Yevhen Golovakha at the Institute of National Remembrance
The podcast “(Na)pamiat”, a joint project of the Ukrainian Institute of National Remembrance and the Ukraine Media Center, has published an interview with the Director of the Institute of Sociology of the NAS of Ukraine, Doctor of Philosophical Sciences, Corresponding Member of the NAS of Ukraine, Professor Yevhen Golovakha. Introducing their guest, the presenters stressed that he is a member of European and American associations connected with sociological and psychological research and that his scholarly work is published in the United States and in European countries.
Turning to questions of historical memory, the presenters first asked him to recall what Ukrainians were like at the dawn of independence and how they understood their identity. In reply the guest stressed that he recalls those times from three positions — as a researcher; as someone who lived through them consciously and observed the course of events with his own eyes; and as an active participant not only in scholarly but in civic and political life, when Ukraine was being born as an independent state.
Public attitudes were so optimistic at the time independence was proclaimed in 1991 that they may be called “unrealistic optimism”: “People believed that the very fact of independence was already a precondition for social well-being.” At the same time, differences between the attitudes of the south-eastern and the west-central parts of Ukraine were already apparent. Surveys nevertheless showed that, despite the economic and social trials of the 1990s, independence remained a value for Ukrainians, though there were regional differences here too.
With identity it was more complicated, the sociologist explained. Our institute's first monitoring survey in April 1991 showed that 42% considered themselves citizens of Ukraine, a third had a local identity (a resident of their town, village or region) and 13% considered themselves citizens of the USSR. The Orange Maidan gave an impetus to seeing oneself as a citizen of Ukraine. After the Revolution of Dignity, 63% already had a dominant national-civic identity. And in December 2022, 82% considered themselves first and foremost citizens of Ukraine. So a national-civic identity has become dominant in all regions and all social groups — that is the most important thing. Fluctuations of a few percentage points depending on the course of events in the country are still possible, but there will be no fundamental changes,” the scholar stated. He reported that the surveys of the Kyiv International Institute of Sociology recorded similar dynamics, which confirms the reliability of these conclusions.
Before the war, in 2021, two thirds of the population had rather negative expectations about Ukraine's prospects. The war of 2022 astonishingly and sharply changed public attitudes. Ukrainians' attitude towards the state as an independent one is now stably positive, whereas their attitude towards the state as an apparatus of administration is more critical, which is understandable.
My hypothesis is this, the professor said: the successes at the front in 2022 increased Ukrainians' optimism, while the failure of the counter-offensive, of which expectations had been inflated, acted like a cold shower. Public opinion is mobile, even capricious, and often reacts emotionally and situationally. So from the autumn of 2023 it became clearer to Ukrainians that the war is and will be very hard for all of us and for the country as a whole. Russia's imperial project does not want to die, and so it does not stop trying to subjugate Ukraine, without which that empire is incomplete. Ukrainians, however, believe — and there are more than 90% of them — that we must endure all the hardships of war but not agree to the loss of territory. Two thirds are prepared to endure for as long as it takes.
We had a historically difficult situation with the consolidation of the nation, in both social and regional terms. As recently as 2013 many Ukrainians favoured integration and interaction with Russia and Belarus. But after 2014 Ukrainians ceased to be ambivalent and began to lean towards Ukraine's European integration, and with the beginning of the war in 2022 the nation finally began to form as a political and far more integrated one. The overwhelming majority of Ukrainians now favour Ukraine's accession to NATO, and it was precisely this point that for many years divided different generations and regions of Ukraine. The same applies to European values.
European values are tolerance, individual autonomy, a kind of anti-paternalism in which a person relies above all on themselves, self-realisation, human rights and law-abidingness. Ukrainians are gradually assimilating them, and mentally we are closest of all to the residents of Eastern and Central Europe.
Ukraine has ever more people becoming members of civic organisations, in particular through volunteering and helping those who cannot cope on their own.
Ukrainians' attitude towards authoritarianism is an interesting problem. Traditionally between 48% and 58% of respondents believed that a few strong leaders can accomplish more than democratic procedures. But we have the historical traditions of military, Cossack democracy and a perception of one-man rule as alien and not mentally close to us. In our rejection of authoritarianism we differ from Russia. Ukraine is not threatened by authoritarianism — I maintained this at the beginning of independence and I repeat it now, Golovakha stressed.
The research of our Institute is not only a contribution to the development of academic sociology but a scholarly analysis of the formation of Ukrainians' civic and national consciousness and national memory during the period of independence.
Institute of Sociology of the NAS of Ukraine
National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine. The country's leading sociology research institution, founded in 1990.