By the Research Centre for East European Studies (FSO)
Foreign think tanks and research centers seldom pay attention to Ukraine’s problems, its international relations, reasons for threats to the current Ukrainian government, results of the next election campaign, and so on. The more interesting it is when such materials do appear in the foreign media. This refers to the analytical material of the Research Centre for East European Studies (Die Forschungsstelle Osteuropa, FSO), which analyzes the civil society of Ukraine, the state of self-identification of the Ukrainian people in the context of their perception of ethnopolitics. The author of this study is Aadne Aasland, a senior researcher at the Norwegian Institute for Urban and Regional Research, part of Oslo Metropolitan University (OsloMet).
Given the importance of such a study for Ukrainian ethnopolitics, it is necessary to emphasize three conclusions of the survey.
First, all groups of the population, regardless of ethnicity and geographical place of residence in Ukraine, express a clear identification with their place of residence — from the level of the local community to the level of the whole of Ukraine. It also becomes clear that these multiple identifications reinforce and complement each other, so one identity is usually not chosen at the expense of another.
Second, Ukrainians are quite positive about interethnic relations in their communities; they are perceived more positively than respective relations at the national level. Interethnic tensions, especially in everyday life, are not a major concern for most people living in Ukraine.
Third, the prevailing view is that other tensions between groups, especially between the rich and the poor, create more contradictions at the local level than tensions between people of different ethnic or linguistic backgrounds.
The article is available in Ukrainian
