Why Do We Not Hear Ukrainian in Ukraine?
The very fact of raising the headlined question often baffles the naive foreigners who come to Ukraine. It is beyond their comprehension why it is next to impossible to hear the wonderful Ukrainian language, reputedly one of the most melodic tongues in the world, in a state with almost fifty million people, with Ukrainians making the vast majority of its population. You cannot hear it on the streets and squares of most cities, in everyday conversations, in the press (at least the papers most people read — Ed.), but if you strain a little you will hear it on television. This surprises them. But not us! We have accepted this as normal for so long.
But I would not like to put emphasis on the role of state in the solution to this problem (although the state’s role is difficult to overestimate), for this has been so much debated on in the media. I would like to concentrate on the attitude toward this complex problem of society and the individual.
Of course, one can endlessly search for the roots of this woe in external factors and in the state’s sluggishness, but it is time we told ourselves the truth: Ukrainian will not be spoken in Ukraine until people choose to speak it, however terrible this sounds. And they will choose to speak their native Ukrainian language only when they get rid of the age-old Little Russian syndrome which still lingers in the mind and soul and has soaked through the whole self of many of our compatriots, very old and very young alike. For it is this inferiority complex, the humiliating subconscious desire to ingratiate oneself and curry favor, that has forced Ukrainians from time immemorial to resort to the Russian language, often incredibly twisted and impure. It is for this syndrome that a certain group of Ukrainian-speaking people immediately switch over to Russian as soon as they are joined by one (usually almost — Ed.) Russophone.
It may be natural that Russian should be spoken by ethnic Russians, although knowing the language of the country you live in is a moral duty for a national minority in any state (in this case, in terms of language, they are rather a national majority). After all, painful as it is, we can turn a blind eye to the totally Russified residents of Eastern and Southern Ukraine. But when a Transcarpathia-born villager comes to a city and immediately breaks into not Ukrainian or even his native Transcarpathian dialect (some would say Carpatho-Ruthenian language – Ed.), but Russian with an absolutely atrocious accent, this engenders fear. It is a fear for the generation, a fear for Ukraine and its future.
Seeking for a long time the answer to the painful question of why Ukrainians still speak Russian and not their native Ukrainian, I came to some disconsolate conclusions. First, it is because many of them do not consider Ukrainian their mother tongue. Secondly, what plays a tremendous role is the prevailing public opinion: I will speak just like everybody else. This fear of standing out against the backdrop of Russian society and being a rare bird (in you own state!) sometimes forces even committed Ukrainians to compromise their persuasions to go along to get along. Thirdly, although much depends on age, all generations seem closely linked by an irresistible desire to speak Russian. The oldsters speak Russian because they have convinced themselves that “it is easier to make yourself clear in Russian,” though in reality this is also a sign of the “khokhol syndrome” which says that things alien look better than your own. The youngsters speak Russian because it is cool.
We often justly criticize Verkhovna Rada and government officials for not speaking the official language, but nobody cries wolf, for some reason, that the Russian language flourishes in such state agencies as courts, law enforcement, and security bodies — practically everywhere except perhaps the western regions, to some extent.
And why do we not sound the alarm over Russian being imposed on young people via the radio, discos, nightclubs, various show business functions, and bars, where the young are in fact “educated” nowadays? And then we confront such a powerful factor of influencing public opinion as the mass media. Local radio stations are entirely Russified, television programs are Russified to a great extent, and the press and books are being printed almost completely in Russian. It is a fact hard to grasp that while the Ukrainian SSR, where the empire is said to have been suppressing the Ukrainian language, used to turn out in Ukrainian more than a half of all publications in Ukrainian, independent (!) Ukraine produces, at best, about one third of its publications in the Ukrainian language! We like railing against our northern neighbor for alleged information aggression, which really does to some extent exist. But the absolute majority of Russian-language radio and TV channels and periodicals broadcast and published in Ukraine are Ukrainian.
And what about our totally Russified sports? Almost none of Ukraine’s athletes can speak Ukrainian, although they represent Ukraine on the international arena. We are perhaps the only country whose national teams keep silent when the national anthem is being played. They keep silent because they know neither the words nor the language itself.
Look at government institutions. Even those officials and employees who speak Ukrainian in office because they are supposed to (it is a different point what kind of Ukrainian language they speak) at home immediately throw off this language, together with their suits and the ties as if it were a tiresome duty and a heavy burden they are forced to carry at work. I will stress again: Ukraine will not hear the Ukrainian language until Ukrainians choose to speak it always and everywhere — at work, on public transport, and at home — until they love it and accept as treir mother tongue, until they begin to think in Ukrainian. As a wise man once said, the language in which an individual thinks is the main criterion of his ethnicity. How can an individual consider him/herself a Ukrainian if he/she thinks in a foreign language?
Many claim that Russification is the heavy legacy of totalitarian times, and people have not yet managed to reeducate themselves. Yes, it is, to a large extent, the legacy of long domination by the Russian Empire and the Soviet Union. But it has been not a year or two but TEN YEARS since Ukrainian independence was proclaimed! In the final analysis, it is not our greatest trouble that people have no command of the Ukrainian language. Many Russophones can speak standard Ukrainian perhaps even better than we do. The trouble is THEY DO NOT WANT TO SPEAK THE UKRAINIAN LANGUAGE. And there is practically no stimulus, no necessity at all to know and use Ukrainian. You can be employed (sometimes even at a government office) without this requirement, you can study at a university in Russian, for ours is a democratic country. Another spell of such “democracy” will have us hearing the Ukrainian language only in recordings or from the diaspora.
Even now, ten years after the proclamation of independence, there are cities where people turn an astonishing eye to one who speaks Ukrainian and, nevertheless, advance the demand that Russian be granted the status of an official language. Nationwide official recognition is the only height Russian has not yet scaled, the only thing it still lacks, for, otherwise, the Russian language is in fact predominant in all spheres of life not in Russia but in Ukraine.
I am not against the Russian language as such. It is a beautiful language, the language of great and world famous poets and writers, a language related, after all, to Ukrainian. It must function freely, yet without endangering the very existence of Ukrainian, the language of Ukraine’s indigenous population. I wonder how Frenchmen or Germans would react if their countries were dominated by a foreign language ousting French or German (actually, both sometimes voice precisely this complaint about English — Ed.). It is also difficult to imagine that Russia would agree to be dominated by, say, the Ukrainian language.
Thus, esteemed readers, is it not time to regain our senses and cast off the shackles of “the slaves of a foreign language?” And begin to speak, to cry out for the whole world to hear in the wonderful, melodious, nightingale Ukrainian language! This will perhaps reduce the number of those “patriots” who beat their chest and shout, “I will punch you in the nose for Ukraine!” without knowing a word of its language. Only then perhaps will Ukraine hear Ukrainian speech.
