Loyal component of identity Ukrainian: regional measures on the example of cities of Lviv and Donetsk (1994–2010–2015)
The article is the third in cycle “Be a citizen of Ukraine: regional visions”. It proposes to operateinterconnected concepts of “social identity” and “group loyalty”. We interpret the first concept as animportant structure-forming factor of regionalism, because it represents the awareness of belonging to aparticularsocio-cultural community, and the second one–as explaining the essence and completeness oflocal social identities.
The results of three waves of international research “Lviv-Donetsk: SociologicalAnalysis of Group Identities and Hierarchies of Social Loyalties”, conducted in 1994, 2010 and 2015, areanalysed in this paper. Since in 1994 and 2010 the national identity “Ukrainian”in both citieswas one ofthe five most popular identities, and only in Donetsk in 2015 it moved to the 8th place,andwe decided totake it into account. Using the “loyalty” indicator, we drew attention to twocontent-forming components ofidentity“Ukrainian”: a civil one (when belonging to a nation is conditioned by modern multidimensionalconstructivist factors) and nationalistic (when an explanation of belonging to a certain nation is soughtamong primordial factors–tradition, history, monoculture etc.). Dialectical unity and the opposition ofthese components of the identity “Ukrainian” in fact form the mentality of contemporary Ukrainian society and determine its regionalmeasurements. In this research context, we constructed two indices: the“nationalist loyalty component” and the “civil loyalty component” of identity “Ukrainian”.
The empiricaltesting of these theoretical constructs testified the signs of the formation of a modern Ukrainian nation,since the civil component in the period of 1994-2010-2015 actively prevailed over nationalistic componentin both cities. On the other hand, there are manifestations of regional peculiarities of identity “Ukrainian”.
In particular, in Donetsk region, the civil loyalty component was more pronounced than among Lvivians,and the nationalist one was prevalent among the respondents from Lviv as opposed toDonetskians.
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