A Land Wherein Thou Art a Stranger: Notes on Ukrainian National Identity

Selection fi"Oln tin Honors thesis in partial fitlfillment of Unil'ersity Honors. Ben Peters examines Ukrainian national identity as a contemporary phenomenon fraught with tensions and paradoxes. Here in the intro{iuctioll and final chapter of his undergraduate thesis, Peters briefly presents, first, Ukrainian national identity in light ofa number of th£'Oretical approaches (e.g.. Herder, Renan, Honig, BOljamin, Smith, and Anderson) and then turns his attention toward synthesizing obserl'ations about Ukrainian architecture of public space (e.g.. monuments. institutions. ~ymboL,) into two gOleral themes of Ukrainian mltional idOltity: national otherness and resurrection. When seen tlJ the Hegelian "other," Ukrainian histOl:y leads toward an internal intolerance of identity. Instead, Peters suggests that dismissing the label "other" and not those labeled "others" in historical and present situations prol'ides a Jf.rtill' soi! in which a Ukrainian national identi~y capable 0/ mlwing the demands of democracy may dewlop. INTRODUCTORY NOTES ON UKRAINIAN NATIONAL IDENTITY I f nations are actors on the stage of their state, then independent Ukraine since 1991 has the script and cast for a world-class soap opera. Members of the Ukrainian collective squabble over cultural inheritance. the closest of ethnicities clash. and religious zealots boil over inheritance claims. Ukraine today struggles to stabilize its many conflicting charactersjealousy, heated spats. and grudges are not uncommon spices in brewing the modern Ukrainian nation. Altogether, Ukraine makes for a fantastic drama. Ukraine also makes a sterling subject to study Eastern European national neighborhoods. Zbigniew Brzezinski. Jimmy Carter's former National Security Adviser, called Ukrainian independence "one of the three major geopolitical events of the twentieth century" because 48 A Land Wherein Thou Art a Stranger Russia, that great historical empire, would not rise again to superpower status as long as Ukraine remains independent (Zbigniew 1996, 3-8; Wilson 2002, 368). The Ukrainian nation then is a modern milestone of Russia's post-imperial legacy-its independence indirectly means that a superpower is no more. In the words of Benedict Anderson, a nation, as all other imagined communities, is sovereign but limited. Ukraine is becoming a nation in these terms but is neither completely sovereign nor aware of its limitations. Neither Ukrainian confines nor power are fully formed: Ukraine is not yet entirely sovereign nor is it perhaps even adequately aware of its limitations because Ukrainians on the whole do not yet have a common understanding of what it means to be Ukrainian. As Anatolii Pohribnyi, former Minister of Education, forewarns, "[Ukraine] cannot ... pull [itself] out of economic crisis without uniting the clear majority of the population around the national idea" (Wilson 2002, 235). This work attempts to help address the creation of that Ukrainian national idea. To scudy independent Ukraine is to watch an important balancing of future and past: as Ukraine tries to unite behind its new role as Eastern Europe's post-Soviet flagship of independence, it also ought to account for the historic pluralism that tends to divide its population. Left to watch anyone episode of Ukraine's recent, knotty history, most outside observers would be left dumbfounded by the diversity and disunion found within its boundaries. Yet despite recent national independence placing Ukraine delicately upon an edge between Europe and Russia, Catholicism and Orthodoxy, West and East, Ukrainian's pluralism also carries a productive potential in terms of developing a consensual national identity. And what Tocqueville said, "Democratic ages arc times of experiment, innovation, and adventure" holds true for contemporary Ukrainian nation-building. All democracies, but especially new ones, are constantly in a state of flux and fluidity-concrete national identity is impossible in democratic societies without a built-in societal consensus toward tolerating foreignness among its natives. What is a nation? I will try to follow Anderson's superb prescription that a nation is an "imagined [not imaginary] community ... limited and sovereign" (1996, 7). Ukraine as a nation with borders functions as an evolving organism formed by two interacting, interwoven substances-or as Ernest Barker, distinguished British political theorist, describes "a nation [as something that] is simultaneously, and coextensively, two things in one. It is a social substance, or Society ... [andl a legal substance; a single compulsory association ... to make and enforce rules for all" (Barker 1956, 4). Conflict between differing social groups in Ukraine is largely kept in check by legal oversight; yet justification for disobedience to the state among these groups draws heavily upon centuries of predemocratic social-state relations, while state oversight falters out of inexperience. Some historical elements of the Ukrainian nation are centuries old, but Ukraine as a nation-state has only existed since the early 1990s. In brief, while only one section of this essay is dedicated to the legal situation in Ukraine per se, compulsory policies and politics between the state and society pervade discussion throughout. As illustrated in Ukraine's case, a nation is a sovereign community limited by its relative composition of and compromise between social and compulsory components.