Formation of the Ukrainian Political Nation

Abstract

Structurally, the material in the article is presented in three parts: the first is the problem of terminology; the second – the first attempts at empirical sociological research into the processes of formation of the Ukrainian political nation; the third - the state of formation of the Ukrainian political nation according to the data of modern sociological research during the acute phase of the Russian-Ukrainian war. An analysis was carried out of the definitions of the main hypernym concept - nation, as well as derived concepts, primarily ethnic and political nations, available in the scientific literature. The paper also provides the author's interpretation and definition of the concept of "political nation" as a political community uniting all citizens as equal before the law, regardless of ethnic and social origin, cultural-linguistic, confessional characteristics, social and economic status. Emphasis is placed on the fact that it is at the same time a civil community that has its own territory and state, where the state acts as a means of achieving common national goals. It is emphasized that the formation of a political nation is a long-term process of transformation of an ethnic group into a "nation-state" through a number of intermediate stages. We show how Ukrainian sociologists began to study this process after gaining independence (including with the participation of the author); its beginnings in the 1990s concerned primarily the problems of the formation of Ukrainian civic identity as a core of a political nation. This process was successful but slow until the first phase of the Russian-Ukrainian war; it has gained a radical acceleration as a result of the ongoing Russian aggression since February 2022. Based on the analysis of the databases of a number of Ukrainian sociological institutions and the opinions of the country's leading scientists, an argument is presented in favor of theses about the formation of the Ukrainian political nation with its main characteristic features and at the same time about the ongoing course of this process. Threats and risks in case of a prolonged war are emphasized.