RUSSIA, UKRAINE WAGE WAR OF WORDS
By Askold Krushelnycky
Russia and Ukraine are engaged in an increasingly heated
war of words about language. The Russian government has
criticized Ukrainian policy aimed at making the use of the
Ukrainian language mandatory for all state officials and
increasing its use in schools. Russian organizations in both
Russia and Ukraine have joined in that criticism.
Last week, hundreds of people in the west Ukrainian city
of Lviv demonstrated to demand the closure of all Russian-
language publications. In the capital, Kyiv, nationalists
demanded that Russian be banned from official use and from
television.
Meanwhile in Russia, protesters from Russian Orthodox
organizations picketed the Ukrainian Embassy in Moscow. They
demanded equal rights for the Ukrainian and Russian languages
in Ukraine and what one of the organizations, the Christian
Rebirth Union, called "equal rights for ethnic Russians on
Ukrainian territory."
The upsurge in Russian concern follows Ukrainian
proposals in the last three months to increase the use of
Ukrainian in education and introduce Ukrainian-language tests
for state employees and officials. Russian-speakers are angry
that they may not be eligible for some state jobs unless they
learn Ukrainian. Some Russian community organizations in
Ukraine have characterized the moves as an attack on Russian
culture generally.
Last month, a Russian Foreign Ministry statement said
the measures could infringe upon human rights and damage what
it called "the cultural and linguistic environment." The
statement added that such actions in so sensitive an area as
language usually have "dire consequences."
Russian Human Rights Commissioner Oleg Mironov, for his
part, said that Ukraine's language proposals grossly violate
international norms, particularly the European Convention on
Human Rights, to which Ukraine is a signatory. He called the
scale of language discrimination in Ukraine "massive and
unprecedented."
In reply to the Russian charges, Ukrainian Foreign
Ministry spokesman Ihor Hrushko said that everyone in Ukraine
has the right to choose his or her language of education.
According to the Foreign Ministry, that is not true of
Russia, where, it added, the country's large Ukrainian
community has received very little official support for
Ukrainian-language publications or activities.
In any case, Hrushko commented, Kyiv is sure that its
proposals are in accordance with human rights norms. "We have
already informed the Russian side that if this practice of
groundlessly twisting the facts--that is, the real situation
concerning languages in Ukraine--continues, then the
Ukrainian side reserves the right to turn the matter over for
independent assessment by the Council of Europe, the OSCE's
(Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe) human
rights experts or other respected international bodies," he
told RFE/RL. "We are absolutely convinced that we are in the
right on this issue, and we are ready for any international
adjudication."
The language issue is an extremely emotional one
throughout the former Soviet Union. Non-Russians in most
former Soviet republics point out that they were forced to
use Russian in central and local government administration,
at the workplace, and in educational establishments. (Notable
exceptions were the three Transcaucasus republics, whose
respective republican constitutions proclaimed that the
mother tongue of the titular nationality was the state
language.) The use of a non-Russian native language was often
portrayed by Soviet authorities as evidence of nationalism,
and thousands were executed or sent to labor camps for trying
to defend their mother tongue.
Many Ukrainians, in particular, believe that during the
Soviet era, Russian was used as a weapon against the national
identity of non-Russian peoples. Under Soviet rule,
Ukrainians found it much safer to use the Russian language.
Besides, Russian was not only the language of opportunity in
education and at the workplace but also the predominant
language of literature and entertainment, including
television and films.
Within Ukraine, there is a pronounced east-west divide
in the use of language. Western Ukraine,. which was not
incorporated into the Soviet Union until after World War II,
is predominantly Ukrainian-speaking. Eastern Ukraine was
heavily russified under the tsar and later under communism.
The east also contains many of Ukraine's ethnic Russians, who
make up about one-fifth of the country's 50 million
inhabitants.
After Ukraine attained independence, Ukrainian became
the state language and was introduced into more schools and
institutes as the language of instruction. But one-third of
the country's schools continue to use Russian, and much
official business is still conducted in that language.
Moreover, Russian-language publications and television
programs abound.
Many Ukrainians say their language needs to be promoted
as an essential ingredient of national identity. They feel
little sympathy for Russians who are reluctant to learn the
language of the country they are living in.