Paper - Chair of Ukrainian Studies

international CONFERENCE
acknowledged that post-Soviet Ukraine’s triple or quadruple transition has had to master
not only democratization, marketization, and state as well as nation-building, it should
also be noted that in all likelihood the single most widely shared present experience of
this emerging post-Soviet nation has been severe crisis.
At the same time, when looking at what has been written on Ukraine both inside
and outside of it, we find that most of the pertinent works keep focusing on decision
makers or public opinion leaders located in the capital city, the foreign or domestic
policy of successive Ukrainian governments or Ukraine’s international position with
comparatively little attention to the specific experiences of the people inhabiting the territory
between Lviv and Luhansk and between Chernihiv and Simferopol. When they do
address society, available works tend to focus on public opinion leaders or are based on
opinion polling and quantitative surveys that reflect either only respondents’ positions
on specific issues at particular points in time or seek to register and represent attitude
changes through long-term surveys, based on highly differentiated yet comparatively
inflexible questionnaires, which, by definition, do not allow for the time, adaptability
and individual approach provided by qualitative interviewing. The latter, arguably, while
its results are by necessity comparatively hard to generalize is the best method to find
out most about individual attitudes, motivations, and biographies. This is all the more
necessary since opinion polls indicate a strong predominance of local identity among
Ukrainians in general. Thus, in the most recent of the annual Razumkov Independence
Day polls, 44 percent of respondents identify with their local heimat even below the
regional level. The latter, in fact, is least salient, with only 15 percent stating their identification
with it. The country as a whole, in this menu of choices is clearly behind the
locality, receiving 31 percent of respondent identification. 2 Meanwhile, especially after
the Orange Revolution, it has been pointed out that “the Ukrainian hinterland will play
an important part in the final shape of Ukraine’s transition and could be the lynchpin of
ultimate success or failure.” 3 Thus, a fresh look at the hinterland and its inhabitants may
help fill an academic lacuna as well as make a contribution to the hopefully continuing
project of reforming Ukraine.
Sociological research in and outside Ukraine itself seems to concentrate mostly
in four main directions: First, issues of identity and the identification of oneself and
others, which are of obvious importance in the process of nation-building post-Soviet
Ukraine has found itself in as well as multiple issues connected with the politics of nationbuilding,
e.g. language policy and its consequences, multiculturalism, or the perception
of heimat-type local, regional or national affiliation; secondly, issues of the transition
to democracy and the rule of law, e.g. the understanding of democratic mechanisms,
2. Liudmyla Shanhina, Pro Krainu, derzhavu ta hromadian u perekhidnomu vitsi, Dzerkalo Tyzhnia, no. 31(610),
19-25 August 2006.
3. Margus Hanson, Transition in Ukraine, NATO Parliamentary Assembly Report (065 ESCEW 06 E, 2006 Spring
Session), no pagination.
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