Anniversary of Ems Ukase: Nothing to Celebrate

Last year Ukrainians who are not indifferent to tragic pages of our history could not ignore a sad anniversary, 125 years of the ill- famed Ems Ukase issued on May 30 (18 Old Style), 1876, by Russian Tsar Alexander II to completely forbid using the Ukrainian language in virtually every sphere of public, cultural, and social life.

This year’s Ems anniversary is not a jubilee one, but there is every reason to believe that a complex of problems connected with the aftermath of ukase’s influence the on further development of the Ukrainian language will not be disregarded by journalists and scholars. These problems exist, and there is no way to ignore them; their solution requires joint public efforts, and this mean first of all addressing them.

Let us ask ourselves the simple question of why the Russian autocracy in the persons of Alexander II, Alexander III, or Nicholas II was unable to destroy Ukrainians’ native language, although such a goal had been set? Here the fact that empire’s elite acted this way because it could not admit existence of a separate Ukrainian language, considering it a dialect of Russian, changes nothing. Because Ukrainian nation responded in the only worthy way able to save its soul, the language: it produced such geniuses as Taras Shevchenko, Ivan Franko, Lesia Ukrayinka, Mykhailo Hrushevsky, etc. Political interdictions proved to be powerless in opposing the people’s irrepressible will. However, analyzing the situation in contemporary independent Ukraine in the sphere of language and culture, one can conclude that if the actual state of affairs does not change in the nearest future, the question may arise again, as it did under Alexander II: To be or not to be for the Ukrainian language? If the proportion between Ukrainian and Russian language press continues, if Ukrainian book publishing remains in its current condition, no imperial acts will be needed to abolish our language. Certainly, urgent, complex, and immediate measures must be taken. Political will of the top leaders is not enough. The language will survive if the nation collects its strength for mighty spiritual growth.