Understanding the post-Soviet nuclear locality through language policy orientations

ABSTRACT

This study focuses on a unique case of Visaginas, a Lithuanian post-Soviet nuclear industry site both geographically and mentally marked by the Soviet mono-industrial past, as reflected in its ethnic composition and linguistic practices. This article examines the concept of nuclear exceptionalism in the domain of language policy and patterns applied to the Ignalina Nuclear Power Plant case. It discusses exceptions in the state language legislation during the transition period from Soviet to independent Lithuania and nuclear to post-nuclear industry; moreover, it reflects on more recent developments in linguistic practices of locality.

KEYWORDS:

• Russian speakers
• mono-industrial cities
• nuclear exceptionalism
• language policy and practice
• state language legislation

Acknowledgments

This research was conducted within the project, “The Didactical Technology for the Development of Nuclear Educational Tourism in the Ignalina Nuclear Power Plant (INPP) Region (EDUATOM),” funded by the European Regional Development Fund (project No 01.2.2-LMT-K-718-01-0084) under a grant agreement with the Research Council of Lithuania (LMTLT).

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Interviews

1. Female, 55 years old, Visaginas Municipality Culture, Education, Sport, and the State Language Control Division. Interview by author via Teams, 1 April 2021.

2. Female, 45 years old, Visaginas Municipality Culture, Education, Sport, and the State Language Control Division. Interview by author via Teams, 1 April 2021.

3. Female, ca. 30 years-old, INPP Communication section. Interview by author via Teams, 14 April 2021.

4. Female, 54 years-old, INPP Administration section. Interview by author via Teams, 29 April 2021.

5. Female, ca. 50 years-old, INPP Communication section. Interview by L. Dovydaitytė and N. Mažeikienė on-site, 16 September 2020.

Notes

1. In 1975, the city of Sniečkus (named after the first secretary of the Lithuanian Communist Party) was constructed on the shores of lake Visaginas to provide housing for the workers at the nearby the Ignalina Nuclear Power Plant. In 1992 the city was renamed Visaginas.

2. The Visaginas Nuclear Power Plant (VNPP) and the related infrastructure were a new project to be built near Visaginas. It was intended to replace the Ignalina Nuclear Power with a more recent and safer electricity generation technology. The new NPP was supposed to start producing electricity in 2018–20. After the referendum of 14 October 2012, when Lithuanian citizens rejected construction of the new NPP, the project was abandoned. It should be noted that in Article 3 of the Law on the Implementation of the Law on the State Language of the Republic of Lithuania (1995), the wrong name was used in the text: no Visaginas Nuclear Power Plant existed, only the Ignalina Nuclear Power Plant. This mistake was noticed and corrected only in the Law of 2011. In order to ensure a uniform treatment of nuclear facilities in the legal sense, it was proposed to abandon specific names of nuclear facilities, such as Ignalina or Visaginas, and use generic nouns instead, thus avoiding potential misunderstandings.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Ineta Dabašinskienė

Dr. Ineta Dabašinskienė is Professor of Linguistics at the Department of Lithuanian Studies and Head of the Research Centre for Multilingualism at Vytautas Magnus University. Her research interests include, but are not limited to language policy and multilingualism, monolingual and bilingual language acquisition, heritage language, language education, as well as grammar and pragmatics of spoken language.