From Commonwealth to Ukraine: The Reconceptualization of “Fatherland” in Cossack Political Culture (1660s–1680s)

This article shows how the Cossacks developed the concept of a united Cossack Ukraine on both banks of the Dnipro as their “fatherland” and began viewing this “fatherland” as an object of common identity, loyalty, and reverence. It demonstrates that in a period of two decades the Cossack elite underwent a major shift in group identity from considering as its fatherland the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth in favour of a Cossack Ukrainian/Little Russian polity. It further indicates that all major political actors in Cossack Ukraine accepted and adopted this concept and that by the late 1680s the idea of a Ukrainian/Little Russian fatherland had become entrenched in early modern Ukrainian political culture. Finally, it points to the long-term consequences of this identity shift on relations with the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, Muscovy/Russia, and the emergence of a modern Ukrainian identity.     

The Holodomor law and national trauma construction in Ukraine

This article proposes to conceptualize the remembrance of the 1932–33 famine, known as the Holodomor, as cultural trauma construction in Ukraine. This entails the study of how the memory of this devastating historical event became the national collective symbol of suffering with which Ukrainians identify today. Based on Jeffrey Alexander’s concept of cultural trauma, the analysis focuses on the role of political elites and their claim-making regarding the meaning of the famine. Focusing specifically on the 2006 Holodomor law as the main claim of the Ukrainian policy-makers, the article investigates their definition of the historical event, their naming of victims and perpetrators, and their social mediation of famine representations. The article reveals how, through their definition of the Holodomor as genocide, the political elites promoted the understanding that Ukrainians experienced the years of 1932–33 differently from other Soviet nations. The Holodomor law should therefore be seen in the context of Ukrainian nation-building policy, which aims to forge a distinct Ukrainian collective identity.     

Negotiating Magic: Ukrainian Wedding Traditions and Their Persistence in Canada

Magical efficacy has been important in Ukrainian wedding ritual. The korovai, rushnyk, omens, gifts, the showering of the couple, and other “sacred” objects and acts of the Ukrainian folk wedding are believed to be imbued with prophetic qualities. Uprooted folklore tradition, however, faces inevitable transformations, and Ukrainian immigrants in Canada tend to know and believe in magical objects and actions significantly less. The examination of magical beliefs and practices in the context of weddings among Ukrainians in Ukraine and in Canada shows that the two groups possess different belief systems: magical and anti-magical respectively. Rural and urban dwellers, divorced people, and the clergy from both countries were interviewed retrospectively about their wedding days. Their answers confirm that magical beliefs and practices are the most fragile part of the folklore complex transmitted to a different cultural context. By contrast, material culture, which becomes a major means of ethnic identification, remains well preserved and cherished.     

Conflict and parochialism among combatants and civilians: Evidence from Ukraine

How does conflict affect prosocial and parochial preferences within a society? Our research considers the case of recent violence in Donbas, Ukraine where ethnic Russian separatists are battling the Ukrainian military. To evaluate social preferences, we utilize a non-costly dictator game with ethnic treatments among young ethnic Ukrainian male combatants and noncombatants in the eastern city of Kharkiv, which borders the Donbas region. At the onset of violence, we find no differences in how these men treat ethnic Russians in their local community compared to their own in-group. However, after a year of intense fighting with separatists in the nearby Donbas region, we find evidence of the erosion of fairness preferences and increased bias against ethnic Russians, especially among noncombatant civilians, underscoring how parochial responses to violence may extend beyond direct combat exposure mechanisms. Our results point to the short-term destabilizing effects of conflict on prosocial preferences with potential long-term consequences for entrenching parochial divisions.     

ESTIMATING NET INTERRACIAL MOBILITY IN THE UNITED STATES: A RESIDUAL METHODS APPROACH

This paper presents a residual methods approach to identifying social mobility across race/ethnic categories. In traditional demographic accounting models, population growth is limited to changes in natural increase and migration. Other sources of population change are absorbed by the model residual and can be estimated only indirectly. While these residual estimates have been used to illuminate a number of elusive demographic processes, there has been little effort to incorporate shifts in racial identification into formal accounts of population change. In light of growing evidence that a number of Americans view race/ethnic identities as a personal choice, not as a fixed characteristic, mobility across racial categories may play important roles in the growth of race/ethnic subpopulations and changes to the composition of the United States. To examine this potential, we derive a reduced-form population balancing equation that treats fertility and international migration as given and estimates survival from period life table data. After subtracting out national increase and net international migration and adjusting for changes in racial measurement and census coverage, we argue that the remaining error of closure provides a reasonable estimate of net interracial mobility among the native born. Using recent U.S. Census and ACS microdata, we illustrate the impact that identity shifts may have had on the growth of race/ethnic subpopulations in the past quarter century. Findings suggest a small drift from the non-Hispanic white population into race/ethnic minority groups, though the pattern varies by age and between time periods.     

Romance re- and Russian voz-

This article, based on documents from a Kyiv archive, explores the preconditions of famine in Ukraine through the 3rd All-Ukrainian Party Conference of July 1932, convened to discuss the grain crisis in the republic. It discusses recent historiography on the subject and the findings of Ukrainian historians. It argues that the causes of the famine may need to be broadened and that the argument that the famine should be regarded as genocide based on ethnic cleansing of Ukrainians is too narrow. Other factors that need to be considered are ignorance of local conditions, based in part on administrative restructuring during the time of the grain procurements campaign, lack of farming experience on the part of plenipotentiaries sent to the villages, overuse and misuse of land, a dramatic drop in livestock prior to 1932–1933 linked to collectivization, and above all the incompetence of Soviet party and government leaders at all levels.     

Canadian ethnic fertility

Investigates the relationship among ethnicity, education, and fertility for selected Canadian ethnic groups, introducing several extensions of Johnson's recent elaboration of Goldsheider and Uhlenberg's minority group status hypothesis. The findings suggest that among Asiatics and Germans the prevailing reproductive pattern is an assimilative one relative to the British majority group. Native Indians and Dutch maintain high levels of reproduction, but at post secondary school attainment their mean family sizes converge with the British. Ukrainian, Italian, and Jewish minorities experience below average fertility, and at high levels of education it is the British group which converges with the low fertility pattern of Jews and Italians. Ukrainians differ, as their fertility is consistently below the majority group, regardless of education level.     

Biblical Motifs in Chingiz Aitmatov’s The Place of the Skull

Folklore is the artistic expression of belief. The various forms of folklore change and adapt to reflect changing circumstances and changing views of the world. When Ukrainians came to Canada, they brought their folklore, ballads included, with them. In the new land, ballads helped voice the struggles of the Ukrainian Pioneers. Examining a collection of ballads made approximately sixty years after Ukrainians began arriving on the Prairies shows that the ballads performed in Canada spoke of real problems, problems attested in both folk sources and historical records. These include the physical hardship of life on an acreage, male absence as they went to work on the railroad, and the tension between women and their daughters-in-laws, who were left to struggle on their own. Ukrainian girls attracted to non-Ukrainians were seen as problematic, as were men seeking solace in alcohol and infidelity. And there were many other Canadian issues for which traditional ballads provided a powerful means of expression. The ballad tradition was modified through selection, i.e., only relevant songs continued to be performed. It was also changed internally and individual ballad texts were altered by the addition of new terminology and new ideas. This is especially true when attitudes in Canada differed from those in Ukraine. A very important change in attitude applies to magic. While the use of magic is treated ambiguously in ballads performed in Ukraine, it is routinely condemned in those performed in Canada.     

Canadian Ethnic Fertility

Abstract

This study investigates the relationship among ethnicity, education, and fertility for selected Canadian ethnic groups, introducing several extensions of Johnson's recent elaboration of Goldscheider and Uhlenberg's minority group status hypothesis. The findings suggest that among Asiatics and Germans the prevailing reproductive pattern is an assimilative one relative to the British majority group. Native Indians and Dutch maintain high levels of reproduction, but at post-secondary school attainment their mean family sizes converge with the British. Ukrainian, Italian, and Jewish minorities experience below average fertility, and at high levels of education it is the British group which converges with the low fertility pattern of Jews and Italians. Ukrainians differ, as their fertility is consistently below the majority group, regardless of educational level.     

Converting experiences in ‘communities of practice’: ‘educational’ migration in Denmark and achievements of Ukrainian agricultural apprentices

This article looks at ‘educational’ migration instigated by the Danish programme of agricultural apprenticeships, which since the late 1990s has brought many young Ukrainians to rural Denmark. It discusses discrepancies between the logic of achievement implied by the programme’s ideology on the one hand, and Ukrainian apprentices’ aspirations to social mobility on the other hand. In this way, the article questions the concept of ‘community of practice’ that has been used to describe the formation of a social persona sharing the values of this community. Using ethnographic case studies of former apprentices, I argue that while apprenticeships often fail to produce a shared social and professional identity within a community of practice, there are many ways in which the experiences afforded by Danish apprenticeships lead to (sometimes unforeseen) achievements.     

Language shift in Gammalsvenskby: A nexus analysis of the shift to Ukrainian in a traditionally Swedish‐speaking community

This article examines the collective language shift from Swedish to Ukrainian in the Swedish‐ethnic community of Gammalsvenskby, Ukraine. The Gammalsvenskby language shift is used to argue that language shift is such a complex social practice that it cannot be satisfactorily explained by the use of preconceived, deductive analytical frameworks. The argument is probed through a study of selected themes in the life story interviews of 16 last‐generation Swedish‐speakers, making use of the framework of nexus analysis. The study shows that the different kinds of discourses involved in the Gammalsvenskby language shift have resulted in a complex network of interrelated processes of change on various levels. These processes are so intertwined and have had such different scalar effects, that they cannot be simply grouped as factors which are classed as either micro or macro.     

Indigenous Immigrants from Latin America (IILA): Racial/Ethnic Identity in the U.S.

In recent decades, migration from all corners of the world has created one of the most racially/ethnically diverse immigrant populations in the history of the United States. While today migratory flows are predominantly from Asia, immigrants from Latin America continue to make up the largest immigrant group in the United States. The influx of this group reflects the heterogeneity of the Latin American region, including Latin American immigrants who identify as indigenous in their countries of origin. Through a brief overview of how indigeneity, race, and ethnicity have been historically framed in Latin America, I discuss how Indigenous Immigrants from Latin American (IILA) position their indigeneity within their racial/ethnic identity in the United States. I consider how migration shapes indigenous identity and propose the use of Social Identity Theory (SIT) to explore how IILA negotiate a racial/ethnic identity while maintaining their indigeneity in a U.S. context.     

Choosing One or Being Both: The Identity Dilemmas of Russian-Jewish Mixed Ethnics Living in Russia and in Israel

ABSTRACT

A large share of Russian/Soviet Jews, especially among younger cohorts, are descendants of intermarriage. In this essay, I reflect on the implications of the built-in ambivalence of these mixed ethnics, comparing their identity qualms and social strategies in their native Russia and after migration to Israel. My analysis draws upon participant observation and interviews conducted in Moscow, St. Petersburg, and across Israel over the last 20 years. My theoretical anchors are recent discussions on the evolving nature of Jewish identity, formed at the intersection of religion, ethnicity, and culture, in the context of ongoing intermarriage and assimilation. The comparison between the (ex-)Soviet and Israeli context underscores the role of local social constructions of ethno-religious belonging, nationalism, and citizenship as synergistic forces in shaping social locations of mixed ethnics. It also sheds light on the tactics of adjustment and “passing” among individuals with ambivalent ethnic identities who experience rapid social transformation or migration.     

Early language socialization and language shift: Kazakh as Baby Talk

This paper draws attention to the key role of a caregiver's bilingual language practices in the process of language shift. It argues that certain multilingual practices actually discourage children's multilingualism and devalue the language at the same time as they provide preverbal children with direct input. The analysis is based on data collected in Russophone urban families of ethnic Kazakhs. Drawing from work on registers and footing, the paper demonstrates that in these families the Kazakh language, while quantitatively prevailing in caregiver's speech, systematically co‐occurs with Baby Talk – a specific register directed to infants and toddlers in their preverbal stage. The metapragmatic typification of talking Kazakh to non‐agentive objects‐of‐minding, and talking Russian to autonomous social agents, suggests that language practices envision expert members of the local community as Russian speaking. This ideology sustains the ongoing language shift to Russian despite families’ aspiration to raise Kazakh‐Russian bilingual children.     

Ethnic Labels and Ethnic Identity as Predictors of Drug Use among Middle School Students in the Southwest

This article explores differences in the self‐reported drug use and exposure to drugs of an ethnically diverse group of 408 seventh‐grade students from a large city in the southwest. We contrast the explanatory power of ethnic labels (African American, non‐Hispanic White, Mexican American, and mixed ethnicity) and two dimensions of ethnic identity in predicting drug use. One dimension focuses on perceived ethnically consistent behavior, speech, and looks, while the other gauges a sense of ethnic pride. Ethnic labels were found to be somewhat useful in identifying differences in drug use, but the two ethnic identity measures, by themselves, did not generally help to explain differences in drug use. In conjunction, however, ethnic labels and ethnic identity measures explained far more of the differences in drug use than either did alone. The findings indicate that the two dimensions of ethnic identity predict drug outcomes in opposite ways, and these relations are different for minority students and non‐Hispanic White students. Generally, African American, Mexican American, and mixed‐ethnicity students with a strong sense of ethnic pride reported less drug use and exposure, while ethnically proud White students reported more. Ethnic minority students who viewed their behavior, speech, and looks as consistent with their ethnic group reported more drug use and exposure, while their White counterparts reported less. These findings are discussed, and recommendations for future research are provided.     

Left divergence,right convergence: anarchists,Marxists, and nationalist polarization in the Ukrainian conflict, 2013–2014

ABSTRACT

The article traces nationalist polarization and divergence within the Ukrainian new left in response to the Maidan and Anti-Maidan protests in 2013–2014, and the military conflict in Eastern Ukraine. The ideological left-wing groups in the protests were too weak to push forward any independent progressive agenda. Instead of moving the respective campaigns to the left, they were increasingly converging with the right themselves and degraded into marginal supporters of either pro-Ukrainian or pro-Russian camps in the conflict. The liberal and libertarian left supported the Maidan movement on the basis of abstract self-organization, liberal values and anti-authoritarianism. In contrast, the Marxist-Leninists attempted to seize political opportunities from supporting more plebeian and decentralized Anti-Maidan protests and reacting to the far-right threat after the Maidan victory. They deluded themselves that Russian nationalists were not as reactionary as their Ukrainian counterparts and that the world-system crisis allowed them to exploit Russian anti-American politics for progressive purposes.     

From Russian to Ukrainian Eurasianism: the new ‘historical’ friends and enemies

Eurasianism is a popular creed in post-Soviet Russia. Its supporters believe Russia is a unique blend of Slavic and non-Slavic, mostly Muslim Turkic people. With the rise of Russian nationalism, Muslims were transformed into enemies. It has been a different story in Ukraine, where Russians – ‘the old brothers’ – became an alien force and Turkic people an acceptable minority. This trend has held for the last 20 years regardless of all vacillations in Ukrainian political/cultural development.     

Elections in Post-Communist Ukraine, 1994–2004: An Overview

The paper attempts a comprehensive and theoretically grounded analysis of all parliamentary and presidential elections carried out in Ukraine in the decade 1994 to 2004. It is organized into four sections. The first deals with the electoral system, how it came into being and has been amended, how it translates votes into seats, the "effective number" of political parties in the electorate and the legislature, and the battle over the electoral system itself during the presidency of Leonid Kuchma. In the second section, voting behaviour of the Ukrainian electorate is examined. Using voting data, along with the results of public opinion surveys and reports on the conduct of the various election campaigns, the paper sorts through the relevant determinants of voting choice to identify the most pertinent ones as they operate in the Ukrainian context. Generally speaking, such determinants are: (1) background social characteristics of the voters, including the regional and ethnic factors; (2) the public's assessments of the current political and economic conditions in the country; (3) individual voters' partisan identification and opinions on prominent issues; (4) their retrospective evaluations of the incumbents; (5) leadership qualities of the contenders; and (6) prospective evaluations of parties and candidates as to their expected performance in office. To determine which of these are consistently more important is an essential aim of the paper. The third section assesses the degree to which accountability has been achieved in any of these elections—those to the Verkhovna Rada of 1994, 1998, and 2002, and the presidential elections of 1994, 1999, and 2004. A penultimate section is devoted to evaluating the policy consequences of these elections: what difference have Ukraine's elections made to policies over the past decade? In the concluding portion, a characterization of the emerging party system is given along with a summing-up on the voting behaviour of Ukrainians in the post-communist era.     

The Role of Premigration Status in the Acculturation of Chinese–Vietnamese and Vietnamese Americans

Drawing from fifty in‐depth interviews, this research examines the role of existing parental language knowledge on the ethnic identity negotiation of two ethnically distinct children of immigrant groups—Vietnamese and Chinese–Vietnamese—whose families have emigrated from Vietnam to the Southern California region of the United States. While previous research focused primarily on the influence of premigration status on first‐generation immigrants, this article considers how a central aspect of premigration status (intranational ethnicity) applies specifically to the children of first generation immigrants. By taking the premigration approach of comparing the experiences of different ancestral‐origin groups from a single nation (the intranational ethnicity perspective), this analysis suggests that a family's premigration ethnic status shapes the 1.5 and second‐generation's ethnic self‐identification choices through the mediation of parental language knowledge. Specifically, for the children of immigrants with twice‐minority status (Chinese–Vietnamese Americans), parental language knowledge serves as an easy ethnic identity default during these children's early self‐identification process.     

Politics of quantifying people and 2017’s census of Pakistan

Pakistan is a postcolonial multilingual, multicultural, and multireligious state. Different cultural collectivities struggle for the preservation of their social identity and procurement of their fair share in the economic and political resources of the state. Numbers provide these ethnic groups the knowledge about their own strength relative to other ethnic groups and accordingly to make demands. In Pakistan, a decennial is conducted to know the exact number and nature of its demography and accordingly make policies. Pakistan since 1947 till date has conducted six censuses in total and all are mired in controversy concerning the counting of competing ethnicities. This article using case study method and taking 2017's census as a case investigates two fundamental questions: why does the state of Pakistan keep an uncertainty around the numbers, and why do competing ethnic groups never trust the process of counting numbers and call it a manipulated process?