2001 Census results reveal information on nationalities and language in Ukraine

by Oleh Wolowyna
Special to The Ukrainian Weekly

CHAPEL HILL, N.C. - The 2001 Census was the first census implemented by Ukraine as an independent nation, and its results are likely to be as hotly debated as some of the questions proposed during the planning of the census. The two most controversial issues during this debate relate to the questions on nationality and language.

Some experts have stated that during Soviet times many Ukrainians declared Russian as their nationality, and thus the percent of Ukrainians was underestimated in the 1989 Census. The language question in the 2001 Census raised fears that it would show a large percentage of persons declaring Russian as their mother tongue, and that this would be used as an argument for making Russian an official language in Ukraine and thus would reverse the trend to eliminate the consequences of Russification policies during the Soviet period.

The census results presented here are likely to be surprising to many persons. They can be interpreted as positive or negative within this debate, depending on one's perspective. (We will present the results and let the readers make their own conclusions.)

Before launching into the main topic of this article, we provide evidence that the census has confirmed what has been already known: that Ukraine is loosing population at an alarming rate. Between 1989 and 2001, Ukraine's population declined from 51,706,700 to 48,457,100, which translates into a 6.1 percent decline. This decline is not uniform across the country.

Only two oblasts and the city of Kyiv showed small increases in their population (0.5 percent for Zakarpattia and 0.3 percent for Rivne and the city of Kyiv) during this period, and one oblast (Volyn), maintained its population size.

The largest losses occurred in the eastern, northeastern and some central oblasts. For example, Chernihiv, Luhansk and Zhytomyr experienced more than 10 percent loss of their population; Sumy, Donetsk, Kharkiv, Kirovohrad, Cherkasy and Vinnytsia experienced between 8 percent and 9 percent loss.

The smallest losses occurred in the western oblasts and on the Crimean peninsula. Ivano-Frankivsk, Chernihiv, Ternopil and Lviv oblasts, as well as the Crimean Autonomous Republic and the city of Sevastopol, experienced losses of between 1 percent and 5 percent.

Nationality (or Ethnicity)

The data on nationality is based on the following item in the 2001 census: Your ethnic origin (state nationality or ethnic group). In other words, each respondent was free to provide any nationality as his response, and the concept is similar to the ethnicity or ancestry concepts used in the U.S. and Canadian censuses.

Table 1 shows a list of selected nationalities in 2001, and provides a comparison with the 1989 census data. Ukrainians comprised 77.8 percent of the total population (about 37.5 million), while the percent for Russians was 17.3 (about 8.3 million). The last column of Table 1 shows the relative increase (or loss) in absolute numbers for each nationality, between 1989 and 2001. The number of Ukrainians increased by 0.3 percent between 1989 and 2001, while the number of Russians decreased by 26.6 percent during this period. Two factors are likely to account for this loss: 1) out- migration of Russians from Ukraine; 2) and Ukrainians who declared Russian as their nationality in 1989 and switched to Ukrainian as their nationality in 2001. The available data does not allow us to estimate the relative weight of these two factors.

Ukrainians and Russians comprise more than 95 percent of the total population of Ukraine; thus the size of other nationalities is quite small. The third largest nationality in Ukraine is Belarusians, with 0.6 percent (276,000), followed by Moldovans, Crimean Tatars and Bulgarians, with between 205,000 and 259,000. The sizes of the other nationality groups are much smaller.

It is interesting to note the changes in the sizes of these nationalities between 1989 and 2001 (see last column of Table 1). Only three nationalities experienced increases in their absolute numbers during this period; all others showed losses. Georgians and Azerbaijanis showed the largest increases, with 45 and 22 percent, respectively. Although their absolute numbers are quite small, this is a trend worth monitoring. The only other nationality with positive growth was the Romanians, with 12 percent.

The largest loss was experienced by Jews, with a decline of almost 79 percent in their absolute numbers between 1989 and 2001. This is consistent with the large emigration of Jews from Ukraine during this period, which started in the later part of the 1980s. Belarusians and Poles also showed large losses, 37 and 34 percent, respectively. Here again it would be interesting to see if this was due largely to out-migration or to changes in declared nationalities between 1989 and 2001.

The distribution of Russians is very uneven across Ukraine. They are heavily concentrated in the eastern and southern oblasts, while their numbers are quite small in western oblasts. Table 3 presents data from selected oblasts in these two categories, as well as the relative changes between 1989 and 2001 in their proportions within the oblast's total population.

First, we note that overall the proportion of Ukrainians has increased between 1989 and 2001, while the proportion of Russians has decreased. The proportion of Ukrainians has experienced a gain of 7 percent, while the proportion of Russians experienced a loss of 22 percent (last column of Table 3). This could be interpreted by some as a positive trend.

The Crimean Autonomous Republic and the city of Sevastopol are the only areas where Russians constitute the majority of the population: 72 percent in Sevastopol and 58 percent in Crimea. In the case of Crimea, the proportion of both Russians and Ukrainians has experienced a loss between 1989 and 2001, but this is due to the influx during this period of Tatars, who were allowed to return to their homeland. It is interesting to observe that in Sevastopol, despite the overwhelming proportion of Russians, between 1989 and 2001 the relative size of the Ukrainian population has increased from 20.1 to 22.4 percent, while the relative size of the Russian population has decreased from 74.9 to 71.6 percent.

For illustrative purposes, Table 3 shows data for two oblasts with a significant proportion of Russians: Donetsk with 38 percent and Odesa with 20 percent. In both cases we see that between 1989 and 2001 the proportion of Ukrainians has increased, while the proportion of Russians has decreased. In the case of Donetsk, for example, Ukrainians experienced a 12 percent increase in their relative proportion, while Russians experienced a 12 percent decrease in their relative proportion. The gain for Ukrainians in Odesa was even higher, while the loss for Russians was larger.

Table 2 also presents similar data for four oblasts where Ukrainians constitute more than 90 percent of the total population, and the percent of Russians varies between 2 and 7 percent. In all four cases the proportion of Ukrainians has increased between 1989 and 2001, while the proportion of Russians has decreased. The relative decrease in the proportion of Russians in these oblasts varies between 29 percent in Poltava and 50 percent in Lviv.

Language

The structure of the language question was as follows. Your language characteristics: a) mother tongue (note); b) if your mother tongue is not Ukrainian, note if you speak Ukrainian (yes or no); c) do you speak another language? (note).

So far, the only language data released by the Ukrainian Statistical Committee is a table which relates part a) of this question with the nationality of the individual. In Table 3 we list selected nationalities by percent of persons who declared their mother tongue to be that of their own nationality, Ukrainian or Russian. (With the exception of Gypsies, or Roma, referred to as "Tsyhany," the percent with another mother tongue was very low for all nationalities).

The percentages in the first column of Table 3 can be interpreted as measures of the degree of language retention of the respective nationality. Thus, Russians have a high degree of language retention, with 96 percent of them declaring that Russian is their mother tongue. Hungarians and Crimean Tatars also have a very high degree of language retention, while this indicator for Ukrainians was 85 percent. Jews have the lowest value with 3 percent, followed by Greeks with 6 percent, Germans with 12 percent and Poles with 13 percent. It is rather surprising that such a small percentage of Poles in Ukraine declared that Polish was their mother tongue.

Data in the second and third columns of Table 3 show that, for most nationalities, a high percentage consider Russian as their mother tongue. First, one should note that almost 15 percent of Ukrainians declared that Russian was their mother tongue, while only 4 percent of Russians considered Ukrainian as their mother tongue. This may come as a surprise for persons who feared that a much higher percentage of Ukrainians would consider Russian as their mother tongue, although in some oblasts this percentage is likely to be higher.

Poles have the highest percentage of persons with Ukrainian as their mother tongue, 71 percent, while 15.5 percent of them declared Russian as their mother tongue. Also Gypsies (Roma), Hungarians and Romanians have higher percentages with Ukrainian than with Russian mother tongue: 21.6 and 3 percent, respectively. The nationalities with the highest percentages with Russian mother tongue are the Greeks and Jews, with 88.5 and 83 percent, respectively. Belarusians, Germans, Georgians, Azerbaijanis and Tatars also have large percentages with Russian mother tongue (more than 50 percent in all cases except Azerbaijanis).

In sum, Ukraine's 2001 Census has documented an alarming trend of a decline in the population of Ukraine, especially in the eastern, northeastern and central oblasts, with losses between 8 and 12 percent in these oblasts. The relative percentage of Russians has decreased between 1989 and 2001, and this is observed in all oblasts, including those with high percentages of Russians. Ukrainians and Russians comprise about 95 percent of the total population; thus the other nationalities are relatively small at the national level. (There are some local exceptions, as in the case of the Crimean Autonomous Republic, where Crimean Tatars constitute 12 percent of the population; and Zakarpattia, where Hungarians constitute 12 percent of the population).

Most nationalities have decreased in size between 1989 and 2001. There was a very large out-migration of Jews during this period, and Belarusians and Poles also experienced significant reductions. Only three nationalities experienced significant increases: Georgians, Azerbaijanis and Romanians.

The fact that more than 85 percent of Ukrainians declared Ukrainian as their mother tongue is probably a pleasant surprise for some people, and seems to bode well for the future of the language in Ukraine. The degree of language assimilation among Poles in Ukraine was quite surprising, as was the fact that most of them declared Ukrainian as their mother tongue. However, for most of the other nationalities Russian is the predominant mother tongue. Among Greeks and Jews, more than 80 percent declared Russian as their mother tongue, and for Belarusians, Germans, Georgians and Tatars this figure was more than 50 percent.

The nationality and language data seem to be positive overall from the perspective of Ukrainian nation-building. If the trends documented for the 1989-2001 period continue, they provide a solid foundation for Ukraine's future as a nation, but the process is likely to be a long one.

Oleh Wolowyna is president of Informed Decisions Inc. based in Chapel Hill, N.C. A demographer, he has written previously for The Ukrainian Weekly about the U.S. Census and Ukrainians in the United States.

Copyright © The Ukrainian Weekly, January 12, 2003, No. 2, Vol. LXXI

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