CEU Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2007
| Author | Salnykova, Anastasiya |
|---|---|
| Title | Ukrainian Regionalism Intensification: forces behind |
| Summary | The paper deals with the issue of regionalism and ethnicized identities in post-Soviet Ukraine. Ukraine as a historically heterogenous society (in ethnic, linguistic and religeous terms) has a tradition of mostly peaceful coexistence of Ukrainian majority and numerous minorities. However, after its independence in 1991 issues of federalism, second language and related are being set on and off the agenda with different salience. During and after 2004, it can be argued, that ethnicized regionalism intensified in Ukraine coming to the fore of pubic discourse and being in particular associated with a secessionism initiative. This regionalism and the reasons behind its intensification in recent years are under scrutiny in the paper. In particular the opposition intensified between Russophiles and pro-Ukrainians – two losely defined social groups, that are regionally concentrated to some extent and differ in terms of political and cultural preferences. In particular the selective focus is made on the Donbas region in the East of Ukraine and the L’viv-centered Western Ukraine. The paper outlines the nature of regionalism tensions in Ukraine and explores several possible roots of its intensification. In particular it addresses such potential explanations as: deep-seated differences between the regions, a reaction to ultra-nationalist rhetoric, a response to overnationalistic state policy, a consequense of party system consolidation, natural development of democratic representation, foreign influence and the political-economic elite manioulation. The latter factor is looked at specifically since it is less studied in the literature so far, yet, as argued in this paper, is a core driving force behind the increasing regionalism in Ukraine. In particular, this factor will be backed by a discussion of the mechanism of political-economic elite manipulation in Ukraine. |
| Supervisor | Pelinka, Anton; Kymlicka, Will |
| Department | Nationalism Studies MA |
| Full text | https://www.etd.ceu.edu/2007/salnykova_anastasiya.pdf |
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