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8. Kravchuk to the Orange Revolution
The Victory of Civic Nationalism in Post-Soviet UkraineTARAS KUZIO

Ukraine’s 2004 presidential election and Orange Revolution was
facilitated by the role of civic nationalism. The inability to mobilize civic
nationalism in suf‹cient quantity in 1991–92 permitted the election of sovereign Communist Leonid Kravchuk and later centrist Leonid Kuchma.
The growth of a civic nationalist Ukrainian identity from 1992–2004 transformed the political landscape, permitting Viktor Yushchenko to be electedpresident.1
Civic and ethnic nationalists in Ukraine can be differentiated fairly
effectively based on their views on two issues, corresponding to the idea
proposed by Lowell Barrington in this volume’s introductory chapter thatnationalism involves both membership boundaries and territorial boundaries. First, they have different de‹nitions of the state, as either inclusive(civic) or exclusive (ethnic). Second, they either support Ukraine’s inherited borders (civic nationalists) or harbor a desire to change them (ethnic
Ukrainian, Russian nationalists, and Sovietophiles). This chapter is divided
into two sections, which deal separately with ethnic and civic nationalism
before and after independence.
Prior to independence, ethnic nationalists grouped within the Interparliamentary Assembly (IPA) demanded independence from the moment of
its arrival on Ukraine’s political scene in 1989. After Ukraine became an
independent state, the IPA transformed itself into the Ukrainian National
Assembly (UNA). As an ethnic nationalist movement, it was joined by several new parties.2 Civic nationalism only appeared as a phenomenon in
1990–91, although the Ukrainian Popular Movement for Restructuring187

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AFTER INDEPENDENCE

188(Rukh) was created in 1988. Rukh was composed of two wings (national
democratic political parties created by former political prisoners and thecultural intelligentsia) and adopted a platform of independence only in
October 1990. Rukh was joined in 1989–90 by the Democratic Platform of
the Communist Party of Ukraine (CPU), which created the centrist Partyof Democratic Revival and New Ukraine bloc. In 1990–91, the “Sovereign
Communists” also peeled off from the CPU. These two wings of the CPU
backed the transformation of the USSR into a confederation of sovereignstates until August 1991, after which they supported Rukh’s program of
independence. During 1988–91 civic nationalism in Ukraine therefore
expanded from a narrower to a wider base by incorporating all CPU supporters except “ Imperial Communists.”3
In the post-Soviet period, ethnic nationalists on the far right of the political spectrum could not convert the energy of the drive for independence
into an effective use of the state for implementing ethnic nationalist policies. Instead, the far right nationalists were marginalized following independence, while civic nationalist parties in the center and center right borrowed from them when convenient on issues of language, culture, andhistory. Ethnic nationalists on the left were likewise unsuccessful in theirpursuit of reunion with Russia and the development of an Eastern Slav
identity based on Russian language and culture. Instead, a civic nationbuilding approach became paradigmatic, with broad consensus about theneed to balance Ukrainian cultural revival with protection of minority cultural rights.
This does not mean that civic nationalists agreed on the details of thenation-building program. As in other former Communist states, the civic
nationalist movement divided into its ideological wings once independence
was achieved. But the central ideas of civic nationalism spread across thepolitical spectrum. Rukh narrowed into a center-right political party andwas joined by other national democratic offshoots (the Republican, Democratic, Reforms and Order, Christian Democratic, and other political parties). In the March 2002 elections both wings of the now-divided Rukhwere members of a wider, patriotic (civic nationalist), reformist Our
Ukraine bloc led by former National Bank governor and prime minister
Viktor Yushchenko, which came ‹rst in the proportional half of the elections with 23.57 percent.
During the ‹rst half of the 1990s, the national idea extended to the center ground of Ukrainian politics within which the Sovereign Communists

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congregated. Hence, Ukraine’s “parties of power” (i.e., parties close to theauthorities) are to be found among centrist (or “oligarchic”) parties. During the second half of the 1990s, the civic national idea continued moving
to the left and incorporated center-left and left-wing political parties committed to state independence, many of which were offshoots from the CPU
during its period of illegality (the Socialist and Peasant parties). After morethan a decade of independence only the radical left is in favor of Ukraine
joining the Russian-Belarusian union. The center left now holds similarviews to the center right on state independence for Ukraine and Russia.
This could be clearly seen in the 1999 presidential election, when a majority (52.2 percent) of those who supported CPU leader Petro Symonenko
also backed a union with Russia. Among supporters of Oleksandr Moroz’s
Socialists and President Leonid Kuchma, this ‹gure was only 30.2 and 26.7
percent respectively.4
This brief overview of the various components of nationalism in
Ukraine highlights its evolutionary nature, in both the late-Soviet and postSoviet periods. It also points out the necessity of thinking carefully about
one’s categorization of political parties as nationalist, both in general and interms of their civic and ethnic leanings. Scholars of Ukraine—and scholars
generally—face potential pitfalls when attempting to employ the label
nationalist either to a broad political movement or to a particular politicalparty. Parties on the left can be nationalists, and parties on the right neednot be ethnic nationalists. In this chapter, I outline a wider understandingof nationalism in Ukraine than is commonly discussed (see ‹g. 1 in the
appendix to this chapter). I explore these various themes and conclude
with lessons from the case of Ukraine about understanding nationalism
after independence.
Nations & Nationalism prior to Independence
Nationalism is a multifaceted concept that incorporates many differentde‹nitions. A central claim of this chapter is that it should be differentiatedbefore, and after, a state achieves independence. Although the tendency
among scholars has been to de‹ne nationalism in Ukraine as one continuous process from the second half of the 1980s until the present, thisapproach has serious ›aws. Nationalism prior to independence sought toestablish a newly independent state (e.g., Ukraine from the former USSR).
But nationalist movements for self-determination can be de‹ned as eitherAfter Independence: Making and Protecting the Nation in Postcolonial and Postcommunist States
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civic and inclusive, ethnic and exclusive, or—as is usually the case—incorporating both elements.
Although scholars and journalists have de‹ned as nationalists those who
defend a state from disintegration and oppose self-determination (e.g., Serbia in the former Yugoslavia), this serves merely to confuse the issue. Those
who seek to defend a multinational state or empire are best de‹ned as
imperialists—not nationalists—for they oppose both the self-determination of their own core state and that of the nonimperial nations.5 That
which has been commonly de‹ned as Russian nationalism is therefore, as
Motyl points out, a myth.6
Ukraine’s movement for self-determination evolved from two groups—
former dissident political prisoners and the cultural intelligentsia—after
Rukh was established in 1988. Rukh declared its support for self-determination, and thus became de facto a nationalist movement, but not until its
October 1990 congress. Prior to that, Rukh had supported the transformation of the USSR into a confederation of sovereign republics (Boris
Yeltsin’s preference even in December 1991). Rukh de‹ned itself as civic
and inclusive, and the Ukrainian nation as encompassing all of Ukraine’s
ethnic groups. The civic nationalist approach adopted by Rukh was a product of three factors. First, the dissident-political prisoner wing of Rukh had
a long tradition, dating back to the 1960s, of support for human rights.
Ukraine was home to the largest Helsinki Group of any of the Soviet
republics. In the Gulag, Ukrainian political prisoners, who were proportionately the largest of any Soviet ethnic group, developed close working
relations with Jewish and other prisoners. Second, the conservative, antiGorbachev Ukrainian Communist leader Volodymyr Shcherbytsky ruled
the republic from 1972 to 1989. Rukh and religious movements only developed into mass movements after his resignation in September 1989.
Finally, the large number of Russian-speaking Ukrainians and ethnic Russians in Ukraine in›uenced Rukh’s adoption of an evolutionary and nonradical program.
Not all political parties agreed with the evolutionary and civic approachof Rukh. Radical nationalist parties and movements emerged in westernand central Ukraine by 1989 and immediately championed self-determination and maximum opposition to the Soviet regime and all Soviet institutions. These groups united in the IPA and opposed Rukh’s participation in
the 1989 Congress of Peoples Deputies and the 1990 Ukrainian parliamentary and local elections as “collaboration” with an occupying regime.7 The

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IPA remained a minority movement and changed into a radical nationalist
party (the Ukrainian National Assembly) after December 1991.
Alongside the evolution of Rukh, the CPU began to divide into threegroups, particularly during 1990 and 1991. The ‹rst group was the Sovereign Communists. Led by Leonid Kravchuk, it championed Ukraine’s sovereignty over all-union institutions. In the March 1991 referendum,
Kravchuk added a question that obtained higher support for republican
sovereignty than the Mikhail Gorbachev question regarding a “renewedfederation.” The former Sovereign Communists remained unaf‹liated inthe ‹rst half of the 1990s, earning the group the label of party of power.
After 1994–96, this group naturally gravitated toward newly created centrist parties that had close ties with the establishment (Agrarians, Labor
Ukraine, Party of Regions) or took over existing ones (United Social
Democrats, Democratic Party, People’s Democratic Party [the former
PDRU]). As these were also the natural home of the Leonid Kuchma camp,
there was a convergence of groups one and two (the Sovereign Communists and the CPU Democratic Platform) in the second half of the 1990s. In
the October–November 1999 presidential election, Kravchuk backed
Kuchma, and in 2000 Kuchma led the nonleft majority in parliament withhis former parliamentary speaker, Ivan Pliushch, as the new speaker until it
dissolved during the “Kuchmagate” scandal after November 2000.8
The Democratic Platform comprised the second group. The young, radical, democratic wing of the CPU—with the support of the Komsomol—
broke off and formed the Party of Democratic Revival of Ukraine (PDRU).
The PDRU backed the transformation of the USSR into a confederation ofsovereign states, the same position as that of the Sovereign Communists
until August 1991. The PDRU created the New Ukraine bloc to unite othersmaller civic groups and political parties of a centrist orientation. New
Ukraine stood in “constructive opposition” to President Kravchuk(December 1991–July 1994) and thereby became the ideological base,
together with the Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs, that mounted
the successful challenge on behalf of Kuchma in the summer 1994 presidential elections.
Members of the former Democratic Platform peeled away from supporting Kuchma in the late 1990s because of his support for a new oligarchclass and the increasingly authoritarian nature of the regime, a process hastened by the revelations found in the “Kuchmagate” tapes made by a presidential guard in Kuchma’s of‹ce from 1998 to 2000. By the 2002 elections

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many of them were either members of the radical anti-Kuchma opposition(Yulia Tymoshenko’s Forum for National Salvation) or Yushchenko’s Our
Ukraine.
The third faction of the CPU was the “Imperial Communists.” As theideological heirs of Shcherbytsky, this group detested both groups one andtwo and Gorbachev. After the CPU was banned for supporting the putsch
in August 1991, it reformed as a new CPU in October 1993. The CPU
remains an orthodox, Sovietophile party that ‹nds it dif‹cult to come toterms with Ukrainian independence. During its period of illegality, theSocialist Party (SPU) and Peasant Party (SelPU) emerged as moderate offshoots that supported state independence. Their heyday was in 1994–99,
when their leaders (Oleksandr Moroz for the SPU and Oleksandr
Tkachenko for the SelPU) were parliamentary speakers. The CPU, SPU,
and SelPU opposed Kravchuk and Kuchma. In 2000, a pro-statehood
Communist Party of Ukraine Revived was established, probably with backing from the presidential administration.9
Thus, prior to independence, the Ukrainian nationalist movement that
supported self-determination was composed of three groups: (1) the radical
right (from 1989 on) adopted a platform of independence immediately in
1989 and espoused an ethnic, exclusive program of “Ukraine for Ukrainians!”; (2) Rukh (from 1990 on) adopted a platform of state independencein October 1990 based on a civic, inclusive program that linked nationaland human rights;10 and (3) the Sovereign Communists and Democratic
Platform (from 1991 on) championed a confederation of sovereign
republics until the August 1991 putsch (eleven months after Rukh dropped
this program). On August 24, 1991, the Sovereign Communists, led by parliamentary speaker Kravchuk, moved into the Rukh camp and supported
the parliamentary declaration of independence by an overwhelming constitutional majority vote.11
Between October 1990 and August 1991 the Ukrainian nationalist
movement for self-determination became a mass movement. The banningof the CPU in August 1991 removed the last obstacle to taking Ukraine outof the USSR and led to a united nationalist movement for self-determination from August to December 1991 that produced a 91 percent endorsement in the December 1 referendum.12 If we de‹ne as nationalists thosethat sought to establish an independent state, then radical nationalists,
Rukh, and the Sovereign Communists all joined the nationalist movement

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at different times during the three years leading up to independence. Of
these three groups, only the radical nationalists had an ethnic, exclusive
program. The other two (Rukh and the Sovereign Communists and Democratic Platform) always backed a civic, inclusive de‹nition of the nation.
The Ukrainian example, therefore, shows how a broad-based nationalist
movement for self-determination can simultaneously encompass both ethnic and civic nationalist ideologies (ethnic nationalism within the IPA andnational [civic] democracy within Rukh).

Nationalist Ideas in Ukraine after Independence
Who Are the “Nationalists”?
After a country achieves independence, the nationalist movement has
achieved its goal. In other words, as Ukrainian scholars and political party
activists are fond of pointing out, “the national idea has been ful‹lled.”13
What next? How should the national idea in an independent state bede‹ned? Who are the “we” and who are the “others”?14 De‹ning who are“nationalists” in the independent state is more complicated than de‹ning
nationalism for self-determination prior to independence. If we accept ade‹nition that all of those who actively support the continued independenceof the state are by de‹nition nationalists, then this group of people includes,
as it did in the preindependence era, both civic and ethnic nationalists.
Civic (also called pragmatic or state) nationalists are those who support
an inclusive de‹nition of the nation and range from the pro-statehood left
(SPU, SelPU) to the center right (national democrats such as Rukh). In theWest this has been described by Billig as “banal nationalism” because it has
become ingrained within societal culture and public consciousness, as seenin the aftermath of the terrorist attacks on the United States in September
2001.15 This spectrum is large and incorporates the former Sovereign Communists and “Democratic Platform Communists” who have congregatedin the center (Kravchuk, Kuchma), as well as national democrats and offshoots from the CPU (SelPU, SPU).16
Wilson argues that it is impossible for a “nationalist” to win the presidency in Ukraine.17 Using our de‹nition of civic (pragmatic) nationalists,
we can see how such a de‹nition is too narrow and ›awed. Civic nationalists have, in fact, won every presidential election in Ukraine (DecemberAfter Independence: Making and Protecting the Nation in Postcolonial and Postcommunist States
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1991, July 1994, November 1999, and 2004). In the ‹rst two cases civic
nationalists were pitted against each other: V’iacheslav Chornovil versus
Kravchuk (December 1991) and Kravchuk versus Kuchma (June–July1994).18 In the last, a civic nationalist, Kuchma, faced off against a Sovietophile, Petro Symonenko, the head of the CPU. In 2004, two civic nationalists faced each other—Yushenko and Yanukovych.
Civic nationalists have been divided over aspects of the national idea,
but as discussed in more detail in the following, they remain united indefense of national interests such as territorial integrity. A study of Russianpolitics argued that “pragmatic nationalism represents the standard view
one might expect the foreign policy elite to hold in any country.”19 Pragmatic nationalism has increasingly dominated Russian reformist circles
since 1993, with a program of Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS)
integration, promotion of Great Russia, and defense of national interests.20
A similar development emerged in Ukraine. D’Anieri’s study of Ukrainian security policy in the 1990s found that the ruling elites defended sovereignty over and above any bene‹ts of economic integration in the CIS.
Elites from all regions of Ukraine and different civic nationalist politicalparties were similarly concerned with “foreign economic penetration of
Ukraine and the potential for neocolonialism.”21 D’Anieri continues, “Thecoalition of forces that sees sovereignty as a preeminent goal is strong inparticular because it cuts across Ukraine’s other major political schisms.”22
In the October–November 1999 presidential elections the “pragmatic
nationalist” call to rely on one’s own national forces dominated the programs of most of the contenders.23
Unlike Malcolm, Pravda, Allison, and Light on Russia, D’Anieri does notde‹ne Ukraine’s ruling elite’s as pragmatic nationalists. Instead, D’Anieri falls
into the traditional trap of only de‹ning as nationalists western Ukrainian
national democrats, which serves to confuse readers as to who the “nationalists” are in Ukraine.24 He cannot argue that nationalism in parliament cuts
across regions and parties and at the same time claim that nationalists only
exist in western Ukraine among Ukrainophone national democrats.
Such a division of Ukrainian politics and parliamentary affairs into
“nationalists” and “Russophiles” is common among Western scholars.25
Ethnic nationalism, using this author’s de‹nition and that most commonly
found in Ukraine, is weak throughout Ukraine, including in its westernregion.26

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The Ideas of the Ethnic Nationalists, Ukrainian and Russian
Ethnic nationalists are the same as those who were de‹ned as such in thepreindependence era (radical right parties such as the IPA [UNA]). But
while scholars writing on nationalism in Ukraine usually adopt a similar
framework to that used by D’Anieri,27 I argue that the ethnic nationalists
also include Russian and Soviet nationalists. Russia’s policies of “externalterritory-claiming” were matched by ethnic Russian nationalists and Sovietophiles within Ukraine arguing that Ukraine had no right to exist as anindependent state but only in a vaguely de‹ned Eastern Slavic union or arevived USSR. Sovietophiles saw an Eastern Slavic union as a steppingstone to a revived USSR. The homeland for Russian nationalists in Ukraine
and Russian imperialists in Russia was clearly neither Ukraine nor theRussian Federation but an Eastern Slavic union, USSR, or tsarist empire.
Ethnic Russian nationalists include pan–Eastern Slavic and Russophile
parties that usually align themselves with the CPU, Progressive Socialists,
and internationalist fronts in regions such as the Donbas and Crimea.28
The presidential program of Oleksandr Bazyliuk, head of the Slavic Party(successor to the Civic Congress and organizer of the Congress of Russian
Organizations of Ukraine), de‹ned Ukraine as part of the Slavic world andhis party as patriotic.29 Although Bazyliuk denies that Ukrainians are a separate ethnic group,30 Wilson does not deem this suf‹cient to warrantde‹ning him and his party as nationalist, only Russophile.31 Clearly double
standards are at work here, as Ukrainians making similar comments about
Russians would be undoubtedly de‹ned as ethnic nationalists, or worse, by
these same scholars.
Russian nationalists in Ukraine have dif‹culty in accepting Ukraine’s
right to exist as an independent state. They vacillate between a belief thatthe three Eastern Slavs are merely regional branches of one Russian nation
or recognizing that a Soviet Ukrainian republican identity now exists thatharmed the “natural” uni‹cation of the three Eastern Slavic “Russian” peoples prior to 1917.
In arguing for the unity of the three Eastern Slavs, they are as much panRussianists as German nationalists in the 1930s were pan-Germanists inseeking to unite all German speakers in one state. Russian nationalists in
Ukraine see the three Eastern Slavs as all “Russians” (Russkii). The aim of
the Slavic Party “is identical to what nationalists strive for in Russia.”32

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In both the German and Eastern Slavic cases, nationalism is ethnic andprimordial, not civic, although a civic path to power can be used (e.g.,
Adolf Hitler in Germany in 1933 and his admirer, Alyaksandr Lukashenka,
in Belarus in 1994).33 Lukashenka’s ideology, Kolstø points out, is an“expression of skewed ethnic nationalism.”34 Other scholars have similarlyde‹ned the CPU in Ukraine as “Soviet national-socialism.”35
Russian ethnic nationalism in Ukraine is weak because many CPU supporters are Russi‹ed Ukrainians and ethnic Russian nationalism is weakthroughout the former USSR.36 In the 2002 elections, the two Russian
nationalist blocs (the Russia Bloc and For a Union of Ukraine, Belarus, andRussia) obtained a combined total of only 1.12 percent.37
As tables 1 and 2 show, the proportion of ethnic Ukrainians increases as
one moves across the political spectrum from left to right. Ethnic Ukrainian representation in the radical left is half that of ethnic Russians. The ethnic Ukrainian to ethnic Russian proportional mix is 2:1 (radical left), 3:1(center left), 5:1 (center right), and 18:1 (radical right).38
Russian nationalism in Ukraine has other de‹ning attributes, many ofwhich are jointly held with the radical left:39
denounces liberal values traditionally as “un-Russian”;
supports anti-Westernism;supports anti-Semitism;40
sees Russia as the natural leader of the Eastern Slavs;
defends the inherited postcolonial status quo and denounces as “nationalist” any attempts at af‹rmative action for Ukrainian culture andlanguage;fears a decline in the hegemony of Russian culture and language in
Ukraine and accuses the authorities of discrimination in policies
aimed at upgrading Ukrainian culture and language;saw, and still sees, no need to learn the titular language;
describes the decline of the titular languages in republics such as
Ukraine as “natural” and Russians are therefore not guilty for theRussi‹cation of other peoples;
believes Russians suffered more than others in the former USSR andthey never undertook any negative actions; andholds that the former USSR was never fully a Russian empire.
Ironically, Ukrainian ethnic nationalists share one idea with the ethnic
Russian nationalists in Ukraine: the rejection of post-Soviet Ukraine as theAfter Independence: Making and Protecting the Nation in Postcolonial and Postcommunist States
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homeland for Ukrainians. They, like all their counterparts in other European states, want to expand the borders of the state to its “ethnographic
borders.” As with Russian nationalists they seek to unite all those whomthey de‹ne as belonging to one ethnic group within one state. Such a policy would bring confrontation with all of Ukraine’s neighbors. Ethnic
Ukrainian nationalists seek to incorporate territory in Poland, Slovakia,
Moldova, Belarus, and Russia into a “greater Ukraine.” Ethnic Russian
nationalists and Sovietophiles would like to see Ukraine included within
the Russian-Belarusian union or a revived USSR.
Ukrainian ethnic nationalists strongly oppose pan–Eastern Slavism.
Nevertheless, one party, the UNA, turned the pan–Eastern Slavic framework on its head by arguing in favor of it as the basis for a Ukrainian empire
centered upon Kyiv—not Moscow (a city six hundred years younger)—asa modern successor to the medieval state of Kyiv Rus’.
The Ideas of the Civic Nationalists
After independence is achieved, the unity of the nationalist movement,even a civic nationalist movement, can come under stress. Different groups
have alternative approaches to dealing with key questions for the state—
how to de‹ne the nation and how to establish full control over its terri-

TABLE 1. Ethnic Self-Identification of the Electorate (in percentages)

UkrainianRussian
Other

Radical Left

Center Left

Center Right

Radical Right

62.9
33.9
3.2

70.2
23.6
6.1

80.1
14.9
5.0

91.4
5.0
3.6

Source: O. Haran and O. Mayboroda, Ukraiins’ki Livi: Mizh Leninizmom I Sotsial-Demokratieu(Kyiv: KM Academia, 2000), 204.

TABLE 2. Language Group and Political Affiliation (in percentages)
Language Group Radical Left
Ukrainian
Russophone
UkrainianRussian
Other

Center Left

Center Right

Radical Right

31.7
30.9

39.5
30.7

52.7
27.1

76.3
14.6

29.8
7.6

20.7
9.0

12.1
8.2

3.7
5.5

Source: O. Haran and O. Mayboroda, Ukraiins’ki Livi: Mizh Leninizmom I Sotsial-Demokratieu(Kyiv: KM Academia, 2000), 204.

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tory—which lead to clashes over policy, programs, and frames of reference.
Civic nationalists in Ukraine differ on how to deal with foreign and domestic threats to territorial integrity, how much to participate in European
integration, and whether to grant territorial autonomy to minorities in anotherwise unitary state. The biggest differences, however, concern how tode‹ne the “we” (nation), as based upon one or two titular nations or one or
two state languages.
Dealing with External Threats
Civic nationalists remain divided over how to deal with external threats.
Although they remain committed to defending in the last resort Ukraine’s
territorial integrity by any means (the president is, after all, the guarantorof the state’s integrity), they differ over how to deal with threats. National
democrats adopt a tougher line against these threats than centrists and thecenter left, particularly if they emanate from Russia.
Nevertheless, Ukraine’s civic nationalist elites have consistently rejected
Russian proposals for maintaining ill-de‹ned “internal” CIS borders bytreating them in the same manner as external borders; they have also
opposed dual citizenship and demanded that the borders be de‹ned as
integral not only within the context of the CIS. Employing Barrington’snationalism variants presented in the introduction, Ukraine, during
1991–97, therefore adopted a policy of “sovereignty-protecting” vis-à-vis
Russian claims to its territory (Crimea) and Russia’s refusal to accept its
inherited borders. Ukraine has consistently denounced Russian attempts at“co-national-protecting” in the former USSR and has rejected any attempts
by Moscow to speak on behalf of its Russians or “compatriots” (Russophones).
does ukraine need europe to be modern?
Ukrainian nationalism was originally a reaction against modernization thatwas tantamount to assimilation for Ukrainians. In the Soviet era, attacks on
Ukrainian “bourgeois nationalism” included anybody or anything nationally conscious, or culturally, ideologically, and politically different from theCommunist Party line. In independent Ukraine, civic nationalists are in theprocess of developing a nationalism that is an “ideology of national solidarity” but also a “doctrine of modernization.”41
Attempts have been made since the late 1990s to make civic nationalism
into a doctrine of modernization that would lead to Ukraine’s reintegration

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into Europe.42 Linking modernization to the diffusion of civic nationalism
and integration from the center to the periphery would be consistent with
the Karl Deutsch diffusionist model popular until the 1960s. Such a model
has been elaborated by Viktor Medvedchuk, head of the United Social
Democrats and former deputy speaker of parliament.43 A modernization
doctrine that links political and economic reform to a foreign policy ofreturning to Europe is obviously not to the liking of left-wing civic nationalists, such as the Socialists. This is because it rejects much of the Soviet
legacy and supports the creation of a Western-style liberal democratic market economy.
territorial autonomy for minorities?
In Ukraine, the center right, as in other liberal democratic states (except in
the United States, Canada, and Germany), opposes federalism and territorial autonomy for minorities. Its support for a unitary state is premised
upon a vision of the French Jacobin state that recognizes only individual,
not collective, rights. Centrists and the left are more willing to countenanceterritorial autonomy as a quid pro quo to take the heat out of the separatist
movement but remain divided over federalism. Federalism is largely
opposed by Ukraine’s elites, and plans to establish an upper parliamentarychamber (which was allegedly backed by a majority in the April 2000 referendum) are not popular across the entire political spectrum (as seen in discussions in 2003 and 2004 over presidential political reform proposals to
introduce an unelected upper Council of Regions in parliament). Civic
nationalists all remain united on the question of state- and institutionbuilding, which is closely tied to expanding the center’s control over its territory and ensuring that its policies are implemented at the local level.
who are “we”? nation-building and the difficult issues of religion
and language
The civic de‹nition of the nation has dominated state policy in Ukraine
since independence, with Russian and Ukrainian ethnic nationalists andSovietophiles marginalized from the policy process. Nevertheless, civic
nationalists within the ruling elite in Ukraine only reached a consensus onnation-building during the course of the second half of the 1990s. Civic
nationalists all desired some kind of nation-building and national integration, but they differed over how this should be undertaken.44 Both the consensus on the need for nation-building and these differences over it in prac-After Independence: Making and Protecting the Nation in Postcolonial and Postcommunist States
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tice are a re›ection of the country’s regional disparities, the in›uence ofRussian-speaking Ukrainians, and the colonial legacy.
A divided titular nation inevitably led to evolutionary, moderate policies, and a certain level of agreement developed. Few civic nationalists, forexample, supported the de‹nition of Ukraine as a state with two titular
nations (Russians and Ukrainians), as this would transform Ukraine into
an Eastern Slavic state. Those that supported such a de‹nition stressed thebene‹ts of Ukrainian-Russian biculturalism.
Liberal Russophiles who defended such a de‹nition united in the SocialLiberal SLON election bloc in the 1998 elections with the slogan “Let’s
Defend Russian Culture for the Peoples of Ukraine.”45 Such a rallying cry,however, attracted the support of only 0.91 percent of the voters.46 The July
1996 constitution de‹ned Ukraine as a country with only one titular
nation, following the long tradition of the Soviet nationality policy ofassigning a republican homeland to each major ethnic group with a foreign
border.
The inculcation of common values, myths, and customs also proved to
be unproblematical for civic nationalists in Ukraine. The only alternative toa Ukrainian national historiography that stressed Ukraine’s distinctivenessfrom Russia and its Europeanness was that espoused by ethnic Russian
nationalists and Sovietophiles from the nineteenth century to the 1980s,
with a brief interlude in the 1920s when the Soviet regime pursued a policyof indigenization.
A Russian nationalist or Sovietophile historiography and myths rejected
the very idea of a Ukrainian ethnic group or an independent existence from
Russia and therefore could not be used by Ukrainian nation-builders.
Western scholars, though, have been quick to negatively label this national
historiography as nationalist, while de‹ning Russophile historiography as
merely the “traditional Russian interpretation” or “Soviet version.”47 Laitin
calls Mykhailo Hrushevs’kyi, the doyen of Ukrainian national historiography, the author of a “nationalist bible.”48
One of the nation-building questions surrounds religion. Ukraine hassought to create an autocephalous, united Orthodox Church as an attributeof independence. Efforts to make the Ukrainian Orthodox Church—Kyiv
Patriarch the basis for such unity failed in 1992–94. The largest of the three
Orthodox Churches in Ukraine, in terms of parishes, remains the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, which is under the jurisdiction of the Moscow Patri-

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Kravchuk to the Orange Revolutionarchate, though polls give the Ukrainian Orthodox Church—Kyiv Patriarch far greater popular support.
After 2000, efforts were again underway to unite all three Orthodox
Churches in Ukraine into an autocephalous church. Such a move wasbacked by the Constantinople patriarch, who does not recognize the cannonity of the transfer of the Kyiv Metropolinate from Kyiv to Moscow in
1686 or the Russian Orthodox Church’s jurisdiction over Ukraine. Not
surprisingly, the main opponents of an autocephalous Ukrainian Orthodox
Church are ethnic Russian nationalists and Sovietophiles, who see this as
further evidence of Ukraine cutting its ties to Russia.49
But it is language that has proven to be the most divisive and complicated issue for civic nation-builders in Ukraine. A consensus was reachedby Ukrainian civic nationalist elites that an independent state needed its
own language. The loss of a national language is widely held to lead to theloss of national identity and independence, as seen most starkly in Belarus.
The alternatives for Ukraine’s nation-builders and civic nationalists are as
follows:
1. Ukrainian as the sole state language: Russian would be squeezed out
completely in favor of Ukrainian by removing the colonial legacy ofRussi‹cation. Such a policy, similar to that adopted in the Baltic
states, was never seriously contemplated and was only applied inwestern Ukraine.
2. Ukrainian as the sole state language applied differently by region:
This policy was adopted in the 1989 Soviet Ukrainian law “On Languages” and reaf‹rmed in the 1996 constitution.50 Such a policy foresaw the continued use of Russian but at the same time allowed for thecontinued expansion of Ukrainian. Although some of the postcolonial legacy would be tackled through af‹rmative action, the legacy
would never be completely removed except in western Ukraine. The
provision of Ukrainian in education has gradually expanded
throughout the 1990s in all regions except the Donbas and the
Crimea.51
3. Ukrainian and Russian as two state languages: Such a policy was only
ever backed by ethnic Russian nationalists and Sovietophiles, particularly the CPU.52 Russian nationalists and Sovietophiles saw it as an
attempt to “maintain the hegemonic status of the (Russian) minority

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in the linguistic-cultural sphere.”53 Precisely for this reason, Ukrainian civic nationalists opposed the introduction of two state languages
because they understood that such a ‹ctional equality, as in Belarus,
would maintain the domination of Russian. The attitude of different
political parties to the language question can be ascertained fromtables 3 and 4.
Some in Ukraine, and many Western scholars, have de‹ned a policy of
only one state language—Ukrainian—in a country with a large number of
Russophones as “ethnic” and tantamount to Ukraine pursuing “nationalizing” policies that deviate from its proclaimed aim of building a civic state.54
But a civic state, if it has an inclusive citizenship and franchise, can be basedon a Ukrainian or Ukrainian-Russian ethnocultural core. Either policy
decision and framework could be de‹ned as civic.
The de‹nition of a civic state rests not on whether a state has one or two
state languages or indeed if it has one or two titular nations. Most scholars
de‹ne how civic a state is in terms of the inclusiveness of a state’s citizenship laws and the electoral franchise. All civic states are not purely civic but
constructed on the basis of an ethnocultural core (in the case of some, twocores [Belgium]).55
TABLE 3. Support for Languages within the Ukrainian Political Spectrum (in percentages)

Russian as asecond statelanguage
Russian as an
official
language

Radical Left

Center Left

Center Right

Radical Right

37.4

26.4

15.7

1.9

36.4

31.0

25.6

10.2

Source: O. Haran and O. Mayboroda, Ukraiins’ki Livi: Mizh Leninizmom I Sotsial-Demokratieu(Kyiv: KM Academia, 2000), 204.
Note: Russian as a second state language would make it on a par with Ukrainian, which has been
the sole state language since 1989. As an official language it would have recognition only in some
restricted fields and in some regions of Ukraine.

TABLE 4. Languages Used within the Ukrainian Political Spectrum (in percentages)

UkrainianRussianRadical Left

Center Left

Center Right

Radical Right

36.8
63.2

44.0
56.0

58.1
41.9

79.4
20.9

Source: O. Haran and O. Mayboroda, Ukraiins’ki Livi: Mizh Leninizmom I Sotsial-Demokratieu(Kyiv: KM Academia, 2000), 204.

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In the Ukrainian case, scholars have been tempted to characterize thestate as “ethnic” because it only has one constitutionally de‹ned state language and titular nation. A Ukrainian state de‹ned in such a manner thatsimultaneously adopts af‹rmative action for Ukrainian language and culture, has a Ukrainian ethnocultural core, and respects national minority
rights and regional differences can still be de‹ned as civic.56

The Nation & Nationalism after Independence: Political Parties
National Democrats on the Right: Are They the Only “Real” Nationalists?
In Ukraine, the center-right parties are often disparaged by scholars as“nationalists.”57 What such scholars mean by this is ethnic nationalists,
with all the negative connotations this type of nationalism carries. Of particular relevance here is Rukh, which Kubicek claims is “the largest party
with a nationalist orientation in Ukraine today.”58 Are then only Ukrainophone political parties such as Rukh to be de‹ned as nationalists?
Laitin thinks so and argues that only “nationalist deputies” opposed thede‹nition of “peoples of Ukraine” (narod Ukraiiny). These Ukrainophone“vigilantes” allegedly use “nationalist threats” and “provocations” against
Russophones that “instills shame and guilt in many russophone Ukrainians.”59 “Ukrainian nationalists,” Arel believes, see Russophones as victimsof Soviet nationality policies (which they are) and thereby believes that they
will only reacquire national consciousness through becoming Ukrainophones (which is not the case).60 Arel believes that Kravchuk’s policies
undermined his commitment to a civic state so that by 1994 “Kravchuk was
widely seen as a partisan of the nationalizing state.” Therefore, Kravchuk
lost the 1994 presidential elections to ascendant left-wing forces and a“‹erce anti-nationalist campaign.”61
This use of the label nationalist to associate the center-right parties with(bad) ethnic nationalism is a loose use of the term. Labeling all center-rightparties as nationalist (and only Ukrainophones as nationalists) places themin the same camp as the extreme right. Rukh and the other center-rightpolicies have been labeled (bad ethnic) nationalists because of their support
for righting some of the wrongs committed against the Ukrainian language
and culture during tsarist and Soviet rule through af‹rmative action.
This is a common policy position in all postcolonial countries. It alsoneed not be ethnic nationalism but rather can be one wing of civic nation-

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alism. As Barrington’s introduction makes clear, all national identities—
whether civic or ethnic—need common cultural features to help unify
groups. Pursuing policies designed to resurrect particular features need not
be ethnic nationalism, especially when considered as part of a broader set ofpolicies favorable to minority rights and pursued within an inclusive
framework.
Downplaying the positions of Rukh and the center right on minority
rights also means that such labeling is factually incorrect. Rukh and centerright parties have always been strong advocates of polyethnic rights fornational minorities and group rights for those who live compactly inde‹ned territories (e.g., Tatars in the Crimea, Hungarians in Transcarpathia, and Romanians in Chernivtsi oblast). The Ukrainian centerright parties do not advocate the disenfranchisement of ethnic Russians or
the total removal of Russian language and culture from Ukraine.
Even many former political prisoners (who dominated the commandingheights of new national democratic parties) have always been strong advocates of minority rights. Rukh has supported a de‹nition of the nation thatde‹nes everybody in Ukraine as a citizen regardless of their nationality.62
While supporting the introduction of Ukrainian into all walks of life (asstated in the June 1996 constitution) Rukh also “guarantee[d] the development of the Russian language, the languages and cultures of all nationalities.”63 Indeed, Jaworsky believes that one of the two factors that prevented
the outburst of interethnic con›ict in Ukraine was its political parties,“which quickly reached a consensus on the need to provide guarantees forthe rights of ethnic minorities in Ukraine.”64
In addition, Ukraine’s national democrats do not espouse the policies
that are commonly promoted by Europe’s new nationalist right. These
include hostility to the European Union, xenophobia, anti-immigration
policies, racism, distrust of parliamentary politics, neocorporatist economic policies, and state intervention. Ukraine’s center right (i.e., Our
Ukraine) would never support the “Third Way” of Europe’s nationalist
right. Third Way politics in Ukraine can be best summarized with thenationalist slogan of “Neither Moscow nor Washington!” Such views are
the preserve of two groups in Ukraine: “pragmatic” oligarch centrists andthe populist-right Yulia Tymoshenko bloc. The Tymoshenko Bloc includes
the populist-right Fatherland Party, led by Tymoshenko. Her party split
from the populist-left Hromada Party after it went into decline when former prime minister Pavlo Lazarenko ›ed abroad in 1999. Tymoshenko’sAfter Independence: Making and Protecting the Nation in Postcolonial and Postcommunist States
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Fatherland Party gained adherents and a political niche in 1999–2002 fromthose who had backed Yevhen Marchuk’s failed 1999 presidential campaign, such as veteran dissident Levko Lukianenko. The Fatherland Party
merged with Stepan Khmara’s populist-right Conservative Republican
Party in 2002.
Ukraine’s center-right parties are the staunchest advocates of Ukraine’s
full integration into transatlantic and European structures and espousemoderate free market economic policies.65 These policies are to befound within Yushchenko’s Our Ukraine 2002 election bloc that incorporates Rukh and other center-right parties and in Yushchenko’s presidential program.66
Centrists and the National Idea
Centrists only came on the scene after Ukraine achieved independence.
They grew out of the “Democratic Platform” and “Sovereign Communists”
wings of the CPU, regional interests, and industrialist groups. The earliest
centrist groups were those linked to the PDRU and its New Ukraine blocthat backed Kuchma in the 1994 and 1999 presidential elections. Other
political parties have adopted either regional titles (Crimean Party of Economic Revival and the Party of Regions) or social democratic and liberallabels.
After 2000, parliament was led by a speaker, ‹rst deputy speaker, anddeputy speaker from centrist parties with close ties to the local or national
establishment and therefore termed parties of power. These include theParty of Regions in the Donbas, Agrarians (renamed People’s Party) inwestern and central Ukraine, and Social Democratic United Party (SDPU)
in Kyiv and Transcarpathia. The Party of Regions is led by former Donetsk
governor and prime minister Viktor Yanukovych.
Centrist political parties that backed Kuchma in the 1999 presidential
elections see “centrism” as an ideology that backs Ukraine’s independence(i.e., civic nationalism), the “consolidation of Ukraine as a modern European state,” and accelerating political and economic reform.67 In otherwords, centrist political parties defer to the national democrats on questions of symbols, myths, and ethnocultural attributes of the state, while
seeking to build a new civic nationalism that both integrates nationally andmodernizes economically and politically. This centrist “uni‹cation ideology” is pro-statehood and pro–economic reform, providing “the basis toachieve general national consensus.”68 While economically liberal, centrist

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political parties may also be authoritarian politically, a feature common to“parties of power” in Russia.
In contrast to national democrats, centrist political parties give greater
emphasis to individual over collective or state rights, including those of any
ethnic group. They often deny that the state needs to possess any ethnocultural character, opening them to charges of cosmopolitanism. The equalityof all ethnic groups is championed, and they therefore do not like the terms
titular nation and national minorities because these divide Ukraine into ethnic Ukrainians and others. They also recognize the multinational characterof the state, something Kuchma championed after 1994. Federalism wasoriginally popular among them but has declined in favor of a decentralized
unitary state that is the current policy of the state.69 They support ›exible
language policies that take into account the inherited ethnocultural situation in the regions (whereas national democrats would like to change thepostcolonial situation through af‹rmative action throughout Ukraine).
Language problems, they believe, can be resolved locally, taking into
account the views of the local inhabitants.70
These policies are clearly recognizable as those that have been backed by
Ukraine’s ruling elites during the 1990s. At the same time, centrists do support the gradual expansion of the Ukrainian language in education andwould like Russophone Ukrainians to at least know Ukrainian. They do not
oppose the national historiography, myths, and legends backed by national
democrats. The national hymn, symbol, myths, and ›ag are also elementsof nation-building that centrists have been happy to accept from thenational democratic camp. Their quarrel with the national democratic
camp is largely over language policies, although both camps recognize thevalue of language to national identity.
The Left and the National Idea
Discussions of nationalism in Ukraine tend to ignore the left. But a large
section of the Ukrainian political spectrum on the left is supportive of
Ukrainian state independence and can also therefore be de‹ned as civic
nationalist. This left-wing tradition has long historical roots in Ukraine
going back to the late nineteenth century. Patriotism and civic nationalism
can, after all, be de‹ned in different ways. Kas’ianov points out that the ‹rst
calls for Ukrainian independence came from the Ukrainian Marxist intelligentsia in Galicia and the socialist intelligentsia in eastern Ukraine.71
In Ukraine, the center left is now composed of four competing social

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Kravchuk to the Orange Revolution

democratic parties, one of which had close ties to the “party of power”
establishment (USDPU). In addition, the oligarchic, antipresidential Hromada and the propresidential Agrarian Party can also be included within
this spectrum. To the immediate left of these parties, the Socialist and Peasant parties can be de‹ned as pragmatic and are evolving away from thecommunists toward civic nationalist positions. Their evolution toward
civic nationalist positions has occurred since the 1994 elections.
the opposition of the left to neoliberal economics and neoliberalinternational organizations
Left-wing nationalism in Ukraine is similar to that espoused by Mustafa
Kemal Atatürk in Turkey, Gamel Abdel Nasser in the Middle East, and traditional anti-American left-wing nationalism in Latin America. The left in
Latin America, like in Ukraine, is critical of neoliberal policies not only forsocioeconomic reasons but also because of the damage it in›icts on the“nation.” Criticism leveled at international ‹nancial institutions rests on
the impact of their policies on society, sovereignty, and “the ability of thenation to determine its own fate.”72 Patriots should not only shout how
much they love Ukraine (i.e., national democrats), former parliamentary
chairman Oleksandr Tkachenko argues, but should learn how to do “everything that is the most advantageous for the state.”73
The Ukrainian left parties, as in all postcolonial countries, remain critical of international ‹nancial institutions, a factor in›uenced by decades ofanti-Western Soviet propaganda. The Progressive Socialists believe thatinternational capital is leading Ukraine to “a total national catastrophe, theloss of statehood, enslavement and colonization.” After this, “the colonization of Ukraine will be completed by the hob nail boots of NATO troops.”74
Protesting against the latest economic program sponsored by the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the Communists believe that it “threatens theexistence of our state as an independent and sovereign state.” Condemning
the Ukrainian government’s “capitulation to world capitalism,” it called
upon the parliament “to protect our people and Ukraine from theencroachment of national and foreign enslavers!”75 This is indeed richcoming from a party that seeks itself to subvert Ukrainian independence.
This ruining of Ukraine by Kuchma on behalf of the IMF (or “international capital”) is a common theme within left-wing civic nationalism andSoviet and Russian ethnic nationalism.76 Socioeconomic reforms in
Ukraine, conducted with the assistance of the IMF and “Western advisers”

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led to a “satanic blitzkreig” that has resulted in a decline in Ukraine’s population from ‹fty-two to forty-eight million. “We are now being presented
with genocide against our own people,” Communist leader Symonenko
claimed.77 Socialist leader Oleksandr Moroz’s aide, Ivan Bokyi, believes
that it is Kuchma’s socioeconomic policies “which are destroying independence, sowing social tensions.”78 Moroz’s 1999 presidential election program denounced the “immoral ruination of one’s motherland and thephysical extermination of millions of citizens.” Ukraine’s revival would beundertaken by “liquidating the banditocratic regime” and placing “trust in
one’s people, its talents and traditions, and in the potential of the Fatherland.”79 The Progressive Socialists also issued a statement, “On Political
Genocide in Ukraine,” with a call to commemorate the “memory of the victims of genocide in Ukraine.”80 They are here, of course, not referring to
the arti‹cial famine of 1933, which led to the deaths of seven million people under Joseph Stalin, but to the decline in Ukraine’s population during
the 1990s.
Such policies, aided and abetted domestically, are “transforming
Ukraine into a colonial state”81 and into a “protectorate of international‹nancial oligarchs and NATO’s puppet.”82 The IMF, the left believes, isundertaking a “veiled form of colonisation and economic plunder.”83
Symonenko believes that Ukraine has already lost its economic independence and is forced to do the bidding of international ‹nancial organizations, NATO, and “overseas lords.” Government programs and presidential decrees “are only translations into the Ukrainian language of demandsby the IMF in return for successive ‹nancial-narcotic injections.” The main
outcome of this is that “the colonization of Ukraine continues.”84 Symonenko argues that “our elite acts like a colonial administration” that robs
from a colony to provide for a future luxurious lifestyle in the West.85
These denunciations turn Kuchma’s arguments on their head by accusinghim (not the left) of endangering Ukraine’s sovereignty and thereby promoting the left as defenders of Ukraine’s state independence (civic nationalism). For the radical left, Ukraine would be better served with republican
sovereignty within a revived USSR.
In the ideological arsenal of the left, international capital can refer toWestern, domestic, and Russian capital. The left claims that the West is
attempting to “eliminate Ukraine as a potential competitor,” yet it has also
been distrustful of Russian oligarchs, particularly of those close to former
Russian president Boris Yeltsin.86 Obeying the dictate of the IMF and theAfter Independence: Making and Protecting the Nation in Postcolonial and Postcommunist States
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West threatens Ukraine’s sovereignty because “positions in the Cabinet of
Ministers are not decided by the President of Ukraine but some Washington uncle.”87 The left is also a strong supporter of the protectionism ofdomestic industry. Such policies are not only found in Ukraine. Protectionism is a “quintessentially nationalist discourse,” a study found of theera in France of the Socialist president François Mitterand.88
the left and ties to russia
Contrary to what is usually perceived, the left parties are not in favor of amilitarily weak Ukraine. The pro-statehood, civic nationalist wing (SPU,
SelPU) supports Ukraine’s nonbloc status and does not want Ukraine tojoin either the CIS or NATO military bloc. Soviet nationalists (CPU, Progressive Socialists) seek to join with Russia and Belarus in a “common(nuclear) shield” against NATO.89 Tkachenko is critical of the destructionof sections of Ukraine’s military industrial complex because “now, powerful neighbors do not want to reckon with our country as a weak state.”90
Tkachenko has strongly denied any comparison between himself andLukashenka.91 Lukashenka minimizes differences between Belarusians andRussians and thereby sees no need for a border between both states (or with
Ukraine; Belarus refuses to ratify the Ukrainian-Belarusian border treaty).
Tkachenko, on the other hand, insisted that the Russian Duma ratify the
May 1997 Ukrainian-Russian treaty—which it did in December 1998, followed by the Federation Council two months later. This legally codi‹ed theinherited borders from Soviet Ukraine. Tkachenko therefore argues that he“dotted the i’s on the question of Ukrainian independence.”92 The
rati‹cation of the treaty led to the arrival of an “independent country(Ukraine) with its own borders and territory.”93 This meant, Tkachenko
argues, that Russian-Ukrainian cooperation could advance between both
independent countries.
Tkachenko believes, with some justi‹cation, that Russia’s acceptance of
Ukraine as an independent state began only after both houses of its parliament rati‹ed the treaty and thereby accepted the inherited territorial statusquo from the former USSR. Tkachenko rebuts accusations that he favors arevived USSR, which, he believes, is contradicted by his insistence that Russia ratify the treaty with Ukraine, thereby recognizing the border as a prerequisite before cooperation could progress between them.94 Tkachenko istherefore convinced that “the Ukrainian people will never turn away fromthis glorious achievement [of an independent Ukraine] and have a chanceAfter Independence: Making and Protecting the Nation in Postcolonial and Postcommunist States
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to impart with it.”95 The left parties turn the argument around and argue
that it is Kuchma, and his ruling elites, who are likely to lose Ukraine its
independence.
Moroz’s party, established in October 1991 when the Communists werestill banned (August 1991–October 1993), has grown into what it de‹nes as“a pro-state party.”96 The gulf between the pro-statehood SPU and theSoviet nationalist, antistatehood CPU grew during the “Kuchmagate” crisis. The SPU played a central role in exposing the misdemeanors found on
the tapes and remained in radical opposition to Kuchma. The CPU, on theother hand, saw a greater threat in Yushchenko than from Kuchma and theoligarchs. Only after the 2002 elections, which saw the CPU presence inparliament halved, did the CPU join the radical antipresidential SPU and
Yulia Tymoshenko bloc.
Moroz has emphasized a belief that the policies pursued by Kravchuk
and Kuchma have led to disunion in society. Support for independence wasstrongly linked to the degree to which citizens have faith and trust in theirstate. Independence was therefore being undermined by Kuchma’s policies, even though it was “historically justi‹ed,” and if these policies were
continued, it would lead to the loss of Ukrainian independence. The October 1999 presidential elections were “a chance to choose independence.”“Independence,” as de‹ned by the left, would be “real,” no longer dependent upon “foreign advisers” (i.e., the IMF and other international institutions) who have conducted “economic and social experiments by politicalmaniacs.” Moroz’s 1999 election program called upon Ukrainians to resist“turning Ukraine into a colony, an appendage to NATO.” Although it welcomed “good neighborly fraternal economic and political relations” with
Russia, Belarus, and other Slavic states, it fell far short of sacri‹cing
Ukraine’s sovereignty in a union.97 According to Moroz, Ukraine should
not be assigned to any kind of “special zone” (i.e., a Russian “sphere ofin›uence”).98
To save Ukraine, the left proposed that a “coalition of national patriotic forces” be established “who can take upon themselves the responsibilities for the fate of both the state and the people.”99 The skills of “patriotic” Ukrainians should be pooled to produce a national program for
Ukraine’s revival in order to reject foreign advisers.100 In such a program,“national interests must dominate in the work of all branches of government.”101 Achieving a “genuine independent state” required “a steadfast
majority of true patriots and true people placed in the highest legislativeAfter Independence: Making and Protecting the Nation in Postcolonial and Postcommunist States
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Kravchuk to the Orange Revolution

body of the state.”102 A national program should be advanced that would
unite Ukrainians on the basis of patriotism in order for Ukraine to betruly “a sovereign and economically independent country.”103 The continued decline in the economy “was a threat to our state sovereignty” andwould be rescued by “true experts and patriots” whose duty would be to“rescue the state.” “The president must become an example of honor, diligence, and patriotism for the people,” Tkachenko told Mykolaiv oblast
leaders.104
The evolution of the left toward civic nationalism was evident in the
joint appeal by four presidential candidates (Moroz, Tkachenko, Yevhen
Marchuk, and Volodymyr Oliynyk) on the August 24, 1999, anniversary of
Ukraine’s independence. The joint appeal was made symbolically in Kaniv,
the birthplace of Ukraine’s national bard, Taras Shevchenko. The appeal isnoticeable in that it never once mentions socialism, yet it is permeated by
civic nationalism. They felt that a new executive needed to be elected as a“rescuer of the state”: “It is visible that, if the current president remains,
our state will be ‹nally ruined and Ukraine will lose its sovereignty.” They
therefore called upon Ukrainians to unite because “the Fatherland is indanger!”: “We will rise together and make Ukraine a rich, strong, andrespected country in the world.”105
the left and culture in ukraine
A common misconception among scholars is that the Ukrainian left is
opposed to nation-building, Ukrainian language, and culture. To what
degree is this the case? The left and the “Kaniv-4” bemoan the lack ofnational consolidation and unity under Kuchma. They therefore place
great emphasis upon building greater unity not only between different
branches of the ruling elite but also between different regions of Ukraine.
Thus, they propose that different regions should be harmonized within an
overall common national identity and national idea. The language problem
would be “solved,” Moroz promised if he was elected president, andUkrainians would become “united and consolidated.”106
A national idea that unites social, economic, political, and national factors could therefore be developed as a means of uniting and mobilizing
Ukrainians to rally around a program developed as a left-wing Third Way.
It would have to “enrich nation wide values” and “incorporate our Ukrainian mentality.”107 The revival of Ukrainian culture and language is a central
plank of Ukraine’s national and economic revival in order that “our peopleAfter Independence: Making and Protecting the Nation in Postcolonial and Postcommunist States
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will never become the fertilizer of the future, or anonymous Ivans who do
not remember their ancestry.”108
A “union of popular and patriotic forces” with the Socialists as its core
could develop a national idea, Moroz believes.109 A national idea that promoted ethnic hatred or forcefully inculcated Western ideas would notwork, Socialists argue. Instead, a national idea incorporated within statebuilding, which maintains “national traditions” and maintains one’s “originality” (i.e., language and culture), “will never lose its actuality, itsvalue.”110 All decisions by Ukraine’s leaders should therefore be based
upon the “Ukrainian people’s will,” which includes national interests, historical experience, and traditions.111
Conclusion: Civic Nationalism in Ukraine and Lessons from Its Victory
In this chapter, I have divided the discussion of nationalist ideas and parties
between a nationalist movement prior to independence (seeking self-determination) and the civic nationalists who have attempted to engage innation-building and integration after independence. The two periods of
Ukrainian nationalist development are clearly different and should not be
confused.
In the Ukrainian case, the preindependence nationalist movement
expanded from radical right ethnic nationalists in 1989 to the civic nationalist Rukh and the Sovereign Communists and Democratic Platform of the
CPU in 1990–91. Civic nationalism was con‹ned to the center-right movement Rukh until 1991, spread to the center in 1992–95, and then to the left
beginning in the middle to late 1990s (see ‹g. 2 in the appendix to thischapter).
I therefore have de‹ned civic nationalists in the post-Soviet period toinclude those political parties from the left to the center right committed
both to independence and to a civic de‹nition of citizenship and the franchise. As in all civic states, civic nationalists de‹ne the “we” differently
depending upon their place within the political spectrum—not dependingon the language they speak or the region they hail from, as is commonly theview among scholars.
The ethnic nationalist option never received widespread popular support in Ukraine, either before or after independence was achieved. Prior toindependence, both wings of the nationalist movement (civic and ethnic)
were able to mobilize only one-third of Ukrainians. Independence was only

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made possible by defections from the Sovereign Communists and the
Democratic Platform of the CPU joining this nationalist movement. The
addition of these two elements pushed support for independence to amajority of the population and forced this nationalism to be moderate toappease different linguistic and regional constituencies.
If Ukraine’s titular population was not divided by language, as in theBaltic states, the ethnic-civic nationalist movement would have achieved amajority without assistance from these two defecting wings of the CPU.
Such a scenario would have led to the victory of Rukh leader V’iacheslav
Chornovil in the December 1991 presidential elections, not Kravchuk.
Events in the post-Soviet space show that postindependence nationalism may have then led to either of two scenarios, the Baltic or Transcaucasian. In the former, the nationalist movement evolved from ethnic to
civic in Estonia and Latvia after international pressure and the reestablishment of the hegemony of the titular nation where German-style ethnic
exclusive policies were initially applied. In Lithuania, the nationalist movement evolved into a civic variant quicker. In the Transcaucasus, on theother hand, the victory of ethnic nationalism led to civil and interstate wars
and the eventual removal of nationalists in all but Armenia.
In Ukraine the only region where ethnic nationalism had—and still
has—a presence is in its western region, the only area of Ukraine where ethnic Ukrainians and the Ukrainian language dominate urban centers. The
ethnic, regional, and linguistic diversity of the remainder of Ukraine
in›uenced the evolution of nationalism in post-Soviet Ukraine into a civic
variant that gradually spread during the course of the 1990s from the center right through the center to the center left. After a decade of independence only the radical left still remains hostile to Ukrainian statehood.
These steps in the evolution of Ukrainian nationalism are not peculiar to
Ukraine, although their study within a comparative perspective is still to beundertaken.112 The Baltic and Transcaucasian scenarios show how de‹ning
nationalism only in a negative manner fails to provide us with the full picture. Ukraine’s post-Soviet nationalism has been forced to balance anuneasy alliance between the national democrats and centrist oligarchs thatdisintegrated during “Kuchmagate.” This alliance had a positive and negative side to it. Ukraine escaped ethnic con›ict and did not go down theTranscaucasian path. At the same time, Ukraine “muddled” along indecisively throughout its ‹rst decade as an independent state because (again,
unlike in the Baltic states) the former Sovereign Communists turned cen-After Independence: Making and Protecting the Nation in Postcolonial and Postcommunist States
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trist oligarchs are ideologically amorphous and unable to chart a clear
domestic or foreign policy course.113
In the independent Ukrainian state, the wide-embracing political spectrum of civic nationalism incorporated a wide variety of policy proposals as
to how the national idea (i.e., the nation) should be de‹ned. The most complicated question relates to language, whereas others (symbols, historiography, myths, etc.) were accepted by both centrists and national democrats.
There was simply never an alternative to a civic, inclusive de‹nition of
the Ukrainian state. A concession to the Crimea, the only region in Ukrainewith an ethnic Russian majority, of territorial autonomy has been the
exception rather than the rule, as Ukraine’s civic nationalists have consistently opposed federalism.
Ukraine’s control over Ukraine’s borders and defense of territorial
integrity has always been a central plank of its nation-builders, and consensus in support of territorial integrity has remained high. Ethnic Russian
nationalists and Sovietophiles have disagreed with the boundaries of thestate and nation, looking to either a pan–Eastern Slavic or Soviet homelandfor Ukraine. Ethnic Ukrainian nationalists, on the other hand, seek, as do
extreme nationalists elsewhere, to incorporate all Ukrainians in one statethrough the annexation of Ukrainian ethnographic territory in neighboring states.
One of the main lessons from the case of Ukraine is not to equate ethnic
nationalism with nationalism. This leads scholars to produce an overly
wide list of “nationalist” parties and leaders, and it feeds into the perception of nationalism as something negative—leading to chauvinism and ethnic tensions. Nationalism can be either good or bad and has existed in all
nation-states since the late eighteenth century. This is especially importantin the period following the establishment of independence. Groups supporting the pursuit of independence are easy to label nationalist. Oncenationalism is achieved, it becomes more important for scholars to thinkcarefully about those they consider—and, especially, do not consider—nationalists.
Another, related, lesson for scholars is to be careful about how they portray the nationalism of parties on the right and the left of the political spectrum. In Ukraine, Rukh has been criticized for supporting ethnic nationalist policies and therefore labeled (again, in the bad ethnic sense) nationalist.
But as described in detail in this chapter, Rukh’s policies are much moreaccurately labeled as civic nationalism, particularly given the group’s strong

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support for polyethnic rights for national minorities, its rejection of any
anti-Semitism, and its backing for automatic citizenship.114
This makes Rukh an unusual bedfellow to its center-right allies in theWest, such as Britain’s Conservatives or Republicans in the United States,
who are opponents of multiculturalism, polyethnic rights, and regional
devolution.115 Yet, ironically, it is the center-right parties in Ukraine thatare labeled as nationalists, while similar parties in Western liberal democracies who are opposed to regional devolution and polyethnic rights rarely
receive this label. They are, simply, conservatives.
On the other hand, scholars have been to quick to label parties of
Ukraine’s left as antistate, seeking reunion of Ukraine and Russia. This has
been particularly misleading since the late 1990s. The 1998, 1999, 2002, and2004 parliamentary and presidential elections witnessed the evolution of
Ukraine’s political spectrum toward a left committed to state independence. Although President Kuchma attempted to portray himself as the
only defender of independence (as, ironically, Kravchuk had in 1994
against Kuchma), the reality was that only three of the thirteen presidential
candidates in the 1999 election supported Ukraine’s integration intoanother union.
Scholars should not look to political leaders for guidance on how to label
a country’s political parties. Like it or not, left-wing civic nationalists havearrived on the Ukrainian political scene, and they can build upon a wealthy
tradition of Ukrainian socialist thought, going back over one hundred years,
that links social, economic, political, and national issues.
There is much that could have been covered in this chapter but was not.
I have discussed in greater detail elsewhere the far right nationalist groups
in Ukraine in the post-Soviet period.116 While important in framing thequestion of an independent state in the late Soviet period, their unwillingness to abandon ethnic nationalist ideas has left them marginalized andpolitically irrelevant since independence. I leave to further study the question of the acceptance of the civic nationalist project at the mass level, especially in a setting of continued political and economic dif‹culty.117 The creation of an integrated civic nation is slowly progressing in Ukraine, andconsensus is growing among the ruling elites as to its outlines and policies.118 By 2002, two years after the Ukrainian economy began to grow forthe ‹rst time since the late 1980s, support for Ukrainian independence had
returned to the high levels recorded in the December 1991 referendum.119
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suf‹ciently to facilitate mobilization in the 2004 Orange Revolution andYushchenko’s election: civic nationalism had emerged victorious in
Ukraine.

NOTES
1. See Taras Kuzio, “Kuchma to Yushchenko: Ukraine’s 2004 Elections and‘Orange Revolution,’” Problems of Post-Communism 52, no. 1 (March–April 2005):
29–44.
2. Including the Federation for the State Independence of Ukraine (known by its
abbreviation DSU), the Social National Party, and the Congress of Ukrainian Nationalists (ideological heirs to the Stepan Bandera faction of the Organization of Ukrainian
Nationalists).
3. With 3.5 million members the CPU was the largest republican party in the
USSR until the Russian SFSR created its own republican communist party in 1990.
Imperial Communists had no political representation during the illegality of the CPU(August 1991–October 1993).
4. O. Haran and O. Mayboroda, Ukraiins’ki Livi: Mizh Leninizmom I SotsialDemokratieu (Kyiv: KM Academia, 2000), 212.
5. For an elaboration of this argument see David. G. Rowley, “Imperial versus
National Discourse: The Case of Russia,” Nations and Nationalism 6, pt. 1 (January
2000): 23–42; and Oleksandr Mayboroda, Roiys’kyi Natsionalizm v Ukraiini(1991–1998rr) (Kyiv: Kyiv Mohyla Academy, 1999), 4.
6. See Alexander J. Motyl, “The Myth of Russian Nationalism,” Sovietology,
Rationality, Nationality: Coming to Grips with Nationalism in the USSR (New York:
Cambridge University Press, 1990), 161–73. In the former USSR, no Russian dissidentgroup agitated for self-determination. Hence, the dissident groups’ demands for theSoviet state to uphold human rights were less threatening than those of Ukrainian,
Estonian, and other national democrats who sought to defend human and nationalrights (including self-determination), an ideology that was closer to nineteenth-century
liberal nationalism than to universalist liberalism (see Bear F. Braumoeller, Deadly
Doves: Liberal Nationalism and the Democratic Peace in the Soviet Successor States [Washington, DC: National Council on Eurasian and East European Research, 1996], as wellas Richard Sakwa, Russian Politics and Society [London: Routledge, 1993], 98). The
Russian SFSR was the only Soviet republic not to declare independence from the USSR,
and it celebrates its “independence day” on the day it declared republican sovereignty in
May 1990. The Russian SFSR was led by a democrat—Boris Yeltsin—and therefore it
accepted the replacement of the USSR with the CIS (unlike Serbia, which was led from1988 by a former Communist turned ethnic nationalist, Slobodan Milosevic). Nevertheless, Russia disagreed with Ukraine over the de‹nition of the CIS as either a new confederation dominated by Russia or a “civilized divorce” as advocated by Ukraine (seechap. 1 in Paul D’Anieri, Robert Kravchuk, and T. Kuzio, Politics and Society in Ukraine[Boulder: Westview, 1999], 10–44).
7. See T. Kuzio, “Radical Nationalist Parties and Movements in Contemporary
Ukraine before and after Independence: The Right and Its Politics, 1989–1994,” Nationalities Papers 52, no. 2 (summer 1997): 211–42.

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8. See T. Kuzio, “Ukraine One Year after ‘Kuchmagate,’” RFE/RL Newsline 5, no.
224, pt. 2 (November 28, 2001).
9. See I. V. Diyak, Khto Zakhystyt; Nash Narod I Derzhavu: Komunistychna Partiya Ukrayiny chy Ukraiins’ka Komunistychna Partiya? Shtrykhy do Istorii ta S’ohodennia
Kompartii Ukraiini (Kyiv: Naukova Knyha and Nova Literatura, 2000). On presidential
clone parties see T. Kuzio, “The 2002 Parliamentary Elections in Ukraine: Democratisation or Authoritarianism,” Journal of Communist Studies and Transition Politics 19, no.
2 (June 2003): 24–54.
10. Prior to December 1991, Rukh was supported by the PDRU in parliament in
the Democratic Bloc.
11. The “Imperial Communists” also jumped ship and backed the parliamentary
vote, but in this group’s case it was out of fear of the anti-Communist Yeltsin leadershipin Moscow.
12. The Gorbachev era is covered in T. Kuzio, Ukraine: Perestroika to Independence, 2nd ed. (London and New York: Macmillan and St. Martin’s Press, 2000).
13. Z. V. Kas’ianov, “Ukrayins’kyi natsionalizm: Problema naukovoho pereosmyslennia,” Ukraiins’kyi Istorychnyi Zhurnal 2 (1998): 39–54.
14. See T. Kuzio, “Identity and Nation Building in Ukraine: De‹ning the ‘Other,’”Ethnicities 1, no. 3 (December 2001): 343–65.
15. Michael Billig, Banal Nationalism (London: Sage, 1995).
16. Such a wide de‹nition of civic nationalism is consistent with Kas’ianov’s studyof Ukrainian nationalism that de‹nes it from the center-left through centrist parties tothe center-right. I agree with Kas’ianov’s framework, which de‹nes Ukrainian nationalism in a broader manner to that of integral nationalism. See Kas’ianov, “Ukraiins’kyi
natsionalizm.”
17. Andrew Wilson, “Ukraine: Two Presidents and Their Powers,” in Postcommunist Presidents, ed. Ray Taras (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997), 83.
18. As Paul D’Anieri points out, “Compared to most other states in the world andin the region, Ukraine’s politics is still a very nationalist one.” See Paul D’Anieri, Economic Interdependence in Ukrainian-Russian Relations (Albany: State University Press of
New York, 1999), 201. It is consequently unclear why “nationalists” are only to be foundamong Ukrainophones in western Ukraine.
19. Neil Malcolm, Alex Pravda, Roy Allison, and Margo Light, Internal Factors in
Russian Foreign Policy (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996), 87.
20. Malcolm, Pravda, Allison, and Light, Internal Factors in Russian Foreign Policy,
131.
21. D’Anieri, Economic Interdependence in Ukrainian-Russian Relations, 176.
22. Ibid., 203.
23. Oleh Derhachov, “Presidential Elections and Foreign Policy of Ukraine” (Center for Peace, Con›ict and Foreign Policy of Ukraine, Kyiv, October 1999).
24. For an early discussion see T. Kuzio, “Nationalism in Ukraine: Towards a New
Framework,” Politics 20, no. 2 (May 2000): 77–86.
25. The only exception is Stephen Shulman, “Nationalist Sources of International
Economic Integration,” International Studies Quarterly 44, no. 3 (September 2000):
365–90. The more common viewpoint of de‹ning nationalism in a very narrow sense is
to be found in Paul Kubicek, “Regional Polarisation in Ukraine: Public Opinion, Voting and Legislative Behaviour,” Europe-Asia Studies 52, no. 2 (March 2000): 273–74;
Sarah Birch, Elections and Democratization in Ukraine (London: Macmillan, 2000), 29;

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and Andrew Wilson, The Ukrainians: Unexpected Nation (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2000), 163, 182, 184, 203.
26. As Molchanov points out, Ukraine has experienced “selective nationalism”
while “popular nationalism,” which might have led to ethnic nationalism, has beenmooted. Mikhail A. Molchanov, “Post-communist Nationalism as a Power Resource: A
Russian-Ukrainian Comparison,” Nationalities Papers 28, no. 2 (June 2000): 283. But
who better to quote than the leader of the CPU, Petro Symonenko, who argues that ethnic nationalism is weak throughout Ukraine, including in western Ukraine (Tserkalo
Tyzhnia, September 16, 2000). The image of a nationalist western Ukraine does not
square with the ethnic Ukrainian nationalist election bloc National Front obtaining
only slightly more votes than the left and pro-Russian organizations in L’viv oblast in
the 1998 parliamentary elections. See Volodymyr Kulyk, Ukraiins’kyi Nationalizm u
Nezalezhniy Ukraiini (Kyiv: Kyiv Mohyla Academy, 1998), 58.
27. See Kubicek, “Regional Polarisation in Ukraine”; and Anatol Lieven,“Russkoyazychnye Regiony Ukrayiny: Troyanski Kon’?” in Ukraina I Rossiya: Obshchestva I Gosudarstva, ed. D. E. Furman (Moscow: Prava Cheloveka, 1997), 224, 226,
233, 246, 253.
28. Oleksandr Mayboroda points out that the main political force in support of the“Russian great power idea” in Ukraine is the CPU. See Mayboroda, Rosiys’kyi Natsionalizm v Ukraiini (1991–1998rr), 27.
29. Ukrainian Television-1, October 4, 1999.
30. “Russian and Ukrainian culture, despite language and local differences, represent a single whole,” Bazyliuk told the convention of his Civic Congress. Quoted from
Shulman, “Nationalist Sources of International Economic Integration,” 386.
31. Andrew Wilson, The Ukrainians, 309. On Russian perceptions of Ukrainians
see Tor Bukkvoll, “Off the Cuff Politics—Explaining Russia’s Lack of a Ukraine Strategy,” Europe-Asia Studies 53, no. 8 (December 2001): 1141–57; and Vera Tolz, Russia:
Inventing the Nation (London: Arnold; New York: Oxford University Press, 2001),
209–34.
32. Mayboroda, Rosiys’kyi Natsionalizm v Ukraiini (1991–1998rr), 19.
33. On the Lukashenka phenomenon see Steven M. Eke and Taras Kuzio, “Sultanism in Eastern Europe: The Socio-Political Roots of Authoritarian Populism inBelarus,” Europe-Asia Studies 52, no. 3 (May 2000): 523–47.
34. Kolstø, Pål, Political Construction Sites: Nation-Building in Russia and the PostSoviet States (Boulder: Westview, 2000): 162.
35. Den’, May 22, 1997; Andrew Wilson, “The Long March of the Ukrainian Left:
Backwards towards Communism, Sideways to Social-Democracy or Forwards to Socialism?” Masaryk Journal 3, no. 1 (January 2000): 130.
36. Interview with the sociologist Yevhen Holovakha in Den’, October 24, 2000.
Birch disagrees: “Russian ethnicity can thus be expected to be a more distinct determinate of voting behaviour than Ukrainian ethnicity.” Birch, Elections and Democratization in Ukraine, 28.
37. On the weakness of Russian nationalism see T. Kuzio, “Russians and Russophones in the Former USSR and Serbs in Yugoslavia: A Comparative Study of Passivity
and Mobilisation,” RFERL East European Perspectives 5, nos. 13, 14, 15 (June 25, 2003;
July 9, 2003; July 23, 2003).
38. Haran and Mayboroda, Ukraiins’ki Livi, 206.
39. President Lukashenka has promoted these policies since 1994 in Belarus.

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40. In December 2001 the Prosecutor’s Of‹ce in the Crimea launched criminal
proceedings against the Russkii Krym newspaper, organ of the ethnic nationalist Russian Movement of the Crimea, because of anti-Semitic articles it had published. The
charges could have led to the newspaper being banned.
41. Kas’ianov, “Ukraiins’kyi natsionalizm,” 49.
42. Mikhail A. Molchanov believes that Ukraine’s and Russia’s elites use nationalism less for modernization than in a struggle over resources. See Molchanov, “Postcommunist Nationalism as a Power Resource,” 284.
43. Holos Ukrayiny, December 25, 1998.
44. See T. Kuzio, Ukraine: State and Nation Building (London: Routledge, 1998).
45. SLON was created by the Constitutional Democrats and Interregional Bloc of
Reforms (IRBR). The latter had been an ally of Kuchma’s in 1994. Its leader, Vladimir
Grynev, was a former leading member of New Ukraine. The IRBR merged with the oligarch People’s Democratic Party in 2001.
46. See Anatol Lieven, “The Weakness of Russian Nationalism,” Survival 41, no. 2(summer 1999): 53–70.
47. D’Anieri, Economic Interdependence in Ukrainian-Russian Relations, 22. See
also T. Kuzio, “Historiography and National Identity among the Eastern Slavs: Towards
a New Framework,” National Identities 3, no. 2 (July 2001):109–32.
48. David D. Laitin, Identity in Formation: The Russian-Speaking Population in the
Near Abroad (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1998), 291.
49. See the interview with Patriarch Filaret, head of the Ukrainian Orthodox
Church—Kyiv Patriarch in Tserkalo Tyzhnia, August 5–11, 2000.
50. See Dominique Arel, “Language Politics in Independent Ukraine: Towards
One or Two State Languages?” Nationalities Papers 23, no. 3 (September 1995):
597–622.
51. See Jan Janmaat, Nation-Building in Post-Soviet Ukraine: Educational Policy
and the Response of the Russian-Speaking Population (Amsterdam: Netherlands Geographical Studies, 2000). See my review article in Journal of Ukrainian Studies 25, nos.
1–2 (summer–winter 2000): 200–213.
52. The language question has never even been straightforward for the CPU. At its
second congress in 1995, 159 (or 40 percent) out of 390 delegates opposed supporting
Russian as a second state language. Many of those who opposed this policy were fromwestern Ukraine.
53. Mayboroda, Rosiys’kyi Natsionalizm v Ukraiini (1991–1998rr), 25. “The ‹nal
goals of the communists and Russian nationalists are the same,” Ukrainian authors
believe. See Yu. M. Alekseyev, S. V. Kul’chytskyi, and A. H. Sliusarenko, Ukraiina nazlami istorychnykh epokh (Derzhavotvorchyi protses 1985–1999rr.) (Kyiv: Eksor, 2000),
145.
54. Laitin, Identity in Formation, 100, 101, 141, 142; and Dominique Arel,“Ukraine: The Temptation of the Nationalizing State” in Political Culture and Civil Society in the Former Soviet Union, ed. Vladimir Tismaneanu (Armonk, NY: M. E. Sharpe,
1995), 294. For an alternative view see T. Kuzio, “Nation Building or Nationalizing
State? A Survey of the Theoretical Literature and Empirical Evidence,” Nations andNationalism 7, pt. 2 (April 2001): 135–54.
55. See T. Kuzio, “The Myth of the Civic State: A Critical Survey of Hans Kohn’s
Framework for Understanding Nationalism,” Ethnic and Racial Studies 25, no. 1 (January 2002): 20–39.

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56. Jack Snyder, From Voting to Violence: Democratization and Nationalist Con›ict(New York: W. W. Norton, 2000), 25, 199, 250, 257, 258–59; and Teresa RakowskaHarmstone, “Nationalism and Communist Multi-Ethnic Polities: The Legacies of Ethnicization,” in Cultures and Nations of Central and Eastern Europe: Essays in Honor of
Roman Szporluk, ed. Zvi Gitelman, Lubomyr Hajda, John-Paul Himka, and Roman
Solchanyk (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2000), 504–5.
57. The exception is scholars and political leaders in Ukraine. Rukh, Democratic,
Reforms and Order, and Christian Democratic parties are usually labeled as center-right,
not nationalist, ones. See O. M. Volkov, Politychna Ideolohiya (Kyiv: Stylos, 1999),
81–83, 127. Jack Snyder agrees with this commonly used de‹nition in Ukraine. See Snyder, From Voting to Violence, 25, 199, 250, 257, 258–59. Andrew Wilson disagrees andargues that they are better de‹ned as ethnic nationalists. See his Ukrainian Nationalism
in the 1990s: A Minority Faith (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997), 137, andThe Ukrainians, 79.
58. Paul Kubicek, “Dynamics of Contemporary Ukrainian Nationalism: EmpireBreaking to State Building,” Canadian Review of Studies in Nationalism 23, nos. 1–2(1996): 39–50; and Paul Kubicek, “What Happened to the Nationalists in Ukraine?”
Nationalism and Ethnic Politics 5, no. 1 (spring 1999): 29–45.
59. Laitin, Identity in Formation, 100–101, 141–42.
60. Arel, “Ukraine,” 294.
61. Wilson, Ukrainian Nationalism in the 1990s, 112, 114.
62. Kievskiye Vedomosti, September 2, 1997.
63. Quoted from the election program of Hennadiy Udovenko, head of one wingof Rukh, in Uriadovyi Kurier, September 23, 1999.
64. John Jaworsky, “Nationality Policy and Potential for Inter-ethnic Con›ict in
Ukraine,” in Managing Diversity in Plural Societies: Minorities, Migration and NationBuilding in Post-Communist Europe, ed. Magda Opalski (Ottawa: Forum Eastern
Europe, 1998), 117–18.
65. The new nationalist right in Western Europe includes the Freedom Party (Austria), Northern League (Italy), Flemish Bloc (Belgium), People’s Party (Switzerland),Republican Party (Germany), and National Front (France). This de‹nition of nationalist parties does not include conservative or Christian Democratic parties but parties
whose policies toward citizenship, the franchise, and minorities are not civic or inclusive. See Ian Hall and Magali Perrault, “The Re-Austrianisation of Central Europe?”
Central European Review 2, no. 13 (April 3, 2000).
66. The only exception is the Congress of Ukrainian Nationalists, which, after
much initial hesitation, was ‹nally allowed to join the Our Ukraine bloc. On centrist
parties see T. Kuzio, “Reformers Face Limited Choices,” Kyiv Post, July 2, 2002.
67. Quoted from the speech by Prime Minister Valery Pustovoitenko to the congress of the All-Ukrainian Democratic Forces Association (Uriadovyi Kurier, September
7, 1999).
68. Ibid.
69. See T. Kuzio, “Centre-Periphery Relations in Ukraine: Regionalism, Federalism and National Integration,” in Federalism and Decentralization in Eastern and Central Europe, ed. Jurgen Rose and Johannes Raut (Frankfurt: Carl Lang Verlag, 2002),
329–48.
70. Via’acheslav Shved, “The Conceptual Approaches of Ukrainian Political Par-

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ties to Ethno-Political Problems in Independent Ukraine,” Journal of Ukrainian Studies
19, no. 2 (winter 1994): 69–84.
71. H. Kas’ianov, Teorii Natsii ta Natsionalizm (Kyiv: Lybid, 1999), 326. In
1917–21, Ukraine’s various independent governments were socialist (except for theconservative monarchist government of 1918), supporting initially federal ties with
Russia and then independence. Such a civic nationalist tradition within socialism was a
result of the strong interconnection in Ukraine between the socioeconomic andnational questions. The Communist Party (Bolshevik) of Ukraine (CP[B]U) had only
4,300 members in the whole of Ukraine in mid-1918. As Magosci points out, “The party
itself was foreign to Ukraine.” See Paul R. Magosci, A History of Ukraine (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1996), 531. The establishment of the Ukrainian SSR by invading Bolshevik forces created a territorial entity devoid of national content. This forced
the Bolsheviks to agree to a policy of indigenization that was promoted by the Borotbists(Ukrainian Social Revolutionaries), who had merged with the CP(B)U. In the 1920s theSoviet regime’s policy of indigenization allowed for Ukrainianization, which was supported by Ukrainian national Communists seeking to link socialism with the national
idea. On national communism in Ukraine, see Bohdan Nahaylo, The Ukrainian Resurgence (London: Hurst, 1998), 11, 31–32, 263, 281, 316, 339, 341. Nahaylo points out thatin the 1920s Ukraine’s national Communists supported a confederal USSR (as they did
between March 1990 and August 23, 1991), the “un‹nished business of nation-statebuilding,” the de-Russi‹cation of cities, and the Ukrainianization of education (p.11).
By 1933–34 the policy had been halted with an arti‹cial famine, great terror, and reimposition of traditional Russian historiography. Ukrainian national communism wasnever totally extinguished but reappeared during times of liberalization in the 1960s andthe late Gorbachev era in the form of “sovereign communism.”
72. “The Latin American Pressure Cooker,” STATFORCOM, Global Intelligence
Update, December 30, 1999, http://www.stratfor.com.
73. O. Tkachenko, interviewed in Holos Ukrayiny, March 31, 1999.
74. Holos Ukrayiny, September 18, 1998.
75. Holos Ukrayiny, December 26, 1998.
76. See the comments by speakers at the left speakers’ rally on May 1 (Interfax,
May 1, 1999).
77. Nahaylo, The Ukrainian Resurgence, 495.
78. Interviewed in Sil’ski Visti, September 10, 1999.
79. Holos Ukrayiny, September 8, 1999.
80. Holos Ukrayiny, December 26, 1998.
81. Appeal of the left-center parliamentary faction (Kievskiye vedomosti, May 21,
1999).
82. Heorhiy Kruchkov, Communist and former head of the parliamentary commission on defense and security (Holos Ukrayiny, June 8, 1999).
83. Ukrainian Weekly, July 11, 1999.
84. Petro Symonenko, “Kolonizatsiya Ukrayiny: Rik S’iomyi,” Holos Ukrayiny,
November 21, 1997; Holos Ukrayiny, May 23, 1998; and Intelnews, November 16, 1999
85. Petro Symonenko, “Novitne Istoriya Ukrayiny: Pochatok Vidrodzhennia chy
Prodovzhennia Natsional’noii Trahediia?” Tserkalo Tyzhnia, September 16, 2000.
86. Natalia Vitrenko, leader of the Progressive Socialists, quoted on Ukrainian
Television-1, September 23, 1999.

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87. V. Semeniuk, “Samovbyvcha polityka menshovartosti,” Holos Ukrayiny, June30, 1999. Tkachenko said on Ukrainian Television-1 (September 20, 1999) thatUkrainians “are now deprived from ruling the country and are playing someone else’s
tune.”
88. Julius W. Friend, “Nationalism: The Guiding Thread in French Policy,
1981–1996” (paper prepared for the American Political Science Association, Washington, DC, August 28–31, 1997).
89. Comments by Natalia Vitrenko, leader of the Progressive Socialists, in Kyiv
Post, September 9, 1999.
90. ITAR-TASS, October 9, 1999.
91. He rose to his position from that of ‹rst deputy chairman of the Council of
Ministers, whereas Lukashenka became president from his post as director of a collective farm. See ibid.
92. Ibid.
93. O. Tkachenko on Ukrainian Television-1, September 20, 1999.
94. Zerkalo Nedeli, August 28–September 3, 1999.
95. Holos Ukrayiny, August 21, 1999.
96. Holos Ukrayiny, January 16, 1998.
97. Holos Ukrayiny, September 8, 1999.
98. Oleksandr Moroz, “Nam ne potribna ani ‘spetsial’na’ ani prosto ‘zona,’” Holos
Ukrayiny, August 26, 1999.
99. Left-center parliamentary faction statement in Holos Ukrayiny, September 9,
1998.
100. O. Tkachenko in Holos Ukrayiny, September 24, 1998.
101. O. Tkachenko in Ukraiina moloda, October 15, 1998.
102. Left-center parliamentary faction statement in Sil’ski Visti, January 15, 1998.
Symonenko, leader of the Communists, also denounced the fact that Ukraine “has virtually lost its economic and political independence” (Holos Ukrayiny, September 1,
1999). After the victory of Kuchma in the October–November 1999 presidential elections, defeated Communist leader Symonenko warned that Ukraine “will begin toquickly lose its economic independence” (Intelnews, November 16, 1999).
103. O. Tkachenko on his “National Program for Ukraine’s Revival” (Holos
Ukrayiny, May 27, 1999).
104. Holos Ukrayiny, August 19, 1999. Tkachenko blamed the “destructive experiment” and “senseless reforms” conducted in the former USSR and Ukraine over the last‹fteen years for the “economic collapse” that led to a “threat to its existence” andUkrainian statehood (Holos Ukrayiny, September 8, 1999). Ukraine therefore needed toelect a “savior of the Motherland” (ITAR-TASS, August 21, 1999).
105. Holos Ukrayiny, August 26, 1999.
106. Ibid.
107. O. Tkachenko, addressing Odesa deputies (Holos Ukrayiny, December 9,1998).
108. Interview with O. Tkachenko in Nezavisimost, September 16, 1998.
109. O. Moroz, to the sixth congress of the Socialist Party (Ukrayina moloda, June
16, 1998).
110. Holos Ukrayiny, April 30, 1996.
111. O. Moroz, “Livyi Marsh,” Viche 9 (1999): 22.

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Kravchuk to the Orange Revolution

112. See Philip G. Roeder, “Peoples and States after 1989: The Political Costs ofIncomplete Revolutions,” Slavic Review 58, no. 4 (winter 1999): 854–81; T. Kuzio,“Stateness and Institutions in Ukraine: A Theoretical and Comparative Introduction”
in State and Institution Building in Ukraine, ed. T. Kuzio, R. S. Kravchuk, and P. D.
D’Anieri (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1999), 1–24; and T. Kuzio, “Transition in PostCommunist States: Triple or Quadruple?” Politics, September 2001, 169–78.
113. See T. Kuzio, “Muddling Along: The First Decade of Ukrainian Independence,” Harriman Review 14, no. 3 (fall 2001). On Ukraine’s multiparty system see T.
Kuzio, “Ukraine’s Approaching Elections and Fractured Multiparty System,” RFE/RL
Newsline 5, no. 220, pt. 2 (November 20, 2001).
114. See Lowell Barrington, “The Domestic and International Consequences of Citizenship in the Soviet Successor States,” Europe-Asia Studies 47, no. 5 (July 1995):
731–63; and Yuri I. Shevchuk, “Citizenship in Ukraine: A Western Perspective,” in State
and Nation Building in East Central Europe: Contemporary Perspectives, ed. S. J. Micgiel(New York: Institute on East Central Europe, Columbia University, 1996), 351–69.
115. In addition, while Rukh is commonly de‹ned as nationalist, the Polish Solidarity movement is not. At the same time, Rukh supports many nationality policies
more commonly associated with social democratic and liberal parties in Western
democracies.
116. T. Kuzio, “Radical Nationalist Parties and Movements in Contemporary
Ukraine before and after Independence”; and T. Kuzio, “Radical Right Parties and Civic
Groups in Belarus and Ukraine,” in The Revival of Right-Wing Extremism in the Nineties,
ed. Peter H. Merkl and Leonard Winberg (London: Frank Cass, 1997), 203–30.
117. Lowell Barrington found that the most popular identity in Ukraine at the masslevel was citizenship (i.e., state or civic), followed by ethnic and linguistic. See his “Russian-Speakers in Ukraine and Kazakhstan: ‘Nationality,’ ‘Population,’ or Neither?”Post-Soviet Affairs 17, no. 2 (April–June 2001): 129–58.
118. See W. Zimmerman, “Is Ukraine a Political Community?” Communist andPost Communist Studies 31, no. 1 (1998): 43–55.
119. See T. Kuzio, “Support for Independence Returns to 1991 Levels,” RFERL
Poland, Belarus and Ukraine Report 5, no. 2 (January 21, 2003).

APPENDIX: VIEWS OF ETHNIC AND CIVIC NATIONALISM IN
UKRAINE AND THE GROWTH OF UKRAINIAN CIVIC NATIONALISM
In this appendix, I use two ‹gures to summarize the arguments presented in the chapter about civic and ethnic nationalism in Ukraine. Figure 1 is a model of the way scholars have traditionally thought about political parties in Ukraine and where they fall ona political spectrum from ethnic Russian and Soviet to ethnic Ukrainian. As the text ofthe chapter points out, while some scholars have had an even more narrow version ofnationalism in Ukraine—only considering Ukrainian ethnic nationalist parties to be“nationalist”—many have also recognized the “nationalist” features of the ethnic Russian parties.
But even this understanding of ethnic Russian parties as nationalist has missed theextent to which the major political parties in Ukraine came to accept the basic ideas of
the civic nationalist approach during the 1990s. Figure 2 charts what I describe in theAfter Independence: Making and Protecting the Nation in Postcolonial and Postcommunist States
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chapter as the development of attachment to the principles of civic nationalism by the
major parties in Ukraine from the late Soviet period through thee first half-decade ofindependence. It is, therefore, a graphic representation of the victory of civic nationalism in Ukraine.

Fig. 1. A spatial model of the traditional view of civic and ethnic nationalismof the major political parties in Ukraine

Fig. 2. The acceptance of civic nationalism in Ukraine by the major politicalparties in Ukraine