Interethnic Relations and Ethnic Tolerance in Ukraine.

French1284.224.54**

Romanians1064.504.61

Japanese544.524.72*

Crimean Tatars434.915.16**

Georgians435.065.37**

Vietnamese325.295.30

Arabs625.295.51

Negroes 5.465.51

Gypsies335.515.60

(* p <0.05; ** p < 0.01)

Two regularities are very conspicuous in the data. Firstly, all the nationalities presented for assessment were arranged both by ethnic Russians and Ukrainians in the same order of rejection. Even the position ‘Russians’ was no exception for ethnic Russians.

Secondly, in practically all cases the intolerance indices of Ukrainians are higher. except in the case of their attitudes towards Ukrainians (both autochthonous and expatriates). Insignificant differences were registered in their attitudes towards Poles, Hungarians and Romanians as well as to nationalities which are rejected most of all both by ethnic Russians and Ukrainians (Vietnamese, Arabs, Negroes, Gypsies).

Naturally, of the most topical interest from the point of view of preserving and maintaining civil peace in Ukraine, are attitudes of ethnic Russians and Ukrainians towards each other. Ethnic Russians are the largest ethnic minority in Ukraine. As far as their historical, political and economic role in Ukraine’s social life is concerned, they occupy one of the leading positions and the significance of their position increases dramatically in light of the prospects for solving problems in relations between Russia and Ukraine.In 1992, attitudes of ethnic Russians towards Ukrainians were, as noted above, characterized by a striving for a hrefomogeneous nation. Ethnic Russians rated Ukrainians on the scale of social distance even higher, albeit insignificantly, than their own ethnic group. This was in line with their support of the status of Ukraine as an independent (primarily in relation to Russia), sovereign state, which was demonstrated at the 1991 erendum. Underlying that orientation toward Ukraine’s political and economic independence was a widespread (at that time) assumption about Ukraine’s might and great economic potential which, so it was thought, could not be materialized because Ukraine had to support all the ‘hangerson’ of the republics of the FSU, above all Russia. With respect to the attitudes of Ukrainians towards ethnic Russians, Table 3 indicates that the latter are indeed regarded by Ukrainians on the scale of social distance as being closer to themselves than all other ethnic groups/nationalities, yet further than the autochtonous nationality. The reasons that could explain this situation are well understood: a considerable Ukrainian part of the population, having experienced a period of Russification and imperial ‘protection’, is very bitter about a possible return to the times when the Union Centre used to make decisions for Ukraine without taking its people’s interests into account. That is why suspicion with regard to Russia was carried over to ethnic Russians as a whole. As is usually the case when a question of national differences in attitudes to some social phenomenon arises, many people resort without a moment’s hesitation to generalized ethnic or national categories, e.g., ‘Russians’, ‘Ukrainians’, etc.

The results of our research, conducted in spring 1992, revealed certain differences in the attitudinal system of representatives of one ethnic group towards various other ethnic groups living in different regions. To take an example, Ukrainians living in different regions of Ukraine have different attitudes towards various ethnic groups and, in particular, to ethnic Russians and Ukrainian expatriates (in the diaspora). Table 4 supplies data clearly mapping out the pattern of attitudes of ethnic Russians and Ukrainians towards each other in 1992, with due consideration of the factor of regional heterogeneity of attitudes of Ukraine’s autochtonous population.

Table 4

Peculiarities of attitudes of Ukrainians living in various regions of Ukraine towards Ukrainians and ethnic Russians

Index of intolerance (on a scale from 1–7)

towards Ukrainianstowards Russianstowards Ukrainians living abroad

Ukraine’s population as a whole1.552.453.48