Jóźwiak, ignacy – LugoSi, nicoLe V.T.
university of Warsaw, university of Alberta i.jozwiak@uw.edu.pl, nicole.lugosi@ualberta.ca
Absztrakt
A NACIONALISTA NARRATÍVÁK ÉS MÍTOSZOK SZEREPE AZ UKRAJNA ÉS NYUGATI SZOMSZÉDAI KÖZÖTTI MIGRÁCIÓ DINAMIKÁJÁBAN
Jóźwiak, Ignacy – Lugosi, Nicole V.T.
A Kelet-Ukrajna Donbass-régiójában zajló politikai válság elmélyülése a migrációs nyo-más növekedésével járt. A helyzetet országos gazdasági recesszió súlyosbítja. A konfliktus miatti kényszerű belföldi és külföldre való áttelepülések jól dokumentáltak, és semmi jel nem utal a tendencia csökkenésére. Lengyelország a migránsok egyik fő befogadója, és az érkezők száma egyre növekszik. Az ukránok képezik Lengyelország legnépesebb bevándor-ló csoportját. Bár Magyarország szerepe a migránsok befogadásában nem jelentős, Len-gyelország és Magyarország Ukrajna bizonyos területeivel illetve az ott élő lengyel illetve magyar etnikumú kisebbségekkel kapcsolatos történelmi és politikai narratívái hasonlóak.
Ezek alapján a következő kérdések merülnek fel: (1) Tetten érhető a történelem és a tör-ténelemről való narratívák szerepe a külföldiek letelepedésről és állampolgársághoz jutá-sáról szóló lengyel és magyar vitákban? (2) Befolyásolta az „ukrán válság” az Ukrajna és Lengyelország illetve az Ukrajna és Magyarország közötti migráció szerkezetét? (3) Amennyiben igen, együtt jár ez a változás a történelemról való diskurzussal?
A kutatás kvalitatív és összehasonlító módszertant használva, különös figyelemmel a tör-ténelmi és politikai kontextusra, a lengyel és a magyar kormány illetve civil szervezetek a válságára válaszait elemzi azt vizsgálva, hogyan használnak nacionalista narratívákat és ezek hogyan befolyásolják a politikai döntéshozást. Végezetül pedig megmutatjuk, hogy mindez mit jelenthet a Donbasz-konfliktus, az Európai Unió (ukrán) bevándorláspolitikája, és az Európai Szomszédsági Politika számára. Munkánknak két alapvető eredménye a következő: (1) Friss esettanulmányát nyújtja az ukrán fegyveres konfliktus migrációra gyakorolt hatásának. (2) Rávilágít a diskurzus és a hatalom közötti kapcsolatra, jelesül a nacionalista narratívák következményeként megvalósuló konkrét politikai intézkedésekre nemzeti és nemzetközi szinten.
Kulcsszavak: fegyveres konfliktus Ukrajnában, kifelé migráció, lengyel és magyar migrá-ciós politika, politikai diskurzus, történelmi és politikai narratívák
Introduction and Background
Using a qualitative, comparative approach attentive to historical and politi-cal context, the study critipoliti-cally examines the responses from Polish and Hungarian governments and NGOs to indicate if and how historical narratives and national
“myths” are used. Our aim is to present a case study on the impact of political and economic crisis in Ukraine following the EuroMaidan protests, the armed conflict
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Jóźwiak, ignacy – LugoSi, nicoLe V.T.in the Donbass region and Russian seizure of Crimea on migration to shed light on the relationship between discourse and power, namely the practical policy implica-tions nationalist narratives may have. We pose three research quesimplica-tions: (1) Can history and historical narratives be traced in the Polish and Hungarian debates on foreigners’ residency and the acquisition of citizenship? (2) Has the “Ukrainian cri-sis” impacted the patterns of mobility between Ukraine and Poland and Ukraine and Hungary? If so, (3) is it accompanied by references to history? The paper concludes with thought to what this means in the context of the Donbass conflict, Ukrainian migration and applied policies on national and international levels. As our research is still in progress, we also delimit the issues for the further study related to the his-tory of Ukrainian – Polish and Ukrainian – Hungarian relations, current Hungarian and Polish policies towards its Eastern neighbour, their relations of dependency and Ukrainian migration. We believe that presenting such a ‘work in progress’ will help us structure our further efforts in order to complete the research.
For the last two decades, Ukraine has been among Europe’s top migrating na-tions. The number of Ukrainian citizens working abroad counts in millions (vari-ous estimations place the numbers between 2 and 7 million) and remittances from the migrants plays a significant role in Ukrainian household budgets (see: Leonti-yeva 2014; Kaźmierkiewicz – Protasiewicz 2014; Duvell – Lapshyna 2015). The ongoing political crisis accompanied by the economic recession in Ukraine fol-lowing the armed conflict in the country’s Eastern region of Donbass has increased migration pressure. Conflict-driven, both internal and international, displacement is well documented and shows no signs of abating (Duvell – Lapshyna 2015).
Poland serves as one of the main receiving countries for the Ukrainian mi-grants, who also happen to be the largest immigrant group in this country and their influx keeps increasing. Hungary’s role as a receiving country is not as significant for Ukraine as a whole, but Ukrainian citizens are still among the largest groups of immigrants there. Both Poland and Hungary share similar historical and politi-cal narratives regarding parts of the territory of the Eastern neighbour as well as Polish and Hungarian ethnic minorities in Ukraine. In Poland, these territories are referred to as Kresy – the Hinterlands (or the Borderlands), which used to belong to Poland (in different shape in different periods) between XI and XVIII centuries as well as in the interwar period of the XX centaury. In Hungary, it contributes to the phenomenon of the so-called “Trianon Trauma” – the result of the loss of 2/3 of the lands comprising the “Greater Hungary” after the WWI. Significantly, almost all Ukrainian immigrants in Hungary come from the Transcarpathian re-gion (once Hungarian lands) and most are ethnic Hungarians or come from mixed families1. As a matter of official recognition of ethnic Hungarians in the
neigh-1 According to statistics, 90% of Ukrainian citizens residing in Hungary come from Transcarpathia and 74% (of the total number) originate from the districts (raion) of Beregszász, Uzhgorod, Vynohradiv and Mukachevo (that is, areas close to the Hungarian border and largely inhabited by ethnic Hungarians) within the region (Soltesz – Zimmerer 2014, p. 125).
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THE ROLE OF NATIONALIST NARRATIVES ANd MyTHS...
bouring countries, Hungary adopted a Hungarian Status Law (2001) and intro-duced amendments to its Law on Citizenship (2011) allowing the inhabitants of the territories of the former Kingdom of Hungary (regardless their ethnic identity) to apply for Hungarian citizenship. In a similar manner, Poland (2008) introduced a Polish Charter (Karta Polaka), a document confirming its carriers’ (citizens of the countries of the former USSR) Polish descent and allowing to study, work and run entrepreneurships in Poland. However, as we will show, Ukrainians of Polish descent do not constitute majority of Ukrainian immigrants in Poland and the his-torical factor in migration is not as clearly visible as in case of Hungary.
According to the Polish Office for Foreigners, the influx of Ukrainian citi-zens, related to (along with the new Foreigners’ Law which is not a subject of our study) the situation in Ukraine ‘dominated the migration situation in Poland’
throughout 2014 and the first half of 2015 (UDSC 2014; UDSC 2015). This ten-dency is also confirmed in the Office’s special report on Ukraine (UDSC 2015b).
In 2015 (until 17 DEC) Ukrainian citizens were issued 6 415 permanent residence permits; 596 long-term EU resident permits; 35 731 temporary residence permits;
2 refugee statuses; 25 supplementary protections; and 6 tolerated stays. In 2014 the respective numbers were as follows: 3 484 permanent residence permits; 17 108 temporary residence permits; 6 supplementary protections; 11 tolerated stays.
In 2013: 9668 temporary residence permits; 1697 permanent residence permits;
396 long term EU resident permits; 2 refugee statuses; 5 supplementary protec-tions; 8 tolerated stays (UDSC 2015b). However, these numbers refer to those who had already set their foot on Polish territory. Additionally, in the framework of the simplified employment procedure that allows the citizens of Ukraine (as well as Armenia, Belarus, Georgia, Moldova and Russia) to work in Poland for six months in a year without work-permits and undertaking a labour market test, 402 674 declarations were registered from Ukrainians in the first half of 2015. To compare, in entire 2014 that number was 372 946 while in 2013 it was 80 2432. While the number of visas (both Schengen C and national) issued to Ukrainian citizens in 2014 was 796 328 comparing to 677 932 in 2013 and 520 684 in 2012 (MSZ 2013; MSZ 2014; MSZ 2015). However, we shall acknowledge that none of these figures fully represents the number of Ukrainians residing in Poland due to predominance of seasonal and circular character of their labour migration of the larger, undertaking irregular employment while documented stay in Poland and the (difficult to assess) number of students and Polish Charter holders active in the labour market (Brunarska 2014).
Hungary issued the third largest number of Schengen visas to Ukrainian citi-zens (117 220 granted and 118 740 applied for) in 2014, which shows a decrease in comparison to the applications previous years (152 073 applied for in 2013 and 137
2 Source - the statistics of the Ministry of Labour and Social Policy https://www.mpips.gov.pl/
analizy-i-raporty/cudzoziemcy-pracujacy-w-polsce-statystyki/
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574 applied for in 2012)3. The number of Ukrainian citizens residing in Hungary can be estimated between 12 000 and 17 500 while between 2011 and 2014 circa 70 000 Ukrainians were granted Hungarian citizenship (Soltesz – Zimmerer 2014, p. 127) and obtaining a Hungarian passport should also be seen as a migration strategy with Hungary not necessary serving as a destination. Circular and seasonal migration, both regular and irregular, is also difficult to measure in statistical terms.
Theoretical Framework of Analysis
Our understanding of nationalism draws from the work of Rogers Brubaker (1996, 2011, 2013) and Myra Waterbury (2006, 2010). Brubaker asks how nation-alism as a discourse has been reframed over time and how understanding national-ism as a process of nationalizing policies toward diaspora explains the dynamics of continued nationalism in post-Cold War Central Eastern Europe (1996). Water-bury asks how and why Hungary continues to engage diaspora in kin (or neigh-bouring) states, what shapes policy choices, and how the outcomes are mediated by EU membership (2010). She asserts the Hungarian diaspora are a political re-source for elites and kin-state nationalism is not explained by ethnic sentiment and belonging, but rather as a ‘political project and rhetorical tool’ for elite strategy.
Brubaker’s theory of nationalism as an ongoing discourse helps show how nation-alism works within its historical context while Waterbury’s focus on elite strategy sheds further light on how nationalism works, with attention to the outcomes and implications of such strategies.
Our study is aligned with comparative and European politics scholars (Elster – Offe – Preuss 1998; Kopstein 2003; Ekiert – Hanson, 2003) that insist account-ing for the role of history produces richer, more context-specific scholarship. For example, Will Kymlicka asserts that minority issues are often framed as either a matter of achieving social justice, or as a threat to national sovereignty and ter-ritory. The latter is a common conception of Central Eastern European (CEE) minorities. Without a sharp grasp on the role of history, such valuable insight as Kymlicka illustrates would be missed.
We incorporate legacy by examining Hungarian and Polish government poli-cies and NGO (including churches) efforts to create a timeline of how nationalist narratives have been expressed and how they may have changed, or not, through-out the Ukraine crisis. Further, illustrating the extent to which the past still influ-ences the present may lend insight into the conditions that allow nationalism to thrive. For example, a strong legacy might suggest that path dependency plays a role in shaping and constraining elite behaviour and policy choices toward Hun-garian and Polish minorities in Ukraine.
3 Here, we shall treat the figures as a rough indicator of the migration and circularity processes between the two countries as the statistics at our disposal do not mention: the visa rejection rates in previous years and the number of national visas.
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Then the data must be placed within its historical context to gain an even wider understanding of what the text means and how to think about these narratives. The work of Raymond Willliams (2005) offers a sophisticated theory to categorize nar-ratives as dominant, emergent, and residual4; as such, this theory satisfies the aim of examining nationalist narratives with attention to legacy for providing rich context.
For Williams, the dominant is the ‘common sense’, or master narrative, about so-cial and political realities (Willliams 2005, p. 43). Embedded in the ‘dominant’ are particular stories and understandings of a given culture’s past. Alternative meanings and interpretations of history are concealed. The dominant narrative influences, and is influenced by, what Williams calls the ‘residual’ and the ‘emergent’. Meanings, interpretations, and values of the past, or traditional, comprise the residual. The re-sidual can contradict, yet still be adopted into the dominant, particularly in cases of a strong legacy, retold in ways that fit the current common sense (Willliams 2005, pp.
45-46). Residual forces are kept alive in current debates and policy-making circles, and can also account for change in the process of the emergent (Willliams 2005, p.
46). A society may reform yet still operate in the dominant paradigm. Emergent dis-courses are ones that drastically alter society by changing the ways people live and think. While all dominant cultures were once emergent, it is not a given that emer-gent discourses will transcend to the dominant. The emeremer-gent and the dominant can be constrained to varying degrees by residual meanings and behaviours resulting from earlier social constructions. A society may constantly look back and glorify the past, because ideas and values still resonate with current experiences. To understand the dominant and emergent forces of a particular society, the “process of persistence of residual practices” must be revealed (Williams 2005, p. 47).
The task then is to identify the dominant narratives and consider how the re-sidual affected the way Hungary and Poland have reached out to their neighbours, their histories and their diasporic communities in the face of the Ukraine crisis at three intervals of time: the EuroMaidan protests, the annexation of Crimea, and the armed conflict in Donbass. Finding the Polish and Hungarian reactions to the crisis in Ukraine as well as Ukrainian migration to these countries part of larger processes of Polish - Ukrainian and Hungarian - Ukrainian relations in political, economic, symbolic and discursive dimensions, below we point to the reactions to the crisis by the Polish and Hungarian governments and NGOs.
Initial Findings and Discussion
Non-government actors, mainly churches, responded very rapidly to the de-teriorating situation in Ukraine leading up to and following the EuroMaidan pro-tests, especially for ethnic Hungarians in the Transcarpathian region. For example,
4 For clarification, Williams’ terms are not meant to assign moral value or determine right from wrong on what might be residual, dominant, or emergent, rather the model is used to better equip researchers in asking and answering relevant questions of why particular interpretations might resonate over others.
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the Hungarian Reformed Church has ensured that shipments of everyday goods, food, and medicines reach Ukraine right from the start of the crisis (Hungarian Reformed Church Aid 2014). The Hungarian Interchurch Aid (HIA) has been particularly active in supporting Ukraine and is generously funded by Hungary’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade. The Ministry even allocated part of HUF 18 million to assist the HIA in arranging a five-day rehabilitation program for the doctors, nurses, and volunteers that treated causalities in Maidan Square (Govern-ment of Hungary 2015). At the official level, Hungary, together with the Viseg-rad 4, fully supported the Maidan protesters’ vision of a pro-Europe, democratic Ukraine, while also pointing out to the troubling rise of the far right in Ukraine (Sadecki 2014, p. 2). In short, Hungarian policy aimed at Ukraine has focused on the Hungarian diaspora in Transcarpathia and securing the common Ukraine-Hungary border with Prime Minister Viktor Orbán being uncharacteristically si-lent (Parkes – Sobják 2014, p. 3).
In early March, Orbán finally spoke about the deteriorating situation in Ukraine, insisting that Hungary recognized Ukrainian territory as set out by in-ternational law. Yet he also noted that Hungary was not part of the conflict and ensured the safety of the diaspora in Transcarpathia (Feher 2014). In the quest of securing diaspora safely, Orbán drew diplomatic accusations of nationalist ir-redentist aspirations after calling for Hungarian autonomy in Transcarpathia. In his words, “Ukraine can be neither stable, nor democratic if it does not give its minorities, including Hungarians, their due, that is, dual (Hungarian) citizenship, collective rights and autonomy” (Szakacs 2014). Further, Orbán insisted diplo-macy with Russia was the best strategy to resolve the Ukraine crisis. The focus on diaspora masks Orbán’s unwillingness to openly criticize Russia (Herman – Wachs 2014). Many have suggested Orbán’s political tiptoeing is partly because of the large Paks energy contract signed with Putin in January 2014 (Feher 2014).
As the crisis deepened, Hungarian churches, with support from the govern-ment, ramped up their humanitarian efforts. The HIA, active during the Maidan protests, launched Hungary’s largest aid program aimed at helping refugees and other displaced persons from the Donbass violence in seven areas of Ukraine by providing food, toiletries, and blankets. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade earmarked HUF 100 million for this purpose. In addition, the HIA also set up psychological services for those suffering from posttraumatic stress disorder as a result of the conflict (Government of Hungary 2015). During this time, Orbán continued to lobby Ukraine for Transcarpathian autonomy while also taking care not to irk Putin by opposing EU economic sanctions against Russia. This diplo-matic maneuverer had the unintended consequence of legitimating Russia’s po-sition in Crimea. As Sadecki puts it, “Orban’s demands that ethnic Hungarians should be given more rights in Ukraine have been given a lot of publicity by the Russian press and fit in with the Russian government’s narrative, in which they Jóźwiak, ignacy – LugoSi, nicoLe V.T.
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accuse the Ukrainian government of discriminating against national minorities”
(Feher 2014, p. 3).
In the face of the EuroMaidan events, Polish government and the opposition parties of all political spectra expressed their concern over the situation in Ukraine and their support for ‘peaceful dialog’ in that country. The ruling party politicians (including the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Radosław Sikorski) were involved in the negotiations between the conflicting sides, while the main opposition party leaders openly sympathised with the protesters and travelled to Kyiv in order to express their support for the Ukrainian opposition. Poland was among the first countries to recognise the post-Maidan government of Arseniy Yatsenyuk in February 2014.
The efforts of Polish NGOs to support the EuroMaidan in the media and public space was also visible in the large cities, first and foremost in Warsaw which saw rallies in front of the Russian and Ukrainian embassies, debates, concerts and other
‘pro-Ukrainian events’. On a practical level, many of them were active in gathering funds, medications, and other supplies for the protesters in Kyiv.
Polish authorities unambiguously condemned Russia’s involvement in Crimea and did not recognise its annexation. Following the events on the pen-insula, Polish Consulate in Sevastopol was evacuated for safety reasons (later the same happened to the consulate in Donetsk). In the manner of symbolic support for Crimea within Ukraine, the newly established Ministry of Foreign Af-fairs Lech Wałęsa Solidarity Prize was granted to Crimean Tatars’ leader Mustafa Dzhemilev. Events in Crimea and Donbass fuelled further statements in support of Ukraine’s territorial integrity and voices demanding international sanctions against Russia. In anticipation of the influx of Ukrainian asylum-seekers, capaci-ties of the reception centres were expanded. Pro-Ukrainian statements were fol-lowed by 13 000 000 PLN (3 250 000 EUR) donated by the Polish government in 2014 and the first half of 2015 to humanitarian aid, such as: transportation and treatment of the persons wounded during Maidan protests, psychological support and holiday for the children in the war-torn territories, financial support for the
Polish authorities unambiguously condemned Russia’s involvement in Crimea and did not recognise its annexation. Following the events on the pen-insula, Polish Consulate in Sevastopol was evacuated for safety reasons (later the same happened to the consulate in Donetsk). In the manner of symbolic support for Crimea within Ukraine, the newly established Ministry of Foreign Af-fairs Lech Wałęsa Solidarity Prize was granted to Crimean Tatars’ leader Mustafa Dzhemilev. Events in Crimea and Donbass fuelled further statements in support of Ukraine’s territorial integrity and voices demanding international sanctions against Russia. In anticipation of the influx of Ukrainian asylum-seekers, capaci-ties of the reception centres were expanded. Pro-Ukrainian statements were fol-lowed by 13 000 000 PLN (3 250 000 EUR) donated by the Polish government in 2014 and the first half of 2015 to humanitarian aid, such as: transportation and treatment of the persons wounded during Maidan protests, psychological support and holiday for the children in the war-torn territories, financial support for the