Citizenship and nation-building in Ukraine - Chair of Ukrainian Studies

INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE 

Citizenship and nation-building in Ukraine 

by Oxana Shevel 

Purdue University 

■ 

PAPER PRESENTED AT THE WORKSHOP 

Understanding the Transformation of Ukraine: 

Assessing What Has Been Learned, Devising a Research Agenda 

Chair of Ukrainian Studies 

University of Ottawa (Canada) 

15-16 October 2004 

DRAFT/NOT FOR CITATION 

■ 

1. Introduction 

Although citizenship policy is a key element of nation-building in any state, citizenship 

policy has been a rather neglected area of Ukrainian studies. Just a handful of articles on 

the citizenship problem and policy in Ukraine have been written, 1 and, to my knowledge, 

there is no book-length treatment on the subject. This apparent scholarly neglect could 

be attributed to the fact that in the post-Soviet Ukraine citizenship issue turned out to be 

a “dog that did not bark.” Unlike in Estonia and Latvia, where initial citizenship laws disenfranchised 

a significant part of the non-titular populations from citizenship, in Ukraine 

the first citizenship law embraced the so-called “zero option” and extended Ukrainian citizenship 

to all permanent residents of Ukraine. In subsequent years, the only aspect of 

citizenship policy that attracted media attention was the issue of dual citizenship, specifically 

Ukraine’s disagreements with Russia over it. Dual citizenship controversy found its 

reflection in the press headlines in the early and the mid-1990s, but has since receded 

from the headlines and has not received much scholarly attention either. In sum, 

Ukrainian citizenship policy has been an understudied issue. This paper makes a case 

against such neglect. It argues that important insights into the larger dynamic of 

1. English-language scholarly studies that focused explicitly on Ukrainian citizenship policies include Barrington 

1995 that has a chapter devoted to the Ukrainian case; Ginsburgs 1996; Jackson and Wolczuk 1997; Shevchuk 

1996; Shevel 2000; and Shevel 2002. Ukrainian-language studies have been written mainly by Ukrainian citizenship 

policy practitioners and have either focused on technical legal issues (e.g. Subotenko 1999), and/or have made 

political arguments for certain policies (in particular, against dual citizenship – see Khandogii 1997 for an example).


Ukrainian state and nation-building can be gained from the studying citizenship policy. 

This paper will thus first offer an analysis of Ukrainian citizenship policy and politics 

over, and will then suggest ways in which the Ukrainian case in particular, and citizenship 

policy studies in general, can be integrated into broader social scientific research 

agendas. 

2. Citizenship policy and politics in independent Ukraine. 

The “official” nation in the citizenship law 

Citizenship policy has many aspects and can be studied from many angles. Legal policy 

scholars tend to scrutinize the citizenship laws’ compatibility with the international legal 

principles. Social scientists generally focus on the relative inclusively or exclusivity of citizenship 

laws, and analyzes reasons for cross-national variations in this regard. Who is 

included into the initial body of citizens in a new state? What criteria must subsequent 

applicants for citizenship fulfill? Who is entitled to gain citizenship under simplified 

rules? Citizenship laws provide official answers to these questions, and by doing so delineate 

the official boundary between the “us” and the “other” of a given state. Citizenship 

laws thus define what can be called the “official” nation of a given state: the initial body 

of citizens and those who are entitled to become citizens under a simplified procedure. 

Let us consider how Ukraine defined its official nation, and why the official nation was 

defined this particular way. 

Table 1 illustrates how the definition of the “official” Ukrainian nation has 

evolved over the decade of Ukraine’s independence. As we can see, the citizenship law 

defines the nation by the territory of the states. This definition was reflected already in 

the 1991 citizenship law, and was upheld and broadened in the subsequent editions of the 

law adopted in 1997 and in 2001. 

TABLE 1 

“OFFICIAL” UKRAINIAN NATION IN CITIZENSHIP LEGISLATION, 

1991-2001 

1991 citizenship law April 1997 amendments 2001 citizenship law 

to the 1991 law 

Those who were born on the 

territory of Ukraine, or at 

least one of whose parents or 

grandparents was born in 

Ukraine 

Those who were born on or 

permanently resided on the 

territory of Ukraine, and their 

descendents (children, grandchildren) 

Those who were born or 

permanently resided on the 

territory of Ukraine, or at 

least one of whose parents, 

grandparents, a full-blood 

brother or a sister, was born 

or permanently resided on the 

territory of Ukraine 

2


The 1991 citizenship law, adopted when the Soviet Union was still legally in existence, 2 

defined the “official” nation as those who, at the time of the law’s entry into force, were 

permanently residing in Ukraine, who were not citizens of other states, and who did not 

object to becoming citizens of Ukraine, plus those who have previously permanently 

resided in Ukraine but at the time of the law’s entry into force were abroad studying, 

working on state business, or serving in the armed forces. 3 

This group – those who were born, or had at least one parent or grandparent born 

on the territory of Ukraine – has become the “official” Ukrainian nation, eligible to 

acquire citizenship under a simplified procedure. New edition of the citizenship law 

approved in April 1997 extended the “official” nation to include those who permanently 

resided (in addition to those born) on the territory of Ukraine, plus their children and 

grandchildren. 4 The latest edition of the citizenship law approved in January 2001 added 

brothers and sisters of those who were born or permanently resided on the territory of 

Ukraine to the “official” nation. The simplified procedure under which those defined as 

belonging to the nation were eligible to acquire citizenship was been made simpler with 

each edition of the law. Thus, the 1991 law exempted those who were born, or had at 

least one of the parents or grandparents born on the territory of Ukraine, from 5 year 

residency requirement, 5 the 1997 law exempted them from residency and language 

requirement, 6 while the 2001 law additionally exempted this group from requirements to 

present documentary evidence of the legal source of income and a proof of release from 

prior citizenship at the time of application. 7 

Theories of citizenship policy and the Ukrainian case. 

Ukraine’s citizenship law thus defined the official nation territorially. The question to ask 

is why the official nation was defined this particular way. More generally, how does the 

political elites arrive at a particular definition of the “official” nation? Scholars of citi- 

2. Draft 1991 citizenship law was first debated in the Rada in July 1991; repeated first reading took place on 

12 September 1991; the law was approved on 8 October 1991 and entered into force on 13 November 1991. 

3. Article 2 paragraphs 1 and 2 of the 1991 citizenship law, text of the law in Pravda Ukrainy, 14 November 1991. 

Under the 1991 law, the latter group (those studying, working on state business, or serving in the armed forces) 

could become citizens of Ukraine if they were not citizens of other states and declared their desire to become citizens 

of Ukraine within one year after the law’s entry into force. This deadline was extended to two years in January 

1993 and to five years in October 1994. See Verkhovna Rada Ukrainy 1993; Verkhovna Rada Ukrainy 1994. 

4. Article 2 paragraph 3 of the 1997 law, for text of the law see Verkhovna Rada Ukrainy 1997a. 

5. Article 17 paragraph 2 of the 1991 law. 

6. Article 16 of the 1997 law. 

7. Article 8 of the 2001 law. The 2001law still required these persons to present a proof of release from prior citizenship 

within a year after submitting citizenship application. For text of the law see Verkhovna Rada Ukrainy 

2001a. 

3


zenship policies have advanced hypotheses about factors that drive citizenship policies in 

modern states. Following Rogers Brubaker’s seminal study of French and German citizenship 

policies, conventional wisdom today attributes variation in rules governing 

admittance to citizenship to national identity. 8 Or, to use Brubaker’s term, to historically-formed 

and deeply-rooted “habits of national self-understanding” 9 that are “prior to 

and independent of the [modern] state.” 10 According to Brubaker, in modern states these 

habits of national self-understanding are the main source of citizenship laws, and the factor 

explaining cross-national divergence. 11 

If we try to apply Brubaker’s theory to the Ukrainian case, however, we will immediately 

run into problem. Brubaker’s argument implies that each modern state has one 

historically-formed national identity (a particular “habit of national self-understanding”). 

This assumption is however an empirical matter. A “dominant habit of national selfunderstanding” 

may form historically in some states but not in others. In states such as 

Ukraine, that emerge suddenly from the rubble of multinational empires, there may be 

no dominant habit of national self-understanding. Indeed, virtually all studies of the post- 

Soviet Ukraine make a point that the past rule of territories of today’s Ukraine by different 

empires and states, and resulting cultural, ethnic, linguistic and religious diversity 

across today’s Ukraine, has prevented the emergence of a cohesive national identity at 

either the elite or the societal level. Instead of one dominant “habit of national selfunderstanding,” 

competing “images” of the nation and myths of national origin and civilization 

are propagated by different political forces and find resonance with different 

segments of the society. 

In the absence of the dominant national identity in Ukraine, where can the 

sources of Ukrainian citizenship policy located? Analysis of the politics of Ukrainian citizenship 

policy to which I will now turn will show how Ukraine’s citizenship policy was 

in a large measure shaped by the politics of national identity, but not in the manner 

Brubaker’s theory posits. As we are about to see, citizenship policy in Ukraine was shaped 

by the ideological struggle between the left and the right who tried – but failed – to have 

the citizenship law reflect their conceptions of national identity. Territorial definition of 

the nation contained in the Ukrainian citizenship law was a compromise, and not a reflection 

of any existing national idea, as Brubaker’s theory posits. Put differently, the definition 

of the official nation by the territory of the state resulted from the failure of the political 

forces who embraced competing conceptions of nationhood to reflect their preferred 

8. Brubaker 1992. 

9. Brubaker 1992, 187. 

10. Brubaker 1992, 132. 

11. Brubaker in particular argued that historically-formed civic and territorial understanding of the nation in France 

led to an inclusive citizenship law in modern time, while historically ethnic understanding of the nation in 

Germany led to an exclusive citizenship law. 

4


conception in the law. The definition of the official nation by the territory of the state 

can thus be described as “civic nation by default” (rather than by design). Let us examine 

the evidence on which these conclusions are based, and consider what this evidence 

reveals about the larger process of state and nation-building in Ukraine. 

The Ukrainian right and the citizenship question. 

The national question in the post-Soviet Ukraine has been contested intellectually and 

politically between the right and the left who embrace mutually exclusive myths of 

national origin and conflicting objectives for the future of the Ukrainian statehood. Until 

its split in 1999, Rukh was the main political force on the right. The view of the right on 

the state and the nation is close to a traditional ideal of a modern nation-state. 

Proponents of this view see today’s Ukraine as the state of the Ukrainian nation in the 

same way that Poland is the state of the Polish nation or Germany the state of the 

German nation. The right emphasizes the historicity of Ukraine’s statehood by tracing 

its political lineage from the Kievan Rus, to the Cossack republic of the 17 th century, and 

the brief period of independent statehood in 1917-1921. At the heart of the right’s view 

on the Ukrainian nation and the Ukrainian state is the emphasis on Ukraine’s and 

Ukrainians’ distinctiveness, first and foremost from Russia and the Russians. Russia is 

presented as the main “other” against which Ukrainian identity is defined, an occupying 

empire (tsarist and later Soviet) from which Ukraine’s independence was finally regained 

in 1991. 

For the mainstream right, Ukraine is a democratic political community where the 

rights of national minorities are upheld, but where the “the core” of the Ukrainian political 

nation is the Ukrainian ethnos. This view was elaborated by Rukh’s program already 

in the late Soviet period. Specifically, Rukh concluded that, 

“the national question in Ukraine is about the development of the Ukrainian 

nation, ethnic groups and national minorities, their integration into a common 

social fabric (socium) of the republic the core of which are the people that gave the 

name to their nation-state.” 12 

For the right, the answer to the question “who belongs to the Ukrainian nation” 

was thus rather straightforward. If Ukraine is conceived as a democratic multinational 

state, all residents of Ukraine can be considered belonging to the political Ukrainian 

nation, while ethnic Ukrainians outside Ukraine, by virtue of their membership in the 

ethnic Ukrainian nation that is the “core” if the state, must also be included in the defi- 

12. Narodnyi Rukh Ukrainy za Perebudovy 1989, 18. 

5


nition. 13 The right’s strategy on the citizenship issue was consistent with this understanding 

of the nation. The right advocated a special approach to the ethnic Ukrainian 

diaspora abroad in debates on citizenship legislation. 

During the debate of the 1991 law, MPs from the right proposed to state in the 

law that the right to Ukrainian citizenship is extended to ethnic Ukrainians who live in 

the west, and to Soviet citizens who have “ethnic Ukrainian” recorded in their Soviet 

passports. 14 During the debate of the 1997 law, MPs from the right proposed to exempt 

ethnic Ukrainians from residency requirements. 15 Examination of the stenographic 

records from citizenship law debates in the Rada over the years shows that, over time, the 

right has become less insistent on this issue. However, the right continued to make proposal 

to this effect each time the citizenship law was debated – most recently during the 

second reading of the 2001 citizenship law on 18 January 2001. 16 None of these proposals 

came to pass, which can be explained by the fact that electoral strength of the right 

allowed it to control less than a third of parliamentary seats in the 1990s, and the left and 

the center did not support these proposals. 

The right’s preference for the content of the citizenship law was informed by the 

right’s conception of national identity that saw the Ukrainian ethnos as the “core” of the 

political Ukrainian nation. The territorial definition of the nation reflected in the citizenship 

law was thus suboptimal for the right. Yet, the fact is that citizenship legislation 

that contained broader, territorially-centered definitions of the nation was initiated and 

supported by the right or the center-right. 17 This fact might seem surprising at first 

13. Perhaps somewhat more eloquently than it is expressed in Rukh’s programmatic documents, the idea that Ukraine 

is a political nation whose “core” is the Ukrainian ethnos has been expressed by academician Volodymyr Yevtukh, 

an intellectual of the national-democratic orientation and a one-time Minister of Nationality and Migration 

Affairs: “I understand the nation-state in western term, not in ethnic but in a political sense. But in order to arrive 

to it we have to go through “this stage.” That is to say, that there has to be an ethnic core (etnoiadro) around which 

representatives of other ethnic groups would move. In our country the Ukrainian ethnos is such a natural core.” 

Yevtukh 2000, 35. 

14. See statements by MP Ivanychuk in Verkhovna Rada Ukrainy 1991b, 48; MP Romaniuk in Verkhovna Rada 

Ukrainy 1991b, 52; Vlohk, Verkhovna Rada Ukrainy 1991b, 94-95. 

15. MP Yavorivsky made proposals to this effect between the 1 st and the 2 nd readings of the 1997 citizenship law. Law 

draft from 21 November 1996 incorporated this proposal in draft article 17 paragraph 3 (see Verkhovna Rada 

Ukrainy 1996b, 11-12), but subsequent version of the draft law from 20 January 1997 dropped this provision (see 

Verkhovna Rada Ukrainy 1997d, 13). 

16. On 18 January 2001 MP Smirnov’s proposed to extend the right to simplified citizenship acquisition to persons 

who have at least one parent who was an ethnic Ukrainian. This proposal received just 99 votes (22%). See 

Verkhovna Rada Ukrainy 2001b. 

17. The 1991 citizenship law prepared still in the Soviet period was a product of joint efforts of the inter-ministerial 

commission and members of the parliamentary committee on human rights. After 1991, the executive and/or MPs 

from the right and center-right parliamentary factions were the authors of this legislation. The 1997 citizenship 

law was prepared by the citizenship department of the presidential administration and presented to the parliament 

by a center-right MP Volodymyr Iavorivsky. Presidential administration also authored the 2001 citizenship law, 

which was presented to the parliament by the head of Rukh MP Hennadii Udovenko and MP Roman Bezsmertnyi, 

then-representative of the Ukrainian president in the parliament. 

6


glance, but it really is not. Citizenship law that defined the nation by the territory of the 

state also served to legitimize the state, and the right’s support for such a law as the second 

best option is not surprising for this reason alone. Secondly, although the territorial 

definition of the nation fell shot of the right’s ideal, it did not go against it. A broader definition 

of the nation was acceptable to the right because it was congruent to its idea of a 

political nation, and consistent with an additional acknowledgement of ethnic Ukrainians 

as a group towards which the Ukrainian state has special obligations. Let us now consider 

the position of the left. 

The Ukrainian left and the citizenship question. 

The Ukrainian left, where the Communist Party of Ukraine has been the main political 

force, embraces a myth of national origin and civilizational belonging very different from 

the one embraced by the right. The left correspondingly holds different views on the 

Ukrainian state and nation. Whereas the right emphasizes the distinctiveness of Ukraine 

and the Ukrainians from Russia and the Russians, the left fails to see such a distinction. 

Competing with the right’s myth of Ukraine’s distinct origin and a European heritage is 

the left’s myth of the common origin and continuity of fate of the three East Slavic people 

(Russians, Ukrainians, Belorussians). The Ukrainian left’s conception of national 

identity sees Ukrainians as a component of the single “Soviet people,” and/or constituent 

members of the “Slavic-Orthodox civilization.” 18 

It is important to realize a qualitative difference in the thinking on the national 

question between the left and the right. It would be incorrect to assume that the 

Ukrainian left accepts ethnic nationalism and treats Ukrainians as part of the Russian ethnic 

nation. Rather, the left embraces a meta-identity (such as an East Slavic, a Soviet, or 

a Slavic and Orthodox) into which a Ukrainian identity is subsumed. This reasoning is 

evident in the communists’ leader arguments that “the independence of Ukraine is perfectly 

compatible with Ukraine remaining in the USSR,” 19 and in his appeals for the creation 

of an “Orthodox Slavic state.” 20 

Scholars of Ukraine sometime characterize the left as embracing a “civic” (as 

opposed to the right’s “ethnic”) conception of the nation. Some of the left’s strategies on 

citizenship policy matters are consistent with this interpretation – in particular, the left’s 

opposition to grant ethnic Ukrainians a preferential treatment in citizenship law, and, 

arguably, the left’s efforts to eliminate knowledge of Ukrainian language as a require- 

18. For an elaboration of the communists’ view on the national idea, see Symonenko 1996; also the 1998 electoral program 

of the Communist Party of Ukraine (text in Politychni Partii Ukrainy 1998, 81-111). 

19. Symonenko 1996. 

20. Leader of the Ukrainian Communist Party, Petro Symonenko, as quoted in Bojcun 2001. 

7


ments to get citizenship. 21 However, the combined body of evidence from citizenship 

policy debates necessitates a conclusion that a characterization of communists and their 

allies as proponents of “civic” nation-building in Ukraine is inaccurate and misleading. 

Characterization of the left as favoring “civic” nationalism assumes that it favors 

independent Ukrainian statehood just as the right does, but sees its content differently 

from how the right sees it. If the communists and their allies indeed were “civic” 

Ukrainian nationalists, they should have championed a citizenship law that defined the 

nation territorially. The fact is that the left never initiated any citizenship legislation. As 

documented above, all citizenship legislation was initiated by the right and/or the right 

and the center. Moreover, the left actively oppose citizenship law all together from the 

very beginning. As Pravda Ukrainy wrote during debates of the first law in the Rada, 

“citizenship law has been the point of contention since this parliament began its 

work [in March 1990]. The parliamentary opposition insisted on this law, emphasizing 

that this would underscore sovereignty declared by Ukraine. The 

Communist majority resisted, and when the issue was discussed nevertheless it 

insisted: only dual citizenship with the USSR.” 22 

The left’s opposition to the citizenship law seems illogical if the left is perceived 

as a supporter of a “civic” Ukrainian nation. If civic nation was what the left wanted, it 

should have itself proposed a law that defined the nation territorially, rather than opposing 

the very idea of citizenship law. The left’s position makes perfect sense, however, if 

one is mindful of the fact that political forces’ positions on the citizenship law were a 

product of these forces’ national identity conceptions, and their resulting preference for 

the Ukrainian statehood. 

The left’s national identity conception saw Ukraine as a part of the “Slavic- 

Orthodox” civilization and/or a component of the “Soviet people.” On this view, independent 

Ukrainian statehood is an anomaly, and a proper state formation is some form 

of a joint state with Russia. Communists made no secret of the fact that such a joint state 

21. MPs from the left have insisted on the elimination of language requirement from the citizenship law each time the 

law was discussed in the parliament. These proposals led to lengthy debates especially during the discussion of the 

1991 and the 1997 laws. See Verkhovna Rada Ukrainy 1991a, Verkhovna Rada Ukrainy 1991b, Verkhovna Rada 

Ukrainy 1996a, Verkhovna Rada Ukrainy 1997b, Verkhovna Rada Ukrainy 1997c. The left failed to remove the 

language requirement from the law entirely, but the language clause was made less rigid than what the right 

favored. In the 2001 law, the requirement is stated in Article 9 paragraph 5 as “command (volodinnia) of state language, 

or its understanding, in the extent sufficient for communication.” Since the 1997 edition of the law, those 

who belong to the official nation and are thus entitled to acquire citizenship under simplified rules are exempt from 

the language requirement. 

22. Sokol 1991. 

8


was their geopolitical objectives. 23 The left’s conception of national identity and resulting 

preference for statehood made the question of the official nation of the Ukrainian state 

a tricky one for the Ukrainian left. The very question, “who belong to the nation of the 

Ukrainian state” implies the normalcy of a situation where the Ukrainian state exists and 

functions like other states. The citizenship law that defined the official nation of the 

Ukrainian state and did not provide for a dual citizenship with Russia did absolutely 

nothing for the left’s ultimate goal: a joint state with Russia and Belarus. If one is aware 

of this, the left’s lack of interest in the citizenship law makes sense. Failing to prevent citizenship 

legislation all together, the left’s strategy has been to push for dual citizenship. 

Dual citizenship blurs borders between national communities, and as such is an instrument 

that could bring closer the left’s ultimate goal of a joint state. 24 The left’s support 

for dual citizenship thus also makes sense. 

The issue of dual citizenship was at the center of the citizenship law debate in 

1991, when it almost came to pass. The clause “dual citizenship is allowed” failed by just 

two votes. 25 The final wording in the 1991 law was a compromise that allowed for a possibility 

of dual citizenship under bilateral agreements. 26 No such agreements ever materialized, 

however. The executive branch, in particular the Citizenship Department of the 

Presidential Administration that has been in charge of the citizenship policy on day to 

day basis, remained adamant on maintaining single citizenship. Ukrainian officials 

described preservation of single citizenship as a matter of national interests, and opposed 

23. The 1998 electoral program of the Communist party endorsed “the recreation of the renewed family of brotherly 

people of the criminally-destroyed Soviet Union,” noting that “the first step in this direction should be the creation 

of the Union of Russia, Ukraine, and Belarus” (Politychni Partii Ukrainy 1998, 109). Before the 1999 presidential 

elections the Ukrainian Communist leader Petro Symonenko spoke of the “Orthodox geo-cultural space” 

and appealed for the creation of an “Orthodox Slavic State.” (Symonenko as quoted in Bojcun 2001). More recently, 

in May 2000, Heorhii Kriuchkov, one of the key ideologues of the Ukrainian Communist party, argued along 

similar lines: “our [Communists’] goal is … to recreate a brotherly union of peoples that until recently lived as one 

happy family. The first steps on this road could be the creation … of a confederate-type Union of three Slavic 

states: Ukraine, the Russian Federation, and Belarus.” Kriuchkov 2001, 115. 

24. That proponents of dual citizenship perceived a connection between the single/dual citizenship issue and future 

prospects of the Ukrainian statehood is evident, for example, from the 1998 electoral program of the Slavic Party 

that stood for a union of Russia and Ukraine in a single state. The party program is forthright: “the introduction 

of the dual citizenship principle is the way towards one CIS citizenship.” Politychni Partii Ukrainy 1998, 71. 

25. As verbatim report from the second reading of the 1991 citizenship law on 8 October 1991 shows, 224 MPs, 2 short 

of the 226 needed, voted for the wording “dual citizenship is allowed.” Verkhovna Rada Ukrainy 1991a, 26. 

26. Dual citizenship question dominated the debate in the Rada in 1991. After provisions that explicitly allowed and 

those that explicitly did not allow for dual citizenship failed, a compromised wording was proposed. Article 1 of the 

1991 law read: “in Ukraine there is single citizenship. Dual citizenship is allowed on the basis of bilateral agreements.” 

Text of the 1991 Ukrainian citizenship law in Pravda Ukrainy, 14 November 1991. This compromise wording 

gained 302 votes, a Constitutional majority (voting results in Verkhovna Rada Ukrainy 1991a, 28). The compromise 

was reached after MP Yemets, likely to appease supporters of dual citizenship and to encourage them to 

vote for the law, said that “the problem [of dual citizenship] will most likely arise in relations to Russia, and we 

probably will sign such an agreement [on dual citizenship].” (Verkhovna Rada Ukrainy 1991a, 12). 

9


Russia’s proposal to conclude an agreement on dual citizenship. 27 The turning point in 

the dual citizenship debate was the 1996 Constitution that established single citizenship 

as a constitutional principle. 28 When the draft 1997 citizenship law came for debate, leftist 

MPs raised the issue of dual citizenship, but this issue received far less attention than 

in 1991. 29 The right successfully used unambiguous constitutional provision on single 

citizenship as a legal argument against dual citizenship. The dual citizenship issue withered 

away by the time the 2001 law came up for debate. Only one leftist MP even raised 

the issue of dual citizenship during the first reading of the law on 18 May 2000, and he 

was ignored. 30 

The outcome: civic nation by default. 

The above discussion demonstrates why the territorial definition of the nation reflected 

in the citizenship law is best characterized as civic nation by default. For the Ukrainian 

right, the territorial definition of the nation fell short of the objective to acknowledge 

that ethnic Ukrainians are members of the “official” Ukrainian nation. For the Ukrainian 

left, a territorial definition of the nation did even less. While a definition of the official 

nation that did not single out ethnic Ukrainians was certainly more acceptable to the left 

than the one that did, the very fact of the citizenship law, and the definition of the official 

nation by the territory of the state in the law, did nothing for the left’s ultimate 

geopolitical objective of a joint state with Russia. The left and the right compromised on 

the territorial definition. Neither the left nor the right had enough electoral support to 

translate into law its first preferences (dual citizenship and explicit inclusion of ethnic 

Ukrainians in the group eligible for simplified citizenship acquisition, respectively). 

The territorial definition of the nation became the law also because it received 

support of the ideologically amorphous “center” (so-called party of power). The center 

(former communist nomenclatura and “red directors” who became the ruling elite of 

independent Ukraine) controlled over a third of the parliamentary seats in the 1990s. 

27. For arguments of the Ukrainian elites against dual citizenship, in particular with Russia, on the ground that it 

threatens Ukraine’s sovereignty see, for example, Lytvyn 2002; Khandogii 1997, 16-17; Lytvyn 2002. 

28. Article 4 of the Constitution reads: “In Ukraine there is a single citizenship. The acquisition and loss of Ukrainian 

citizenship is regulated by law.” 

29. Specifically, Communist leader Petro Symonenko tabled a written amendment to retain the clause from the 1991 

law “dual citizenship is allowed on the basis of bilateral agreements,” but the committee rejected the amendment 

as “violating the Constitution of Ukraine.” (See Verkhovna Rada Ukrainy 1996b, 3). Simonenko and Alekseiev 

raised the issue of dual citizenship during the 1 st and 2 nd readings of the law in the parliament on 30 October 1996 

and 27 February 1997. See verbatim reports of parliamentary debates Verkhovna Rada Ukrainy 1996a, Verkhovna 

Rada Ukrainy 1997b. 

30. The MP in question was Moiseienko from the ultra-left Progressive Socialist Party. See 17 May 2000 verbatim 

reports of parliamentary debate (Verkhovna Rada Ukrainy 2000). 

10


The center favored Ukrainian statehood for pragmatic reasons: it was better to be a president 

of a country than a governor of a province. If they wanted to rule an independent 

state, however, the state’s independence had to be justified and secured. One way to do 

so was by adopting citizenship law – itself a statehood legitimating mechanism. Defining 

the nation by the territory of the state was further politically expedient for the center 

because it allowed the center to maintain neutrality in the ideological debate on the 

national question between the left and the right. The center could thus continue to cast 

itself as an alternative to both “communists” and “nationalists,” and could protect itself 

from being painted as “anti-Russian” by the left or as “anti-Ukrainian” by the right. 

3. Possible directions for future research. 

This paper began with a contention that politics of citizenship policy can be a lens into 

the larger process of nation and state-building. What does this lens reveal? I would argue 

that the politics of Ukrainian citizenship policy offers a clear demonstration of how civic 

nationality policies may arise in the absence of civic national ideologies to inform these 

policies. The evidence from the Ukrainian case also suggests an intriguing possibility that 

weak and contested national identity is not necessarily an obstacle to nation-building, and 

may even be conducive to civic nation-building. These insights from the Ukrainian citizenship 

policy and politics also suggest several potentially fruitful directions for future research. 

One such research direction can be to investigate the relationship between national 

ideas and state policies on the nation. More specifically, to theorize a possibility that state 

policies may cause, rather than be caused by, national ideas. As discussed above, citizenship literature 

usually studies citizenship policies as a product of national ideas. Brubaker’s argument 

depicts a bottom-up process: certain national self-understanding forms historically, 

and then affects citizenship policies. But perhaps causal arrows should be reversed? In 

Ukraine civic citizenship policy emerged in the absence of corresponding national ideology. 

If a particular citizenship policy can emerge in the absence of supporting national 

discourse, a possibility that citizenship policy may influence identity discourse, rather 

than being influenced by it, should be considered. A possible causal chain may be as follows. 

A citizenship policy that contradicts dominant identity discourses emerges. Once 

the nation is legally defined a certain way, the alternative definitions are de-legitimized. 

Over time, a national discourse to support the legalized definition of the nation develops 

(even if such a discourse did not initially exist), while national discourses supporting alternative, 

now de-legitimized, definitions of the nation weaken (even if initially they were 

strong). Eventually, the new national discourse gains acceptance, and a “habit of national 

self-understanding” develop. This theoretical possibility draws attention to the importance 

of the legislation on the national question as a factor that can influence national 

ideas in a path-dependent way. A research agenda in this regard could be to theorize how, 

why, and when causal errors would point in one or another direction. Such a research 

agenda also invites temporal and regional comparisons, which would integrate Ukrainian 

studies into broader literatures. 

11


Another possible direction for future research can be to examine the temporal 

dynamic of citizenship policies, in particular the question whether a distinction between new 

and old states is a conceptually useful one. As one scholar remarked, “nationality law is 

always a work in progress.” 31 Can the politics of citizenship be fundamentally different 

in new and in old states? Much of the citizenship literature is in political theory and legal 

studies, and it generally analyses citizenship policy as the question that is primarily about 

individual rights (in particular the rights of settled immigrants). At the same time, as we 

saw above, the politics of citizenship in Ukraine has been first and foremost about statehood. 

The Ukrainian political elite saw a connection between how nation is defined in 

the citizenship law – indeed between the very presence of the law itself – and the likely 

and unlikely geopolitical future of the state. Given that citizenship legislation is always a 

work in progress, a potentially fruitful avenue for research could be to consider the question 

whether, and if so how, the politics of citizenship policy evolves as the state matures. 

Attention to the temporal dimension of citizenship politics can also invite more appropriate 

comparisons, such as between the post-Soviet states and the inter-war Central European states. 

Finally, the temporal dynamic of citizenship policy in the Ukrainian case also 

draws attention to the role of the international actors – another possible avenue for research. 

Scholars have investigated the role of international influences in the evolution of the 

Latvian and Estonian citizenship policies, 32 but in countries where citizenship policies 

have been less controversial international influences have also been important, and studying 

such influences can be instructive. In the case of Ukraine, international actors did not 

play any role in the adoption of the 1991 citizenship law, but did play a noticeable role 

when the subsequent editions of the law were discussed. The Council of Europe and the 

UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) were particularly influential in 

prompting the Ukrainian government to revise the 1991 law. These organizations 

observed that many thousands of Crimean Tatars and other formerly deported peoples 

who returned to Ukraine had difficulty obtaining citizenship under the 1991 law, and 

encouraged the Ukrainian authorities to remedy the situation. 33 Due to the UNHCR 

lobbying, provisions facilitating access to Ukrainian citizenship by refugees were introduced 

in the 2001 law. Amendments to the citizenship law currently pending in the 

Ukrainian parliament also appear to be prompted by international factors, in particular 

by Ukraine’s accession to the 1997 European Convention on Nationality in July 2003. 34 

31. Weil 2001, 32. 

32. For example, Barrington 2000; Kelley 2004. 

33. On the impact of international actors on the 1997 citizenship law in connection with the Crimean Tatar issue, see 

Shevel 2000. 

34. The pending changes (draft law No. 4192 from 26 September 2003 prepared by the Rada Human Rights 

Committee and the Citizenship Department of the Presidential Administration) are mainly of a technical nature, 

but the Reasoning (poiasniuvalna zapyska) that accompanies the draft explicitly states that Ukraine’s accession to the 

1997 European Convention on Nationality necessitates changing the law to bring it in accordance with the 

Convention. Texts of the draft law and of the Reasoning are available at http://www.rada.gov.ua. 

12


Research on the role of international factors in citizenship policies could consider 

the question whether international factors’ importance varies over time, in particular 

whether in the post-Communist region it is more important now than it was in the early 

1990s. Cross-regional and temporal comparisons could also be illuminating. Is the politics 

of citizenship policy in the post-Communist states that are legislating in the shadow 

of the Europeanization process different from the politics of citizenship policy in new 

states elsewhere in the world (or from the politics of citizenship policy in the central 

Europe between the two world war), and if so how exactly? 35 In sum, documenting and 

theorizing international influences could be a way to gain insights into the dynamics of 

state and nation building and of the post-communist transition, and into the comparative 

dynamic of state and nation building in different parts of the world at different times. 

35. Scholars have begun to investigate the impact of Europeanization on citizenship policies (for example, Checkel 

2001). 

13


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Citizenship and nation-building in Ukraine - Chair of Ukrainian Studies

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