Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface
- Introduction: statement of arguments
- 1 National identity and foreign policy: a dialectical relationship
- 2 Polish identity 1795–1944: from romanticism to positivism to ethnonationalism
- 3 Poland after World War II: native conservatism and the return to Central Europe
- 4 Polish foreign policy in perspective: a new encounter with positivism
- 5 Russia's national identity and the accursed question: a strong state and a weak society
- 6 Russian identity and the Soviet period
- 7 Russia's foreign policy reconsidered
- 8 Ukraine: the ambivalent identity of a submerged nation, 1654–1945
- 9 Ukraine after World War II: birth pangs of a modern identity
- 10 Foreign policy as a means of nation building
- 11 Conclusion: national identity and politics in the age of the “Mass-Man”
- Index
- Cambridge Russian, Soviet and Post-Soviet Studies
8 - Ukraine: the ambivalent identity of a submerged nation, 1654–1945
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 18 December 2009
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface
- Introduction: statement of arguments
- 1 National identity and foreign policy: a dialectical relationship
- 2 Polish identity 1795–1944: from romanticism to positivism to ethnonationalism
- 3 Poland after World War II: native conservatism and the return to Central Europe
- 4 Polish foreign policy in perspective: a new encounter with positivism
- 5 Russia's national identity and the accursed question: a strong state and a weak society
- 6 Russian identity and the Soviet period
- 7 Russia's foreign policy reconsidered
- 8 Ukraine: the ambivalent identity of a submerged nation, 1654–1945
- 9 Ukraine after World War II: birth pangs of a modern identity
- 10 Foreign policy as a means of nation building
- 11 Conclusion: national identity and politics in the age of the “Mass-Man”
- Index
- Cambridge Russian, Soviet and Post-Soviet Studies
Summary
The term gente Ruthenus, natione Polonus served to describe the political and national status and affiliation of the Ruthenian nobility during [the seventeenth century]. In Polish historiography, the emphasis has been on the second part of the definition. It has been interpreted as a class relationship that linked the nobility of Rus' with that of Poland, making both nobilities one political and constitutional body within the Commonwealth. It could be that many Ruthenian noblemen had this understanding of their place and their rights in the Commonwealth. I suggest, however, that the first part of the definition, gente Ruthenus, was as prominent in their minds as the second. The Ruthenian nobility as a whole was conscious of Ruthenian national, if not political, identity.
Teresa Chynczewska-HennelYou have given me a sheepskin coat;
Alas, it does not fit.
The garment of your own wise speech
Is lined with falsehood's wit.
Taras ShevchenkoLittle Russia, faithful to the throne and unshakable in the faith cultivates … an idea of a past; she in her leisure time mourns over her past independence.
Count Sergei UvarovIn both Poland and Russia, the carriers of the national idea were wellestablished political elites, clearly preoccupied with the position of their respective polities vis-á-vis neighboring states. Thus, the relationship between the nation and other polities and civilizations became a key aspect of their identities. Because Ukraine is an “a-historic” nation, the well-spring of the country's modern national identity consisted of intellectuals pursuing a “restorative agenda” similar to that of the Slovaks, and other long colonized peoples.
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- Information
- National Identity and Foreign PolicyNationalism and Leadership in Poland, Russia and Ukraine, pp. 300 - 338Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 1998