Ukrainians and Russians Identity and the View on the Neighbor

Abstract

The aim of the article is to study the problem of relations between Ukraine and the Russian Federation after the proclamation of Ukraine's independence. The authors focus on the process of identity formation in the newly created states and on how identity has influenced the perception of the neighboring people in Ukraine and Russia. The research methodology is based on a combination of general scientific and special-historical methods with the principles of objectivity, historicism, systematicity, scientificity and verification. The scientific novelty of the work is that, using the achievements of both domestic and foreign scholars and the achievements of sociological science, the authors offer their own view on the problem of interstate relations, analyzing them in terms of forming a view of the neighboring state through the prism of national identity. Conclusions. Ukraine and the Russian Federation had different views on the common historical legacy of being in the Soviet state. If for Ukraine the Soviet experience was full of problems related to the planting of the Soviet identity, which, in turn, ignored the needs of the national Ukrainian identity, or openly instrumentalized the Ukrainian national identity for the needs of the state. Therefore, having started the process of state building, the greatest successes in Ukraine were achieved by those politicians who focused on the civic Ukrainian identity. The process of «nationalization» in Ukraine has been ambiguously perceived in different regions. Russia was characterized by considerable sentiment after the Soviet era, which was based on the idea of the greatness of the Soviet state, which to some extent reflected the desire of Russian elites and society to restore this greatness. In this context, Ukrainian independence was perceived as an extremely hostile phenomenon for Russia. Warming up the imperial and nationalist sentiments of Russian society, the Russian government successfully created an image of Ukrainian statehood as a dangerous phenomenon and used this image in the annexation of Crimea and the outbreak of war against Ukraine in Donbas.