Interethnic Relations and Ethnic Tolerance in Ukraine.

Ukrainians4.69

Ethnic Russians4.52

Others4.43

According to the 1992 data, regional peculiarities are as follows: the lowest level of general ethnic/national intolerance was registered in the western region, while the highest level was in the central region, which confirms the hypothesis that a level of national/ethnic tolerance is influenced by the experience of ethnic groups/nationalities living together and cooperating with other ethnic groups/nations. Poles, Hungarians, Romanians and other ethnic groups living in Ukraine are largely concentrated on the territory of the western region, while the central region is more homogeneous in its ethnic composition. Furthermore, joint ventures and business contacts intensified in the first years of the new, marketoriented economic policy, and were more developed in Western Ukraine. There is another explanation for the lower level of general ethnic intolerance in Western Ukraine: in our opinion, the region’s population was oriented to market transformations in the economy to a greater extent, and, as will be shown below, market orientations are rather closely related to a lower level of ethnic intolerance.

Certain differences in the level of ethnic intolerance were registered between Ukrainians and ethnic Russians: in 1992 Ukrainians’ general ethnic intolerance was somewhat higher (see Table 1 ; the difference is significant at the level of 0.05).

5. Ethnic Specifics of National Intolerance

The data obtained make it possible to specify differences between Ukrainians and ethnic Russians living in Ukraine with regard to their attitudes towards various ethnic groups/nationalities. Table 3 shows the results of the research for the following indicators:

• the left columns represent maximum tolerance of various ethnic/national groups — the percentage of representatives of the ethnic group in question who expressed their readiness to have close relations with representatives of the given nationality;

• the right columns show indicators of national/ethnic intolerance of each nationality/ethnic group (on a seven point scale):

Table 3

Attitudes of Russians and Ukrainians towards representatives of various nationalities/ethnic groups

NationalityReady to accept representatives of this nationality as related through marriageIndex of intolerance towards this nationality (on a scale from 1–7)

Ethnic RussiansUkrainiansEthnic RussiansUkrainians

Ukrainians69841.661.47**

Russians67341.822.64**

Belarussians38252.622.92**

Ukrainian expatriates18253.753.39**

Poles17153.753.79

Jews1473.884.30**

Hungarians1284.114.32

Americans12114.154.37*

Germans1274.204.51**