COMMENTARY: The politics of public language use in Ukraine (02/19/06)

COMMENTARY: The politics of public language use in Ukraine

by Stephen Velychenko

On January 29, Dmytro Pavlychko again warned Ukrainians about the threat of Russian becoming the official second language in Ukraine. At a time when the educated in every country in the world, including China and Russia, are learning English as a second language, because English is the de facto world language, Ukraine's neo-Soviet Russophile politicians threaten to isolate the country from the rest of the world with their Russian language legislation and throw Ukraine back culturally 100 years.

Continued use of Russian for business and in the public sphere would send the message that "capitalism speaks Russian"; it would reinforce Russophile orientations and the notion that Ukrainian is suitable only for domestic use. Russian as a second language would mean educated Ukrainians who want contact with the world would have to learn a third language.

Although the language issue is overshadowed in the domestic media by well-merited concern over poverty and corruption, and foreign neo-liberal commentators ignore cultural issues because they think them irrelevant, the economics and politics of public language-use in Ukraine should not be overlooked as language use is related to political orientations.

Fifteen years after independence, public life, business and the media are still Russian-speaking outside Ukraine's three western-most provinces. At the beginning of this century, in a country where 20 percent of the population were Russian-speaking Russians, 33 percent were Russian-speaking Ukrainians and 47 percent were Ukrainian-speaking Ukrainians; 10 percent of Ukraine's annual published book titles, 12 percent of its magazines, 18 percent of its TV programs and 35 percent of its newspapers were in Ukrainian (O. Kuts, "Movna Polityka v Derzhavotvorchykh Protsesakh" [Kharkiv, 2004] 119).

The government does not enforce its language legislation. All government employees must speak Ukrainian on the job, but most don't and continued to be paid nonetheless. Whether or not foreign corporations use Ukrainian inside their stores is ignored. McDonald's does use Ukrainian on its menus. Baskin Robbins does not.

As of 2004, teachers still used Russian in "Ukrainian-language" schools, some of which also had separate Russian-language classes. Much more than the legally permissible 50 percent of TV programming is in Russian.

The neo-Soviet Russophile-dominated Parliament, for its part, has refused to follow the lead of the Russian government and abolish taxation on domestic publications, thus keeping Russian-language products in Ukraine cheaper than Ukrainian- or English-language products.

The fact that Ukrainian speakers buy fewer books and audio-visual products than Russian speakers because they are poorer also plays a role here. Perhaps Ukraine's moguls could produce and sell Ukrainian-language audio-visual products and books for less than Russian-language products and finance a Ukrainian-language mass culture. But they do not seem to have tried.

It is thought that as much as 80 percent of Ukraine's media is owned either by Russians or Russophile Ukrainian citizens. Sixteen years after independence, however, no one really knows who owns Ukraine's media. In 2006 the Ukrainian Helsinki Union, funded by George Soros's Renaissance Foundation, was able to reveal partial information about 10 stations.

Foreign companies, of which three are Russian, own all or part of at least nine, individuals unknown own all or part of three, and one is partly owned by a Russophile Ukrainian oligarch (maidan.org.ua/static/news/1138094819.html, "Khto Volodiye Efirom - Toi Volodye Ukrainoyu?").

Mass-circulation Russian-language dailies like Bulvar, Kievskie Viedomosti and Fakty i Kommentarii are not merely sympathetic to neo-Soviet Russophile politicians. They regularly belittle, ridicule and mock things Ukrainian, and highlight Russian rather than Ukrainian pop-stars, movies and television programs.

Ukrainian-language anti-Russian opinion is limited to low-run fringe publications. Russian popular newspapers and Russian domination of the public sphere, however, do not promote political loyalty to Russia. What it does do is promote Russophile/SES (Single Economic Space) orientations, thereby reinforcing the old imperial Russian tie and impeding the creation of new ties with the rest of world - which speaks English.

Logically, there is no necessary correlation between language use and loyalties. Scots, Irish, Indians, Americans, Australians and Canadians have all expressed their nationalisms in English. Corsicans and Bretons have used French, and Latin Americans have used Spanish. Viktor Yanukovych and Ukraine's Communist Party leaders even speak Ukrainian when they must, and use it as a medium for neo-imperial/neo-Soviet ideas.

On the other hand, no one can ignore the fact that few of Ukraine's Russian speakers support political reincorporation into Russia and that almost none have emigrated to Russia since 1991. Russian-speaking Ukrainians can be as pro-EU as Ukrainian-speakers, Russian-speaking Ukrainians can be Ukrainian patriots, and Russian-speaking eastern Ukrainian political leaders sooner see themselves as representing a territorial region than a Russian-speaking population.

Russian-speaking Kyiv voted overwhelmingly for Viktor Yushchenko in 2004 and Russian speakers were as critical of Vladimir Putin's gas price-rise policy as were Ukrainian speakers. Historically, however, Russian was not a medium for Ukrainian national ideas and today Russian is rarely used to publicly promote Ukrainian national ideas or integration with the European Union.

Consequently, to the degree that the correlation between Russian language-use and pro-Russian political/cultural orientations, though not political loyalties, remains high, Russian as Ukraine's second language would reinforce Russophile/SES orientations.

Russian language use in business and the public sphere will return Ukrainian to its pre-1991 status a second-rate medium suitable only for folk-culture and market-place bartering.

Russian language use, in short, impedes Ukraine's integration with the EU and the rest of the world. Teaching Russian as a second language in Ukraine's schools will isolate it from the rest of the world. Teaching English would not.

Stephen Velychenko is resident fellow, Center for European, Russian and Eurasian Studies, and research fellow, Chair of Ukrainian Studies, University of Toronto. The commentary above originally appeared in The Action Ukraine Report, No. 653 (Article 25), Washington, February 3; Morgan Williams, publisher, [email protected]. It is reprinted here with the permission of the author and the publisher.

| Home Page |