Why is Russia so ridiculously stubborn raising the language issue again and again, putting the official status for the Russian language at the top of the agenda for future peace talks?

Ukrinform talk to Mr. Volodymyr Kulyk, PhD in Political Science, a researcher specializing in media discourse, ethnopolitics, identity, nationalism, and in general in issues related to politics, war, and why Europeans or some of Ukrainians still can’t see the roots of the current language situation in Ukraine, can’t see the need to safeguard Ukrainian and “deplete” Russian (read about the term in Ukrinform’s story here) in our territory.

THE RUSSIAN LANGUAGE AS A WEAPON OF MASS DESTRUCTION OF UKRAINIANS

- Mr. Volodymyr, you have been researching this domain for a long while and probably know of the reasons why Russia remains so obsessed with the language issue amid war in Ukraine, amidst other issues like territorial takeovers, eternal neutrality status for and military downsizing in Ukraine; they never cease insisting that the Russian language should be granted an official status across all of Ukraine.

- This is because they are seeking to annex Ukraine to themselves, make it part of Russia. The answer is simple as that. I will try to explain this in more detail from the perspective as they see it. As long as we speak Ukrainian, do not switch to Russian, do not consume Russian cultural content, we are aliens for them.

Look, they initially wanted to seize all of Ukraine, back in the early 20th century. But now, speaking of Galicia and Bukovyna, they are hinting that these territories should be taken over by Poland or Hungary, providing arguments something like these regions will be difficult to "digest", they are not of strategic priority for Russia.

Indeed, from geopolitical perspective, every piece of Ukraine is of importance to them, but from the perspective of the policy of assimilation, it is way more critical for them to capture Eastern, Southern and Central Ukraine. From Russia’s perspective, these regions are mostly populated with Orthodox-Church goers, which nearly makes them “one nation" [with Russians]. They also believe that the majority of people in these regions, especially in urban areas, are native Russian speakers. So the cultural dissimilarity seems of little significance to them. They are closing Ukrainian schools, replacing Ukrainian with Russian as the language of teaching, replacing Ukrainian school curricula with those used in Russia. They are playing a little bit with the Ukrainian language as a school subject, like they allegedly comply to parents’ requests, but actually instead they are, to put it mildly, discouraging, and to put it harshly, punishing those willing to learn the Ukrainian language.

Simply put, their project is to make Ukrainians not feeling dissimilar to Russians, for only then a genuine annexation of Ukraine will become attainable.

- They, when communicating their conditions for "peace negotiations" with us, invariably include the language issue...

- That’s true indeed. They cannot agree to an end to fighting until and unless they receive assurances of [Russian] language use expansion. In actual fact, this constitutes a return back to the use of “soft power". Russia is ready to cease gunfire if and when it is convinced that the [Russian] language use and cultural expansion process will be effective this time around. To achieve this, they want an official status for the Russian language in Ukraine. Putin wants to be certain that, having stopped fighting, he will be able to keep Ukraine under control by political, economic and, importantly enough, cultural and linguistic means.

- In other words, Russia is using language as a means of control.

- Language is a key component to this "soft power": Ukraine can be made less independent, less dangerous, better controllable particularly by means of making Ukrainians be friendly for Russia. In order to make Ukrainians fixated on, be engaged in the Russian cultural space, Russian cultural content, the Russian language must be widely used by people in their everyday lives, preferably as the first most spoken language or extensively used as second language.

Until and unless this "language issue" of theirs is settled, Ukraine remains alien to Russia, will be much more difficult to keep under control. This will otherwise leave them with no other option but to resort to brute military force. To subjugate, to conquer, regardless of the languages spoken.

If so, they will bring in their language, install their colonial administration... Their idea of ​​"unification of peoples" as they perceive it in terms of taking over territories and dissolving them into Russia requires the presence of the Russian language, of the Orthodox religion and of a West-hostile ideology. These are the components which, in their imagination, will make Ukrainians into "almost fully like" Russians, albeit a little more stupid, a little more inadequate...

UKRAINIAN-EUROPEAN LANGUAGE CONTEXT: (MIS)UNDERSTANDING?

- Europeans often seem like having no idea whatsoever of Ukraine’s linguistic specifics, erroneously perceiving the Ukrainian language protection in Ukraine to be an “infringement” on the rights of linguistic minorities. They are reluctant to see Russia’s pressure over the Russian language issue in Ukraine. As a result, the impression is created that it is Ukraine who has problems with safeguarding the rights of native Russian speakers. What are the reasons behind this misunderstanding?

- There are two main reasons behind this misunderstanding. The first is that Europe has respect for diversity, including linguistic diversity. Post-war Europe was built on the idea of peaceful ​​coexistence of different ethnic and national communities. This requires mechanisms for recognizing linguistic minorities and granting them their rights. That being said, it should be appreciated that in today’s Europe, most of the minorities are too small in numbers, their languages ​​often become marginalized, and native speakers of these languages can well speak the majority language. Therefore, these minorities do not pose any threat to national unity or territorial integrity.

But examples otherwise are encountered even in Europe. Take, for instance, the language issue in Catalonia or Corsica, which often causes concerns for the authorities. The French government, for example, prohibits the Corsican language from parliament, allowing French alone. Once a cultural otherness acquires a political dimension, it is immediately tried to be silenced in one way or another. The same is true with the language issue in Catalonia. To be exact, the slightest hint of this cultural otherness acquiring a political dimension is immediately suppressed, killed in the bud.

The second reason behind this misunderstanding is ignorance of the colonial nature of Russia’s attempted domination over Ukraine (or Georgia, or Kazakhstan).

Russian domination is a classic example of a colonial regime. Liberation from this regime presupposes a rejection of the colonizer’s language, a factor that Europeans often discard.

Europeans were eyewitnessing the Dutch language being thrown out from use in Indonesia, and French being ousted from Indochina. That being said, in Africa (as is the case with Kenya or Ghana), colonial languages retained their domination of the language landscape, proficiency in which became critical for the local ruling elites remaining in power.

Each and every nation, after winning independence, decides for itself how much of its colonial heritage to keep in place. But the principle of respecting colonial languages ​​as part of cultural diversity is inapplicable to Ukraine’s case, because this diversity was imposed by force.

The biggest problem and irony is that Europeans are unaware of the colonial nature of Russia’s presence in Ukraine. They cannot comprehend that the Russian language, its massive expansion, and an addiction to Russian-language content are part to the imperial legacy that Ukraine must get rid of. And that is what makes them perceive Russian-language school closures or restrictions on the use of the Russian language in public spaces to be in violation of human rights.

As long as there is a lack of understanding among Europeans of the colonial nature of Russia’s attempted domination and of the anti-colonial nature of Ukraine’s national policies, this issue will rise all the time.

- I agree with you in that European norms and standards do not everywhere fit into Ukrainian realities. And here the logical question is, what to do about it? How can this misunderstanding be overcome? And who should do it?

- This is a responsibility to ourselves. Ukraine should be more vigorous in explaining to Europeans its history and current context through cultural forums, news media, broadcasting, and academic research. It would be perfect if Europeans themselves studied Ukrainian history in the context of European history, but in truth, it depends on us alone.

For example, in France, I recently had a meeting with Alexandra Goujon, a French political scientist who specializes in political conflict and regime change in Eastern Europe, particularly Ukraine and Belarus. For years, she has been explaining through French media outreach what Ukraine is fighting for and why the country is not like Russia says it to be. But there must be hundreds of researchers like Alexandra Goujon. In Poland or Germany, the situation is better, but in Southern European countries, such as Italy or Spain, Ukrainian studies are virtually unrepresented.

We must work on disseminating awareness and knowledge about the colonial background underlying Russian domination claims and about the anti-colonial nature of Ukrainian resistance. It is also important to explain that in Ukraine, ethnic and national minorities are different in nature from those in Europe. Ukrainian Hungarians, for example, are often ignorant of the State language even at its basic level.

In France, by way of comparison, the State ensured that all citizens, of whatever ethnic background, are proficient in French. This contrasts with Ukraine where it is often the case that Hungarian-language school graduates can’t speak Ukrainian, which effectively makes them uncompetitive on the labor market, except in ethnic Hungarian villages or Hungary proper. So it turns out that, as a matter of fact, Ukraine is paying for the education of labor force for employment in a foreign state.

As far as the Russian language is concerned, it must be highlighted that it is not about the rights of ethnic minorities but about a legacy of imperial policy that must be got rid of.

I personally have been doing this for decades with my English-language publications and speeches. But much more of such effort like mine or my colleagues’ is needed.

There is another aspect to this, which is that Europeans must be willing and ready to heed us, regardless of how much effort we do ourselves. If they are reluctant to heed us, if they find our arguments ridiculous, as was often the case until 2022, then no matter how many intelligent articles we write, they will not read them or even publish them.

The war has changed a lot, indeed, having made Europeans far more susceptible to our current arguments. But we still need to pound this rock, pound and pound it again (a free interpretation of a quote from a textbook poem by Ivan Franko – ed.).

LANGUAGE POLICY IN UKRAINE

- In follow-up to the theme of classical literature, Ukrainians have to pay a high price (“At a High Price” is a historical fiction novel by Mykhailo Kotsiubynsky, – ed.) for this susceptibility of Europeans…

- Absolutely.

- I would like to turn our conversation to the Ukrainian government’s linguistic policy. I personally want our policy-makers to be more explicit about their intentions and plans and to communicate this to the Ukrainian people. In other words, they must explain what measures the State is undertaking in the linguistic domain so as to make the Ukrainian language fashionable and common from top to bottom. If such a policy was communicated to us, Ukrainians, then our say would probably be heard better in Europe. What is your overall assessment of our State’s linguistic policy?

- There is no such thing as no policy at all. That is to say, the absence of vigorous effort, of rapid changes is a policy in itself. And this is exactly the kind of policy that has been pursued for years by the Ukrainian government, who was gently helping the Ukrainian language sustain while at the same time being more concerned about making it convenient for people to speak a “home” language they like better. This effectively meant that the Russian language is going to retain its privileged status in Ukraine.

This policy changed after 2014, when the norms of the Kolesnichenko-Kivalov law, known popularly as KaKi law, were abolished, and several new laws were enacted, including quotas and sanctions for non-compliance. Finally, the Law of Ukraine on “Ensuring the Functioning of the Ukrainian Language as the State Language” of 25 April 2019 No. 2704-VIII introduced explicit rules, established sanctions for failure to comply, and expanded the privileged and mandatory-use status of the Ukrainian language to include the service sector in addition to the public sector, which positively changed the linguistic environment of millions of Ukrainians.

So, the State’s policy towards the Ukrainian language is basically pretty good. What remains bad is the policy communication to people. The State is supposed to talk to people, to explain that the Ukrainian language is not just about national identity, information security or justice. Instead, then and now, the focus has been mainly on threats from Russia and the need to secure sovereignty of information, while fully omitting mention of language speakers’ rights and of the need to get rid of Russia’s imperial and linguistic heritage. This is what must be communicated, must be highlighted

Photo: Move over, girl, you are taking up too much space

The State, bodies of government, political parties, and civil society are very sluggish communicating the linguistic policy to people. This cannot but cause Russian-speaking people to feel discriminated against. But this is an inevitable and painful process of losing privileges. This situation is not one of a kind, it has happened in many different countries across the globe.

This was the case with Anglophones in Quebec, Francophones in Belgium, and native Russian-speakers in Latvia. A group who have grown accustomed to being native speakers of the most spoken language in a country take the loss of this status to be linguistic discrimination. During centuries, such groups have got accustomed to their language being spoken absolutely everywhere. And where another group who are  truly discriminated against because of the language they speak kick off fight for their linguistic rights, the dominant former group perceives this loss of privileges painfully and jealously.

As of now, indeed Russian-speakers have a better understanding about why the Ukrainian language should be given a privileged status. After [the onset of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in] 2022, the absolute majority of Ukrainians favor the new linguistic legislation, have no problems understanding what it is about. But that being said, however, citizens are mostly passive, lazy people, and especially so where this does not affect their comfortable lives. When and where they are addressed Ukrainian, they will most likely use Ukrainian, and the same is with Russian. And very few of them stand ready to oppose this.

Therefore, there are democratic norms, there is support for these norms from among the society, and now it’s up to political will.

- Let’s go back to what we began with. Will it be Putin who will make Ukraine into Ukrainian-speaking country?

- Such tendency is there. We want to be Ukrainian-speaking, because Putin wants to see us Russian-speaking. Putin wants us to become Russians - we want to be Ukrainians. And now there is a very clear understanding among the vast majority of Ukrainian citizens that Ukrainianness means speaking Ukrainian in the first place.

At least in the public domain, a wholly new situation has arisen, a common situation for the majority of Western countries, in particular in Europe. That’s to say, minorities use their native languages in private, while speaking the majority language in public communication.

In post-colonial countries, the opposite takes place: the language of the empire prevails in public communication. And while we still hear quite a lot of Russian, too much amid war, I suppose, the State must not anyway encroach on this, on private communication, but instead must take care of its linguistic survival whatever the circumstances.

Interviewed by Yaryna Skurativska, Kyiv

Headline photo via publicly available sources