CHAPTER TEN
WESTERN EURASIA: A CASE STUDY OF UKRAINE
Pluralism and democracy can be quite messy and chaotic particularly when those who are administering them do not really understand the rules or their implications. A telling example of this point was demonstrated on 12 May 2006 when Kyiv’s (using the Ukrainian spelling) new mayor, Leonid Chernovetsky, found as many as 2,000 residents of the Ukrainian capital taking him up on his offer to personally present their complaints at his office.[1] Compared to the more system-shaking events that made up the Orange Revolution in November and December 2004, or the political tug-of-war of 2007, having a press of citizens at the doors of city hall hardly seems like the best example to explain politics in Ukraine. That is exactly the point, however. The Orange Revolution made what had long been considered atypical a reality. Given the fact that political unity in Ukraine is highly fractured, and the public’s sense of dissatisfaction with their national leaders, there are a number of questions regarding Ukrainian political culture that require our examination. Is Ukraine’s public in the process of accepting and learning a new political dynamic? Does the democratic process demand a sharp learning curve or can it be taken more gradually? Can national goals really be agreed upon for a divided polity, goals which will lead to a cohesive polity?
Unlike the Baltic states Ukraine emerged from the chaos of the Soviet breakup uncertain about the tenor and pace of independence, and undecided as to the form of the new state structure. A polity of immense potential, coupled to a land rich in agricultural prospects, industrial infrastructure, and natural resources, Ukraine should be one of the true dynamos of the Eurasian states as well as of Europe proper. And yet, it has shown itself to be largely unprepared to move forward and away from the Soviet legacy. Ukraine’s political culture is torn between Russo-centric and Euro-centric affiliations (for instance in the debate over whether Ukraine should join the North Atlantic Treaty Organization) that defy most efforts to bridge them. Its political economy reflects similar dilemmas: openness and competition versus state-influenced economic change. The population itself faces daunting social challenges such as having the one of the highest HIV/AIDS growth rates among both European and Eurasian states with (officially) 1.63% of Ukrainians being infected in 2007.[2] Collectively Ukraine’s leaders have failed to effectively address these issues of culture and economy and the public has been unable to accept a civic culture of inclusiveness. Thus, there is cause to portray Ukraine as a set of anomalies in search of valid explanations.
But if Ukraine operates under considerable handicaps, it possesses distinct advantages, too. Ukraine has, and will continue to have, the ability to chart a future that could succeed in making it a focal point not just for Russia and the Eurasian states, but for much of eastern and central Europe. Ukraine’s large population (as of January 2008 it was 46,372,700,[3] down from the 1996 figure of 50,864,009,[4] but still seventh in Europe overall[5]) is located along major transit points, and straddles one of Eurasia’s most important cultural divides. This presents Ukraine with commercial and cultural opportunities that few other states possess. By themselves none of these factors are enough to catapult Ukraine over its post-authoritarian legacy, and even collectively there is no certainty that Ukraine will break out of the pack. Either through its successes or failures, though, Ukraine is a prime illustration of what any Eurasian state, no matter how complex, confronts even nearly two decades beyond the end of Soviet power.
An Uncertain Independence
The Western States in Profile
Of all the regions examined in this book, none is as artificial as that of the “western states”. The term describes a grouping - Ukraine, Belarus, and Moldova - rather than a region since the latter term implies a bond between states based on a number of factors common to them all. In contrast, a grouping describes a collection of peoples, objects, or issues based on a loose association. Aside from geographic proximity there is no categorization that applies to all three states. The political environment does have an impact, however, in that Russia plays an important role in defining each of these country’s political systems. Ukraine’s large Russian community, for example, does not feel entirely comfortable without Russia’s patronage, and Moldova’s separatist Russian entity (the Trasns-dniestr) could not exist without Russian support. Both ethnic Ukrainians and ethnic Russians are aware of their common Slavic identity largely as it relates to the Russian Federation. They are, nevertheless, quite different from the significant Crimean Tatar population.
In geophysical terms Ukraine is Europe’s second largest state (603,700 square kilometers), forty-three percent larger than Germany but still only 3.5 percent the size of the entire Russian Federation. It is a country largely unmarked by natural borders with neighbors: there are few river or mountain barriers that separate Ukraine from its immediate neighbors, although the mountains of the Krym (Crimean) peninsula and the Carpathian mountains in the south-west do break up the overall landscape. The lack of defendable boundaries of a country with considerable natural resource wealth made the Ukrainian lands easy prey in the eyes of Russian, Mongol, Tatar, Polish, Lithuanian, Hapsburg, Ottoman, and German conquerors who all readily moved across the country’s surface. And yet the Ukrainian state that emerged at the end of the Soviet period did so with recognizable and largely uncontested boundaries (Ukraine and Russia signed a treaty on their state borders in January 2003 and in June 2003 Ukraine and Romania came to a similar agreement). Even the most contested territory - that of the Krym which was “given” to the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic in 1954 by Khrushchev - is geographically recognizable as attached to the Ukrainian mainland.
Ukraine’s capital Kyiv is a modern metropolis bisected by the Dniepr River, struggling over which direction to turn for both its present and future. As the focal point of a great trading empire Kyiv became prominent in the reign of Volodymyr in the late tenth century who, as has already been seen, baptized his people and implanted a strong Byzantine influence into his flourishing capital.[6] In the thirteenth century Kyivan Rus’ was eclipsed by the rising star of Muscovy and slowly the birthplace of eastern Slavic culture faded to the status of a second, and later, third-rank city. Controlled over the centuries by Mongols, Poles, Russians, and other conquerors Kyiv, like the rest of Ukraine, has rediscovered much of its identity since independence. Today Kyiv presents to the visitor the striking golden cupolas of the Lavra Monastery (also known as the Monastery of the Caves due to its catacombs) and St. Sophia Cathedral, which rival the gilded splendor of Moscow’s monuments. The beauty of its churches, palaces, and public buildings - all tributes to Ukraine’s sense of nationhood - had been badly dimmed by the ages, the neglect of its own rulers, the horrific destruction of the Nazi occupation, and the Soviet disdain for the past. In the first decade of a new century Kyiv is a city of mixed visions: great tree-lined boulevards and distinctive architecture from days gone by, offset by the heavy-handed dullness of Stalinist/Soviet-era architecture and tributes to socialist realism. Most importantly, Kyiv has become the focal point for the nation’s political hopes and disputes with crowds regularly playing out on the streets their own role in the political drama, while politicians battle each other over who will shape the political agenda. Kyiv is the center of Ukrainians’ political aspirations, not the regions or Moscow.
Along with Belarus, Ukraine is one of the most urbanized countries among the Eurasian states. Seventy-two percent of Belarus’ and sixty-eight percent of Ukraine’s populations live in urban areas (Russia has the highest rate at seventy-three percent). Moldova, which as already mentioned is the most densely populated Eurasian country, ranks surprisingly low for urbanization with only about forty-two percent of its people living in urban areas.[7]
1
With four cities of over one million people each - including Kyiv at 2.5 million people (in 2005) - the country can be considered highly urbanized (Minsk, the capital of Belarus had 1.7 million, while Chisinau in Moldova had 598,000).[8] Most of Ukraine’s large cities lie in the eastern or central parts of the country where the concentration of both ethnic Russians and industrialization is most pronounced.[9]
Ukraine is divided into twenty-four oblasts, the Autonomous Republic of Krym, and the cities of Kyiv and Sevastopol which both have special legal status. Administrative divisions approximate the historical as well as ideological divisions: to the west lie L’viv and Vinnytsia where higher percentages of ethnic Ukrainians result in stronger expressions of Ukrainian nationalism; in the eastern oblasts, especially those of Dnipropetrovs’k, Donets’k, and Luhans’k pro-Russian sentiments are strong. In the south the Krym peninsula is the only region in Ukraine with a majority population of ethnic Russians, and a considerable minority of Krym Tatars (more on them later). Both Simferopol (the region’s capital) and Sevastopol (the Black Sea Fleet’s home port) have been hotbeds of Russian separatist ambitions since 1991 variously opposed or supported by Ukrainian and Russian politicians who have argued over who should control the region. Eastern and western distinctions have been especially apparent in the country’s elections, but it is important to keep in mind that these administrative divisions represent provincial boundaries that stretch back to tsarist times. Thus, part of the Ukrainian population’s attachment to the homeland derives from historical and not just modern political considerations.
In both Ukraine and Belarus titular populations conflict or coexist with minority groups largely within the same racial groupings (see Table 10.1). In Belarus the combined Belarussian, Russian, Polish, and Ukrainian populations in 1999 registered approximately ninety-eight percent of the total population with Jews (1.1 percent) making up almost all of the remainder.1[0] For Ukraine the Slavic totals were nearly as large (96.3 percent), but considerably different social pressures exist between the relatively small (seventeen percent) ethnic Russian population and the numerically dominant Ukrainians (seventy-seven percent).1[1] What is most interesting about these figures is that only sixty-seven percent of all Ukrainian citizens consider Ukrainian to be their primary language while twenty-nine percent use Russian in this capacity.1[2] Moldova provides another contrast in that it is the most densely populated Eurasian state (as it was during the Soviet period), as well as the smallest of the fifteen former Soviet republics. Ethnic Moldovans (who are not Slavic and comprise about seventy-eight percent of the population) speak the Romanian language. The ethnic Russian element of Moldova (slightly less than six percent) is primarily concentrated in the eastern part of the country beyond the Dniestr River (Trans-Dniestr) which has been de facto independent from Moldova since a brief separatist struggle in 1992. Consequently, the Moldovan government in Chisinau has no effective control over this particular region.
Ukraine was traditionally known as the breadbasket of both the Russian empire and later the Soviet Union due to its rich black soil districts and grain production. Its agricultural capacities made it vital to Soviet power but also vulnerable to the brutality of collectivization which was forced on the region in the early 1930s. In 1932-33 what is referred to as the Holodomor, or Great Famine, occurred resulting in what many observers have claimed to have been a deliberately manufactured famine under Stalin’s direction. Anywhere from seven to ten million people died - particularly peasants in Ukraine - as the Soviet state crushed opposition in order to further its goal of industrialization.1[3] First in 2003 and then in 2006 the Ukrainian state began to come to grips with this terrible legacy, but two sharply divided votes in parliament over whether to refer to the famine as genocide (both were passed with bare majorities1[4]) demonstrated the controversial nature of this issue.
As already discussed in Chapter Two Orthodox Christianity was introduced to the eastern Slavs with the baptism of the Kyivan Rus’ prince Volodymyr (Vladimir in Russian) who declared Christianity the state religion in the year 988. As much as any other single factor, the Orthodox faith has shaped the Ukrainian, Belarusian, and Moldovan cultures; taken as a whole religion continues to have a strong impact on all three countries. For Ukraine the years of communist repression exacted a clear cost when religious expression was again permitted. According to survey research in the first decade of the twenty-first century approximately sixty-six percent of the public considered themselves to be “believers” and only five percent atheists. However, the number of those who regularly attend services of any sort in Ukraine is reflective of western European norms with only seventeen percent of these attending religious services at least once a month.1[5] Christianity is the overwhelming general religious association in Ukraine today with ninety-seven percent of all religious believers identifying themselves as such. The single largest denomination in Ukraine - the Ukrainian Orthodox Church-Kyivan Patriarchate - commands the allegiance of only twenty-two percent of all Christian believers, while non-denominational Orthodox comprise twenty-six percent of the total, the Ukrainian Orthodox Church-Moscow Patriarchate twelve percent, Ukrainian Greek Catholic (Uniates) eight percent and Roman Catholics one percent.1[6]