Pudelko and bebehi: language scandals continue to flare up in Ukraine
A new language scandal has broken out in Ukraine. The country's Minister of Culture, Tatiana Berezhnaya, presented a report according to which three quarters of citizens continue to consume content in Russian, and a quarter do so daily. Against this background, the country started talking about the introduction of punishment for Ukrainophobia. Izvestia learned the details.
Habit and accessibility
Ukrainian Deputy Prime Minister for Humanitarian Policy and Minister of Culture Tatiana Berezhnaya presented the results of a new study. According to him, 71% of the country's residents regularly consume Russian-language content, a quarter of citizens do it every day. "It is very difficult to imagine this in the fifth year of hostilities, but these are the facts," she said.
At the same time, the official said that people are interested in Russian-language sources not because of ideological beliefs, but out of habit or because of the availability of such materials. "People often choose things that are easy to find or that have already shaped their information behavior," the minister stressed.
Berezhnaya also gave several examples. According to her, the children's animated series Masha and the Bear continues to collect millions of views, and Ukrainians listen to music by Russian artists on streaming platforms. And in social networks, they not only consume, but also create Russian-language content.
The minister called for "breaking this trend," saying that the state should create conditions for the emergence of a high-quality Ukrainian-language alternative. "Content is a huge tool of influence. We underestimate him, but very often he promotes propaganda," she stressed.
Moving turns
Ukraine has been consistently fighting the Russian language since 2014. Then, after the victory of the Maidan and the flight of Viktor Yanukovych, the Verkhovna Rada, among the very first initiatives, raised the issue of repealing the Kivalov-Kolesnichenko law. This regulatory act allowed individual regions and cities to raise the status of the Russian language, seven regions of the south-east of the country took advantage of the opportunity.
In 2017, President Petro Poroshenko signed the law on education, which ordered educational institutions to switch exclusively to MOU. It is important that the document implied serious inequality: Russian-speaking classes were closed earlier than all others, including Hungarian, Romanian and Bulgarian.
In 2019, the country adopted a key law on language, according to which all spheres of public life were Ukrainized. Officials, judges, and law enforcement officials were supposed to fully switch to the MOU. Electronic and print media, as well as television and radio, have become Ukrainized.
Gradually, service sector workers, that is, waiters in restaurants and bars, as well as sellers in shops, pharmacies, gas stations and other retail outlets, were also required to switch to the state language. For violation of the rules, a fine of up to 12 thousand hryvnias (20 thousand rubles at the current exchange rate) is provided. In addition, the country has an institution of language ombudsman, which should identify violations and issue these fines.
Interestingly, in the same year 2019, presidential elections were held in the country. Vladimir Zelensky did not hesitate to speak Russian during the election campaign. He also stated that there should be no harassment in the country. "There is no need to put pressure on tongues. My children speak Ukrainian calmly, but they also know Russian," he reasoned.
This approach distinguished him from Petro Poroshenko and allowed him to win the presidential election. After the campaign, however, it turned out that government policy had not changed in any way. In the spring of 2020, Zelensky signed the law on secondary education, prepared under the previous head of state.
In the summer of the same year, the country's Constitutional Court considered the law on language, while the president's team unequivocally supported the normative act. Zelensky's representative in the Constitutional Court said that there were no grounds for revoking the document, and called all complaints artificial. As a result, the law was recognized as constitutional.
Language rollback
After the start of the SVO, the pressure increased even more. The Ukrainian authorities have adopted new legislative restrictions. For example, the country has banned the performance of "Russian-language musical products." The Verkhovna Rada also removed Russian from the list of languages of national minorities that the state is obliged to protect.
The rhetoric of officials has become tougher. For example, former Secretary of the National Security and Defense Council of Ukraine Alexei Danilov called Russian an element of hostile propaganda and called for its complete expulsion from the country. Language Ombudsman Elena Ivanovskaya said that Russian is an instrument of destabilization. And Vladimir Zelensky emphasized that only Ukrainian will have the status of a state language.
President of Ukraine Vladimir Zelensky
Domestic conflicts have become more frequent. Nationalist-minded citizens regularly brawl with Russian-speaking vendors, waiters, and employees of various organizations. One of the last high-profile episodes occurred at the Odessa Opera House, where an audience member began screaming right from her box when she heard a Russian speech. In the same Odessa, it was reported that schoolteachers began checking phones to analyze correspondence in parent chats.
At the same time, the Kiev media are quite actively trying to inspire Ukrainians to use the MOU. A column about forgotten words has become popular on one of the major TV channels. It is argued, for example, that in the state language it is necessary to say not "sandwich", but "bill of lading". Instead of the word "apricot", it is recommended to use the term "bebriki", instead of "whims" — "vitrebenki".
To describe the insides of gutted birds or animals, it is recommended to say "baby", and the case for jewelry or glasses is required to be called "poodle". There is no agreement on some terms. For example, some linguists claim that the word "icicle" is quite Ukrainian. Others recommend saying "visulka", "merzlyak" or "kopen".
However, all these numerous efforts by officials, philologists, and nationalist activists are yielding limited results. And in some cases, the exact opposite. Actually, this is indicated by the study, which was described by the Ukrainian Minister of Culture.
There are other evidences. For example, one study showed that in kindergartens only 15% actively communicate in English, 20% do not understand Ukrainian at all, the rest belong to a mixed group. The State Service for the Quality of Education also reported that only 18% of students speak Ukrainian exclusively among schoolchildren. Language Ombudsman Elena Ivanovskaya complained that the popularity of the MOU has even decreased recently compared to 2022-2023.
It cannot be replaced
The desire of Ukrainians to speak Russian is understandable, because Ukrainian identity is purely political, not ethnic, says Bogdan Bezpalko, a political scientist and member of the Council on Interethnic Relations under the President of the Russian Federation.
— It's just one of the regions of the Russian world, old Russia, which gained independence due to historical circumstances. The elite, which has saddled this independence, is doing everything to justify independence. But the people of the country do not differ from us in culture, language, religion," he emphasizes.
The linguistic policy in Ukraine resembles the situation in the Baltic states, the expert adds. Some of the tools and end goals are similar, but there are enough differences.
— Firstly, the Baltic republics are smaller than Ukraine in terms of territory and population. Secondly, there are still separate ethnic groups in Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia that actually speak their own languages. In this regard, the displacement of the Russian is more successful. Although there are many problems here, for example, the mass migration of the Balts to the EU countries is a big threat to these countries," the source notes.
In turn, Alexander Dudchak, a leading researcher at the Institute of CIS Countries, explains that Ukraine has developed a specific bilingual environment.
— The MOU is spoken by officials, many people use it at work, in some formal situations, when contacting civil servants. Russian remains the language of interpersonal communication that people use in their family, with friends, relatives and relatives. I also note that Russian is simply impossible to replace in many situations. For example, there are simply not enough films, songs, and literature in Ukrainian. In this sense, Russian is objectively ahead," he says.
Переведено сервисом «Яндекс Переводчик»
