Nationalism as Support for a Common Language
In the Putin narrative, Ukraine persecutes Russian speakers. However, in the same breath, this narrative argues that most people in Central and Eastern Ukraine speak only Russian.
The implication behind this latter statement is that the population there does not want to share a linguistic space with Ukrainian, that it wants Russian to be treated as the exclusive language of high culture, commerce, scholarship, and official life. This, as Snyder has pointed out, resembles the old Soviet class-based approach to language. From the 1970s, “the USSR was perceived as needing one thinking class, and not multiple national ones. As a result the Ukrainian language was driven from schools, and especially from higher education” (Snyder 2014). In response, Ukrainian patriots of almost all political persuasions embraced a civic understanding of Ukrainian identity. In fact, both Russian and Ukrainian speakers were equally accepted by Euromaidan activists. Today, because the soldiers fighting on the eastern front are frequently, and sometimes predominantly, Russian-speaking, they have, in Kulyk’s words, legitimized Russian-language citizens as full members of the Ukrainian nation. It has become clear to all Ukrainian citizens that the language issue is a red herring.In fact, throughout today’s Ukraine, the Ukrainian language is mandated to be taught in schools, but not necessarily to serve as the main language of instruction. Russian has official status in parts of the east. In any case, it has now become clear to unbiased commentators that all Ukrainians are to varying degrees bilingual in both Ukrainian and Russian, and in most cities of Central and Eastern Ukraine, Russian predominates: there are more Russian than Ukrainian programs on TV, more Russian than Ukrainian films, more Russian than Ukrainian books in bookstores. In these parts of Ukraine, it is the Ukrainian language space that needs support. The dual language space has been generally accepted, and the population has consolidated around this idea. Most Russian speakers
Living With Ambiguities 167 now sympathize with the presence of Ukrainian, which distinguishes their country from Russia. Nonetheless, hysterical claims that Russian speakers are being persecuted continue to be a staple of Russian propaganda and are used in an attempt to divide the population. Ironically, it is in today’s Russian-ruled Crimea and Donbas that linguistic persecution has become the norm. For example, Ukrainian schools in Crimea (those in which Ukrainian was the language of instruction) even though they were few and far between (about 6 out of 600), have been shut down, and Ukrainian broadcasts have been banned. Crimea has also witnessed the public burning of Ukrainian books.