UKRAINIANS IN RUSSIA: FROM THE LARGEST ETHNIC MINORITY TO DUAL IDENTITY AND ASSIMILATION

The purpose of this publication is to analyze the dynamics of the number of ethnic Ukrainians in Russia, their regional distribution, and the reasons for the massive decline. Over the past century, the number of Ukrainians in the territory of the Russian Federation has decreased many times, and the territories of their compact residence have disappeared. Analysis of the dynamics of the total number and geographical distribution of the Ukrainian population in Russia shows two periods of the massive decline in its number (the 1930s and 1990–2010s). The reasons for such ethnic-demographic dynamics of Ukrainians in Russia lie primarily in the plane of socio-political processes: the genocide of Ukrainians in the 1930s (Holodomor and the ban on “Ukrainization”), the change or concealment of identity, because of the state policy to marginalize Ukrainian identity. These processes, as well as the widespread occurrence of ethnically mixed marriages, led either to complete assimilation or to dual identity (biethnicity) among the descendants of Ukrainians in modern Russia.