BOOK REVIEW: The post-Soviet transition's effects on the Ukraine-Russia relationship (11/04/01)

BOOK REVIEW

The post-Soviet transition's effects on the Ukraine-Russia relationship

Ukraine and Russia: The Post-Soviet Transition by Roman Solchanyk. Lanham, Boulder, New York and Oxford: Bowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc., 2001, 237 pp.

by John B. Dunlop

Roman Solchanyk, a consultant to the RAND Corp. in Santa Monica, has written an excellent, highly balanced account that focuses upon the bilateral relations of Ukraine and Russia and on the position of Russians and Russian-speakers in Ukraine during the often charged period of 1989-2000. The book is noteworthy for the depth of its research, the balance of its approach, and the clarity and lucidity of its writing.

While Dr. Solchanyk is clearly a supporter of Ukrainian political independence, he makes a commendable effort to understand the mindset and the emotional and visceral assumptions of Russian elites as they attempt to wrestle with the consequences of events they never thought would come to pass: the break-up of the Soviet Union and, especially, the independence of Ukraine. As the author notes, Russian elites had particular difficulties in reconciling themselves to the "loss" of the Crimea, two-thirds of whose populace in 1989 were ethnic Russians.

One especially valuable trait of Dr. Solchanyk's book is his repeated citing of the results of public opinion surveys taken in Ukraine in the post-Communist period. As he underlines, the results of these surveys often belie the perceived assumptions of those who take a simplistic approach to Ukrainian politics and to Ukrainian relations with Russia. In these polls, the Ukrainian, Russian, Jewish, Crimean Tatar and other citizens of independent Ukraine stand before us in their remarkable complexity and pragmatic common sense.

One lacuna in Dr. Solchanyk's book which should be mentioned is his failure to treat the situation of Ukrainians living in the Russian Federation. It would have been helpful to see their position compared to that of Russians living in Ukraine. Also, while the book is aptly titled "Ukraine and Russia." it should be noted that on occasion it goes beyond the parameters of this title and becomes simply a study of Ukrainian domestic and foreign policy without reference to relations with Russia.

Inevitably, due to the amount of time it takes to publish a book, Dr. Solchanyk's study is somewhat out of date, offering only brief coverage, and most of that in the short "Conclusion" section, of the presidency of Vladimir Putin. This is quite unfortunate, inasmuch as the Putin presidency has served to bolster the expectations of those Russian elites who contend that, sooner or later, Ukraine will be required, for both economic and political reasons, to join Russia and Belarus (and, perhaps, Armenia and Moldova as well) as a member of the new "union state."

One suspects that Dr. Solchanyk's book might have acquired a more gloomy and somber tone had he been able to treat in any depth Russian-Ukrainian relations during the Putin presidency.

To sum up, Dr. Solchanyk has written a very fine book which represents must reading for those concerned with post-Communist Ukraine and with Ukrainian-Russian relations during the period 1989-2000.

Dr. John B. Dunlop is a senior fellow at The Hoover Institution, Stanford University.

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