[BRIEF NOTE] Ukrainian divisions
Sep. 9th, 2008 10:40 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rfmcdonaldFrom The Telegraph comes Damian McElroy's "Ukraine leaders divided over Russian threat"
Similar things have been said about the French language by English Canadians, and about the Catalan language by other Spaniards. This sort of sneering comment does not help national unity, especially if it's commonly made.
In this specific case, it worries me a bit that this sort of thing is happening to Ukraine. Back in 2004, I blogged ("Ukraine's Underestimated Strength") about how the 50:50 divide between Ukrainophones and Russophones in Ukraine didn't accurately reflect things on the ground, given the steady reidentification of ethnic Russians as ethnic Ukrainians and the growing use of the Ukrainian language among Russophones. If cleavages are starting to appear and if they're being aggravated by the push for NATO expansion, doesn't it follow that NATO expansion--inexplicable, in my humble opinion--is a bad idea?
Andrew Wilson argued in his The Ukrainians: Unexpected Nation, that the most likely and the most stable outcome for Ukraine would be a moderate set of policies, relying on slow Ukrainianization and a Ukrainian balancing act between the European Union and Russia. Going to one extreme (a strongly Ukrainianizing regime intent on immediate European integration) or another (a strongly Russophile regime intent on Eurasian integration) could disturb the equilibrium, leading to the formation of homogeneous demographic blocks defined by language and ethnicity. European Union integration doesn't appear to be especially divisive; NATO membership, on the other hand, is. Perhaps Ukraine would do well to throw out Yushchenko and let Yulia Timoshenko take the lead.
So far Ukraine has avoided ethnic clashes. Mr Nemyria, a native Russian-speaker, claims that the handling of communal tensions is one of the great achievements of its independence.
However, there are signs that distrust is mounting. Ukrainians increasingly insist on speaking the national language, a development that has left many Russians excluded from both national affairs and small-scale social events.
At a riverside disco in Kiev, Tatania Lytvyn, a 32-year-old IT consultant, visiting from the Russophone city of Donetsk, partied inconspicuously yesterday in a showcase venue for Kiev's newly prosperous elite. But during a prize giving announcement in Ukrainian, she was suddenly dismayed.
"It's become really hard for us. Everything is pressure to use Ukrainian and people get really mad if we don't," she said. "But who cares about Ukrainian? Who learns that language?
"Russian is known all over the word. It's disgusting but what can we do."
Similar things have been said about the French language by English Canadians, and about the Catalan language by other Spaniards. This sort of sneering comment does not help national unity, especially if it's commonly made.
In this specific case, it worries me a bit that this sort of thing is happening to Ukraine. Back in 2004, I blogged ("Ukraine's Underestimated Strength") about how the 50:50 divide between Ukrainophones and Russophones in Ukraine didn't accurately reflect things on the ground, given the steady reidentification of ethnic Russians as ethnic Ukrainians and the growing use of the Ukrainian language among Russophones. If cleavages are starting to appear and if they're being aggravated by the push for NATO expansion, doesn't it follow that NATO expansion--inexplicable, in my humble opinion--is a bad idea?
Andrew Wilson argued in his The Ukrainians: Unexpected Nation, that the most likely and the most stable outcome for Ukraine would be a moderate set of policies, relying on slow Ukrainianization and a Ukrainian balancing act between the European Union and Russia. Going to one extreme (a strongly Ukrainianizing regime intent on immediate European integration) or another (a strongly Russophile regime intent on Eurasian integration) could disturb the equilibrium, leading to the formation of homogeneous demographic blocks defined by language and ethnicity. European Union integration doesn't appear to be especially divisive; NATO membership, on the other hand, is. Perhaps Ukraine would do well to throw out Yushchenko and let Yulia Timoshenko take the lead.
