Europe's Influence on Ukrainian State Building - A Struggle for Identity between Europe and Russia

Master's Thesis from the year 2006 in the subject Politics - Region: Eastern Europe grade: 13 University of Hamburg (Departement für Wirtschaft und Politik) language: English abstract: Up to today the realities in Post-Soviet space are defined by the search for state and national identity in contrast to the former peripheral existence during the Soviet past. From the very beginning of their independence the newly independent states were afflicted with different problems resulting from the ambiguous situation of quasi sovereignty but still strictly Moscow centralised rule. A regime change always demands great flexibility in ideas of these who have to deal with the remains of the past and the results of the breakdown in order to find an adequate approach to the new realities. It is therefore not astonishing that in account to the various economic and social constraints in the different Newly Independent States each was in search of its own way to deal with the problems of state-building acceptance of the international community and Russia's attempts to dominate the former sphere of influence.The analysis will deal with the special case of Ukraine's emancipation from the USSR heritage and the historic dominance of an imperial Russia. The focus of analysis will be put on the processes of state-identity building in the framework of Central and Eastern European Countries (CEEC) Western Europe and the EU as well as the context of Russian foreign policy towards the 'Near Abroad'. The subject is especially relevant today since a wave of 'colourful' revolutions has taken place on the territories of some former Soviet republics in the past to years showing that the political processes of forming a nation are still hard to predict in that region. The important change that goes on in the former Soviet republics including Ukraine is the transition from the main foreign policy objective of the 1990s - either to escape from Russia or to stay. Now the question seems