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Law in a Linguistic Battlefield: The Language of the New State Versus the ‘Language of the Oppressors’ in Ukraine1. Bill Bowring Professor of Law, Birkbeck College,
University of London Abstract Article 10 of the 1996 Ukrainian Constitution proclaims that “The state language
of Ukraine shall be the
Ukrainian language” but continues: “Free development, use, and protection
of Russian and other languages
of national minorities of Ukraine
shall be guaranteed in Ukraine.”
Consolidating the position of the
state language was at the
centre of the "Orange Revolution", but President Yanukovich, elected in February
2010, has committed himself to a defence
of the Russian
language, as a regional language of Ukraine, and
the battle is on to
replace the Law on Languages
of the Ukrainian
SSR of 1989, which is still in
force. Ukraine has ratified the
Council of Europe’s European Charter for Regional
or Minority Languages. This article reflects on the relation
between language and law, and
endeavours to bring clarity to
a situation which at times resembles
an overheated kettle about to
explode. ·
URN: urn:nbn:de:0009-30-33434 1. Introduction In this article I analyse
the linguistic battlefield which now characterises
Ukraine, with particular reference to the Constitution and the relevant laws.
Despite the fact that the Ukrainian language has been spoken in the territory
of contemporary Ukraine for many centuries, Ukraine became an independent
state, arguably for the first time in history, on the collapse of the USSR in
late 1991. In a further irony, the region where Ukrainian is strongest, Lviv Oblast, historically part of Galicia, was not part of
Ukraine until the Soviet period, having previously been a Polish, an Austro-Hungarian,
and a Lithuanian city. The fate of the Russian language in Ukraine, and indeed
of the Ukrainian language itself in Ukraine, has been at the centre of heated political debates ever since independence. My approach is based on my experience over many years
as a scholar and legal expert – for the EU, Council of Europe, and OSCE - with
regard to Ukraine (see Bowring 1998, 1999, 2002, 2005, 2006, 2008, 2008a). I start with the current situation, and continue with
a brief account of the differences between the Ukrainian and Russian languages,
and Ukraine’s linguistic complexity. I next turn to the Constitution, followed
by an examination of the 1989 (!) Law on Languages. I
place this in the context of the most relevant of Ukraine’s international legal
commitments, the 1992 European Charter for Regional or Minority
Languages. I analyse some of the factors tending
to exacerbate the language situation in Ukraine, including the justified fears
of the new state’s elite that the Ukrainian language might disappear
altogether, the fears of leaders of the Russian speakers, and finally the much
more contentious question of genocide – or the “holodomor”
as it is termed in Ukraine. 2. The current situation More than two years ago, on 14 February 2010 Viktor Yanukovich, who is in fact ethnic Belorussian, won the
Ukrainian presidential elections, beating Yulia Tymoshenko by just 3.48 percentage points (Polityuk & Balmforth, 2010).
Despite having campaigned on a promise to make Russian the second official
language of Ukraine, in March 2010 President Yanukovich
recognised that awarding Russian official status
would be very difficult, and would require an amendment to the 1996
Constitution. Instead, he stressed the importance of implementing the Council
of Europe’s 1992 European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages.
Boris Kolesnikov, the deputy head of the Party of
Regions was reported as saying "Taking the European Charter of
Languages as a guide, we have prepared a very good law, which the President
will present in the next 15-20 days. In that draft law, we give the regions
certain rights [in relation to the Russian language]. If, in certain regions,
they don’t want to implement that, then it’s up to them." (Masalkova, 2010) To date, no such law has been adopted, an issue to
which I return below. Indeed, on 24
March 2011, Aleksey Ostrovskiy, Chairman of the
Committee on CIS Affairs of the Russian State Duma, told a round table meeting
on "The Russian and Russian language movement in Ukraine" that Russia
was waiting for President Yanukovich to fulfil his pre-election promise on the status of the
Russian language. [1] 3. The differences between the Russian and
Ukrainian languages Ukrainian, Belarussian and
Russian are the three East Slavic languages (Sussex & Cubberley
2006), and all are descended from the language spoken in the 10th century
in Kievan Rus. However, Russian and Ukrainian have
grown apart, and Ukrainian now contains many words quite different from their
Russian equivalents. To take one significant example, Independence Square in
Kyiv is ploshchad nezavisimosti in
Russian, but maidan nezalezhnosti in Ukrainian. The author
of this chapter is fluent in Russian, but understands the TV news in Ukrainian
only by focusing very hard. He can understand the gist of a conversation in
Ukrainian, but, in common with most Russians, could not join in even if he
wished to do so. Although many Ukrainian words have Polish roots, the
theory of "Polonisation" of an original
common Slavic language is largely discredited. The most convincing explanation
of the difference between Ukrainian and Russian is as follows. In the 13th
century, eastern parts of Rus (including Moscow) were
subjugated by the "Mongol Tatars" (the "Tatar yoke",
1240-1480) until their unification under the Muscovy, whereas the south-western
areas (including Kyiv) were incorporated into the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. For
the following four centuries, the languages of the two regions evolved in
relative isolation from each other. Direct written evidence of the existence of
the Ukrainian language dates to the late 16th century (Zizaniy
1596). The most noticeable difference is that the hard "g" in Russian
becomes "h" in Ukrainian. This is how Russians identify Ukrainians,
although the "h" is also to be heard in the Kuban and elsewhere in
southern Russia. This chapter deliberately does not deal with other
minority languages in Ukraine: these comprise 4.9% of the population. I have
been specially concerned with the Crimean Tatars since the early 1990s, but the
list of ethno-linguistic communities includes (Council of Europe 2010) 275,800 Belorussians; 258,600 Moldovans; 248,000 Crimean Tatars;
240,000 Bulgarians; 156,600 Hungarians; 151,000 Romanians; 144,100 Poles;
103,600 Jews; 99,900 Armenians; 91,500 Greeks; 73,300 Tatars; 47,600 Roma;
45,200 Azerbaijanians; 34,200 Georgians; 33,300
Germans; and 31,900 Gagauz. 4. Ukraine’s linguistic complexity There is a wide discrepancy between declared ethnicity
(Russian, Ukrainian or other), and actual language use. Ukraine may be unique
in this regard. In 1995, Dominique Arel wrote that
Ukraine is a basically a bi-ethnic state, with 37.4 million inhabitants
describing themselves as Ukrainian, and 11.4 million as Russians. (Arel 1995, 598). In 2002, he
commented that: "Any visitor to Kyiv or heavily urbanized Eastern Ukraine
can attest to the fact that the Ukrainian language is seldom used in the
streets. Reliable survey opinion polls conducted throughout the past decade
have indicated that approximately one out of three ethnic Ukrainians in the
whole of Ukraine prefers to use Russian at home. In Eastern Ukraine, the
proportion is nearly one out of two." (Arel
2002, 238) The 2001 Census showed that between the Soviet census
of 1989 and the Ukrainian census of 2001, Ukraine's population declined from
51,706,600 to 48,457,020, a loss of 2,926,700 people or 5.7% of the 1989
population. Of these, 37,541 693 described themselves as Ukrainians, and
8,334,141 as Russians. Of the ethnic Ukrainians, 31,970,728 reported that
Ukrainian was their “native language” and 5,544,729 reported that it was
Russian. Of the ethnic Russians, 7,993, 832 reported that Russian was their
"native language", and 328,152 reported Ukrainian. As I show below,
this is not a report of actual language use. More than half the population of
Ukraine use Russian on a daily basis. It is the experience of this author that
many people switch from one language to the other without hesitation or even conscious
decision. When the first post-Soviet census was conducted in
2001, ten years after the collapse of the USSR, 77.8% of those living in
Ukraine responded that their ethnic origin was Ukrainian, as against 17.3%
Russian, and 4.9% other. It should be recalled that in the USSR
"nationality" (or ethnicity) was fixed by the nationality of one’s
parents, and endorsed on the internal passport which every Soviet citizen was
required to carry. The number of "Russians" fell by 25% in comparison
with the last Soviet census of 1989. It should also be noted that according to
the CIA Factbook the (shrinking) population is now
45,415,596, a considerable further fall. The Council of Europe’s Committee of Experts,
considering in 2008 Ukraine’s Initial Report for the European Charter
for Regional or Minority Languages(Languages Charter), reported that 77.8%
of census respondents state they are ethnically Ukrainian, while 17.3% say they
are Russian. (Council of Europe, 2010, 5) But this does not reflect the real
numbers of Ukrainian and Russian speakers. Thus, according to the 2001 census
(Ukraine 2001), 5.6 million (15.8%) of the (self-declared) ethnic Ukrainians
identified Russian as their mother tongue, and 0.3 million ethnic Russians
(3.9%) identified Ukrainian as their mother tongue (in fact the census used the
phrase "native tongue"). 67.5% of all inhabitants of Ukraine declared
Ukrainian as their mother tongue, and 29.6% for Russian. Some 99.5% of ethnic
Russians consider Russian to be their mother tongue. 5. Law and constitution on the language question
in Ukraine At this point I turn to issues of law and constitution
in Ukraine. Article 10 of the 1996 Constitution of independent Ukraine
provides: The state language of Ukraine is the Ukrainian
language. The State ensures the comprehensive development and functioning of
the Ukrainian language in all spheres of social life throughout the entire
territory of Ukraine. In Ukraine, the free development, use and protection of
Russian, and other languages of national minorities of Ukraine, is guaranteed. This provision was interpreted in the decision of the
Ukrainian Constitutional Court, delivered on 14 December 1999, clarifying
Article 10 of the Constitution. (Constitutional Court of
Ukraine, 1999). Ukrainian is stated in Article 10 to be the
state language. Controversially, the view of the majority of judges went
further. They found that the Ukrainian language was the "compulsory means
of communication for officials of government bodies and local self-government
structures, and in other spheres of public life" including education. In
this decision, it is also stated that "local government bodies, bodies of
Crimean Autonomous Republic and local self-government bodies may use Russian
and other languages of national minorities along with the state language". There was one strong dissent, by Judge Mironenko (Mironenko, 1999).
According to him, the Court had paid too little attention to an important
sentence of Article 10: "In Ukraine, the free development, use and
protection of Russian, other languages of national minorities of Ukraine, is
guaranteed". In fact, the Constitutional Court's judgment has made
little difference on the ground, but the majority's opinion significantly
raised the temperature of relations between the Ukrainian authorities and
Russian speakers. 6. The anachronism of the "Law on
Languages" Ukraine has a law governing the use of the Ukrainian
and other languages. This is the Law of the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic
"On Languages" of 1989, as amended in 1995, (Ukraine 1989), which not
only pre-dates the Constitution, but is still in force (so far as it does not
contradict the Constitution). Despite the presentation of many drafts to the
Ukrainian parliament, there has as yet been no viable replacement. The great
significance of this law, adopted in the USSR, was the promotion of Ukrainian
to the position of state language of Ukraine – even as the Ukrainian SSR. It is
worth reproducing the Preamble in full. The Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic acknowledges
the vital and societal value of all national languages and guarantees the
national cultural and linguistic rights to its citizens without reservation,
assuming that only the free development and equal standing of national
languages, the high linguistic culture are the basis of the mutual spiritual
understanding, reciprocal cultural enrichment and strengthening of the
friendship between people. The Ukrainian language is one of the important factors
of the national authenticity of the Ukrainian people. The Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic vests the
Ukrainian language with the status of the state language in order to support
the comprehensive development of spiritual creative forces of the Ukrainian
people and guarantee its sovereign national state future. The development of the understanding of the social
value of the Ukrainian language as the state language of the Ukrainian Soviet
Socialist Republic and the Russian language as the language of the interethnic
communication of peoples of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics among
citizens regardless of their national affiliation shall be the duty of the
state, party and public bodies and mass media of the Republic. The choice of
the language of the interpersonal communication among citizens of the Ukrainian
Soviet Socialist Republic shall be an inalienable right of citizens themselves. The first paragraph of the Preamble refers to
"all national languages" and to "free development and equal
standing of national languages". These formulations are not at all clear.
If the word "national" is used with the same sense as in the phrase
"national minority", then it may be presumed that
"national" in this context means "ethnic". However, what it
should mean is "all the languages actually spoken on the territory of Ukraine." The second paragraph of the Preamble contains a phrase
not often used in a legal context, "National authenticity". This
formulation directly contradicts the first sentence of the preamble of
the Constitution, which refers to "the Ukrainian people — citizens of
Ukraine of all nationalities". The preamble to the 1989 Law therefore
refers only to a part of the "Ukrainian people" as defined in the
Constitution. As to the reference to "authenticity", this is "samobytnost" both in Ukrainian and in Russian.
In my view, "authenticity" is a better translation than the usual
"originality". The use of this term is also highly questionable
politically, since it tends to essentialise both
ethnic Ukrainians and the Ukrainian language. It also places an extraordinary
burden on the preservation of the Ukrainian language. If "the Ukrainian
people" has the same meaning as in the Constitution, then the third
paragraph of the Preamble also violates the Constitution, or it is
self-contradictory. The development of the spiritual creative forces of
citizens of Ukraine of all nationalities cannot be supported by vesting just
one language with the status of the state language. It is very hard to make any
juridical sense of the fourth sentence of the Preamble. It is not clear what is
meant by the "social value" of Ukrainian and Russian. And the formulation concerning Russian as "the
language of interethnic communication of peoples of the USSR", even in the
Law as amended in 1995, is not only redundant but also hard to understand. Several provisions of the Law not only refer to the
former USSR, but are in some cases, as already pointed out, inconsistent with
the Constitution. Article 1 refers to "Ukrainian and other
languages used by the population of the Republic", rather than to
ethnicity or mother tongue. In this regard it is fully compliant with
international standards. Article 2 declares that the Ukrainian language is the
state language of Ukraine, and this is entirely proper. Ukraine’s right to
decide on its state language is its right in international law. The third
paragraph states, commendably, that all citizens will have the means to learn
Ukrainian; hopefully that means free of charge. Every Ukrainian citizen must of
course learn Ukrainian. However, Article 3 deals with the "use of
languages of other nations" in Ukraine, and to use of the "national
languages", as well as "citizens of another nationality". This
appears to assume that there are distinct "nations" (on an ethnic
basis) in Ukraine and that each has its own language. Such an assumption would
contradict the Constitution and the international commitments of Ukraine. It should be noted that the scheme of the FCNM and the
Languages Charter, as well as the OSCE commitments, is that there are
"national minorities", membership of which is a matter of individual
choice rather than an ethno-political decision; and that members of national
minorities may use their languages. This of course does not exclude that
several languages may be used by one person. Article 4 specifies that in the Ukrainian SSR,
Ukrainian, Russian and other languages will be the languages of inter-ethnic
communication. Furthermore, the state will provide for the free use of the
Russian language as the language of inter-ethnic communication for the peoples
of the USSR. Article 5 provides for the right of citizens to "use"
their "national" or any other languages. Citizens are entitled to
address state and other public bodies in Ukrainian or Russian; and decisions
must be issued in Russian if a citizen so decides. This provision must have
been superseded by the Languages Charter, and the specific level of
implementation of Article 10 upon which Ukraine decides. Article 6 requires all
public officials as well as officials of "institutions and organisations" to be or to become fluent in both
Ukrainian and Russian, and, if necessary, in another "national"
language. This too should be superseded by implementation of the Languages
Charter. Article 25 is highly important ,
declaring that the "free choice of the language of education shall be the
inalienable right" of Ukrainian citizens. It goes on that the right of
each child to upbringing and education in the national language shall be
guaranteed, and protected by the establishment of state schools with upbringing
and teaching in Ukrainian and "other national languages". This right
is further explained in the following articles. For example, Article 27
provides that "in places of compact residence of citizens of other
nationalities" the state will establish secondary schools for children
"in their national or another language". Furthermore, the study of
Ukrainian and Russian is mandatory. Implementation of this provision would mean
a substantially higher level of implementation of Article 8 of the Languages
Charter than presently appears in Ukraine’s Instrument of Ratification. It is a
splendid aspiration, but requires detail as to the level of demand required to
trigger minority language or bi-lingual education. Furthermore, attention
should be given to the proven cognitive and educational advantages of
bi-lingual education. In 1995 Dominique Arel wrote
(Arel 1996, 599) : The Ukrainian language law, passed in October 1989,
was a defensive reaction of the communist old guard, which could no longer
justify the status quo, since eight Soviet republics had enacted language laws
earlier in that fateful year. It was adopted by the old Soviet Ukrainian
parliament, which meant that deliberations during the preparation of the draft
law remained secret. Public debate was lively, although it was restricted
mostly to intellectual circles, and could be expressed only in a few glasnost
'-breaking outlets, since the conservative authorities still maintained a tight
control on the media. The robustly independent political scientist Volodymyr Kulyk has interpreted
the 1989 law in the following way. On the one hand, "Russian was to retain
its legitimacy in virtually all social practices as the language of
inter-ethnic communication"; on the other hand proclamation of Ukrainian
as the state language, to be enshrined in the 1996 Constitution, instituted a
"nation-state programme", supported by
Galicia and similar regions. Nevertheless, the 1989 Law has set the boundaries
and the tone for all subsequent developments. As Kulyk
observes (Kulyk 2006, 291), its apparent ambiguity is
the direct result of Soviet policy, which while promoting Russian as the
accepted language of public and private communication, at the same time ensured
that … the Ukrainian language was
by no means illegitimate. Not only was its existence as a separate language
unequivocally accepted, which in itself constituted a tremendous change in
comparison with the Tsarist policy of treating it as a dialect of Russian and
banning its use in most public domains. Kulyk
also points out that Ukrainian was seen as a natural "native
language" of ethnic Ukrainians. His own conclusion is that this provided
the "common-sense" basis for "highly contradictory ideological
messages" with regard to the relationship between Ukrainian nation-building
and the continued presence of the Russian language in so many spheres of life,
which in turn "discouraged the perception of ethnolinguistic
matters in terms of human rights and adherence to the law". (Kulyk, 2006, 310) 7. What is the language of legislation? According to paragraph 377, page 50, of the Committee
of Experts' Report of 2008 (Council of Europe 2010): Pursuant to a Decree of the President dated December
1996 No. 1207/96 'On publishing legislative acts of Ukraine in the
news-bulletin Official Bulletin of the Verkhovna Rada', the Ministry of Justice of Ukraine was instructed to
ensure that laws and other regulatory legal acts of Ukraine were also published
in the Russian language. Therefore, any law signed by the President of Ukraine,
as well as the laws that have been officially made public by the Chairman of
the Verkhovna Rada, are
published in Ukrainian and Russian. In fact, this statement is somewhat misleading. The
web-site of the Verkhovna Rada
publishes summaries of legislation in English, but there are no such summaries
in Russian. Russian translations of Ukrainian laws are nowhere to be found on
the web-site. Russian translations of Ukrainian laws are only to be found
through private, commercial web-sites, for example SoyuzPravoInform (http://www.spinform.ru/)
which translates the legislation of all CIS countries. The site explains that
"normative documents in Ukraine are published in the state (Ukrainian)
language." The author has not been able to find any internet
source for Russian translations of Ukrainian laws, and in his experience these
are hardly to be found in bookshops. The absence of reliable, authoritative
translations puts Russian speakers at a serious disadvantage. 8. What is the Council of Europe’s Languages
Charter? The 1992 European Charter for Regional or Minority
Languages (Languages Charter) has already enjoyed a complex and
contradictory history in Ukraine (Bowring & Antonovych,
2008). It was ratified twice, in 1999 and 2003. However, Ukraine’s Instrument
of Ratification did not reach Strasbourg until 19 September 2005, and came into
force for Ukraine on 1 January 2006. Almost immediately, a number of Ukraine’s
regions enacted legislation declaring Russian to be their “regional language”;
and defects in the translation of the Charter into Ukrainian meant that the
Instrument of Ratification will in due course be revised. Ukraine’s Initial
Periodical Report was dated 2 August 2007 (Ukraine 2007), but the publication
of the Opinion of the Charter’s Committee of Experts although adopted on 27
November 2008, was blocked by disagreement for a considerable period, and was
finally published on 7 July 2010 (Council of Europe, 2010). The Charter is a unique instrument, which does not
protect minority groups, or even members of minority
groups, but rather languages as such. The underlying philosophy of the Charter
is the protection of cultural and linguistic diversity. It was believed by its
drafters that ratification would pose no difficulties for those countries such
as Turkey and France which do not recognise the
existence of any minority on their territory. However, Turkey has not even
signed the Charter, and the French Conseil
Constitutionnel blocked France’s
ratification. Furthermore, the complexity of ratifying the Charter may be
illustrated by Ukraine’s neighbour, Russia, which has
signed the Charter, and is working on ratification, assisted by a ˆ3m joint programme of the EU and Council of Europe, in which the
present author an expert. Russia has over 100 languages other than Russian, and
35 of them are taught in schools. There are a number of schools in Russia where
Tatar is the language of instruction: the Tatars are the largest minority, some
5.5 million strong. But the second largest minority, the Ukrainians, have no schools,
This is a source of considerable resentment, when
there are still over a thousand schools in Ukraine with Russian as the language
of instruction. Since the issue of language policy is so politicised in Ukraine, the instruments and mechanisms to
which Ukraine has now committed itself have also
acquired specific political significance and symbolic weight. Reeta Toivanen, in her article "Linguistic Diversity and the
Paradox of Rights Discourse." (Toivanen,
2007) provides a useful analysis of these problems (Bowring 2008). The issue
with which she engages is as follows (Toivanen, 2007,
101): … whether language rights
presuppose a fixed conception of such rights, applying to
potentially homogenous and static groups, whose ‘genuine’ language needs
protection. Upon examination… it becomes apparent that many of the groups
treated as ‘language minorities’ are actually seeking official recognition of
either their cultural distinctiveness or their difference, while language is
only one element – often of varying importance – of their group identity. She wishes to show that language is "an
instrumental symbol, which can easily be put to serve some of the political
purposes of the minority, relying on the generalised
belief diffuse in our societies that language, as one’s mother tongue, is a
natural sign of one’s ethnic identity." (Toivanen,
2007, 105) This is strongly associated with the belief that "one nation
speaks one language". This project has shown in various ways that Ukraine
is manifestly a space in which there are several "nations", and that
none of them has a unique language. She cites Pierre Bourdieu (Bourdieu 2007) to good
effect, insisting that language boundaries, real or imagined, can easily be
exploited politically – as in Ukraine! (Toivanen
2007, 106-7) Bourdieu observes the "phenomenon of the performative
character typical of ethno-political entrepreneurs, who may live 'off' as well
as 'for' ethnicity. By invoking groups, they seek to evoke them, summon them, call them into being. It has been the author's own
observation over the years since his first working visit in 1992 that the
concerns and demands voiced by ethno-nationalist leaders (sometimes
self-appointed) frequently bear little or no relation to the lived reality of
the people they claim to represent. For the most part the mass of the people
inhabit a multi-lingual world without too much stress. As regards Ukraine’s treaty obligations, Toivanen notices that many of the existing minority rights
instruments – like the 1994 Framework Convention on Protection of National
Minorities (FCNM) and the Languages Charter – "treat minority groups as
homogenous and static groups carrying a distinct and genuine language as a
permanent feature." (Toivanen 2007, 107) This essentialising of both ethnicity and language use is – see
above - a significant feature of Ukrainian legislation, especially the 1989 law
"On languages of the Ukrainian SSR". She also points out that the Languages Charter
"relates mainly to those language groups whose protection and promotion
may contribute to the furthering of democracy in Europe, without however jeopardising national sovereignty and territorial
integrity", to use the words of the Preamble.(Toivanen 2007, 109) Her impression after reading the FCNM
is that its provisions taken together carry the message that "a nation,
even one in a minority position, speaks one language." (Toivanen, 2007, 109-110) It is manifestly the case in Ukraine that ethnic or
"national" groups do not speak one language. There is, however, a
strong view held by many political actors that they ought to. The Council of Europe’s Committee of Experts for the
Languages Charter, in their 2008 Report, noted that several local and regional
authorities had invoked the Charter "as a basis for recognising
the Russian language as 'regional in the sense of the [Charter]'." The
Committee understood that
this issue is at the heart of an intense public discussion… There is clearly a
gap between those who consider that Russian is just one minority language among
many others, and those advocating that Russian must continue to play an
important role as being the language spoken by a very high proportion of the
Ukrainian population and having traditionally been the language of inter-ethnic
communication in Ukraine.” The Committee reminded itself that the status of a
language is a matter of internal policy, with no clear guidance from the
Charter. The Committee would not challenge the Ukrainian legislation so long as
Russian receives "the necessary protection". "However, given the
number of Russian speakers in Ukraine, it is clear that the Russian language
must be accorded a special position." (Council of Europe, 2010, 13) 9. Is the Ukrainian language in danger? The Ukrainian language is very widely spoken in
Ukraine, but many Ukrainians, rightly proud of their country and the fact that
it has at last achieved independence, are dismayed by the example of the Irish
Republic (Eire). This fear has been voiced by a number of the author’s
interlocutors in Ukraine (Bowring 2008). The Irish (Gaelic) language suffered
long persecution by England and then Great Britain, and was for centuries
suppressed even more fiercely than was Ukrainian in either the Tsarist Empire
or the Soviet Union. Irish is of course a Celtic language, which has no
connection whatsoever with English. Eire only achieved independence in 1922 following the
abortive Dublin Uprising of 1916, and then several years of bloody warfare. The
Irish Constitution of 1937 provides in Article 8: 1. The Irish language as the national language is the
first official language. 2. The English language is recognised
as a second official language. 3. Provision may, however, be made by law for the
exclusive use of either of the said languages for any one or more official
purposes, either throughout the State or in any part thereof. No such law has yet been enacted. The Irish language is taught to all school-children.
All official signs are written in both languages, and there is broadcasting in
Irish. However, outside the Gaeltacht, the small
coastal areas and islands where the inhabitants are effectively paid to speak
Irish, the Irish language is rarely heard, with only 7% of the population
stating in the last census that they use Irish on a daily basis. English
language, popular culture and media dominate. Nic Shuibhne (1999) observed as follows: It is a common feature of linguistic minorities that
they strive to achieve the version of official recognition that they have not
been accorded. The Irish language is unique in that its constitutional status
goes far beyond mere recognition and confers upon it the privileged position of
national and first official language of the State. But its de facto minority
status has been largely ignored. Of course, the parlous state of the Irish language
makes Ireland no less independent. It has become an enthusiastic – often a
leading - member of the EU (of which Irish is now one of the official
languages). However, for those who believe that each nation must have its
language, and that this language expresses the "national authenticity (samobytnost)" of the nation (as in the Preamble
to the 1989 Law "On languages of the Ukrainian SSR"), the Irish
example gives real cause for concern. Many of the laws and policies of
post-independence governments which Russian speakers find so threatening are
responses to the not unreasonable fears referred to above. This author in common with many Russian-speakers in
Ukraine is firmly of the view that Ukraine is entitled to its state language,
and that every citizen of Ukraine, even if educated in another language, must
acquire a good command of the state language. Furthermore, the requirement that
entrants to higher education should be able to demonstrate competence in
Ukrainian appears to be perfectly reasonable. 10. The complaints of (leaders of) the Russian
speaking community One of the most prolific advocates for the Russian
language in Ukraine is Vadim Kolesnichenko,
a Verkhovna Rada deputy and
chair of the NK "Russian-speaking Ukraine". In July 2010, when the Report
of the Committee of Experts for the Languages Charter was published, he and his
assistant Ruslan Bortnik
wrote (Kolesnichenko & Bortnik,
2010) with regard to the period from 17 May 2007 to 18 May 2008: "… the
policy of the state of Ukraine regarding regional or minority languages assumed
even more threatening forms and the character of notorious suppression and
extrusion of these language from all spheres of life of the society" and
"The list of egregious facts of discrimination and annihilation of regional
or minority languages in Ukraine also grew drastically." Here is an example: On 25 December 2007 the Minister of Education of
Ukraine signed Order No. 1171 regarding external testing of school leavers
(graduates of comprehensive schools) wishing to enter higher educational
institutions in 2008. The Order requires the tests to be taken exclusively in
Ukrainian (with a 2 year suspension)! The pupils who lacked knowledge of
Ukrainian for taking tests were offered some small glossary with the translation
of basic terms. Herein, currently in Ukraine the pupils are taught in
Crimean Tatar, Moldovan, Romanian, Hungarian, Polish, Russian and other
languages, i.e. the languages protected by the Law of Ukraine "On
Ratification of European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages
Fulfillment" No. 802-IV, dated 15 May 2003, and the schools that teach
pupils in regional or minority language make up a network of more than 1,500
schools with more than 500,000 pupils. Consequently, the pupils taught in
regional or minority languages in Ukraine are actually deprived of the right to
higher education and discriminated on the basis of language spoken, since they
are put into knowingly unequal competitive conditions of entering the
university compared with pupils who are taught in the state language. There have indeed been dramatic changes. In 1987, in
the late Soviet period, 72% of schools taught in Russian, only 16% in
Ukrainian, and 12% were mixed. By 2001 1,300 schools had switched from Russian
to Ukrainian. By 8 June 2006, the second Ukrainian Report to the Advisory
Committee of the Council of Europe’s Framework Convention for the Protection of
National Minorities (FCNM), the number of Russian schools had fallen from 2,561
to 1,345, and the number of pupils in Russian language education from 2,313,901
to 525,260. But in the view of the author, there are perfectly
practical reasons why even Russian-speaking parents send their children to
Ukrainian language schools. Volodymyr Kulyk (2006, 2010), as well as Anna Wylegała writing on Lviv (Wylegała 2010) and Margrethe Søvik on Kharkiv (Søvik, 2010) showing that the reality in most of
Ukraine is of bilingualism. This was also the experience of the author in 2009
visiting Kyiv, Donetsk, Lviv and Simferopol with the
OSCE’s High Commissioner on National Minorities. Most observers, including the author, are struck by
the way that Ukrainian and Russian co-exist at street level. Shumlianskyi (2010) argues that conflicts arise not in the
practice of language use but rather in the presentation of abstractions by
political leaders. In a recent analysis of language in the mass media, Kulyk observed (Kulyk 2010, 96). that On the one hand, Ukrainian appears in media discourse
on language matters as the language of the state and society, the one which
citizens (should) identify with and which, accordingly, the state rightly
supports. On the other, Russian is presented as an acceptable language of
virtually all social practices both by the non-problematizing portrayal of its
use by various actors and by the language use of the media itself. Since independence, there has been a constant tension
between the notion of "mother-tongue", and language actually used in
private and in public. Arel reported an example from
the 2001 census campaign, of a Kyiv student who was fluent in Ukrainian but
preferred to use Russian at home and with his friends. He had been brought up
in Russian. Arel pointed out that by any definition,
Russian was his mother tongue. Yet the 2001 census enquired about "native
language" rather than "mother tongue", and the student chose
Ukrainian, on the grounds that "I am not Russian" (Arel, 2002, 240). And Kulyk
reported in 2008: Given that native language is often considered to be
the language of one’s nationality rather than one’s own use, many people
speaking mostly or even exclusively Russian still declare their native language
to be Ukrainian. Accordingly, this declaration does not determine the
respondent’s policy preference, as it may result from different patterns of
everyday use and different cultural orientations…. Even more ambiguous is the
declaration of one’s Ukrainian nationality, which encompasses not only
different language practices but also different language identifications (in
our sample, 30 per cent of those defining themselves as Ukrainians declared
their native language to be Russian or both). And Laada Bilaniuk (2010) has analysed the
phenomenon also frequently noted by the present author, of television programmes and interviews in which a question is asked in Ukrainian
and answered, quite un-selfconsciously and without
provoking any comment, in Russian. Given the rather feverish debate as to
language policy in Ukraine she was struck by "… the prevalence of a
practice I call 'non-accommodating bilingualism': speaking one’s preferred
language, Ukrainian or Russian, when this is not the language spoken by one’s
interlocutor, thereby maintaining a conversation in two languages." (Bilaniuk 2010, 105). This leads
her to a rather optimistic conclusion (Bilaniuk,
2010, 114): The acceptability of the practice of non-accommodating
bilingualism facilitates the growing presence of Ukrainian in domains where it
was previously unacceptable and marginalized, without the drastic shift that
would require everyone to change established language habits. Those people who
feel so inclined can choose to speak Ukrainian in spheres previously dominated
by Russian, such as science, politics, and popular culture, even if others
around them speak Russian. 11. Politicising
Ukrainian-Russian relations - the Holodomor or
Genocide of the Ukrainian people Unfortunately, the politicisation
of the language question in Ukraine is augmented by the discourse concerning
the pre-WW II genocide or holodomor of
the Ukrainian people. The author became familiar with this discourse when
teaching at the National University "Kyiv-Mohyla
Academy" in Kyiv. The history of the Academy is an exemplar of the history
of Ukraine. It was originally founded by the Metropolitan of Kyiv Petro Mohyla in 1615, and enjoyed its golden age during the reign
of Hetman Ivan Mazepa (from 1687 to 1709). It was
closed by the authorities of the Russian Empire in 1817 following Aleksandr I’s victory over Napoleon, and re-opened only
following the collapse of the USSR in 1991. It considers itself to be
"truly Ukrainian", and it "… strives to make the modern Academy
the intellectual symbol of Ukraine in modern times." It is rated the one
of the two best universities in Ukraine. The languages of instruction are
Ukrainian and English, and the author was required to submit to a vote before
he was permitted to address the Academic Council of the Law Faculty in Russian.
However, he observed that many if not most of the students speak Russian, as do
most inhabitants of Kyiv, outside the classroom. The term "genocide" was coined in 1943 by
Rafael Lemkin, and developed in his 1944 book “Axis
Rule in Occupied Europe: Laws of Occupation - Analysis of Government -
Proposals for Redress”. It was identified as a crime in the UN’s 1948 Convention
on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, which also
contains a legal definition which is now, for example, part of the Statute of
the International Criminal Court. In 1953 Lemkin wrote Soviet
Genocide in the Ukraine (Lemkin 1953, 2008),
in which he distinguished four characteristics: 1) the annihilation of the
Ukrainian intelligentsia, the ‘national brain’; 2) the liquidation of the
Ukrainian Orthodox Autocephalous church, the ‘national soul’; 3) the “holodomor” of the Ukrainian peasantry, the repository
of the tradition, folklore and music, the national language and literature, the
national spirit, of Ukraine - between 1932 and 1933, 5,000,000 Ukrainians
starved to death; and 4) the fragmentation of the Ukrainian people at once by
the addition to Ukraine of foreign peoples and by the dispersion of the
Ukrainians throughout Eastern Europe. For Lemkin,
this all led to "the systematic destruction of the Ukrainian nation, in
its progressive absorption within the new Soviet nation." In a careful recent legal analysis, Zemlyanska (2009) does not consider that the facts amounted
to genocide by the Soviet Union, especially since many of those who executed
the policy of elimination of the peasantry were Ukrainians. This was in her
view, however, a crime against humanity. This was also the view of the European
Parliament in its resolution of 23 October 2008, which "recognizes the Holodomor (the artificial famine of 1932-1933 in Ukraine)
as an appalling crime against the Ukrainian people, and against humanity."
The Parliament deliberately did not use the term "genocide". The discourse within Ukraine is quite different. On 28
November 2006 the Verkhovna Rada,
enacted the Law "On the Holodomor of 1932-1933
in Ukraine" (No.376-V). The law established that the Holodomor
was genocide against the Ukrainian People, and that
public negation of the Holodomor dishonours
the memory of millions of the Holodomor victims and
humiliates the dignity of the Ukrainian People, and shall be deemed
illegitimate. In March 2007 President Yushchenko
submitted a draft law "On Amendments to the Criminal and the Procedural
Criminal Codes of Ukraine" for consideration by the Verkhovna
Rada, envisaging prosecution for public denial of the
Holodomor as genocide of the Ukrainian people, and of
the Holocaust as genocide of the Jewish people. The proposed punishment for
public denial and production and dissemination of materials containing a denial
was a fine of 100 to 300 untaxed minimum salaries, or imprisonment for up to
two years. This draft never became law. On 27 April 2010 the Our Ukraine party accused
President Yanukovich of “holodomor
denial” after he told the spring session of the Parliamentary Assembly of the
Council of Europe (PACE) that the famine could not be considered genocide as it
was "a common tragedy of the Soviet people." The draft PACE
resolution on the famine says it was caused by "the cruel and deliberate
actions and policies of the Soviet regime" responsible for the deaths of
"millions of innocent people," not only in Ukraine, but also in
Belarus, Kazakhstan, Moldova and Russia. Pyotr
Romanov (2008) shared the view of many Russians when he wrote "[i]nstead of blaming the Russian
nation, Kiev ought to condemn Marxism and Stalinism." Indeed, there are
texts which seek to implicate Russia in genocide. A handout for students
recently produced by the Ukrainian Genocide Famine Foundation states that
"Russia and the Soviet Union wished to eradicate the Ukrainian people as a
separate ethno-cultural entity." (Ukrainian Genocide Famine Foundation,
2009) If this was the desire of "Russia", then for ultra-nationalists
this becomes the desire of Russians, and the Russian language itself is
implicated as the bearer of genocide. The author has heard just such sentiments
expressed by Ukrainian ultra-nationalists. 12. Conclusion It should be no surprise that Mr
Kolesnichenko is a strong supporter of the new draft
Law on Languages prepared by Yevgeniy Kushnaryov of the ruling Party of the Regions (Draft Law
2010), and submitted on 7 September 2010 to the Verkhovna
Rada by Aleksandr Yefremov of the Party of the Regions, Petro Simonenko the leader of the Communist Party of Ukraine, and
Sergey Grinevitskiy of the "Litvin
Bloc". On 8 September 2010 Mr Kolesnichenko argued that the draft would not only comply
with the requirements of the Languages Charter, but would also define …proactive measures in order to implement the status
of regional languages for each of the regional languages in Ukraine and to
secure the possibility for regional or minority language speakers in Ukraine to
be able to use their language in the spheres of public life. In particular the
draft bill removes the existing threshold for official use of for the Russian
language in all major areas of public life - television, advertising, film
industry, local administration, courts and education. In the Russian media the draft was hailed as
"Ukraine legalises the Russian language" (Sinelnikov, 2010). The opposition were
outspoken. According to the opposition deputy Vyacheslav
Kirilenko on 20 September 2010, the draft law if
enacted would split Ukraine: "Parents will be compelled to send
children to Russian-language classes. Higher education entities will set up for
small groups for Ukrainian-speakers, and all other students will be forced to
attend Russian-language groups." Not only the Kyiv-Mohyla
Academy but the Ukrainian Academy of Sciences opposed the draft. Despite the fact that this draft was in essence that
referred to by President Yanukovich shortly after his
election (see above), on 11 November 2010 the Rada
Committee on Culture and Religion recommended that the draft be rejected, and
on 19 November the Verkhovna Rada
returned the draft to its authors without considering it. Nevertheless, on 28
December 2010 Mr Kolesnichenko
expressed his conviction that the draft would be adopted in the summer of 2011. However, both the Venice Commission (2011) and the
OSCE's High Commissioner on National Minorities, Mr
Knut Vollebaek (HCNM, 2010), have provided highly
critical opinions on the draft. This brought forth a predictable reaction from
the Romanian, Hungarian, Jewish and Russian national minority leaders in
Ukraine, on 18 March 2011 accusing Mr Vollebaek of double standards. [2] Replacement of the 1989 Law is just one of many highly
controversial reforms presently stuck in the Ukrainian legislative process. In conclusion, I tentatively agree with Volodymyr Kulyk and with the
Languages Charter’s Committee of Experts that the Charter cannot provide the
solution to the vexed question of the status of the Russian language in
Ukraine. On the contrary, the Constitution of Ukraine and the relevant
legislation should provide for rights which reflect the actual position of the
Russian language, that is, the very large number of persons who choose to speak
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