EDV - Etude UKRAINE
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Ukraine : from past to future, the choice of Europe, definitely ? A political and historical perspective of the challenge of Russian influence for a non-achieved Europe Mathieu COLLET Abstract After Orange revolution, Ukraine definitively seems to have been anchored in a European destiny. However, Russia, since its imperial past assimilated the Ukrainian people into its nation-state building process. If it is not easily contestable that Ukraine has a European identity and that its vocation is to enter the Union, the way should be long and full of obstacles : Russia does not hope to give up what it estimates to be a part of its identity, and the European Union does not manage to give to the Ukrainians a prospect to the height for their European hopes. Résumé Après la révolution orange, l'Ukraine semble s'être définitivement ancrée dans un destin européen. Ce serait compter sans la Russie, qui, depuis son passé impérial, a assimilé le peuple ukrainien dans la construction de son Etat-nation. S'il est difficilement contestable que l'Ukraine possède une identité européenne et que sa vocation est d'entrer dans l'Union, le chemin sera long et semé d'embûches : la Russie ne compte pas abandonner ce qu'elle estime être une partie de son identité, et l'Union Européenne ne parvient pas à donner aux Ukrainiens une perspective à la hauteur de leurs espoirs européens. Ukraine: from past to ...
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Ukraine : from past to future, the choice of Europe, definitely ? A political and historical perspective of the challenge of Russian influence for a non-achieved Europe Mathieu COLLET
Abstract After Orange revolution, Ukrain e definitively seems to have been anchored in a European destiny. However, Rus sia, since its imperial past assimilated the Ukrainian people into its nation-state building process. If it is not ea sily contestable that Ukraine has a European identity and that its vocation is to enter the Union, the way should be long and full of obstacles : Russia does not hope to give up what it estimates to be a part of its identity, and the European Union does not manage to give to the Ukrainians a prospect to the height for their European hopes. Résumé Après la révolution orange, l'Ukraine semble s'être définitivement ancrée dans un destin européen. Ce serait compter sans la Russie, qui, depuis son passé impérial, a assimilé le peuple ukrainien dans la construction de son Etat-nation. S'il est difficilement contestable que l'Ukraine possède une identité européenne et que sa vocation est d'entrer dans l'Union, le chemin sera long et semé d'embûches : la Russ ie ne compte pas abandonner ce qu'elle estime être une partie de son identité, et l'Union Européenne ne parvient pas à donner aux Ukrainiens une perspective à la hauteur de leurs espoirs européens.
U k r a i n e : f r o m p a s t t o f u t u r e , t h e c h o i c e o f E u r o p e , d e f i n i t e l y ?
INTRO DUCTION............................................................................................................................................. 3 1. THE UKRAINI AN I DENTI TY: A PART OF EUROPE APART OF EUROPE, A PART OF RUSSI A APART OF RUSSI A.............................................................................................................. 4 LITTLERUSSI A ANDGREATRUSSIA: NDENCE OF I NTERMI NGLED NATIONTHE PATH DEPE-STATES BUIL DI NG........................................................................................................................................................... 4 A OFNATIO NEUROPE....................................................................................................................................... 8 2. FROM INDEPENDENCE TO IN DEPENDENCE: THE EUROPEAN CHOICE................... 12 K NEY ELEMENTS OF A STRAT EGIC POSI TIO................................................................................................... 12 EAST- CESWEST BALAN.................................................................................................................................... 13 NATO HEAND TUSA..................................................................................................................................... 17 T TOWARDSHE SINUOUS WAYEUROPEANUNIO N......................................................................................... 20 CONCLUSI ON : ONE DAY, MAYBE….................................................................................................. 24 REFERENCES.................................................................................................................................................. 25
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U k r a i n e : f r o m p a s t t o f u t u r e , t h e c h o i c e o f E u r o p e , d e f i n i t e l y ?
Introduction “Orange Revolution. In December 2004, almost all the Medias and the world political leaders didn’t hesitate to call “revolution the political troubles and the victory of Yushenko’s partisans in Ukraine. After Georgia, and on a - alleged - comparable stream as Moldova and Kirghizstan, U kraine seemed to turn the back to Russian hold and to look to the west, especially towards Europe. From the recent events and the new political context of Ukraine, which had, as a quasi instantaneous effect, substituted a former representation an austere country under Russian domination still marked by communism, land of Chernobyl catastrophe -to an other one in common minds marked by the image of modern and democratic new “orange leaders turned to western values, active civil society -, we wi ll try to ask the recent past and the fundaments of this undefined or at least multifarious nation. Tensed between Russia and now a 25 members European Union, to whom belongs Ukraine? Could the orange revolution give expectations on the launch of a new destiny where Russia’s domination is the past of Ukraine and European Union circle its future? We will try to present briefly in the following statements the meaning of the political will of the Ukrainian leaders after Orange revolution to be part of the European union, in regard with Russia’s secular relations. We wi ll especially maintain, from a personal analysis, that if the Ukrainian nation is essentially European, its nation- state building process is strongly linked to the Russian one, and thus apart of Europe. The aim of this article is nor to pretend to an exhaustive historical perspective neither to produce a precise political analysis. More simply, our purpose is t o illustrate how the political achievement of the European integration process needs now to deal with the complexity of the contemporary Russian and Ukrainian nations building inheritances, especially after the later enlargement to central and eastern European countries in 2004. And finally if Ukraine made the European Union choice, what is the choice of European Union?
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1. The Ukrainian identity: a part of Europe apart of Europe, a part of Russia apart of Russia The Yushenko’s poisoning affair and the highly probable implication of Russian services, with a caricature of KGB technique, could lead to many speculations. But the comments around this gangster politico scandal, and the relentlessness of Vladimir Putin to recognize the victory of Yanukovitch against European and American leaders, is relevant of an attitude of supervision, if it is not of owner of the destiny of the Ukraine. And whatever the political Ukrainian leaders could say today about the Ukrainian membership to Europe and western values, the strong Russian shape has to be seen as a fundamental element, not only for the past, but also for the present and the future of Ukraine. I n that way, the place of the different concepts of nation and nation-state in the Ukrainian identity is essential. Little Russia and Great Russia : the pa th dependence of intermingled nation-states building The Russian and the Ukrainian nations were late raisers in comparison with most of European ones. They were imagined and built in the nineteenth century but began to adopt a modern form only in the twentieth Century. Since the seventeenth Century, their histories are totally intermingled, but the myths and common or even disputed national references have deeper roots in the past. This is the case especially for the original belonging of Orthodox traditions and the perpetual contest for the “Kievan inheritance. Both Russian and Ukrainian national theories widely still available today - try to give a monolineal and exclusivist interpretation of the continuity between Kievan Rus of tenth and thirteenth centuries and their modern identity. The conversion to Byzantine Christianity of Kievan Rus, ordered by Prince Vladimir in 988, the progressive transfer of the ecclesiastical institution of the Kievan Orthodox church metropolitanate and its integration into the Moscow patriarch in 1686 give elements to Russian interpretation, regarding Kievan Rus as “Mother of all R ussias : Byelorussia the white Russia, Great Russia and Malorossiia the “Little Russia, name originally used to identify the East Slavic lands of Polish- Lithuanian commonwealth, but
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also textually expressing the way Russia have considered Ukraine since the Tsarist period until today1. On its side, the Ukrainian theory found its own line of continuity mostly into territorial, ethnographic, social and institutional arguments: there is continuity from the glorious Ruthenia - Kievan Rus, then the State of Galicia- Volhynia, to the Ukrainian Cossack Hetmanate. I f we have a look to the official Soviet theory, which was guided by an aim of cohesion and equal rights between the Slavic “nationalities but also by a Sov iet-Ru ssian domination, it stressed the common “Old Rus roots of Byelorussia, Ukraine and Russia, and stated that the formation of the three East Slavic people took place in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries when the Russian nationality played the role of guarding the Kievan tradition2. The history of relations between Ukraine and Russia is not these of two distinguish ethnically and culturally different groups. According to Henry R. HUTTENBACH, t his is “less the story of conquest and occupation [of a nation by an other], than the meeting of two related people with a related past, each claiming to be the legitimate heir3. Thus, the main challenge for Ukraine in building and keeping a national “raison d’être, had been to stimulate the prevailing of a specific representation of history apart from the Russian vision, and to develop particularly proper social structures, an economical framework, common consciousness and autonomous political and intellectual elites. Undoubtedly this had not been an easy task, and it is still not. Firstly due to the internal characteristics of the country, of which we will illustrate later the complexity. But above all because of the Russian behaviour towards Ukraine, which shows an inescapable growth of a feeling of unique membership. Russia’s national identity will never adopt an accomplished form, but will roughly mingle itself with an imperialist path, and myths extracted from the “Slavic idea. After the Mongol empire domination during the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, the territory of actual Ukraine had been a perpetual source of contest between 1 krainian Andreas, “ Great Russians and “Little Russians: Russian-U KAPPELER Relations and Perceptions in Historical Perspective, Se attle 2003, The Donald W. Treadgold Papers in Russian, East European, and Central Asian St udies No. 39., p 13-14. avic lands of Polish- late middle ages, “Little Russia meant the East Sl“In the Lithuanian commonwealth ( Ruthenian or Rusyn). U krainian churchmen began also to use more frequently the term “Great Russia. In the 1640’s, when communication with Moscow became more intensive, the terminology was adopted in Russia. In 1654, “Great Russia and “Little Russia appeared for the first time in the official title of the Muscovite Tsar. Only from this time forward did the Russian government use “little Russia (Malorossiia) to express the idea that left-b ank Ukraine, and later other Ukrainian regions, belonged to Russia. 2 origins and the relations : Ukrainian Russian- heritance in e Contest for the “Kievan In oslaw, “ThPELENSK I Jar Early ramifications, in RAEFF Marc, POTIC HNYJ Peter J. , PELENSKI Jar oslaw, ZE KULI N Gleb N.,Ukraine and Russia in Their Historical Encounter 9. of Ukranian Study, 1992, p. 6- itute, Canadian Inst 3 The Ukraine and Muscovite expansion, inHUTTENBACH Henry R., “ the GreatRussian imperialism from Ivan to the Revolution, Taras Hunczak. Lanham, University Press of America, Jul 2000, p. 169 y
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the surrounding powers, especially Poland and Lithuania, Muscovy-R ussia and later Austro-Hungarian Empire. The Cossack uprising of 1648 against Poland, led by the Hetman Bohdan Khmelnytskyï, hope of the Ukrainian orthodox peasants exploited by Polish nobility, paved the way for the Russian domination: the Pereyaslav treaty of 1654 gave to Cossacks the insurance of a protection of Muscovy against Poland, and the Andruszov Muscovian-Polish peace of 1667 will define the borders between the two countries along the Dnieper river, sharing Ukra ine territory into west and east. The autonomous Cossack State within the Russian empire will show several more or less organised wills of independence and re-unification, especially with the defiance of the Hetman Ivan Mazepa against the Russian Tsar. He obtains recognition of Charles the twelfth of Suede in 1708, during the Swedish short expansion towards Lithuania and eastern Poland, but Peter the Great will defeat this alliance in 1709 in Poltava. Ivan Mazepa, ca nonized by Pushkin and Tchaikovsky as a traitor4 figure, is still today a major of the Ukrainian mythology, and his face proudly adorns the bills of the present currency. The fall of Poland in the late seventeenth century almost definitely settled the fate of Ukraine: with the first and second divisions of Poland in 1772 and 1792, and the conquest of Crimea on Ottomans in 1784, R ussia embraced the rest of Ukraine territory of which autonomy had been suppressed by Catherine the Second. Only the very western part of present Ukraine, Galicia, of which Lwow city is an emblem of the Polish secular presence, will remain under Austro-Hungaria n domination and will be reattached to Poland after the first world war, before being annexed by USSR in 19 39 with the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact. Roman SZPORLUK argues that the Russian history and identity began to be sketched out after this E uropean expansion started in the seventeenth century; “Russians had to legitimate this presence in Europe in conformity with the new idea of nationality then arising in Europe5. The transfer of the tsarist capital to Saint-Petersburg brought Russia closer to Europe, and, esp ecially during the nineteenth century the development of the Slavic idea contributed to the creation of a spiritual border between the Slavs and the other E uropeans like Germanic and Latin peoples, and in the same time the sentiment of pre-eminence of Russia on the Slavonic nations. But these implications would become clearer in the twentieth century. Actually, in a more apparent way firstly emerged the myths establishing the link between Muscovy to Byzantinium and medieval Kyiv. “I t was only after Ukraine was attached to Russia in the seve nteenth century that 4KAPPELER Andreas,op. cit., p. 25 5 Roman, S ZPORLUK“The fall of the Tsarist Empire and the USSR, inRussia, Ukraine, and the Breakup of the Soviet Union Hoover Inst itution, St anford, Press, 2000, p. 400- 403
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Moscow’s Kyiv connection was established and projected back into the medieval past. This tie was reaffirmed during the partitions of Poland when most of Ukraine [found itself] wi thin Russia : the Kyi v myth served to counter P olish claims, and was also later invoked to deny Ukrainian demands for recognition as a n ation distinct from the Russians 6. We can also add that began to see itself as the third “Rome and Moscow legitimated by the way its civilizer imperialist dimension. Therefore, on this perspective, the Cossack aristocracy and other Ukrainians educated peoples were widely acculturated to the Russian nobles. This movement of “brain drain and russification has dispossessed in a large way Ukraine of proper elite, which rather contributed to the cultural and political development of Russia7. During the nineteenth century, the Russian culture and language became the dominant one, and Ukrainian language and culture, weakly under construction, were almost only limited to the peasants. On its side, the Russian na tionalist movement emerged in the early twentieth century, viewing the empire as the nation-st ate of the Russians, when ethnic Russians represented less than half of the Empire’s population. Thus, the real first occasion for the emancipation of a national Ukrainian consciousness in “Little Russia will be realized with the new political conditions of 1917 and 1918, although the Soviet period is full of ambiguities for Ukrainian nation building. Actually, if the creation of the first independent Ukrainian State in 1918, the Soviet Ukrainian Republic allowed a development of Ukrainian language and culture without precedent, the soviet ideology and political heaviness restrict the national self-determination. But above all, on the Russian side, the attempt to create a proper Russian nation failed, and the formation of USSR in 1922, union of partners formally equals to the RSFSR, announced the revival of the Russian Empire. Ukrainian identity, which was indeed most in advance in its building process as the Russian one8, was no t officially dissuaded, but had to face a Russian identity inescapably associated to the political concept of Russian Empire. In fact, the idea of postrevolutionnary policy of sovietisation resembled in some way to the principle of tsarist “russification: a social transformation “national in form, socialist in content, while the essence of tsarist russification laid in the orthodox idea, not in R ussianism9. But since the m id-twenties, the communist power and Stalinism, if they allowed in theory expression of non- political Ukrainian nationalism, have succeed to ruin Ukrainian nation- building process, with forced collectivization, a 6 p. 402Ide m, 7Andreas KAPPELER gives the example of Gogol, who, in pointing out his “twin soul, “declares himself to be a member of a pre-na tional, all-russia n community in which little Russians and Russians have their place and do complement each other. KA PPELER Andreas,ibid, p. 31 8 Roman,SZPO RLUKibid 409., p 406-“It is arguable that the portion of Ukrainian peasants […] who displayed an awareness of themselves as Ukrainians by nationality was relatively larger than that of the ethnic Great Russian peasants who thought in terms of a R ussian nation or state.,p. 407 9 Legacy and the So erial Roman, "The ImpSZPO RLUK Roman, PORLUK Nationalities Problem," in SZ vietRussia, Ukraine, and the Breakup of the Soviet Union, St anford, Hoover Inst itution Press, 2000, p. 231
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deliberately provoked huge famine which made 8 millions of deaths from 1933 - called “Holodomor by the Ukrainians, and which is now a strong symbol of national martyr -and the second world war. After the war, the Rus sian nation was partially identified with the So viet people or nation and even if the forced social transformation process (urbanization, industrialization), brought a social structure to Ukraine, immigration of Russians and russification enormously increased, let to Ukrainian culture and language a reduced provincial status, again. In 1954, Khr ushchev decided to give Crimea to the Ukrainian Republic for the celebration of the tercentenary of Pereyaslav treaty; this will however mark the beginning of a relative period of a more f lexible hold of Moscow, allowing Ukrainian communist leaders to engage policies with national aims. On the Russian side Ukraine is perceived as a sub-gro up of the Russian nation. Russian has never accepted Ukraine as an independent nation, and still not accepts it. Ukraine and Russia have followed a way apart from Europe in their modern nation- state building process, in which orthodoxy, linguistic kinship and a long intermingling of elites and cultures have produced a common heritage, a family sentiment. Nevertheless, the Ukrainian nation has succeed to develop itself to some extent apart from the Russian one, much more vagu e but defining all eastern Slavs - Great, white and little Russians - as a whol e Russian ethnic group (sense o f “russkias remind us Andreas KAPPELER10it has been spoiled through the consequences of). However , Russian national conception of State (sense of “Rossia), and strongly russified in that way: Ukraine is a bicultural Ukrainian- Russian country. That is also w hy, and especially today, the Ukrainian part of Ukraine tries to define the Ukrainian nation in opposition to Russia and from references to the European history and values which crossed it during centuries. A nation of Eur ope The Ukrainians orientation to the west is firstly rooted in the Kievan Rus, one of the biggest and most powerful European country between the nineteenth and twelfth centuries, and in the long relationship with Poland and Austria. During the fourteenth century, Polish and Lithuanians fought the Mongolian invader and finally almost all the territory of t oday’s Ukraine passed under the authority 10 building precisions about the distinction between S For and ethnicity in the Russian national identity tate process, see K APPELER Andreas,op. cit. 15, p. 14-
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of both countries. Poland took the control of Galicia and Lithuania of Volhynia in the North-Wes t of Ukraine (including the areas around Kiev) until its connection to Poland after the union of Lublin of 1569. Following the creation of Polish-Lithuanian commonwealth, many Germans, Armenians and Je ws immigrated in the country. But also, during this period of Polish domination, marked by serfdom, the Cossacks, Ruthenian peasants organised against the Polish nobility, emerged from the fifteenth century. In the following periods, several Cossacks risings will take place against the Polish nobility of which some of the most famous were carried out by the Cossack chief Severyn Nalyvaïko in 1595 and 1596, against bad treatments of the population and religious reforms. The Cossacks become more and more influent among the peasants, and their insubordination represents an increasing danger for the occupying power. In 1596 the Cossack Hetmanate is founded, and the capital will be transferred in Kiev not long after. The Cossacks, in spite they are uncontrollable, will be the subjects of many manipulation attempts by the surrounding powers. Poland, however, via its nobility, introduced different ethnic, political and social practices of nation- building. For ages, Polonisation of Ukrainians occurred, firstly in the kingdom of Poland-Lithuania from the sixteenth to eighteenth centuries and even in the Russian parts during the beginning of tsarist domination. The rel igious dimension is also a central point of this polish influence, particularly with the union of Brzesc of 1596, which created the “Uniat or Greek Catholic church, with the recognition of Pope’s authority by the local orthodox hierarchy. The aim of Poland in this reform was linked to the main pillars of its being: in the one hand, to appear as the head of the catholic expansionism pushed by Rome, and in the ot her hand, to i ncrease polonisation and its influence on east towards Muscovy11 conversion of many Ruthenians, which s. But thi created a lot of resistance in non- polonised nobility and among the Cossacks, w ill add an element of duality in the future Ukrainian identity building process, definitely shared between eastern and western influences: one eye on Rome one eye on Byzantinium, and later on the third Rome, Moscow. The risings against Poles will continue, and the Cossacks, associating the defence of their orthodox faith to the serfs, will carry the slow awaking of the Ukrainian identity. Therefore, during the extension of Ru ssia to the west - the so called “westernisation of Russia - unde r reigns of Peter the G reat and Catherine the second, the new subjects of the emp ire as were the Ukrainians increasingly saw themselves as Ukrainians. The development of Cossack movements and even identity and an embryo of
11BEAUVOIS Da niel, lture Cu ntité,La Pologne, Histoire, Ide 129La Martinière Textes, Paris, 2005, p. 127-,
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State within the Russian circle of influence have been both influenced by the Poles and constructed as a reaction to them. In 1768 a n Ukrainian insurrection directed against Russia massacred 20 000 Polish and Jew nobles from the rig ht bank of Dnieper, seen as accomplices of the tsarist hold t his peasant uprising is called “koliszcyzna in Ukrainian an d has been repressed by Russian and polish royal armies12 multiplication of risings and massacres by the us,. Th peasants against the nobles continued at the nineteenth century and even carried out the Russian authorities to found rules limiting the abuses of the Polish owners. Bu t with the virulence of Ruthenian - Cossa cks - risi ngs and the development of nationalist movements, which called into question their domination, the Polish owners did not hesitate on several occasions to collaborate with the imperial power. More and more, the Ukrainian intellectuals and writers - an d in particular Tarass Chevtchenko - took as a starti ng point the nationalist spirit which stirred up the other people of Europe subjected to other imperial governments and became determined to revive the Ukrainian language and the cultural traditions in order to reconstitute a nation-state. It has be en in a large part allowed by the situation in Austrian Galicia, where the situation of the Ukrainians was considerably more favourable than under the Russian domination. The core of the Ukrainian identity will really emerged in Galicia, especially from the Uniat intellectual and ecclesiastical elites of Lwow, thanks to a relative freedom of expression from the mi ddle of nineteenth century and emulated by the spring of people in 184813 people. Besides, at that time the of Ukraine agreed to change their name of Ruthenians into Ukrainians. On the other part, in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, the Russian-Ukrainian relationship was almost a function of their respective relations to the Poles. During a long time, the Poles constituted the social and cultural elite in the western parts of Ukraine, and the Tsarist government used to look western Ukraine through the prism of Poland. Roman SZPORLUK re calls us moreover that the role of Poles vis-a-vis the Ukrainians progressively became increasingly positive as for the affirmation of the Ukrainian identity during the reinforcement of the Russian influence and russification: Poles will be thus leading actors of the falls of the two successive empires - tsarist empire and USSR -, because of the revendication of their identity and their influence on the other subjected people14. In 1905, the Ukrainian national movement, as well as Lithuanian and Byelorussian ones, which originally has been developed within the Russian empire in a social and cultural confrontation with the Poles, declared itself in 12 Idem, p. 175 13ibid,p. 252- 253 14 in R,SZPO RLUK Roman, “The fall of the Tsarist Empire and the USSRussia, Ukraine, and the Breakup of the Soviet Union Press, 2000, p. 409 itution Hoover Inst anford,, St
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U k r a i n e : f r o m p a s t t o f u t u r e , t h e c h o i c e o f E u r o p e , d e f i n i t e l y ?
opposition to Russian autocracy. This opposition will find support in ex-Poland, which had totally disappeared from the map of Europe since 1795. Therefore, “the Polish-Soviet war of 1920 was from the Russian point of view about saving Kyiv for Russia, and from the Polish point of view was a war first to help the Ukrainians in their struggle for independence, and then a war for Poland survival as a nation15 the second. Duri ng republic of Poland, polonisation of Ukrainians in Galicia occurred again, while the other side of Ukraine was subjected to a strong so vietisation process. Ukraine was thus a real nation, but dispossessed of a modern nation-state.It wi even know, i ll Galicia, ultra- n nationalist movements, like the Nationalist Ukrainian Organisation leads by St efan Bandera, which will declared in June 1941 the restoration of the Ukra inian state in Lwow. These kinds of movements will have an important role during the Second World War and will stay active until 1954 in USSR and Poland. The Ukrainian identity mainly developed in the west, in its Uniat form and of Ukrainian language. The country inherits a division, an identity with double facet, within which today it is difficult to structure a single national feeling. Thus, as underlines Andreas KAPPELER, the Ruthenians of Poland-Li thuania (Ukrai nians and Byelorussians together) and later the Greek Catholic Ruthenians of Austrian Galicia had the potential to become a separate nation; th is potential has been preserved among Galician Ukrainian Catholics today16 . 15BEAUVOIS Da niel,op. cit., p. 410 16 KAPPELER Andreas,op. cit., p. 18
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