Mykola Riabchuk. Reducing ambivalence. Dichotomy of the Ukrainian national identity: historical reasons and political implications.

The book examines two different types of Ukrainian national identity tentatively defined as «Ukrainian ethnocultural» («primordial») and «Ukrainian institutional» (determined by citizenship). The substantial differences between them had been informed historically, and involve today not only ideological but also axiological aspect. The identity split had seriously complicated Ukraine’s postcommunist transformation in 1991-2013, and dramatically weakened the society and the state against the Russian aggression in 2014. The process of consolidation of Ukrainian nation that got going in the past few years, is still far from completion. The promotion of modern civic identity based on the so-called «European values» is considered as the optimal way to abate the existing dichotomy and reduce social ambivalence.