ABSTRACT
It has been frequently argued, and rightly so, that the Ukrainian-Russian relationship is now of central, even overriding, importance for both peoples. Its scale alone is imposing, as it encompasses weil over 200 million people. The issues involved--nuclear weapons, geopolitical implications, the economic and political integration or disintegration of a vast region----are of a magnitude that can exert a decisive impact on all of Eurasia. Moreover, for Ukrainians, the relationship with Russia has been-some would argue thatit continues to be----a question not only of independence or dependence but of their very survival as a distinct nation. For Russia, it has often been noted, Ukraine is the great litmus test: if it accepts Ukraine as an independent and equal entity, Russia will be weil on the way of becoming a responsible, law-abiding global citizen. But if it cannot, this might indicate that Russia is backsliding into neoimperialism. I
Rarely have the identities of two large nations intermingled so easily and frequently. First, they have shared a highly unusual together-separate--togetherseparate sequence. I am referring to the common Kievan experience, the separation that lasted from the thirteenth to the seventeenth centuries, the multistaged "reunion" (1654, 1795, 1939/1944) of the tsarist and Soviet periods, and the renewed separation of 1991. For good measure, one can add the attempted separation and forced reunification of 1917-20. Second, there is the peekaboo nature ofthe Ukrainian identity. At times it is practically indistinguishable from that of the Russians. And on other, rarer occasions it has emerged in glaring confrontation with that of the Russians (this is one of the features that distinguishes Ukrainians from Belarusians). Finally, it is generally recognized that both peopies are still, as Struve pointed out almost a century ago, nations in the making.2 Therefore, their sense of national identity is hazy. Hence the vagueness of their perceptions ofthemselves and each other.
