Denys Kiryukhin. European Politics & Society. Volume 17, Issue 4, December 2016.

Introduction

At first glance, the answer to the question of how the current conflict between Ukraine and Russia could have occurred is quite obvious. The most widely accepted explanation is that this conflict, which has even been referred to as a ‘hybrid war’, was caused by the actions taken by Russia that violated international laws as they annexed part of the Ukrainian land and then instigated the separatist movement in Donbass and supported it with armed forces. Although true, this explanation is by no means exhaustive because it represents the situation as merely a voluntary decision by the President of Russia to initiate a conflict with its neighbouring state and with the Western world in general. In the same way, the interpretation of the abovementioned events as a consequence of a change of power in Ukraine inspired by the West and supported by radical nationalists, which turned this country into an enemy of Russia and of the Russian-speaking Ukrainian population belonging to the Russian culture, is too shallow and ideologically engaged. We need to understand this situation more profoundly in order to meet the current challenges adequately. And I absolutely agree with Andrew Monaghan from Chatham House who said:

Many Western political figures and observers have asserted that Russia’s president, Vladimir Putin, is trying to turn back the clock, even to rebuild the USSR, and therefore that the experience of the Cold War could offer useful lessons for politicians today … [This narrative] makes harder for the West to craft realistic policies with respect both to the Ukraine crisis and Russia generally. (Monaghan, 2015, p. 1)

The current crisis in the relationship between Russia and the West and between Russia and Ukraine has several dimensions. In this work, we will focus on just one of the aspects in order to shed light on the issue of the system prerequisites of the Russian–Ukrainian conflict. Indeed, the Ukrainian and Russian societies have a long common history and close religious, cultural, economic and interpersonal ties, which have been largely preserved up until now. Therefore, such an acute conflict (including armed confrontation) could only become possible as a result of profound political and ideological transformations that caused the two societies to separate and oppose each other.

The Russian–Ukrainian conflict was inevitable, although it did not have to take the form of the ‘hybrid war’; it could have manifested itself as a ‘gas war’, ‘trade war’, ‘diplomatic war’ or ‘historic war’ (i.e. a conflict concerning the interpretation of historical events, which has become more acute during the past few years), etc., depending on the prevailing conditions and international environment. The possibility of conflict itself was preconditioned by the peculiarities of the state projects of Russia and Ukraine that were launched after the tasks associated with the formation and development of democratic institutions had ceased to be considered as the basis for the Russian and Ukrainian state ideologies and had been preserved only at the level of public rhetoric.

Conservatism versus liberalism

In the final few years before the collapse of the USSR, the answer to the question concerning the desirable model of political and economic relations that would replace the Soviet ones was quite obvious for many social and political figures and for a considerable part of soviet people – it was the model of a liberal democracy. Thus, the succession of Velvet revolutions in Eastern Europe and independence referenda held in the former USSR republics after the almost 70-year period of the Communist Party domination quite logically formed the concept of the irrevocable triumph of the liberal idea, which was brilliantly presented in ‘The End of History?’ (1989) by Francis Fukuyama. The post-communist countries were expected to follow the line of ‘catch-up modernization’, developing their democratic institutions and market economies. Thus, the focus was on giving support and implementing necessary reforms. However, the belief that there are no alternatives to the liberal norms and values, prevailing in the liberal-democratic countries, was not so strong in the postcommunist countries. The liberal ideas were quite widespread in the first years after the collapse of the communist regime, but it quickly become obvious that fundamentally, the state projects of the post-communist countries were based on conservative values. This was proven by the extension of influence of various pro- and anti-democratic nationalist and patriotic movements in these states as well as in Central Asia – even by the expansion of religious fundamentalism.

In the case of Russia and Ukraine, the decrease in popularity of liberal ideas was caused by the strengthening of two trends. The first trend was the social demand for the preservation of a strong social state, the fundamentals of which had been undermined by the liberal economic reforms, and the second trend was the embracement of the national cultural and historic traditions as the basis for social integration and a new collective identity.

The first trend manifested itself in the extension of influence of communist parties in Ukraine and Russia in the late 1990s. In both countries, the Communists gained the most support in the parliamentary elections (i.e. the elections to the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine in 1994 and 1998 and to the State Duma of Russia in 1995 and 1999). In the presidential election of 1996 in Russia and 1999 in Ukraine, the head of the Communist Party made it to the second round. That was a period of a peculiar ‘nostalgic conservatism’. The extremely adverse consequences of the shift from a planned economy to a market economy caused a demand for the restoration of stability and a high level of social security, both of which were associated with the Soviet times in the minds of many people. This preconditioned the social support of the political forces, namely, the Communists, which were criticizing the current reforms, acting as the defenders of the infringed social justice, and using the people’s nostalgia for the lost social welfare as a resource for strengthening their positions.

However, nostalgia for a regime that had been deposed due to its intrinsic inconsistency is a bad cornerstone on which to build the future. This concept was noted by Dmitry Medvedev, the President of Russia, in his headline-capturing article ‘Russia, forward!’, in which he argued that ‘our foreign policy should be determined not by nostalgia, but by the long-term strategic goals of modernization of Russia’ (Medvedev, 2010). But Ukrainian and Russian citizens did not change their opinion concerning, for example, the role of the state in economic processes, adhering to the same paternalistic positions that were defended by the communist parties of both countries. In particular, approximately 30% of Ukrainians from 2002 to 2013 were strongly committed to a return to the planned economy, and 40–45% believed it necessary to combine state administration and market methods (Vorona & Shulyha, 2013, p. 447). In other words, most Ukrainians supported (and still support) aggressive intervention of the government in economic processes in order to ensure social security for the people. A similar situation can be observed in Russia. For example, during the pan-Russian opinion poll carried out by the All-Russia Public Opinion Research Center in 1999, 55% of the citizens declared that they preferred the system based on state property and state planning (WCIOM, 1999). However, when asked to choose between the Soviet and post-Soviet regimes – for they faced such a choice during the presidential elections 1996 in Russia and 1999 in Ukraine – most citizens voted against the return of the former political system.

Eventually, many former supporters of the Communists re-orientated themselves towards the political forces whose agenda combined ‘left’ and conservative ‘right’ rhetoric – the promise of social security and appellation to the national cultural and historic tradition that was considered and is still considered to be a resource for future development. In Ukraine, such a task was successfully implemented by the right populists, for example, All-Ukrainian Union ‘Fatherland’ or Batkivshchyna led by Yulia Tymoshenko. In Russia, it was the social conservative political forces, such as ‘United Russia’ or Edinaya Rossiya. In this situation, the only recourse for the Communists was to take the approach we observed in Ukraine or the niche of lobbyists of the Russian–Ukrainian cooperation, which remained quite popular in the Ukrainian society up to the beginning of the acute confrontation between the two countries, or, as was seen in Russia, to gradually transform themselves into the advocates of right conservative values (national historical tradition, traditional family, traditional morals and a strong state). The latter allowed the Russian Communists to stay in the political field.

The conservative turn widely spoken about when analysing Putin’s ideological policy but, as a rule, not mentioned when speaking about Ukraine, took place not in the 2000s but well before, during the late Soviet times. It would be more correct to speak not of an accomplished conservative turn of post-communist Ukraine and Russia, but of an unaccomplished liberal movement. We agree with Alexander Lukin, who analyses the concepts of a political ideal in Russia and posited that it was not Putin who imposed conservative values on the society (Lukin, 2008) but rather the post-Soviet political culture that brought him to power. This culture exhibited, on the one hand, an orientation towards social paternalism and, on the other hand, a leaning towards national tradition that preceded the establishment of the communist system. The national tradition was largely perceived as contrary to the communist system, although the two were not mutually exclusive.

A clear demand for conversion to traditional values was formed as early as in the late Soviet era, and was to a large extent prepared in the course of the ideological transformation of the Soviet Communist Party. Indeed, the internationalism and cosmopolitanism of the communists who took over in Russia in 1917 could be a basis for the political mobilization of the society only while there was the hope for the soon coming world revolution. However, as soon as it had become clear that there was no point in waiting for the global victory of communism, the Soviet authorities had to resort to a contradictory policy – they began to form a new historical community of people of different nationalities (Soviet people) while preserving the ideology of patriotism based upon the national and cultural historical tradition (the need for such patriotism was especially acute during the Second World War). Meanwhile, during the first years of the Soviet regime, the stake was placed on the development of the national traditions of the peoples in the wake of Lenin’s idea of the gratuitous alliance of nations and cultural and linguistic equality. As an example, one can remember the policy of forced Ukrainization carried out in the 1920s in Ukraine under the auspices of the National-Communists. It was only Stalin’s policy of patriotism that emphasized the Russian national culture and history and put other cultures as subordinate. To some extent, this directive by Stalin was preserved by the government party until the collapse of the USSR. The Soviet national policy suppressed nationalism as a political movement but at the same time supported national manifestations in culture and science in the Soviet republics. The same policy largely contributed to the formation of opposition to the Soviet regime represented by the national-democratic movement having two branches – right conservative and a substantially weaker liberal reformative one. It was therefore quite natural that the very first mass social movement in Ukraine, independent from the Communist Party, the People’s Movement (Narodnyi Rukh) of Ukraine (officially created in support of perestroika carried out by Mikhail Gorbachev) was distinctly nationalistic in nature. The appeal to the nation of Soviet Ukraine made by this movement in 1989 states, inter alia

This movement stands for national revival of the Ukrainian people, its independent development on its historical area … By means of national self-assertion we are joining the humanity while preserving our essence, our language, and the traditions of our ancestors. (Smoliy, 2011, p. 508)

These nationalistic trends were the only ideological alternative that had emerged in the late Soviet period and therefore began to grow after the collapse of the Soviet system.

In his book Tarrying with the negative, Slavoj Žižek brings forward an interesting image of the conversion from the communist political and normative order to the post-communist one. He draws attention to the fact that on the flag that the Romanians used during their insurrection against the Ceausescu regime, the red star in the middle that served as the organizing principle of national life was cut out. The hole in the flag, according to the Slovenian philosopher, represented the lack of normative order (Žižek, 1993, p. 1). Indeed, the crash of the socialist system was accompanied by the loss of values and normative milestones, destruction of political and economic institutions, breakup of social bonds and emergence of conflicts on a national and religious basis, which had been previously suppressed. However, the post-communist society was not institutionalized around a void. As Žižek puts it, various ideologies (from nationalistic to liberal democratic) were poised to attempt to become a new order. It took some time, particularly in Ukraine and Russia, for the conservative trend to replace the liberal one. Thus, the resort to national history and culture that was observed in the post-communist countries after the crash of the Soviet system was by no means a haphazard attempt to fill a void with something substantial. Rather, it was the natural result of the arrival of a new order that had developed within the old one.

Currently, both Ukraine and Russia can be described as conservative ideological and political projects with different goals. The Russian project can be called state-building, while the Ukrainian one is more aptly named nation-building. These differences made conflict inevitable.

Nation-building versus state-building

The distinction and contraposition between nation-building and state-building is not widely used in political theory. However, in recent years, it has become increasingly common for a country that has undergone a military conflict or some disturbances associated with the collapse of the state and the formation of a new one (or even several new states) to need new authorities and state institutions (i.e. state-building) as well as a new unified political community of its citizens with their general civil identity (i.e. nationbuilding). As nation-building and state-building are closely interrelated, both processes are typically considered parallel and complementary rather than opposed to each other. Without challenging the appropriateness of such an approach, one must nevertheless emphasize that in our case, the opposition was not only possible but also necessary because it allows us to clarify the specific nature of the key political concept in Ukraine and Russia.

However, while emphasizing that the Ukrainian ideological and political project is mainly a nation-building project, we do not assert that there are no state-building processes in Ukraine. Likewise, while the Russian project is mainly associated with state-building, one should not ignore the fact that nation-building is also extremely important for Russia. The main issue is the problem that is being solved by Ukraine and Russia. Having declared independence and formed state institutions, Ukraine was challenged with the formation of political solidarity, substantiation and, in a sense, legitimization of its independence because the latter (at least from Russia’s point of view) is not fully accepted. Meanwhile Russia, especially under the rule of Vladimir Putin, is mainly a state-building project, trying to reclaim the lost grandeur and power of the state on the world stage.

Important sources for defining the ideology of the Ukrainian and the Russian ideological projects and analysing their differences are not only official documents and speeches of the state leaders but also school textbooks. The ideological concepts introduced in these books (especially in history and literature textbooks) determine how the society is visualized by its members and form the world view of the next generations. Thus, school textbooks are of substantial interest.

The object of analysis in our case was Ukrainian and Russian school textbooks: eight textbooks – four in literature and four in history – from each country. The textbooks were selected according to the following criteria: they must have different authors or groups of authors, publication years and target ages. All of the textbooks were recommended by the ministries responsible for the policy of education in Russia and Ukraine; in other words, they should reflect the official position of the state.

The history of Ukraine is represented in textbooks as the history of the Ukrainian people (nation) that from time immemorial have lived in its land and struggled against various enslavers for freedom and sovereignty. As stated in the introduction to a ninth-grade textbook, the ‘key idea penetrating the material of the textbook is the thesis about the national revival and formation of the Ukrainian nation’ (Reyent & Malyy, 2009, p. 3). This statement summarizes the focus of the whole Ukrainian school programme in history. At the same time, the concept of nation is mainly treated in the ethnic sense. For example, in the abovementioned history textbook, it is noted that in the nineteenth century,

a fundamental shift in the ethnopolitical processes on the Ukrainian land took place. This period features the establishing and consolidation of the Ukrainian nation – the ultimate form of ethnos development. An indispensable condition for full-value of such process is the commonness of territory, language, economy, culture, and national consciousness. (Reyent & Malyy, 2009, p. 4)

Therefore, it is no coincidence that the whole history of Ukraine entails the consequences of events taking place on ‘ethnic Ukrainian lands’ (Pometun & Hupan, 2012, p. 6) and is associated with the struggle of this nation for self-assertion.

One of the most acute issues in Ukrainian history is its relationship with Russia. The textbooks we analysed demonstrate the lack of any clear strategy in this issue. On one hand, there is an approach that presents both Soviet and new ‘post-Soviet’ interpretations of disputed historical events (e.g. the actions of the Ukrainian Insurgent Army during the Great Patriotic War). On the other hand, when Ukrainians served in different hostile armies, Ukrainian textbooks now commonly include only the history of the side of conflict whose activities, according to the textbook authors, contributed to the liberation of the Ukrainians.

One example is a key episode of the Great Northern War – the Battle of Poltava (1709). On the eve of the battle, some Ukrainian Cossacks deserted Peter I to join the Swedish king Charles XII. In one of the textbooks we examined, this battle is presented as a confrontation between the ‘Swedish-Ukrainian’ and Russian armies (Vlasov & Danylevsyka, 2002, p. 162); however, the author does not mention that the Russian army also included Ukrainian soldiers.

However, one cannot say this ethnic approach is present in all of textbooks. For example, one of the textbook states: ‘In Ukraine, together with the Ukrainians, live the Russians, the Poles, the Byelorussians … All of us belong to the Ukrainian nation’ (Vlasov & Danylevsyka, 2002, p. 247). Nevertheless, an ethnic conception of the nation prevails.

An even more distinct ideological line can be seen in the Ukrainian literature textbooks. Literature is presented as something that reflects the soul and the history of the Ukrainian people, or, rather, the Ukrainian nation. Writers are evaluated according to this criterion. Thus, one writer is called ‘a teacher of the Ukrainian nation’, another, ‘a prophet of the Ukrainian nation’, a third one, ‘a defender of the Ukrainian name abroad’. The following extract from a textbook illustrates this idea:

The heroic deeds of the Ukrainian people … have been embodied in the works of Ukrainian writers … The masters of word perceived the present time and aspired to dip into the future, opening new aspects of the national character of the Ukrainian, fascinated by its inner beauty, moral strength, and conscience, keen sense of duty to the nation, spirituality and poetry of the soul. (Semenyuk, 2011, p. 408)

One of the main topics in textbooks is the oppression of Ukrainian culture in the Russian Empire and later in the Soviet Union. The following phrases are representative: ‘the elimination of the Ukrainian education and culture was launched by the decree by Tsar Peter I in 1721’ (Movchan, 2006, p. 7), ‘by its annexation to Russia, Ukraine doomed itself to centuries of serfdom, Russification and complete loss of nationhood’ (Avramenko & Dmytrenko, 2009, p. 59), and

in no other European country did rulers have such unlimited power as the czars-emperors [of Russia – D.K.]. Nowhere was the bureaucracy so despotic, the police – so cruel, and the people – so deprived of rights as in Russia. In the Ukrainian lands the czarist regime was implementing a colonial policy … (Avramenko & Dmytrenko, 2009, p. 179)

This contraposition of Ukrainian and Russian cultures can at times be problematic. For example, how does one categorize the numerous writers who lived in Ukraine but wrote in Russian, including not only writers from Central Ukraine but also the influential group of litterateurs who lived in Western Ukraine on the cusp of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries? Should they be considered Ukrainians? These questions are largely avoided by not mentioning Russian-language literature written in Ukraine at all. This approach was formed by Soviet nationalities policy, which consistently divided Ukrainian and Russian literature on the grounds of language. As a result, the works of Ukrainian Russian-language writer Nikolai Gogol were presented as a part of Russian literature in Soviet schools.

The situation is further complicated by writers who made a key contribution to the development of Ukrainian literature. How should one, for example, judge the fact that ‘the prophet of the Ukrainian nation’, as Taras Shevchenko is called (Kovalenko, 2013) wrote his prose compositions and some poems in Russian? Likewise, why did ‘the son of the Ukrainian people’ Nikolai Gogol write in Russian, and put the following words in the mouth of the dying character of his famous story Taras Bulba: ‘A czar shall arise from Russian soil, and there will be no power on earth that shall not submit to him!..’

In the case of Shevchenko, the fact that some of his works are written in Russian is simply ignored in the Ukrainian school curriculum. Meanwhile, Gogol’s works in school textbooks are translated into Ukrainian and, with respect to Taras Bulba, the Ukrainian translation is for the first version of the story, which does not include the text quoted above.

Thus, it is the formation of political commonness on the basis of the Ukrainian cultural and historical tradition that is the central task of Ukrainian school textbooks. Accordingly, the formation of an independent state is considered in the textbooks to be the apogee of historical development of a nation understood in a primordial sense. In this respect, the Ukrainian ideological and political project can be reasonably characterized as mainly nation-building.

The situation in Russia is notably different. In Russian textbooks, the main subject of history is the Russian state, not the Russian nation. The concept of a nation is present and plays an important role; however, the important part is that the Russian nation created its state, the history of which is the history of Russia:

The history of the Russian people is inimitable, special, off the beaten track. It was formed by our ancestors; they were building the state, little by little, gathering lands … Russia knew its ups and downs. Sometimes it faced critical periods spelling disaster for the state. The country was struggling, surviving, growing strong. (Pashkov, 2002, p. 3)

This quote illustrates how the historical process is interpreted within the Russian school curriculum.

While the ideology of the Ukrainian political process is rather exclusive, that is, emphasizing the distinctiveness of the Ukrainian people and culture from other peoples and cultures, the ideology of the Russian political project is inclusive. It is oriented towards expansion and inclusion of different cultural traditions and peoples. Unlike Ukrainian textbooks, therefore, Russian textbooks do not emphasize a certain ethnic territory. One of the school textbooks we analysed reads

Most nationalities inhabiting Russia today have not lived here forever. Their ancestors came here once upon a time … But then our country became native for these peoples … It doesn’t matter, who came to this land earlier or later, whose ancestors used to be at odds, and who managed to find common ground at once. Another thing is important: today all the peoples of our country form a single family creating the new Russia. (Andreev & Fedorov, 2015, pp. 6–7)

The expansion of the frontiers, power and influence of the state is considered to be positive, evidence of state development. For example, it is emphasized that, well into the middle of the nineteenth century, ‘the achievements of the Russian Empire were indisputable. The empire expanded its territory and strengthened the centralized government machinery from the very top down to the local authorities … ’ (Danilov, 2009, p. 3).

As for the so-called ‘Ukrainian issue’, there is no consistent distinction between the Ukrainian and Russian nations, since part of modern Ukraine at times was included in the Russian state. It is acknowledged that some Ukrainians used to clamour against the Russian Empire in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. However Ukrainians and the Russians are considered in Russian school textbooks to be a single people. Even when speaking of the eighteenth century, it is emphasized that ‘the national makeup of the empire was heterogeneous. Russians formed the mainstay of it … Russians (Velikorussians), Ukrainians (Malorussians) and Byelorussians was considered a single nation … ’ (Danilov & Kosulina, 2009, p. 5).

Curiously, while the Ukrainian literature textbooks name Nikolai Gogol a ‘great son of the Ukrainian people’, the Russian ones refer to him as a ‘great Russian writer’. Elsewhere, it is said that Gogol, ‘being born Ukrainian, from the very beginning of his conscious life became committed to the Russian culture’ (Korovina, Zhuravlev, & Korovin, 2013, p. 157). In sum, Russian literature textbooks include writers from Ukraine who wrote in Russian and who are not, except for Gogol, mentioned in the Ukrainian textbooks.

Europe is the only ‘alien’ that Russia encounters and simultaneously compares its level of social and economic development to. That is why the historical periods when ‘the abyss between Russia and the West was deepening’ (Danilov, 2009, p. 3), are reported as undisputedly negative.

Both the Ukrainian and Russian literature textbooks complement and develop the conception presented in the history course. Accordingly, one of the main topics in the Russian literature textbooks is the motif of love of country, the Motherland. Russia’s heroic past is reflected in folklore, literature and art, emphasizing that:

despite the fact that it [Russian literature – D.K.] was divided into two halves – Soviet and émigré, Russian writers always – whether in Russia or abroad – perceived themselves a part of their Motherland; they lived by that complicated feeling of love for it, each finding in Russia something particular. (Chalmaev & Zinin, 2012, p. 4)

However, Russian literature itself is considered to be valuable not only for its national, but also for its transcendent and cosmopolitan aspects. For example, ‘Russian literature of the nineteenth century’ is described as ‘an aesthetic and ethical capital belonging to all mankind’ (Kurdyumova, 2007, p. 3).

As one can see, the recourse to history and to national traditions in Russia and Ukraine serves various purposes. In Russia it is used to prove its self-sustainability, its unique place in history and its integrity as a multinational state. In Ukraine, by contrast, it is used to justify its political subjectivity and state sovereignty. That explains the dominance of a nationalistic trend in Russia–Ukraine did not have sufficient prerequisites for the formation of a patriotic ideology such as the one which now dominates in Russia. Thus, Ukraine and Russia, while calling upon the traditional values and national culture, propose different solutions to the problems associated with the collapse of the USSR. As a result, two contesting projects have developed.

Borders versus boundaries

It is symbolical and hardly incidental that the first grave Russian–Ukrainian conflict – concerning the ownership of Tuzla Island in the Kerch Strait (2003) – involved the countries’ borders. Currently, after the events in the Crimea and Donbass, borders/boundaries disputes remain one of the most acute issues in Russian–Ukrainian relationships. The matter involves not only the interstate borders but also social boundaries. Moreover, one can say that the dispute regarding the borders is, to a great extent, the consequence of a lack of proper regulation of the social boundaries, that is, the problems that the policy of dividing Russian and Ukrainian societies creates.

On 18 March 2015 at a concert devoted to the anniversary of the annexation of the Crimea to Russia, Vladimir Putin declared,

We in Russia have always believed that the Russians and the Ukrainians are a single people. I still believe it. Surely, extreme nationalism is always harmful and dangerous. I’m positive that the Ukrainian people will one day give a worthy and just evaluation of the deeds of those who brought the country to its present condition. (Putin, 2015a)

In this statement, two key points are made. First, while acknowledging the state borders of Russia, Putin virtually wipes out the boundaries between the two societies, boundaries that, as we have seen by the examples of textbooks, are so thoroughly maintained in Ukraine. Second, his attack on nationalistic ideology is interesting. This was a signal sent not only to the Ukrainian nationalists but also to the Russian nationalists. It was triggered by the complex ideological struggle that has been observed in Russia for many decades, between the nationalistic and patriotic trends. This struggle was not obvious in the school textbooks that we analysed because they were written from only one position, a patriotic position. However, the struggle between nationalism and patriotism is quite noticeable in the political rhetoric and discussions held among Russian intellectuals.

Today’s ideology of Russian authorities, being pronouncedly conservative, is fairly eclectic, as is that of Ukrainian authorities. However, while the Ukrainian ideology combines nationalistic and liberal-democratic elements, the nationalistic element prevails and merges with patriotism. However, in Russia, the situation is different. The liberaldemocratic component is less significant there, while the main points of opposition are between nationalism and patriotism. This is exemplified by Putin’s ideological strategy. The Russian leader is continually pulled between patriotism and nationalism, now praising the Russian philosopher Ivan Ilyin, a representative of the nationalistic position, at other times, as seen above, pointing to the dangers of ethnic nationalism.

His strategy is simple. Putin aims to preserve the integrity of the multinational Russian state. That is why he emphatically disavows ethnocultural nationalism, which promotes the interests of the Russian people alone. Such a position would inevitably cause international tension, or lead to the formation of a Russia with different the political borders than the present ones. In this respect, the Russian President opposes Alexander Solzhenitsyn, who in his 1991 political treatise, Rebuilding Russia, proposed the development of Russian nationhood based on Russian national traditions and culture. It is well known that Solzhenitsyn supported the creation of a united state (Russian Union) to include Russia, Ukraine, Belarus and the part of Kazakhstan inhabited by Slavic people, while at the same time allowing for the separation of the Caucasus from Russia.

At the same time, Putin acts as an advocate of a strong state with nationalistic ideology when it is necessary to justify Russia’s ‘special’ historical path. This explains his attraction to the works of Ilyin, whose memorial headstone he installed at his own expense. Many ideas of this twentieth-century philosopher resonate with those of the Russian president. In particular, the following:

We needn’t chase after the West or try to copy it. It has its own maladies, mistakes and dangers. We have our own ways and national tasks; we aren’t students or teachers to the West, we are disciples of God and of ourselves. (Ilyin, 1993, pp. 426–427)

Obviously, after a long period of attempting to form a single political space from Lisbon to Vladivostok, a goal not supported in the West, the Russian president has re-oriented (his famous 2007 Munich speech can be considered a milestone) towards promoting Russia’s ‘special way’.

One cannot but notice the similarity between Putin’s present ideological strategy and that of China led by Xi Jinping. In his book, The governance of China (2014), Jinping casts doubt upon the universal nature of the Western liberal model and asserts the need for an alternative world order based on the harmonious coexistence of Western (liberal) and Chinese (traditional) values. ‘Western values’ he says are inappropriate for Chinese society.

Putin holds similar views, though his position is not a hard contraposition to Western civilization. The idea of ‘sovereign democracy’ is representative in this regard – the value of democracy is plainly admitted, but Russia reserves the right to define democracy for itself. At the same time, it is worth noting that Putin craftily uses Russian conservative ideology to influence Europe. He presents himself as a defender of traditional values in the European tradition, and his criticism of the current policies of the European Union has been met with broad support from many European citizens and right-wing parties.

On the other hand, it is patriotism, not nationalism that Putin defines as the basis of his ideology. ‘Patriotism must become the consolidating ideology for Russia’ (Putin, 2003), he has declared, and he has consistently maintained this position up to the present day. He associates patriotism with a commitment to traditions, historical continuity and the modern assertion of the power of the state. In this respect, his views are similar to those of Margaret Thatcher in her speech made after the Falklands War in Cheltenham, which reads: ‘Britain has not changed and that this nation still has those sterling qualities which shine through our history’ (Thatcher, 1982). If we replace the word ‘Britain’ with the word ‘Russia’, this could easily have been said by Putin at a celebration of the annexation of the Crimea. This is not surprising since the Russian President acts as an ideological successor not only of Ivan Ilyin, but also of the early twentieth-century politician and philosopher Peter Struve, who considered the USA and the British Empire to be the ideals ‘Russians should strive to emulate’ (see Zhuravlev, 2015, p. 324).

However, whichever trend – either patriotic or nationalistic – gains an advantage in Russia, the attitude regarding the ‘Ukrainian question’ will remain unchanged. Ukraine is considered part of ‘the Russian world’, whether we understand it in the narrow ethnocultural sense or more broadly. Thus, when speaking of Russian nationalism, one can distinguish two strategies with respect to Ukraine. The first is that of assimilation, as described by the philosopher Nikolai Berdyaev (Russian culture assimilates the other nationalities included in Russia). The second is that of association (Russians, Byelorussians and Ukrainians are considered to be three allied peoples meant to live in one state). In both cases, Ukraine is regarded as a permanent part of Russia’s national identity. Similarly, from the point of view of Russian patriotism, the social boundaries between the Ukrainians and the Russians disappear.

One of the most acute problems for modern Russia in trying to restore its influence in the world is its inability to propose an attractive image of the future to part of its own population and to other countries. This distinguishes it from the USSR. The latter embodied a Marxist model of modernization that was an attractive alternative to capitalism for many people. Meanwhile today’s Russia, like China, is developing as a conservative project, which orients itself towards national tradition as an alternative to Western liberalism. However, this model severely complicates the implementation of a strategy aimed at including other countries in its orbit of influence. In this situation, the above mentioned problem is solved either by means of appealing to pragmatic economic interests (the basis of the Customs union and BRICS) or, as in the Russian–Belorussian and Russian–Ukrainian relationships, by appealing to common cultural and historical tradition (the ‘Russian world’) beyond the limits of the state borders.

Russia’s state ideology is inevitably wider than its political borders, and necessarily assumes Ukraine to be a component of the Russian project or Russian world. In particular, it is quite noticeable that Putin, speaking of Ukraine in his Crimean speech, said

In the Crimea literally everything is penetrated with our common history and pride. Here is the ancient city of Chersonese, where St. Vladimir was baptized. His spiritual deed – the turn to the Orthodoxy – predestined the common basis of culture, values and civilization that unites the peoples of Russia, Ukraine and Belorussia … We are not just close neighbours; we are actually, as I’ve repeatedly said, the same nation. Kiev is the mother of Russian cities. Ancient Rus is our common origin; we cannot live without each other. (Putin, 2014)

This explains the special sensitivity of Russians to Ukrainian events and makes Russia’s involvement in the Ukrainian political process inevitable.

Like the Russian ideological state-building project, the Ukrainian nation-building project also goes beyond the state borders of Ukraine, but within prescribed limits. Ukrainian ethnic nationalism is oriented towards the development of Ukrainian nationhood on its ethnic territory. Radical nationalists claim that part of those territories now belong to Poland and Russia, in particular, the Kuban region where many ethnic Ukrainians live. A call to create a ‘united indivisible Ukraine from the Carpathians to the Caucasus’ was formulated early in the beginning of the twentieth century by one of the chief ideologists of Ukrainian nationalism, Nikolai Mikhnovsky. Today it has little resonance because Ukraine is focused on solving other internal problems, but it remains as an ideological landmark, and is widely utilized by marginal political groups.

On the other hand, this nation-building project is undermined by the non-coincidence of political borders and those of the Ukrainian political community. This problem and the tendency to consider the nation primarily in the ethnic sense serve as sources of internal tension and conflict. It is widely recognized, at the state level, that the territorial integrity and equality of Ukrainian regions and citizens should be defended. However, it is difficult to ignore the fact that focusing on ethnic national identity leads many Ukrainians, including many intellectuals, to be considered alien to the Ukrainian national project. This especially concerns those Russian-speaking citizens in south-eastern Ukraine, who do not support the nationalistic political powers and are oriented, primarily, to the development of cooperation with Russia. The formation of relationships with these regions within the framework of the nation-building ideological project is considered a problem by many intellectuals, and they often openly confess to being unable to solve it.

A spectacular example are the observations of the influential Ukrainian writer Yuri Andrukhovych made in 2010 with the call to let the Crimea and Donbass separate from Ukraine:

Politically, it’s another nation. I don’t even refer to ethnic points, only to the political ones. Politically, it’s a part of the Russian nation. I’m not saying this without exception, but for the Ukrainian minority living there it would be easier to emigrate here, because there they are cornered, constantly persecuted, and unable to realize a single project. (Andrukhovych, 2010)

Today these statements by Andrukhovych are seen in a more negative light than was, perhaps, intended by the author. Indeed, Andrukhovych was simply summarizing a discussion between Ukrainians, Russians, and Malorossy that began in the second half of the nineteenth century concerning the unity and diversity of Russian and Ukrainian history and culture.

By appealing to national tradition, Russia and Ukraine have rekindled their old dispute, which now to a great extent define the nature of the current relationship between the two countries. Thus, it is likely that the conflict we see today will continue with various degrees of intensity and in various spheres. It will not be extinguished until its systemic prerequisites are eliminated.