Factors of national identity formation in CIS area: Belarus and Ukraine case study ; Nacionalinės tapatybės formavimosi veiksniai NVS erdvėje: Baltarusijos ir Ukrainos atvejų analizė
In the dissertation "Factors of National Identity Formation in CIS Area: Belarus and Ukraine Case Study" the factors of identity formation are analyzed aiming to answer the question which of those factors are the most important in the CIS area. The overall goal of the work is to explain the differences of the formation of identity in the post soviet area, through the analysis of the material and non material as well as internal and external factors of the identity formation in Belarus and Ukraine. In the theoretical part the dissertation aims to answer the question why other theories and paradigms of international relations are not effective in explaining the process of the identity formation in the CIS area and what the possible factors of identity formation are in the region. In this part the grouping of those factors is presented, which is used as the model of analysis. In this dissertation it is considered that only the analysis of whole identity formation factors can help to point out the most important of them in Belarus and Ukraine. In the empirical part of the dissertation the analytical interpretation model is being used. The comparative analysis of two cases of Belarus and Ukraine is used in this part via analyzing public opinion polls and changes in public opinion through the time and in the periods of the sharp changes of the domestic or international situation. While analyzing internal aspects of identity formation the biggest attention is given to nonmaterial – cultural and political – factors. For the analysis of the external factors of identity formation the analysis of Russian as the main foreign actor is done. The deepest analysis of the external material military, geographical, economical and political as well as for non-material factors such as cultural is done. The arguments supporting the thesis of the dissertation are presented in the conclusions as well as the main research question is answered: only in corpora analysis of all identity formation factors can help to explain that the Belarusian identity is grounded on material external economical and internal domestic factors dominates over the cultural ones. As for Ukraine, its identity is based on non-material cultural and political factors, and the importance of material geographical factors is decreasing.