Understanding Contemporary Ukrainian and Russian Nationalism. Olexander Hryb
in the region of the Former Soviet Union (FSU) succeeds in promoting economic nationalism and whether this proves beneficial to ethnic and/or national communities. Yet the choice between an ethnic and civic model will have to be made at a cost that is reasonable in terms of nationalist identity, that is, so as not to threaten the societal security of a given national community.
The concept of “societal security” is useful for analyzing violent expressions of nationalism. Traditional state-as-actor theories that predominate in the field of International Security failed to predict the inter-ethnic violence that accompanied the collapse of the USSR and Yugoslavia. The empirical findings clearly illustrate that war preparations among nationalist elites in Russia and Ukraine began practically since 1991. Russia’s nation-building project aims at the re-creation of a larger inclusive state within boundaries that historically are associated with the Russian (Tsarist or Soviet) empires. The Ukrainian “irredentist” nation-building project requires the inclusion of all minorities in order to be viable. This, however, contradicts the logic of Russian supra-state expansion that must incorporate most if not all of the Ukrainian nation-state territories. The fact that neither nation-building project is ethnically exclusive does not prevent inter-group violence, as is clearly demonstrated in Donbas, where armed conflict began in 2014. The ethnic composition of fighters on both sides of the conflict is not dissimilar; all nationalities of the former USSR are represented to various degrees and Russian was initially the dominant language of instruction in both militaries.
Scholarly optimists in the 1990s believed that liberalization of developing democracies and the acceptance of extensive non-territorial federal arrangements could be the two factors that would turn the “no war community” of Russia and Ukraine into a “security community” where war is inconceivable. However, Putin’s government opted for an armed solution of its upgrading neo-imperial Eurasianist project and made Ukrainians fight for the survival of their nation-state. The logic of the self-determination principle will endure for the foreseeable future; and the better we understand the mechanisms of mass mobilization for violence, the safer that future will be.
1.3. Plan of the Study
The next chapter (Chapter 2) will review theories of nations and national and ethnic identity/consciousness and will suggest a synthesis of Western and Eastern (Soviet) approaches that can help with understanding the dominant perspectives in nationalism studies.
The crucial disagreements among various approaches have to do with the actual role of ethnicity in nationalism. Chapter 2 argues that ethnicity is important to national identity only in some cases. Generally, modern identities, including national ones, absorb elements of ethnic history in the form of common narratives (e.g., myths and stereotypes), transforming the ethnic component to suit new purposes. A continuity of ethnicity from pre-modern history is, therefore, not essential for modern societies as it (ethnicity) can always be (re-)introduced like other cultural borrowings from the past. A clearer understanding of how ethnicity functions in modern societies can help to resolve debates about the degree to which ethnicity is reinvented or is perennial in character (while incorporated into national identity).
Chapter 3 analyzes the connection between nationalism and war as ultimate expressions of insecurity and destruction. Although it is commonplace to blame nationalism for war, few studies have examined the conditions under which nationalism causes violent conflict and war. The main conclusion drawn from the literature reviewed in this chapter is that a new, societal sector of security is a useful lens—along with a state’s military, political, economic and environmental security—that can foresee the potential for violent conflict in a given society.
Studies of regional security and nationalist conflict inevitably take researchers into the larger domain of inter-state relations. There is a need, therefore, for methodological clarity concerning levels of analysis, similar to the concern central to International Relations theory. This study traces nationalist conflict from the individual and group level (Cossack movements) to the level of nation-state bureaucracy (governments) and then to sub-system (nation-sates) and system levels (security community of nation-states). These levels are further delineated and discussed in Chapter 3.
Chapter 3 also focuses on the New European Order as an expansion of the European Security Community and its threat to the emerging national identities of Eastern Europe. The enlargement of the EU and NATO, as well as the more assertive policies of Russia toward the countries of the former USSR, has made countries such as Ukraine a buffer between East and West. The re-emergence of “cold peace” rhetoric in place of the former Cold War rhetoric has relegated Ukraine, a country once called a “lynchpin of European security,” to the uneasy role of geopolitical buffer. At the same time, hybrid war waged by Russia on Ukraine as a nation-state since 2014 magnifies the threat to societal security as well as state security. With Ukrainian public opinion divided regarding the ability of power-holders to achieve victory and peace because of perceived corruption, the threat of a re-integration with the Eurasian Economic Union and the Russian supra-state nationalist project is existential.
The formation of new political and national identities in Ukraine must therefore be examined in the context of the establishment of a new European order hailed by the West and the new “multi-polar,” “post-West” world order promoted by Putin’s Russia. In Ukraine, profound popular disappointment with debt-fueled, market economic reforms favoring the oligarchic clans more than the relatively poor majority, and the implications of the customs restrictions that accompany EU enlargement may pose a threat to the Ukrainian national identity. To what extent do myths of a Ukrainian “Golden Age” harmonize with the idea of a “People’s Europe” if they do not bring jobs and prosperity?
On the one hand, pro-independence, nationalist elites promote the idea of the EU and NATO integration as a part of the Ukrainian national idea; on the other hand, some studies suggest that threats to Ukrainian national identity from a nationalist (neo-imperialist) Russia and the lack of a real prospect of joining the security community of the NATO-led Western Alliance escalates the security dilemma in Ukraine and might even lead to resolution in policies of nuclear deterrence, following the examples of India and Pakistan.
Threats to national identity threaten “societal security” which, as previously mentioned, is a dimension of state security linked to collective identity. Chapter 3 describes the identity process of the Ukrainian political elite, analyzing the election manifestos of presidential candidates as well as strategic documents relating to Ukrainian military doctrines and national security. This is related to existing studies of both Ukrainian mass national consciousness and possible future directions of the development of Ukrainian national identity. The analysis addresses the question of whether the legacy of Soviet thinking about nation/state-building and the new Western political and military dominance in Europe influences the way Ukrainians think of their future, in terms of national dignity, well-being, and security.
The concept of “societal security” was introduced originally by a group of scholars from the European Security Group at the Centre for Peace and Conflict Research in Copenhagen (1993). It was designed to draw attention to the significance for International Relations theory of identity politics:
Security studies have traditionally been concerned about relationships amongst collectivities, and we have shown that one can remain within this tradition and yet include completely new dynamics and insights through the elevation of society to the status of a referent object beside the state (Buzan et al 1998, 186).
In general, the issues raised by notions of societal security reflect threats to or influences upon social identity: it is about situations in which societies perceive a threat in identity terms. The authors admit that although a national identity is not necessarily dominant among other constructions of social identity, in specific situations it mobilizes and organizes the other identities around itself. These are first of all situations of threat, either real or imagined.
The concept of societal security is interlinked with the older concept of “security community” introduced by Karl Deutsch (1970). Deutsch’s “security community” is a community in which, over a long period of time, war becomes unimaginable or implausible among its members. The creation of a “security community” depends to