Russia and Ukraine: the clash of conservative projects

ABSTRACT

This paper studies the sources of the Russia–Ukraine conflict. The prerequisites for this conflict began when, in Ukraine and Russia, the liberal tendencies that emerged after the collapse of the USSR gave way to conservatism. The differences between the current state ideologies of the two countries are demonstrated through a comparative analysis of 16 Russian and Ukrainian school history and literature textbooks. This enables us to see that the Ukrainian ideological project focuses on building a political community on the basis of national cultural traditions (nation-building project), whereas mainstream Russian political discourse focuses on building strong state institutions (state-building project). Additionally, the Russian ideology considers the Ukrainian and Russian peoples to be parts of a single social and cultural community, whereas the Ukrainian nation-building ideology regards Russia as the hostile Other. Thus, the Russia–Ukraine conflict will continue, with various degrees of intensity, in many spheres.

KEYWORDS:

• Russia
• Ukraine
• conflict
• conservatism
• state-building
• nation-building
• boundaries

Notes

1. The Soviet political ideal was conservative and included the concept of a paternalistic state having vast powers and serving the citizens’ interests, giving them personal freedom and feeling of safety (Lukin, 2008, pp. 82–83). This ideal, according to Lukin (2008, pp. 82–84), was formed as early as in Stalin's time, which is evidenced by the data of the Harvard project for studying the Soviet system implemented after the World War II, and remained unchanged up until the collapse of the USSR, as demonstrated by the research carried out under the command of James Millar from 1970 to the 1980s (Millar, 1987). As shown by the data of the comparative study of concepts of justice in Russia and Ukraine, carried out by the author hereof in 2006, the paternalistic concept characteristic of the Soviet political ideal remained unchanged in the 2000s, at least, for the Ukrainians and the Russians (Kiryukhin & Shcherbak, 2007).

2. According to the data of the sociological study of 1989 brought by Lukin, the people considered it more important to restore the traditional scheme of life than to form a liberal-democratic society (Lukin, 2008, p. 87).

3. At the same time, in many countries of Central Asia, there were practically no liberal trends at all.

4. About state-building and nation-building see von Bogdandy, Häußler, Hanschmann, and Utz (2005); Riemer (2005); Lun (2009).

5. The Russian ideology is more consistently presented in the official state position than the Ukrainian one. Because the declared ideological strategy of the Ukrainian authorities was not always consistent, the focus often shifted depending, inter alia, on the current issues of the foreign policy.

6. See: Avramenko and Dmytrenko (2009); Chalmaev and Zinin (2012); Korovina, Zhuravlev, and Korovin (2013); Kovalenko (2013); Kurdyumova (2007); Merkin (2013); Movchan (2006); Semenyuk (2011); Andreev and Fedorov (2015); Danilov (2009); Danilov and Kosulina (2009); Pashkov (2002); Pometun, Moroz, and Maliyenko (2014); Pometun and Hupan (2012); Reyent and Malyy (2009); Vlasov and Danylevsyka (2002).

7. The idea of unity of the Russian and Ukrainian peoples was then expressed by V. Putin on several occasions, while emphasizing that Russia and Ukraine's ‘common future is predetermined' (Putin, 2015b).

8. The ‘Russian world' doctrine was aimed at the formation of a community on the basis of common historical memory, religious and cultural tradition. It acts as a sort of conservative analogue of the attractive image of the future that is being formed within the framework of the political projects of modernization.

9. Nicolai N. Petro makes a similar point (Petro, 2015).