The first Ukrainian state already has lasted five years. But it does not mean the end of long dreamed of statism, but the beginning of hard ways for building a nation.
The border of Ukraine has a peculiar character. Almost all border lines were drawn by dividing regions, each of which comprised historically one region. This condition also makes the task of building a nation difficult.
In the western part of Ukrainian border, such regions are Galitsia, Carpathian, Bukovina and Bessarabia. If you turn to the east, there are two divided regions, the Donbass and the Slobidska Ukraine.
The Ukrainian border was made by dividing regions that caused difficulties in building the Ukrainian nation-state. Because of the dividing the regions automatically made Ukrainian Diaspora or
irredenta outside Ukraine. In Poland, Slovakia, Hungary, Moldova and Russia, Ukrainians have been living as a minority group. At the same time the opposite sides, Poland, Slovakia, Hungary, Moldova and Russia, consider the regions which were incorporated with Ukraine their
irredenta. Between Ukraine and Russia there is another but major border dispute on the Crimean Peninsula.
Ukraine herself is divided into two parts, Eastern and Western. The Western part of Ukraine, called Galicia, has some characteristics which are not seen in other parts of Ukraine.
On the contrary to the Galicia, eastern and southern parts of Ukraine have different characteristics. The Donbass and Crimea belong to these regions. These regions have strong tles with Russia although they belong to Ukraine. The Crimea, now an autonomous republic in Ukraine, belonged to Russia until 1954. A part of the Donbass was belonged to Russia before the 1917 revolution as the Don Army District.
The contrast between the West and the East in Ukraine can be seen on the map. There is an interesting piece of evidence to show the dichotomy between the West and the East. It shows the change of support for the first president Leonid Kravchuk and the second president Leonid Kuchma. In Ukraine we can hear a new Ukrainian proverb, saying, “Ukrainian Presidents born in the East will die in the West”. This proverb well explains the dichotomy between the East and the West in Ukraine.
For Nation-building in Ukraine there are some obstacles in terms of integration of people into one consolidated group. Ukraine is divided not only by geography but also by culture and identity.
Language problems may be the most visible problem in today's Ukraine. The second obstacle for the integration of the Ukrainian nation-state is religious splits among the people. Ukraine is, of course, a secularized state. But the history of the suppression of national churches such as the Uniate Church (Ukrainian Catholic Church) and Ukrainian Orthodox Church made these churches political factors.
Ukrainians have failed to form a nation-state. Russians have also failed to form their own nation-state. Russians have always been a subject of a big empire, first the Russian Empire and next the Soviet Union. Above all things they carried out their mission to build and maintain an empire. Ukrainians, in contrast, are eager to build their own nation-state, not an empire. This is an identity difference between two nationalities. And this difference reflects the dichotomy in Ukraine between the East and the West.
The geopolitical position of Ukraine in the International arena has been a factor of difficulties for the building a nation state. For Ukraine, located between the West and the East, between Germany and Russia, inevitably it has been geopolitically in either a buffer zone or a battleground. In the Northern War in 18th century, the Napoleonic War, Crimean War, World War I and World War II, Ukraine was one of the major battlefields. After the end of the Cold War and the collapse of the Soviet Union the region which includes the territory of Ukraine became a battlefield between Europe and Russia b
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