Thread: Number of Ukrainians currently living in Russia...

Hi,

i have been searching the internet lately and found that, according the Ukrainian governement web portal at http://www.kmu.gov.ua/control/en/publis ... t_id=32672, Ukrainian people (of Ukrainian descent and/or by birth) accounted for 4.3M while Mr Askold S. Lozynskyj, President of the Ukrainian World Congress states in an article written for the Ukrweekly at http://www.ukrweekly.com/Archive/2002/330219.shtml, that there would be, i quote: "...10 M people within the Russian Federation itself."

How is one supposed to interpretate those figures, especially when there seems to be such a discrepancy between them?

Can anybody comment on that?

RealCola

Originally Posted by real_cola

Hi,

i have been searching the internet lately and found that, according the Ukrainian governement web portal at http://www.kmu.gov.ua/control/en/publis ... t_id=32672, Ukrainian people (of Ukrainian descent and/or by birth) accounted for 4.3M while Mr Askold S. Lozynskyj, President of the Ukrainian World Congress states in an article written for the Ukrweekly at http://www.ukrweekly.com/Archive/2002/330219.shtml, that there would be, i quote: "...10 M people within the Russian Federation itself."

How is one supposed to interpretate those figures, especially when there seems to be such a discrepancy between them?

Can anybody comment on that?

RealCola

without references to sources I doubt it is possible to comment. It all depends on how the nationality is counted; it seems that the government figure is the census estimate and Lozynsky thinks that it undercounts Ukrainians:
http://www.ukrweekly.com/Archive/2002/180207.shtml

http://www.perepis2002.ru/ct/doc/descript_00.doc

http://www.perepis2002.ru/content.html? ... 5289081463

According to census of population (2002) there are 2,942,849 Ukrainians in Russia.

Well, it becomes quite clear indeed now, as Lozynskyj fairly demonstrates it in one of his articles, that 1989 census conducted by the Soviet authorities did underestimate the number of Ukrainians living in the SSSR.
Now, there maybe one or two things i would have liked to draw your attention on, about the way 'Ukrainians' are being counted during censuses, and for which i feel i still have no accurate information.
First, would it be safe to say that ethnic origins are 'measured' the same way wether it is for a census conducted by the US governmemt or the Russian one?
Second would be : is it possible that a person, who has the Ukrainian identity but staying illegally in the US for example, be counted in a US census?
Well it all comes down to wondering about the way censuses are conducted. But as far as i understand, if illegal immigrants are not yet counted in censuses then, all the figures we are talking about here, remain pretty inaccurate then.

hey, i get a little confused here, because according to http://www.perepis2002.ru/content.html? ... 5289081463
there would only be less than 3 million Ukrainians living in Russia in 2002, which is actually even less than what the Soviets had estimated back in 1989...

hey, i get a little confused here, because according to http://www.perepis2002.ru/content.html? ... 5289081463
there would only be less than 3 million Ukrainians living in Russia in 2002, which is actually even less than what the Soviets had estimated back in 1989...

Originally Posted by real_cola

Well, it becomes quite clear indeed now, as Lozynskyj fairly demonstrates it in one of his articles, that 1989 census conducted by the Soviet authorities did underestimate the number of Ukrainians living in the SSSR.

Yes, this was to be expected.

Now, there maybe one or two things i would have liked to draw your attention on, about the way 'Ukrainians' are being counted during censuses, and for which i feel i still have no accurate information.
First, would it be safe to say that ethnic origins are 'measured' the same way wether it is for a census conducted by the US governmemt or the Russian one?

No, I do not think it would. I am not sure how ethnic origins are counted in the US censuses. In Soviet times there was a field "nationality" in people's passports, which supposedly was to be the same as the persons fathers. It could and was sometimes changed though, usually to Russian.
In current Russian and Ukrainian passports this field is absent and, I believe, nationality in the censuses is just self-reported.

Second would be : is it possible that a person, who has the Ukrainian identity but staying illegally in the US for example, be counted in a US census?

It is, and a great deal of effort is taken to make sure that they are counted. But undercounting probably still persists. And I am sure that this problem is much worse in Russia.

Well it all comes down to wondering about the way censuses are conducted. But as far as i understand, if illegal immigrants are not yet counted in censuses then, all the figures we are talking about here, remain pretty inaccurate then.

They are supposed to be counted, but it is naturally hard to do. As for the US census, there might be some adjusted figures available.

Originally Posted by real_cola

hey, i get a little confused here, because according to http://www.perepis2002.ru/content.html? ... 5289081463
there would only be less than 3 million Ukrainians living in Russia in 2002, which is actually even less than what the Soviets had estimated back in 1989...

If you can read Russian I am sure you'll find much analysis on these subjects.
In essence, this is IMO primarily a result of a switch from a situation where a persons' nationality was recorded in passport to self-reporting (more or less assimilated ethnic Ukrainians are likely to self-report themselves as Russians). In addition, relatively internationalist politics and propaganda of the Soviet period switched to Russia-specific, which probably amplified the effect.
The situation is the same with ethnic Russians in Ukraine -- their numbers dropped because they started reporting themselves as Ukrainians (and their native language as Ukrainian).

I'm not sure whether Soviet/Russian and American census-taking methods are similar, but their motivations are likely similar: to promote the aims of the ruling r

Whoa! That must be some heavey shyt you've been smoking there Jeffy boy!! Roll another one.

Ukrainian and Russian languages are so close that if not for national pride the 2 languages could be considered dialects (together with Belarusian). Ukrainians constantly living and Russia were russified and now the reverse is true in Ukraine (to a lesser extent because Russian is still very strong and in common use in Ukraine). There is a huge number of mixed families and kids had to decide how to report themselves - including myself. My Russian mother insisted on me being Russian and I didn't resist besides, I didn't speak much Ukrainian, didn't read any Ukrainian books at that time.

Originally Posted by DDT

Whoa! That must be some heavey shyt you've been smoking there Jeffy boy!! Roll another one.

I like that. May I use it as my signature ?

well, i kinda thought that, after the collapse of the Soviet Union, Ukrainians living in Russia would not be that afraid to report themselves in a census, meaning that in a way, figures found on this link http://www.perepis2002.ru/content.html? ... 5289081463 should be much higher than the one conducted in 1989, instead of being much lower, shouldn't it?.
Besides, this, in sense, is what Lozynskyj seems to be trying to demonstrate in one of his article for the Ukrweekly http://www.ukrweekly.com/Archive/2002/180207.shtml

What do you think?

Now, eventhough i am not Russian nor do i am Ukrainian, i can still read Ukrainian(which means Russian ultimately too, but with great difficulty however...), so i'd appreciate that anybody points me to links on the subject.

Originally Posted by real_cola

well, i kinda thought that, after the collapse of the Soviet Union, Ukrainians living in Russia would not be that afraid to report themselves in a census

Why would you think so? All the societal pressures towards russification have remained in place, and have most likely increased. Current Russian politics is more nationalistic than the Soviet politics was in 1989.

Obviously, from this point of view, those figures don't come as so surprising, only, if you compare them with what Lozynskyj describes as the number of Ukrainians supposedly living in Russia, you find such a huge difference, almost 8 million people. And although i know that obviously counting people by their ethnic origins is not an easy task to perform, still, an 8 million people difference is a lot...

Should those differences be seen as somehow the result of different political point of views?

Originally Posted by real_cola

Obviously, from this point of view, those figures don't come as so surprising, only, if you compare them with what Lozynskyj describes as the number of Ukrainians supposedly living in Russia, you find such a huge difference, almost 8 million people. And although i know that obviously counting people by their ethnic origins is not an easy task to perform, still, an 8 million people difference is a lot...

Should those differences be seen as somehow the result of different political point of views?

Well, you may try and just write Lozynsky and ask how did he arrive at his estimate. He might be counting all children of Ukrainian parents as Ukrainians and extrapolating from some earlier set of data, for example. It is to a large extent a matter of definition of who is a Ukrainian then.
Some of the discrepancy undoubtedly comes from real undercounting of illegal workers and such, but it will be a small part.

Well, i wish i had an email to contact him. Now, more than ever, it comes very clear that there is no accurate figures when it comes to counting people, sorting them by their ethnicity at least. One interesting thing i have read about last US Census is that among all the people that declared being either Ukrainian and/or of Ukrainian descent, only 13% something said they spoke Ukrainian.All it suggest though is that there sure are a lot of people that just because they had a Ukrainian grandfather or a grandmother they probably never knew, think it entitles them to declare they are Ukrainian or have noticeable ukrainian roots.

try Google (you'll get some phone #'s too), or maybe try write congress@look.ca and asking.

Originally Posted by Анатолий

Ukrainian and Russian languages are so close that if not for national pride the 2 languages could be considered dialects (together with Belarusian). Ukrainians constantly living and Russia were russified and now the reverse is true in Ukraine (to a lesser extent because Russian is still very strong and in common use in Ukraine). There is a huge number of mixed families and kids had to decide how to report themselves - including myself. My Russian mother insisted on me being Russian and I didn't resist besides, I didn't speak much Ukrainian, didn't read any Ukrainian books at that time.

I disagree that Ukrainian and Russian can be considered dialects. .

Well Cantonese is considered a dialect of Chinese, and they are totally different phonetically...