Language :

Ua Ru En
logo
Протестные настроения граждан Украины по некоторым идеологическим маркерам

Protest markers

Date posted: 29.03.2010 Print Full version

The problem of the language

About 57% of people interviewed are expecting that President V. Yanukovych will fulfill his promise and give Russian the status of the second state language. Besides, 12% amidst them are expecting for this to come true in the forthcoming months, 24% hope that this will happen during 2010 and 21% – during a couple of years.

Apart from this, about 20% of the respondents suppose that V. Yanukovych will never fulfill this promise. Every tenth person is indifferent towards the problem and every sixth hasn’t defined his attitude to it yet.

The highest expectations for realizing the V. Yanukovych’s claim are in the South and in Donbas, a little less of them are in the East and the lowest ones are in the Centre, in the North and in the West. It’s worth mentioning that adherents of the Communist Party hope to see the measures required for the implementation of the claim rather sooner than those from the Party of Regions. Also, among the respondents who don’t believe the President’s claim there are three times more of those who support the Communist Party.

The majority of people who don’t believe in Yanukovych working out his claim is located in the West (33%) and at the same time the largest part of those who are expecting to see the claim–concerning actions in the forthcoming months is also located here (16%).

49% of the respondents support the initiative of the Party of Regions to fix the right for the municipal councils to independently determine the language of instruction at schools and Universities, the language of records, etc. on the legislative level and 38% don’t support the above–mentioned idea, 13% are still unsure about the problem.

In Donbas 81% of the respondents support this initiative, in the West – on the contrary – 71% of people are against the idea. Respectively, on the one hand, there are the supporters of the Party of Regions and the Communist Party, on the other hand – the supporters of the Our Ukraine, Svoboda (Freedom), the Yulia Tymoshenko Bloc and the Front of Changes (Front Zmin). It’s worth mentioning that almost two thirds of the people interrogated suppose that such actions will lead to factually giving Russian the status of the second state language in these areas. It’s quite obvious that here the points of view both of the adherents of the Party of Regions and the radicals supporting the Our Ukraine and Freedom coincide.

In general, 54% of the respondents support the idea of giving Russian the status of the second state language, whereas 39% are against it and 7% haven’t made their choice yet.

The problem of the language today can become the key source of the protests in the ideological opposition considered quite possible.

About 6% of the interrogated are ready to actively participate in the protest actions in case of the approval of the decision to give Russian the status of the second state language, 13% will support the political party that will arrange the protests.

Therewith, only 2% of the respondents are ready to pop up in the streets arranging the actions for the support of such a decision and 13% are ready to support the political party that will start such actions.

At the same time about two thirds of the interrogated claim that they will not take part in any kinds of actions either those of protest or support and they will not support any political party that arranges them.

The residents of the West are much more decisive in standing up for their point of view concerning the language rather than those from Donbas. Almost every fifth in the West is ready to come out in the streets protesting, and every third will support any political party that arranges such acts. The most radical are the adherents of the Freedom (Svoboda) – every third will personally join the acts of protests, the supporters of the Our Ukraine – where every fifth will do the same and the Bloc (every sixth).

On the contrary, only 4% of the Party of Regions supporters are ready to come out with the acts of protests of the probable decision giving Russian the status of the second state language.

 
The problem of the Russian Federation’s (RF) Black Sea Fleet deployment prolongation in Ukraine

41% of the interrogated support the idea to let the Russian Black Sea fleet stay on the Ukrainian territory after 2017. Almost the same quantity (38%) is against this idea and 21% haven’t decided yet.

The majority of the adherents of the idea of the Fleet deployment prolongation are the residents of the South and Donbas, in other words 70% of the supporters of the Party of Regions and the Communist Party although only 2% and 4% of the supporters correspondingly of the above–mentioned parties are ready to personally come out in the streets to support the decision. Only 13% of the Party of Regions adherents will support the political party that will arrange such actions.

At the same time, every tenth resident of the West is ready or the open protests. And again among them there are mostly those supporting the Freedom (Svoboda) and the Our Ukraine and a little less of those supporting the Bloc and the Front of changes.

Its’ worth mentioning that among the Lytvyn’s Bloc and the Tihipko’s Strong Ukraine (Syl’na Ukraina) supporters the points of view have been equally divided: almost 40% stand for the RF’s Black Sea Fleet deployment prolongation and almost 40% are against it although the urgency for the people is rather low.

 
The problem of the President Yushchenko’s decree on vestituring S. Bandera the rank of the Hero cancellation

53% of the respondents support the idea of cancelling the decree on ranking S. Bandera the Hero, whereas 28% don’t support this and 19% haven’t made their point yet.

Despite the fact that there are less people not supporting the cancellation of the decree than those who stand against the Russian Black Sea Fleet deployment prolongation on the territory of Ukraine, the level of the expostulating intentions remains unchanged. Every tenth resident of the West is ready to take part in active acts of protest in case the cancellation of the President Yushchenko’s decree on vestituring S. Bandera the rank of the Hero is implemented.  

Among the radically disposed there are more than 50% of the Freedom supporters, a little less there are among the Our Ukraine adherents.

On the contrary, the communists comprise the majority of those who are ready to join the act of support of Yushchenko’s decree cancellation: every tenth is ready to actively participate in such campaigns.

One shouldn’t avoid the fact that the Bloc and the Front of Changes supporters are much more reluctant in standing for keeping the rank of the Hero for S. Bandera rather than standing for the problems of the language or the Fleet. Moreover, a quarter of the above–mentioned parties’ adherents are ready to support the idea of Yushchenko’s decree cancellation.

 
The problem of creating the gas transmission consortium

President V. Yanukovych’s initiative on creating gas transmission consortium is approved by 35% of the interviewed and the same number of people is against it. Almost 30% haven’t made their mind yet.

One can presume that the problem is regarded by the respondents mostly through the framework of politics rather than economy and the high rate of uncertainty just proves this.

It is stated that the majority of the adherents of such an idea reside in the South and in Donbas, and the majority of the adversaries live in the West, in the Centre and in the North. The biggest part of the undecided is located in the East.

At the same time, given that concerning the problem of the second state language the number of adversaries among the residents of the North and the Centre only three times prevails the number of the adherents, the situation with the gas consortium is different cause here they are more decisively disposed: the number of the gas consortium opponents is almost twice higher than those of the supporters.

The most radically disposed to the creation of the consortium are the Freedom, the Bloc and the Our Ukraine supporters. Among the S. Tihipko’s Strong Ukraine adherents the votes pro and con are equal.

 
The problem of Holodomor recognition

The majority of the respondents are sure that Holodomor of the 1932–1933 was the genocide against the Ukrainian people, 25% stick to the opposite opinion and 14% haven’t made their point concerning this problem.

A curious peculiarity. The number of negative replies prevails among the supporters of the communists (37% stand for the genocide and 58% stand against it). As for the Party of Regions, so here the number of positive and negative responds is equal (40% against 40%). And all in all, the positive replies outstrip the negative ones in the electoral centres of these political parties: the South, the East and Donbas.

The residents of the West stand for the idea of the genocide more than the residents of the Donbas.

The most fervent opponents to the claim of the genocide are the believers of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church (Moscow Patriarchy) although amidst them the number of protagonists outruns the number of the antagonists (44% consider Holodomor the act of genocide and 39% – do not). The most fervent adherents are Greek Catholics (95% pro against 2% con) and the believers of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church (Kyiv Patriarchy) – 62% pro and 16% con. 

The statement that Holodomor of the 1932–1933 was really an act of genocide against the Ukrainians is less supported by the respondents whose native language is Russian (34% of the votes are pro and 45% of them are con). Among the respondents whose native language is Ukrainian the situation is different – 81% of people stand for genocide and 10% are against. Among the respondents whose native language is both Ukrainian and Russian the votes have been distributed between 53% pro and 32% con.

The target audience of the research: the population of Ukraine aged from 18 and older. Optional quantity: 2000 respondents. The methods of investigation: personal formalized interview according to the questionnaire (face to face). Measure of inaccuracy for the values close to 50% is less than 3%, for the values close to 30% – less than 2,65, for the values close to 10% – less than 1,8. The period of completion: March 2–10, 2010.

The oblast’ distribution:

West: Volyns’ka, Transcarpathia, Ivano–Frankivs’ka, L’vivs’ka, Rivnens’ka, Ternopil’s’ka, Chernivets’ka.
Centre: Vinnyts’ka, Kirovograds’ka, Poltavs’ka, Khmel’nyts’ka, Cherkas’ka.
North: Kyiv, Kyivs’ka, Zhytomyrs’ka, Sums’ka, Chernihivs’ka.
South: AR Crimea, Odes’ka, Khersons’ka, Mykolaivs’ka, Sevastopol
East: Dnipropetrovs’ka, Zaporiz’ka, Kharkivs’ka.
Donbass: Donets’ka, Luhans’ka.

Other research: