Ukrainian Language Policy, Identity, and Community

This paper seeks to understand to what extent can civic identity be constructed while promoting ethnocultural language policies. The argument is that ethnocultural language policies must be based around an inclusive civic identity, rather than an exclusive ethnic identity. Colonial and Soviet social engineering led to a separation of ethnic and civic logic within Ukrainian identity that risks fracturing the Ukrainian imagined community further. To mitigate that, these dual logics should be consolidated into one inclusive identity with the ethnic Ukrainian language at its core and civic notions of active citizenship for its membership. By utilizing Ukrainian language as the official state language and being tolerant of the ethnic minority languages within its borders, Ukraine can stay united under an inclusive Ukrainian identity that strives for the promotion of an imagined community of many languages, instead of an imagined community of one language that excludes others.