Intercultural Communication
Nefertari Trantham-Wright
University of Phoenix
Don Case - COM/360
December 19, 2011

Intercultural Communication

The distinction of the ideology is one of the main reasons of disagreements and conflicts in the intercultural communications. In one cultures the purpose of interaction is more important than a dialogue in others – the situation is contrary. When we say ideology we mean the concept of reality that is shared by special concerning culture or an ethnic accessory group of people. Even the countries that have the same history or the same roots may have poor intercultural communication because of some stereotypes or bias. The best example is the relations between Russia and Ukraine.
If to consider the last years, a special trim can be observed in the relations of Russia and Ukraine in all of the questions connected with the Russian-Ukrainian relations. Geographically it divides the country into east and western part and with time the situation only gets worse. This is mostly the problem. Not only language and geography split the country but also the world outlook principle as well. The main problem of the Ukrainian authority today is how to connect these differently looking at the world and destiny parts of the country through a prism of the Russian-Ukrainian relations. The actions of the Ukrainian authority at the process of solving this problem are quite contradictory. On the one hand, there is an understanding of necessity to move toward Russia, but on the other hand, the movement seems to be in an opposite direction.
First, it concerns the gas conflict between Russia and Ukraine. The intense relations between these two countries in the sphere of gas relations have already become a bad tradition. The misunderstanding level between them frequently leads to faults with the deliveries of the Russian gas to Ukraine and as consequence, reduction of gas transit to Europe. However, the new conflict in a gas question that became ripe at the beginning of 2009 was avoided.
Another negative direction in the actions of Ukraine is a propagation of “Holodomor” and blaming it on Russia.
Earlier the theme of Holodomor was one of the irritants in the relations of Russia and Ukraine, along with a language question and a problem round the Black Sea fleet, but it has became a reason for the diplomatic war. United Nations General Assembly became the theater of was where Kiev tries to bring a question on consideration the Holodomor in Ukraine in 1932-1933. In the end of October the Ukrainian delegation has extended among the members of the United Nations General Assembly draught resolution which has suggested to mention the 75th anniversary of holodomor in Ukraine.
The Russian side was very opposed to this initiative. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine has accused Moscow of preventing “to recognize the Holodomor of 1932-1933 in Ukraine by the international community as act of genocide.” An occasion for this purpose was a certain letter that the head the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation Sergey Lavrov has supposedly dispatched to the colleagues from United Nations member countries. Lavrov asked him or her “to occupy a principle position and to resist the Ukrainian initiative in General Assembly because not only people in Ukraine died of hunger in 1932-1933, but it also touched the countries of Russia, Belarus and Kazakhstan.”
There are also other negative actions of Ukraine that prevent the understanding between two countries. Ukraine is carrying out the combined naval and overland maneuvers with the NATO. “In 2007 the Ukrainian Minister of Defense has allocated $1,2 million for carrying out the combined military maneuvers. According to Sherstjuk (the head of the department of military cooperation of the Joint Staff of Armed forces of Ukraine), in 2007 Ukraine has planned 14 combined military maneuvers with the foreign states from which 5 will pass on the territory of Ukraine” (Guffey, 2010).
This is not the first year that Ukraine is planning to enter the NATO. Ukraine plans to pass from a partnership policy to a policy of perspective membership in the NATO, the course on the Euroatlantic integration is already kept as strategic. Ukraine is also rendering the military help to Georgia in the Russian-Georgian conflict in South Ossetia.
One reason of the misunderstanding between the countries is disrespect of the Ukrainian authorities to the common history. Most of the regions in Ukraine decided to demolish the monuments devoted to the Soviet soldiers who liberated Ukraine from the fascists. Such actions were explained as an obstacle to the building of more shopping centers.
Ukraine is also known for its propagation of nationalism and heroics of national-fascists. Even though fascists took the millions of lives on the USSR population, Ukrainians seem to forget this fact.
Besides, even the church was split into Moscow patriarchy and Kyev patriarchy. The last reason is a prohibition of the Russian language.
So that means that “the humanitarian block” (the status of Russian language, Russian culture and, Russian education in Ukraine) was also a problem. It has become one of the thorniest questions of mutual relations. Ukraine has a tendency of the fast “ukrainanisation” of the population. It means that the country has to use only national language in the documents, films, at work, school, etc. “Moscow considers the policy as a discrimination towards the people who speak Russian as a native language and there nearly half of them. These actions create unequal conditions in receiving higher education for those who do not know the national language that is the Ukrainian (Christian, 1998)”. Moreover, Russia cannot skip the problem that in the course of Ukrainian history Russia usually plays quite negative role. All these problems undermine one of the basic supports of stability in mutual relations.
During the last 10 years the status of Russian language in Ukraine serves as a subject for political problems as well. It happens quite often that right before the presidential or parliamentary elections this question is discussed and even exaggerated in the press, and those politicians who during the period of election campaign act as the defenders of the Russian language, after coming to the power, as a rule, forget about all their promises. When the “orange” democracy has won in Ukraine and the course on eurointegration was proclaimed, Victor Yushchenko became the president. After that the rights of the Russian-speaking citizens became slowly, but confidently be restrained. In particular, from the beginning of 2008 all foreign films were translated into the Ukrainian language. This problem is also complicated by the split of the Ukrainian population and in most cases when the Russian-speaking person comes to the Western Ukraine they can insulted. Prejudice towards everything that is connected with Russia spreads very fast.
If to ask a question what is more important culture or economy, the right answer will be the culture; because the culture is the base on which economic, political, and other relations are based. If to imagine that no one will get the fleet, or gas will be transported somehow differently, nevertheless two countries will have to unite sooner or later.
From the very beginning the Ukrainians and Russians were a uniform nationality - Russian. It was later in the present days that the people were divided into Little Russians and Great Russians. There’s areas where there lived Russian people but due to the political problems they started to hate each other. For example, Little Russia was a southern part of Russian princedom. So generally speaking Ukraine and Russian cultures differ but the roots are the same - Kiev Russia. Many people in Russia have related communications with Ukrainians, and they still communicate even when the relations between the countries worsened.
It is worth mentioning that Russia has so-called complex of a “big brother (Guffey, 2010)” and it is only now that t starts getting rid of it. Russia simultaneously and scornfully cares about the “younger” - Ukraine. That means that the country can show an inattention to its political needs, stories and culture, but it is always ready to render the economic help in a case of a damage and it is extremely surprised by the absence of the gratitude. For Ukraine such an attitude, on the one hand, generated a resentment, the aspiration to spite to the “senior”, but on the other hand, it promoted the progress in an elementary dependence, confidence that “feeding” will proceed eternally.
It is obvious, what not all noted phenomena have been rigidly programmed by the fact of disintegration of the USSR. Probably, many of them could be avoided if Russia carried out more rigid, basic, but the transparent and predicted policy concerning Ukraine, adjustment of dialogue with the Ukrainian elite and a society and wide propagation of the purposes that would not contradict the interests of Ukraine. Now deducing of mutual relations from crisis seems as a complicated problem, owing to the fact that negative stereotypes lying in its basis are too strong to be eradicated easily. I suppose that we can use the theory of intercultural adaptation in this situation. It differs from the general understanding but the idea is that two cultures have the same roots and they are common in many ways but people resist understanding it. After the USSR collapsed people were lost as new societies were created. Now they need to adapt to the thought that they are not enemies and that we should not believe what the stereotypes created by the authorities say. The process seems to be time-consuming but people have to get back to their roots.

References

Christian, D. (1998). A History of Russia, Central Asia and Mongolia. Blackwell Publishing. pp. 286–288.

Drews, Robert (2004). Early Riders: The beginnings of mounted warfare in Asia and Europe. New York: Routledge. p. 50

Guffey, Mary Ellen, Kathy Rhodes, Patricia Rogin. (2010) “Communicating Across Cultures.” Mary Ellen Guffey, Kathy Rhodes, Patricia Rogin. Business Communication Process and Production. Nelson Education Ltd.. pp. 68-89.