A Tense and Shifting Balance: Bilingualism and Education in Ukraine

Abstract

Language policy is a divisive issue in Ukraine, where the Ukrainian and Russian languages coexist in a tenuous balance. Many people see the choice between Russian and Ukrainian as symbolic of two polar political and cultural allegiances: with Russia, or with Europe and the West. Promotion of Ukrainian is meant to counteract its historical subjugation to Russian. At the same time, there is state support for minority languages and cultures, including Russian, to help develop a Ukrainian civic identity not restricted to Ukrainian ethnicity. Legislation designates Ukrainian as the sole state language while also supporting education in Russian and other languages, including Romanian, Hungarian, and Crimean Tatar. The previously low status of Ukrainian has risen greatly since the disintegration of the USSR, and this language is much more widely used than before in education, government, and public life in general. However, Russian continues to dominate in many spheres as it did during the Soviet era. Many people feel that the survival of Ukrainian is still threatened by Russian, and that the recent gains of Ukrainian in status and spheres of use are tenuous. In 2008, struggles over language policies persist and the implementation of existing policies continues to be uneven.

Keywords:

• Ukraine
• language policy
• minority languages
• language revival
• national development

Acknowledgements

The authors would like to express their gratitude to the people in Ukraine who participated in interviews and surveys and otherwise facilitated the research presented here. Our deep thanks also go to Aneta Pavlenko, for her inspiration, her insightful comments, and editorial guidance. Research for this article was supported in part through a Fulbright-Hays Research Abroad fellowship, and through a grant from the International Research & Exchanges Board (IREX), with funds provided by the National Endowment for the Humanities, the United States Department of State, which administers the Title VIII Program, and the IREX Scholar Support Fund. Neither of these organizations is responsible for the views expressed herein.

Notes

1. During her fieldwork, Bilaniuk did encounter people who argued that there are racial differences between Ukrainians and Russians.

2. The Ukrainian Socialist Soviet Republic, formed by the Bolsheviks, was thus named in January 1919. The Constitution of 1936 switched the order of the second and third words in the name, making it the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic.

3. Riabchuk (1999) uses ‘Creole nationalism’ as a metaphor to express the mixed Ukrainian-Russian identity of the Ukrainian population. In addition, Masenko (2004) writes about ‘Cultural creolization’ of the russified population.

4. Spoken Russian prevails in many workplaces, but official paperwork in state institutions and in the official dealings of businesses with state institutions is in Ukrainian. Other paperwork of private businesses, such as business contracts, may be in either language, depending on the preferences of the parties involved.

5. The survey polled randomly selected students of the Institute of Philology of the Kyiv National Taras Shevchenko University.

6. Ukrainian and English excerpts of this legislation are available at: http://www.minelres.lv/NationalLegislation/Ukraine/ukraine.htm.