Ukrainian Bilingualism or Why the Language is Important
I was born in Ukraine after the collapse of the Soviet Union. My father’s family is from a big city in central Ukraine, so they are speaking Russian and I have never heard even a bit of Ukrainian language from them. My mother’s family is from a small village in North-East Ukraine, and people there are speaking the “village dialect” — a mix of Ukrainian, Russian, and words created by their own. When my mom’s family moved to the big city, she switched to Russian. Like when you move to another country, you try to switch to their language, in order to assimilate and be like a local. In this case, it is ridiculous, to pretend to be native by speaking the language of another country, which is not official in yours. Nevertheless, my parents spoke Russian. To me too. Logically, it became my main language of communication, I spoke Russian with my family and friends. However, it was changing once the lessons in school began. The education process was conducted in Ukrainian. I had Ukrainian books, Ukrainian-speaking teachers, and Ukrainian language classes. Interesting, but Russian was never taught. I was speaking Ukrainian same fluently, but it was valid only during school hours. Once I exited a classroom my thoughts switched to Russian. As a kid or a teenager, I have never thought about my bilingualism from an early age. Because it wasn’t the case for me, I grew up in an environment, where everyone did the same. I thought it was normal.
I had no idea that I am somehow special until the adult age when I met my first foreign friends, who have only one native language (so boring :). For them, it was a shock, that many Ukrainians use the language of a completely different country as their main one. Moreover, Ukrainian and Russian are not as similar as many people may think. My shame, but only when a foreigner asked me why does it happen so, I realised, that I don’t know the answer. Thus, this article is dedicated to finding it.
The phenomenon that most Ukrainians are speaking Russian as well as Ukrainian is a long-term project of the Russian Empire. Its goal is to remove Ukraine from the political map of the world. What has to be done in order to occupy the country and its nation? Right, killing out its culture including the language. However, it appeared to be an extra credit task. Here I show you the incomplete list of laws and regulations issued by the Russian Empire / Soviet Union / Russia, the goal of which is the prohibition and extermination of the Ukrainian language.
They tried hard, didn’t they? :) Though, all 134 attempts (!) were unsuccessful. Let’s see the reasons behind this.
Main Reasons
Basically, the reason is one: without Ukraine, Russia is not the Empire it is seeking to be. Ukrainian “deviation” is an undermining of the autocratic genetic code, which is based on imperialism. (Not to mention the obvious benefits of Ukraine including its geographical location, soil, etc). In order not to betray its principles, Russia must tame Ukraine, conquer, occupy, become the winner and dictate its own rules.
What is Russia without Ukraine? The first written mention of Ukraine appeared in 1187. Its great ancestor Kievan Rus’ existed from 882 till 1240 and is known for its great history. And I will be brave to say, that in some moments even greater than the history of corresponding European countries. Anna Yaroslavna (Anne of Kyiv), the daughter of Prince Yaroslav the Wise, who was to be married to French king Henry I, taught the French how to use a fork. But let’s not digress. Meanwhile, what we know about the Russian Empire: Tsardom of Russia was the centralized Russian state from the assumption of the title of Tsar by Ivan IV in 1547 until the foundation of the Russian Empire by Peter I in 1721 (even the name “Russia” is stolen from the Kievan Rus’). Here let me share an eloquent meme posted by the US Embassy in Kyiv on the 22d of February 2022:
Russia needs Ukrainian history, as well as its culture because it doesn’t have its own. The ideology of the Empire is not to acquire, but to steal. And so that no one suspects a crime, all witnesses, Ukrainians, must shut their mouths. However, it is not enough to win with weapons. The bigger challenge is to force Ukrainians to forget, who they are, and to resign their culture. The memory of worthy predecessors makes it impossible, or at least very difficult, to identify with the enslavers. Doesn’t sound good for the Empire.
Russian democracy always ends with the Ukrainian issue
© Volodymyr Vynnychenko
That is why the Ukrainian language is such important because it is an integral part of the culture. That is why it was prohibited 134 times. That is why many Ukrainian writers and poets who did not agree to bow in front of the Empire and write in Russian about topics beneficial to Russia were repressed, and their works were burned or, at best, banned for many years. When the subordinates cannot speak, the winners talk about their past. I bet you have heard some of these names: Leo Tolstoy, Fyodor Dostoevsky, Alexander Pushkin, Nikolai Gogol, Mikhail Bulgakov, etc. These people are “great” Russian writers or Ukrainian ones, who bent under imperial narratives (here I take the word “great” in quotes because in Russia this adjective always comes together with the term “Russian literature” as a way to highlight its superiority). Their works were spread and known throughout the whole world. However, I think you have heard less often or haven’t heard at all about Lesya Ukrainka, Taras Shevchenko, Ivan Franko, Vasyl Simonenko, Hryhoriy Kvitka-Osnovyanenko, Viktor Domontovych — the Ukrainian writers and poets, who are not less prominent than their Russian colleagues, but they never had a chance to be heard. This is the fate of an enslaved culture, doomed to self-isolation because popularity is bestowed only on invaders. Ukrainian artists had a choice between glory and dignity and many of them picked the second one. That’s why they are known so badly abroad and some even in Ukraine and no one can claim that we will ever discover the whole story, because we are operating only those memories, manuscripts, evidence, books, journals, which survived. Hard to estimate, how many were lost forever.
The unrecorded historical memory lasts only three generations. It was necessary to last only three generations. Well, even though it didn’t work out.
As we can see, getting rid of the Ukrainian language leads to a bigger purpose of stealing Ukrainian culture and incorporating its benefits. The following formula is in use here: No language = no culture = no country.
Main Consequences
The Russian-Ukrainian war started on the 24th of February 2022.
On behalf of my own experience, I claim that the Russification of the Ukrainian nation had its effect. Not as significant as Russia needed, and that’s why Ukraine resists so well, but bigger than Ukraine could afford in order to avoid the war.
When I was studying at school I didn’t like the Ukrainian literature classes. For me, it seemed boring and all the same. Every next poem or novel was similar to the previous one. Now I know the reason: due to the linguicide of Ukrainian writing, only texts about the Ukrainian village were allowed to be published in order to instill the idea that Ukraine is nothing more than funny drunkards who sing songs and eat fat. Many valuable, interesting poems or novels were prohibited or just ignored and not included into the educational program. Also, all the teachers in my school grew up in the Soviet Union, they got their degrees there and were affected by its ideology. Most of them just came to the lesson, read something from a book and go home. They didn’t care. The information about each writer was presented separately in the school textbooks, it was hard to see the whole picture of what was going on. Many important facts were omitted or not enough attention was paid to them. For example, all I knew about Lesya Ukrainka was that she was a sick kid, who was writing sad poems. I didn’t know that she was from the rich family of another poetess and because of her high status she was able to publish something. I had no idea that Panteleimon Kulish noticed the talent of Mark Vovchok, who was chosen by Taras Shevchenko as his follower. Right now I am so ashamed that I didn’t have enough curiosity to investigate these topics by myself after school hours. And I am angry with my teachers that they had it neither. This led to the fact that I knew nothing about Ukrainian literature and lost any interest in it. When I was a kid (before 2015), 80% of books were in Russian and imported from Russia, I was reading them and never wondered if I can read the same in Ukrainian translation. This ignorance destroyed my national identity for many years, until not so long ago I began to study the history of my country again from scratch.
It seems, that the plan of Russia worked well. I was one of the millions of typical Ukrainians, who spoke Russian, were not interested in Ukrainian literature and history, and didn’t care about it. We seemed to be weak, speechless, and easy to beat. Indeed, maybe some of us forgot about who exactly we are, but we didn’t lose the confidence, that we are NOT Russia. Russia used the “protection of the Russian-speaking population” as the main argument for attacking Ukraine. It just screams to us, that we did wrong keeping the Russian language. Is it really the reason why Russia attacked? No, but it means that we should run away from it even more, than just eliminating their language. Ukraine is different. It always was. It is the duty of every Ukrainian to prove and support this otherness in all possible ways and to flee as far as possible from the imposed culture of the aggressor and their worthless propaganda. Thankfully to that part of Ukraine, that remembered and recovered its roots, currently, many people including me are turning to the right path by filling gaps in their knowledge, switching to Ukrainian, and identifying themselves.
It is cool to be Ukrainian, I regret that I didn’t try it earlier.
