U.S. English Foundation Research

UKRAINE

Language Research

In Crimea, Ukrainian and Crimean Tatar minorities complain of discrimination by the Russian majority and demand that the Ukrainian and Tatar languages be given equal treatment to that of the Russian. According to Tatar leaders, unemployment is as high as 50% in their community. In January 1999 the office of the Tatar Assembly Mejlis (the unofficial Tatar parliament) was firebombed in Simferopol. No suspects were identified, but Tatars blamed Russian radicals. On May 18, 1999, some 35,000 Tatars demonstrated in Simferopol on the 55th anniversary of Stalin's deportation of the Tatars to Central Asia for official recognition of the Mejlis, Tatar representation in the Crimean parliament, and official status for the Tatar language. That same day President Kuchma created a presidential Tatar Advisory Committee that includes all members of the Mejlis. Tatar protestors then erected a tent camp in front of the Crimean government building. On May 24, 1999, the Tatars took down their tents after Crimean Prime Minister Serhiy Kunitsyn agreed to their demands. These demands called for the creation of a council to represent Tatar interests in the Crimean government, the right of Tatars returning from Central Asia to own land, and for the creation of Tatar schools.

While the Crimean government, pleading insufficient funds, did not assent to requests from the Crimean Tatar community for assistance in reestablishing its cultural heritage through Tatar language publications and educational institutions, the central Government is working with the UNHCR, OSCE, and the International Organization for Migration on support for the Crimean Tatar community.

Of the 260,000 Crimean Tatars who have returned to the country from exile in Central Asia, some 67,000 still lack citizenship. Crimean Tatar leaders have complained that their community has not received adequate assistance in resettling, and that the onerous process of acquiring citizenship has excluded many of them from participating in elections and from the right to take part in the privatization of land and state assets.

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Updated (June 2001)

Formerly deported Crimean Tatars were granted to acquire Ukrainian citizenship. According to the law-enforcement agencies up to now (June 2001) 261,100 deported persons and their descendants have been registered in Crimea, including 258,000 Crimean Tatars and about 3,000 Armenians, Bulgarians, Greeks and Germans. The validity of the Ukrainian-Uzbek agreement on the simplification of the process of renunciation of Uzbek citizenship and acquisition of Ukrainian citizenship by formerly deported people of the Crimea was extended until the end of the year 2001.

THE CRIMEAN TATARS (deportation and repatriation)

The Crimean Tatars are a Turkic-speaking, Sunni Muslim people who trace their origins to the Crimean peninsula (now southern Ukraine). While the Crimean Tatars have traditionally been described as descendents of the Golden Horde, their formation as an ethnic group is much more complicated. The Crimean Tatars have pre-Mongol origins in the ancient peoples of the Crimean peninsula. The Crimean Tatars therefore consider themselves one of the three indigenous peoples of the peninsula, along with the Karaim and Krymchaki. In addition to residing in the historic homeland of Crimea (where a population of 270,000 comprises 11.9 percent of the total population) and places of former exile such as Uzbekistan, there are large populations of Crimean Tatars in Turkey where they number over five million, Bulgaria (10,000), Romania (40,000), the United States (6,000) and Germany (unknown).

In 1944, during the Soviet regime the deportation of Tatars began. The real reason for Stalin's order was derived from his foreign policy and macroeconomic concerns. Stalin wanted complete control of Crimea because it formed an important part of the Soviet military strategy. Specifically, the Soviet Union planned to gain access to the Dardanelles and acquire territory in Turkey. The Crimean Tatars, who had ethnic kin in Turkey, were once again viewed as potentially disloyal. The Soviet authorities also wanted to continue to develop Crimea as a health resort area for the Soviet Union, particularly for the benefit of party officials.

The Crimean Tatars began repatriating on a massive scale beginning in the late 1980's and continuing into the early 1990's. The population of Crimean Tatars in Crimea rapidly reached 250,000 and leveled off at 270,000. While the vast majority of the Tatars remained in Central Asia and hoped to return, political and economic conditions prevented them. A flooded real estate market made it difficult for Tatars to sell their homes in Central Asia and rampant inflation in Ukraine made it close to impossible to construct or purchase new ones. New border and customs regulations complicated relocation. Those who repatriated also faced difficult conditions. Even though the central authorities no longer had any objections, local officials initially opposed their return, fearing it could lead to ethnic unrest and stretch already limited resources. Since all Tatar property had been confiscated and redistributed to others in 1944, the Tatars faced the task of starting over for the second time in a fifty-year time span. Given that their former homes were occupied by new residents, and given the unwillingness of the local authorities to help them find or build housing, the Tatars squatted on vacant land. Tatars occupied unused state land on the outskirts of cities and towns and built temporary shelters or lived in the cargo containers that had brought their belongings.

Despite the successful repatriation of most of the population, the Crimean Tatars' struggle for full repatriation and a full restoration of their rights is not complete. Battles for representation in the Crimean legislature as well as disagreements about suffrage and citizenship have characterized the last decade.

Source: "The Crimean Tatars" by Greta Lynn Uehling, a lecturer at Eastern Michigan University, Ypsilanti, and Wayne State University, Detroit. http://www.iccrimea.org/scholarly/krimtatars.html

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Updated (March 2002)

THE RUSSIAN MINORITY

The Russians of Ukraine may be divided into two groups: those in Crimea and those not in Crimea. The majority of the latter can be found in Eastern Ukraine in some areas; for example in the oblasts of Kharkiv, Voroshilovhrad, Donetsk and Zaporozhia.

In Crimea, irredentism is fairly strong because the overwhelming majority of Russians living there has a very weak historical link with Ukraine. Also, the complicated three-way contest for power among Ukrainians, Russians, and Crimean Tatars exists in this autonomous republic.

In Eastern Ukraine, there is also some support for irredentist claims, connected with the long historical link between Russia and the region, and the Russian-speaking majorities. Throughout, the stronger and louder claims are for improved economic conditions, stronger ties to Russia and the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS), and the protection of Russian-language rights.

In Ukraine, there exists a myth of Russophone unity, but the situation is clearly far more complicated than a simplistic division of the country into two linguistic groups, one oriented toward Eurasia (Russophones) and the other toward Europe (Ukrainophones). There has been no evidence of the mobilization of Russophones as a group or lobby. Vice versa, there is evidence that Russophones in Crimea, Odesa, the Donbas, Kiev and Western Ukraine have very distinct separate identities and have developed different attitudes toward the Ukrainian language, nation-building and foreign policy. In 2000 a poll was conducted in Kiev by the National Democratic Initiatives Center among a representative sample of citizens. The aim was to gauge the attitudes of the Russian speakers and demonstrated lack of uniformity among them. The results showed that only up to one-third of Russophones in Kiev are opponents of Ukrainization. 50-55 percent of them use the Russian language but at the same time remain positively disposed toward increased use of the Ukrainian language and do not see such a development as harming their national dignity in any way.

Soviet nationality policies left a legacy of 25 million Russians and many more "compatriots," that is, Russian speakers, in countries of the former USSR excluding Russia. Moscow sees the continued use of the Russian language in former Soviet states with large numbers of Russophones as ensuring its continued influence over these countries. Russia has therefore praised Belarus and Kyrgyzstan for elevating Russian to the second state language and the official language respectively, and Kazakhstan's President Nazarbaev for proposing a CIS Fund to Promote the Russian Language. In June 2000, Russian President Vladimir Putin suggested that if Moldova raised Russian to a second state language, Moscow would cease supporting the separatist Transdniester. By contrast, states such as Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, and Ukraine are downgrading the status of Russian.

Source:

1. Minorities at Risk Project, Center for International Development and Conflict Management, University of Maryland

2. "The myth of Russophone unity in Ukraine", "Language and nationalism in the post-Soviet space" by By Taras Kuzio, honorary research fellow, Stasiuk Program on Contemporary Ukraine at the Canadian Institute of Ukrainian Studies, University of Alberta. 2000

http://matisse.ceu.hu/students/97/Roman_Zakharii/language.htm

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Updated (April 2002)

RUSSIAN LANGUAGE

Viktor Medvedchuk, the leader of the Social-Democratic Party of Ukraine (united), on Sunday, March 3, 2002 called for intensifying efforts to resolve the problem of the Russian language in Ukraine.

He believes that this issue does exist though its acuteness is sometimes too exaggerated. At the same time he said that the status of the Russian language has to deal with observance of human rights, and not to be an element of intergovernmental relations between Ukraine and Russia.

According to the SDPU leader, Article 10 of the Constitution of Ukraine clearly defines the ways, which may help to solve this problem, for it guarantees free development, use and protection of the Russian language. The mechanism of implementation of this article of the Constitution has to be determined legislatively, Mr. Medvedchuk noted.

"The new Law on Languages, which will meet Article 10 of the Constitution, will eliminate all potential problems," Viktor Medvedchuk stressed. http://www.ukremb.com/news/Ukrinform/2002/march/040302UI1.htm

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