy. Any attempt to reform agriculture, to abandon kolkhoz feudalism, and to liberalize the economy and politicum beyond the capital city will inevitably lead to emancipation of rural Ukrainophones, the strengthening of Ukrainian civil society and a dramatic alteration of the post-colonial balance of power in Kyiv.

Ukraine, in a sense, is destined to be like a Canada, with its own Quebec. The problem, however, is whether it will be a Russophone Donbas and Crimea within a greater Ukraine, or a Ukrainophone Galicia within a Ukraine that mostly speaks Russian.

I find the first scenario preferable for two reasons. First, the Ukrainophone Ukrainians who had managed to defend their linguistic identity under the enormous pressure of the Russian and Soviet empires, would never agree to be marginalized and turned into a minority within independent Ukraine. Their resistance would certainly have the most radical forms since they have no other place to cherish their own language and culture. Ethnic Russians would sooner accept minority status - as long as the Ukrainian state remains democratic, tolerant and economically prosperous. Secondly, Russophone Ukrainians, however resistant and unsympathetic they are to their own "Ukrainization," seem to be much more accepting of the gradual Ukrainization of their offspring. This point is confirmed by various opinion polls, as well as by the de facto acceptance of a very moderate Ukrainization that has been carried out by the government agencies since 1991 (in education, etc.).

The slow pace of Ukrainization, under the current circumstances, seems to be the most optimum and proper solution - despite the fact that it suits neither the Russian nor Ukrainian nationalists. The term, however, is dubious, and should definitely be replaced with the more suitable and internationally recognized concept of "affirmative action." Such a policy is necessary in any post-colonial culture, particularly in Ukraine. The appropriate scale and pace of these actions should be defined for each case separately to make the social agenda clearer and promote social dialogue.

The Ukrainophones should probably abandon the controversial idea to "re-Ukrainianize" their Russified fellow-citizens - some 15 millions "prodigal sons" derogatively labeled as "janissaries" who, so far, have little if any wish to change their cultural and linguistic identity once again.

And the Russophones should uneqivocally accept the necessity of "affirmative action" on the part of the Ukrainophones' side to promote their true, not just token equality. The government should be a major designer and coordinator of an appropriate policy that should be coherent and comprehensive.

So far, the talks on Ukrainization resemble the talks on market reforms,"which have aptly been labeled "shock without therapy." The Russophone population seems to be more concerned with the talks on Ukrainization than with real, very moderate and limited acts of "positive discrimination." The laissez faire language policy that prevails constantly kindles new talks on Ukrainization among the dissatisfied Ukrainophones; these talks in turn frighten the Russophones even more, further hampering any governmental steps toward affirmative action.

The vicious circle should have been broken - not so much by hastening the pace of Ukrainization or by slowing it down, but first and foremost by making policy clearer, more transparent, outspoken and unambiguous. Such a policy should be overtly negotiated within society since a nation is not just a permanent plebiscite, but also a permanent search for consensus.

Mykola Ryabchuk is the managing editor of the Kyiv-based Krytyka monthly and, currently, a United States Information Agency (USIA) regional exchange scholar at the Kennan Institute in Washington. The article is based on a paper delivered at the Woodrow Wilson Center on March 1.

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