Revolutionary Ukraine witnessed incessant regime changes – from Ukrainian national to Russian Whites to Soviet – and each government conceptualized and legislatively institutionalized a new national hierarchy and attempted to impose it on the population. We investigate the ways Ukrainian national governments minoritized non-Ukrainians and how Russian Whites’ rule reinstalled the prerevolutionary worldview of categorizing Ukrainian-speaking people as part of a unitary Russian nation. Against this background we investigate the acceptance and rejection of the respective regimes by non-Ukrainians. Furthermore, to understand the interplay of ordinary people with the official nationality policy, it is crucial to address the processes of identifying and ascribing nationality. An investigation into local practices may reveal the flexible behaviors of individuals who deliberately chose “beneficial” national affiliations, alongside the state’s efforts to regulate “correct” national membership.

The key research questions of this work package are: To what extent did non-Ukrainian factions and parties cooperate with the Ukrainian national governments: when, for how long, and for what purpose? On what previous experiences did they build their relationships with the changing regimes? How and by which criteria did these changing regimes classify the population into nation(alitie)s, and how did people respond to this official categorization?