Russian Language versus Ukrainian Language

For a Russian reader of Ukrainian history, Russian is the highly evolved language of science and literature. “Ukrainian language,” on the other hand, is a rural proto-Russian creole, mixed with Polish and German, with no cultural value.

Ukrainian readers of history, however, consider Russian to be a dialect of their language. Ukrainians consider that they have developed a more cosmopolitan language, something like English. Russian is, for them, a tribal dialect grown too big for its limited roots and boots.

For the Russians, the Russian language is a potent unifying symbol system. It was the stamp of Russian supremacy branded on the flanks of the satellite states. The contemptuous haste with which the former Soviets dropped Russian and reinstated their local languages/dialects must have seemed like a slap in the face. Russians assumed that their allies were pleased to have education and government in the language of science and success, just as Pravda had been telling them. To the average Muscovite, the former satellites were guilty of gross ingratitude to the Russians, led astray by subversive Western propaganda.