COMMENTARY
The socio-historical context of public language use and why English must be Ukraine's second language
by Stephen Velychenko
CONCLUSION
Ukraine's loyal Russian speakers realize the public sphere is de facto Russian and do not complain about sending their children to Ukrainian schools, seeing public signs in Ukrainian and filling out government forms in Ukrainian - which is about the only contact with the Ukrainian language Russian speakers cannot avoid. Those who do complain are restorationist Party of the Regions leaders like Yevhen Kushnariov and extremists like Petro Symonenko and Natalia Vitrenko - who considers Ukrainian "a language for cattle."
They cannot accept the reality of Ukrainian independence, they fear the prospect of Ukraine joining the EU, and they fear the prospect of educated Ukrainians, like the educated public in the rest of the world, learning English as their second language, instead of the language of the old imperial ruler. They know that keeping Ukraine in the Russian-language communications sphere will reinforce its continued subordination to Russia and bring them status as local potentates.
One of their major aims, unsurprisingly, is to give Russian official status in Ukraine. An analogous situation would be if the French and their native collaborators in Algeria, or the Japanese and their collaborators in Korea, or the Dutch and their collaborators in Indonesia, had come back to power after the formal separation of these countries from the old empires and then, as part of efforts to re-establish the imperial tie, made the language of the old empire official. Just as this would have been a recipe for political disaster in those countries, the aims of Ukraine's extremist restorationist minority today are a recipe for instability in Eastern Europe.
The administration of Leonid Kravchuk made Ukrainian the official language, but neo-Soviet deputies dominated Parliament when the language law was adopted and they ensured it included no legal sanctions. As a result, it is impossible to charge anyone for ignoring it. People like Andrii Kliuyev and Mykola Azarov who demonstratively refuse to learn or speak Ukrainian became government ministers. Government officials outside the three westernmost oblasts address citizens in Russian regardless of the language citizens use, teachers in Ukrainian-language schools teach in Russian - and no one gets fined or fired.
Although English was already the world language in 1991, it was not made compulsory in schools. Without the market for books that this would have produced, no English-language companies had economic reason to establish themselves in Ukraine to produce affordable versions of their publications. Fifteen years after independence, as a result, Ukrainian libraries cannot afford to buy English-language books. Students, consequently, still use Russian-language books to study and research non-Ukrainian related subject matter. This reinforces the average educated person's participation within the Russian-language communications sphere and keeps him/her isolated them from the rest of the world - which speaks English. Even Mongolia has made English its second language. Individuals do learn English. But Ukraine has the lowest English language learning rate in Eastern Europe - presumably because as a third language English represents a luxury for which the average person has no time.
Neo-Soviet Russophile politicians who control Ukraine are not simply indifferent but hostile to the use of Ukrainian in the public sphere. They allowed Russian publishing companies and distributors to set up branch offices in Ukraine without obliging them to publish in Ukrainian and exempting them from import duties during the 1990s. They did not follow the lead of the Russian government and thus did not abolish taxation on domestic Ukrainian-language publications. Thus, Russian-language products in Ukraine are often cheaper than Ukrainian- or English-language products, more widely distributed and more easily accessible.
In Donetsk, the 38 percent of the population who are Russian-speaking Russians have approximately 1,000 Russian-language newspapers and magazines. There is one Ukrainian-language newspaper. In 2005 provincial politicians stopped the subsidy of 43,000 hrv they had provided until then to schools and libraries for the Ukrainian paper, and voted 800,000 hrv to those institutions to buy the three major Russian newspapers. These same politicians complain about infringements of Russian-speakers' rights and call for official status for the Russian language.
Non-Russian foreign owners who entered Ukraine after 1991 help keep the country in the Russian-language communications sphere. Jed Sunden in Kyiv, for example, publishes the Kyiv Post. He also publishes 12 glossy/popular magazines. These are all in Russian and, thereby, Mr. Sunden, a man who supports Ukrainian political independence, is keeping Ukraine culturally dependent on its former imperial master. Working in his offices are people who can't speak or write in Ukrainian. Hollywood producers and distributors do not make Ukrainian versions of their products. Bill Gates does not produce a Ukrainian version of Windows. Huge international popular/glossy magazine conglomerates, like the fashion-women's group Burda, do not distribute Ukrainian-language versions of their products.
Russian domination of the public sphere does not promote political loyalty to Russia. What it does do is maintain and promote Russophile cultural- intellectual orientations. These reinforce the old imperial Russian tie, and impede the creation of mental-cultural ties with the EU and the rest of the 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.
We also know that few of Ukraine's Russian speakers support political reincorporation into Russia, and that Ukraine's Russian speakers can be Ukrainian patriots - witness Ukrainian soccer fans this summer. They also are as critical of Russian President Vladimir Putin's Ukrainian policies as they are of his domestic policies and have no wish to be associated with Russia - which raises the interesting possibility that Ukraine could become an Eastern European Ireland.
In sum, Russian language use in the public sphere was established by government policies. Since 1991 it has continued because the government is neo-Soviet and Russophile (except between 2004-2006) and done little to reverse their effects. It does not enforce what little legislation does exist or extend that legislation to apply to privately owned media and publishing companies. Thus, the old production and distribution infrastructure established by the old policies remains and still produces and disseminates cheap Russian-language products.
At a time when the educated in every country in the world are learning English as a second language because English is the de facto world-language, Ukraine's neo-Soviet Russophile politicians keep the country apart from the rest of the world by maintaining the production and distribution infrastructure that keeps Ukraine in the Russian-language communications sphere.
Ukrainians, thus, have no real choice with respect to public language use and inevitably "choose" to use and buy Russian. De facto Russian domination of the public sphere, the mental dependency on, and hostility toward Russia it produces, is thus prolonged. This, in turn, impedes Ukraine's integration with the EU and the rest of the world, and threatens Russia with instability on its southwestern border.
Ukraine's loyal Russian speakers realize the public sphere is de facto Russian and accept that since they live in Ukraine they should know Ukrainian. Nor are they enthusiastic about closer ties with Mr. Putin's resource-based autocracy and its wars. An extremist minority and Party of the Regions leaders, however, seek to give official status to Russian. This will reinforce Ukraine's inclusion in the Russian-language communications sphere and its imperial-era cultural and political dependence on Russia, and undermine its hopes for EU membership.
Giving Russian official status would not only reverse the foreign-policy priorities of President Viktor Yushchenko. It would provoke Ukrainians' hostility toward Russia and loyal Russian-speakers. Instability might then threaten the European Union with instability on its eastern border, and Russia with instability on its western border.
Stephen Velychenko, Ph.D., is an associate of the Center for European, Russian and Eurasian Studies and a research fellow of the Chair of Ukrainian Studies, both at the University of Toronto. The article above will be published as "The Socio-Historical Context of Public Language-Use and Why English Must be Ukraine's Second Language" in Analiticheskie Obzory Tsentra Izucheniia Tsentralnoi i Vostochnoi Evropy 3 (2006) 14-18.
CONCLUSION
Copyright © The Ukrainian Weekly, November 19, 2006, No. 47, Vol. LXXIV
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