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Ukraine and ‘Europe’: Elite Discourses

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Identities and Foreign Policies in Russia, Ukraine and Belarus

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Abstract

Compared to post-Soviet Russia and Belarus, internal divisions in Ukraine were considerably more pronounced. Unlike modern Belarus, the territory of modern Ukraine did not simply change hands over the past centuries, but was repeatedly split among actors with divergent internal organisations and political cultures. Thus, there were historical prerequisites for the existence of distinctive identity discourses that would draw on fundamentally different experiences and would offer divergent visions of Ukraine’s past, present and future.1 It has often been suggested that as a result of this experience Ukraine developed two strands of nationalism or identity complexes — a very intense West Ukrainian nationalism with its origins in Galicia, and a significantly weaker East Ukrainian nationalism.2 Following Ukraine’s independence in 1991, the new government pursued radically different agendas in the areas of cultural and linguistic policies, which was especially noticeable in the battle over the status of the Russian language.3 In the 1990s, the intensity of these divisions gave rise to fears that the entire state would disintegrate.4

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Notes

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. University of Glasgow, UK

    Stephen White (James Bryce Professor of Politics and Visiting Professor)

  2. Institute of Applied Politics, Moscow, Russia

    Stephen White (James Bryce Professor of Politics and Visiting Professor)

  3. School of Geography, Politics and Sociology, Newcastle University, UK

    Valentina Feklyunina (Lecturer in Politics)

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White, S., Feklyunina, V. (2014). Ukraine and ‘Europe’: Elite Discourses. In: Identities and Foreign Policies in Russia, Ukraine and Belarus. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137453112_5

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