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Abstract
The government of the Chuvash Republic, an ethno-federal region of the Russian Federation, used a targeted and symbolic language policy in an attempt to stabilize the position of the republic's titular language while avoiding conflict with local Russophones and the Russian federal government. The resulting policy allowed the republic's government to frame the existence of an autonomous Chuvash republic – as well as the local elite's form of governance – as being essential to the preservation of the Chuvash language and thus the Chuvash people. In this way, it used language politics to strengthen its position vis-à-vis both local constituents and the Russian federal government. However, the limited nature of the government's program has made its gains tenuous in the face of continuing Russian political and cultural recentralization.
Acknowledgements
The author would like to thank Yoshiko Herrera, Timothy Colton, Avram Lyon, two anonymous reviewers, and participants in the University of Wisconsin–Madison's Post-Communist Politics Workshop for their valuable insights on earlier drafts of this article. Conversations with Dmitry Gorenburg regarding Russian regional language policy were likewise essential to the development of this work.
Notes
The terms “Chuvashia” and “Chuvash Republic” are used interchangeably in the literature; this article follows this practice. Russia has 21 ethnic republics (including Chuvashia), which have enjoyed varying degrees of sovereignty following the disintegration of the Soviet Union.
The most prominent exceptions are Gorenburg (Minority Ethnic Mobilization) and Boiko, Markov, and Kharitonova, whose works provide a foundation for this study.
Indeed, Chuvashia more closely resembles the Volga republics of Mari-El, Mordovia and Udmurtia, which also had relatively weak sovereignty movements. Importantly, according to the 1989 Soviet Census, these three republics had similarly relatively low titular identification with their titular languages (ranging from a low of 76% of the titular population claiming the titular language as their native tongue in Udmurtia to approximately 88% doing so in both Mordovia and Mari-El) and high titular identification with Russian as either their native tongue or a language which they speak fluently (ranging from 87% of the titular population in Mari-El to approximately 92% in both Mordovia and Udmurtia).
My overall description of the national movement in Chuvashia follows Gorenburg (Minority Ethnic Mobilization 60–64, 72–73, 140–44) and Filippov.
When the native-language question was asked as part of the 2006 survey “The Chuvash Republic – A Sociocultural Portrait,” a further decrease from 1989 was evident: 81.5% of surveyed Chuvash claimed Chuvash as their native language (survey data in Boiko and Kharitonova 2006; Kharitonova 123).
As with the data regarding titular language identification, the change in identification with the Russian language in Chuvashia is consistent with those changes which occurred in both Tatarstan and Bashkortostan, and less pronounced than that which occurred in Mari-El, Mordovia and Udmurtia. In both Tatarstan and Bashkortostan, 93% of titular respondents reported fluency in Russian on the 2002 census, an increase from 80% and 78%, respectively, in 1989. In the 2002 Census, 98% of ethnic Udmurts in Udmurtia reported speaking fluent Russian (from 92% who identified Russian as their native language or a fluent second language in 1989), in Mari-El 97% of ethnic Mari reported speaking fluent Russian (up from 87% in 1989), and in Mordovia 99% of ethnic Mordvin reported speaking fluent Russian (up from 92% in 1989).
The 2006 survey “The Chuvash Republic – A Sociocultural Portrait,” which asked more in-depth questions about actual linguistic practice, provides support for these claims, finding that use of the language remains low even among ethnic Chuvash. Ethnic Chuvash reported using the language most frequently within their family and with their neighbors, but even in these spheres only about half of the respondents reported doing so: 52% reported speaking Chuvash with their family, and 49% reported using it with their neighbors. At work and at government institutions the figures are lower still: 36% and 26%, respectively (survey data in Boiko and Kharitonova 2006; Kharitonova 123).
These separatist movements swiftly faded, lacking the assistance of the Russian federal government or that of Ul'yanovsk Oblast' (Ivanov, Etnicheskaya karta Chuvashii 120–21; Danilov 41).
More recent surveys indicate that, while few in Chuvashia view ethnic relations as being ideal, very few consider relations to be bad (Boiko, Braslavskii, and Kharitonova).
For more information on urbanization trends in Chuvashia, see Ivanov (“Osobennosti etnicheskikh protsessov” 84).
The government has also attempted to tie different aspects of Chuvash identity together, creating a more cohesive whole. For example, Vovina (702) has noted an increased popular demand for a more Chuvash-oriented form of worship through the appointment of ethnic-Chuvash priests and liturgy conducted in Chuvash; the government has attempted to assist in this process by releasing a complete text of the Bible in Chuvash.
However, the 2003 “Law on Languages” did not include the provision requiring government officials to speak both Chuvash and Russian; since the original provision had a 10-year implementation period, the main effect of this removal was to make clear that a transition to bilingualism in the government would not occur anytime in the near future.
The Chuvash government also has attempted to portray itself as a necessary instrument for the protection of the Chuvash language across the Russian Federation. It has done so by developing a program of summer camps for ethnic Chuvash children from outside of Chuvashia, establishing ties with both the Chuvash National Congress and Chuvash groups in other Russian regions, and financing Chuvash-language textbooks and educational programs across the Russian Federation (for a concise description of the government's ties with the Chuvash diaspora, see “Natsional'noe obrazovanie segodnya”). Additionally, the government portrays programs like Chuvash television and radio as assisting ties between the Chuvash diaspora and the Republic (Kabinet Ministrov Chuvashskoi Respubliki, “Postanovlenie o respublikanskoi tselevoi programme” 133). Such programs, in addition to assisting Chuvash cultural revitalization outside of Chuvashia, also serve to provide jobs and financing linked to the government to those active in such programs inside Chuvashia.
A scandal in 2011 cast doubt on whether all government officials truly believe in such a policy: after a council member complained about problems with translation from Chuvash to Russian at a session of the Chuvash State Council, Speaker of the Council Mikhail Mikhailovskii lashed out, commenting that in Chuvashia “the fundamental language is Chuvash, and Russian comes thereafter” (osnovnoi yazyk – chuvashskii, a uzhe potom russkii idet). Such a pronouncement was unsurprisingly highly controversial, and Mikhailovskii apologized and argued that he had been misinterpreted. (For reports on the incident, see “Chuvashsko-russkoiazychnyi skandal”; “Deputaty gosdumy”; “Spiker i glaynyi edinoross”)
In his analysis of the Russian federal system's relationship to Tatarstani language policy, Cashaback argues that, despite tensions between the federal government and the regions regarding language issues (and lingering questions about the long-term viability of such policies in the region), Russian federalism has thus far provided the Tatarstani government space to pursue its policies. The case of Chuvashia similarly shows that Russian federalism has provided the Chuvash government with the ability to pursue limited policies of linguistic revitalization, though again the long-term viability of these programs is questionable, especially given the uncertainty surrounding the intentions of the Russian central government in this area.