[aaus-list] FW: Window on Eurasia: Kyiv Disputes Moscow's Claim Few Ukrainians in Russia Want Native Language Schools

[Vera Andrushkiw]

>
>
>Window on Eurasia: Kyiv Disputes Moscow’s Claim Few Ukrainians in Russia 
>Want Native Language Schools
>
>
>
>Paul Goble
>
>
>
>             Vienna, May 4 –  Moscow’s assertion that ethnic Ukrainians in 
> the Russian Federation, that country’s second largest nationality, do not 
> have any problems with education in their own national language because 
> they are not asking for it “does not correspond to reality,” according to 
> a spokesman for the Ukrainian foreign ministry.
>
>             A week ago, Andrey Nesterenko, a spokesman for the foreign 
> ministry, said, in responding to an OSCE report, acknowledged that there 
> were few Ukrainian language schools but said that reflected an absence of 
> demand by Ukrainians for them rather than a Moscow policy against such 
> schools 
> (<http://rus.newsru.ua/ukraine/27apr2009/ukrschool.html>rus.newsru.ua/ukraine/27apr2009/ukrschool.html).
>
>             The lack of such demands, the Russian diplomat continued, 
> reflects what he described as “the closeness of the Eastern Slavic 
> languages and cultures, the common history (Kievan Rus, the Moscow State, 
> the Russian Empire and the USSR) and the common Christian faith” of the 
> Russians and Ukrainians.
>
>             Not surprisingly, Ukrainians and Ukrainian officials were 
> outraged not only because Moscow has always insisted on the provision of 
> Russian-language schools in Ukraine – and complained when any of them are 
> closed – but also because Nesterenko’s claim about the situation in 
> Russia where in fact Ukrainians would like Ukrainian language schools 
> “does not correspond to the facts” 
> (<http://www.vz.ru/news/4/30/282440.html>www.vz.ru/news/4/30/282440.html).
>
>             Indeed, Ukrainian commentators have pointed out, Ukraine does 
> support Russian language education in its schools and that last year, the 
> OSCE commissar on national minorities declared after examining the 
> situation there that he did not find “any violation of the rights of the 
> Russian language population in Ukraine” 
> (<http://rus.newsru.ua/ukraine/27mar2008/mova.html>rus.newsru.ua/ukraine/27mar2008/mova.html). 
>
>
>             Vasily Kirilich, a spokesman for the Ukrainian foreign 
> ministry, said that Nesterenko’s statement was intended to mislead the 
> OSCE by creating “the false impression of the supposedly problem-free 
> nature of Ukrainian national cultural development in Russia,” a 
> particular travesty because ethnic Ukrainians at 2.5 million are the 
> second largest national minority there.
>
>              He pointed out that in Moscow alone, there are now more than 
> 250,000 ethnic Ukrainians but not a single middle school with instruction 
> in the Ukrainian language, something that creates problems both for the 
> indigenous Ukrainian population of the city and the many other Ukrainians 
> who “work temporarily” there and plan to return to Ukraine.
>
>             Elsewhere in the Russian Federation, throughout which ethnic 
> Ukrainians are to be found, the situation is even worse, he said.  At 
> present “there is no school” anywhere in the Russian Federation where the 
> entire academic program is conducted in the Ukrainian language. There 
> exists only [a few] schools with an ethno-national (ethno-cultural) component.”
>
>             The Ukrainian diplomat was clearly infuriated by the 
> suggestion that Ukrainians living in the Russian Federation were not 
> interested in preserving their own language through the schools and that, 
> to use Nesterenko’s words, “citizens of the Russian Federation of 
> Ukrainian nationality and Russians among citizens of Ukraine are in a 
> different ethno-cultural situation.”
>
>             Russian commentaries in support of Moscow’s point of view, 
> such as Aleksandr Karavayev today, have suggested that the Ukrainians 
> have only themselves to blame.  Moscow has routinely supported 
> Russian-language efforts in Ukraine, but Kyiv has been largely inactive 
> in supporting Ukrainian-programs in Ukraine 
> (<http://www.ia-centr.ru/expert/4599/>www.ia-centr.ru/expert/4599/).
>
>             While there is some truth in what Karavayev says, that claim 
> ignores two longer-standing if unfortunate realities.  On the one hand, 
> in Soviet times, Moscow provided Russian-language schools in all 
> republics but did not provide any schools for non-Russians in their 
> language outside their titular territories.
>
>             Thus, while Ukrainians living in Ukraine did have schools in 
> Ukrainian, those Ukrainians living elsewhere did not, unlike Russians who 
> in almost all cases had Russian-language schools wherever they 
> lived.  The current situation is a survival of that past, one Ukrainians 
> and many other non-Russians decry.
>
>             And on the other, this pattern reflects an even older view, 
> long propounded by Russians and accepted by many Western specialists. 
> According to that view, Ukrainians and Belarusians are “byproducts” of 
> Russian ethno-national development, and thus it is entirely appropriate 
> that they be integrated linguistically and politically with the Russian 
> nation and state.
>
>               In fact, as the Ukrainians and Belarusians know and, as 
> statements like that of Kirilich last week show, are increasingly 
> prepared to defend, those two nations have a separate and distinct 
> ethno-national and political history, one that deserves equal treatment 
> and respect not only from the Russians but from all members of the 
> international community as well.
>
>
>
>
>
>

Vera Andrushkiw
Vice President for External Relations


U.S.-Ukraine Foundation
1701 K Street, N.W. Suite 903
Washington, DC 20006
Phone: (202) 223-2228 x 13
Fax: (202) 223-1224

E-mail: vandrushkiw at usukraine.org
On the Internet: www.usukraine.org  
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