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

More documents

Recommendations

Info

INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE 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
INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE 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
Page 1 and 2: INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE Citizenshi
Page 3 and 4: INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE The 1991 c
Page 5: INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE conception
Page 9 and 10: INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE was their
Page 11 and 12: INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE The center
Page 13 and 14: INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE Research o
Page 15 and 16: INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ———.

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

You also want an ePaper? Increase the reach of your titles

Delete template?

Save as template?