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Borys Kosarev: Modernist Kharkiv, 1915-1931 at The Ukrainian Museum thru May 2, 2012
Posted by lesia on August 29, 2000 at 18:08:47:
In Reply to: Re: Language/Schools posted by Bohdan Oryshkevich on August 29, 2000 at 01:52:46:
Bogdan, why in another coutries the people have not problems with it? Example: Basque language was treated as rural a few years ago. Now there every child in the south part of Basque country study this language, and there are a lot of people studing it. It isnt so easy as Ukrainian for the people who know Russian, but the people do everything to know it. You cannot work in the Government, in the "official" places without a very good knowledge of the language. There are a lot of books in Basque, a lot of musik, there are Internet in Basque. Of course, it isnt a panacea for all problems of the country, but if they (a very small nation with a very difficult language) are proud to be Basque, not Spanish or Franch people, why in Ukraine there are Ukrainians who isnt proud to be Ukrainian?
: That is exactly what Ukraine began to do. But that has stalled. Initially in outlying areas. But then apparently centrally.
: Also I am not certain that it was fully enforced. Apparently there have been universal proclamations and laws about fact that Ukrainian is the official language. But Vice Premier Mykola Zhulynsky in his recent visit stated that despite such laws there are no rules on what should exactly be done. After a wave of enthusiasm the enthusiasm declined and people began to return to Russian.
: As one Ukrainian speaking student from Kyiv told me the Ukrainian language ruined her school. Why? The enthusiasm for the Ukrainian language brought unwelcome changes into the curriculum. The school introduced a rural style curriculum that was totally inappropriate to an urban school for the intelligentsia. That is the school began to go back in time to Ukraine's rural past. Or at least it was perceived to be doing so. So people began to rebel about this kind of factor also.
: The closest I could state that would be understandable to Americans would be schools in the South would be forced to returned to a Southern ante-bellum type curriculum and regional dialect.
: People also have to realize that virtually all students in Ukraine study Ukrainian. Their school may not use it to teach all subjects but Ukrainian is almost universally taught as a required subject. It is not used because it is perceived to be the language of the village. so in some ways it is taught the way students may learn Latin. Many perceive it to be the same language as Russian but a rural variant. It is the language of the folk songs and some styles of poetry but not of modern business, youth culture, or sport for that matter.
: Also educated Ukrainians are and have been universally bilingual for centuries. In other situations it has been Polish, or Hungarian, Czech, or even German. Since Ukrainians have been universally bilingual for centuries except in rural villages they do not place an emphasis on unilingualism as do many people in the Diaspora. The educated parents of the current so called Diaspora were mainly Polish or German or even Russian speakers in their professional life depending upon where they came from.
: The same has not happened with history interestingly enough. History today in Ukraine is thought from a patriotic perspective.
: I think that the low skill of the Ukrainian political leadership in Kyiv has also led to the decline of the prestige of the Ukrainian language. The language is not seen as the panacea that it is seen to be in the Diaspora.
: Bohdan Oryshkevich