|
Ukraine wages war on Russian
language
The Guardian Tuesday November 7, 2000 Ian Traynor in Lviv Orest Dzhmyl fully
understands the language he was forced to learn in a Soviet primary school.
But the 20-year-old maths student will not speak a word of it. Slumped in front of a television in a hall decked
with the paraphernalia of Ukrainian nationalism, he and his three skinhead
mates explain their loathing for the language of Pushkin and recall with
relish the day the local Russians got their comeuppance in Lviv. "I've not really got
anything against Russians. Some of them are my friends. But they've got to
realise this is not Russia, this is Ukraine, and I love my country." "If the Russians don't like it here, they
should leave." Mr Dzhmyl is a foot soldier on the frontline of
Ukraine's linguistic war. In a country where Ukrainian - banned by Russian
tsars and communists - is now the official tongue but the majority still
speak Russian, language is an incendiary issue. One evening in the summer, Mr Dzhmyl and fellow
members of the Patriots of Ukraine, the militaristic youth wing of the
extremist Social National party, went on the rampage in Lviv, trashing cafes
and bars frequented by young Russians. Since then "Muscovites Out" graffiti have
been daubed across Lviv, and Russian Orthodox churches have been vandalised. "You don't hear so much Russian spoken on the
streets now," he grins. "Anti-Russian hysteria," complains Roman Manyakin,
an ethnic Russian political scientist from the east Ukrainian city of
Donetsk. "Those nationalists are Nazis preaching a
gospel of ethnic intolerance." "It's depressing," says Inna Pidluska, a
political analyst in Kiev. "And the government is turning a blind
eye." Independent Ukraine is struggling to shake off
centuries of Russification. As any student of 19th-century European
nationalism knows, language is central to nation building. Ukraine is
discovering that the principle remains axiomatic in the 21st century. Around 20% of Ukrainians are ethnic Russians, yet
more than 60% of the population of 51m speak Russian. "Any real native of Kiev speaks Russian,"
says a Ukrainian man born and bred in the city. "We learned Russian at
school, we speak Russian at home, and I can't be bothered learning Ukrainian
now. I'm too old for that." Mr Dzhmyl spends his weekends marching in a white
shirt and black tie under 8ft Ukrainian banners or doing paramilitary
training in the hills outside Lviv. "The Russians are our biggest problem,"
says his leader, Andri Parubi, 27. "We're training young people for
service in the army and developing their patriotic spirit." Since independence in 1991, the Ukrainian government
has switched lessons in thousands of schools from Russian to Ukrainian. But
while Kiev may be banking on schooling to revive the mother tongue, this is
not enough for the authorities in Lviv, the stronghold of Ukrainian
nationalism, which is Lvov to the Russians, Lemberg to the Viennese, and Lwow
to the Poles. The Lviv city council has been trying to ban
Russian-language pop music in bars and cafes and to close down a
Russian-language radio station, and linguistic vigilantes have been cruising
shops and kiosks, bullying retailers into dumping Russian literature,
newspapers and CDs. It's a tall order. Russian-language newspapers still
outnumber Ukrainian 10 to one across the country. At a second-hand book stall
there are only tomes in Russian. In an art gallery bookshop, Russian
predominates. "We specialise in philosophy and those books
haven't been translated into Ukrainian," explains the shop assistant.
"We do have a Ukrainian version of Kant's Critique of Reason if you're
interested." Another Lviv bookseller says the local authority is
trying either to ban Russian publications or to slap on punitive taxes. But
Ms Pidluska in Kiev says the reason for the domination of Russian is simple. "Nobody will put any money into publishing
books in Ukrainian." Lviv's language war was ignited by the death of a
popular local folk-singer, Igor Bilozir. At an outdoor cafe one evening in
May, he and a friend were playing his Ukrainian ballads while a group of
Russian youths at the next table were singing songs in Russian. The Russians warned Bilozir to stop singing in
Ukrainian. He refused. They came to blows. The fighting spilled along the
street and the 45-year-old slumped to the ground after a blow to the head. He
died three weeks later in hospital, becoming for Ukrainian nationalists an
instant martyr. "He was killed because he sang songs in his own
language," says Mr Parubi. Russian newspapers turned things around and
said the dispute was over the right to use the Russian language. More than 100,000 people in Lviv turned out for
Bilozir's funeral. The next day the Patriots of Ukraine went on the rampage. Two ethnic Russian youths were arrested on suspicion
of murder. One was released inexplicably on bail and left the country, the
other is the son of the local deputy police chief. Expectations of a fair trial
are low. A black cross, flowers and a picture of the
songwriter mark the spot where he died. "Igor Bilozir. Murdered here by
Russian-speaking thugs," reads the inscription across the road from the
local McDonald's. "Do you like McDonald's?" asks Orest
Dzhmyl. "I don't. I like our national food. Borshch. It's not Russian,
it's Ukrainian." http://www.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,,393658,00.html |
|
|