Language Research

3. Language issues: Where does one observe language to be a problem in the country?

The Constitution provides for the “free development, use, and protection of the Russian language and other minority languages in Ukraine.” This compromise builds on a 1991 Law on National Minorities, which played an instrumental role in preventing ethnic strife by allowing individual citizens to use their respective national languages in conducting personal business and by allowing minority groups to establish their own schools. Nonetheless, some pro-Russian organizations in eastern Ukraine complained about the increased use of Ukrainian in schools and in the media. They claim that their children are disadvantaged when taking academic entrance examinations, since all applicants are required to take a Ukrainian language test.

Romanians are calling for university-level instruction in Romanian or the establishment of a Romanian technical college. There are 86 Romanian-language schools in the Chernivtsi oblast.

Ruthenians (Rusyns) are calling for status as an official ethnic group in the country. At a congress held in Uzhhorod on June 27, 1999, representatives of the Rusyn community called for Rusyn-language schools, a Rusyn-language department at Uzhhorod University, and for Rusyn to be included as one of the country's ethnic groups in the 2001 census. According to Rusyn leaders, more than 700,000 Rusyns live in the country.

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Updated (September 2001)

According to the Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, the Russian speaking community in Ukraine is not satisfied with the major presence of the Ukrainian language in education. The Russian Movement of Ukraine reports that approximately 1,300 schools have shifted their language of instruction from Russian to Ukrainian since the creation of the new Ukrainian state, thus the number of schools using Russian as the language of instruction does not surpass 10%. The reason for putting Ukrainian forward is obvious. Except those concerned about self-identity and state building, the other relates to the fact that Ukrainians have never enjoyed the right to be instructed in their own language during the soviet political dominion. On the other hand, estimates say that more or less half of the Ukrainian population considers Russian to be their native language.

In August, first Vice Premier of Russia Viktor Khristenko insisted that Russian should be given the status of the official language in Ukraine. Moscow's main argument in favor of such a step is the fact that 30% to 50% of the Ukrainian population speaks the Russian language. Ukraine's Foreign Ministry circulated its comment on Khristenko's statement, pointing out that the two countries should now focus not on political declarations, but on efforts “to fill their partnership with concrete content.” The authors of the comment reminded the Russian side that in Ukraine the national language is Ukrainian. This situation does not discriminate in any way Russian or any other languages used in the country.

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Updated (September 2004)

RUSSIAN PRAISED OR CONDEMNED

According to the August/September 2004 opinion poll, as many as 80 percent of Ukrainian citizens would like an official or state language status for Russian. Almost 39 percent out of two thousand respondents interviewed all over the country said they want Russian to have the status of a second state language and another 39.5 percent claimed that Russian must become the second official language in those areas where most residents vote for it.

On the other hand, 17.6 percent of those polled want to ban Russian completely from the official use in Ukraine.

One of the presidential candidates, Nataliya Vitrenko, suggested giving the official status to the language of Pushkin and Gogol.

The incumbent president, Leonid Kuchma said the Russian language should not be treated as a foreign one in Ukraine, because it is on the list of international languages.

Another presidential candidate, Bogdan Boiko, demanded rooting out this dialect and Viktor Yushchenko said all the Ukrainians must use only Ukrainian in their mutual communication.

Source: ITAR-TASS World Service, by Valery Rzhevsky, published September 15, 2004

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Updated (September 2007)

LANGUAGE IS STILL A HOT TOPIC IN UKRAINE

Russian–Ukrainian relations have become a hot subject again before a parliamentary election, and the language debate is still one of the most divisive in Ukraine.

Russian–speaking Ukrainians complain of discrimination.

More than 80 percent of schools in the country switched to Ukrainian after the break–up of the Soviet Union. As a result, the Russian-speaking people have almost no chance to educate their children in Russian. Besides, those who grew up in the Soviet times still find it difficult to fill in forms in government offices and compete for jobs.

Three million signatures are needed to make Russian the second official language in Ukraine. Pushing for a referendum on this issue, the Party of Regions says it should not be a problem since around half of the country's residents speak Russian.

Source: Russia Today, News, September 8, 2007 http://www.russiatoday.ru/news/news/13787

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Updated (January 2008)

PRESIDENT WOULD VOTE AGAINST ASSIGNING THE STATE LANGUAGE STATUS TO RUSSIAN

At a news conference held in Kiev at the end of December 2007, Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko said he was against assigning state language status to the Russian language. The President defended his stance by saying that, as a Ukrainian citizen, he respects the provisions of the current Constitution, which state that there is a single state language in Ukraine and that that language is Ukrainian.

Meanwhile he emphasized that the Ukrainian State respects the rights of all national minorities, the principles of the ECRML, adding that the country pursues a liberal language policy that corresponds to European standards.

Source: Kommersant, News in Brief, December 27, 2007 http://www.kommersant.com/p-11834/Ukraine_Russian_language/

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Updated (May 2008)

RESOLUTION TO RESTRICT THE USE OF UKRAINIAN IN DONETSK'S SCHOOLS

Few days after the Donetsk City Council passed a resolution to restrict the use of the Ukrainian language in the education process at schools in the city, where majority residents are Russian-speaking Ukrainians and ethnic Russians, it was cancelled by Donetsk Mayor Oleksandr Lukianchenko.

According to the resolution, the restrictions were introduced to improve the work of the educational sector of Donetsk and to satisfy the needs of the community in receiving education in their native language. Moreover, it was meant not to allow planned increase in the number of school children taught in Ukrainian and in the number of kindergartens and schools with Ukrainian as the language of instruction, and also not to allow the expansion of a network of Ukrainian schools and classes in the city.

The City Council passed a new wording of the resolution, following a writ from Donetsk City Prosecutor Anatolii Olmezova, which reads that the City Council went beyond their powers in the resolution of May 20, and thus violated the Constitution and the Ukrainian laws.

The new resolution introduces that bodies of local self-government are instructed to open schools, classes, kindergartens and groups at kindergartens owned by the Donetsk city community with Ukrainian and Russian as well as with other minority languages as the languages of instruction only on the ground of written statements from parents.

Source: Ukrainian News Agency, News, May 22, 2008 http://www.ukranews.com/eng/article/124668.html

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Updated (June 2008)

UKRAINE PLANS TO REVISE THE LAW ON THE RATIFICATION OF THE ECRML

Deputy Justice Minister, Valeria Lutkovskaya, has announced that Ukraine is planning to revise its Law on the Ratification of the European Charter passed in 2003.

At the meeting with representatives of the Committee of Experts of the ECRML, she said that Ukraine plans to correct linguistic mistakes in the current law, particularly, regarding the names of languages mentioned in the Charter. They want to resolve the problem of imperfect translation of the Charter and thus to avoid problems that can appear due to the incorrect interpretation of the document in Ukrainian.

Some experts say that the true aim of revising the law on the ratification of the Charter is to prevent treating Russian as a regional or minority language because there are such provisions which grant Russian the status of a regional language in southwestern Ukraine and make it possible to use the language to full extent alongside the state language.

Source: Regnum News Agency, News-Ukraine, May 29,2008 www.regnum.ru/english/1007327.html

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Updated (September 2008)

RUSSIAN LANGUAGE DWINDLED DOWN

Russian being the most important minority language is loosing its ground in Ukraine. Russian speakers want their language to be recognized as the second official language in the country while opponents argue recognition will endanger the development of the Ukrainian tongue. Russian speakers also say they face discrimination based on their language. The demand has the support of most pro-Russian opposition parties, but is opposed by Ukraine's western oriented cabinet.

The two Slavic languages are spoken by roughly equal proportions of the 48 million people in Ukraine. Ukrainian prevails in Western Ukraine, whereas Russian is widely spoken in the south and east of the country and capital Kiev, constituting the largest Russian speaking community outside Russia.

The 1995 survey showed the population was split in almost equal thirds between Ukrainian, Russian, or mixed speakers, but since then the proportion of Ukrainian speakers has been on the increase.

Ukrainian has become a fashionable ideological marker, and it is not unusual to find youngsters calling themselves Ukrainian speakers even though they come from Russian-speaking families. The progressing “Ukrainianization” of the country has left many Russian speakers uncomfortable, but for several decades it was Ukrainians who complained of language discrimination.

Source: the Helsinki Times, August 15, 2008 by Zoltan Dujisin/IPS http://www.helsinkitimes.fi/htimes/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=2663:russian-language-toned-down&catid=14:international-news&Itemid=160

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