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

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INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE 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
INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE 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
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