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Borys Kosarev: Modernist Kharkiv, 1915-1931 at The Ukrainian Museum thru May 2, 2012
Posted by Ulf Pauli on March 30, 2000 at 06:34:42:
There is now a tendency towards discussing Ukrainian energy problems and who has the worse standard of living. But back to the language issue I still believe that Ukrainian shall be the official language of Ukraine as Russian is the official language of Russia. That does not mean that they who speak Russian as their mother tongue shall have no rights to use Russian. My impression from a visit to Ukraine and speaking both with Russians and Ukrainians was that the language issue was not a problem. I have experiences from working in Lithuania and following whats happening in the Baltic states and in Ukraine and Russia and I cannot help that I have the impression that many Russians have difficulties to accepte Ukrainian as an official language. If Russian is not an official language it is discrimination. Russians also seem to have little knowledge about the history of the Ukrainian language: forbidden during many years in the late 19th century and regarded as only a farmers dialect. Only in 1906 the Russian Academy aknowledged Ukrainian as an independent East-slavonic language. A Swedish politician once said that "there must be a state where Jews can be guaranteed not to be discriminated. Thatīs the most important argument for the state of Israel. I believe that Ukrainian language must be the official language in Ukraine to secure the existence and development of the Ukrainian language. With best wishes to both Ukrainian and Russian-speakers.