Are Russia and Ukraine similar? Politics showcase
To my surprise people from outside sometimes regard Ukraine and Russia be similar. Even though a mere glimpse on a map can show how wrong this view is, I will try to explain why Ukraine and Russia are indeed different.
This time I will talk about internal political situation.
Historical view
The biggest difference in Russian vs Ukrainian worldview is that Russians like strongly centralised government, while Ukrainians like plurality and democracy much more.
One of the political pillars in Russia is samoderzhavie (самодержавие) translated to English as “tsarist autocracy”. This idea from the 18th century — that one person should be single-handedly responsible for the country’s fate — is still alive in Russia. It’s hard to find a moment in Russian history when there were real democratic elections.
Ukraine on the other hand was once important part of Rzeczpospolita — the remarkable example of an elected monarchy in middle ages. Later on Hetmans (heads of state) were elected in Zaporizhska Sich (the proto-Ukraine). There is also a popular Ukrainian proverb:
Де два українці — там три гетьмани
Where there are two Ukrainians — then there will be three Hetmans
Ukrainians with this proverb make fun of themselves — that they cannot agree on who should be the head of state. On the other hand — electing head of state is imprinted in Ukrainian culture.
Modern times
This centralised/decentralised dichotomy can be shown in modern politics. Russia did not see a real change of power in about 30 years (Putin is Yeltsin’s official successor, Medvedev is Putin’s right hand). Contrary to that, every president election in Ukraine is very heated. One may have different opinions on the 2004 and 2013–2014 Maidans, but they did happen and influenced political situation. Only one president managed to win elections twice — and the second time he won was against a communist.
Moreover Putin’s party “Yedinaya Rossiya” (“Single Russia”) rules most of the Russian districts [A]. Contrary to that, in Ukraine, almost each region has its own favourite party [B].
To be fair, Russians consider Ukrainian situation be a “chaos”, which brings nothing good, while they consider their situation be “in order” with a “strong hand” in charge.
Conclusion
My point was not to argue which situation is better. For the sake of the argument it does not matter (even if I have a strong opinion about it). The point is that Ukrainian vs Russian systems and world-views are pretty different.
This is only one example of a difference between Russians and Ukrainians. But a pretty important, and, mind you, a fundamental one.
[A] Map of Russian regional governments taken from: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:%D0%9F%D0%B0%D1%80%D0%BB%D0%B0%D0%BC%D0%B5%D0%BD%D1%821.png?uselang=ru
[B] Map of Ukrainian regional elections taken from: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f0/Map_of_the_Ukrainian_local_elections%2C_2020.png