Playing the Identity Card

Mykola Riabchuk

If one observes a significant number of politicians talking about the “protection of Russian language” and “closer ties with Russia,” one can be sure that an election campaign in Ukraine is in full swing. The goal of the rhetoric is not only to mobilize the numerous Russophile / Sovietophile electorate in the densely populated industrialized South East. Another goal is to send a proper signal to Kremlin and hook its powerful political, economic and propagandistic support. In a country divided almost equally between pro-Western and pro-Russian parts, anything that can tip the balance is readily employed.

The identity issue is strongly infused in Ukrainian politics, and language is merely part of it. Its role is primarily symbolical since virtually everybody in Ukraine has some command of both Ukrainian and Russian, and definitely everybody understands both languages. Conversation where one person speaks Russian and the other one speaks Ukrainian is not unusual, both in private or public spheres such as TV, and parliament or government offices. It is not the issue of communication actually, that causes the rift but a matter of attitude: either respectful or scornful. For years, Ukrainian was the language of the despised majority – enslaved peasants of tsarist nobleman or kolkhoz bosses. The more advanced, urbanized, educated world spoke Russian. This left a heavy imprint of superiority on one part of the population and inferiority on the other.

Today, the empathy with Ukrainian entails a whole set of attitudes toward the colonial past and national liberation, historical heroes and villains, symbols and narratives. Within this mindset, Russia is the main “Other” from which Ukrainians should decouple and emancipate, whereas Europe is the main “Us,” the civilizational space where Ukrainians presumably “always belonged” and now should “return.” The antithetical attitude stands typically for colonialism denial and normalization of all its legacies. The past is considered as the history of Russian-Ukrainian brotherhood rather than domination, Russification is seen as a natural process rather than a result of specific policies, and the West is perceived as the main “Other,” whereas Russia and all the post-Soviet space is the main “Us.” It is not ethnicity, language, political preferences or regional belonging that divide Ukrainians but, rather, values and attitudes, even though a significant correlation between all these markers can be easily found.

This leads to another Ukrainian paradox. On the one hand, as opinion surveys reveal, the language issue per se stands very low on the list of people’s concerns, far behind unemployment, poverty, criminality, and corruption that top the list. Yet, at the same time, nothing divides Ukrainians so much and sparks such heated debates as identity-related issues. This tempts politicians to play the language card, which is an easy task since no efforts to solve the real bread-and-butter issues are required in this case. It is sufficient to advertise themselves as “our bad boys” with the only virtue of being “ours.”

Ukraine is heading towards parliamentary elections scheduled by the end of October, and the Ukrainian language has already fallen prey to a highly unscrupulous election campaign. Back in July, shortly after the UEFA cup competition ended in Kyiv, the Ukrainian parliament passed the bill “On the fundamentals of the national language policy.” The document stipulates that any of 18 “regional and minority” languages spoken by 10 (and more) percent of the people in a certain administrative region can be used in that region as the “official” language alongside Ukrainian.

In fact, the law cares about only one language, Russian, which, ironically, does not need any protection since it dominates nearly all the territory and virtually all the spheres of public life in Ukraine. By the same token, one may protect English in Ireland or Spanish in Peru. The main goal of the document is not to secure the right of the Russophone citizens to use Russian since such a right is enshrined in Ukraine’s Constitution and in the 1989 “Law on Languages.” The main goal is to secure the right of post-Soviet bureaucracy not to learn and to use Ukrainian under any circumstances. No provisions require service for Ukrainophones in Ukrainian, or the use of Russian alongside Ukrainian rather than instead of it. The law gives a free hand to state officials to choose the language of work at their convenience, regardless of preferences of individual citizens, hence there is little doubt what the traditionally Russian-speaking and Soviet-thinking bureaucracy will choose.

Even though the sponsors of the new law refer to the Western experience of bilingualism, neither Finland nor Switzerland is a relevant analogue here. Rather, it is Belarus where a similar Soviet-style law and hypocritical “laissez-faire” policy have already transformed Belarusian speakers into second-class citizens and brought the Belarusian language to the verge of extinction. A similar law in Ukraine evoked very critical comments from the expert community, NGOs, the OSCE High Commissioner on National Minorities, and the Venice Commission. Its letter in many cases contradicts the Ukrainian constitution, its spirit runs against the relative balance of intergroup interests, and the way it was rubber-stamped in the parliament is outrageous since deputies considered no conclusions of the respective parliamentary committees or amendments discussed, and many procedural technicalities were violated.

The further irony of the story is that the controversial law, as new surveys reveal, brought the dominant Party of Regions very little electoral gain. Analysts wonder whether this step was another miscalculation of the provincial elite, unable to grasp the complex reality and predict the inevitable backfire and various side effects – something that also happened in 2010 when the Black Sea Fleet base was conceded to Russia for virtually nothing, or last year when former Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko was imprisoned. Others argue, however, that this is a strategic move aimed at systemic emasculation of Ukrainian identity and, thereby, weakening the power base of the Orange opponents.

Both explanations may hold some truth but the main goal of the language law seems to be highly manipulative. It targets both supporters and opponents in the sense that it introduces false agenda into the election campaign. It shifts attention from the bread-and-butter issues on which the incumbents, with their disastrous social and economic policies, have little to say, toward issues concerning which any trickster and demagogue can pretend to be a “Great Leader.” Part of this plan is to make the opposition play this game: to defend language rather than the rule of law, and to fight remote Russia and its mythical “fifth column” rather than the real cheaters and robbers that run the country. Back in 2004, the Ukrainian people were victorious in a battle against the corrupt regime precisely because they rejected this false agenda and fought for fair elections and human dignity, for justice and decency, rather than language and other identity issues, however important they might be eventually. It remains to be seen whether the government’s manipulative strategies will be more successful this time.

 

DUPING THE PUSSY-CATS

Mykola Riabchuk

The last hopes some Ukrainians harbored for president’s veto over the highly divisive language bill, faded away on August 8, after Viktor Yanukovych signed it into law http://www.president.gov.ua/news/24960.html.

The result was largely predictable since the promotion of Russian language – at the cost of Ukrainian, as many critics opine – was a cornerstone of Yanukovych’s 2004 and 2010 presidential campaigns as well as of his Sovietophile Party of Regions. The propagandistic materials leaked from the party headquarters before the bill was even approved reveal a key role assigned to the language law by the party spin-doctors in the pending parliamentary elections campaign. And the brutal, extremely unscrupulous, and illegitimate way the bill was pushed through the parliament proves that the stakes are too high for the Party of Regions and, apparently, for the president.

Therefore, it was rather naïve to expect that the president would destroy what his team had been building so ruthlessly, breaching various laws and dismissing procedural subtleties. The calculation looks simple: whatever the president and his party do, they will not garner support from the democratic, Ukrainophile, and pro-European part of society. So, the main task is to mobilize the traditional, Sovietophile part of the electorate, which would probably never vote for the “democrats” perceived as “nationalists” and “Western hacks,” but may also reject the “Regionals” because of dissatisfaction with their disastrous social and economic policies. Some protest votes would probably benefit the Regionals’ satellites: the Communists on the virtual left and Natalia Korolevska’s “Avanti Ukraine!” in the quasi-liberal “center.” Still, the problem of mobilizing the Regionals’ core electorate remains topical since many of those people may simply ignore the elections, facilitating thereby the chances of the opposition.

The estimated size of the Sovietophile electorate in Ukraine is about 40%. This does not comprise a majority but the Party of Regions has good reason to believe that the half of the parliament elected from the territorial districts (not from the party lists) will bring them the much-needed majority thanks to the so-called independents. Most of them ultimately appear very dependent on the incentives or intimidation or both from the authorities and usually end-up in the pro-government camp.

The plot of the “Language Bill” was essentially clear but some dramatic devices were invoked to create an effective atmosphere of suspense and intrigue. First, there was last year’s precedent when the law on official use of the Soviet red flags was passed and even signed by the president but cancelled eventually by the hyper-loyalist constitutional court. (This actually may happen again but probably only after the parliamentary elections. The abandoned law would not bring Yanukovych much love and gratitude from Ukrainophiles anyway but would certainly give him an additional trump-card for some manipulative games in the future – something that his predecessor Leonid Kuchma understood perfectly).

Secondly, the head of the parliament Volodymyr Lytvyn refused to sign the bill citing multiple violations of the procedure http://www.pravda.com.ua/news/2012/07/4/6967984. But his resignation was not accepted by the parliament and he was ultimately forced to comply, possibly blackmailed by the “Regionals” because of his alleged involvement in the Gongadze affair http://news.liga.net/ua/news/politics/707846-litvin_p_dpisav_skandalniy_zakon_pro_movi.htm.

Thirdly, the professional “doves” in Yanukovych’s team strained every sinew to convey to the public the president’s deep concern with the le controversies and his sincere desire to find a reasonable compromise that would not harm the Ukrainian language. Maryna Stavniychuk, his adviser, went so far as to recognize unequivocally that “the law was passed with flagrant violations of the articles 47, 116-122 and 130 of procedural statute (регламент) of the parliament, and many of its provisions contradicted the respective paragraphs of the Ukrainian Constitution and international documents ratified by Ukraine, including the European Charter of Regional and Minority Languages”http://obozrevatel.com/politics/16482-umovna-movna-krapka.htm. Moreover, Viktor Yanukovych himself recognized the controversial character of the law, referring to it as a crude document “splitting society” and therefore requiring “some improvements.”

And finally, on the very eve of the signing of the bill, President Yanukovych summoned a number of what still is called in Soviet newspeak “representatives of intelligentsia” to his summer residence in the Crimea to get their first-hand opinion on the hot issue. Next day the bill was signed into law to the great shock of the “representatives,” who justifiably considered themselves “tricked like kittens.” (The phrase became a popular description of the Party of Regions’ behavior after its informal parliamentary “director” Mykhaylo Chchetov used it boastfully to explain how they had cheated the opposition when pushing through the bill against all procedural requirements: “Мы их развели, как котят.” Remarkably, the Russian word “razvesti” – to sucker somebody – comes from the criminal jargon openly favored by the dominant Donetsk clan) http://www.pravda.com.ua/news/2012/07/3/6967926.

To sweeten the pill, the president ordered the government to create an ad hoc working group that would elaborate proper changes to the law, with a stated goal to “ensure the full-fledged functioning of the Ukrainian language in all spheres of social life over the entire territory of the country.” This belongs next to the initial intention of the document to “guarantee the free development and use of other mother tongues of Ukrainian citizens” http://www.president.gov.ua/documents/14941.html.  Raisa Bohatyriova, the deputy prime minister in charge of humanitarian issues, was assigned to head the group, while the president’s guests, a.k.a. “representatives of intelligentsia,” were invited to participate in the deliberations. Ironically, the same offer was made also to the bill’s sponsors, Messrs. Kivalov and Kolesnichenko – a decision that some Ukrainian journalists declared was rather like asking Himmler and Goebbels to work on a law of de-Nazification.

The excessive demonization of two petty swindlers and opportunists is hardly appropriate but the metaphor is actually not about ideological similarity. It refers primarily to the intolerant, aggressive, and arrogant approach of these two persons and their use of political force to resolve any issue that requires a dialogue and consensus building. Serhiy Kivalov was the cynical head of the Central Election Commission that falsified notoriously the 2004 presidential elections and provoked the popular uprising known as the “Orange Revolution.” Today, he reportedly owns the TV channel “Academia,” a source of pro-Russian and anti-Ukrainian propaganda, with a flagship program “Background” full of unrestrained innuendos and overt propaganda of hatred http://rutube.ru/tracks/5357980.html.

Vadym Kolesnichenko, the other self-professed promoter of European charters and values in Ukraine, has a similar reputation as a professional crusader against “Ukrainian bourgeois nationalism.” Since Soviet times, the term has been used exactly like “Zionism,”i.e. to denigrate all things Ukrainian and to criminalize any vestiges of national identity beyond ethnography. Kolesnichenko’s fame in the parliament is based primarily on his pugilism, parading with Russian state symbols, and making disparaging remarks about Ukrainian language and culture. A dense cloud of scandals accompanies his activity. Within the few past months, he managed to steal Timothy Snyder’s article from the New York Review of Books for his own “antinationalistic” collection http://news.liga.net/news/politics/669428-professor_yelskogo_universiteta_vozmushchen_postupkom_kolesnichenko.htm, to organize “mass approval” for his draft bill by forging “letters of support” from various academic and minority institutions http://www.pravda.com.ua/articles/2012/05/23/6965117, and to falsify quotations and references in the explanatory notes to the document he submitted with Mr. Kivalov http://www.pravda.com.ua/columns/2012/07/30/6969744.

Perhaps the best characterization of this provocateur-at-large comes from his 2009 speech in the parliament where he lobbied for another “antinationalistic” bill: “On banning the rehabilitation and heroizing of fascist collaborators of 1933-1945.” To make his propagandistic speech more appealing to the fellow-MPs and especially for the general public, he embellished dry bureaucratic formulas with some personal details. At one point he referred not only to the UN documents and Nuremberg court decisions but also, as stated in the official stenogram, to the “bright memory of millions of Ukrainians who perished in their fight against fascism and bright memory of my father who burnt in a tank in Belarus defending the Soviet Motherland from the German-fascist occupants”” http://www.pravda.com.ua/columns/2012/07/30/6969744.

The only problem with the credibility of this speech (and Mr. Kolesnichenko in general) is that the speaker was born in 1958, roughly 15 years after his father reportedly perished in Belarus. (One may recollect here a reputed similar statement by Aleksander Lukashenko who was also impassioned so much by his own rhetoric that forgot he was born seven years after the war and, moreover, had actually never heard anything about his father).

Now one may guess how the “kittens”, a.k.a. “representatives of the Ukrainian intelligentsia,” would cooperate with the two very peculiar personages on the expected improvements to the law that has been absolutely lawless – illegal and illegitimate – in its spirit and letter, causes and effects, inception and delivery. My bet is that the crusaders might tone down their Ukrainophobic zeal on the boss’s orders; the “representatives” would receive from the president soothing promises of further support for Ukrainian language and culture; the law would be amended to meet (more or less) provisions of the constitution; so that little will change in today’s ambiguous situation, which is determined primarily not by laws but by the authorities’ goodwill and political expedience. All this will happen, however, after the elections, when logic suggests Yanukovych will backtrack a little bit in order to have more space for the eventual political bargaining and maneuvering.

Today expediency means appeasing supporters and undermining opponents. Kivalov, Kolesnichenko, and Chechetov accomplished the first part of the project, while the “representatives of intelligentsia” helped to complete the other part. First, they ran, at the president’s whim, to his dacha and, second, they got virtually nothing. To enhance the humiliation, the information was leaked that all of these affluent citizens flew at the cost of Bohdan Havrylyshyn, a Swiss-Ukrainian businessman, fully in line with the Regionals’ propaganda that the Ukrainian language issue is merely a Diaspora hobbyhorse http://www.pravda.com.ua/news/2012/08/7/6970338.

Even though most of the “representatives” are not directly connected to the political opposition (actually most of them have successfully cooperated with both Soviet and post-Soviet authorities), all of them represent, in the popular mind, the “Ukrainian party,” i.e., the opposition as it is broadly understood. To discredit the opposition on the eve of elections is definitely a favored policy, but probably even more important for the regime is to involve as many public figures as possible in its illegal activity. This helps to normalize things abnormal and legitimize the illegitimate. The cheaters become the partners; the swindlers assume the role of respectable statesmen. The story may resemble the classical parable about Faust and Mephistopheles. The only problem is that the Ukrainian Mephistos are merely petty crooks, and the Ukrainian Fausts are merely dull and insipid collaborators.

[Editor's note: the views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of the Stasiuk Program for the Study of Contemporary Ukraine]

LANGUAGE LAW A PLOY TO DISTRACT VOTERS

David Marples

On July 3, the Ukrainian Parliament passed the second draft of a language law that would grant official status to minority languages in areas in which they are spoken by at least 10% of the population. Its acceptance sparked furious protests outside Parliament, with riot police using batons and tear gas against demonstrators.

Some analysts maintain that the law would undermine the status of Ukrainian, which has been the only official state language since the country gained independence in 1991. Others anticipate a deepening of a regional divide between the Ukrainian-speaking Western regions, and the mainly Russophone areas of the south and east.

Yet as usual with events involving the ruling Regions Party and its president Viktor Yanukovych, there is more to this move than is at first evident.

The circumstances of the bill’s passing were calculated to inflame. It was introduced without forewarning, when many deputies and Speaker Volodymyr Lytvyn were absent. It received votes from 248 deputies, well over the required minimum of 226. The Regions deputies were supported by the Communist Party and People’s Party. Speaker Lytvyn subsequently offered his resignation, but it was rejected by the assembly the following day. Seven deputies announced they were starting a hunger strike in protest. There were angry demonstrations in Kyiv and in the western Ukrainian city of L’viv, the heartland of Ukrainian speakers. Protests are also planned by the Ukrainian community abroad in centers like Toronto.

In theory the bill—it still requires the signatures of the President and Speaker before it becomes law—would mean that Russian would take on official status in 13 of Ukraine’s 27 designated regions, i.e. 11 “oblasts” (provinces) and the cities of Kyiv and Sevastopol. In the far western area of Transcarpathia, Hungarian would gain official status. In Chernivtsi and southwestern Odesa, the same would apply to Romanian and Bulgarian. On the Crimean peninsula, the Tatar language would also gain such status. Altogether, Ukraine would have 18 “official languages”!

There is little logic to its sudden passing other than perhaps to enhance the electoral standing of the Regions Party in Russian-speaking regions prior to the parliamentary elections, anticipated in October. Language issues are hardly a priority in a state riddled with corruption and human rights issues, and suffering a sharp economic downturn. And although tempers are frayed, the number of protesters is small. A mere 1,000 turned out in central Kyiv on July 4, for example, barely enough to cause a flutter on the bustling Khreschatyk.

Also, should the law attain official status its implementation would be a bureaucratic and financial nightmare. Indeed, a representative of the Finance Ministry, Valentyna Brusylo, commented, perhaps indiscreetly, that it would likely cost some $1.5-$2 billion to introduce. Such expenses in an election year would be an issue of much greater contention than the language law itself. The Ukrainian government is in financial trouble: it recently agreed terms for a $3 billion loan from China’s Eximbank, payment for which will be partly in exports of grain up to 2.5 million tons per year.

Third, why do Regions deputies need to introduce a law formalizing the status of Russian, which already enjoys a privileged position? No doubt it will impress Russian president Vladimir Putin who visits Ukraine on July 12. But the question has been dragged up, by Yanukovych and earlier presidents, at every election and then ignored once a new president entered office.

The answer to all these questions appears to be that it is a calculated ploy to inflame and divide residents of Ukraine, a diversion from other issues that should be considered more urgent. The electorate has been sidetracked for the past month by Euro-2012, a successful but costly soccer competition that was well organized and won convincingly by the Spanish. The language law is the new diversion.

After its passing, as opposition deputies gathered in the streets to protest, the remaining 73 deputies passed a total of 20 new laws in a single day. These included new subsidies for the Donbas coal mines, which are at the center of Regions’ power base, a new rail connection to Kyiv international airport, and more funding for the Ministry of Justice and the Office of the State Prosecutor. The costs of the new laws amount to billions.

Because so few deputies were present, others simply voted in their place, pressing the “yes” button in the absentees’ seats in order to secure a majority for each new law. The strategy could be seen as cynical. But Regions deputies habitually pay lip service to the democratic process while finding ways to circumvent it.

The uproar over the language bill may be justified. But it is also a diversion, carefully calculated so that deputies are preoccupied and the rules of Parliament can be circumvented. In the meantime the ruling elite of Ukraine fritter away state funds without a care for the long-term consequences.

The language law is simply impractical, but it is not the main issue. Language does not divide the residents of Ukraine. The real problem is the ruling Regions Party, which treats the country as a personal fiefdom to be robbed at will and finds ingenious ways to ensure that it can continue to do so.

This article first appeared in the Edmonton Journal, 7 July 2012. [http://www2.canada.com/edmontonjournal/news/ideas/story.html?id=0a732fad-db3f-4777-b245-c73bcf13873f&p=2]

Playing with Ambiguities

Mykola Ryabchuk

Playing with Ambiguities

Ukraine is an not an easy country to understand because of a great number of ambiguities, and the language issue is a very good example.

On the one hand, according to the 2001 national census, 78% of the population of Ukraine consists of Ukrainians, and most of them (85%) claim Ukrainian as their native language. On the other hand, about 50% of Ukrainian citizens (the figure varies in different surveys) declare Russian to be their “language of convenience” (or “language of daily communication”). Many Ukrainians who speak Ukrainian at home are ashamed (or afraid, because of symbolic violence) to speak it in public. As a result, in most Ukrainian cities, even those with a Ukrainophone majority, the Ukrainian language is virtually unheard. The very notion of linguistic minority / majority in Ukraine becomes therefore ambiguous and susceptible to manipulations.

The Ukrainian Law on Languages (1989) and national Constitution (1996) contribute to the ambiguity rather than try to solve it. Both documents recognize Ukrainian as the sole “state language” whereas Russian is placed among other minority languages that can be legally used and protected by law alongside the “state language.” No legal mechanisms, to enforce effectively the use of the “state language” have ever been elaborated, however. This absence has resulted in a de-facto laissez-faire policy. The language law has been applied, like many other laws in Ukraine, arbitrarily, selectively, and in a highly opportunistic manner.

As a result, both Russophones and Ukrainophones are dissatisfied with the situation. Each side feels that the state is not “theirs” to the degree they would like it to be. The reason for such alienation is to be found, however, not in the lawless, corrupt and uncivil character of the state, but rather in the language(s) it imposed on its citizens – too much Ukrainian, from the point of view of Russophones, and (still) too much Russian, from the point of Ukrainophones. The latter, as the “titular nationality,” have some privileges de-jure and would like to assert them de-facto. The former, as the imperial majority in the past, still enjoy their dominant status de facto and would like to prevent the possible change of the postcolonial status-quo de-jure.

The best way to maintain the Soviet-style status-quo would be to amend the 10^th paragraph of the Ukrainian constitution and grant Russian the status of the “second state language” alongside Ukrainian. Such an amendment requires, however, a qualified majority of two-thirds of the MPs in the parliament, which is hardly achievable. Consequently the authorities used a tricky subterfuge under the pretext of implementation of the European Charter of Regional and Minority Languages ratified by Ukraine nine years ago.

The Party of Regions submitted a draft law “On the fundamentals of the national language policy” last August in the Ukrainian parliament, which was approved at the first reading, without any discussion, on June 5, despite very critical comments by the respective parliamentary committees, expert community, NGOs, the OSCE High Commissioner on National Minorities, and the Venice Commission. The law stipulates that any of 18 “regional and minority” languages spoken by 10 (and more) per cent of the people in a certain administrative region can be used in that region as the “official” language alongside Ukrainian.

This sounds exceptionally benevolent, since not a single European nation to date has granted such generous support as Ukraine to its 18(!) minority languages on its territory (some nations, such as Greece or France, have not even bothered to ratify the Charter). Consequently, the law was lauded internationally as “fully corresponding to Ukraine’s European aspirations and European obligations.”

“Allowing or banning the use of Russian,” the Associated Press announced stridently, “is one of the most divisive topics in post-Soviet Ukraine.” Finally, the AP report stated, the dark age of persecution of all things Russian is drawing to the end. And readers can sigh with relief because the new law “would allow the use of the Russian language in courts, hospitals and other institutions in the Russian-speaking regions of the country.”

Leaving aside the AP revelations on “banning the use of Russian” (not the greatest stupidity ever enunciated by Moscow-based Western journalists), and without asking politely the names of the mythical “hospitals, courts, and other institutions” where the use of the Russian is prohibited, one may ask a much simpler question. What is the expected budget of the internationally praised law? How much would it cost for the state to provide the service in all 18 languages – alongside Ukrainian?

International reporters might be fully satisfied that Ukraine has met its “European obligations.” But the Ukrainian parliamentarians and, in particular, Messrs. Kivalov and Kolesnichenko who sponsored the bill, should have been more apt and precise in their law-making. What are, indeed, the estimated costs of law’s practical implementation?

There are two possible reasons why the Ukrainian law-makers have never discussed this mundane issue. First, they are not going to implement the law or even pass it after the final reading. This means that all the buzz around the law is just a PR-campaign aimed at mobilization of the Russian-speaking electorate on the eve of parliamentary elections. And second, more likely, the politicians’ concern for the 18 languages masks their real concern about one single language, which is particularly dear to the bill’s sponsors. And this language, Russian, is so firmly established in Ukraine, in most regions and almost all areas, that no extra budget for its promotion is needed, especially, if it is introduced instead of Ukrainian rather than alongside.

This seems to be actually the main goal of the language bill: not to protect Russian, which is the dominant language in most regions and areas, but to marginalize further and ultimately eliminate Ukrainian. Or, as Volodymyr Kulyk, a leading expert on language politics in Ukraine has aptly remarked, they are fighting not for the right to use Russian, which is actually used everywhere, but for the right not to learn and not to use Ukrainian under any circumstances.

The bill, besides its numerous contradictions, ambiguities and mistakes, has two fundamental flaws in its very concept. First, it speaks about the right to use Russian (and, hypocritically, other languages, even though they barely meet the 10% threshold anywhere, with a few minor exceptions) but it says nothing about the duty to learn and use Ukrainian. And second, it does not distinguish the rights of citizens to choose the language of their convenience and rights of civil servants (or, rather, lack thereof) to do so. Both flaws are significant because they reflect the Soviet mentality of the bill’s promoters and the way they envisage the so-called “bilingualism” in Ukraine. It has nothing to do with the official bilingualism in some Western democracies where the citizen has priority while the state (state officials) must provide services in the customer’s language of preference. The Soviet type of “bilingualism,” on the contrary, prioritizes the state, i.e. the bureaucracy that chooses the preferable language (inevitably Russian) and imposes it upon citizens. If anyone should doubt how the system works, let them go to Belarus where two “state languages” theoretically co-exist, or to Transnistria, or, even to Crimea where three “official languages” were established long ago, and try to start a discussion in these places in Belarusian, Moldovan,Tatar, or even in Ukrainian.

The language bill is designed not for Ukrainian citizens but for post-Soviet bureacrats, who are increasingly tired with a de-facto bilingualism, i.e. daily communication mostly in Russian but paperwork mostly in Ukrainian, and would like to move legally toward a more comfortable Russian mono-lingualism, under the fig-leaf of the “regional language.”

The bill merits harsh criticism, but the arguments employed by its critics from the Ukrainophone camp are, in most cases, weak and, in long run, self-defeating. They target typically the very idea of bilingualism as unsuitable for Ukraine, even though the bilingualism exists in Ukraine de-facto and should be properly formalized de-jure. Such a formalization is a nightmare for Ukrainophones because the Soviet (and post-Soviet – Crimean, Transnistrian, Belarusian) experience tells them clearly what “bilingualism” is likely to mean in a country with no rule of law and strong predominance of the post-Soviet / Russophone bureaucracy and oligarchy.

The above notwithstanding, the idea is not necessarily bad in principle. Loyal citizens who pay taxes have a right to get services from the state in their language of preference. Civil servants have responsibility to deliver these services in the language chosen by the client, not by themselves – a practice conducted in the Soviet Union and still prevalent today. A clearly outlined and properly regulated bilingualism would have benefited Ukrainophones in south- eastern regions where they have such rights on paper but not in reality. Such a bilingualism would require tough and strictly enforceable rules on language usage, hiring and firing of personnel, attestation and penalization, and so on. Of course, this would entail a firm rule of law, which has never been strong in Ukraine and has been completely dismantled under Yanukovych. But it does not mean that the idea of official bilingualism in some regions should be rejected wholesale. Rather, it should be placed in a proper context, with due accent on the rule of law, rights of all citizens including Ukrainophones, and the responsibility of the ruling bureaucracy to be bilingual and support citizens’ rights to use their language of preference, not vice-versa.

Such legal requirements for the bilingual regions might be a nightmare, however, for Russophones, at least for those who promote Soviet-style “bilingualism” in Ukraine. They would certainly prefer today’s ambiguity, which de-facto allows them to use only Russian in their work without any sanctions for ignoring or even deriding publicly the so-called “state language.”

This impasse means that ambiguity will persist in Ukraine for the foreseeable future, and power politics will continue to prevail everywhere, including the sphere of language. The bright idea of European bilingualism has been rejected by Ukrainophones because they do not believe it is viable in a lawless post-Soviet country, quite reasonably suspecting that any bilingualism here would be Soviet, rather than European. And Russophones are not interested in European bilingualism because they still enjoy the Soviet-style bilingualism that suits their needs much better. All they need is merely to legitimize their right to ignore Ukrainian and to preclude any possibility of changes. The Kivalov-Kolesnichenko bill is just one of many attempts to ensure the dominance of one group over another. It resolves no problems, but rather multiplies them. And this is unfortunately what the governance of the Party of Regions is all about.

 

 

STASIUK BLOG NOTES, 1/11

David Marples

Recent opinion polls suggest that the number of Ukrainian speakers in Ukraine is rising, despite the recent closure of several schools in Makiivka.

According to the Razumkov Center, in the early years of the 21st century, the number of ethnic Ukrainians who spoke Russian was 3% higher than the number of Ukrainian speakers. However, today, 60% of residents of Ukraine consider Ukrainian to be their native language. When translated into the language of everyday usage, 53.3% of the general population speaks Ukrainian, and 44.5% Russian (L’vivs’ka poshta, Aug 25).

These figures are supported by a poll conducted by the Research and Branding Group (RBD) between August 12 and 22, and encompassing just over 2,000 respondents. The poll revealed that at home, 47% spoke Ukrainian, 37% Russian, and 15% spoke both languages. In terms of the language used at school or at work, 45% said Ukrainian, 35% Russian, and 18% both languages. Once again the poll indicates the growing use of Ukrainian, even though the current government has not actively promoted native language usage, and the majority of the current Cabinet is Russian speaking (Ezhenedel’nik, Sept 6).

In 2009, in a similar poll,RBD found that 56% of respondents supported official bilingualism, whereas only 41% considered that Ukrainian should be the sole state language. Today, those figures are more or less equal: 49% back bilingualism and 48% would prefer Ukrainian to be the exclusive language (Ezhenedel’nik, Sept 6). The resurgence of support for the Ukrainian language comes despite the fact that the local government in Makiivka accepted a decision last spring to shut down four Ukrainian schools. As reported by Anatoly Lukashyk, to the consternation of parents the resolution was accepted without any public discussion, and backed up by the district court despite protests of parents. President Viktor Yanukovych noted parents’ concerns but chose not to contest the decision. However, School No. 44 continues to function as a result of the strong stance taken by the parents in support of Ukrainian-language education (L’vivs’ka poshta, Sept 1).

In a related article, Lukashyk also notes that according to the Levada Center, whereas Russians believe that relations with Ukraine are better than in 2007, still 39% perceive them as cold or unfriendly, and only 28% see them as warm and friendly. Russians also have little time for Ukrainian leaders, particularly the leader of the opposition, Yulia Tymoshenko, who is “trusted” by 7% and distrusted by 71%. The respective figures for President Yanukovych are 33% and 50%. A plurality of Russians (40%) approves of the actions taken against Tymoshenko, whereas 25% disapprove; a rather surprising figure considering that the Russian government has also been very critical of her trial (L’vivs’ka poshta, Sept 1).

What can one conclude from these recent polls? They suggest that the role of the government in guiding language usage is at best ephemeral and that the progress of Ukraine toward a Ukrainophone environment continues the path that was inaugurated in the late 1980s, despite a relatively authoritarian and unhelpful regime in Kyiv. It is well known that for the Russians, Viktor Yushchenko as president became unacceptable and relations were virtually severed between the two neighbors by 2010. However, despite early indications, the relationship with President Yanukovych is anything but smooth, and Ukraine continues to build on the cultural foundations initiated two decades ago. Slowly but inexorably the Ukrainian language is taking root.

Stasiuk Blog Notes will appear occasionally throughout the year. The Program acknowledges the assistance of Oleksandr Melnyk, PhD candidate, University of Toronto, in compiling materials.

Beauty and the Beasts

Mykola Riabchuk

In a recent interview with TVi – one of the few independent channels not yet completely domesticated by the authorities – Hanna Herman, the deputy head of the omnipotent presidential administration, recognized that Ukrainian-speaking Ukrainians are, in fact, second-rate citizens in Ukraine, with a very weak social and economic position vis-à-vis the dominant Russophones and therefore with a structurally restrained ability to influence the political, economic, and cultural life of the country.

Here are her comments verbatim:

“Rich people are mostly Russian-speaking, while a great many citizens of Ukraine with Ukrainian mentality are poor people. This is the legacy of the first Ukrainian leaders. Whereas Vyacheslav Chornovil [a former political prisoner and one of the leaders of national-democratic movement during perestroika and the early years of Ukrainian independence] led us to meetings, where we sang Chervona kalyna [a patriotic song], the Komsomol functionaries have seized banks, privatized factories, and now they are wealthy, influential, and dictate fashions” http://ua.korrespondent.net/ukraine/1194816-german-ukrayinomovni-gromadyani-ne-mayut-finansovogo-vplivu-v-krayini.

Hanna Herman may know what she is talking about. As a journalist and democratic activist, she supported the anti-communist, pro-independence movement in the late 1980s and early 1990s. Eventually, she headed the Ukrainian service of the Radio Liberty in Kyiv, but unexpectedly switched sides in 2004 and became a close associate of Viktor Yanukovych – a presidential hopeful whose victory in the forthcoming elections looked, at the time, to have been firmly secured. Whether her choice was ideological, or purely mercantile, or, as some authors suggest, intimately personal, is not that important. What really matters is the fact that she is one of a very few intellectuals, liberals, and genuine Ukrainian-speakers within the profoundly illiberal, anti-intellectual, and predominantly anti-Ukrainophone team. Either by chance or choice or the party assignment, she serves as the human face of the rather ugly political-cum-economic group that runs the country.

As a person with some Ukrainophile and liberal-intellectual background, she who certainly cannot deny the conspicuous disparity between the two major ethno-linguistic groups in the country. Yet, as a person who switched sides and joined, to put it delicately, the dominant group, she tries to justify her dubious move with some rational statements. Ukrainophones, she implies, are in a backward position not because of colonial legacy and particular policies of tsars and commissars, and certainly not because of today’s policies of Viktor Yanukovych and his Ukrainophobic associates. Ukrainophones are socially handicapped, first and foremost, because they sang patriotic songs with their gullible leaders and cared too much about national symbolism, while the former Soviet nomenklatura seized power and property and effectively transformed the political dominance of the Russophone Soviet elite into an economic one.

Implicitly, this indulges Ms Herman who was probably right to leave the national democrats since they were hopeless idealists who were unable to bring about any real changes, and to join the tough “pragmatists” from Donetsk who understand what real life means and who can, with her help, be cultured, enlightened and perhaps Ukrainized, at least politically, to comprehend the words “national interest” and launch ultimately the much-needed modernization/Westernization of the country.

One can only wish her good luck on her project, even though the idea of acculturating and gentrifying the tough guys from the Party of Regions looks nearly as utopian as singing “Chervona kalyna” with Vyacheslav Chornovil. Even should Hanna Herman, by mesmerizing, magic, or other means, succeed in transforming her patron-cum-pupil into a real gem (or, as she put it in an earlier interview, a “true diamond”), the Komsomol functionaries who captured the state and created, with criminals, today’s oligarchy, would not disappear. Nor is likely to disappear their profound contempt, even hatred for all those natives who are usually nicknamed “lokhi,” “byki,” “raguli,” “kuguty,” “zhloby,” “bandery,” or “svidomity” – in short, subhumans. Actually, it was Viktor Yanukovych himself who back in 2004 inflamed the xenophobic feelings of his Russian-speaking electorate by describing his political opponents as “goats who spoil our life” (“goats”, in Russian criminal argot, is a strong derogative like “assholes” or worse).

The contempt should not necessarily be interpreted as racial, or ethnic. It can be considered as merely the class superiority of haves over have-nots, advanced over backward, urbanized over rural, central over provincial. Yet, in Ukraine, these worlds and terms largely coincide. The two centuries of settler colonization resulted in thorough Russification of urban centers and complete marginalization of the Ukrainophone folk, primarily as kolkhoz slaves and unqualified workers — illegal migrants from the rural “third world” to the urban “first world,” in which “propiska” was institutionalized as the ersatz-visa system.

For most of Ukrainophones, the Russian language was the only vehicle for social advancement and higher cultural status. In many cases, they were forced to adopt not only the language of their colonizers but also their superior attitude towards uncultured “kolkhoz” aborigines; they internalized the negative self-image imposed upon them by the dominant group and contributed themselves to the further Russification of their defiant or less educated countrymen.

Hanna Herman revealed a profound truth – that there are no oligarchs, no “rich people” with Ukrainian identity (or, as she put it, “Ukrainian mentality”). And the problem is not only, and not so much, that they do not speak Ukrainian as their major language. There are quite a few Russophones in Ukraine who are politically Ukrainian and, vice-versa, but there are quite a few Ukrainophones who are politically Soviet or ambiguously “East Slavonic.” The main problem with the Ukrainian post-Soviet “elite” is that they are predominantly Soviet-speaking and their major identity is primarily off-shore.

Most of them live with their families in London, Monaco, or Geneva, and consider Ukraine just a place from which to extract money. Of course, since they have captured the state, they need to promote some statebuilding and to construct a nation with a rather Russophone or Ukrainophone cultural core. For years, as sheer opportunists, they had manipulated both groups and the overall project, until the vague balance of forces shifted dangerously during the Orange revolution toward the Ukrainian, i.e. anti-Eurasian/pro-European side. The prospect of Westernization, i.e., of real reforms, transparency, rule of law, and fair political and economic competition, frightened most Ukrainian oligarchs. They invested heavily in a counter-revolution and, after its victory, abandoned a middle-line policy of manipulation as just too risky and unpredictable. They gave up the traditional Kuchma-style “centrist” position between the two camps – the position of self-appointed peacekeepers and intermediaries. Instead, they placed their stakes on the Russophile side that had been traditionally more Sovietized, paternalistic and obedient, and therefore looked more likely to support or, at least, accept their thuggish rule. Indeed, this is largely the same core electorate that supports Mr. Putin in Russia and Mr. Lukashenko in Belarus. In Ukraine, however, the promotion of homo sovieticus requires the marginalization of homo anti-sovieticus, which is largely concentrated within the Ukrainophile camp and which significantly exceeds, in every respect, the similar anti-incumbent camps in Russia and Belarus.

Hanna Herman seems sincerely to support a centrist line aimed at engagement rather than containment of Ukrainophones, aimed at their political cooptation rather than marginalization. In the same TVi interview she defined her political mission as “to defend the interests of the people who did not vote for V.Yanukovych [...] because they merely did not know him well enough… Yushchenko failed to become a leader of the whole nation. And I would not like our current president to repeat this mistake” http://news.liga.net/news/N1107113.html.

This might be a good idea since Yanukovych was elected a president by only 49% of the voters, who make up just one-third of Ukraine’s adult population. The only problem is that this appealing notion is alien to the basic instincts and monopolistic habits of the ruling “elite” that not only despises Ukrainophones as an inferior race but also considers them, not unreasonably, as pro-Western agents and a major threat to their authoritarian dominance.

Hanna Herman is undoubtedly a worldly person, and she does her PR job pretty well:

“We need professionals, the so-called Harvard boys, those young Ukrainians who have received a good academic training. These well-educated Ukrainians with practical experience have a different vision of the world and Ukraine and Ukraine’s place it should come to power. I think that in the near future the president will introduce his new team” http://zik.com.ua/en/news/2011/01/06/265602.

Who knows? Miracles do happen. Maybe she has really discovered some hidden essence behind Mr Yanukovych’s personality, a diamond that will emerge like a phoenix from ashes, at a secret time X, to usher in a truly new team and to build a really new country. Still, the question remains – what will he do with his old team? Or, if one dares to put it differently, what will the old team then do with the president himself and with his sweetheart, the well-meaning and delightful deputy head of his administration?

Levchenko speaks again

After holding a press conference devoted to the language issue, Levchenko was assaulted by protesters and threatened with violence by a member of his own party.

By Ilya Khineyko

“Lately, Mykola Levchenko, has become one of the newsmakers in our country” wrote Anton Zikora from UNIAN. Indeed, the controversial statements by this previously little known official from the Donetsk city council and a very public rebuke from prominent figures in the Party of Regions have made headlines in the Ukrainian online media. After running an interview with Levchenko on March 6, UNIAN decided to provide him with another opportunity to express his views by holding a press conference on March 13.

Interview with Mykola Levchenko

By Ilya Khineyko

We’ve written before about a recent linguistic controversy in Ukraine. The man at the center of this scandal, Mykola, or Nikolay, the name he evidently prefers to go by, Levchenko, was interviewed by the prominent Ukrainian news agency, UNIAN. The remarkable thing about the interview is not Levchenko’s views on the language issue per se but an opportunity to get a glimpse into his Weltanschauung. Levchenko is a young man. Born in 1979, he was only 12 years old when Ukraine became independent and so he arguably belongs to the first post-Soviet generation of Ukrainians to whom the USSR was just a childhood memory. It is still debatable whether his views are just his idiosyncratic opinions or, using the title of a book familiar to any Russian-speaker, Levchenko is indeed a “Hero of our time”.

Tempest in the (linguistic) teapot?

A statement by a minor Donetsk official has become a subject of national controversy.

by Ilya Khineyko

The language issue is a perennial topic of Ukrainian politics. Ever since Ukraine adopted its current constitution in 1996, which made Ukrainian the sole official language of the country, the opponents of the current status quo have been trying to open up a debate on the status of the Russian language in Ukraine. It has been argued that the current lack of any formal provision regarding the status of Russian is discriminatory towards Russian-speakers who constitute – the estimates vary – up to 50% of the country’s total population and make up a majority in the East and South. The proponents of granting Russian the status of a second state or an official language have maintained that such a decision will be a step toward equality in the linguistic sphere. That is why a statement made by the secretary of Donetsk City Council, Mykola Levchenko, 29, has stirred a great deal of controversy and prompted a response from the influential figures of the Party of Regions, Hanna Herman and Taras Chornovil.