Title: 9 Eco-Nationalism in the Soviet Union in the Late 1980s and Early 1990s: The Ukrainian Case
Abstract: Eco-Nationalism in the Soviet Union in the Late 1980s and Early 1990s: The Ukrainian Case Discourse on the problems of eco-nationalism has been continuing for several decades.Nowadays, this concept is widely used in national and international debates aimed at justifying the economic, energy, and resource independence of states.The concept of eco-nationalism was developed by the American researcher Jane Dawson.Analyzing social activism in former Soviet Republics, namely Ukraine, Russia, Armenia, and Lithuania, in the late 1980s, she found convergences of nationalism and environmentalism. 1 However, the concept of eco-nationalism has neither been refuted nor developed.Existing studies therefore focus either on the environmental component of eco-nationalism 2 or on national ones. 3 Meanwhile, the term "eco-nationalism" is rarely used.At the same time, while the failure of the communist ideology and economic failure played important roles in delegitimizing Soviet control, eco-nationalism became an important driving force in the collapse of the Soviet Union.It emerged after the Chernobyl disaster as a result of an understanding of the relationship between the deterioration of the environment in many Soviet Republics and the infringement of the rights of the ethnic groups living in them and contributed to mobilizing the population against the totalitarian Soviet regime.This allows us to view the environmental movement 1