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Language Policy in Independent Ukraine: A Battle for National and Linguistic Empowerment

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Book cover Language Planning in the Post-Communist Era

Abstract

The present chapter describes and discusses language-planning developments in Ukraine, focusing especially on legislative measures in recent years, aimed at establishing Ukrainian as the country’s sole state language. The chapter also introduces historical, political and linguistic information that helps to put independent Ukraine’s language planning and policy in its proper perspective. Particular attention is paid to the recent language laws on ‘Ukrainization’ and on the disputes accompanying them, vis-a-vis the status of Russian.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    The Holodomor, was a man-made famine in Soviet Ukraine in 1932 and 1933 that killed an officially estimated 7 million to 10 million people. In Ukraine, the Holodomor has been recognized as a genocide of the Ukrainian people carried out by the Soviet regime. Since 2006, a number of governments and international organizations have also recognized the Holodomor as a crime against humanity or an act of genocide.

  2. 2.

    Later, the Shevchenko Scientific Society. In a curious detail, the republican communist authorities insisted on an alternative name for the new society, the Native Language (Ridna mova), instead of the Ukrainian Language Society (Nahaylo 1999: 121). From a sociolinguistic perspective, the omission of the word “Ukrainian” would have had a “limiting” effect on the society’s mission, symbolically separating millions of Russophone Ukrainians from its activities.

  3. 3.

    The importance of the law is indirectly supported by the fact that it had always been accused by the supporters of the pro-Russian political camp of “violating the human rights” of Russian speakers.

  4. 4.

    In 2000, Ivan Dzyuba wrote that the early independence years thrust of the Ukrainian language program had been wasted, and in many respects the position of the titular language 20 years down the line was worse than in the late 1980s (Dzyuba 2000).

  5. 5.

    For a detailed legal analysis of Ukraine ’s language legislation and its international obligations under the Framework Convention on Protection of National Minorities and the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages, see Bill Bowring (2009); Also available at http://www.bbk.ac.uk/law/downloads/bowring-pubs/langpolicyukraine

  6. 6.

    Now exiled in Vinnytsia.

  7. 7.

    Mustafa Dzemilev, leader of the Crimean Tatar national movement and member of the Ukrainian Parliament since 1998, declared the Kolesnichenko-Kivalov language law as “unacceptable” to the Crimean Tatars . There were even calls to recognize Ukrainian as a minority language in Crimea . See: http://www.unian.ua/society/669726-progolosovaniy-zakon-pro-movi-e-nepriynyatnim-dlya-krimskih-tatar.html

  8. 8.

    Speaking in public in October 2016, Vladimir Putin admitted of the role the language card played in the conflict: “We had to protect the Russian speaking population in Donbas”; Radio Svoboda, http://www.svoboda.org/a/28048368.html

  9. 9.

    Recent statistics, published in the Razumkov Centre’s 2016 report, reveals the prevalence of Ukrainian speakers among the ATO soldiers fighting in the east. As many as 73% of the respondents consider Ukrainian their native language as against 6% of Russian speaking combatants (Identychnist’ 2016). These findings feed into the ongoing public debate in Ukrainian society concerning language and patriotism. Is Ukrainian by default the language of the Ukrainian patriot? Is it legitimate to judge patriotism by the language a person speaks at home? Opinions on these questions reflect Ukrainians ’ individual linguistic and moral choices and their negotiation in the current circumstances (Polians’ka 2016). For Larysa Masenko, professor of the Kyiv Mohyla Academy and a well-known sociolinguist, the answer lies in the distinction between national and individual values. “A Russian speaking patriot […] defends his/her individual right to speak the language, which he/she finds convenient. A Ukrainian speaking patriot does not only defend his/her individual right to choose a language of communication, but also the right of the Ukrainian community to enjoy a dignified existence among the free nations.” (Masenko 2016). However pertinent, the whole debate on the language of patriotism seems somewhat contrived, when contrasted with striking personal accounts in Ukrainian and Russian of the soldiers defending Ukraine ’s independence in the Donbas. Their stories of unassuming heroism and dedication to their native land transmit a message that makes the medium (the language in which they are told) irrelevant. See Usna istoriia rosiisko-ukrain’skoi viiny (2014–2015), ed. by V. Moroko (Kyiv: K.I.C., 2015).

  10. 10.

    Law “On condemning the communist and National Socialist (Nazi) totalitarian regimes and prohibiting propaganda of their symbols”. For reference, see http://w1.c1.rada.gov.ua/pls/zweb2/webproc4_2?id=&pf3516=2558&skl=9. The bills were criticised by human rights organizations and international institutions as endangering the freedom of speech in Ukraine and criminalizing public expression of views still held by many Ukrainians .

  11. 11.

    For a full list of the new toponyms, see: http://www.memory.gov.ua/page/dekomunizatsiya-0

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Donetsk National University, Vinnytsia, Ukraine

    Vladislava Reznik

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  1. Vladislava Reznik
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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Linguistics, Indiana University Bloomington, Bloomington, IN, USA

    Ernest Andrews

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Reznik, V. (2018). Language Policy in Independent Ukraine: A Battle for National and Linguistic Empowerment. In: Andrews, E. (eds) Language Planning in the Post-Communist Era. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-70926-0_7

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-70926-0_7

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  • Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-319-70925-3

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-319-70926-0

  • eBook Packages: Social SciencesSocial Sciences (R0)

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