Making Sense of Ambiguity Minority-Majority Relations in Post

							Mykola Riabchuk
senior research associate
Ukrainian Centre for Cultural Studies


           Making Sense of Ambiguity: Minority-Majority Relations
                            in Post-Soviet Ukraine and Belarus


         The paper examines complex and ambiguous minority-majority relations in post-
Soviet republics of Ukraine and Belarus. The ambiguity largely stems from the Soviet
tradition of arbitrary ethnic classification based on a formal notion of parents’ ethnicity rather
than on people’s ethnic, cultural, and linguistic self-identification. Such a formal approach
makes up Ukrainians and Belarusians a strong majority in their countries and, at the same
time, downgrades Russians to the status of one of many minorities – like Poles or Jews in
Belarus, or Crimean Tatars, Hungarians, Romanians, and others in Ukraine. The formal and
arbitrary classification not only distorts the ethno-linguistic reality in both countries but also
precludes effective implementation of appropriate policies in the field.
         First, it ignores an obvious fact that a great majority of Belarusians and substantial
part of Ukrainians are heavily Russified and, in cultural and linguistic terms, Belarusians in
Belarus and Ukrainians in Eastern Ukraine represent a minority which, like any other
minority, requires state-sponsored protectionism for their cultural and linguistic rights.
         Second, it ignores the fact that Russians and Russified Belarusians make up a strong
and de facto dominant majority in Belarus. And in Eastern Ukraine, Russians and Russified
Ukrainians also make up a majority that barely needs any help – contrary to the socially
disadvantaged and culturally marginalized Ukrainian minority. On one hand, the Russian
cultural group in both countries feels undermined and dissatisfied by the arbitrary and
ambiguous ‘minority’ status. On the other hand, the status relieves them from any
responsibility vis-à-vis real minorities and strengthens their commitment to a laissez-fair
cultural and linguistic policy that benefits them as stronger players.
         And thirdly, the laissez-fair policy promoted by Russian/Russophone group as a
response to the ambiguity and a way to preserve the de facto dominance is especially harmful
for small minorities in both countries who can neither benefit from symbolical status of
‘titular nationality’ (like Ukrainians and, to a degree, Belarusians) nor rely on the de facto
social and cultural dominance like Russians/Russophones.
         To dissuade ambiguity, the paper argues, is the only to craft proper policies for
minorities in Belarus and Ukraine, and to harmonize tense relations between the two major
groups – Ukrainians/Belarusians and Russians/Russophones – that do not fit the traditional
minority/majority paradigm.