Is the regional divide in Ukraine an identity divide?

ABSTRACT

A large body of research has identified regional divisions as an important factor in understanding variation in political attitudes and behaviors in Ukraine. This article focuses on the extent to which regional divisions in Ukraine represent a key identity divide. Drawing on unique data from a national survey of residents of Ukraine, quantitative and qualitative evidence indicates that many respondents see their region as an important part of their identity and that the reasons why they do fall into identifiable categories. At the same time, the findings point to challenges in conceptualizing the region in Ukraine as an identity type. These include its contested nature, reflected in a deep divide between those who consider “region” to mean their oblast and those who see it as representing a larger area of Ukraine. These results shed new light on Ukraine’s regional divisions and may help explain why the country’s notable “regional effect” has not translated into identity-based mobilization along regional lines.

KEYWORDS:

• Ukraine
• regions
• identity
• survey data
• attitudes

Acknowledgments

The author wishes to acknowledge and thank Sarah Beck, Jonathan Browne, and Will Ryckman for their helpful research assistance, as well as the Kyiv International Institute of Sociology (KIIS) for their excellent work in the collection and preparation of the survey data analyzed for this article.

Notes

1. The prospect of complementary identity divisions is related to intersectionality. This concept extends the idea of overlapping identity group membership to emphasize the interaction effects of belonging to certain types of groups. A common focus is on how people can be particularly privileged or, conversely, disadvantaged and marginalized based on the intersection of the identity groups to which they belong (Romero 2018). Individuals who are both women and members of minority racial, ethnic, or religious groups, for example, can face especially severe types and degrees of discrimination around the world.

2. In the United States, for example, there are various ideas about the boundaries of the Midwest. Even the federal government has included different states in its own categorization of the Midwest over time, and different governmental agencies have used at least five distinct regional designations – Midwest, Northwest, East, North, and Central – for the state of Michigan alone (Bullard 2008).

3. In the United States, it is largely accepted that certain parts of the country (e.g., the South) have cultures that differ from those of other regions (e.g., New England). Woodard (2011) argues that 11 distinct regional cultures can be identified in North America. He details the strength of the culture differences among these groups. The general lack of awareness of the residents of these regions as belonging to his categories, however, prevents one from conceptualizing them as comprising regional identities.

4. The use of “region” in these analyses, with the country broken down into the west, south, central, and east, does not necessarily reflect the divisions in the minds of those respondents who viewed region as a “larger area of Ukraine” rather than their oblast.

5. A much larger portion of the respondents in Ukraine’s south saw region as just an area in which they live (34%) than viewed it this way in the west (23%), central, (26%), or east (20%).

6. At the level of the oblast – the official territorial unit between the country as a whole and municipalities in Ukraine – there is also notable variation in response patterns, with majorities indicating that region is an important part of their identity only in Zhytomyr, Zakapartiia, Kherson, Chernivtsi, Ivano-Frankivsk, Kirovohrad, Luhansk, and Lviv oblasts.

7. This result is consistent with the idea of “nested identities” (see Brigevich 2012). Examples include United States, where residents of the South often have a strong attachment to their region yet also see themselves as deeply patriotic.

8. This question was translated into the Ukrainian version of the questionnaire as Коли Ви говорите про “регіон” України, в якому проживаєте, Ви маєте на увазі Вашу область чи відносно більшу частину України (наприклад, Галичина, Дніпро, Донбас)?, with respondents given the options of Область or Відносно більша частина України. In the Russian language questionnaire, the question was Когда Вы говорите о “регионе” Украины, в котором проживаете, Вы имеете в виду Вашу область или относительно большую часть Украины (например, Галичина, Днепр, Донбасс)?, with the options of Область or Относительно большая часть Украины. They were also allowed to volunteer that it depends on the situation, but it was not given to them as an option prior to answering.

9. From oblast to oblast, the responses vary but reflect the broader patterns. In Chernivtsi, Chernihiv, Dnipropetrovsk, Kherson, Khmelnytskyi, Mykolaiv, Odessa, Zakarpattia, Zaporizhia, and Zhytomyr oblasts, the majority indicate that region means their oblast. On the other hand, in the oblasts of Cherkasy, Ivano-Frankivsk, Kharkiv, Kirovohrad, Luhansk, Lviv, Rivne, Sumy and Ternopil strong majorities see region as meaning a larger area of Ukraine. In Poltava oblast, nearly 50% say that region means their oblast, but that oblast also has the highest percentage (33%) who indicated that it “depends on the situation.”

10. This divide holds up at the oblast level as well. Of the eight oblasts in which majorities indicate that region is an important part of their identity, four of them (Chernivtsi, Kherson, Zakarpattia, and Zhytomyr) have majorities who indicate that “region” means their oblast and the other four (Ivano-Frankivsk, Kirovohrad, Luhansk, and Lviv) have majorities who perceive region to mean a larger are a of Ukraine.

11. There are additional complexities related to region that this article does not address. They include the question of whether or not residents of Ukraine perceive their locality to be an important part of their identity. The questionnaire used in this study did not address “local identity,” although it is important topic that requires further study. The article also does not address the relative strength of attachment to region compared to other identity categories such as national identity, ethnicity, or language. That topic is examined in other recent works based on the same data analyzed for this article (see Barrington 2021, Forthcoming).

12. It is possible that the divide between those who see region as meaning their oblast and those who regard it as a larger part of Ukraine is less of a barrier to political mobilization than this article contends. If, for example, there is not strong competition or rivalry between neighboring oblasts, the contrasting meso-scale views of region could be complementary rather than cross-cutting identity divisions. This is most likely to occur in the case of clear historical regions (e.g., Galicia, Donbas) than in the more general regional categories scholars of Ukraine often examine (such as “the west” or “the east” of the country). As more research is conducted on people’s various forms of territorial attachment in Ukraine, a more detailed examination of the political impact of people’s different views of what region means would be a welcome contribution.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Marquette University College of Arts and Sciences.