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Some Lessons from the Post-Soviet Era and the Russo-Ukrainian War for the Study of Nationalism

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 January 2025

Oxana Shevel Open the ORCID record for Oxana Shevel [Opens in a new window]
Oxana Shevel*
Affiliation:
Tufts University, Medford, Massachusetts, United States (Oxana.shevel@tufts.edu)
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Abstract

This essay argues that Russia's war on Ukraine and the post-Soviet experience, more generally, reveal ethical, empirical, and theoretical problems in the study of nationalism in the region; namely, the tendency to designate anti-colonial, non-Russian nationalism as a “bad” ethnic type and the related tendency to see opposition to it as a “good” civic, nationalist agenda while in reality, the latter agenda can be imperial. Conflation of imperialism with civic nationalism and underappreciation of the democratic potential of non-Russian nationalism are problematic. The essay argues that these problems stem from theorizing about ethnic and civic nationalism that is rooted in abstract principles and does not take into account the empirical realities in which specific policies originate. I suggest that a more ethically and theoretically accurate characterization of types of nationalism as good or bad can be achieved by applying a methodology that takes into account not only formal markers of “ethnic” and “civic” policies but also the realities proponents and opponents of a given policy seek to establish and undo, the methods by which these realities come into being, and the constraints on employing illiberal methods that political actors face.

Keywords

nationalismethnic nationalismcivic nationalismdemocracyUkraineRussiaRusso-Ukrainian warpostcommunism

Information

Type
Roundtable: Russia's War against Ukraine: The Limits of Ethical Theorizing
Information
Ethics & International Affairs , Volume 38 , Issue 3 , Fall 2024 , pp. 333 - 353
Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s), 2025. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of Carnegie Council for Ethics in International Affairs

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Footnotes

*

I would like to thank the Keck Center for International and Strategic Studies at Claremont McKenna College, the Josef Korbel School of International Studies at the University of Denver, and the Carnegie Corporation of New York for their support of this project, as well as the participants and discussants in two conferences on the war in Ukraine hosted, respectively, by the Keck Center and the Korbel School; Rachel Epstein; Hilary Appel; and the editors of Ethics & International Affairs for helpful comments on earlier versions of this essay.

References

Notes

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24 Joseph Carens, in Abizadeh et al., “Review Symposium,” p. 408.

25 Carens, Ethics of Immigration, p. 303.

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37 Popova and Shevel, Russia and Ukraine, ch. 3.

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39 Halya Coynash, “Russia Destroys Almost All Ukrainian Literature in Occupied Donbas, Calling It ‘Extremist,’” Human Rights in Ukraine, December 12, 2023, khpg.org/en/1608813172.

40 Sergei Lavrov, quoted in “Kyrgyz President Defends Language Law following Kremlin Criticism,” Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, July 24, 2023, www.rferl.org/a/kyrgyzstan-language-law-russia/32516491.html.

41 Jan Dutkiewicz and Jan Smolenski, “Epistemic Superimposition: The War in Ukraine and the Poverty of Expertise in International Relations Theory,” Journal of International Relations and Development 26, no. 4 (December 2023), pp. 619–31; Mila O'Sullivan, Tereza Hendl, Olga Burlyuk, and Aizada Arystanbek, “(En)Countering Epistemic Imperialism: A Critique of ‘Westsplaining’ and Coloniality in Dominant Debates on Russia's Invasion of Ukraine,” Contemporary Security Policy 45, no. 2 (2023), pp. 171–209; and Kseniya Oksamytna, “Imperialism, Supremacy, and the Russian Invasion of Ukraine,” Contemporary Security Policy 44, no. 4 (2023), pp. 497–512.

42 “Ukraine: Russian Torture Center in Kherson; Unlawful Detention, Torture of Civilians during 8-Month Occupation,” Human Rights Watch, April 13, 2023, www.hrw.org/news/2023/04/13/ukraine-russian-torture-center-kherson.

43 Yulia Ioffe, “Forcibly Transferring Ukrainian Children to the Russian Federation: A Genocide?,” in “The Russian Invasion of Ukraine—Victims, Perpetrators, Justice, and the Question of Genocide,” special issue, Journal of Genocide Research 25, nos. 3–4 (2023), pp. 315–51.

44 Coynash, “Russia Destroys Almost All Ukrainian Literature in Occupied Donbas.’”

45 Lena Surzhko-Harned, “Decolonisation in Practice: Reconceptualising Ukrainian Nationalism,” The Loop (European Consortium for Political Research's political science blog), January 31, 2024, theloop.ecpr.eu/decolonisation-in-practice-reconceptualising-ukrainian-nationalism

46 Judith G. Kelley, Ethnic Politics in Europe: The Power of Norms and Incentives (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 2004); and Milada Anna Vachudova, Europe Undivided: Democracy, Leverage, & Integration after Communism (Oxford, U.K.: Oxford University Press, 2005).

47 Amendments to the Russian Criminal Code adopted by the Russian State Duma, quoted in Aleks Lokhmutov, “Russia Grants Immunity for Crimes Committed in State's Interests: New Law Focuses on Russia-Occupied Regions of Ukraine,” Human Rights Watch, July 24, 2023, www.hrw.org/news/2023/07/24/russia-grants-immunity-crimes-committed-states-interests.

48 Marcin Jędrysiak and Krzysztof Nieczypor, “Ukraine: Another Amendment to the Law on National Minorities,” OSW Centre for Eastern Studies, December 13, 2023, www.osw.waw.pl/en/publikacje/analyses/2023-12-13/ukraine-another-amendment-to-law-national-minorities.

49 Volodymyr Zelenskyy, “We Will Guarantee Spiritual Independence to Ukraine—Address by President Volodymyr Zelenskyy” (speech, December 1, 2022), www.president.gov.ua/en/news/mi-garantuyemo-ukrayini-duhovnu-nezalezhnist-zvernennya-prez-79577.

50 Kyiv International Institute of Sociology, “Iakoiu maie buty polityka vlady ta dovira do Ukrainskoi Pravoslavnoi Tservky (Moskovskoho Patriarkhatu): rezultaty telefonnoho oputuvannia, provedenoho uprodovzh 20–25 kvitnia 2024 roku” [What should be the government's policy towards, and what is the trust in, the Ukrainian Orthodox Church (Moscow Patriarchate): The results of a telephone survey conducted on April 20–25, 2024], (survey, May 7, 2024), kiis.com.ua/?lang=ukr&cat=reports&id=1404&page=1

51 Alya Shandra, “Is Ukraine Banning the Ukrainian Orthodox Church?,” Euromaidan Press, August 23, 2024, euromaidanpress.com/2024/08/23/is-ukraine-banning-the-ukrainian-orthodox-church/.

52 Valeriy Vorona and Mykola Shulha, eds., Ukrains'ke supil'stvo: monitorynh sotsial'nykh zmin. 30 rokiv nezalezhnosti [Ukrainian Society: monitor of social changes. 30 years of independence] (Kyiv: Institute of Sociology of the Ukrainian Academy of Sciences, 2021), p. 710.

53 Ibid., p. 711.

54 Razumkov Center, “Identychnist hromadian Ukrainy: Tendentsii zmin (cherven 2024r.)” [Identity of Ukrainian citizens: Trends of change (June 2024)], (survey, July 24, 2024), razumkov.org.ua/napriamky/sotsiologichni-doslidzhennia/identychnist-gromadian-ukrainy-tendentsii-zmin-cherven-2024r.

55 Democratic Initiatives Foundation and Razumkov Centre, “Natsional'na kul'tura ta mova v Ukraini: Zminy v hromadskii dumtsi pislia roku vijny” [National culture and language in Ukraine: Changes in public opinion after a year of war] (survey, March 10, 2023), dif.org.ua/article/natsionalna-kultura-ta-mova-v-ukraini-zmini-v-gromadskiy-dumtsi-pislya-roku-viyni.

56 Rating Group, “Simnadtsiate zahal'nonatsional’ne opytuvannia: Identychnist. Patriotyzm. Tsinnosti” [Seventeenth national survey: Identity. Patriotism. Values] (survey August 23, 2022), ratinggroup.ua/research/ukraine/s_mnadcyate_zagalnonac_onalne_opituvannya_dentichn_st_patr_otizm_c_nnost_17-18_serpnya_2022.html.

57 Rating Group, “Desiate zahal'nonatsional’ne opytuvannia: Ideolohichni markery viiny” [Tenth national survey: Ideological markers of war], April 27, 2022, ratinggroup.ua/research/ukraine/desyatyy_obschenacionalnyy_opros_ideologicheskie_markery_voyny_27_aprelya_2022.html

58 Oxana Shevel, “A Decade of Dramatic Change in Ukrainian Society,” Current History 122, no. 846 (October 2023), pp. 273–76.

59 Volodymyr Kulyk, “Shedding Russianness, Recasting Ukrainianness: The Post-Euromaidan Dynamics of Ethnonational Identifications in Ukraine,” Post-Soviet Affairs 34, nos. 2–3 (May 2018), pp. 119–38; and Ihor Stebelsky, “Ethnic Self-Identification in Ukraine, 1989–2001: Why More Ukrainians and Fewer Russians?,” Canadian Slavonic Papers 51, no. 1 (March 2009), pp. 77–100.

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61 Taras Kuzio, “Kravchuk to the Orange Revolution: The Victory of Civic Nationalism in Post-Soviet Ukraine,” in Barrington, After Independence, pp. 187–224.

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