1. The Ukrainian perspective in Russian political
thought was the perspective of the educated and nationally-oriented
representatives of a major European, "historic" people. They were well
disposed toward Ukrainians and had some knowledge of their history and
local customs, but they considered them (like other "unhistoric,"
peasant peoples in the borderlands of the empire) to be incapable of
independent political and cultural development. The brief comparison of
the views of Ukraine of the representatives of the three "generations"
in Russian political thought seems to be a good illustration of the
range of possible modifications Ñ and, above all, possible ideological
uses Ñ of the same national stereotype. In the frame of their generally
opposed political doctrines their attitudes to Ukraine were quite
similar in synchronic dimension. At the same time in diachronic
dimension the comparison of the ideas of the representatives of three
"generations" shows some kind of evolution in the whole of Russian
political thought toward the deeper understanding of Ukrainian
peculiarities.
2. Russian political opinion, since the second half
of the century, when the national movement had acquired political
meaning, considered any move away from the Russian language and culture
to be already dangerous for the unity of the Russian nation. It was
intensified by the fact that "the Malorussians" were perceived as a
part of the Russian nation, and, also, the religious community was an
important factor.
Nearly all the trends in Russian political thought
recognized the cultural and linguistic individuality of the Ukrainians
as a fact but did not attach any special importance to it. At the same
time, the community of the lower strata of Ukrainian and Russian
society was emphasized. The attempts of the Ukrainian authors to raise
the Ukrainian language to a scientific level (e.g. P. Kulish) were
rejected and perceived as an unnecessary separation.
3. The First generation mainly applied Count
Uvarov's definition of "Official Nationality" to the whole population
of Ukraine, and admitted that the Ukrainian culture and history can be
developed only in the general framework of All-Russian culture. Second
generation considered Ukrainians more like junior partners than equals.
Russia was looked upon as moving faster and paving the way to modernity
for Ukraine which lagged behind. The highest degree of theoretical
analysis of the Ukrainian problem was achieved in the geopolitical
doctrines of Russian emigration. They came close to the problem of the
double Ukrainian-Russian identity and loyalty and made a difference
among three notions of intelligentsia in Ukraine: Russians, Russified
Ukrainians and national Ukrainians. Their level of evaluation of
Ukrainian question demonstrates some similarity with the vision of
Ukraine in the theoretical constructions of Ukrainian conservatives at
the turn of the century. At the same time they did not imagined the
Ukrainian language and culture beyond the All-Russian context Ñ a
statement, renounced by Ukrainian political thought, represented mainly
by Hrushevs'kyi, already at the end of the nineteenth century. In the
vast majority of theses, the twentieth century experience of the
Ukrainian position in Russian political thought can be directly
projected on the nineteenth century.
4. All the trends in Russian political thought, from
Russian conservative nationalists of the nineteenth century to the
Eurasians of the twentieth century, wanted to use the Ukrainians and
their culture in formulating certain conceptions of modern Russian
nation. On principle, a tradition was preserved which already in the
first half of the nineteenth century determined the position of Russian
political thought: the Ukrainian theme was essential for formulating
Russian identity as it was the instrument of argumentation; there was
no "Ukrainophilism" as a self-sufficient goal. It follows from this
that there was no sharp overturn to Ukrainophobia in Russian political
thought of the second half of the nineteenth and the beginning of the
twentieth centuries. And this means that the change in Russian state
policy in the second half of the nineteenth century did not result in
an automatic change in the whole of Russian political opinion toward
Ukraine.
The national cultural aspirations of the Ukrainians
were rejected by the vast majority of the representatives of Russian
political thought, since it seemed that these aspirations threw doubts
on the unity of the Russian nation, which embraced the Great Russians,
the Malorussians and the Belorussians. Thus, the Ukrainian problem
became a key problem of Russian national identity.