Understanding Contemporary Ukrainian and Russian Nationalism. Olexander Hryb
nations were formed on the basis of pre-modern ethnic cores:
A nation can be defined as a named human population sharing a historic territory, common myths and historical memories, a mass, public culture, a common economy and common legal rights and duties for all members (Smith 1991, 14).
According to primordialists, a perennial process of ethnic development leads to the emergence of nations. Thus, ethnic links are of central importance to the development of nations. This challenges the modernist assumption that ethnic links within contemporary nations are artificial, and, therefore, unimportant. This view is not widely supported, even by proponents of the Western model of nations1 since, according to primordialists, nations are inconceivable without some common myths and memories of territorial home and these can be based only on prior ethnies. Whether this process of adoption is natural or artificial is not of fundamental importance and reflects the peculiarity of historical development within a particular nation. Natural or not, in all cases an ethnic element is of substantial importance as it provides the character or “soul” of the people. However, scholars are in accord that ethnies and nations are different social units and represent different historical formations.
Modernists stress the artificial connections of ethnic heritage in nation-building. Much attention in their theories is paid to the role of mass education (universal, standardized and generic). Hobsbawm and Ranger (1983) pointed out the importance of printing for mass education and the homogeneity of cultures. The term “invented traditions” (Hobsbawm 1990) became a catchphrase, to stress the fact that the national idea was an innovation at a certain period of social development. Ernest Gellner, on the other hand, emphasized the importance of the new division of labor required for industrial development. Both these factors led to a mobile and anonymous social organization as well as to the homogeneity of modern society, something reflected in Benedict Anderson’s term “imagined communities” (Anderson 1991). According to this author, the very fact that nationals count people, whom they have never met, as belonging to “their” nation, underlines the subjective, “‘imaginary” nature of national communities or nations. The question here is: why did these “imagined communities” or nations appear among homogenous industrial societies? Gellner puts forward two possible explanations: regional development of industrialism and development of nationalism as an ideology. The former leads to the appearance of new social units (nation-states) and the latter determines the national character of these new social formations. Gellner explains the phenomenon of nationalism through the peculiarities of high culture development during the transition from agrarian society to industrialism. There is a possible contradiction within this argument because, as Smith`s The Ethnic Origin of Nations (1983) demonstrates, “the peculiarities of the high culture” are always (naturally or artificially) based on the ethnic heritage. However, for modernists, such ethnic, and therefore rather socio-cultural explanations, are unacceptable, since for them it is socio-economic factors that are central to the development of nations. This is why modernists cannot accept arguments about the ethnic (i.e., socio-cultural) origins of nations. To some extent, this is also the philosophical problem of the primacy of idea or matter. In this sense, modernists and primordialists argue from different paradigms and therefore it is unlikely that any compromise could be reached.
Both Soviet and contemporary Ukrainian and Russian scholars attempted to solve similar theoretical difficulties. Soviet Ethnography, which was almost alone among other disciplines in dealing with these problems, insisted on both paradigms: it defined socio-economic factors as the initial condition for nation-building, while insisting on the ethnic nature of modern nations (Bromley 1990, Kuznecov 1989). So, for instance, the fundamental feature of Bromley`s concept is the unity of ethnic and national development which is evident in his definition of nation as an “ethno-social organism.” This author’s terminology for dealing with national and ethnic phenomena can be easily applied to the logic of terms used by Western scholars. For instance, his term ethnicos has generally the same definition as Smith`s ethnie. Yet, as ethnicos (ethnie) can represent not only ethnic and territorial unity but also a socio-economic unity (historically dependent on concrete socio-economic formations such as feudalism, capitalism, socialism, etc.), Bromley has invented the term “ethno-social organism,” which is wider than simply ethnicos (ethnie), and as a result more flexible. Nation, for instance, is referred to in these terms as an ethno-social organism during the period of “capitalism” and “socialism,” i.e., during industrial and post-industrial society.
Table 1. Ethno-Social Organisms (ESOs)
| Stages of human social development | Forms of ethno-social organization | Socio-economic formations |
| Tribe | Ethnicos | Primitive or Slavery |
| Narodnost’ | Ethnicos | Feudalism |
| Nation | Ethnicos | Capitalism/Socialism |
Only in the widest sense did the author suggest using the term “ethnos” to cover all periods of both ethnic and socio-economic development. In this way, we have a synthetic attempt to take into account (at least on the level of terminology) the socio-cultural as well as the socio-economic nature of national phenomena simultaneously. Bromley`s approach does not contradict either Smith`s or Gellner`s theories, the former because the two sets of terms almost overlap, and so simply complete each other, and the latter because Gellner`s periodization of human history (pre-agrarian, agrarian and industrial society) is reflected in the classification of ethnos (in the wider meaning of the term) according to the three historical types (tribe, narodnost` and nation), where the main criterion is socio-economic. All of the above suggests that Bromley`s, and the wider Soviet, terminology offered the possibility of a synthesis of “perennialist” and “modernist” approaches to understanding national phenomena. But first of all it makes sense to find out why the contradictions exist in the first place, and why the links between pre-modern ethnic communities and modern national communities are so crucial in these debates.
2.1.2 Ethnic Community, Ethnie, Ethnos
The terms “ethnic community,” “ethnos” or “ethnie,” like “nation,” have different meanings depending on the conceptual approach. “Ethnos” (in Greek, tribe, people) has been used since the beginning of the nineteenth century both in ethnography and social anthropology. It was applied, first, to small collectivities or groups that were the subject of anthropological research. Later on it was also applied to bigger communities. In the Western tradition it is not broadly used. More common are the terms “people,” “volke,” “ethnie” and so on. “Ethnos,” though, has been a key term for Soviet Ethnography since 1970s. But the term “ethnic community” has wider acceptance within different national traditions and therefore will be used further as a working term. A brief survey is necessary to establish in which context this, and other terms, are to be used.
The term and concept of “ethnic community” is understood by Anthony Smith as a type of cultural collectivity which emphasizes the role of myths of descent and historical memories, and which is recognized by one or more cultural differences, like religion, customs, language or collective institutions. The author lists six main attributes of ethnic community or ethnie:2
1 A collective proper name;
2 A myth of common ancestry;
3 shared historical memories;
4 One or more differentiating elements of common culture;
5 An association with a specific “homeland”;
6 A sense of solidarity in significant sectors of the population.
The combination