Language and education laws in multi-ethnic de facto states: the cases of Abkhazia and Transnistria

Abstract

Even after the conflicts of the early 1990s that brought them to their de facto independence, both Abkhazia and Transnistria remained strongly multi-ethnic. In both territories, no single ethnic group is an absolute majority and Russian is the language that is mostly spoken on the streets of Sukhumi and Tiraspol. Legislators of both entities felt the need to deal with multi-ethnicity and multilingualism, including in their constitutions, in laws related to education, or more directly with specific language laws (1992 law “On languages” in Transnistria; 2007 law “On the state language in Abkhazia”). The protection of linguistic rights that is formally part of the legislation of both territories finds limitations in practice. The language of education has proved to be particularly contentious, in particular for Moldovan/Romanian language schools in Transnistria and Georgian language schools in Abkhazia. Why are language laws in Abkhazia and Transnistria so different, in spite of the fact that they are both post-Soviet, multi-ethnic territories that became de facto independent in the early 1990s? The different approaches found in Abkhazia and Transnistria represent remarkable examples of language legislation as a tool for nation-building in ethnically heterogeneous territories.

Keywords:

• Abkhazia
• Transnistria
• language laws
• education
• de facto states
• Russian language

Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank Donnacha Ó Beacháin, Julie George, Sara Barbieri, Chiara Loda, and the anonymous reviewers for their useful comments and suggestions.

ORCID

Giorgio Comai http://orcid.org/0000-0002-0515-9542

Bernardo Venturi http://orcid.org/0000-0002-6341-0870

Notes

1. Suren Kerselian, former president of the Armenian community in Abkhazia, interviewed by one of the authors (Comai 2011).

2. In post-Soviet de facto states, names and institutions are highly contested. Following an established practice, in this article we employ the forms most commonly used in English, for example using Transnistria instead of Transdniestria or Pridnestrov'e, and Sukhumi instead of Sokhumi or Sukhum. In order to avoid heavy phrasing, we have not repeated the qualifier “de facto” each time we refer to these entities. This is simply a pragmatic solution and should not be construed as supporting one of the sides. See also Blakkisrud and Kolstø (2012, note 4).

3. As of July 2014, Abkhazia is internationally recognized as independent by Russia, Nicaragua, Venezuela, and Nauru. Transnistria has not been recognized as independent by any UN member.

4. The “language tipping game,” as presented – and applied to the post-Soviet context – by David D. Laitin (1993; 1998), explains language adoption choices with game theory, in particular in the presence of language revival movements.

5. In 1995, Nationalities Papers dedicated a special issue to the politics of language in the post-Soviet space. See Nationalities Papers 23 (3).

6. This kind of asymmetrical bilingualism meant that “Russians remain[ed] largely monolingual, while non-Russians needed to become bilingual to function at any level in the Soviet system” (Ozolins 2003, 218).

7. The politicization of language issues and the association of Belarusian language with opposition to president Lukashenka (Goujon 1999) have probably contributed to this development.

8. In the interwar period, the Cyrillic alphabet was used only in the Moldovan ASSR, with the exception of the years 1931–1937 when the Latin alphabet was also introduced in that territory (Gribincea 2004). It is worth mentioning that the switch to a Latin alphabet during the 1930s and the later reintroduction of Cyrillic were not a peculiarity of the Moldovan ASSR. In the 1930s a “Latinization drive” swept across the Soviet Union and involved dozens of languages; later in the same decade, the Cyrillic alphabet was introduced for most of those same languages (Grenoble 2003, 49–51).

9. The reintroduction of the Latin script happened with a set of laws and decisions (nr. 3462–3467) approved by the Supreme Soviet of the Moldovan SSR on 31 August and 1 September 1989; they abrogated the 10 February 1940 law introducing the Cyrillic alphabet, changed Art.70 of the Constitution of the SSR regulating the state language, and set out a timeline for the application of the law.

10. The debate on the name of the state language resurfaced in the following years. In 2013, a group of parliamentarians brought the issue to the Constitutional court which, claiming that the “Declaration of independence” has priority over the Constitution, concluded that Moldova's state language is Romanian (Curtea Constituţională 2013). In spite of the fact that the Constitutional court stressed that its decision cannot be appealed, it is unlikely that this ruling will actually settle the debate.

11. A review of official websites of Transnistria's state institutions and organs (including individual ministries and departments, as well as local administrations, procurator office, national bank, etc.) conducted by the authors in August 2014 found 46 active websites directly belonging to Transnistria's authorities. Only two of them were available also in Moldovan and Ukrainian (the website of the Ministry of Education and of the Constitutional Court), while all others were available in Russian only or had limited sections in English.

12. See, for example, the program “Textbook” (Government of Transnistria 2012) that distributes budget resources for the preparation and distribution of textbooks to Russian, Moldovan, and Ukrainian schools.

13. In much of the former Soviet Union, self-identification with a given ethnic group (for example, Moldovan or Ukrainian) does not automatically imply competence or primary usage of the respective national language.

14. See in particular Hammarberg (2013).

15. For an extended debate on the possibility for residents of de facto states to appeal to the European Court of Human Rights, see Cullen and Wheatley (2013).

16. For a debate on whether it is appropriate to use the term “ethnic cleansing” in the context of the conflict in Abkhazia, see Dale (1997).

17. According to the highly contested results of the latest census conducted by the Abkhazian authorities in 2011, the Abkhaz are a slight majority (50.71%), while Georgians (17.93%), Armenians (17.39%), and Russians (9.17%) make up the remainder (Apsnypress 2011). For a debate on the demographics in Abkhazia, see Trier, Lohm, and Szakonyi (2010, 17–44) and International Crisis Group (2010, 8–9).

18. According to a 12 June 1945 decree of the Central Committee of the Georgian Communist Party, starting with the 1945/1946 school year, teaching was switched to the Georgian language for the first four years of education, while starting with 1946/1947 school year classes at the time taught in Russian were switched to the Georgian language. Before this policy was introduced, there were 81 Abkhaz language schools. When the policy was reversed in 1953, it was claimed that “henchmen of the enemy of the people Beria” were to be blamed for this “serious mistake” (Kuraskua 1971, 116–118). In those years, Abkhaz language was still taught as a separate subject up to four hours per week. See also Blauvelt (2007, 221).

19. For more details on education reforms in Tsarist and Soviet Abkhazia, see Tarba (1970) and Kuraskua (1971).

20. “The paucity of Abkhaz language schools, the larger number of Russian language schools and the natural desires of parents to see their children proficient in the Soviet Union's (and Abkhazia's!) main lingua franca often meant that Abkhazian children were simply enrolled in Russian language schools” (Hewitt 1998, 173).

21. For more details on Greeks in Abkhazia, see Ioanidi (1990).

22. In her research on inter-ethnic relations in Abkhazia, Clogg (2008, 318) found that “all non-Abkhaz respondents were sympathetic to Abkhaz sensitivity concerning the Abkhaz language and the demographic situation. [ … ] Nobody objected in principle to the adoption of a law in which Abkhaz would become the official language of state use.” Kolstø and Blakkisrud (2012, 17), in their research on Abkhazia's Armenians' limited inclusion in positions of power, stressed that the fact that “Abkhazia is perceived as the land of the Abkhaz [ … ] is accepted also by the non-indigenous [non-ethnic Abkhaz] population.”

23. Unlike in Russia and Georgia, Abkhaz passports include a reference to ethnic identity.

24. No official statistics concerning Abkhaz language proficiency are available. In a survey conducted among Abkhazia's youth in 2007, 73.7% of ethnic Abkhaz declared they could read, write, and speak Abkhaz fluently (Goncharova et al. 2007, 96).

25. TV reports frequently show speakers intervening in Russian in both meetings of the parliament and of the cabinet of ministers. Russian is also used to conduct the session and at times of voting for important matters. See, for example, Abaza TV's (2014) report on the session of parliament that ratified a strongly debated treaty of partnership with Russia in December 2014: MPs are asked to vote for or against the ratification of the treaty in Russian.

26. Perhaps not incidentally, this is exactly the same formula used in Russian legislation. See Art. 14 of the law “On education in the Russian Federation” (2012).

27. Only starting with September 2014 it was planned that all schools in Sukhumi stop asking for contributions from parents, since the average salary paid by the state has increased significantly, “up to” 10,000 roubles, or about $200 (Kvitsinia 2014). For the situation of schools a decade earlier, see for example Avidzba (2003) on the Armenian schools in Gagra.

28. Less than half (44.9%) of the young Armenians included in the survey by Goncharova et al. (2007) stated that they have a good oral and written command of Armenian and about 10% admitted they do not know it at all.

29. Local authorities counter this claim. In an interview with one of the authors in Sukhumi on 3 October 2011, then Abkhaz minister of Education Indira Vardania stated clearly that the law “On the state language” is fully respected for what concerns education and the right of all groups to study in their mother tongue, making reference in particular to equal support given also to Armenian schools even in the difficult post-war years.

30. Both the Transnistrian and the Moldovan side, after visiting Romanian and Moldovan schools in Transnistria together with OSCE representatives, declared confidence in their capability to resolve all issues (TV PMR 2014).

31. As Waters (2006, 408) put it in his study focused on two other post-Soviet de facto states (South Ossetia and Nagorno Karabakh), “starting with the constitutional or founding documents of these republics, it is clear that their primary purpose is not to order society and provide for governance.”

32. The provision mandating Cyrillic for writing in Moldovan is a significant exception.

Additional information

Funding

Giorgio Comai wishes to acknowledge that this work was supported by a Marie Curie Initial Training Network within the 7th European Community Framework Programme under Grant 316825.