LVIV, Ukraine – Most Ukrainians identify themselves first as being citizens of their country. They want to keep their distance from Russia. And they feel they have little in common with the nation’s rich people.
These are among the findings of a recent study sponsored by the Petro Jatsyk Research Program in Modern Ukrainian History.
“This is not a conflict of Ukrainian-Russian identity, but of Ukrainian identity,” said Yaroslav Hrytsak, a professor at Lviv’s Ukrainian Catholic University, who is one of the study’s authors. “This is a battle of two identities of Ukraine. This is a battle within the family.”
The study, conducted between March 1-10, encompassed 2,000 respondents from all over the country. Ukrainian scholars have conducted four similar studies – in 1994, 1999, 2004 and 2010.
With the exception of those living in the east, of the 10 most important identifying factors, the majority of Ukrainians (67.9 percent) most strongly identified themselves as being citizens of Ukraine. Western and southern regions garnered 84.5 percent and 69.7 percent respectively, said Oksana Malanchuk, co-author of the study. Residents of central Ukraine first identified themselves as Ukrainian (74.4 percent) and then as citizens of Ukraine (70.8 percent).
The cluster of regions referred to as “eastern Ukraine,” for the purposes of the study, combined the Donetsk, Luhansk and Kharkiv regions. Residents of these regions most strongly identified themselves as residents of their city (49.8 percent). Identity as Ukrainian citizens came in second place with 46.3 percent. Only 39.5 percent identified themselves as Ukrainian.
Malanchuk, who has been conducting the study with Hrytsak and another colleague, Viktor Susak, since 1994, said that this is the first year that citizenship was used as an identifying factor, versus ethnicity.
Unlike conventional studies that give respondents a strict choice, this poll gave Ukrainians multiple options. For example, when asked how respondents identified themselves, they had 28 options for self-identification, including nationality, age, gender, social and other choices.
Regarding the relationship that Ukrainians should have with Russia, on a scale of 1-7, with the numbers 1-4 indicating Ukraine and Russia should have more distant relations, and 4-7, closer relations (with 7 indicating they should be one country), overall, Ukrainians said the country should have more distant relations (3.82 overall). That is an improvement on 1994, when the number was 4.11. Crimeans appeared to favor a much closer relationship with Russia. Their “unity” number came in the highest at 6.22 percent.
Overall, Ukraine’s residents least identified themselves with the rich. Nearly 25 percent of the people questioned said they least identified themselves with wealthy people, while Ukrainian nationalists and Communists came in second (16.3 percent) and third (12.1 percent). Ukraine’s south had the highest number of individuals who did not identify with Ukrainian nationalists (26.1 percent). Residents in the west (26.6 percent), not surprisingly, said they did not identify with Communists.
Overall, the study shows that “time has worked for the Ukrainianization of Ukraine,” said Hrytsak.
Some sociologists are skeptical about the research and claim the results would have been different if the questions had been phrased differently.
“According to my recent survey, if asked whether one identifies himself or herself as a citizen of Ukraine, 92 percent would respond positively,” said political sociologist Oleksandr Vyshnyak. “But if you give people other options – such as being the citizen of a city or village, gender, social or age identification — then, obviously, number of those who identify themselves as citizens of Ukraine will be less.”
According to him, people in the eastern regions might identify strongly with their city because of a strong local media influence.
“There are many local newspapers and TV channels in the eastern and south-eastern parts of the country; many people there do not watch national channels or read national papers at all,” Vyshnyak said. “So they are living in the information field of the city, which is not the case in the western, central and northern parts of Ukraine.”
Political analyst Vadym Karasyov claims city identification in the east has replaced the Soviet identity. “People in the east cannot identify themselves as Soviet citizens or citizens of Russia anymore,” Karasyov said. “At the same time, they are not ready to identify themselves with Ukraine yet, so city identity becomes a substitution.”
Political analyst Volodymyr Fesenko says that many in Ukraine lost the illusions they had back in the 1990s of reuniting with Russia.
But Russia’s close proximity slows the formation of a stronger Ukrainian identity, which, in turn, weakens the country geopolitically. Fesenko said he doesn’t see the figures changing any time soon.
“It is a paradox but, according to polls, after pro-Ukrainian president Victor Yushchenko came to power, many of his ex-supporters grew disappointed with his performance and obsession with patriotism and started to feel closer towards Russia. It was a kind of a reverse effect,” Fesenko said.
Kyiv Post staff writer Natalia A. Feduschak can be reached at [email protected]and Svitlana Tuchnyska at [email protected].
