Misha or Mihailik: A Sociolinguistic View on the Ukrainization of Russian Proper Names in Modern Ukraine

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This article focuses on linguistic identity and ideology through analysis of the attitudes of Russian-speaking Ukrainians toward the Ukrainization of traditionally Russian proper names (personal names and toponyms). It summarizes the results of a survey conducted among Ukrainian refugees to Russia, which gauged whether this policy contributes to the alleged alienation of the Russian-speaking population of Ukraine from current political and social developments in the country. The results of the study appear to support the importance of preserving the Russian proper names. Their Ukrainization seems to cause some resentment, especially when it affects people’s own names and the names of their children.

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No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1 For an in-depth overview, see Bilaniuk (2005) or Pavlenko (2008).

2 For a history of the Russian–Ukrainian interaction and a discussion of the current linguistic ideology, see Friedman (2009).

3 Translations in this paper are provided by the author. The style has been preserved as much as possible, and idiomatic expressions were translated as closely to the original as was feasible. Some content necessary for understanding is included in square brackets, and code-switching between Russian and Ukrainian is marked in bold face.

4 A shorter version of this paper was presented at the American Name Society conference held in conjunction with the Linguistics Society of America (LSA), JW Marriott, Austin, TX, January 5, 2017.

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Natalia Knoblock

Natalia Knoblock is an Assistant Professor of English at the Saginaw Valley State University. Her research interests lie mostly in political linguistics, sociolinguistics, and discourse analysis. Some of her work focused on the US presidential debates, xenophobia and aggression in online communication, as well as insults and propaganda. http://orcid.org/0000-0002-0684-3055