Ukraine Image Abroad?

[bm-21Lemko]

Originally Posted by Svizzera_EU

Well where do I start..... I am not Ukrainian myself I am Swiss/Italian. When I hear the word Ukraine from some of my friends or colleagues here in the EU and Switzerland I immediately think of the Ukraine of encompossing several negative thoughts such as

1) Deep deep poverty
2) Very high instability in all facts of Ukrainian life whether its the government or society in generall
3) Very low wages
4) Extremely high corruption
5) A country that is highly uncapable to make proper decisions that will benefit the society in the future
6) A non citizen orientated government - the government in the Ukraine fail to really listen to the needs of the Ukrainian people and heed this advice.
7) Counteless years of Russia/Ukrainian disputes
8) Illegal immigration into the EU and Switzerland/Norway

yep sounds like you got the gist of it.

We smash board games on subways

Thats just a canadian thing.

[Svizzera_EU]

Originally Posted by Lvivske

We smash board games on subways.

Do you mean in a violent way or a fun way?

[Svizzera_EU]

Originally Posted by Kathy

A European won't get that joke, and Vasil is too young . I don't think they get Seinfeld in Switzerland. So, here is a clip

Thanks I found that video interesting. Do you want to explain the joke too me?

[bm-21Lemko]

Newman and kramer are on the subway playing risk. And Newman only has some armies in Ukraine, and the guy on the subway was ukrainian and he got offended and messed up the board and all the pieces

Its a comedy about 4 friends and what they do.

my personal favorite episode is the one with elaine and the soup nazi

[73wanab]

Kathy, I'm a Sienfeld junkie! That clip is great and I do remember it.:-)

Svizzera_EU, Dude, the show is based on nothing. There is nothing more to say. You either get the jokes or not. Real simple and quit stupid most of the time.

As for this thread, if anybody in the west has a clue about eastern europe at all, and Ukraine specifically, it would be the melt down at Chernobyl. But don't hold your breath guys, I have told friends about going there in a couple of weeks and the response has been, "where is it"! S--t, people here can't even find the USA on a globe. If you give them a map of the USA, they can't find Texas. What does that tell you? Pretty pathetic!

[MichaelB_PL]

I live in Poland, which is a neighbour of Ukraine.

Many points of Ukraine's image in Poland are similiar to those from Svizzera's list, especially the points 1-4 from his/her list and I'll partially use his/her list.

1) Deep poverty. Ukrainians who come to work in Poland work for very little money and yet they are happy, they tend to say very negative things about the level of living in Ukraine.

2) Very high instability in all facts of Ukrainian life whether its the government or society in generall - one of the elements from both tales of Ukrainians who come to Poland and tales of Poles who went to Ukraine is the general instability and lack of order. I think criminality is high there and in many cases the officials cooperate with the criminals.

3) Very low wages - basically the sequel to #1, many Ukrainians receive salaries or pensions barely allowing them to survive.

4) Extremely high corruption - linked to #2, bribes are de facto the standard element of economy in Ukraine, perhaps more so than the law. Active bribe exhortion is the norm, especially with the police and border guard/customs officers, but in reality no business can operate there without paying bribes on regular basis.

5) A country that is highly uncapable to make proper decisions that will benefit the society in the future - we think that Ukraine has a huge "inertia ball" of poverty, criminality, corruption, and so on and that Ukrainian politicians are the same, they are not standing apart of the problem and really fighting to fix it, but rather are a part of the problem.

6) A non citizen orientated government - the government in the Ukraine fail to really listen to the needs of the Ukrainian people and heed this advice. We tend to get an impression that generally a Ukrainian citizen has really few really present rights in Ukraine.

7) Illegal workers, criminals, prostitutes. There are lots of illegal workers in Poland - that is Ukrainians who are here legally but work illegally, there are also lots of prostitutes and criminals from Ukraine have joined the "criminal scene" in Poland.

8) The traditional "Ukrainian savage" stereotype - it was probably born during the WW2 because of the so called "Volhynian Massacres" commited by UPA upon Polish civilians - especially many of the medium age and old people tend to associate Ukrainians with these war crimes, which creates a stereotype of Ukrainians being primitve, brutal, etc etc.


As one can notice, I've skipped Svizzera's #7): Counteless years of Russia/Ukrainian disputes, because it's not a part of the image of Ukraine/Ukrainians in Poland - perhaps because we have our own disputes with Russia which divert our attention.

My #7 is similiar to Svizzera's #8, but different - Ukrainians have some legal possibilities of immigrating to Poland and many do so, but also many Ukrainians work as illegal workers who work in Poland in the "grey zone" (without paying taxes,etc), also many Ukrainian girls work as prostitutes.

[MichaelB_PL]

Originally Posted by Kathy

I think this is your stereotype.

No, it's not and I suggest doing some research if you think otherwise.

Some information:

http://www.nbuv.gov.ua/portal/Soc_Gu..._7/zalecki.pdf

The complicated and dramatic history of the Polish-Ukrainian relationships was the cause that for the past decades
the Polish had a negative perception of and felt heavily aversive to the Ukrainians. At the outset of the previous decade
CBOS conducted surveys on sympathy and antipathy to selected nations. The Ukrainians found themselves among the
nations closing the list [18]. Their perception was strongly negative. The stereotype of a Ukrainian, when broken down
to components, was found woven of features contradictory to the homo oeconomicus.: In the Polish views the
Ukrainians were poor, improvident, devoid of enterprise, and lazy. In terms of the features grouped under the heading of
culture and customs, they were seen as backward, uneducated, and untidy. In the social and political dimension, they
were described as nationalistic, vengeful, and fanatic [16].

Basically, the "backward, uneducated and untidy" joined with "nationalistic, vengeful an fanatic" fits together into the phrase "Ukrainian savage" I've used to describe the stereotype. As for this being "my stereotype", I think that as most stereotypes, it's a overblown echo of real tendencies and events, largely false in itself, but containing a small grain of truth.

Some more sources about existence of this stereotype:

http://www.batory.org.pl/doc/pol_ukr.pdf

The complex nature of Polish-Ukrainian relations was made even more difficult
by the dramatic events of World War II; insofar as the collective Polish memory
of the war and its immediate aftermath involves Ukrainians, the recollection is of
what would today be called ethnic cleansing and of wholesale slaughter of Poles
perpetrated by Ukrainian fighters.
(...)
In the meantime, books published in Poland after the war and assigned to
schoolchildren as obligatory reading did their part to reinforce the stereotype of
Ukrainians as war criminals; many young people were left with the conclusion
that the sole purpose of the Ukrainian Insurgents’ Army lay in the murder of
Poles.

Stereotyp Ukraiе└ca - TwojaEuropa.pl

(Translation) In Poland there is a rather negative image of an Ukrainian caused mainly by the stormy history between
Poland and Ukraine.

Below is an interview with a Ukrainian minority in Poland activist, Piotr Tyma::

www.domeuropejski.pl - Wywiad z przedstawicielem mniejszoІci ukraiЯskiej

(Translation)
Some people is still afraid to publically admit being part of the minorty. In Poland for a long time the sterotype of Ukrainian
was functioning. Desire for murder and greed were underlined in it. It was said that Ukrainians had black palates - a form of physical defect, implying agressive demeanor.
People got drilled into their heads image of an Ukrainian with a knife in his teeth.

Comment on the last example: in Poland there is a folk belief that a dog with black palate is a potentially agressive, bad dog - so the "black palate" example provided by Tyma contains is not only linked with suspicion of agresiveness, but is also a degrading comparison with animals.