ANALYSIS: Are Russophones a united group in Ukraine? (01/28/01)

ANALYSIS

Are Russophones a united group in Ukraine?

by Taras Kuzio

Since the second round of the July 1994 presidential elections, the prevailing view of many scholars in the West has been that Ukraine is divided into two clearly bounded linguistic groups: Russophones and Ukrainophones.

This has always seemed puzzling because there has been no evidence of Russophone mobilization as a group or lobby or indeed any evidence of Russophones in different regions of Ukraine seeing their interests tied together. In reality, Russophones in Crimea, Odesa, the Donbas, Kyiv and western Ukraine exhibit very different identities.

In addition, the aforementioned view ignores the large number of people who overlap both linguistic groups and does not explain how the majority of Kyivites can speak Russian and yet not oppose sending their children to Ukrainian-language schools.

A recent poll undertaken in Kyiv by the Center Hromadska Dumka NDI among a representative sample of Kyivites to gauge the attitudes of Russian speakers bears out the lack of uniformity among Russophones. Following is a summary of the results.

1) 53 percent of Kyivites use Russian always or most of the time. This is because 70 percent of them were brought up in a Russian-language environment.

2) Of these Russophones: half agreed with the statement "The Ukrainian language is an attribute of Ukrainian statehood." They also: believe that the Ukrainian language's usage in all spheres in the capital city does not reflect its state status; feel there is still a need to raise its prestige; believe that state officials should undertake exams in the Ukrainian language to gauge their proficiency.

3) Only 30 percent of Russophones in Kyiv disagreed with these views.

4) Do Russophones in Kyiv feel that their rights as Russian speakers are infringed upon within a Ukrainian-language information space? Two-thirds said "no" and only 17 percent said "yes."

5) 70 percent of Russophones believe that Ukrainian citizens should know the Ukrainian language well and 44 percent believe that they should personally improve their Ukrainian because it will be important for them.

6) Should Ukrainian and Russian both be state languages? Only 43 percent of Russophones in Kyiv agreed with the elevation of Russian to a second state language.

7) The organizers of the poll concluded that not more than one-third of Russophones in Kyiv are opponents of Ukrainianization. Meanwhile, 50 to 55 percent use Russian but remain positively disposed towards an expansion of the Ukrainian language and do not see it as in any way harming their national dignity.

Contemporary Ukrainian studies await further research into the myth of Russophone unity in Ukraine. Clearly the situation on the ground, region by region, is far more complicated than a simplistic division of Ukraine into two linguistic groups.

Taras Kuzio is a visiting fellow at the Watson Institute for International Studies at Brown University.

| Home Page |