Ethnic Self-Identification in Ukraine, 1989-2001: Why More Ukrainians and Fewer Russians?

by Stebelsky, Ihor

ABSTRACT:

This paper analyses the changes in ethnic self-identification of the population of Ukraine from the last (January 1989) Soviet census to the first (December 2001) Ukrainian census. It begins with a comparison of the census data and describes the remarkable changes observed. Given the incomplete nature of published data on international migrations and their differentiation by ethnic groups in the inter-census period, the paper applies a method to fill in the gaps and calculate net migration balances for each ethnic group. Also, since no data is available on the net reproductive rates for separate ethnic groups in Ukraine, it sets out a method to estimate net reproduction rates for Ukrainians and Russians in the inter-census period. Using these methods, it establishes that differences in net migration on the one hand and the differences in net reproduction on the other contributed 11.1 and 4.4 percent of the growth in the share of Ukrainians and 6.8 and 5.2 percent in the sizeable decline in the share of Russians. The remaining lion's share is a shift in identity among members of ethnically mixed (mainly Russian-Ukrainian) families. Mothers of ethnically mixed families, identifying the ethnicity of their newly bom, contributed 11.4 percent to the Ukrainian gain and 9.2 percent to the Russian loss. The remaining 73.1 percent of the Ukrainian gain and 78.8 percent of Russian loss resulted from lifetime identity shift from Russian to Ukrainian, the most likely candidates being members of Russian-Ukrainian families.

INTRODUCTION

The first population census of Ukraine reveals a major ethnic shift in the population of that newly independent country. According to the State Statistics Committee of Ukraine, despite a decline in the population as a whole, the number of people who declared their nationality as Ukrainian actually increased since the last Soviet census.1 While their numbers increased from 37.4 to 37.5 million, or by 122.6 thousand, the number of those who declared their nationality Russian decreased from 11.4 to 8.3 million, or by about 3 million people. As a result, the share of the declared Ukrainians and Russians shifted dramatically, from 72.7 and 22.1 percent in 1989, to 78.1 and 17.3 percent, respectively, in 2001. This change has prompted Oleg Varfolomeyev, correspondent for Transitions Online, to exclaim "Where Have All Those Russians Gone?"2 They have not gone to Russia and they have not stopped speaking Russian, he observed. His explanation, for lack of a mass exodus of Russians from Ukraine to Russia, is a shift in self-identification. But how accurate is this explanation?

One can expect a shift in self-identity among the offspring of mixed Russian-Ukrainian parentage, where a choice in ethnic self-identification can be made to suit new political circumstances. But to what extent is this reidentification true of ethnic Russians (and members of other nationalities) who are not of ethnically mixed parentage or do not speak Ukrainian? Such reidentification would represent either deception or a shift in concept from that of ethnic to state or civic national identity. Given the use of internal passports with a stated etiinic identity in the Soviet period, the affirmation of ethnicity was palpable and the likelihood of deception was minimal then. But is the shift to civic identity now a real possibility, as asserted by Taras Kuzio, given the discontinued use of ethnic identity in the internal passports of Ukraine and the nature of the census question on nationality?3 The question asked both in the 1989 and the 2001 census was the same. Therefore, if assimilation or a shift from an ethnic to a state or civic national identity were to occur, it would have to include individuals who considered themselves of a single, non-Ukrainian, ethnic origin.

In any population census, as Dominique Arel had observed, the determination of ethnic identity is a subjective assessment that is endogenous to the very process of categorizing.4 In Ukraine, this discrete categorizing is problematic, given the legacy of the Imperial Russian and then the Soviet political systems with their empire-building projects. The officialdom of Imperial Russia treated Ukrainians (Malorossy) as a folk variation of Russians (Russkie), adopted literary Russian as the civilizing medium and discouraged the development of Ukrainian high culture by banning Ukrainian publications. Subsequently, the Soviet Union allowed for Ukrainian as a separate ethnicity, but continued to confer a much higher status on the Russian language and culture. As a result of those policies, many Ukrainians have adopted Russian as their preferred language, developed "multiple" or "hybrid" identities, and some (notably in Crimea) have become Russian in terms of their ethnic selfidentification.5 Moreover, Russians in much of Ukraine perceive themselves as living in their homeland, because their migration occurred within the Russian Empire or the Soviet Union and their relations with the Ukrainians is highly integrated. This led Paul Pirie to move beyond two boxes, and to hypothesize that inter-ethnic marriage, language usage, and urbanization in Southern and Eastern Ukraine contributed to mixed self-identification. 6 Socio-political surveys in Ukraine indicate that ethno-national identities associated with Russians and Ukrainians include a shared identity, depending on the criteria one applies. These include a Russophone Ukrainian identity (a sub-category of ethnic Ukrainians who are Russian speakers), based on language use criteria, and a Ukraino-Russian identity (a category that straddles the two ethnic categories and includes most Russophone Ukrainians and some ethnic Russians, who speak Ukrainian), based on the concept of dual identity.7

With the demise of the Soviet Union, the Russians beyond the Russian Federation became a minority in independent Ukraine. Their options, according to Bremmer, include exit (emigration or secession), voice (demands to retain the status quo), and integration (identify as a citizen of the new state).8 All three responses are evident, though secession is more voiced as a threat than actively pursued. As Anna Fournier aptly points out, Russians resist linguistic Ukrainization in Central and Eastern Ukraine, where the Russian language has become entrenched; they argue that the Russian language is indigenous to Ukraine and promote Russian speakers as a unified front against Ukrainization.9 The geopolitical implications of identity are clear. For the Russian empirebuilders, defining identity on the basis of Russian speakers brings most of Ukraine within the orbit of Russia, leaving the Ukrainian speakers of Western Ukraine as the marginalized other. For the Ukrainian nation-builders, ethnic identity provides for a firm claim to most of Ukraine, except for Crimea. The promotion of civic identity avoids exclusion and best supports Ukraine's present territorial integrity.

Integration, through the identification of non-Ukrainians as citizens of Ukraine, leads to state or civic identity. Ethnic re-identification, however, holds most promise for those, who presently identify themselves as partly Ukrainian. Given that only half of the ethnic Russians in Ukraine saw themselves as pure Russians and the other half opted for the dual identity in the 1997 survey, Wilson opined that many nominal Russians, particularly the products of mixed marriages, would re-identify themselves as Ukrainians in the first census of independent Ukraine, if the right questions were to be asked.10 Similarly Eduard Ponarin (European University at St. Petersburg) argued that, because the boundaries between Ukrainians and Russians are fluid and the groups are culturally and socially proximate, the "ratchet-wheel" of creeping assimilation will move from Ukrainian-speaking ethnic Ukrainians to Russian-speaking ethnic Ukrainians to ethnic Russians of Ukraine. He predicted that the next census in Ukraine would reveal a decrease in ethnic Russians that cannot be explained by out-migration or mortality.11


 

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