ETHNIC TENSIONS

Since 1991 many Western commentaries have stressed the potential for interethnic conflict and violence throughout the former USSR, including Ukraine. A certain preoccupation with such a prospect is understandable in light of the spread of communal conflicts in the Caucasus region and growing tensions among ethnic communities in some other parts of the former USSR.

The ethnodemographic profiles of the USSR's successor states vary a great deal, however, and in each of these states relations among its ethnic groups have been shaped by a distinctive and complicated set of historical and socioeconomic factors. General commentaries stressing the potential for interethnic tensions and violent conflicts throughout the Soviet Union's successor states are therefore rarely enlightening and often obscure, and sometimes mislead rather than inform.

The painful legacy of Soviet nationality policy in Ukraine includes a lengthy and brutal effort to eliminate the Ukrainian nationalist movement in Western Ukraine during and after World War II, and the deportation of the entire Crimean Tatar population to Central Asia in 1944.26 More recently, in the 1970s and early 1980s a number of national rights activists in Ukraine were sentenced to lengthy terms of imprisonment for peacefully defending the rights of their language and culture.27 Given this legacy it is not surprising that resentments concerning past mistreatment remain strong and some interethnic tensions are apparent in Ukraine. What is surprising is that these tensions have not, with some exceptions, been translated into widespread violent conflict.

Ukraine, like other Soviet successor states, has faced a difficult challenge in formulating and implementing new language policies and finding the right balance between its citizens' individual rights and the group rights of ethnic minorities as well as members of the state's titular ethnic group. In particular, some Ukrainian activists have argued that ethnic Ukrainians were the victims of centralized discriminatory policies in the past and their cultural interests were seriously neglected. They feel that the present government of Ukraine is fully justified in introducing "Ukrainization" measures--a form of "affirmative action"--to help compensate for the negative impact of this discrimination. Some of the complaints voiced by these activists are justified; however, they are often insensitive to the fact that attempts to introduce rapid changes in cultural/linguistic policies and practices run the risk of alienating the sizable non-Ukrainian populations in Ukraine as well as many Russified Ukrainians.

The Ukrainian government's treatment of its ethnic minorities is important for two reasons. First, interethnic conflicts could play a major role in destabilizing the Ukrainian state and increasing interstate tensions in the region, especially if neighboring states were to intervene on behalf of fellow countrymen. Second, government policies toward minorities reflect the political elites' level of tolerance of pluralism and their commitment to liberal-democratic principles. Further, one of the criteria by which all of the USSR's successor states are being judged by the world community is treatment of minority ethnic groups.

Prior to Ukraine's independence, the future of the country's minorities drew considerable attention as Western scholars, politicians, and journalists warned of the possible negative consequences of a rise in Ukrainian nationalism and of the problems national minorities might face in a new Ukrainian state. As President George Bush said during an address to the Ukrainian parliament in August 1991:

As Lord Acton observed, "The most certain test by which we judge whether a country is really free is the amount of security enjoyed by minorities." Freedom requires tolerance. . . .Yet freedom is not the same as independence. Americans will not support those who seek independence in order to replace a far-off tyranny with a local despotism. They will not aid those who promote a suicidal nationalism based upon ethnic hatred.28

In contrast, many leading Ukrainian politicians have not only proudly noted the virtual absence of open ethnic conflict in Ukraine, but have sometimes even foolishly claimed that the preconditions for such conflicts do not exist in their country.29 Ukraine's first president, Leonid Kravchuk, and many of his colleagues frequently emphasized that the results of the 1991 referendum on independence showed that the great majority of non-Ukrainians in Ukraine strongly supported the country's sovereignty.

Broad and facile generalizations motivated by political considerations can be easily dismissed, but Ukraine was, in fact, remarkably free of ethnic conflict both during and after the independence referendum in December 1991, and the positive state of interethnic relations in Ukraine has been noted in a variety of Western sources. For example, a report by the Economist Intelligence Unit summarizing developments in the CIS in the last quarter of 1992 concluded, "More than one year after independence Ukraine remains a model of inter-ethnic accord in spite of a very large Russian minority on its territory."30 In addition, a report prepared by the United States Congress' Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe states:

Ukraine's treatment of its minorities has been encouraging, and Ukraine, unlike many other former Soviet republics, has been largely untouched by ethnic conflict. To date, inter-ethnic stability has been maintained.31

One could try to explain the absence of open ethnic conflict in Ukraine, especially between the majority Ukrainian population and the large Russian minority, by stressing, in the tradition of standard Soviet (and Russian) historiography, the supposedly "special" historical relationship between the two peoples, which led to their intermingling in Ukraine, and a cultural "rapprochement," which resulted in the Russification of significant numbers of Ukrainians. One could also search the historical record for "evidence" that members of the majority Ukrainian ethnic group are blessed with special virtues of tolerance and understanding. However, both approaches are based on a selective and idiosyncratic use of evidence which inevitably yields the results desired by the researcher.

More methodologically rigorous approaches to the study of ethnic group relations usually attempt to uncover the causal conditions or factors that have given rise to the political activity (or passivity) of various ethnic groups. Such approaches are frequently very abstract and implicitly or explicitly rely on the concept of relative deprivation, which emphasizes the role of ethnic groups as instruments of economic interests. These approaches usually deny ethnic institutions and their leaders any meaningful autonomy in the political process and downgrade the role of politics and policy in general.

However, in a situation where ethnic tensions have not yet been transformed into open conflict, political action or inaction can play a very important role in shaping the environment of interethnic relations. By focussing on the way in which crucial elites in Ukraine have attempted to shape or influence interethnic relations, one can achieve more balanced explanations of ethnic political behavior than those provided by the causal approaches noted above.

The situation of Ukraine's ethnic minorities is greatly influenced by the fact that it is a "new" state on the European stage, with limited experience of independent statehood in the 20th century. In many respects, Ukraine's "youth" has hampered its emergence onto the international stage. However, it also means that Ukraine has greater freedom than many of its neighbors to mold a distinctive nationality policy, for it is not overly weighed down by traditions of statehood that, in the East European context, usually implied legitimization of the state through a heavy reliance on ethnic nationalism.

More than in the case of most other states in the region, the success of Ukraine's nationality policy has depended on the specific fashion in which it is designed, rationalized, and implemented. The emphasis here will be on some of the political factors that have led to ethnopolitical stability in Ukraine.

The most obvious factor helping to preserve interethnic calm in Ukraine is a consistent government policy, with strong support in the Ukrainian parliament, of reassuring ethnic minorities concerning their legal status and cultural freedom in Ukraine. In July 1990, in the Ukrainian parliament's Declaration on the State Sovereignty of Ukraine, a firm commitment was made to respect the national rights of all the peoples of Ukraine, and the section on citizenship guaranteed equality before the law to all citizens of Ukraine regardless of their ancestry and racial or national identity. In its provisions on cultural development the declaration asserted, "The Ukrainian SSR . . . guarantees to all nationalities living on the territory of the republic the right to free national and cultural development."32

This was followed by the establishment in July 1991 of a Committee of Nationalities, attached to the Ukrainian Council of Ministers, which was to monitor the implementation of laws on minority issues and help fulfill the social and cultural needs of Ukraine's national minorities. In November 1991 the Ukrainian parliament unanimously adopted a declaration guaranteeing all citizens equal political, economic, social, and cultural rights; in June 1992, a legislative base for Ukraine's minority policy was established when the Ukrainian Supreme Council adopted the law "On National Minorities in Ukraine." All major political parties in Ukraine supported this legislation, which states that the languages of ethnic groups residing compactly in particular territories will have coequal status with Ukrainian.33 In addition, Ukraine's draft constitution contains numerous provisions guaranteeing the rights of minorities in Ukraine.34

In April 1993, Ukraine's President Kravchuk issued a decree on the creation of a new Ministry on Nationality Affairs and Migration on the basis of the above-mentioned Committee of Nationalities. To head this ministry Kravchuk appointed a well-respected jurist, Oleksandr Iemets', who had earlier served as Kravchuk's senior advisor on legal-political affairs.35 His successor, Mykola Shul'ha, appointed in September 1994, is a well-known specialist in the field of interethnic relations.36

On a more symbolic but equally significant level, both Ukraine presidents and many other senior politicians have repeatedly denounced all forms of xenophobia and ethnic chauvinism in Ukraine and have consistently spoken out in favor of a state based on the principle of equal citizenship for all, regardless of ethnic background. To date there has been little evidence of the widespread use of an "ethnic key" in appointments to senior government positions. The appointment of Ivan Dziuba in November 1992 as Ukraine's first Minister of Culture was also a positive step, for Dziuba had been a prominent and consistent supporter of extensive rights for national minorities and a determined opponent of all forms of ethnic intolerance.37

One can put forward several reasons for the liberal nationality policy adopted in Ukraine. Ukraine's senior politicians may be truly committed to the ideals of ethnic pluralism, although a more cynical perspective would hold that they have found it quite easy to adapt the old and tattered Soviet slogans of "the friendship of peoples" and "socialist internationalism" to present-day circumstances.

On a more pragmatic level, the most important factor influencing the direction of Ukraine's nationality policy has been the presence on its territory of a large and potentially restive Russian minority that is heavily concentrated in several oblasti in the eastern and southern regions of Ukraine. The only oblast' in which Russians formed a demographic majority (67 percent) of the population in 1989 was the Crimean oblast'. However, prior to Ukraine's independence the Russian minority was, in many respects, a "psychological" majority throughout most of Ukraine (the exception was Ukraine's western oblasti) because of tsarist and Soviet policies that provided the Russian population in Ukraine with a full range of Russian-language facilities to satisfy its cultural and educational needs.

At the same time, the spheres in which the Ukrainian language was used were gradually narrowed, and it was implicitly treated as a rural, "peasant" language. Over time this image of the "inferior" nature of the Ukrainian language and culture was internalized by many ethnic Ukrainians, especially in the eastern and southern regions, and the resulting inferiority complex has not been easy to overcome in those regions where Ukrainian was eliminated from most spheres of public use or, in fact, never penetrated.38

As a result, in 1989, 59.5 percent of Ukrainians in Ukraine were fluent in Russian and approximately 12.3 percent considered Russian their native language, whereas only 1.6 percent of Russians in Ukraine considered Ukrainian their native language, and only 32.8 percent were fluent in Ukrainian. In addition, over time Russian had become the dominant language of government bureaucracy in Ukraine, with the partial exception of western Ukraine.39 In many respects Ukraine's tolerant nationality policy would simply represent a pragmatic accommodation with demographic and linguistic reality, the reality being there are many ethnic Ukrainians who would have difficulty accepting, or adapting to, a harsh and rapid policy of "Ukrainization."

However, Ukraine's nationality policy was also greatly influenced by the principled stance adopted by Ukraine's major political parties and organizations, which quickly reached a consensus in 1990-91 on the need to guarantee the rights of all ethnic groups in Ukraine. Of particular importance was the early position taken by Rukh, the Ukrainian popular front movement that initially served as an umbrella organization for the emerging national-democratic parties of Ukraine and played a crucial role in the campaign for Ukraine's independence. Rukh's policies on this issue reflected the liberal-humanistic traditions shared by many members of the literary-cultural intelligentsia, and one of the keynote speakers during Rukh's constituent congress was Ivan Dziuba, a former dissident and the well-known author of Internationalism and Russification? Over the years he had strongly opposed all expressions of intolerance and xenophobia in the Ukrainian national movement and his speech, as well as the speeches of several other speakers at the congress, strongly stressed the importance of good relations among Ukraine's ethnic groups.40

In addition, over time many of the leadership positions in Rukh, and in some of the political parties that began to spring up in Ukraine in 1990-91, were assumed by individuals who had been harshly persecuted by the Soviet security apparatus during the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s.41 A politician's credentials as a former dissident or political prisoner did not necessarily testify to his/her moral qualities, tolerance, and political judgment. However, most of the former dissidents who have been active in political life in Ukraine at the national level have supported ethnic minority rights even though they had been harassed (and often imprisoned) by the Soviet authorities primarily because of their supposed "nationalist" activities.

Given their strong commitment to the development of the Ukrainian language and culture, and the principle of national self-determination, one might have expected these former dissidents to be somewhat ambivalent concerning ethnic minority rights. However, the most prominent members of the national rights movement in Ukraine had based their activities on liberal-democratic principles that were not abandoned when they were arrested and imprisoned. In addition, in the camps where they were detained the attempts by camp authorities to set dissidents of different ethnic backgrounds off against each other were so crude that they actually had the opposite effect and led to their cooperation against the common enemy--the camp administration.

This discussion has focussed on only one of the many factors that helped to shape Ukraine's nationality policy, and it was by no means decisive. Still, one should not underestimate the impact of the stand taken by these former political prisoners on public opinion and public sentiments, especially during the period just prior to Ukraine's declaration of independence. Strongly influenced by the Soviet propaganda machine that had consistently portrayed the national rights activists as xenophobic chauvinists, most residents of Ukraine expected that they would live up to this reputation, being embittered by the repression they suffered.

In the early phase of Ukraine's independence, therefore, an important role was played by official statements and policies concerning minority groups and interethnic relations, and by former dissidents, who channeled their activities into Rukh and eventually into a variety of different political parties. In effect, at a crucial stage in the state-building process, a sociopolitical climate was created that made the expression of xenophobic views (such as the slogan "Ukraine for Ukrainians") unpopular and hampered the growth of extremist organizations. When a sample of Ukrainian citizens was asked in 1993 to rank their fears for the future, only 18 percent of the respondents indicated they feared the outbreak of interethnic conflicts, a decrease in 6 percent from the previous year. Higher rankings were given to the growth of crime, rapid increases in prices, hunger, unemployment, and the consequences of the Chernobyl disaster.42

Some grounds for concern in the area of interethnic relations remain. The advocates of extremist forms of Ukrainian nationalism, based primarily in Western Ukraine, still remain a marginal force in Ukrainian politics. However, these extremists have had some modest success in strengthening and broadening their base of public support; if it continues to grow, their promotion of xenophobic views could eventually pose at least a modest threat to interethnic harmony.43

Kiev's ability to implement a consistent and effective nationality policy has also been greatly hindered by the critical socioeconomic situation in Ukraine. Thus limited resources have made it difficult to provide even minimal funding to satisfy the needs of ethnic minorities. In addition, the poor state of Ukraine's legal infrastructure has made it difficult to counter the activity of extremist groups and prosecute cases of discrimination on the basis of ethnic background.

Most significantly, however, Ukraine's leaders are still faced with the challenge of finding the proper "formula" for the development of a distinctive, overarching national identity to unify the various ethnic groups and regions of Ukraine. Given the large Russian minority in eastern and southern Ukraine and the low prestige value of Ukrainian language and culture in these regions, as well as the significant number of Ukrainians who are linguistically and culturally Russified, any attempt to foster a national identity based on the Ukrainian ethnic identity would greatly exacerbate the ethnic cleavages in Ukrainian society.

Interethnic harmony would be seriously threatened if "Ukrainization" policies were implemented in a rapid and injudicious fashion, by crude administrative measures. However, the current minister responsible for nationality affairs, like his predecessor, has spoken out strongly against the use of such measures, and the Kuchma administration has been cautious in its statements concerning language issues. President Kuchma himself has generated some creative ambiguity on this issue by advocating that Russian, together with Ukrainian, be considered official languages, at the same time underlining that Ukrainian will be the country's sole state language. He has been careful, however, not to clearly delineate the difference in status between an official and state language.

President Kuchma has intentionally stressed the need for nonethnic sources of identity to help unify the population and regions of Ukraine, and at the end of his state of the nation address in April 1995 he suggested that the economic rebirth of Ukraine represent an appropriate unifying idea for the entire population.44 However, even if the current reform process underway in Ukraine yields rapid results, economic success alone cannot provide the emotive basis for a full-fledged national identity.

There is a tendency in some political circles in Ukraine to encourage the development of a national identity that, if not based on Ukrainian ethnic identity, will be at least partly based on an anti-Russian animus. Persistent attempts by Russia's leaders to intervene in the affairs of neighboring countries have greatly contributed to the maintenance of anti-Russian sentiments in some sectors of Ukrainian society. However, it would be dangerous if these sentiments were to play a very significant role in shaping the Ukrainian identity, as this could easily alienate a large part of Ukraine's population of Russian background and isolate Ukraine from a neighbor on which it is still dependent for most of its fossile fuel supplies and raw materials.

Given his background, President Kuchma is in an excellent position to promote the idea of a Ukrainian political identity not based on anti-Russian sentiments, and to encourage a shift from an ethnic-linguistic to a civic idea of the Ukrainian nation that would successfully integrate all those living in Ukraine, no matter what their ethnic background. All Ukraine's senior politicians continue to demonstrate a strong and consistent commitment to maintaining ethnic peace in Ukraine, and with the exception of Crimea there is no evidence that interethnic conflict could emerge as a major threat to Ukraine's stability in the near future.