EDITORIAL: Beautiful Ukrainian (03/05/00)

EDITORIAL

Beautiful Ukrainian

Like clockwork, the Ukrainian language issue keeps popping up every few years. A little more than 10 years ago, the Parliament made Ukrainian the state language. This was 1989 and many of the Communists fought the move, claiming that, by proclaiming a state language other than Russian, Ukraine was regressing from "internationalism." (You remember that old equation: Russian equals internationalism equals good - Ukrainian equals nationalism equals bad.) Ukraine adopted a 10-year plan of incorporating Ukrainian as the language of instruction in schools, using it in government. There was outcry: some felt the plan too lethargic and slow, others that it was too vigorous and fast. Then the issue died down.

Fast forward to 1994 and the election of President Leonid Kuchma. During his campaign he promised to officially make Russian the second state language. Never-before-existing Russian language societies suddenly popped up with claims that Russian language speakers were being oppressed and eagerly endorsed his candidacy. Then Mr. Kuchma got elected, didn't change a thing and the issue died down.

The issue blipped up again in 1996 during the debate about adopting the Constitution, then died down again.

The latest turn of events stems from two actions: a ruling in December 1999 by Ukraine's Constitutional Court on the pre-eminence of Ukrainian as the state language in matters dealing with government and education; and a report issued in January by Ukraine's Council on Language Policy that offers a detailed plan for strengthening the use of the Ukrainian language. Unlike the previous times, there wasn't all that much opposition or commentary from within Ukraine to these two actions. Instead, the strongest reactions came from the Russian government. Russia's Ministry of Foreign Affairs issued a statement of protest arguing that Ukraine's position that Ukrainian be the state language of Ukraine is a violation of human rights.

A violation of human rights ... Yawsa. This coming from a government that recently, under the pretense of "eliminating bandits and terrorists," destroyed Chechnya.

But political cynicism and double standards aside, we must say, we are still quite stunned by Russia's fear of and hatred for the Ukrainian language. For 150 years there has been this ongoing effort to denigrate, destroy, disrespect, disparage Ukrainian. Modern Russocentrics claim that Ukrainian is not a technically sophisticated language (that's funny, for some reason the U.S. Department of Defense has translators who know how to say "nuclear-fueled rocket" and "short-range missile launcher" in Ukrainian). Others claim that the desire to speak Ukrainian is a nationalist dream of vengeance (no, not true, a nationalist's dream of vengeance is that all the children of the Ukrainians Stalin deported to Siberia stage a coup and take over the pipelines). Still others claim that you don't need Ukrainian, you can have a state without it (of course you can, just like there was a Ukrainian Communist state, but who wants it?).

Enough already! It's not just about power politics. Nobody states the obvious: Ukrainians miss Ukrainian. Even after all these years. They like it. It's a beautiful language. It's their touchstone with their heritage, it's their internal home. It's simply theirs. It's true, many people in Ukraine do not know, miss or like it - but for those who do, it's time for the language to come home for good - time for the Ukrainian language to heal and to be healed.

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