National-civil values: regional dimension in the All-Ukrainian context

Abstract

Unlike the scientific terms and concepts, which help to learn about reality, the terms and concepts of legislation affect the formation of this reality. In 2019, the Parliament of Ukraine adopted the law “Onto Ensuring the Functioning of the Ukrainian Language as the State Language”. In this act, there is an immanently contradictory postulate, according to which two Ukrainian nations form the Ukrainian society: ethnic and civil, where the former is a systemic component of the latter. Since then, all branches of state power, politicians, scientists, and the general public should understand which values of Ukrainians should be considered national and be protected and cultivated: Ukrainian national-ethnic or Ukrainian national-civic. To prevent such potentially conflicting contradictions, the article uses the phrase “national-civil values” as a synonym for the term “national values”. Both are derived from the idea and understanding of the modern Ukrainian nation as citizens of Ukrainian and all other ethnic identities, united by values mutual compatible with the ethno-Ukrainian majority in a community within which individual and group ethnic, cultural, linguistic, religious, regional, political and other differences persist. As reasoned in the article, this is how the Ukrainian nation is perceived by the majority of the country’s population. This position is consistent with the recommendation of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) 1735 (2006) dated January 26, 2006, entitled “The Concept of “Nation”. Sources of information on the research problem were the results of mass surveys that represent the entire population of Ukraine and its regions, conducted by respectful sociological institutions. Based on these materials’ analytical and synthetic processing, an array of facts has been formed that show the trends and specifics of the All-Ukrainian and regional dynamics of national-civil values with the most significant integrative potential. It shows Ukrainian nation as a multifaceted civil society with an ethno-Ukrainian core, Ukrainian citizenship, a sense of patriotism and pride in belonging to the community of Ukrainian citizens, and the Independence of the Ukrainian state.