A sociologist on Ukrainians on Independence Day

On Ukraine’s Independence Day, Kyiv Post published an interview with the Director of the Institute of Sociology of the NAS of Ukraine, Corresponding Member of the NAS of Ukraine, Doctor of Philosophical Sciences, Professor Yevhen Golovakha.

Kyiv Post is Ukraine’s oldest national English-language medium, founded in 1995; today it exists as a modern online portal and is an authoritative source of news about Ukrainian affairs for an international audience. It is published in English and is addressed chiefly to foreigners, diplomats, expatriates and the community abroad that takes an interest in Ukraine. It has traditionally supported democratic values, European integration and the free market, and scores highly on adherence to journalistic standards and transparency of content.

The journalists were interested in a portrait of the Ukrainian nation as the country marks 35 years of restored Independence. The question, we must admit, is a sweeping one. So the head of academic sociology began with a fundamental argument: “For many years I have been observing how Ukrainian society changes. Since 1992 the Institute of Sociology of the NAS of Ukraine has conducted an annual monitoring survey of social change. (It is worth noting that Yevhen Golovakha, together with Natalia Panina, initiated the creation of this strategic research instrument.) So when I am asked today what Ukraine has become over the 35 years of restored Independence, I can answer on the basis of long-term observation.”

According to the scholar, the results of those observations are as follows:

1. Ukraine has overcome the acute regional contradictions we observed before 2014.
2. The differences between East and West, South and Centre have not gone anywhere. But they have ceased to be fundamental. Ukraine has become considerably more cohesive and more integrated at the regional level
3. Solidarity within society has grown considerably stronger.
4. According to our research, citizens of Russia and Belarus are now among the groups towards which Ukrainians keep the greatest social distance (whereas before 2014 it was the smallest, and they were perceived as our “closest”).
5. At the same time we have come substantially closer to Europeans. This is a very important change, because a paradoxical situation used to arise: we declared a European choice, yet the average Ukrainian psychologically kept Europeans at a greater distance than Russians. Now that distance is shrinking.
6. We have moved closer to the European system of values: we are moving from security and material well-being as the principal values towards self-realisation, freedom, mutual aid and tolerance
7. War sharpens emotions, and that is natural. We certainly still lack tolerance. But it matters that sharp public debates are going on in Ukraine. That is part of a democratic political culture.
8. So the main conclusion is positive: Ukraine has overcome several very important contradictions that long prevented it from moving forward.

At the same time the professor cautioned that he does not want to paint too optimistic a portrait. The war has brought enormous losses. Almost no one has been left untouched by it. Some have lost loved ones, others their housing, their work, their property or their place of residence. This cannot but tell on the psychological and moral state of society. Hence the consequences:

1. Ukrainians’ moods today are worse than in the autumn of 2022, when we were experiencing the highest level of optimism. Whereas back then some 70–80% of people assessed the country’s future positively, that figure now stands at approximately 60%.
2. The number of people prepared to make significant concessions to Russia in order to stop the war is also growing. Their share amounts to about 20% of the population. But that is still a minority. The overwhelming majority of Ukrainians are not prepared to accept the aggressor’s terms. Given all our losses and psychological exhaustion, this is a very important indicator.
3. We have become more realistic. In 2022 many nurtured an unrealistic optimism. We thought the war would be over in a few months or half a year. Now we understand that it will last a long time.

The scholar stressed that one fundamental psychological change has taken place of late: it is very hard to live while seeing oneself as a victim. When Ukraine began systematically destroying Russia’s military potential, Ukrainian society came to see itself not only as a victim of aggression but as an agent capable of striking back: “We constantly need hope,” Ye. Golovakha emphasised. “Not an illusion, but precisely hope — the awareness that we can influence our own future.”

To the journalists’ question “What will things be like in ten years?” the professor observed: “I am cautious about forecasts. To be honest, I have become disillusioned with the predictive capacity of sociology the world over.” In his view, one has to take into account that the world today is effectively run by two old, ailing and insecure politicians, on whose decisions, ambitions, whims, grievances and personal complexes the fate of billions of people depends. We have all become hostages of this situation. And this is no longer a matter of the war alone. The world is changing rapidly under the influence of technological progress, demographic and climate challenges and economic upheavals. Against this background people often choose leaders who offer the simplest solutions to complex problems. They lose the capacity for critical thinking and begin to believe in a messiah. And somewhat unexpectedly the sociologist declared: “Ukrainians, in particular, believe in their own messiah. That is why I would not venture to paint an exact portrait of a Ukrainian ten years from now.”

He immediately offered reassurance, however: “There is a scientifically grounded method — extrapolation, that is, the transfer of established regularities of past development onto the future. And I do know what the trends are.”

According to the scholar, the main thing for us is to withstand this war.

1. Hence the first trend: we Ukrainians will not be abandoned to our fate, since the consequences for Europeans in that case would be far more serious than the current cost of aid to Ukraine. We need to hold out and to exhaust Russia, as we have been doing over the past six months.
2. The second important condition is that Europeans must support us consistently, and that far-right forces seeking rapprochement with Putin’s Russia must not prevail in European countries.

Given these two conditions, the professor emphasised, I see the prospect of a value-normative and institutional convergence with Europe. This means that a real party system and effective local self-government will emerge in Ukraine. Then we will achieve our aim — we will become a normal European country. Poor, perhaps. Perhaps not the most developed. But an Eastern European one. Not West Asian, but precisely European!

Summing up, the sociologist stressed that over 35 years of independence we have become a more integrated country. We are far more clearly aware of how we differ from Russia. We have come closer to Europe not only politically but also psychologically and in terms of values. And despite all the losses we have preserved the main thing — the readiness of the majority of Ukrainians to defend their right to determine their own future themselves: “It is with precisely this feeling that I meet the 35th anniversary of the restoration of Independence: not without anxiety, not without weariness, but with the understanding that over these decades Ukrainian society has become considerably stronger and more mature than we ourselves are sometimes inclined to think”

The interview given by the head of Ukrainian academic sociology to a publication influential both in Ukraine and beyond has once again shown that domestic scholars — including the staff of the Institute of Sociology of the NAS of Ukraine, which he heads — like all Ukrainian sociologists, keep a confident finger on the pulse of social and political processes and are always ready to offer scholarly recommendations for taking important decisions of state and policy.

For the full material see: https://www.kyivpost.com/uk/opinion/82200