Ukraine: what everyone needs to know

Because Ukraine regained its independence relatively late, in 1991, the notion of “Ukrainians” or the “Ukrainian nation” is still understood there as referring to ethnic Ukrainians. When one wants to include all citizens of the Ukrainian state regardless of their ethnicity, one would typically speak of “citizens of Ukraine” or “people of Ukraine.” The Constitution of Ukraine proclaims as the source of state sovereignty the “Ukrainian people—citizens of Ukraine of all nationalities” and distinguishes between this civic concept of the nation and the ethnic “Ukrainian nation.”2 In recent decades, however, speakers of the Ukrainian language have gradually come to accept a Western understanding of “Ukrainians” as all citizens of Ukraine. Such a linguistic change reflects the slow development of civic patriotism based on allegiance to the state rather than an ethnic nation.