Romantic Nationalism in Eastern Europe by Bilenky Serhiy;

Author:Bilenky, Serhiy;
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Stanford University Press
Published: 2012-01-27T16:00:00+00:00

6

Making One Nationality Through the Unmaking of Others

Ukraine

The Ukrainian project was even more contradictory than those of its rivals—the Poles and Russians. The Ukrainian case illustrates a very important point in the theory of nationalism, as formulated by Roman Szporluk.1 The making of a so-called “small nation” (in terms of Miroslav Hroch) meant the simultaneous unmaking or transformation of another, already existing, nation. During this process the old (“big”) nation is split into two or more new nations, which also included an old one. The latter, despite preserving the name of an “old,” “big,” or “historical” nation was in reality a new community. This approach allows us to treat the making of Ukraine, Slovakia, or Bohemia as an aspect of the transformation of the Polish, Russian, Hungarian, and German premodern “nations.”

According to Szporluk, the advocacy of a distinct Ukrainian cultural identity (one might call it a “Herderian nationality”) had from the very beginning a political meaning since it contradicted the official definition of Russianness centered on autocracy. This, however, was not exactly the case. Up until the late 1840s, the Russian government did not generally perceive the activities of Ukrainian Romantic literati as “political,” dangerous, or detrimental to the imperial unity. Most Ukrainians themselves did not see a possible political meaning in their scholarly or literary work; they also did not know that by creating “words,” they were creating “things.” In short, they were not conscious nation-builders equipped with a ready theory of nationalism. Moreover, Ukrainian identity remained more or less compatible with Russianness, not to mention imperial loyalty. It is only by 1846–47 that the Russian government itself, under the influence of European events, started “politicizing” Ukrainian identity, associating it with Polish separatism. In reality the Ukrainian cause did not have much in common with the Polish one, genetically or typologically.

A new nationality first had to be imagined as distinct, though not necessarily as incompatible with empire or even with an “old,” “big,” or “historical” nationality. In this sense, the Ukrainian Romantic (Herderian) nationality could still be a part of the “all-Russian nation”—this is assuming that the latter really had to be all inclusive. It is on the level of political imagination that the unmaking of old nationalities occurred, although contemporary observers did not often notice that. For example, those who assumed that there was a separate Ukrainian language faced at least two choices: either the “all-Russian nation” could speak and write two languages, or there were two “Russian/Rus’ nationalities.” The first choice was popular among conservative and progovernmental figures, while the latter was the solution put forward by Mykola Kostomarov as a compromise between the traditional idea of Rus’ and an emerging Ukrainian identity.

Panteleimon Kulish and Taras Shevchenko, the most radical Ukrainian Romantics in the 1840s, avoided making reference to any common Russianness at all when speaking about the Ukrainian nationality. This last choice had become increasingly dangerous in Russia on the eve of the Spring of Nations.

The Ukrainian discursive field was quite diverse and included both an

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