The 2014 Russo‐Ukrainian war, euphemistically called the ‘Ukraine crisis’, has largely confirmed, on certain accounts, a dramatic split of the country and people's loyalties between the proverbial ‘East’ and ‘West’, between the ‘Eurasian’ and ‘European’ ways of development epitomized by Russia and the European Union. By other accounts, however, it has proved that the Ukrainian nation is much more united than many experts and policymakers expected, and that the public support for the Russian invasion, beyond the occupied regions of Donbas and Crimea, is close to nil. This article does not deny that Ukraine is divided in many respects but argues that the main – and indeed the only important – divide is not between ethnic Russians and Ukrainians, or Russophones and Ukrainophones, or the ‘East’ and the ‘West’. The main fault line is ideological – between two different types of Ukrainian identity: non/anti‐Soviet and post/neo‐Soviet, ‘European’ and ‘East Slavonic’. All other factors, such as ethnicity, language, region, income, education, or age, correlate to a different degree with the main one. However divisive those factors might be, the external threat to the nation makes them largely irrelevant, bringing instead to the fore the crucial issue of values epitomized in two different types of Ukrainian identity.

The paper argues that the profoundidentity split strongly influencesUkraine’s postcommunist development, precluding effectively consolidation of any political system – either democratic or authoritarian. In most cases, the identity issue supersedes all other issues on the agendas of political parties and largely determines the character and results of electoral rivalry, and the way in which both domestic and international politics is viewed and articulated. The paper examines historical roots of competing identities in Ukraine, their essence and impact on two different visions of Ukrainian past, future, and “Ukrainianness” itself. The use and misuse of identity issues by Ukrainian authorities is a special concern of the paper that stresses the need of alternative policy aimed at a national reconciliation.

The ongoing Russo-Ukrainian war, euphemistically called the “Ukraine crisis,” draws attention to its ideological underpinnings that include a historically informed Russian hegemonic view of Ukrainians as “younger brothers” who should be both patronized and censured for improper behavior. The paper examines a particular aspect of this superior attitude as embedded in ethnic stereotypes – both “vernacular”, primarily in folklore, and ideologically constructed, in both cultural and political discourses. In both cases, the structure of stereotypes reflects the dominant position of one group and subjugated position of the other within a more general paradigm of relations between Robinson Crusoe and Friday. A peculiar dialectics implies that a “good” Friday can be civilized and assimilated and become almost equal to Crusoe – “almost the same people”, in a popular Russian parlance about Ukrainians. Yet, a “bad” (“wrong”) Friday should be strongly reviled and thoroughly demonized as a complete evil, manipulated allegedly by hostile (“Western”) Robinsons. The paper argues that the Russo-Ukrainian relations cannot be normalized until Russians learn to see Ukrainians as neither “good” nor “bad” but just different eas all the people around.

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