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In this paper I shall focus on the negative auto-stereotype found in contemporary Ukrainian discourse concerning identity, and manifested in the concept of the ghetto and its synonyms such as 'a reservation', 'a handicapped minority,' and 'a marginalized culture'. I shall treat this subject as an example of the misunderstandings that can arise through the use of notions taken from postcolonial studies.
My starting-point is a clarification of the notions on which my analysis is based; I shall then discuss population statistics relating to Ukrainians and Russians in Ukraine, and the role of the mother tongue in national identity. For the sake of simplicity, I shall limit myself to a presentation of the views of Mykola Riabchuk and Andrew Wilson. I shall then focus on the notion of the ghetto, which - and this is my preliminary hypothesis - constitutes the fundamental element of the negative auto-stereotype. Using examples from the contemporary debates, I shall seek to prove that this notion, constituting the core of the negative auto-stereotype, is a part of a much larger problem - the inferiority complex of a certain social group, which has a bearing on the shape of public discourse, and through it on the perception of identity. In other words, I shall argue that the negative auto-stereotype that constitutes part of one's own group image influences the collective image of Ukrainian society.
According to Ernest Gellner, two individuals belong to the same nation if they participate in the same culture - understood as a system of ideas, signs, associations, and modes of behaviour and communication. Two individuals belong to the same nation if they think they belong to it. Put another way, nations are a human construct, a product of the convictions, loyalty and solidarity of people[1]. But this invention is certainly not sufficient to explain how the conviction that those who govern and those who are governed should be united by a common language (and a common cultural code), has spread and taken root.
I shall argue on the contrary that it is precisely this "propagation of cryptic thoughts" (as Gellner put it) that is crucial: the influence of intellectuals on the internalization of values of a specific cultural community. I am interested therefore in nationalism as a discourse, and I shall not analyze it or as a political movement. At the same time, I do not deny the significance of social reality, nor the principles situated beyond the sphere of discourse. In other words, I am interested in the nation as an 'imagined community' (to use Benedict Anderson's term). The 'real' community, that is as a manifestation of social activities and practices, is outside my area of interest.
This 'imagined community' does not exist outside the national culture, which - in Stuart Hall's definition - is a discourse, i.e. an instrument for constructing meanings which influences the entire nation, and organizes both its actions and the ideas related to it [Hall, 1995, 616]. It is a commonly held conviction that a national culture constitutes a whole, whether integrated to a greater or lesser extent. I consider, however, that no national culture is a homogeneous discourse, and that clashes of differing and often opposing traditions and visions are inherent. Participants in the discourses - politicians and intellectuals alike - project and impose onto other community members their understanding of national identity and national culture, and their perception of relationships with other communities and cultures. At the same time, the various references they make to a tradition, as well as the wider social context and reception of their arguments, often make them correct and modify their views. The discourse is not merely a reflection of reality: it both affects and transforms it. As such, it is an act of instituting power and perpetuating dominance, as Michel Foucault puts it. In discourse, various identity projects are being reformulated, with certain issues gaining prominence while others are demoted from their previous positions of importance.
That literature (in the widest definition of the term) can play such an important role in the building of identity, is due to the fact that identity is the result of a process of understanding, in which the interpretations of texts generated by others are of considerable significance. This might best be demonstrated in a polemical debate where the participants would make their stances more specific or modify them as new arguments arose. So, I would like to deal with an issue I omitted from my book Pożegnanie z imperium. Ukraińskie dyskusje o tożsamości (Farewell to the Empire) [Hnatiuk 2003], namely the role of the negative auto-stereotype in the discourse of identity. My starting-point is the debate surrounding the statistical data on the Ukrainian and Russian populations living in Ukraine, and the correlation between national language and national identity.
Some basic data and different interpretations
I shall begin by recapitulating a number of rudimentary facts, well-known as they are. They bear two possible interpretations, depending on whether the sympathies of those who refer to them lie with the Russian- or Ukrainian-speaking population.
Ukraine is inhabited by Ukrainians, who constitute the ethnic majority; the largest ethnic minority being Russians. There are also many other nationalities that constitute a small, but not negligible, percentage of the population. The official language is Ukrainian, but Russian is not only the language of an ethnic minority but also the language in most common use[2]. The comparative size of the two largest groups does not correspond therefore to the language of everyday communication. Hence we are dealing with a situation that is not entirely clear: who in this case constitutes the majority?
According to the census conducted in 1989 and to the language criterion these would be the Russian speakers; according to the ethnic one - Ukrainians. If we combine the ethnic criterion with the linguistic, we get three groups: Ukrainian-speaking Ukrainians, Russian-speaking Ukrainians, and Russian-speaking Russians. The majority is formed by the two Ukrainian groups, which constitute approximately 40% and 35% of the total population respectively, while the Russian-speaking Russians are a group that is almost half the size of each of the above, and accounts for about 20% of the total population[3] On the basis of the linguistic criterion and of sociological research concerning the political behaviour of voters during the presidential and parliamentary elections in Ukraine in 1994 and 1995, Andrew Wilson concluded that Ukrainian nationalism is a 'minority faith', and as such is incapable of moving a whole society. In criticizing Wilson, Mykola Riabchuk stated that apart from the 'language-and-cultural' nationalism that Wilson focused on in his book - a 'minority faith' indeed - there is also civic nationalism present in Ukraine and influential in terms of ideology. Taras Kuzio, another scholar who has expressed doubts regarding Wilson's conclusions, asked the question as to whether there is any evidence that a language group unites around shared objectives?[4]
In his paper referred to in footnote 2, Hrytsak in turn argues that the language criterion constitutes just one of the many components of identity. Neither the political mobilization of society nor its preferences depend exclusively on the language criterion. On the basis of sociological research and statistical data he maintains that the only cohesive group in Ukrainian society are Ukrainian-speaking Ukrainians, while the two other groups - Russian-speaking Ukrainians and Russian-speaking Russians - are, firstly, much more divided, and secondly, currently experiencing a serious identity crisis. Hrytsak emphasizes that distinguishing 'us' from 'them' often depends on who actually makes the distinction, and on the images ascribed to the resultant differentiation.
Let us therefore discuss the distinctions made by Wilson and Riabchuk. Both writers consider the Russian-speaking Ukrainians and Russians as together forming the largest group, but they see differently the consequences of regarding the total Russian-speaking population of Ukraine as a majority. Wilson is accused, with some justification, of refusing to understand the necessity for affirmative action, although he is familiar with the historical facts, and assigns political elements characteristic of a nationalizing state (Roger Brubaker)[5] to the activities of the Ukrainian state administration. These activities include forcing the Ukrainian language and culture on non-Ukrainian speakers (Ukrainization), othering, marking boundaries and ascribing significance to these differences, as well as making romantically-inclined references to history, particularly to a "golden age". Such a vision of national politics as presented by Wilson is rejected by Ukrainian scholars as well as by other academics from abroad[6].
However, the latest census, carried out in 2001 shows significant differences: 67,5% of citizens indicated Ukrainian as their mother tongue (and 29,6% - Russian). According to this data, the ratio of 'Ukrainophones' to 'Russophones' is 2:1. Nevertheless the situation in Ukrainian cities is somewhat different[7].
The concept of a Ukrainian ghetto
On the basis of arguments taken from postcolonial studies, Mykola Riabchuk consistently speaks in favour of affirmative action or positive discrimination towards Ukrainian-speaking citizens. His application of concepts drawn from postcolonial studies unavoidably results in the use of notions that are typical of such studies, namely 'the ghetto', 'a reservation' and 'a handicapped minority'. Thus 'the ghetto' transfers us to a reality that is remote not in time (Jewish getto) but in distance[8]: to the reality of North America and to the term 'Black ghetto'.It is not just a coincidence therefore that Riabchuk begins his essay devoted to the Ukrainian problem of denationalization [Riabchuk, 2000, 251] with a description of the behaviour of an Afro-American male whom he met in the New York subway. The contemporary essayist, Oksana Zabuzhko, also an adherent of the postcolonial methodology in Ukrainian studies, refers in her essay to Ukrainians as the 'white Black people in pseudo-Europe (Russia)' [Zabuzhko, 1999, 220]. Lina Kostenko, a well-known Ukrainian poet, when concluding her statement during the Fifth International Congress of Ukrainian Studies, thanked her audience for the ovation: "use tse ovatsiyi v reservatsiyi " ("all this is an ovation in a reservation").
Are these, respectively, a comparison serving as evidence for a scholar researching the issue of nationalization, an essayist's metaphor, and a poet's pun? Quite possibly all three, but how can we explain the fact that the concept of the ghetto is so widespread in the debate among Ukrainian intellectuals concerning the national condition?
Further extract quoted below, this time from journalists, will demonstrate a peculiar liking for the word 'ghetto'.
In a discussion with Volodymyr Kulyk, who maintains that affirmative action is not a good solution for a liberal person, Maksym Strikha claims that refraining from it would lead to the complete domination of the Russian language, and observes:
No 'affirmative action' (please note that not only Kinakh and Ianukovych were capable of it, but also Iushchenko, 'the hope of the nation') is able to lead our language out of the ghetto. Certainly, some day it [the ghetto] will be transformed into a ghetto of readers not of the weekly 'Literaturna Ukraina', but of the monthly 'Krytyka' (as is now the case in Minsk, where the Belarusian language is no longer the language of 'charwomen' and 'caretakers': now it is the language of a narrow circle of the intelligentsia). However, this will come as no great shock to me."[9]Oles' Doniy, one of the leaders of the students' hunger strike in Ukraine in October 1990, sometimes referred to as the Ukrainian "Velvet Revolution", remarks: Ukrainian urban culture has found itself in a kind of a ghetto[10].
And Mykola Riabchuk writes:
I live in Kiev, like the majority of 'the Galician Diaspora' i.e. former inhabitants of Lviv, in a kind of a ghetto. I would not say that it is essentially Galician; no, it is a 'Ukrainian ghetto'. All of us have relatively little contact with people from the other world, namely from the Russian-speaking world. No matter what may be said about the proximity and affinity of the respective languages and cultures, in terms of culture this world is alien to us.[11]I should emphasize that the concept of an open society is also present in these debates at the same time. The participants increasingly believe that it would be better for Ukrainian society to accept a more 'open' identity.
However, the following two quotations show how powerful the habit discussed here has become as a mode of thought:
In my opinion such a standpoint is a blind alley; it is just driving both Ukrainian-ness and the party ['Our Ukraine'] into a ghetto of 'professional patriots', and there is no way back.[12]Ukrainian member of parliament, Anatolii Matviienko criticizing the attitude that excludes Russians and Russian-speaking Ukrainians).
In reply to the question asked by Lesia Kharchenko in "Dzerkalo Tyzhnya" and on the "JI-magazine" site ('Do you agree with Mykola Riabchuk's opinion that Ukrainian culture in Ukraine is marginalized, even that it acts like a culture of the Diaspora, and that the writers are building a kind of a ghetto?'[13]) Taras Voznyak wrote: 'Everyone builds their own ghetto. Firstly, there is no reason to build a ghetto around oneself.'[14] .
I have chosen the above quotations merely as illustrations, but if we add academic studies and papers seeking to analyse the situation of the Ukrainian language and culture, or the status of the Ukrainian-speaking part of Ukrainian society in recent years, it turns out that the belief that they are only marginal [Losiev 2004; Hrabovskyi 2004] is quite widespread. In addition, a closer look at the history of Ukrainian thought prompts a conclusion that it is by no means novel.
The history of the concept of the Ukrainian ghetto
There is a persistent and enduring belief that the patriotic Ukrainian intelligentsia is and always has been isolated. To prove that apart from being long-lasting it is also true, the participants in contemporary debates like to quote (not always faithfully) an account by a Ukrainian landowner and lawyer Yevhen Chykalenko, a member of the Kiev Hromada. His memoirs contain the following passage:
Of the older generation, only the families of V. Antonovych, M. Lysenko and M. Staryts'kyi spoke Ukrainian; others used it solely for communicating with Ukrainians. [...] In the case of the Kosachs and the Shulhyns only the mothers talked to their children in Ukrainian; the fathers did not know the language [Chykalenko 2003, 213-214].However, Chykalenko's words certainly do not justify the conclusion that these families were isolated. All that Chykalenko states is that the use of the Ukrainian language within the families of the intelligentsia was rare. In addition, he depicts a narrow circle of Hromada associates, where all candidates were subject to strict acceptance procedures and could only be admitted following a unanimous vote. As Chykalenko explains elsewhere, the rationale behind such a harsh regime was, among other factors, the fear of informers[15]. There is no doubt that Hromady in Ukraine operated in extremely difficult conditions, and the painful memory of repression encouraged neither a wider membership nor more radical action.
A different kind of testimony is provided by Vasyl Stus. In an open letter to Ivan Dziuba, dated 1975, the poet uses the term 'ghetto' to describe his own social group, that of the nonconformist patriotic intelligentsia, and then again to refer to the conformist intelligentsia[16]. This division into two groups is worth remembering.
At the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries, a fundamental ideological debate was held within a "narrow circle" (another euphemism for isolation) of the Ukrainian intelligentsia, which was actually a debate that went beyond time and beyond nationality.
I shall discuss here the polemic between Lesya Ukrainka and Ivan Franko as an example of the differences of opinion, based on the following press articles: Z kincem roku [1896] by Franko, Ne tak tiyi vorokhy, yak dobryi lude by Lesya Ukrainka (published under a pseudonym), and Franko's reply Koly ne po konyach, tak khoch po holoblakh.
This argument concerned the assessment of the status of the Ukrainian movement in the Russian Empire and in Galicia. The underlying problem that arose was that of terminology: what exactly is a nation? From the context it is clear that Franko regarded the nation as being identical with the people, with the intelligentsia situated as if outside the nation: "until the intelligentsia draws closer to the people [narod], until it is in unity with the people (narod), and until it can accept its mental and political interests, the political circumstances in Russia cannot change'[17].
Lesya Ukrainka responded, reproaching Franko for having taken his definition of the word narod from the Russian narodniks:
Mr Franko uses the word 'people' (narod) not in the European sense, but in the sense it was used by the narodniks: that is, meaning 'peasants'.[18]This argument between the 'Europeans' with the narodniks, or, put another way, between the modernists and the populists, was one of the most controversial issues of the time. In fact, it recurs even today, and not necessarily as a distant echo of the original argument.
The romantic conviction about national values being inherent in the people (narod) that was taken up and propagated by the narodniks in the 1880s and 1890s, is one of the most lasting convictions in Ukrainian social thought. It set the people (narod) in opposition to the intelligentsia. From the very start, the intelligentsia was also blamed for distancing itself from the nation (or for not being sufficiently close to the people, narod). This isolation of the intelligentsia as a social stratum is not, of course, a uniquely Ukrainian problem. One may recall the worries articulated by Russian thinkers such as Fedor. In replying to a letter written by students following the unrest of 1878, when they were attacked by tradesmen (also considered to represent the nation, i.e. the people), he accused the young demonstrators of having become alienated from the people and from Russia[19].
The Poles, who were portrayed by Ivan Franko in the polemic discussed above as examples of intellectuals initiating positive activities among the people, had not at the time resolved this issue either (see, for example, the debates in the drama "Wesele" ["The Wedding"] by Stanisław Wyspiański, 1901) despite the tradition of "organic work" (praca u podstaw) promoted by sections of the Polish intelligentsia since the early 1860s. In fact, the echoes of this dispute keep returning in Poland in discussions about the role of the intelligentsia, becoming particularly prominent in discussions concerning the events of 1968 and 1970, or the "miraculous" rebirth of unity between the people and the intelligentsia manifested in the emergence of the Solidarity Trade Union.
A peculiar feature of the Ukrainian dispute is the constant fear accompanying the national movement: that of the higher social strata becoming denationalized.
As Lesya Ukrainka put it in the polemic with Franko,
here in Ukraine the first task is to attract the intelligentsia, to restore the nation's brain; otherwise it might come about that there is plenty to be done but no-one to do it.[20]Over the years, attempts have been made to turn the "single-layer" structure of the Ukrainian nation into a value in itself (most effectively by M. Hrushevs'kyi), pointing to the natural democracy allegedly present within the Ukrainian nation. This was clearly an attempt to transform weakness into strength. Hrushevskyi's view mostly concerns the Early Modern period of Ukrainian history, from the 16th to the 18th centuries, but his observations have been applied to his own time as well.
However, the intelligentsia loses itself somewhere on the way, and, more precisely, it develops a two-fold complex. Its first component, alienation, common to the Russian, Polish and Ukrainian intelligentsia, has already been discussed. The second component consists of those notions that relate to treason.
The population statistics and the concept of the Ukrainian ghetto
Let us now return to the problem of the auto-stereotype, bearing in mind the population ratios of the different national groups and the way the various language groups map onto them. In the light of the arguments presented above, the statements by Ukrainian intellectuals relating to the position of Ukrainian culture and language, 'the language and the cultural ghetto', and the fact that those ideas have been used to describe the situation of an entire national group (Ukrainians) constituting more than 75% of the total population, or of a language group (Ukrainian-speaking Ukrainians, Ukrainophones) accounting for over 40% (according to Pogrebinskii or Matviienko's data, see footnote 3) or even 67,5% (according to the 2001 census), would seem to prove that the complexes of one limited and relatively small group have been projected onto a significant number (between 41% and 77,8%) of their fellow citizens.
If we were to accept the dictionary definition of a stereotype - a picture of reality that is simplified, abbreviated and includes certain value judgements, which refers in particular to social groups, and which is consolidated by being repeated numerous times - we would be forced to admit that we are dealing here with a negative auto-stereotype. As opposed to the phenomenon described by Riabchuk [Riabchuk, 2000, 194-219] (the forcing of a negative auto-stereotype upon a colonized nation that strips it of national dignity and has a destructive effect on identity), the conviction that Ukrainian-speaking Ukrainians are not only a minority but an isolated minority, and hence - metaphorically speaking - a ghetto, is instilled not by the "colonizer" but rather by certain Ukrainian intellectuals in public debates.
In quoting Vasyl Stus' open letter to Ivan Dziuba concerning the two Ukrainian ghettos, that of the conformists and the non-conformists, I have tried to emphasize that Stus was convinced that these two intellectual groups were isolated from the rest of society to a considerable extent. This division as well as the more general picture have turned out to be more durable and lasting than the Soviet state.
It is significant that those very writers and critics who evolved out of the former establishment, those one-time conformists, are the most emotional when talking about the position of Ukrainian culture, and the situation of Ukrainians in their own state oppressing their own culture. As Solomiia Pavlychko has suggested,
it seems that the old common enemy [namely, the Soviet state] no longer exists today. But an enemy is absolutely necessary to justify our lack of success, our problems and complexes. Therefore the search for the enemy has moved to within the system. And the institution that has become the enemy number one is the one that had previously seemed a solution to all our problems, the Ukrainian state [Pavlychko, 2002, 659].The intellectuals who originally belonged to the non-conformist group, and those who have turned nonconformist quite recently, have not ceased in their criticisms not only of the power elite, but also of the state itself.
One possible explanation for this particular convergence is, as already mentioned, the specific double complex of the Ukrainian members of the intelligentsia. Another explanation, not alternative but supplementary, is the idea that Ukrainian social and cultural reality is abnormal, and is something that could be termed relative deprivation. One could define it as the gap between one's rightful expectations and the lack of opportunity to make them real. The discontent arising from such a situation has been used to explain radical movements and/or ideologies. With regard to the situation of national culture as seen by Ukrainian intellectuals, it could be termed 'relative cultural deprivation'. This kind of relative deprivation is closely linked with nationalism.
This occurs in particular when the social status of an individual or of a group changes, and when this individual or group is evaluated unfavourably either by others or in their own self-assessment. As Adam Pomorski puts it,
such frustrating discomfort obviously results in stimulating activity in the sphere of ideology. Attempts to find someone who could be blamed for this relative deprivation [...], that is, for the world being turned upside down in a grotesque manner, are in fact attempts to institute a negative referential system". Furthermore, this situation brings about "a particular ideological sensitivity to the issue of one's own national identity set against a foreign culture [Pomorski, 1996, 31].However, there is another explanation as well. In his study on ethnicity and nationalism, Paul Brass claims that Croatian intellectuals had a real and achievable aim in emphasizing the distinctiveness of their national culture: only in this way were they able to gain advantages [Brass, 1991, 44].
Conclusions
Undoubtedly, isolation and the sense of being enclosed within an enclave are inseparable from the auto-reflection of intellectuals, and therefore not exceptional or extraordinary. What is unusual, however, is the emphasis, and the emotional value attached to words uttered by those who feel helpless[21]. This helplessness is brought about by the situation that the intellectual elite has to face in its struggle for influence over society as a whole. Another dimension is added by the attempts undertaken by some intellectuals to confer the situation of their own group onto the larger part of society. This is the reason why the collective self-portrait of Ukrainian society seems ever darker and darker.
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[1] According to Gellner, "Dead languages can be revived, traditions invented, quite fictitious pristine purities restored. But this culturally creative, fanciful, positively inventive aspect of nationalist ardour ought not allow anyone to conclude, erroneously, that nationalism is a contingent, artificial, ideological invention, which might not have happened, if only thoses damned busy-body interfering European thinkers, not content to leave well alone, had not concocted it and fatefully injected it into the bloodstream of otherwise viable political communities. The cultural shreds and patches used by nationalism are often arbitrary historical inventions. And old shred and patch would have served as well" [Gellner, 1994, 56].
[2] According to the statistical data of the All-Ukrainian Population Census which took place in 5th December 2001, Ukrainians constitute a large majority - 77,8%, whereas Russians are the largest minority - 17,8% (other minorities make up 4,9%). The ethnic landscape changes, however, when the linguistic component is introduced: Ukrainian language is the mother tongue for 67,5% of citizens; Russian is the mother tongue for 29,6 % (other nationalities' languages - 2,9%) [Cited by the website: www.ukrcensus.gov.ua]. There is a significant difference between this data and the data given in the previous census of the Ukrainian SSR conducted in 1989. YaIaroslav Hrytsak, in his paper Ukrainian Nationalism, 1991-2001: Myths and Misconceptions [Hrytsak, 2002, 234), presents the old results of the 1989 USSR population census. According to this, Ukrainians constituted a large ethnic majority (72.7 % in 1989), whereas ethnic Russians constituted a minority of ca. 20 %. The Ukrainian-speaking population was in a minority (40-44%), while the majority (53-55%) were Russian speakers (Russophones).
[3] According to the data cited by Anatolii Matviienko, Ukrainian-speaking Ukrainians constitute 42-44% of the total population; the rest consists of over 30% of Russian-speaking Ukrainians and almost 20% Russians. See: A.Matviienko, "Etnonacionalna polityka Ukrajiny: vyklyky i vidpovidi," Samostijna Ukrajina, 1.07. 2003 (cited by websites: www.sobor.org.ua and www.matvienko.kiev.ua). The data presented by Andrew Wilson in the chapter Boundaries still blurred [Wilson 1997] are similar: 41% - Ukrainophones; 44% Russophones; 14% - both - Ukraino- and Russophones [The author is also cited by Pogrebinskii (ed.), Politicheskiie nastroeniia nakanune vyborov, [date?] pp. 17-18 and 194-195]. However, the new official data are different: in 2001 over 85% of Ukrainians claimed that their mother tongue was Ukrainian, and only 15% percent claimed that their mother tongue was Russian. Almost 4% of Russians claimed that their mother tongue was Ukrainian [cited by the website www.ukrcensus.gov.ua ].
[4] "Can linguistic groups mobilize? Is there evidence of linguistic groups mobilizing in Ukraine and the former USSR? Is there evidence of unified linguistic groups with similar aims and objectives?" These questions were posed in a curriculum description for one of the courses at the University of Toronto. See: www.ukrainianstudies.org/aaus-list/0209/msg00006.html [5] "The first are the 'nationalizing' nationalisms of newly independent (or newly reconfigured) states. Nationalizing nationalisms involve claims made in the name of a 'core nation' or nationality, defined in ethnocultural terms, and sharply distinguished from the citizenry as a whole. The core nation is understood as the legitimate 'owner' of the state, which is conceived as the state of and for the core nation. Despite having 'its own' state, however, the core nation is conceived as being in a weak cultural, economic, or demographic position within the state. This weak position - seen as a legacy of discrimination against the nation before it attained independence - is held to justify the 'remedial' or 'compensatory' project of using state power to promote the specific interests of the core nation which have not been adequately served before. Directly challenging these nationalizing nationalisms are transborder nationalisms of what I call 'external national homelands.' In practice nationalizing tendencies are visible in Romania, Slovakia, Serbia, and many of the post-Soviet states." [Brubaker, 1996, 104-105].
[6] "In view of the restrictive language regulations and the unified constrained nature of the education system, it is tempting to label post-Soviet Ukraine as a nationalizing state that seeks to allocate the spoils of independence to the dominant titular group and eliminate cultural diversity. This, however, would be a serious misrepresentation of reality. First of all, the newly empowered elite consciously sought to include Russians and other minorities by offering citizenship to all persons resident on Ukrainian Territory. Secondly, non-Ukrainians were not systematically purged from state offices, nor did they face serious discrimination in the job market (Western Ukraine to some extent being the exception). Third, specific legislation (notably the Law on National Minorities) granted ethnic minorities extensive rights. Fourth, [...] the national authorities showed consideration for Ukraine's linguistic profile. Ukraine's overall strategy in dealing with ethnic pluralism can therefore be best characterized as being fairly liberal, while revealing a mild but nonetheless ceaseless aspiration to culturally homogenize the country." [Janmaat, 2000, 268] [a quotation, therefore quotation marks are required]
[7] On the 2001 census and the status of the Ukrainian language, see the debate between Kulyk and Strikha [Strikha 2003 b] on the "Krytyka-Komentar" website. Ukrainian is claimed to be the mother tongue of 85,8% of villagers (Russian - of 9,5%); for the citizens of towns and cities it is 58,5% and 39,5%. [Cited according to Stanyslav Vyskub, Movne pytannia: borot'ba za prava menshynstv chy za holosy vybortsiv?, 19.10.2005, www.pravda.com.ua ].
[8] The concept of the Diaspora - as well as of the ghetto - is drawn from the history of Jews in Europe, but in the Ukrainian case even the connection with the historical situation of Jewish culture is rather weak. The usage of the word 'diaspora' in Ukrainian has no historical connotations, for example: "Ukrainian literature functions in Ukraine mostly as the literature of a quasi-diaspora. So, in Kyiv, like in New York, Toronto, London - there are some 'points', where one can buy Ukrainian books, however these 'points' are known only as 'ours', i.e. 'for Ukrainians', and not for all, whereas the average Londoner, Varsovian, New Yorker [no hyphen], Torontonian, Kyivan [Kievan?] knows nothing about these 'points' and these books. [...] Typical of 'diaspora literature' is the lack of a real market..." ("Українська література функціонує, таким чином, в Україні великою мірою як література квазі-діаспорна. Так, у Києві - як, між іншим, і в Нью-Йорку, Торонто, Лондоні - є кілька "точок", де можна придбати українські книжки, але про ці "точки" знають лише "свої", себто "українці", та й то не всі; тим часом як пересічний лондонець, варшав'янин, ньюйоркець, торонтець, киянин нічого про ці "точки" і ці книжки, як правило, не знає. [...] Xарактерною рисою "літератури діаспори", за моделлю якої сьогодні великою мірою функціонує й українська література в Україні, є відсутність реального ринку..." [Riabchuk, 1998, 4] (; the editorial board described this essay on its title page as 'Report from the literary ghetto').
[9] „жодні «підтримчі дії» (зауважу - на такі дії не спромоглися досі не лише Кінах із Януковичем, але й «надія нації» Ющенко) не здатні будуть вивести нашої мови з гетто. Хоч колись воно неодмінно перетвориться на гетто читачів не так «Літературної України», як «Критики» (щось таке маємо вже в Мінську, де білоруська перестала бути мовою «двірників», залишившись лише мовою вузького прошарку інтелігенції) - але втіха для мене з того буде однаково мала" [Strikha b].
[10] "Українська міська культура опинилася в своєрідному getto" [Doniy 2002-2003, cited by website of the newspaper].
[11] "У Києві, як і більшість "галицької діаспори", колишніх львів'ян, я живу у своєрідному гетто. Я не скажу, що воно суто галицьке, ні, - це "українське гетто". Всі ми досить мало контактуємо з людьми з іншого світу, російськомовного. Він культурно чужий нам, що б там не казали про близькість мов і культур" [Riabchuk 2002, cited by the website of the newspaper].
[12] Я вважаю, що така позиція - це шлях у безвихідь, це заганяння і українства, і самої партії в гетто «професійних патріотів», звідки вже немає виходу [Matviienko, 2003 on websites: www.sobor.org.ua and www.matvienko.kiev.ua].
[13] "Чи поділяєте ви думку, яку висловив Микола Рябчук, що українська культура існує в Україні як маргінальна, навіть як діаспорна, і що її творці творять навколо себе своєрідне гетто?" [Voznyak 2001, cited by the website of the weekly].
[14] "Кожен творець свого гетто. По-перше, не треба гетто творити навколо себе". [Voznyak 2001].
[15] According to police reports, at the end of the 19th century the Hromady had 438 members in all (and more than 100 were members of the Kyiv Hromada)
[16]"You denied one ghetto and you chose another, but you certainly know: that the second one is much more stifling [?] (Ти відмовився від одного гетто заради другого, хоч добре знаєш - те друге куди більш задушливе)." [Stus, 1994, 442].
[17] "Поки інтелігентна громада не зблизиться до народа, не стане з ним за одно, не підійме його духовних і політичнмх інтересів, доти й політичні обставини Росії не зміняться." [Franko, 1983, 39].
[18] Lesya Ukrainka wrote: "слово народ др. Франко уживає не в европейському розумінню, а в народницькому: 'селяни'" [Ukrainka, 1983, 42].
[19] [...] Our student does not escape to the people, but somewhere abroad, to "Europeanism", to an abstract kingdom of a never-existing general human, and hence, he also breaks ties with the people, loathes them and does not want to know them, just like the righteous son of the society that he too has turned away from. Yet it is precisely in the people that help can still be found (but that is a lengthy matter) [...] [Cited in Pomorski, 2004, 37].
[20] "у нас на Україні перш усього треба здобути собі інтелігенцію, вернути нації її "мізок", аби не було так, що є над чим робити, та нема кому." [Ukrainka, 1983, 43].
[21] To quote Vasyl Stus again: "Many of us thought in despair that even the spiritual existence of our nation was in danger that day. And many of us felt that if anything could be done, it could only be only now, only in these days. For next day would be too late. And we, living witnesses of the silent, secret sinking of our national land , were forced to speak of genocide." [Не один з нас розпачливо думав, що саме духовне існування рідного народу сьогодні поставлено під загрозу. І не один з нас відчував: коли якийсь порятунок іще є, то тільки сьогодні. Бо завтра буде вже пізно. І ми, живі свідки цього тихого потаємного затоплення нашого національного суходолу, змушені були заговорити про явища геноциду]. [Stus,.
[Hrytsak, 1996, 84]. 1994, 443]
[From: Korek. J. (edit.) From Sovietology to Postcoloniality. Poland and
Ukraine in the Postcolonial Perspective, Södertörn Academic Studies 32,
Stockholm, 2007, ss. 139-153]