DOI: 10.20535/2307-5244.51.2020.220191
National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine M. Rylskyi Institute for Art Studies, Folkloristics and Ethnology
The Ukrainian policy aspires to the intercultural dialogue with various representatives
of ethnic communities. About 80% of ethnic Ukrainians live in Ukraine
according to the last All-Ukrainian census of 2001. The Russian ethnic minority
constitues only 17% and the other ethnic groups form only 0.5% in the total
number of population. The next census would make it possible to specify the objective
picture of the contemporary ethnic structure of Ukraine, since the active
migration processes took place within the current complex political and economic
conditions. The proposed article is aimed at the describing of the real situation in
Ukraine grounding on the study of the theoretical dialogues between ethnicities.
The purpose of the article is also to disprove the myth which is widely disseminated
in Ukraine regarding the alleged polyethnicity of the Ukrainian population
and the fallacious statements of separate politicians about the offence
against the breach of the national minorities rights.
There are old-established traditions of the tolerant attitude to all groups of the
other ethnoses in Ukraine. According to the sociologists data, there is no problem
or enmity to people speaking the other languages for the majority of Ukrainians.
Ukrainians themselves in the conditions of borderline and communication
with the Hungarians, Romanians, Poles, Russians master their languages easily.
This fact facilitates communication and development of good relations. The
rights of national minorities and ethnic groups are vested legislatively in the juridical
documents and laws.
The Declaration of State Sovereignty of Ukraine has become the first juridical
deed, where the equal rights of all ethnic groups, populating Ukraine, are
fixed. It is announced that the state secures parity of all citizens despite of the
origin, social and property state, racial and national appliance, sex, education,
language, political views, religious beliefs, kind and nature of occupation, place
of dwelling and other circumstances. The state guarantees equal political, social,
economic and cultural rights to all nations, national groups, citizens, living on
its territory, according to the Declaration of the Rights of Nationalities (1991).
The ethnic groups rights for the preservation of their culture are fixed in the Constitution
(1996). We rely upon the minorities integration into Ukrainian society
on the principles of respect and deeper perception of cultures, the revival of
Ukrainian culture.
Keywords: Ukrainians, integration, identity, ethnic group, national minority,
democracy, civil society.
