Understanding Contemporary Ukrainian and Russian Nationalism. Olexander Hryb

Чтение книги онлайн.

1.2. Nationalist Revival, National Identity and Security

      The emergence of nationalist revivals2 in Eastern Europe after the fall of Communism stimulated debate in a number of social science disciplines. Identity, generally, and national identity in particular, became central to scholarly debates on the nature of nations and nationalism. In the 1990s scholars began to explore identity politics and the role of inter-national relations as opposed to inter-state ones, in order to explain the disintegration of the multi-national Soviet state, and inter-ethnic violence in the post-communist world.

      Increased attention given to the problem of national identity and nationalist revival in recent years appears to have resulted, according to some scholars, in an “over-production of theories,”’, i.e., in the introduction of new theoretical concepts, but ones insufficiently based on empirical and comparative research. The objective of this work, therefore is, first, to compare existing theories of nations and nationalism in the Western and Eastern (Soviet) European traditions in order to develop a synthetic perspective on nationalism and nationalist revival; and, second, to provide empirical grounding for this synthesis.

      As previously discussed, nationalism as an ideology and a political movement is often a major cause of inter-group violent conflict. James Kellas (1991) has argued that the principal task of any theory of nationalism is to find out what kind of force makes people go for “the highest sacrifice” and die for their nation (1991, 170). Yet, nationalism is also a largely unavoidable element of nation building in modern European societies. It is therefore crucial to find out the conditions under which individuals form nationalist groups according to one or another nationalist project.

      Modernist theories of nationalism do not explain why individuals decide or happen to choose ideological movements that are new to them and not rooted in their existing cultures. The only systematic research in this direction was done by the Czech scholar, Miroslav Hroch. Hroch enquired into why and under what circumstances individuals move from a simple awareness of national belonging to an active national identity or patriotism. Although Hroch’s Social Preconditions of National Revival in Europe was written in 1968, this question remains unanswered, although new comparative research was published involving case studies from around the world (See Maxwell 2012).

      Hroch (1985) identifies three main phases of national revival: Phase A—the period of scholarly interest; Phase B—the period of patriotic agitation; and Phase C—the rise of a mass national movement. As Hroch (1998) points out:

      We know of a number of cases in which the national movement remained in Phase B for a long time, sometimes down to the present: here we may point to Wales, Brittany, Belarus or the Eastern Ukraine. How can these differences be explained? … The question of the ‘success’ of the national movement cannot be posed in the abstract, but concretely within the individual phases of the national movement. … The first level of the problem [Why did some of the patriots from Phase A decide to begin national agitation? In other words, why did Phase B begin?] has so far been accorded scant attention in empirical research. … This is a serious weakness of my work of 1968—which, however Gellner overlooks. But even from this model we cannot explain why some individuals decided in favour of the new identity and embarked on national agitation. (Hroch 1998, 98, 105 n. 14)

      Lack of knowledge about the reasons why individuals sacrifice their lives for an “imagined community” not only limits our understanding of national phenomena, but also makes it extremely difficult to predict what will motivate individuals to sacrifice their or others’ lives and what, therefore, can potentially be a security threat, e.g., Chechen suicide bombers in Russia or a Breivik-style attack in Norway.

      Hroch explored the creation and development of new national movements in Europe during the nineteenth century and suggested the importance of considering the concept of “groups of patriots,” those most actively promoting a national project and who are not nationally known leaders. A “patriot” for Hroch is a person who consciously and continuously devotes his time and effort to the success of a national project. Self-sacrifice and even risk count as a measure of such patriotic activity rather than money or other forms of contribution. In this way Hroch includes in the category of patriots, not only the ideological leaders of national movements, but also those people who assist leaders and make their work possible. Hroch’s concept helps to direct research on early modern nationalism not only to known historical figures, but also to the collective identity encompassed by the term “patriotic.” Since scholars generally agree on the time frame of European nation building, it is possible to study the probable content of the national identity possessed by specific groups of “patriots” at a specific time. This time is defined not chronologically, but according to the phase of nation-building, defined at least with respect to the so-called “new” nations in Europe, when “patriots” are the main actors of new national projects and are ready to become “national activists” and the most enthusiastic adherents of a new national consciousness (Hroch 1985, 13).

      For most of the “new” nations in Europe the first stage of national revival belongs to the end of the eighteenth and beginning of the nineteenth centuries, when little sociological data was available on collective identities. However, historical analogies enable us to investigate the national identity of “patriots” today in a nation experiencing the first stages of nation building. Hroch suggests that historical analogies can be applied both diachronically and synchronically (horizontally). He explains these comparisons as follows:

      A synchronic comparison allows us to study contemporary identities of “newly” emerged political nations similar to those of early modern nationalisms.

      Ukraine is often referred to as a “newcomer” nation-state. It has full achieved independence only with the collapse of the USSR and its political as well as national identity remains undecided. The “nowhere nation” or “unexpected nation,” as it has been labelled by some scholars (e.g., Wilson 2000), was characterized as having an incomplete national revival by both Western and Ukrainian historians in the early 1990s (Formuvannia ukrainskoii natsii…, von Hagen 1995). It was noted the, that all three phases of national revival (A—the period of scholarly interests; B—the period of patriotic agitation; C—the rise of mass national movement; Hroch 1985), overlapped in Ukraine subsequent to its achieving independence in 1991.

      The empirical research described in Appendix 1 suggests that Ukrainian Cossack organizations that appeared after 1991 represent groups of patriots whose aim is to foster a national “revival” in Ukraine. National activists in Ukraine have chosen the name “Cossacks” because, in their opinion, it is Cossacks, free warriors of the steppe, who represent a positive image of the Ukrainian nation. To promote the Cossack idea and, if possible, to turn all the people of Ukraine into Cossacks is the project. The aim is to create ideal Ukrainians, and this is a typical discourse during Hroch’s Phase B of national revival. We have a unique chance to compare synchronically by sociological methods (such as participant observation СКАЧАТЬ