Nationalism and Foreign Policy in Ukraine
In the fall of 1991, the world witnessed the final chapter in the momentous events that had swept Eastern Europe since the revolutions of 1989: the political disintegration and collapse of the Soviet Union. It is difficult to overestimate the significance of this culminating transformation. Not only did it introduce a further degree of uncertainty into a region that was already experiencing decisive political and economic upheaval, it also undermined a key structural principle of the postwar international system -bipolarity.1 While this latest geopolitical reformation opened up opportunities for international cooperation on the basis of shared political and economic values, it also permitted long-stifled passions to break to the surface. Many feared this dark underside of change would overwhelm the undeniable promise of the new world order.2