Sociolinguistic Perspectives on Soviet National Languages: Their Past, Present and Future 9783110864380, 9783110102116

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Sociolinguistic Perspectives on Soviet National Languages

Contributions to the Sociology of Language

40

Editor

Joshua A. Fishman

Mouton de Gruyter Berlin · New York · Amsterdam

Sociolinguistic Perspectives on Soviet National Languages Their Past, Present and Future

Edited by Isabelle T. Kreindler

Mouton de Gruyter Berlin · New York · Amsterdam

Mouton de Gruyter (formerly Mouton, The Hague) is a Division of Walter de Gruyter & Co., Berlin.

Library of Congress Cataloging

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Sociolinguistic perspectives on Soviet national languages. (Contributions to the sociology of language ; 40) Includes index. 1. Soviet Union — Languages. 2. Sociolinguistics— Soviet Union. I. Kreindler, Isabelle. II. Series. Ρ 381.S65S6 1985 40Γ.9Ό947 85-21610 ISBN 0-89925-120-X (alk. paper)

CIP-Kurztitelaufnahme

der Deutschen

Bibliothek

Sociolinguistic perspectives on Soviet national languages : their past, present and future / ed. by Isabelle T. Kreindler. — Berlin ; New York ; Amsterdam : Mouton, 1985. (Contributions to the sociology of language ; 40) ISBN 3-11-010211-0 NE: Kreindler, Isabelle T. [Hrsg.]; G T

Printed on acid free paper. © Copyright 1985 by Walter de Gruyter & Co., Berlin. All rights reserved, including those of translation into foreign languages. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form — by photoprint, microfilm, or any other means — nor transmitted nor translated into a machine language without written permission from Mouton de Gruyter, a Division of Walter de Gruyter & Co., Berlin. Typesetting: Asian Research Service, Hong Kong.—Printing: Ratzlow-Druck, Berlin. — Binding: Dieter Mikolai, Berlin. Printed in Germany.

Acknowledgement

I would like to thank all contributors for their enthusiastic response to my invitation to share their unique expertise on their particular languages. My deep gratitude goes to Joshua A. Fishman for his patient encouragement of this project and to Dean Larry Davis for providing the necessary environment here at Haifa University. Special thanks to Hilja Kukk at the Hoover Institution and to Helen Berman and Elie and the kids.

Isabelle T. Kreindler

Prefatory Remarks

If our western "sociolinguistic economy" were one that was relatively planned (which I thank God that it is not, so that we may be at least relatively free to pursue our own, rather than someone else's priorities), a volume such as this one would have come before rather than after a previous volume in this series — Professor Glyn Lewis's integrative attempt, Multi-lingualism in the Soviet Union (1972). Fortunately, Dr. Kreindler has included integration as well, both in her own and in Dr. Haarmann's concluding papers. Nevertheless, it seems clear to me this volume leaves us with a major (monograph- or booklength) integrative task on our hands. This volume presents the reader with so many case studies that cry out for detailed comparison, with so many details that call for contrastive contextual analysis, that I cannot but hope that someone will rise to these challenges soon, indeed, perhaps Dr. Kreindler herself. Acturally, what I would optimally hope for is an integrative comparison between the two largest relinguification and reethnification efforts of the twentieth century, namely, that on behalf of English, under democratic capitalist auspices in the USA, and that on behalf of Russian, under totalitarian communist auspices in the Soviet Union. It seems increasingly clear to me that the latter has made less headway than the former, even though it has had the dubious "advantage" of naked power as a method of culture change. The combination of Herderian ideology, early (Leninist) pluralistic policies, indigenous concentrated settlements, greater religious, racial, climatic and topographical differences between non-mainstream and mainstream populations than have commonly obtained in the USA have, when taken together, resulted in Russian language spread more often than in language shift to Russian. There are painful exceptions of course. Mother tongue loss has, indeed, been the usual lot of the most dislocated: the non-territorial peoples (Jews, Poles, Germans) and the tiny peoples inundated by powerful strangers and lifestyles that have been transplanted into their midsts. On the

viii

Prefatory Remarks

whole, however, we still encounter massive ethnic mother tongue maintenance in the USSR, relative to the USA, among the huge majority of its peoples, and this is a fact that continues to call for careful empirical and theoretical elucidation by investigators representing and combining a large variety of disciplinary origins and methodological preferences. There is clearly great interest in this topic area also among Soviet educators, sociolinguists and anthropologists, some few of whom have been able to formulate theories and to publish findings that give testimony to their intellectual independence and prowess. Although the current volume has had to appear without their participation, and although it appears at a time when USA-USSR relations are far less positive than they were when Prof. Lewis's volume first saw the light of day, I close again with the firm wish that greater academic coDaboration will once again soon be possible on the wide range of topics that interest us all, those in the West and those in the USSR. Dr. Kreindler and her colleagues have produced a stimulating volume that should serve as a reminder of that highly desired goal for many years to come.

Bronx, New York February, 1984

Joshua A. Fishman Series Editor

Contents

Prefatory Remarks Joshua A. Fishman Introduction Isabelle T. Kreindler

vii 1

PART ONE: LANGUAGES OF THE SOVIET WEST Language Development and Policy in Estonia Toivo U. Raun Belorussification, Russification and Polonization. Trends in the Belorussian Language 1890-1982 Paul Wexler Language Politics in the Ukraine Roman Solchanyk

13

37 57

PART TWO: LANGUAGES OF THE CAUCASUS AND CRIMEA Crimean Tatar: The Fate of a Severed Tongue Edward Lazzerini Politics and linguistics in Daghestan Alexandre Bennigsen and Chantal Lemercier-Quelquejay The Formation and Development of Literary Avar Simon Crisp Georgian: A Noble Past, a Secure Future George B. Hewitt

109 125 143 163

PART THREE: LANGUAGES OF SOVIET CENTRAL ASIA The Politics of Language Reform in Kazakhstan Martha Brill Olcott

183

χ

Contents

Language Development in Soviet Uzbekistan William Fierman

205

PART FOUR: LANGUAGES OF INTERIOR RUSSIA The Mordvinian Languages: A Survival Saga Isabelle T. Kreindler Remarks on the Chuvash Language: Past, Present and Future John R. Krueger (A Bibliographical Note on the Chuvash Language) Isabelle T. Kreindler

237 265

PART FIVE: A NON-TERRITORIAL LANGUAGE Di Yiddish-Imperye: The Dashed Hopes for a Yiddish Cultural Empire in the Soviet Union Rakhmiel Peltz and Mark W. Kiel

277

PART SIX: THE NON-RUSSIAN LANGUAGES AND RUSSIAN The Impact of Group Bilingualism in the SU Harald Haarmann The Non-Russian Languages and the Challenge of Russian: The Eastern versus the Western Tradition Isabelle T. Kreindler

313

345

About the Authors

369

Index

373

ISABELLE T. KREINDLER

Intrcxiuction

That the Soviet Union is a multinational and mutilingual country has recently become better known thanks to the growing prominence of the so-called "Soviet nationalities problem," especially in connection with the demographic changes which are rapidly reducing the slim Russian majority, and to the protest movements by a growing number of non-Russian nationalities.1 Several works such as Glyn Lewis' pioneering Multilingualism in the Soviet Union (1972), Denis Creisseel's brief Les Langues d'URSS (1977), the upbeat Soviet work by M. I. Isayev, National Languages in the USSR (1977), and recently Bernard Comrie's The Languages of the Soviet Union have helped call attention specifically to the multilinguistic nature of the USSR.2 And yet, Comrie could still open his 1981 work with the comment that "many educated people outside the Soviet Union ... might be surprised to see a book entitled The Languages of the Soviet Union since they would imagine Russian to be the only language of this state." 3 Few readers of this volume would be "surprised." Moreover, they are likely to be painfully aware of how wide is the field that remains to be explored. We need to know much more about the changing language policies originating from the center and even more must be learned about the varied indigeneous responses; for what the center does, does not tell us much about what really happens.4 This volume offers twelve micro-level studies of individual languages within a broad common framework, followed by two essays which bring in the Russian component as it impinges on all the languages. The languages covered individually range in population from tens of millions to less than 500 thousand; represent several linguistic families such as the Slavic, Turkic, Caucasian, Germanic, Finno-Ugrian; are endowed with political status ranging from that of union-republic to that of no recognized status at all; and finally, are territorially associated with different areas in the Soviet Union. Each of the languages is approached from within and each contribution stands on its

2

Isabelle T. Kreindler

own. But together, they should at the same time also contribute to our understanding of the Soviet linguistic scene as a whole. This volume grew out from an issue in the International Journal of the Sociology of Language devoted to "The Changing Status of Russian in the Soviet Union" (No. 33, 1982). In the "Focus" article of that issue, I had suggested that the position of non-Russian languages has always been in a see-saw relationship with Russian. In the early years of the Soviet regime, Russian was relegated to the lower end of the see-saw while the native languages were deliberately boosted up to the top; in the 1930s with Stalin's revival of Soviet (Russian) patriotism, Russian was brought back with the see-saw balanced, and finally in the post-Stalin period the see-saw dipped again but this time with the Russian language pushed by the Party to the top. Though most commentators agreed with my summary of the basic trends, objections were raised that the model was too simplistic, that it did not take into account the diversified responses from the peripheries. William Fierman, for example, argued that while it was true that Russian was indeed rising to the top by expanding its functions and prestige with the enthusiastic backing of the state, the Uzbek language did not thereby automatically dip down but was also improving its position and growing in stature. Others, too, felt that the picture must be broadened to include also the non-Russian languages. While the journal was still in press, Joshua Fishman suggested that a volume focusing on the non-Russian languages be prepared for the Contributions to the Sociology of Language series. The plan was to assemble world experts on particular nationalities from various disciplines and ask that each examine the sociolinguistic developments within his or her particular ethnic group. The following general outline (see below) was sent out to potential contributors with the note that each was "free to adapt, change or not use the guide at all ... each language must dictate its own Past, Present and Future." The widest possible scope to emphasize the most significant development in the particular language was thus offered to each contributor. This, and the fact that different disciplines are represented, inevitably resulted in a certain lack of uniformity and some inconsistencies in the layout of bibliographical references.

Introduction

3

Soviet National Languages: Sociolinguistic Perspectives on Their Past, Present and Future I. For the "Past" Part of the title 1. Up to 1917 a. brief historical background of the origins of the people and their languages..linguistic influences of neighbors, invasions.. b. how the people and language have fared in Imperial Russia., lingistic borrowings..how and when (if at all) writing developed? literature? social functions of the language? c. linguistic aspirations on the eve of the Revolution 2. Post 1917 a. language construction in the 1920s and 1930s..role of official policy and of native intelligensia b. korenizatsiia and the expanding functions of the language in bureacracy, education, publishing c. linguistic controversies (purge of linguists?) II. For the "Present" - from 1930s? post Stalin? other periodization? 1. impact of withdrawal of korenizatsiia policy and the renewed emphasis on the Russian language 2. new approaches to linguistic development (questions of alphabet, borrowings, spelling of Russian loans) 3. current status and role of the language vis a vis Russian III. For the "Future" 1. trends in language development against the background of a new historical community — The Soviet People (with Russian as the language) 2. assessment of the vitality and authenticity of the language and adherence to it (census data? original literary production? language protests?) Ideally one would have liked to have at least all the languages listed in the 1979 census represented, from the largest to the smallest. This of course would have required a multi-volumed series, a project unquestionably worthwhile but beyond our means. What we have here of necessity covers only a tiny fraction of the languages, and unfortunately leaves out major large languages as well as most small, but from our point of view equally interesting and important. We started with a widely representative list of languages but not in all cases a contributor was found in time or deadlines were met. (I had contacted several Chinese experts on Dungan, but my correspondence ultimately drew a blank when for various reasons my invitation was declined. One of the scholars working on small Siberian languages finally declined participation for fear of alienating Soviet authorities and harming the nationalities "if the truth were told.")

4

Isabelle T. Kreindler

The geographic organization of this volume may need a few words of explanation. Soviet languages, as indeed Soviet nationalities, can be categorized according to various political, demographic, cultural, linguistic criteria.5 However each of these classification schemes has serious drawbacks for a socio-linguistic study such as ours. linguistically, for example, Estonian and Mordvinian are both Finno-Ugrain languages, but geographically, historically, politically and culturally, as can be seen from Raun's and Kreindler's papers in this volume, they have little in common. The Siberian Iakuts, the Volga Chuvash and the Caucasus Kumyks all speak Turkic languages, but again there is nothing else they share. (In the case of the Chuvash even the membership in the Turkic language family as Krueger points out, was untili recently in dispute). The political criterion — the level of autonomy enjoyed by speakers of a particular language, is a classification scheme put forth by the Soviet linguist lu. D. Desheriev. This classification would perhaps be useful if (1) Soviet language planners treated languages differently according to the political status they enjoy, as Desheriev seems to imply; and if (2) our chief concern was to study the policy originating from the center. Since the first is not necessarily the case and the second is not our main interest, the political status classification was also dismissed. In practice, while Armenian and Kirgiz, for example, are both languages of union-republic status, there are wide differences in the roles they play. As the Soviet linguist Avrorin has pointed out in his criticism of Desheriev's ranking of languages, Crimean Tatar and Kalmyk were both languages of autonomous-republic level status before the second world war, but during the war they lost this status for reasons having no connection with language (both peoples were deported).6 Other classification criteria, such as common culture or religion, degree of technological development, level of education or urbanization are overlapping and would require various exceptions and modifications. The geographic classification chosen here, besides being natural possesses additional advantages. Neighboring peoples have often shared a common history and their languages have come into contact with Russian at about the same time. They have also entered or were forced into the Russian/Soviet state under similar circumstances and are likely to have received similar treatment. For example, in the Caucasus all three republics, Georgia, Azerbaidzhán and Armenia and even the autonomous republic of Abkhazia (located in Georgia), were allowed to keep a national language clause in their new constitutions after vigorous protests against the removal of such a clause were staged only in Georgia. Or, to take the example of the Baltic states: as

Introduction

5

Haarmann points out, the literary production in the three republics is quite similar in proportion to Russian-language materials. Recently, Latvia seems to have benefited from various measures promoting a genuine two-way bilingualism, which were introduced in neighboring Estonia in order to defuse a tense situation there (similar measures are likely in neighboring Lithuania).7 All Soviet languages were divided into five major geographic categories. The first three are located along the western and southern periphery of the Soviet Union, namely: (1) the Soviet West which extends from the Finnish border to the Black Sea (2) the Crimea and the Caucasus and (3) Soviet Central Asia (including Kazakhstan). The fourth category includes languages of the Russian interior and the fifth, of languages not attached to any specific territory. For the Soviet West we have Toivo Raun's analysis of language developments in Estonia, a study of linguistic changes in Belorussia by Paul Wexler, and a study of language politics in the Ukraine by Roman Solchanyk.8 All languages included in this section enjoy union-republic status and range in population from 44 million Ukrainians through 9Vi million Belorussians to the slightly over a million Estonians. In the second section, the fate of the Crimean Tatar language whose speakers are no longer in their native territory, is examined by Edward Lazzerini. Moving into the Northern Caucasus, Alexandre Bennigsen and Chantal Quelquejay present a description of the intricate linguistic scene in Daghestan, which is followed by a separate study of one of the major Daghestani languages, Avar, by Simon Crisp. B. G. Hewitt, concludes with an examination of the Georgian language situation. In this section, only Georgian with a population of 3V¿ million is a union-republic language. Of the numerous Daghestani languages (whose speakers combined number about 1.6 million), only ten, with Avar among them, enjoy some official status in the Daghestani autonomous republic. Crimean Tatar has only recently reemerged as a literary language, while its speakers are still denied a separate nationality listing in the census.9 In the third section, language developments among the two largest groups of the region, the 6% million Kazakhs and 12Vi million Uzbeks (the latter are the third largest nationality in the Soviet Union), are analyzed by Martha B. Olcott and William Fierman respectively. Both languages are of unionrepublic status and along with the three remaining union-republic nationalities in Central Asia, the Kirgiz, Turkmen and Tadzhik, have been enjoying a record growth in population.10 The fourth and fifth sections, on the languages of the Russian interior and

6

Isabelle T. Kreindler

non-territorial languages, proved most difficult to fill. What we do have here is a study of the Mordvinian languages by myself and a brief review of the Chuvash language by John Krueger, representing languages of the Interior. Rakhmiel Peltz and Mark Kiel examine the unique case of Yiddish in the Soviet Union for the non-territorial grouping. Both Chuvash and Mordvinian enjoy autonomous republic status and have populations of 1.8 and 1.2 million respectively (though the number of speakers of the languages is somewhat smaller). Yiddish, if one discounts the Birobidzhan region where only 10,166 of the total 1,810,876 (1979) Soviet Jews reside, lacks any political status. 11 The lack of an article on languages of smaller nationalities is perhaps somewhat compensated by my comments on the languages of the Peoples of the North (26 languages in a population of about 160,000) in the concluding essay. In the last section, Harald Haarmann carefully examines the specific nature of Soviet bilingualism and in the process brings in rich illustrative material which includes many languages not covered previosly. Finally, my essay attempts to place Soviet linguistic policies within a framework of two opposing "poles," that of ethnolinguistic pluralism and that of the monolingual ideal, and to draw some tentative conclusions on the future of non-Russian languages in the face of the growing Russian challenge.12

A Note on Transliteration A collection of this type naturally presents problems of transliteration, especially since our constraints included avoidance of all non-Latin letters and a ban on diacritic signs. Given the various languages and the diverse Romanization systems of different disciplines, the whole matter seemed a "nightmare." Ruthlessly, it was decided that since all languages share a contact situation with Russian, all would use the library of Congress system for transliterating Russian into English with only minor modifications. A well-known term such as Daghestan was kept (rather than Dagestan), the glottal stops in Avar and Georgian were rendered by an apostrophe (which in Russian stands for the soft sign.) However, Georgian names, for example, definitely appear in their Russian transliteration guise as, for example, Iavakhishvili or Nizharadze. My apologies to all contributors thus affected, above all to those from disciplines that usually transcribe rather than transliterate, for some of the additional changes that had to be made for the sake of consistency (which I fear may still not have been fully achieved.)

Introduction

7

Notes 1. According to M. Bernstam, if one discounts the numbers the Russians gained through assimilation the Russians were already in the minority in 1979. He also notes that in the 1970s as compared to the 1960s assimilation declined by half due to the trend "toward the reinforcement of ethnic borders and self-identity" (Mikhail S. Bernstam, "Demography of Soviet Ethnic Groups in World Perspective," paper presented at Hoover Institution Conference on Soviet Nationalities, May 1982). For some recent works on Soviet nationality problem see Edward A. Allworth (ed.), Nationality Group Survival in Multi-Ethnic States (New York: Prager, 1977), Ethnic Russia in the USSR: The Dilemma of Dominance (New York: Pergamon, 1979); Jeremy R. Azrael (ed.), Soviet Nationality Policies and Practices (New York: Praeger, 1978); Helene Carrete d'Encausse, Decline of an Empire (New York: Newsweek, 1979); Robert Conquest, (ed.), Last Empire: Nationalism and the Soviet Future (Stanford: Hoover, 1985); William O. McCagg, Jr., Brian D. Silver (eds.), Soviet Asian Ethnic Frontiers (New York: Pergammon, 1979). 2. Glyn Lewis, Multilingualism in the Soviet Union; Aspects of Language Policy and its Implementation, Contributions to the Sociology of Language, 3 (The Hague: Mouton, 1972); Denis Creissels, Les Languages d'URSS: Aspects linguistiques et sociolinguistiques (Paris: Institut d'Etudes Slaves, 1977); M. I. Isayev, National Languages in the USSR: Problems and Solutions (Moscow: Progess, 1977); Bernard Comrie, The Languages of the Soviet Union (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1981). Several monographs on individual languages have also appeared recently: Paul Wexler, Purism and Language: A Study in Modern Ukrainian and Belorussian Nationalism (Bloomington: Indiana University, 1974); Ronald Wixman, Language Aspects of Ethnic Patterns and Processes in the North Caucasus (Chicago: University of Chicago, 1980); Guy Imart, Remy Dor, Le Chardon Dechiquete (Aix en Provence: Universite de Provence, 1982) on Kirgiz; Michael Bruchis, One Step Back, Two Steps Forward: On the Language Policy of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union in the National Republics (Boulder: E. E. monographs, 1982), on Moldavian. 3. Comrie (fn. 2), p. 1. 4. Soviet linguistic and especially sociolinguistic works must be used with caution since they are all works in the serivce of the party. When carefully analyzed however, they can provide much valuable data and insight into the Soviet linguistic scene. For a basic description of most languages in the USSR, see V.V. Vinogradov et al (eds.), Iazyki narodov SSSR (Moscow: Nauka, 1966-1968), 5 vols. (D. Creissel's work for example, is chiefly based on this work.) For some recent Soviet sociolinguistic works see: V. A. Avrorin, Problemy izucheniia funktsioml'noi storony iazyka (Leningard: Nauka, 1975); P. A. Azimov et al (eds.), Problemy dvuiazychiia i mnogoiazychiia (Moscow: Nauka, 1972); N. A. Baskakov et al (eds.) Putì razvitiia natsional'no-russkogo dvuiazychiia ν nerusskikh shkolakh RSFSR (Moscow: Nauka, 1979); Iu. D. Desheriev, (ed.), Razvitie natsional'no-russkogo dvuiazychiia (Moscow: Nauka, 1976), Natsional'nyi iazyki i natsional'naia kul'tura (Moscow: Nauka, 1978); F. P. Filin, Russkii iazyk kak sredstvo mezhnatsional'nogo obshcheniia (Moscow: Nauka, 1977); M. I. Isaev, Iazykovoe stroitel'stvo ν SSSR

8

5.

6. 7.

8.

9.

10.

11.

Isabelle T. Kreindler (Moscow: Nauka, 1979); Russkii iazyk - iazyk druzhby i sotrudnichestva narodov SSSR (materialy Konferentsii 22-24 maia 1979, Tashkent) (Moscow: Nakua, 1981). For a summary of three classification schemes based oil Armstrong; Lewis, Rowland Clem; and Pipes, see R. Rockett, Ethnic Nationalities in the Soviet Union (New York: Praeger, 1981), p. 7. Bennigsen and Wimbush divide all Soviet nationalities into two broad categories: "advanced social groups" such as the Muslim Tatars, Christian Orthodox Georgians, Jews and Western Christian nationalities and "underdeveloped rural and nomadic peoples like Uzbeks or Kazakhs" (Alexandre Bennigsen, Enders Wimbush, Muslim National Communism in the Soviet Union, Chicago: University of Chicago, 1979, p. 4). Avrorin (fn. 4), p. 101. Jeremy Azrael, "The 'Nationality Problem' in the USSR: Domestic Pressures and Foreign Policy Constraints," Seweryn Bialer, ed., The Domestic Context of Soviet Foreign Policy (Boulder: Westview, 1981), p. 144; Ann Sheehy, RL66/82, February 10,1982, pp. 1-2; Roman Solchanyk, RL 297/82, July 23,1982. Missing in this category are the other two Baltic republic languages, Latvian and Lithuanian and that of the Moldavian republic, as well as numerous "small languages" of the area. For linguistic research in Latvian see Valdis J. Zeps, "Latvian" in T. A. Sebeok (ed.), Current Trends in Linguistics (The Hague: Mouton, 1968), Vol. I pp. 265-286; for Lithuanian, William R. Schmalstieg, same volume, pp. 287-300. For useful information on the three republican nationalities and their languages see articles in Zev Katz, ed., Handbook of Major Soviet Nationalities (New York: Free Press, 1975): Frederic T. Harned, "Latvia and the Latvians" pp. 94-117 and "Lithuania and the Lithuanians," pp. 118-140; Stephen FischerGalati, "Moldavia and the Moldavians," pp. 415-433. For Moldavian there is the Bruchis (fn. 2) work, which is unfortunately marred by a very poor translation, and an interesting Soviet work Razvitie dvuiazychiia ν Moldavskoi SSR (Kishinev, Stiintsa, 1979) by M. N. Guboglo. On the Romanian minority language see H. Haarmann's Multilinguale Kommunikationsstrukturen - Spracherhaltung und Sprachwechsel bei den romanischen Siedlungsgruppen in der Ukrainischen SSR und anderen Sowjetrepubliken (Tubingen: Gunter Narr, 1979). Missing here are the languages of the Armenian and Azerbaidzhanian republics and numerous smaller languages of the area. For some useful information on Armenian see article by Mary K. Matossian in the Handbook (fn 8), pp. 143-160; on Azerbaidzhanian, article by Frank Huddle, Jr., pp. 189-209. For Kirgiz, there is the excellent work by Guy Imart (fn 2); also see his Le Kirghiz. Description d'une langue de litterisation recente (Aix-en-Provence, 1981). Also see articles in the Handbook (fn 8): for Kirgiz, by Allen Hetmanek, pp. 238-261; for Turkmen by Aman Berdi Murat, pp. 263-282; for Tadzhik by Teresa RakowskaHarmstone, pp. 315-351. For Siberian languages, see Dean Worth, "Paleosiberian," in Current Trends in Linguistics, Vol. I (fn 8), pp. 345=373; Michael E. Krauss, "Eskimo-Aleut." in Current Trends in Linguistics, Vol. 10, pp. 796-902; on Khanty, the four-volume work by Wolfgang Steinitz, Ostjakologische Arbeiten (The Hague: Mouton, 19 1980). On Uralic languages, Gunter J. Stipa, "Uralic" in Current Trends Vol. I, pp. 392-473 and Osmo Ikola and Aulis J. Joki, "Uralic," in Vol. 9, pp. 1693-1743. For Mari specifically, see the multi-volumed series edited by T. A. Sebeok, Studies

Introduction

9

in Cheremis. For Tatar, article by Gustav Burbiel, in the Handbook (fn 8), pp. 390414. For non-territorial languages see the following works by E. Haarmann, Spracherhaltung und Sprachwechsel als Problem der interlingualen Soziolinguistik; Studien zur Gruppenmehrsprachigkeit der Zigeuner in der Sowjetunion (Hamburg: Buske, 1979); Aspekte der Koreanisch-russischen Zweisprachigkeit; Studien zur Gruppenmehrsprachigkeit der Koreaner in der Sowjetunion (Hamburg: Buske, 1981). Joshua A. Fishman, "Whorfianism of the third kind: Ethnolinguistic diversity as a worldwide asset," Language in Society, No. 1,1982, pp. 5-6.

PART ONE

LANGUAGES OF THE SOVIET WEST

TOIVO U. RAUN

Language Development and Policy in Estonia

Estonian belongs to the Uralic and Finno-Ugric language groups. Uralic, the broader of the two terms, encompasses both Finno-Ugric and the Samoyedic languages of western Siberia. The Ugric branch is divided into Hungarian and Ob-Ugric, including Ostyak (Khanty) and Vogul (Mansi). The Finnic category consists of Perm-Finnic — Votyak (Udmurt) and Zyrian (Komi and Komi-Permiak), Volga-Finnic — Mordvin and Cheremis (Mari), Lapp (Saame), and Balto-Finnic — Estonian, Livonian, Votic, Finnish, Ingrian (Izhorian), Karelian (including Olonetsian and the Ludic dialects), and Vepsian. 1 Of the Finno-Ugric and Samoyedic languages spoken mainly in the Soviet Union today, Estonian is the only one to achieve the status of a modern Kultursprache. Although the origins of the Finno-Ugric and Samoyedic peoples remain obscure and the scholarly debate on their early history continues, there is substantial agreement today that their original homeland was somewhere in the forest zone of northeastern Europe near the Ural mountains. The common Uralic era was probably in the period 6000 to 4000 BC; thereafter, the ancestors of various branches of Finno-Ugric and Samoyedic began to migrate to different locations. 2 In recent decades Soviet Estonian scholars from various disciplines have claimed that the Balto-Finns were already in the Baltic area earlier than had been previously thought, probably by or during the III millennium BC.3 The division of Balto-Finnic into separate languages proceeded very gradually, and Estonian probably only emerged as a distinct entity in the middle of the I millennium AD. In the prehistoric (i.e., pre-thirteenth century AD) era the Estonians and their Balto-Finnic ancestors had considerable contacts with neighboring cultures - Baltic (the ancestors of the Old Prussians, Lithuanians, and Latvians), Germanic (mainly Scandinavian), and Slavic (mainly Old Russian) peoples. This interaction is attested by numerous loanwords, many reaching back into the Common Balto-Finnic era. 4

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Toivo U. Raun

With the beginning of the thirteenth century the areas inhabited by the Estonians in the Baltic littoral came under external domination. Among the several aspirants to hegemony over the region, the German crusaders, aided mainly by the Danes, emerged victorious. The elites of medieval Livonia consisted of German knights (later nobility), clergy, and merchants with the Estonian population relegated to the lower social orders in both town and country. However, the German ruling groups were sharply divided along secular-clerical and urban-rural lines, and Old Livonia collapsed under the pressure of stronger neighbors in the Livonian Wars (1558-1583). At first partitioned among Sweden, Denmark, and Poland, mainland Estonia fell entirely to Sweden in 1629. In the Great Northern War Peter the Great acquired Russia's long-desired "window on the West," and the Estonian areas were to remain part of tsarist Russia for over two centuries (17101917). Despite the devastating effects of wars and the various shifts of sovereignty, the social structure of Estonia changed remarkably little until the mid-nineteenth century. The Baltic German elites retained their position, and the Estonians continued as either peasants (serfs until 1816-1819) or members of the urban poor. During the last six decades before the Russian Revolution, the process of modernization began to transform Baltic life, and the Estonians found new opportunities for educational advancement, upward social mobility, and political participation.5 Although a few Estonian names and phrases appeared in such thirteenthcentury sources as Heinrici chronicon Livoniae and the Liber Census Daniae, little is known about the Estonian language in the medieval period. However, it is clear that Estonian was heavily influenced by the language of the German elites. The numerous borrowings from Middle Low German included not only words concerned with feudal and clerical administration, but also those referring to warfare, commerce, transportation, exterior and interior construction, craftsmanship, housekeeping, clothing, food, health, and leisure.6 At the same time contacts with the Russians to the east and southeast were considerably reduced. A further consequence of German rule and the gradual enserfment of the Estonian peasantry was the enhancement of dialectal divergencies, thus slowing down any tendencies toward the development of a national language.7 In the second quarter of the sixteenth century the Protestant Reformation and the recent inventions of inexpensive paper and movable type contributed to the emergence of both a written language and the printed word in Estonian. 8 In large part because of the strength of religious passions in this period the only partially extant example of printed Estonian from the

Language Development and Policy in Estonia

15

sixteenth century is the Wanradt-Koell catechism, published in Wittenberg in 1535; however, some other texts in manuscript have survived. The following figures on the number of titles of books and brochures published between the seventeenth century and the Russian Revolution show the expansion of the Estonian printed word: 9 1632-1700 1701-1750 1751-1800 1801-1850 1851-1900 1901-1917

42 56 164 638 6,054 7,548

The beginning of especially rapid growth in the middle of the nineteenth century coincided with the emergence of the Estonian national awakening. It is noteworthy that in contrast to the Orthodox and Moslem areas of the Russian Empire the Protestant Baltic Provinces achieved much higher literacy rates. By the start of the nineteenth century the great majority of Estonian peasants (both male and female) could read, and in 1897 the rate had reached 96-97% for those ten years of age and older. 1 0 The development of written Estonian in the four centuries from the Reformation to the Russian Revolution and the establishment of Estonian independence may be periodized as follows: (1) 1524-1686, (2) 1686-1813, (3) 1813-1857, (4) 1857-1905, and (5) 1905-1917. During the initial period, which begins with the first extant manuscript in Estonian (the Kullamaa prayers), the written language was completely subordinated to German models. The authors, overwhelmingly German clergymen, wrote almost exclusively religious manuscripts for themselves and the use of their colleagues. The circulation of religious manuscripts from various parts of Estonia among the pastors led to extensive dialectal variations in the written language. In addition, two competing written languages emerged — one based on the North Estonian midland dialect, the other on the South Estonian dialect of the Tartu region." In terms of linguistic borrowing the most important source continued to be Low German, but the influence of Swedish, Finnish, Russian, and Latvian was also noteworthy. During much of this period Sweden ruled Estonia, and some Finnish pastors served there as well. The role of Russian loans in the South Estonian written language of the seventeenth century was considerably greater than in North Estonian because of more extensive contacts in the southeast. 1 2 During the second period, covering mainly the eighteenth century, the written language became more consistent and moved closer to the spoken

16

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language. The most decisive changes came with the orthographical reforms of Bengt Gottfried Forselius in the late 1680s which received wide exposure through Johann Hornung's Grammatica Esthonica (1693). Forselius and Hornung dropped foreign letters (c, v, x, q, z, ch, f ) from the written language and advocated the use of certain forms based on the spoken language.13 Nevertheless, the grammar and sentence structure of written Estonian remained very much under German influence. The eighteenth century witnessed the beginning secularization of the Estonian printed word: nearly 50% of the titles published in the years 1701-1800 dealt with non-religious subjects. At the same time the struggle between North and South Estonian continued. Although a New Testament in South Estonian (1686) preceded one in North Estonian (1715), the publication of the entire Bible in North Estonian in 1739 considerably strengthened the latter's position. 14 After the conquest of Estonia by Russia at the beginning of the eighteenth century, Swedish and Finnish linguistic contacts were largely cut off, but Russian influence did not appreciably increase since the tsarist regime granted broad autonomy to the Baltic German elites and no major influx of Russians took place. Johann Heinrich Rosenplänter's Beiträge zur genauem Kenntniss der ehstnischen Sprache (1813-1832), the first scholarly periodical devoted to the Estonian language, ushered in the third period noted above (18131857). These years witnessed the beginning emancipation of written Estonian from overriding German influence. Significant advances took place in the study of the language; for example, using the Finnish model, all the grammatical cases of Estonian were systematically indicated. A major turning point occurred in 1840 when native authors, most notably Friedrich Reinhold Kreutzwald, began to dominate in the writing of Estonian books and periodicals for the first time.1 s The movement toward a single written language also gained momentum. At the beginning of the nineteenth century less than 60% of all books were published in North Estonian; by 1850, the figure had reached 85%. At the same time the present-day orthography of Estonian, based on Finnish, began to emerge, especially through Eduard Ahrens's Grammatik der Ehstnischen Sprache (1843, 1853). 16 The most important external linguistic influence on Estonian in this period came from Finnish. After 1809, Finland and Estonia belonged to the same political entity, contacts with Finnish scholars grew, and both Baltic German and Estonian authors increasingly recognized the interrelatedness of the Finnish and Estonian languages.17

Language Development and Policy in Estonia

17

In the second half of the nineteenth century (the fourth period — 1857-1905) Estonian intellectuals established the goal of developing a modern and autonomous Estonian culture. To that end written Estonian had to be modernized and raised to the level of a Kultursprache. In the first two decades of this period the final victory of North Estonian as the basis for the written language and the general acceptance of the new orthography based on Finnish took place. The Society of Estonian Literati (Esti Kirjameeste Selts), founded in 1872, made the first institutional attempts to standardize and develop the written language.18 Nevertheless, the goal of standardization remained elusive in the latter part of the nineteenth' century; indeed, with the great increase in the number of authors and books printed, written Estonian became more diverse, including differing interpretations of usage and a greater influx of dialectal elments.19 As noted above, the number of books and brochures printed in Estonian grew nearly ten times in the period 1851-1900 as compared to the previous fifty years. As the Estonian areas underwent substantial modernization, including growth of peasant landownership, beginning industrialization, urbanization, growth of the professions, and improved education, the subject matter of the Estonian printed word began to change. In the second half of the nineteenth century the share of religious works dropped to 28% from 53% in the period 1801-1850. Of particular note is the proportion of literary works which jumped from 7% to 30% of the total. Furthermore, the quality of both native belles lettres and translations — now including many of the classics of European literature — greatly improved, and given tsarist censorship, belletristic literature was the most expedient forum for the discussion of social and ideological issues. This period also witnessed the coming of age of Estonian journalism. In 1857, only two Estonian newspapers, both established that year, existed; by 1905, the number of journalistic titles had reached fifty-one.20 However, Estonian was clearly not yet a "cultural language" by 1905. Despite the advances of the previous half-century, the syntax of written Estonian continued to be under considerable German influence. Moreover, the Estonian lexicon remained underdeveloped, especially as the impact of modernization grew. Certainly a great deal of linguistic borrowing had taken place in the last fifty years, but it had not kept pace with the changes in Estonian life. The major source for conscious borrowing continued to be Finnish; virtually all leading Estonian authors and linguists advocated stronger ties with the Finnish language. At the same time, as contacts with the outside world increased, the introduction of international terms into

18

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Estonian began. It should also be noted that Estonian served as the language of instruction only in rural elementary schools, and its use declined after the onset of Russification in the late 1880s. Thus, the languages in which Estonian authors were educated (German in the first part of this period, Russian in the latter) no doubt influenced the written expression of their native tongue. 21 The final period in the development of written Estonian before the Russian Revolution (1905-1917) was the shortest, but also the most intensive. The Revolution of 1905, although overshadowed by more sweeping changes later in the twentieth century, constituted a watershed in Estonian history. Above all, the experience of 1905 heightened political and social consciousness and raised new visions of the Estonian future. 22 While the political goals of the revolution, autonomy and democratization, remained unachieved during tsarist times, the movement for a modern Estonian culture received new impetus and continued apace in the following years. The post1905 decade witnessed the foundation of the first professional Estonian theaters, the establishment of the Estonian Literary Society (Eesti Kirfanduse Selts) and its organ Eesti Kirfandus (Estonian Literature-the first professional Estonian cultural journal, in 1906), the continuing growth of the Estonian book trade and journalism, and new advances in education, including the revocation of the worst aspects of Russification and the foundation of private secondary schools with Estonian as the language of instruction. 2 3 In the period 1905-1917 a more systematic approach to the development of the written language emerged. Beginning in 1905, the Young-Estonia (Noor-Eesti) literary group, most notably Johnnes Aavik (1880-1973), sought to Europeanize written Estonian and raise its aesthetic level. In the years 1908-1911 the Estland 24 Popular Education Society (Estimaa Rahvahariduse Selts) and the Estonian Literary Society held four conferences designed to regulate and standardize the written language, and in 1910 work began on the first dictionary of correct usage.2 5 Although his most important work came after 1917, Aavik already stood out in this period as the leader of the linguistic reform movement which became increasingly active from 1912 on. Motivated mainly by aesthetic considerations and a desire to modernize the language as rapidly as possible, Aavik proposed the expansion of the lexicon through increased borrowing from Finnish as well as neologisms and derivations and recommended numerous changes in orthography and grammar. On the other hand Johannes Voldemar Veski (1873-1968) emerged as the major spokesman for a countermovement which emphasized the immediate need for the standardization of the written language. In contrast to Aavik, Veski was

Language Development and Policy in Estonia

19

guided by considerations of practicality and regularity. Instead of creating new grammatical forms, he chose a standard set from existing ones. In order to expand the vocabulary Veski stressed the internal resources of Estonian (derviation, compounding, and dialects) rather than borrowing or neologisms.26 As a result of this intensive linguistic activity written Estonian expanded its range of expression and became more standardized by 1917.2 7 The establishment of an independent Republic of Estonia (1918-1940) in the wake of the Russian Revolution laid the basis for a new era in the development of the Estonian language. In the 1920s and 1930s the movement to create a modern and autonomous Estonian culture reached fruition. Estonian became the language of administration at all levels of government, and for the first time an entire Estonian-language educational system began to function. It should be noted that although literacy in Estonian now became increasingly more sophisticated, the expansion of the ability to write (in any language), which began in earnest in the 1860s, reached culmination by the start of independence; in 1922, 89% of the total population of Estonia could both read and write. 28 Overall, in the years 1918-1940 about 25,000 titles of books and brochures in Estonian were published, considerably more than in all previous history (c. 14,500). The secularizing trend also continued; in the years 1918-1934 only 5% of books and brochures were of a religious nature. 29 At the same time various professional institutions, now established in all academic fields, literature, theater, music, and the arts, consciously developed the various strands of a modern Estonian culture. In the field of linguistics the Academic Mother Tongue Society (Akadeemiline Emakeele Selts) published the scholarly journal Eesti Keel (Estonian Language—19221940). The period of independence may be characterized as the era of consolidation and standardization of written Estonian. The work of Aavik and Veski received a hearing from both linguists and the general public, and the acceptable elements were assimilated. Although it is impossible to determine exact figures, Aavik added considerably to the already significant number of Finnish loans in Estonian, and some 40 of his over 300 neologisms found general acceptance. Veski's major activity involved the direction of work (up to 1934) on a dictionary of correct usage (Eesti öigekeelsuse-sönaraamat— 1st ed., 1918; 2nd ed., in three volumes, 1925-1937). This position gave him a unique opportunity to influence the written language since these reference works were officially designated by the state as the standard authority. In addition, using the various internal resources of Estonian, Veski actually created many more words than Aavik (over 7,000). 30 Although the assimila-

20

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tion of lexical innovations was more or less complete by the late 1930s, differences of opinion remained among leading linguists and authors on some matters of usage. In terms of contacts with other languages in the 1920s and 1930s, Finnish continued to play the leading role, in part because of conscious design by Aavik and the reformers and also because cultural interchange between Estonians and Finns reached a historical peak in his period. 31 On the other hand, Russian influence almost completely disappeared, both for political reasons and as a reaction against the cultural Russification of the late tsarist era. The Russian population of independent Estonia (8.2% in 1934) 32 was mainly concentrated along the eastern border, and Russian was hardly studied in the schools. Despite the political eclipse of the Baltic Germans in Estonia, German cultural role remained strong, and it was the second most important foreign language in education. English, which now became the main foreign language in the secondary schools, and French were studied considerably more than in tsarist times and probably served as inspiration for the borrowing of the international terms. 33 Using Elmar Muuk's Väike öigekeelsus-sönaraamat (Abridged Dictionary of Correct Usage— 1 st ed., 1933), Andrus Saareste has calculated the following proportions for the origins of about 6,000 word stems (leaving out international terms and compounds) in written Estonian: Finno-Ugric-60.0%, Old Germanic and Low and High German—23.3%, Slavic and Russian—4.2%, Baltic and Latvian-4.0%, Swedish-2.0%, Old Indo-European-0.5%, and unknown-6.0%. 34 Soviet rule in Estonia began during the upheavals of World War II in August 1940 and lasted, in its first phase, until July 1941. Following three years of German control the Soviets returned in September 1944. In order to understand the linguistic developments in Estonia in the past four decades it is necessary to bear in mind the changes in ethnic composition. Table 1 provides figures from the three postwar Soviet censuses and, for comparison, the 1934 census in the Republic of Estonia.3 5

Language Development and Policy in Estonia

2]

Table 1. Ethnic Composition of Estonia, 1934-1979 (in percentages) Nationality

1934 a

1959

1970

1979

Estonian Russian German Swedish Jewish Ukrainian Belorussian Finnish Other

88.2 8.2 1.5 0.7 0.4

74.6 20.1

68.2 24.7

64.7 27.9

-

1.0

-

-

-

0.4 2.1 1.4 1.4 1.8

0.3 2.5 1.6 1.2 1.8

-

0.5 1.3 0.9 1.4 1.2

-

a. Pre-1945 borders Sources: Eesti arvudes 1920-1935 (Tallinn, 1937), p. 26\Rahva Hääl, April 17, 1971; NSV Liidu rahavastik (Tallinn, 1981), p. 24; Vestnik statistiki, No. 11 (1980), p. 64.

It is noteworthy that only the Slavic nationalities have increased their share of the ESSR population in the past two decades. In the capital city of Estonia the ethnic changes have been even more striking. The same census figures indicate the following percentages for the Estonian population of Tallinn: 1934-85.6, 1959-60.2, 1970-55.7, and 1979-51.9. Between 1934 and 1979, the Russian share jumped from 5.8% to 38.0%.36 Soviet language policy in Estonia may be divided into three major periods: (1) 1940-1941 and 1944-1955, (2) 1955-1978, and (3) 1978 to the present. It is not coincidental that this periodization corresponds to political changes— in the first instance the transition from Stalinism in the mid-1950s, and in the second the appointment of Karl Vaino as First Secretary of the Estonian Communist Party (ECP) Central Committee in July 1978 as well as renewed emphasis on the Russian language all over the USSR. During the Stalinist period in Estonia, as elsewhere in the Soviet Union, the Russian language became the main model for native linguistic development. However, because of the high cultural level achieved by Estonia and the other independent Baltic states before annexation by the USSR, the degree of Russification remained limited compared to that experienced by most Soviet languages. In the first two post-Stalin decades the Soviet regime permitted much broader cultural expression in Estonian, and a number of marked improvements occurred, especially in opportunities for research into the Estonian language, education, and native literary output. In the most recent past the role of Estonian in education, the media, and public life in general has declined, and pressures to learn Russian have increased considerably.

22

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Soviet rule in Estonia led to the loss of most of the country's leading linguists, mainly through emigration. Aavik, Saareste, Julius M'àgiste, and Julius Mark, among others, all left Estonia by 1944. 37 In Estonia itself Veski now became the dean of Estonian linguists. No extensive purge of linguists took place during the Stalinist era. However, Muuk was deported to the interior of the USSR in June 1941, 3 * and Paul Ariste was placed under arrest for a year in the early postwar period. In the past four decades a new generation of linguists has emerged, but the leading figures have been scholars of the older generation: Veski, Ariste (b. 1905), and Arnold Kask (b. 1902). During the Soviet period the center for the study and development of the Estonian language has shifted from Tartu University to the Academy of Sciences (established 1946) in Tallinn. In 1952, the Institute of Language and literature (Keele ja Kirjanduse Instituut), founded in 1947 in Tartu, and the Mother Tongue Society (Emakeele Selts)3 9 moved to the capital city. The secondary status of Estonian during the Stalin years is graphically shown by the paucity of publications by these two institutions. Neither published any serials or scholarly monographs, and the never-completed Suur öigekeelsus-sönaraamat (Comprehensive Dictionary of Correct Usage, 2 vols., 1948-1951) was issued in only 10,000 copies for each volume. The breakthrough came in 1955 with the first Emakeele Seltsi Aastaraamat ( Yearbook of the Mother Tongue Society) followed by the society's scholarly publication series beginning in 1958. The monograph series of the Institute of Language and literature began in 1956 and its monthly journal, Keel ja Kirjandus {Language and Literature), in 1958. 40 Since the late 1950s both institutions have expanded their range of publications while also continuing their scholarly periodicals. In contrast to the relatively laissez-faire attitudes of the independence era the Soviets have taken a much more definitive approach to language policy in Estonia. More so than in the past the various dictionaries of correct usage are looked upon as the final word in linguistic matters, and through its central control of all publication the state exerts a powerful influence on the written language. In the early postwar years work on normative dictionaries was done at the Department of Estonian at Tartu University ; however, in 1947 a special sector was established at the Institute of Language and Literature to deal with these questions, and it has remained the central focus for the study of matters of usage ever since. In part because of the absence of rivals and also because his views were acceptable to official ideology, Veski has had a preponderant influence on normative policies during the Soviet era. Until his death in 1968

Language Development and Policy in Estonia

23

Veski had chaired the Mother Tongue Society for almost the entire postwar period (since 1946).41 Normative policy in linguistic matters in the Stalin era (and it has never been repudiated) was to be based on the spoken language of the masses of the population, and as long as it did not conflict with the patterns of popular speech, the principle of consistency was also to be followed.4 2 In effect this was a continuation of Veski's earlier ideas in the changed context of a Soviet Estonia. During the Stalin years Aavik and the language reform movement came under sharp criticism for their alleged elitism and snobbery.4 3 However, in the post-Stalin era Aavik's contributions have been increasingly recognized, and the Soviets published a highly laudatory Festschrift in 1971 on the occasion of his ninetieth birthday.44 The first completed normative dictionary compiled during the Soviet era appeared in 1953 in 25,000 copies and contained about 36,000 words. It dropped many of the forms found in Muuk's abridged orthographical dictionary (8th-10th ed. in 1946) and eliminated numerous parallel forms. Within the broader possibilities of the post-Stalin years a thorough dictionary of correct usage, containing nearly 100,000 words, was published in 1960 in an impression of 40,000 copies. The most recent normative dictionary, appearing in 1976, was about 5% longer than the 1960 version, but only 20,000 copies were published. The major contribution of the two post-Stalin dictionaries has been to evaluate and assimilate lexical expansion 4 5 In terms of linguistic contacts in the Soviet period it is obvious that Russian has eclipsed all other influences on the Estonian language. However, the linguistic impact has not been as great as it might appear. The relatively advanced development of Estonian by 1940 has meant that Russian has had little influence on grammar. At the same time, because Estonian has retained its traditional alphabet, phonological change has also been minimal.46 Adoption of the Cyrillic alphabet was probably not considered during the Stalinist era because written Estonian (like Latvian, Lithuanian, Georgian, and Armenian) was simply too developed to be placed in the same category with the bulk of the emerging Soviet languages. On the other hand, the lexical impact of Russian on Estonian has been substantial. From the beginning of the Soviet era the major means for assimilating new vocabulary was loan translation, e.g., täitevkomitee 'executive committee,' viisaastakuplaan 'five year plan,' lööktöö 'shock work.' Some existing words also changed meaning, e.g., natsionalism—now only "bourgeois" nationalism. It is noteworthy that even during the Stalinist period the spelling of Russian proper and geographical names in Estonian basically followed the

24

Toivo U. Raun

already existing transliteration system. Thus, suggestions to adopt new letters (e.g., c, ó for existing ts, tS) on the Russian model were not implemented. The 1953 version of the dictionary of correct usage and a specialized dictionary of political and economic terms in 1955 (15,000/words) helped consolidate Soviet terminology in Estonia. In the post-Stalin years loan translation has continued to be the leading source for lexical innovation, e.g., kosmoselaev 'spaceship.' Direct borrowing, e.g., kulak, narodnik, oblast, has played a secondary, but certainly not negligible role in the lexical influence of Russian on Estonian. As suggested by the examples above, borrowing from Russian has been important in areas where a loan translation would be either impossible or highly artifical, and it is noteworthy that the 1976 normative dictionary recommends dropping a number of Russian loans when Estonian forms exist. Thus, for example, labipàœuhiba 'pass' should be used for propusk, and särgik sleeveless shirt' is preferred to maika. Of course, Russian has not been the only source for new words during the Soviet era. A large body of international scientific and technical terminology, often by way of Russian, has entered Estonian in recent decades.48 Officially, Finnish linguistic influence is frowned upon, but contacts have increased in the past two decades through Finnish television and tourists. Because Finnish is relatively close to Estonian, some linguistic interference from the influence of Finnish television, e.g., in school essays, has been noted among Estonian youth.4 9 Syntax and phraseology are two areas in which the influence of Russian on Estonian appears to be growing, in large part as a consequence of the massive amount of translation from Russian. Newspapers, periodicals, radio, and television make constant use of Russian-language materials. A substantial portion of the belles lettres published in the ESSR is also translated from Russian. As various Soviet Estonian authors point out, the main source of problems is reliance on literal, word-for-word translations, which leads to syntactical errors and Russicisms in expression. This phenomenon occurs most often in the mass media where it can have the greatest impact on large numbers of people.s 0 Perhaps more than other indicators, development in education have tended to reflect the shifts in Soviet language policy in Estonia. Although exact figures are difficult to come by for the Stalinist period, it appears that the number of hours devoted to the study of Russian in Estonian-language schools roughly equalled, or at times even exceeded, those assigned for the study of Estonian.51 For the post-Stalin years Table 2 provides an overview of language study in ESSR schools with Estonian as the language of instruction.

Language Development and Policy in Estonia

25

Table 2. Hours per Week Devoted to Language Study in 11-Years ESSR Estonian-language Schools (total for all classes) Year 1956-1957 1959-1960 1969-1970 1974-1975 1978-1979 1981-1982

Estonian

Russian

Ratio

77.5 72.5 75 69 68 66

55.5 45.5 44 42 43 41

1.4 1.6 1.7 1.6 1.6 1.6

Sources: Hermann Rajamaa, "Schulwesen und pädagogische Zielsetzung im selbständigen Estland und in Sowjet Estland," Acta Baltica, ( (1960/61), pp. 137-38; Arnold Purre, "Haridusolud N. Eestis," Eesti saatusaastad, 6 vols. (Stockholm, 1963-1972), VI, p. 40; Nöukogude Eesti (Tallinn, 1975), p. 142; Sovetskaia Estoniia (Tallinn, 1979), p. 185; Nöukogude Öpetaja, May 16,1981.

It is striking that the number of hours for both Estonian and Russian has declined. In the past twenty-five years the most significant change was the 18% drop in the amount of time for the study of Russian in the late 1950s. The position of Estonian vis-à-vis Russian was strongest in the decade that followed. In 1956-1957, 77% of the schools in the ESSR used Estonian as the language of instruction, and in 1972, the figure was still 73%, a proportion higher than the ethnic Estonian share of the population at the time. Data for later years are not available, but it is likely that the relative weight of Estonian-language schools has declined, reflecting the continuing influx of non-Estonians into the ESSR. Schools with parallel instruction in Estonian and Russian have not been popular; in 1973, 8% of the ESSR schools were of this type, the same share as in 1956-1957.®2 Although Table 2 may suggest that conditions have not changed much in the recent past, other data indicate a different picture. By 1981, for the first time in the Soviet era, the study of Russian was begun in the first grade of Estonian-language schools, and Russian has also been introduced into Estonian pre-schools. Furthermore, it is instructive to compare the figures in Table 2 with those for Russian-language schools in Estonia. In 1981-1982 in these schools 72 hours per week were spent in the study of Russian while only 16 were devoted to Estonian (beginning in the third grade). Thus, the ratio of Russian to Estonian study in Russian-language schools (4.5) was nearly three times the ratio of Estonian to Russian (1.6) in Estonian-language schools.5 3 In higher education the Estonian share of the total ESSR student body

26

Toivo U. Raun

declined from 82% in 1959-1960 to 72% in 1970-1971, i.e., more rapidly than the overall ethnic Estonian proportion in the ESSR. At Tartu University (7,605 students in 1980), the Estonian presence remains high—85% in 1974 and probaly around 80% today. However, a major shift has occurred in the past two decades at the Tallinn Poly technical Institute (9,841 students in 1980, largest in the ESSR) where by 1981, 40% of the graduates were Russian.5 4 During the period 1940-1979 (excluding the years 1941-1944) 54,332 books and brochure titles were printed in the ESSR, 75% of which were in Estonian. Three fourths of this output came in the 1960s and 1970s, but it is noteworthy that only in the years 1971-1975 did the Soviets approach the level of Estonian book production achieved in the last five full years of independence (1935-1939: c. 8,000). 55 On the other hand, in 1970 Estonian ranked first in the USSR in copies of books published per capita of ethnic group (9.2), and it still held that position in 1979 (13.0). 56 Table 3 provides an overview of the Estonian-language share of the output of printed matter in Estonia during the Soviet era. Table 3. Estonian-language Proportion of Titles of Printed Matter Published in the ESSR (in percentagesj Year

1945 1950 1955 1960 1965 1970 1975 1980

Books & Borchures Titles Copies 88 84 87 80 70 74 69 61

88 67 88 87 83 86 79 73

Magazines Titles Copies 94 86 78 86 75 75 69 69

100 96 95 99 99 76 75 78

Newspapers Titles Copies 83 77 86 78 76 72 76 72

82 87 -

85 86 86 83 82

Sources: Ees ti NSV rahvamafandus (Tallinn, 1957), p. 283; Narodnoe Khoziaistvo Estonskoi SSR ν 1968 qodu (Tallin, 1969), pp. 235-36; Eesti NSV rahvamajandus 1980. aastal (Tallinn, 1981), pp. 322-23.

Although newspaper production in Estonia has been quite stable, a definite downward trend is evident in books and magazines, especially in last two decades. With the exception of the 1950 figure for copies of books and brochures, 1980 marked the first year in which the Estonian share of output

Language Development and Policy in Estonia

27

of any type of printed matter (in this case, books and brochures-61%, down from 66% in 1979) fell noticeably below the enthnic Estonian percentage of the population. A purely quantitative survey could leave the impression that the Estonian printed word was better off under Stalin. This was certainly not the case. The share of original works among books and brochures printed in Estonian never rose above 50% during the Stalinist era, but climbed steadily to 76% by 19711974. Of the 1,334 first editions of Estonian belles lettres published in the ESSR between 1940 and 1975, fully two thirds were printed in the years 1961-1975. 57 In the Stalinist period (1940-1954) more Russian literature (in Estonian translation) than Estonian literature itself, including reprints, was published in the ESSR.5 8 Both quantitatively and qualitatively the late Stalin era was the nadir of Estonian letters in the twentieth century and probably the late nineteenth century as well. 59 In contrast, in the decade 1966-1975, Estonian belles lettres constituted 48% and Russian literature 16% of the total number of literary titles published, and these percentages remained the same in 1981. 60 In the post-Stalin era the circulation figures for the major Estonian literary periodicals have shown a clearly upward trend; however, the number of copies has levelled off recently, and there are increasing complaints that supply is unequal to demand. 61 Data on the use of Estonian in radio and television in the ESSR are only available for the recent past. However, it is clear that the two media have taken divergent paths. Whereas radio broadcasting remains overwhelmingly Estonian (80% in 1965, 88% in 1980), television programming in Estonian has declined from 26% of the total in 1970-1977 to 17% in 1980. The major reason for the difference is that the ESSR radio is entirely local while about two thirds of the television programs originate in Moscow or Leningrad. However, in 1978, there was also a drop in the Estonian-language share of local television programming (from 7.5 to 6 hours), reducing that proportion to less than half of the local total (12.5 hours). In a speech at the May 1979 Tashkent Conference on the Russian language, Elsa Grechkina, then head of the ECP Central Committee's Department of Science and Education Institutions, specifically stated that Estonian television provided an important aid to the schools in the teaching of Russian.6 2 For the Estonian population of northern Estonia, Finnish television partly compensates for the small amount of Estonian programming, but it certainly does not promote the Estonian language. The decline in the position of Estonian vis-à-vis Russian in the ESSR in recent years is part of an ail-Union phenomenon: a growing emphasis on the

28

Toivo U. Raun

role of Russian as the language of inter-ethnic communication in the USSR. To be sure, the official goal is stated as bilingualism, not denationalization, but the stress has been on Russian rather than reciprocity. In retrospect, it is clear that this policy has gradually developed in the course of the 1970s (e.g., all-Union conferences on the promotion of the Russian languages beginning in 1969, the requirement since 1975 that all candidate and doctoral dissertations be submitted in Russian). 63 Nevertheless, a new intensity became observable following the October 1978 Council of Ministers decree on improving the study and teaching of Russian among non-Russians and the May 1979 Tashkent Conference on the same subject. Although 82% of the USSR population was fluent in Russian in 1979 (and the figure will approach 90% in the 1980s), the Soviet leadership remains concerned about the declining Russian share of the ethnic composition of the USSR.6 4 In Estonia a major turning point came in July 1978 with the replacement of Johannes Käbin (b. 1905) by Karl Vaino (b. 1923) as First Party Secretary. Although both are Russian-Estonians (i.e., ethnic Estonians who have spent their formative years in the USSR), Käbin, First Secretary in the years 19501978, presided over the cultural rebirth of the post-Stalin era and gradually became supportive of the Estonian language. Born in Siberia, Vaino appears to have no interest in Estonian, and his appointment clearly reflects Moscow's continuing distrust of home-grown Communists in Estonia. In December 1978 the ECP Büro took steps to implement recent CPSU and central government decrees on promoting the Russian language. In a secret set of regulations, which have since become known in the West, the ECP leadership called for raising the level of the knowledge of Russian in Estonia, stressing the need for more and better qualified teachers of Russian, more schools with parallel Estonian and Russian instruction, greater use of the media for Rssian study, more exposure to Russian culture in Estonia, and in general the encouragement of greater interest in Russian among the ESSR population. 65 Since December 1978 both the ESSR and the all-Union press have carried various articles praising improvements in the study of Russian in Estonia. 66 In addition to these policy changes and the weakening of the role of Estonian in education, the media, and printed matter in recent years, there has also been a decline in the use of Estonian on public occasions. For example, all speeches at official government receptions and meetings held in conjunction with the most recent All-Estonian Song Festival in 1980 were in Russian, a departure from previous practice. 67 In the face of this growing pressure to learn and use Russian, how strong is the Estonian commitment

Language Development and Policy in Estonia

29

to the native language? Table 4 provides historical data on this question up to 1979. Table 4. Ethnic Estonians Habitaully Speaking Another Language, 1922-1979 Year

Number

%

Number Speaking Russian

%

1922 1934 1959 1970 1979

8,595 4,574 5,976 7,036 9,567

0.89 0.46 0.67 0.76 1.01

_

_

5,895 6,934 9,419

0.66 0.75 0.99

-

Sources: 1922. a. tildrahvalugemise andmed, 11 vols. (Tallinn, 1923-1927), I. p. 34; II rahvaloendus Eestis, 4 vols. (Tallinn, 1934-1937), II p. 47 ;Itogi vsesoiuznoi perepisi naseleniia 1959 goda: Estonskaia SSR (Moscow, 1962), p. 94Jtogi vsesoiuznoi perepisi naseleniia 1970goda, 7 vols. (Moscow, 1972-1974), IV, p. 317; Vestnik statistiki, No. 11 (1980), p. 64.

Although no exact figures are available, it is known that the great majority of assimilated Estonians in the 1920s and 1930s spoke German, and most of them probably left Estonia by 1944. Thus, the rate of increased Russified Estonians was probably greatest in the years 1944-1959; it slowed down markedly in the 1960s and rose again somewhat in the 1970s. However, there are no indications that even small numbers of Estonians in the ESSR are renouncing their native language. Nearly all the Russified Estonians appear to be Russian-Estonians returning or moving to Estonia for the first time. Furthermore, 60% of the 9,567 Estonians who did not speak Estonian habitually in 1979 could still speak it fluently. It is also noteworthy that in 1979 a higher percentage of Russians were Estonianized (1.56) in the ESSR than Estonians were Russified (0.99).6 8 On an ail-Union basis with regard to non-Russian native language retention in home republics, Estonian (99.0%) ranked seventh of fourteen behind Lithuanian, Kirgiz, Georgian, Armenian, Tadzhik, and Turkmen (ranging from 99.7 to 99.2%).6 9 Another index of language vitality in the USSR is resistance to attainment of fluency in Russian. In this regard the Estonians held a unique position among the major Soviet nationalities in the 1970s. While fluency in Russian (as either a first or second language) grew among all other major groups, that among Estonians in the ESSR declined from 283% in 1970 to 24.1% in 1979, the lowest of any union republic nationality. 70 Such a decline is not credible in any objective terms, and it must be seen as a form of national resistance to the growing role of Russian in Estonian life.

30

Toivo U. Raun

A less quantifiable, but more tangible indication of commitment to language retention is overt protest. Since its inception in the late 1960s, Estonian samizdat has raised the language issue in various ways, but the social basis of dissent remained unclear.71 However, the recent tightening of Soviet language policy in Estonia has occasioned unprecedented public protest. In October 1980 several nationalist demonstrations took place in Estonia the most significant of which was in Tallinn involving some 2,000 secondary school students. Among other things the demonstrators called for an increase in the number of hours devoted to the Estonian language and the removal of Elsa Grechkina as Minister of Education (appointed July 1980).72 On October 28,1980, in response to the rough treatment meted out to the demonstrators, forty Estonian intellectuals sent a signed open letter to the newspapers Pravda, Sovetskaia Estoniia, and Rahva Hääl, which has never been published in the USSR. Devoted mainly to language issues, the letter raised the following concerns: the rapid proportional decline of the Estonian segment of the population...; the circumspection of the use of the Estonian language in business, everyday matters, science, and elsewhere...; the growing scarcity of Estonian language journals and books, especially insofar as materials pertaining to the-indigenous culture are concerned, and the inhibition of research in the field of native culture...; the hyperbolic and inept propaganda campaign pushing the teaching of Russian in schools and kindergartens...; unilateral propagation of bilingualism among Estonians....; the appointment of persons with inadequate knowledge of Estonian culture and lack of interest in it to responsible posts.... The signers included a cross section of Estonian intellectuals, mainly from the younger generation and some with strong Communist credentials.73 Another recent letter, dated March 1982 and addressed to a Finnish journalist from fifteen Estonian intellectuals who chose to remain anonymous, offers more detail on some of the points made in 1980: the language of administration and business in Estonia is increasingly Russian, the study of Estonian in Russian-language schools is not taken seriously, and ethnic tensions in Estonia are on the rise.74 No official response has been forthcoming to the open letter from the forty Estonian intellectuals. However, the Soviet authorities are taking some steps to improve Estonian-language study in Russian schools, appeals for which in the past have fallen on deaf ears.75 In early 1982, Estonian-language olympiads for Russian students (apparently the first of their kind in the Soviet Union) were introduced, and the problems of teaching Estonian to Russian speakers were more frankly discussed in the press.76 It should be noted that bilingualism among Russians in the ESSRhas not made great strides

Language Development and Policy in Estonia

31

and indeed declined from 14.1% in 1970 to 12.9% in 1979, considerably lower than comparable rates for neighboring Lithuania (37.4%) and Latvia (20.7%) as well as those for the Ukraine, Belorussia, Armenia, and Georgia.7 7 This phenomenon was sharply criticized in both the October 1980 and March 1982 letters cited above. In conclusion, it may be noted that historically the major linguistic influences on modern Estonian have been (in chronological order) German, Finnish, and Russian. However, a leading role for Russian only began in 1940, and the relatively advanced development of Estonian in the pre-Soviet era has served to mitigate the influence of Russian in the past four decades. As shown by census data and recent public protest, the vitality of the Estonian language and commitment to it by the ethnic Estonian population in the ESSR remain strong. The influx of non-Estonians into the ESSR fell markedly in the second half of the 1970s, and given the overall decline in birth rates in the European USSR, immigration will probably continue to be low. The Estonian proportion of the ESSR population is not likely to change much in the 1980s (65% in 1979). 78 Thus, barring a return to Stalinist type terror, the Estonian demographic position will not weaken much in the near future. At the same time, if the present language policy of reducing the status of Estonian continues, ethnic tensions and the possibility of unrest will remain high.

Notes 1. According to the 1979 census the population figures for the Samoyedic and FinnoUgric nationalities and ethnic groups in the USSR were as follows (using Sovert Terminology): Samoyedic 34,326 Hungarian 170,553 Khanty 20,934 Mansi 7,563 Udmurt 713,696 Komi & Komi-Permiak 477,468 Mord vin 1,191,765 Mari 621,961 Saame (Lapp) 1,888 Estonian 1,019,851 Finnish 77,059 Izhorian 748 Karelian 138,429 Vepsian 8,094

32

2. 3.

4. 5. 6.

7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16 17. 18. 19.

Toivo U. Raun See Vestnik statistiki, No. 7 (1980), pp. 41-43. Of the Samoyedic ethnic groups (again in Soviet terminology)—Nenets, Selkup, Nganasan, and Enets—the latter is too small to be mentioned in the preliminary census data, but if included, the Samoyedic total would be a few hundred more than 34,326. Of the other Baltic Finns there are today perhaps 150 speakers of Livonian and about twenty of Votic (Paul Ariste, Keelekontaktid [Tallinn, 1981 ], p. 76). Toivo Vuorela, The Finno-Ugric Peoples (Bloomington, Ind., 1964), pp. 9-13. Karin Mark, Zur Herkunft der finnisch-ugrischen Völker vom Standpunkt der Anthropologie (Tallinn, 1970), pp. 101, 105; Paul Ariste, "Über die früheste Entwicklungsstufe der ostseefinnischen Sprachen," Eesti NSV Teaduste Akadeemia Toimetised: Ühiskonnateaduste seeria, 10 (1961), pp. 260-61; Ariste, Keelekontaktid, p. 8. Alo Raun and Andrus Saareste, An Introduction to Estonian Linguistics (Wiesbaden, 1965), p. 61 ; Ariste, Keelekontaktid, pp. 83-85. On this point see Toivo U. Raun, "Modernization and the Estonians, 1860-1914," Baltic History, A. Ziedonis, Jr., et all, eds. (Columbus, 1974), pp. 135-41. H. Liim, "Alamsaksa laensònad eesti vanimas kirjakeeles," Töid eesti filoloogia alalt, I (Tartu Riikliku Ülikooli Toimetised, 162; Tartu, 1964), pp. 32-71. Since there are so few written records from the medieval period, it is not possible to determine exactly which Low German loans entered Estonian at this time (p. 37). Low German remained the written language of the German-speaking population in Estonia until the seventeenth century and its spoken language well into the nineteenth century; see Paul Ariste," Das Niederdeutsche im Estnischen," Sovetskoe fìnno-ugrovedenie, 8 (1972), p. 91. A. Raun and Saareste, p. 62. Toivo U. Raun, "The Development of Estonian Literacy in the 18th and 19th Centuries," Journal of Baltic Studies, 10 (1979), p. 116. Richard Antik, "Eestikeelse raamatu ja broSüüri arvulised kokkuvötted aastate járgi," Daniel Palgi, ed., Raamatu osa Eesti aregus (Tartu, 1935), pp. 293-96. T. Raun, "The Development of Estonian Literacy," pp. 118-19,121. Arnold Kask, Eesti kirjakeele ajaloost, 2 vols. (Tartu, 1970), I, pp. 7-9, 21 ; George Kurman, The Development of Written Estonian (Bloomington, Ind., 1968), pp. 3,5. A. Raun and Saareste, p. 65; Kurman, p. 6; Ariste, Keelekontaktid, pp. 87, 148. A recent study has found 254 Latvian loanwords in Estonian dialects and in the written language; see Lembit Vaba, Lati laensònad eesti keeles (Tallinn, 1977), p. 3. Kask, Eesti kirjakeele ajaloost, I, pp. 10-11; Kurman, p. 10·,Eesti kirjanduse ajalugu, 4 vols. (Tallinn, 1965-1981), I, pp. 144-47. Kurman, pp. 7, 10-12; Richard Antik, Eesti raamat 1535-1935 (Tartu, 1936), p. 54; Eesti kirjanduse ajalugu, I, pp. 181,186-87,192. Kask, Eesti kirjakeele ajaloost, I, pp. 12-13. Eesti kirjanduse ajalugu, I, pp. 425-26. Kurman, pp. 25-28. Eeva Ahven, Eesti kirjakeele arenemine aastail 1900-1917 (Tallinn, 1958), p. 7; Arnold Kask, "Sada aastat eesti kirjakeele normeerimise algusest," Kask, Eesti kirjakeele ajaloost, I, pp. 14-16; Kurman, p. 33; A. Raun and Saareste, p. 72.

Language Development and Policy in Estonia

33

20. Antik, Eesti raamat, pp. 55, 58, 90; Daniel Palgi, "Üldpilk raamatu osale Eesti arengus," Raamatu osa Eesti arengus, p. 24. 21. A. Raun and Saareste, pp. 73-74; Kask, Eesti kirjakeele ajaloost, I, pp. 15-17; Kurman, pp. 35-37. 22. Toivo U. Raun, "1905 as a Turning Point in Estonian History," East European Quarterly, 14 (1980), pp. 327-33. 23. Toivo U. Raun, "The Estonians," Edward C. Thaden, ed., Russification in the Baltic Provinces and Finland, 1855-1914 (Princeton, 1981), pp. 320-22, 330, 332, 335-36. 24. The term "Estland" refers to the northernmost of the three Baltic Provinces in tsarist Russia; it constituted roughly the northern half of post-1917 Estonia. 25. E. Ah ven, p. 169. 26. A. Raun and Saareste, pp. 75-77;Kuiman, pp. 55-61, 65-68. 27. E. Ahven, pp. 168-75. 28. Including all nationalities and those ten years of age and older; Hugo Reiman, "II rahvaloenduse tulemusi," Eesti Statistika, No. 156 (1934), p. 565. 29. Antik, Eesti raamat, pp. 29, 51 ; M. Lott, "Raamat kodanlikus Eestis," Eesti raamat 1525-1975 (Tallinn, 1978), p. 169. 30. A. Raun and Saareste, pp. 75-77; Kurman, pp. 58-59,61,63,65-66. 31. Kurman, pp. 67-68. 32. Eesti arvudes 1920-1935 (Tallinn, 1937), p. 26. The Estonians comprised 88.2% of the population in 1934 and the Germans 1.5%. 33. Theodor Kiinnapas, "Schools and Vocational Training," Aspects of Estonian Culture (London, 1961), p. 96. 34. Andrus Saareste, "Oma ja vôôras meie sönavaras." Tulimuld, 3 (1952), pp. 86-89. 35. It should be noted that in early 1945 about 5% of the territory of the Republic of Estonia was annexed to the RSFSR. Most of the population of this area was Russian. Thus, despite significant wartime losses (military casualties, executions, deportation, and flight) or perhaps 20%, the Estonian share of the ESSR population rose to about 92-96% in 1945. However, due to massive immigration by Russians and other non-Estonians as well as large deportations of the native population, the Estonian proportion probably fell to 74-78% by 1950. See Rein Taagepera, "Baltic Population Changes, 1950-1980," Journal of Baltic Studies, 12 (1980), p. 47. 36. Rein Taagepera, "Size and Ethnicity of Estonian Towns and Rural Districts, 19221979," Journal of Baltic Studies, 13 (1982), p. 107. 37. Saareste, Mägiste, and Mark held the professorships for Estonian, Balto-Finnic, and Uralic, respectively, at Tartu University at the end of the independence era. 38. Muuk appears to have been deported because he was employed by the Mininstry of Justice in the Republic of Estonia and not because of his linguistic workj?esti nöukogude entsüklopeedia, 8 vols. + suppl. (Tallinn, 1968-1978), V, p. 260, gives Muuk's year of death as 1941. 39. The Mother Tongue Society is a continuation of the Academic Mother Tongue Society of the independence era. 40. Institute of Language and Literature (Tallinn, 1970), pp. 42-55 ; Heino Ahven, Emakeele Selts (Tallinn, 1970), pp. 35-37. 41. Arnold Kask, "Eesti kirjakeele arenemisest nöukogude perioodil," Emakeele Seltsi Aastaraamat, 11(1965), pp. 5,15;H. Ahven, p. 10.

34

Toivo U. Raun

42. Kask, "Eesti kiijakeele arenemisest," pp. 6-7 ; Nöukogude Eesti, 2nd ed. (Tallinn, 1978), p. 231. 43. Compare, foi example, the references to Aavik in Kask's "Eesti kirjakeele ajaloo periodiseerimisest," Emakeele Seltsi Aastaraamat, I (1955)—still under the influence of the Stalinist era-with the version published in 1970 in his Eesti kirjakeele ajaloost. 44. Üheksa aastakümmet; Piihendusteos Johannes Aavikule (Tallinn, 1971). 45. Kask, "Eesti kiijakeele arenemisest," pp. 8-10,14, Institue of Language and Literature, p. 42. The three normative dictionaries discussed here are as follows: Väike ôigekeelsuse sönaraamat (Tallinn, 1953), Ôigekeelsuse söwraamat (Tallinn, 1960), and Öigekeelsussönaraamat (Tallinn, 19760. 46. Kask, "Eesti kirjakeele arenemisest," p. 3. 47. Ibid., pp. 3-5,7-8,10-13,18-19. 48. Α. Kask, "Estonskii iazyk," Osnovenye protsessy vnutristrukturnogo razvitiia tiurkskikh, finno-ugorskikh i mongol'skikh iazykov (Moscow, 1969), pp. 289-90; Öigekeelsussönaraamat, pp. 401, 539, 676. 49. Heisingin Sanomat, October 25,1981. 50. Kask, "Eesti kiijakeele arenemisest," pp. 17-18, 20-21;M. Löokene,y4 jakirjanduse keelest (Tartu, 1971), pp. 105-19; U. Liivak, Kust king keelt pigistab (Tallinn, 1972), pp. 59-64. 51. Hermann Rajamaa, The Moulding of Soviet Qtizens: A Glance at Soviet Educational Theory and Practice (London, 1948), p. 8; Aleksander Kaelas, Okupeeritud Eesti (Stockholm, 1956), p. 93. 52. Eesti NSV rahvamajandus (Tallinn, 1957), p. 228; Baltic Events, No. 37 (April 1973), p. 7; Rein Taagepera, "Estonia and the Estonians," Zev Katz, et al., eds., Handbook of Major Soviet Nationalities (New York, 1975), p. 83. 53. Nöukogude Öpetaja, May 16, 1981; Elizabeth Koutaisoff, "Literacy and the Place of Russian in the Non-Slav Republics of the USSR," Soviet Studies, 3 (1951), p. 128; Teataja (Stockholm), October 2,1982, p. 7. 54. Noukogude Eesti saavutusi 20 aasta jooksul (Tallinn, 1960), p. 95; Eesti NSV rahvamajandus 1980. aastal (Tallinn, 1981), pp. 309-10; Teodor Künnapas and Elmar Järvesoo, "The Structure of Higher Educcation and Research," Tönu Panning and E. Järvesoo, eds., A Case Study of a Soviet Republic: The Estonian SSR (Boulder, 1978), p. 366; Teataja, October 2, 1982, p. 7 ; Baltic Events, No. 37 (April 1973), p. 7. 55. Soviet Estona (Tallin, 1980), p. 219; Eesti raamat 1525-1975, pp. 201, 263; Nóukogude Eesti trükisöna 1966-1975 (Tallinn, 1978), p. 21. 56. Handbook of Major Soviet Nationalities, p. 459; Pechat' SSSRv 1979 godu (Moscow, 1980), p. 22\NSVLiidu rahvastik (Tallinn, 1981), p. 18-19. 57. Eesti raamat 1525-1975, p. 263; Nöukogude Eesti trükisöna 1966-1975, p. 69; Eesti NSV raamat 1940-1960 (Tallinn, 1960), p. 23. 58. Russian literature comprised 43% of the titles and 48% of the copies published (vs. 40% and 34%, respectively, for Estonian literature); Eesti NSV raamat 1940-1954 (Tallinn, 1956), pp. 22, 25. 59. Rein Taagepera, "A Portrait of the 'Historical Gap' in Estonian Literature," Lituanus, 26, No. 3 (1980), pp. 73-74, 81.

Language Development and Policy in Estonia

35

60. Nöukogude Eesti trükisöna 1966-1975, pp. 7-8; Raamatukroonika (1981), I, pp. 127-37; II, PP. 123-30; III, pp. 106-12; IV, pp. 112-20. 61. Sirp ja Vasar, No. 40, October 2,1981. 62. Eesti NSV rahvamajandus 1979, aastal (Tallinn, 1980), p. 308 ; Eesti NSVrahvamajandus 1980. a., p. 321; Soviet Estonia, p. 227; E. R. Giechkina, "Kompleksnyi podkhod k problemam prepodavaniia msskogo iazyka ν Estonii," Russkii iazykiazyk druzhby i sotrudnichestva narodov SSSR (Moscow, 1981), p. 203. 63. Roman Solchanyk, "Russian Language and Soviet Politics," Soviet Studies, 34 (1982), p. 25;Heisingin Sanomat, October 26,1981. 64. Roman Solchanyk, "Soviet Language Policy: Two Steps Forward, One Step Back?," Radio Liberty Research, R L 47/82 (January 28,1982); Yaroslav Bilinsky, "Expanding the Use of Russian or Russification?," Russian Review, 40 (1981), pp. 321, 330-31; M. N. Rutkevich, "Dvuiazychie vazhnyi faktor razvitiia novoi istoricheskoi obshchnosti," Istorila SSSR, No. 4 (1981), pp. 28-29. 65. Eesti Päevaleht (Stockholm), November 15, 1980. 66. See, for example, Rahva Hääl, February 15, 1980 and October 10, 1980, and S. Shamsutdinova, "Iazyk druzhby i sotrudnichestva narodov SSSR," Narodnoe obrazovanie, No. 1 (1981), p. 49. 67. Heisingin Sanomat, July 13, 1980. 68. Uno Mereste, "Muutusi eesti keele valdajaskonnas 1970-1979," Keel ja Kirjandus, 24 (1981), p. 664; Vestnik statistiki, No. 11 (1980), p. 64. 69. Vestnik statistiki, No. 8 (1980), pp. 64, 69; No. 9 (1980), pp. 61, 65; No. 10 (1980), pp. 67, 70-72; No. 11 (1980), pp. 60-62, 64. 70. Rutkevich, p. 31 ;NSV Liidu rahvastik, pp. 18-19. 71. See, for example, Documents from Estonia on the Violation of Human Rights (Stockholm, 1977). 72. Juhan Kristjan Talve, "Venäläistämispolitiikasta eilen ja tänään," Kanava, 9 (1981), p. 399; Rah va Hääl, July 23,1980. Although Grechkina (b. 1932) lists her nationality as Estonian (Eesti NSV Ülemnöukogu IX koosseis [Tallinn, 1976], p. 34), she is not a native of Estonia. 73.

V. Stanley Vardys, "Human Rights Issues in Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania," Appendix II: "Open Letter from the Estonia SSR," Journal of Baltic Studies, 12 (1981), pp. 292-96; quotation from pp. 293-94. 74. Teatafa, October 2, 1982, pp. 6-8. 75. E.g., E. N. Piali' [Pall], " O razvitii natsional'nykh iazykov i tipakh dvuiazychiia," Problemy dvuiazychiia i mnogoiazychiia (Moscow, 1972), pp. 119. 76. Jaan Pennar, "Problems of Teaching Estonian in Tallinn's Russian-language Schools," Radio Liberty Research, R L 135/82 (March 23, 1982); Ann Sheehy, "Estonian-language Olympiad Instituted for Pupils of Russian Schools in Estonia," Radio Liberty Research, R L 66/82 (February 10, 1982). 77. 78.

Vestnik statistiki, No. 8 (1980), pp. 64, 69; No. 9 (1980), pp. 61-65; No. 10 (1980), pp. 67, 70-72; No. 11 (1980), pp. 60-62, 64. Taagepera, "Baltic Population Changes," pp. 36,54-55.

PAUL WEXLER

Belorussification, Russification and Polonization Trends in the Belorussian Language 1890-1982

0. Introduction The Belorussian (Br) speech territory is contiguous with three Slavic and two Baltic languagues — Russian (R), Ukrainian (U), Polish (P), Lithuanian and Latvian — and is coterritorial over large areas with R and Yiddish; there are also small pockets of German, Karaite, Latvian, Lithuanian and Romany speakers. Most of the Br ethnographic territory now lies in the Belorussian SSR (BSSR), with small areas in Poland, Lithuania and Latvia. Modern Br language planning, which begins in the last decade of the 19th century, can be divided into three distinct stages: (a) a puristic orientation advocating closure to Ρ and R (1890-1932 [in Poland until 1939], 1941-1944), (b) an antipuristic orientation advocating receptivity to R but continuing closure to Ρ (1933-1941, 1945-1953), and (c) a modified anti-puristic orientation, implicitly involving a merger of elements from both the puristic and antipuristic orientations (1954-1982).1 The role of the R runs like a leitmotiv through all discussions of Br language planning — and affects both the selection of R loans as well as native components.

1. The Puristic Orientation: 1890s-1932(1939), 1941-1944 1.1 Developments before 1917 1.11 The official status of Br. In the early 14th century, Br ethnographic lands began to be incorporated into the multiethnic Grand Duchy of Lithuania, and Br became the chancery language. Consolidation of the Grand Duchy in 1569 under the Polish Crown brought about the gradual displacement of Br by P, terminating in 1696 in the prohibition against the use of the Br written language.2 The Belorussian lands remained under Polish control until 1772-1795, when Russia occupied Belorussia in piecemeal fashion.

38

Paul Wexler

Under Tsarist rule, there was no change in the status of Br - known officially as the zapadno-russkoe nareckie 'West R dialect'; Belorussia was called the zapadno-russkii krai 'West Russain region'.3 After 1795, the use of R became widespread in Belorussia. The Br publications of belles lettres and poetry composed in the 19th century had to be printed abroad, e.g. F. Bahushèvich, Dudka belaruskaia (Kraków 1891), ibid., Smyk belaruski (Poznaii 1894). Occasionally, we find Br dialogues in locally published Ρ plays, see e.g. V. Dunin-Martsinkevich's opera Sieìanka (Vil'nius 1846).4 After the abortive Revolution of 1905, the anti-Br restrictions were somewhat lifted to permit the publication of books and periodicals, which facilitated the discussion of language planning. The new Br periodical press, e.g. Nasha dolia 1906, Nasha niva 1906-1915, Homan 1916-1918, became established in Vil'nius, a city with only 4.2% Belorussians, according to 1897 census — alongside 40% Jews, 30% Poles and a significant Russian minority. 5 A similar pattern prevailed in most Belorussian cities, though in Mahilêw, Belorussians constituted 29.8%. The effect of the Br-language press should not be overexaggerated, since only about one quarter of the Belorussians between the ages of 149 were literate (the percentage was somewhat higher in Vil'nius and adjacent areas).6 1.12 Scholarly attitudes towards Br. In the 19th and early 20th century , Br was commonly regarded by many natives and normatives as a dialect of R, P, U or as a mixture of several Slavic languages.7 The orphan status of Br was due to two factors: (a) the lack of official status and widespread assimilation of the intelligentsia to R or P, and (b) the existence of most of the defining features of Br in the neighboring Slavic languages, especially R and U. The fact that many typical features (e.g. akan'é) probably had their inception in (pre) Br dialects was not well known and could hardly have made much difference. 8 1.13 Linguistic discussions. In the last two decades of the Tsarist period, Belorussian nationalists were arguing that they needed their own written language, (a) in order to eradicate the cumbersome diglossia whereby children spoke Br but had to write Ρ or R, and (b) to enhance the national image of the Belorussian people. A separate Br written language was feasible since the spoken dialects are exceptionally rich; regulators recommended replacing R and Ρ influences by unique Br dialectalisms, especially from the western dialects regarded as purer. The Old Br language could serve as a supplementary source of enrichment and index of pure Br. Internationalisms could also be considered (but neologisms were not discussed). In the last analysis, Belorussian regulators recognized that the success erf their language revival would depend ultimately on a press, school system and cultural Ufe

Belorussification, Russification and Polonization

39

in the native language. There was also discussion about the alphabet. Besides their traditional Cyrillic alphabet, some regulators in Western Belorussia, with its large Catholic contingency, favored the Latin alphabet — used first in its Ρ form (e.g. sz 'sh', cz 'ch', etc.) and later in its Czech form (s, c), with innovations (e.g. [w] is written with ü rather than/as in P;/denotes the velar I). Both the Latin and Cyrillic alphabets were used in the journal Nasha tiiva until 1912, when Latin was abandoned. The alphabet in its "Czech" variant reappeared in interbellum Poland and German-occupied Belorussia, and is still used by some émigrés. Only a Cyrillic alphabet was recognized in the BSSR.9 Support for the Br language revival was not limited to Belorussians. For political reasons, the German army of occupation in World War I allowed the opening of Br-language schools and even published a dictionary of the spoken language.10 The Bolshevik party also advocated equal rights for all minority languages. Interestingly, the largest minority, the Jews, while retaining their native Yiddish, and increasingly acquiring R, were often also fluent in Br.11 One Jewish writer, Zmitork Biadulia (born Samuel Plawnik 1886-1941) became particularly prominent in the Br linguistic and literary revival.12 Contiguous minorities in the Tsarist Empire, e.g. the Ukrainians, Lithuanians, Latvians, Estonians, and Jews, were also experiencing a linguistic revival, but the Belorussians seem to have taken a minor interest only in the U development.13 1.2 Development after 1917 1.21 The official status of the language. The BSSR was established in 1920. The Riga Peace Conference awarded Western Belorussian lands to Poland, while a small corner was incorporated into Latvia.14 Originally, the BSSR consisted only of the former Minsk province, but a large part of the Vitsebsk provinces and parts of the Hömel' and Smolensk provinces (in 1924) and the southeast districts of Rèchytsa and Hömel' (in 1926) were transferred from the RSFSR to the BSSR. The census of 1926 gave a total population of 4,738,923 Belorussians for the entire USSR. ls Estimates of the Belorussian population in interbellum Poland vary between one and three million.16 The consolidation of the Br language was favored by three developments: (a) Br became the official language of the BSSR and linguistic institutes were created to oversee language planning; in Poland the language had no official status. 17 Hence, Belorussians were no longer debating the feasability of creating an independent Br language; rather the issue was how to make the language suitable for new functions in government, education and scholar-

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ship. 18 (b) The literacy rate rose to 55.1% by 1926. (c) The 1920s saw an increase in the Belorussian urban population, due partly to migration from the countryside and partly to the emigration of Jews from the cities to other parts of the USSR. On the negative side, however, the percentage of Br speakers declined both in urban and rural areas, with assimilation to R particularly intense in the districts of Hömel' and Rèchytsa contiguous to R ethnic areas. 19 1.22 Scholarly attitudes towards Br. While Br was now regarded as an independent Slavic language, disagreement still persisted over the genesis of Br and its relationship to R and U. One view, which reigns now in the USSR (and to some extent in the West), is that a proto-R language developed from Common Slavic on the Eastern Slavic lands in the 8-9th century, eventually giving rise to the Old R, Br and U languages by 13-14th century. The main reason given for the breakup of the proto-R unity is the incorporation of Br lands within the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. This view allots an independent history of only 6-700 years to Br and U, while R has a continuous history of some 1100 years. A second view, popular now among non-Soviet scholars and Soviet Belorussians active in the 1920s, proposes that all three Eastern Slavic languages go back directly to Common Slavic without passing through a proto-R stage, and hence begin their proper histories in the 6-7th century with the appearance of the first Eastern Slavic innovations.2 0 In this view, the importance of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania in the genesis of Br distinctiveness is minor, since (pre-) Br had already acquired many of its distinctive features before the incorporation of Belorussia into Lithuania. 21 1.23 Linguistic discussions. The areas of concern to regulators after 1917 were identical to those of the pre-1917 period, except for the new interest in constructing technical terminologies.22 There was also some disagreement over the relative mix of neologisms and internationalisms.23 Enrichment from R and Ρ remained unacceptable. Examples of "Russianisms" and "Polonisms" recommended for replacement in the 1920s and early 1930s are: skol'ki 'how much' (R skol'ko)>kol'ki, stol'ki 'so much' (R stol'ko)>tol'ki;2* pekny 'beautiful' (Ρ ρiçkny)>kharoshy, pryhozhy, pazomy;2S rèkamandavats' 'recommend' (R rekomendovat')>raits';2 6 prymetsits' 'perceive, notice' (R primetW)>prytsemits', zametsits' 'observe' (R zametit')>zatsemits', nezametka 'absence of notice' (not R\)>newprytsiam;27 nabits' ruku 'become experienced' (R nab it' ruku)>navytarytstsa (Vitsebsk dialectalism).2 8 The closure to R and Ρ did not usually include Br elements with cognates in the latter. For example, one purist argued that there was no point to re-

Belorussification, Russification and Polonization

41

place ziamliatrasen'ne earthquake' by ziamliazdryh (>zdryhanuts' 'to shake') because of R zemliatriasenie, since tras'tsi 'to shake' was native to Br, nor should rad 'row' (~R riad) be replaced by shèrah (~P szereg); another writer regarded Br khandozhyts' 'cleanse' as a Germanism (see Gothin *handags 'skillful') rather than a "Polonism" (see archaic Ρ chçdozyc).2 9 Nevertheless, purists cautioned against displacing native Br meanings on R models, e.g. Br adstats' should be used in the meaning 'pull off vs. R otstat' 'lag behind' (~Br adstatstsa).3 0 Ascertaining the purity of a Br term could best be done by reference to the Old Br literary language, e.g. of the variants hébrèi~ iawrèi 'Jew', the former was superior since it enjoyed historical attestation while iawrèi was regarded as a R loan (see R evrei)}1 Similarly, popis was recommended for 'census' in place of perapis (Rperepis'), since it was allegedly known in dialects and 16th century texts. 32 If native terms were not available, then non-Slavic terms were preferable to R or Ρ loans, e.g. dalikatna 'delicately' was preferable to hzhèchnen'ka (~P grzecznie), but best of all was native (u)vetla, (ujvetlen'ka,33 Belorussians were urged to use native (West) Br rataistva for 'agriculture', rather than zemliarobstva or khlebarobstva, patterned on R zemledelie, zemlepashestvo.3 4 West European loans that entered Br via R were also regarded as Russianisms. For example, Antarktyka 'Antarctic' (R Antarktika) should be replaced by Pawdzen'ne (Br chuzhaed ('other's' + 'food'). 4 3 The enthusiasm for native neologisms partly waned by the late 1920s and internationalisms replaced many earlier neologism. Compare the following replacements of 1922-3 terms by 1927 4 4 e.g. abvod>pèrymetr

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Paul Wexler

'perimeter', vohnishcha>fokus 'focus', mimasiarodnik>èkt&en trytsytet 'eccentricity', rownalèzhny>paralèî'ny 'parallel', aksiëma~pèwnik>aksyëma 'axiom', adsotak~protsanOprotsant 'percent', asiarodak~tsèntr>tsèntr 'centre', binom~dvokhchleri>binom 'binomial' ,postuliat~vymoha>postuliat 'postulate', radius~pramèn>radius 'radius', tsyfra~lichbina>tsyfra'numeral'. Some terminologies were often undecided and so offered doublets of internationalisms and neologisms (see also examples from 1922-3 above), e.g. korozyia~raziadan'ne 'corrosion', polius~kantsavos'se 'pole'; 45 abstraktsyia ~adtsjahnen'ne 'abstraction', awtomatyzm~samarukh 'automatism'; 46 47 petrohrafyia~plastaznawstva 'petrography'. R uses the first member of each pair. Though there were some signs of change as early as 1930, the puristic orientation was finally terminated in 1933 by Stalin's denunciation of socalled "nationalist" attempts to separate Br from the R language.48 As of 1933, the only acceptable orientation was anti-puristic, i.e. pro-R (see section 2 below). In the matter of dialects, Russification required the cultivation of northeast dialectal features which bore the greatest similarity to R. The antipuristic orientation was applied to Western Belorussia, annexed to the BSSR in 1939, though in a moderate form. In 1941, the anti-Russian policy of the German occupiers favored a limited return to the pre-1933 purism. 49 Other than reprinting earlier puristic tractates, wartime language planners, few of whom had been active in the pre-war period, offered little of innovation. A number of Polish Belorussians also participated in the discussions, which may account for the preference for unique Br elements (see also note 23 above), e.g. sian'nia 'today'. 50 R and Ρ continue to be purged, e.g. dakazvats' 'prove', dokaz 'proof (R dokazyvat', dokazatel'stvo)>davodzits', dovad,51 5 2 ostatili 'the last' (P ostatni)>aposhni, mêldunak (Ρ meldunek), paiawlen'ne (R poiavlenie 'appearance'!) 'report, message'>Br zaiava,53 kislata 'acid' (R kislota)>kis'lina.5 4 Archaisms are also favored, e.g. Haspoda 'apartment', 5 5 zrada 'treason' (vs. the Polonized zdrada).s6 As in the past, Belorussians were warned against using R meanings of surface cognates, e.g. Br rashats' should mean 'dispose of, spend, waste' and not 'decide', as with Rreshat'.57 R syntactic influence must also be purged, e.g. pa 'through' governs the locative case while R po governs the dative, (pa horadze 'through the city' vs. Russified pa horadu)·, predicative phrases should be expressed by za 'as' with the noun in the accusative case, and not in the predicative instrumental as in R, e.g. byw za nastawnika 'was a teacher' vs. Russified byw nastawnikam (R byl uchitelem).58 Wartime regulators tended to reject internationalisms, e.g. tsyfra 'numeral'>//cAôwa (the reverse decision was taken in 1927, see above, P.7). 59

Belorussification, Russification and Polonization

43

2. The Anti-Puristic Orientation: 1933-1941, 1945-1953 2.1 Before World War II The anti-puristic orientation advocated (a) roots shared by Br and R, (b) R and internationalism introduced through R, 6 0 and (c) the removal of many unique neologisms on the grounds that these created a barrier between R and Br. The new orientation, fostered by new participants unknown from the previous orientation, can be seen dramatically in the new dictionaries.61 Compare the terms promulgated by A. Aleksandrovich in his Ruska-belaruski slownik (Minsk 1937) to replace recommendations by the Èlementamaia matematyka, the first volume published by the Instytut Belaruskai Kul'tury (IBK) in 1922: ashacha 'remainder'>rés/ita, astatak (R ostatok); kirunak 'direction' 6 2 >kirunak, napramak (R napravlenie); kut 'angle'>A:wf~v«Aa/ (R ugol)\aksioma~pèwnik 'zxiovrOaksiëma (R aksioma); uiawny 'imaginery' >mnimy (R mnimyi). Aleksandrovich rejected the use of the nominal suffix •nia except in cases of parallelism with R; thus, Br tsahèl'nia 'brick factory'> tsahèl'ny zavod (R zavod kirpichnyi), pil'nia 'saw-mill'>lesapil'ny zavod (R zavod lesopil'nyi).6 3 In their anti-P orientation, the pre- and post-1933 periods were similar in form only. Before 1933, loans from P, but not necessarily Br terms with Ρ cognates, were seen as a threat to the independence of the Br language; after 1933, Polonisms and Br terms with Ρ cognates were both excluded — in order to maximize the parallels between Br and R. Rejected "Polonisms" included menavita 'namely' (P mianowicie)>imenna (R imenno), nèndza (Ρ nedza) 'need, wanV>niastachy.64 Lëkai (Ρ lokaj) 'lackey' and gabinet (P gabinet, kabinet [archaic] ) 'cabinet' were to be replaced by lakei and kabinet (R lakei, kabinet)\ patèl'nia 'frying pan' (P patelnia)>skavarada (R skovoroda),6 5 siabryna, supolka 'artel'>artsel', batsTcawshchyna>aichyna 'homeland'. 66 In discussions following the anexation of Western Belorussia, the status of a number of words with ties to Ρ was left open, e.g. iar 'ravine' (R,P iary-awrah (R ovrag)r~row (R rov, Ρ rowek); vyspa 'island' (P wyspa)~vostraw (R ostrov); sprytny 'adroit' (P sprytny)r~lowki (R lovkii)\ pani 'lady, madame' (Ρ paniy-barynia (R barynia).6 7 2.2 After World War II The post-war anti-puristic orientation was a continuation of the period from 1933-1941 - though once again the participants were new faces. Examples of the Russification of nonnative roots in Br are talent (also Ρ)>talant (also R), farfar (also P) 'porcelain'>farfor (also R). 6 8 R continued to be the model

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for Br morphological norms; thus, Br infinitives and preterites were to introduce -ir- as in R, e.g. R maskirovat' 'to mask', motivirovat' 'motivate'>Br maskiravats', matyviravats';69 the genitive plural case ending of feminine nouns in Br dialects appears as either -aw or φ, but the distribution was to be based on that of R, e.g. zor 'stars', hor 'mountains', ruin 'ruins' vs. unacceptable zoraw, horaw, ruinaw - but iskraw 'sparks' (~R iskr) was retained, in order to avoid an atypical cluster of three consonants. 70

3. The Modified Anti-Puristic Orientation: 1953-Present As in earlier periods, we again find a fresh group of language planners, but most of the current discussions are hardly new. What is new now is the treatment of the previous recommendations made by both purists and anti-purists. Below we examine the status of all the recommendations surveyed above in sections 1-2 (in the order of their presentation). We take as the new standards the Tlumachal'ny slowrtik belaruskai movy (Minsk 1977ff - availabe to us only through r: abbreviated as 1977ff) and K.K. Krapiva Belorussko-russkii slovar' (Moscow 1962: henceforth 1962). Current spellings and characterizations — unless otherwise stated, from 1977ff - are given in parentheses. 3.1 Puristic recommendations currently accepted: ziamliatrasen'ne (zemletrasenne), rad, dalikatna, (u)vetlen'ka (vetliva), kol'ki, tol'ki, pryhozhy, raits', newprytsiam "colloquial"), inshaskaz (also inshaskazanné), dvuznachnas'ts' (dvuzachny), movaznawtsa (1962, alongside movaznavets\ 1977ff has only the latter), chuzhaed (chuzhaiadny 1962 vs. darmaed in 1977ff), pèrymetr (perymetr), fokus (1962), ektsentrytsytet (ékstséntrytsytet 1962), paralèl'ny (paralel'ny), aksiëma, protsant (pratsènt), tsêntr, binom, postuliat {postulat), korozyia (karoziia), raz'iadan'ne (only the verb is given in 1977ff),polius, abstraktsyia, adtsiahnen'ne (adtsiahnenne), awtomatyzm (awtamatyzatsyia), petrohafyia (petrahraflia), sên'nia (sënnia 1962~preferred siahonnia), davozits', dovad, haspoda 'apartment' (now home'), aposhni, pa horadze, byw za nastawnika, zaiava, kis'lina 'acid' (kislina 'something very acidic'). 3.2 Puristic recommendations currently rejected: khandozhyts' (1962), adstats' 'pull off from' (now 'lag behind'), adstatstsa, hebrèi, popis, rataistva, pazorny, prytsemits', zatsemits', navytarytstsa, Pawdzen'ne, parcia, hvardzia, ulasnapis (now ulasnaruchny podpis), ulasna-

Belorussifkation, Russification and Polonization

45

zhyts'tsiapisets, kamnedurukar, pakrytnitsa, nutratkanka, nutrakrytnitsa, pewnik, adsotak, tsyfra, kantsavos'se, samarukh, plastaznawstva, zrada. 3.3 Puristic rejections currently accepted: shèrah, iawrêi, perapis, zemliarobstva, khlebarobstva, skolTci, stol'ki;11 pekny,72 rekamandavats', prymetsits', zametsits', nabits'ruku, Antarktyka, partyia, hvardyia, awtohraf (1962), awtabiohraf (awtabiiahrafiia), alehoryia, linhvist, litohraf, épitélii, èndatélii, parazit, abvod (rejected in the late 1920s, but now used as a non-technical term), mimasiarodnik, (rejected in the 1920s), asiarodak (now 'center part of a stem'), dvokhchlen (dvukhchlen), pramèn' (pramen'), lichbina (1962 only), dakazvats', dokaz, zdrada, astatni, rashats' ('decide'), paiawlenne ('appearance'), kislata ('acidity'). 3.4 Puristic rejections currently rejected: ziamliazdryh, hzhechnen'ka, nezametka, amfiboliia, vohnishcha (only used as 'firewood, campfire'), rownalezhny, vymoha, pahoradu, byw nastawnikam, mèl'dunak. 3.5 Anti-puristic recommendations currently accepted: rèshta, astatak, kirunak, napramak, kut, vuhal, aksiëma, tsahel'ny zavod, lesapil'ny zavod, imenna, niastachy, lakei, kabinet, iar, row, vyspa, vostraw, sprytny, lowki, pani, skavarada, zemliarobstva, artsel', aichyna, farfor (1962), maskiravasts' zor (also zoraw), hor, ruin, iskraw. 3.6 Anti-puristic recommendations currently rejected: mnimy, awrah, barynia (retained now only as 'Russian folk song, dance'), talant, maty vira vats'. 3.7 Anti-puristic rejections currently accepted: astacha, uiawny (1962), tsahel'nia (1962), ρ il'nia, menavita, nèndza ("colloquial"), lekai ("archaic"), gabinet ("archaic" 1962 but absent in 1977ff), patèl'nia, siabryna ("colloquial" 1962), supolka ("archaic" 1962), bats'kawshchyna, talent, zoraw. 3.8 Anti-puristic rejections currently rejected: pewnik, farfar, horaw, iskr.

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4. Summary and Prognosis The data presented above show that over the last 15-20 years the modern Br standard language has been readmitting a number of puristic recommendations rejected after 1933 (section 3.3) while discarding some anti-puristic recommendations (section 3.6). 73 Such a policy is tantamount to admitting slightly greater dialectal enrichment that lacks parallels with R (but may have parallels with P), and to exercising caution in the utilization of Russianisms. Occasionally, we encounter doublets, e.g. tsahel'nia~tsahel'ny zavod 'brick factory'. Surface similarity with Ρ no longer disqualifies a Br term from inclusion in the standard language, e.g. shèrah 'row', pekny 'beautiful', astatni 'the last'. Recent dialectal dictionaries also show awareness of the need to distinguish between Br-P cognates and outright loans from P. 74 Sometimes phonetic features proposed by purists are still rejected, even though they appear in other forms of the root, e.g. while hvardzia 'Guard' is not acceptable, the affrication of etymological d is found in hvardzeiski (adjective) and hvardzeets 'Guard member' (see also note 35 above); while rataistva 'argriculture' is still rejected, ratai (archaic) (~aratai, araty) 'ploughed and rataiski (adjective) are admissible. In some cases, we can even trace the gradual readmission of puristic recommendations between 1962 and 1977ff, e.g. while Krapiva 1962 characterized aichyna 'homeland' as "poetic", 1977ff listed it without special note. Moreover, the current dictionaries are not always representative of actual usage. For instance, while Krapiva 1962 only sanctioned sianrtia 'today', (rejected by Iurèvich 1961 — see note 50) the variant sianni is nevertheless found in contemporary literature. 7 5 Often entries in a single dictionary are contradictory, as in the use of the epithet "archaic" with the entries lëkai and haspoda in the 1977ff dictionary — even though citations are given from recent literature. Also, 1977ff cites pramen' only in the meaning of 'beam of light, rays', but translates Latin radius 'ray, radius' (under radius) as pramen'·, in Klyshka 1976, radius is, however, not given as a synonym of pramen'. Finally, the replacement of anti-puristic matyviravats' 'motivate' by matyvavats' (though -ir- is retained in matyvirowka 'motivation') is a good illustration of the repetitive quality of Br language discussions and the flux in standard norms. Within Estern Slavic, only R borrows the German -ir- suffix with foreign, usually Romance, verb stems. Br dictionaries of the 1920s have no examples of -irfavats'). In the anti-puristic period, Aleksandrovich 1937 Usted no less than 322 Br verbs with -iravats' (vs. 563 R examples with -irovat' in the. R-Br section). Post-World War II discussions accept the suffix, but differ in

BeloTUSsifkation, Russification and Polonization

47

the actual distribution. For example la. Kolas, K. Krapiva and P. Hlebka, Russkobelorusskii slovar' (Moscow 1953) reject 8 -ir- verbs from the 1937 dictionary (and add many new verbs in -ir·), while Krapiva 1962 rejects 19 -ir- verbs from Aleksandrovich. Finally, a sizeable number of -ir- verbs from Krapiva 1962 are dropped from 1977ff or appear without -ir-.16 Along with the cautions Belorussification of Br, the study of the Br language, both in its synchronic and diàchronic states, has also made great progress in recent years. 7 7 Particularly impressive is the lexicographical and dialectological research, which enables regulators to move Br language planning from a propagandists and sloganeering level to a scholarly level. 78 Nevertheless, the inroads of bilingualism in R and the assimilation of Br speakers to R threaten a return to the diglossia if not large scale assimilation of the pre-Revolutionary period. This raises the question of who is going to be around in future years to use the Br national language. 79 There is a clandestine nationalist movement in the BSSR which advocates the Belorussification of the language, and a halt to the spread of R at the expense of Br, but it is difficult for outsiders to assess the effects of such a movement on official Br language planning and assimilation, and on the public's reaction to prescriptive recommendations. 80 While Russification is a factor in the development of all Soviet languages, its effect on Br (and to a lesser extent U) is unique and not often appreciated by scholars. For example, E.G. Lewis enumerated three channels of Russifications: (a) the immigration of Russians into non-R territory, (b) R influence on the non-R languages and (c) the use of a R lingua franca in multilingual areas. 81 The first two channels are relevant to Br. However, Lewis omitted two other germane factors: (a) the large scale contiguity of Brand Rspeech areas and (b) the close structural bonds between the two languages. It is these four factors which explain the rapid Russification of the BSSR. While the percentage of resident Russians was only 10.4% in 1970 (up from 7.7% in 1926 and 8.2% in 1959), R speakers are very heavily concentrated in urban centers. Here there is a serious threat to Br language maintenance since more and more Belorussians are currently migrating to the cities. Further attrition of the Br speech community comes from the out-migration of Belorussians to other republics, especially Siberia and Central Asia; these migrants, who now constitute 20% of all Belorussians in the USSR, have consistently shown a strong tendency to assimilate to R. 8 2 At present, Br appears to be undergoing a functional reduction as well. For example, in 1930-5, fully 85% of the books published in the BSSR were in Br vs. only 5% in R; in 1959, R surpassed Br in book publishing, 57% to 43% respectively.8 3 In the formerly

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Polish regions o f the BSSR, the Br language press was actually discontinued in 1 9 6 2 . 8 4 Of 14 professional theaters in the BSSR, only 3 performed in Br (in the 1 9 6 0 s ) . 8 5 Nearly as m a n y as three times more children in the BSSR choose R as t h e language o f instruction than might be justified b y the numberical composition o f the Russians. 8 6 In the late 1 9 2 0 s there were a number of factors that could arrest, and even reverse, t h e process of Russification — e.g. the expansion o f t h e land mass of the BSSR between 1921 and 1926 and the Moscow-sponsored spread o f the Br language to n e w domains and qualified encouragement o f Belorussian nationalism. These factors no longer exist. It remains t o b e seen whether the Belorussian national movement will find the means to check further linguistic erosion in t h e future — under the guise of the Moscow program o f creating a single "Soviet" culture with local variations. 8 7

Abbreviations BH Belaruskaia hazeta (Minsk 1942-1944); IBK Instytut Belaruskai Kul'tury (Minsk 1922-1931); JBS The Journal of Byelorussian Studies (London 1965ff); LM Litaratura i mastatstva (Minsk 1923ff); NN Nasha niva (Vil'nius 1906-1915); RM Rodnaia mova (Vil'nius 1930-1931); SS Soviet Studies (Glasgow 1949ff).

Notes 1. For details, see our Purism and language. A case study in modern Ukrainian and Belorussian nationalism (1840-1967) (Bloomington 1974). In "The rise (and fall) of the modern Byelorussian literary language," Slavonic and East European Review 57 (1979), 4, 481-508, we examined changes in Br prescriptive intervention in the period 1968-1976. See also A. McMillin, "Belorussian", in A.M. Schenker and E. Stankiewicz, eds., The Slavic literary languages: formation and development (New Haven 1980), 105-117, 262-4. 2. On the use of Br language in the Ukrainian lands of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania and the problem of assigning texts to Br or U, see G.Y. Shevelov, "Byelorussian versus Ukrainian: delimitation of texts before A.D. 1569", JBS 3 (1974), 2, 145-156; ibid., A historical phonology of the Ukrainian language (Heidelberg 1979), 398-406. For historical background, see H. Jablonowski, Westrussland zwischen Wilna und Moskau (Leiden 1961). 3. In many 18-19th century West European discussions of Belorussia, there is often no mention of "Belorussia" at all. For example, in the Mémoires militaires du Baron Seruzier (Paris 1823), an account of a French officer in the Napoleonic campaigns, the Ukraine is noted by name, but Belorussian cities and rivers are

Belorussiflcation, Russification and Polonization

4.

5.

6. 7.

8.

9.

10.

49

called "Russian" (e.g. Baiisaw, Biaièzina rivei, Minsk), "Polish" (e.g. Dzvina, Neman rivers) 01 "Lithuanian" (e.g. Mahilêw, Polatsk, Vitsebsk). See also S. Alexandrowicz, "Mapa Wielkiego Ksiçstwa Litewskiego Tomasza Makowskiego ζ 1613 r. tzw. "radziwiHowska," jako zródlo do dziejów Litwy i Bialorusi," Studia zródtoznawcze 10 (1965), 33-67. The official Soviet glottonym is Br belaruski, though some non-Soviet Belorussians have used the tribal epithet krywski 'Kryvian' ('Br'), Krywia 'Kryvia' ('Belorussia') (e.g. V. Lastowski, Padruchny rasiiska-krywski (belaruski) slownik, Kaunas 1924). In English, besides "Byelorussian", we occasionally encounter "White Russian" or "White Ruthenian". Note also the occasional use byBelorussians of "Moscovite" for ' R ' (e.g. M. Harètski, Nevialichki belaruska-maskowski slownik, Vil'nius 1919). See also A.V. Soloviev, "Weiss-, Schwarz- und Rotrussen. Versuch einer historisch-politischen Analyse," Jahrbücher für Geschichte Osteuropas N.F. 7 (1959), 1-33. For a comprehensive discussion of Br literature, see A.B. McMillin, A history of Byelorussian literature. From its origins to the present day (Glessen 1977). We use the current Soviet Br toponyms standardized in 1933. Pre-1933 forms, e.g. Mensk for Minsk, Mahilew for Mahilëw (~R Mogilëv), are still used in the emigration. See also note 60 below. Non-standardized Br titles and examples are transliterated as is (see also note 35 below). We follow the transliteration system of the Library of Congress except that we distinguish e, e and ë. See Pervaia vseobshchaia perepis' naseleniia Rossiiskoi Imperii 1897 goda (St. Petersburg 1897-1905), vols. 4.3, 5.3, 11, 22-23, 40, 48. For a detailed discussion of the 1897 census, see S.L. Guthier, "The Belorussians: national identification and assimilation, 1897-1970," SS 29 (1977), 1, 37-66. On the importance of Nasha niva, see A. Nadson, "NaSa niva," JBS 1 (1967), 3, 184-206. For detailed discussion, see A.B. McMillin, 'XlXth century attitudes to Byelorussian before Karski," JBS 1 (1966), 2, 103-9; P. Wexler, A historical phonology of the Belorussian language (Heidelberg 1977), 21. On the origin and chronology of akan 'e, see Wexler 1977:78-85. When P-Eastern Slavic cognates differ in meaning or syntax, Br and U usually follow P, e.g. Br dzvery, U dveri, Ρ drzwi 'door' (plurale tantum) vs. R dver' (singular and plural); Br vfaselle, U vesillja, Ρ wesele 'wedding' vs. R vesel'e 'gaiety' - but Br, U harbuz 'pumpkin' vs. R, Ρ arbuz 'watermelon'. Attempts to realign Br more closely with R were made in the anti-puristic period. For details, see U. Dubowka, "Lacinka ci kirylica. Da praekta reformy belaruskaha alfavitu," Uzvyshsha 1929.1.100-113; A. Losik,Bielaruskajapravapis (Minsk 1943); P.J. Mayo, "The alphabet and orthography of Byelorussian in the 20th century," JBS 4 (1977), 1, 28-48. A wealth of references to spelling reforms are provided in the Belaruskae movaznawstva. Bibliiahrafichny wkazal'nik (1825-1965 hh.) (Minsk 1967), 273-287. See the Sieben-Sprachen-Wörterbuch. Deutsch, Polnisch, Russisch, Weissruthenisch, Litauisch, Lettisch, Jiddisch (Leipzig 1918), put out by the Oberbefehlshabers Ost. For a review of the dictionary, see Α., "Bibliohrafiya: siamijazycny sloùnik," Homan 55 (1918). Prior to this publication, a Br dialect dictionary, Slovar' belorusskogo narechiia (St. Petersburg 1870), had been published by I.I. Nosovich, a Belorussian who regarded the language as a dialect of R. Other contemporaneous

50

11.

12.

13.

14. 15. 16. 17.

Paul Wexler dictionaries are M. Harètski, Belaruski-raseiski slownik (Vil'nius 1918, 1921 2 , Minsk 1925 3 ) and M. and H. Harètski, Rusk-belaruski slownik (Smalensk 1918). Curiously, the French linguist, A. Millent, while recognizing the independent status of Br, deplored attempts to create a Br (and U) literary language in place of R or Ρ (Les langues dans l'Europe nouvelle, Paris 1918, 40-1, 256). See the eye-witness account of the "pure" Br spoken by an old Jewess in 1910 near Hrodna, given by Jadvihin Sh., "Listy ζ darohi. VI. Traby. - Takaryshki. - Dawnary. - Bakshty," NN 27 (1910), 404-5. An English translation is given in Wexler 1974:216. For an interesting statement by Biadulia on his work in Beloru ssian villages, see [Biadula], "Z Bietorusi i Litwy. W. Pasacy, Wilenskaj h., Wilejskaho paw.," NN 32 (1910), 492-3. An English translation of this passage is provided in Wexler 1974:209. Two Jewish linguists, M.O. Kohen and M. Shul'man, contributed to Soviet Belorussian linguistic journals in the late 1920s. For a discussion of Biadila and another Jew who advocated the use of Br, see Nadson 1967:197-8. On the attitudes of Jews towards Br, see also Z.Y. Gitelman, Jewish nationality and Soviet politics (Princeton 1972), 396ff. In general, the Belorussian Jews showed a stonger tendency to assimilate to R than to Br. The only minority to have espoused Br as a group - as early as the 17th century — was the Belorussian Tatars (see our "Jewish, Tatar and Karaite communal dialects and their importance for Byelorussian historical linguistics," JBS 3, 1973, 1, 41-54). It would be interesting to study how minority group participation in the Belorussian national renaissance is depicted in Br literature. On this topic, see V. Rich, "Byelorussian national consciousness and Jewish tradition - some examples of Soviet editorial policy," Soviet Jewish Affairs 2 (1971), 80-9. See E. Kancher, "Mysli o belorusskom iazyke," Dziannitsa 1918, no. 39; N. Markhel', "Suchasnae stanovishcha ukrajinskae navukovae movy," Polymia 1925. 4.190-1; Wexler 1974:38, note 11. Conversely, some Ukrainian linguists displayed an interest in Br linguistic problems, see e.g. I. SvientsitsTcyi [Sviatitskii]. Vidordzhenie bilorus'koho pys'menstva (Lvov 1908) (reprinted in R in N.A. Janchuk, Ocherki belorusskoi literatury, Moscow 1920, 1-51); M. HrunsTcyi, Bilorus'ka mova ν jiji mynulomu ta suchasnomu vyvchenii (Kiev 1930); F. Kalynovych, "Dvoma shliakhamy (z pryvodu ukladannia bilorusTcoji matematychnoji terminolohiji)," Visnyk Instytutu Ukrajins'kofi Naukovoji Movy 2 (1930), 34-8. See A. Bahrovich, "Zhykharstva Belaruskae SSR u s'viatle perapisu 1959 hodu," Zapisy. BelaruskiInstytut Navuki iMastatstva 1 (1962), 75. See the Vsesoiuznaia perepis' naseleniia 1926 goda (Moscow 1928-1933). For a map of the BSSR in 1920, 1924 and 1926, see I.S. Lubachko, Belorussia under Soviet rule 1917-1957 (Lexington, Ky. 1972), 65. The Polish census data are discussed in Wexler 1974:250-1, note 1. A Br motto first appeared on Soviet banknotes in 1924. In interbellum Poland, the Belorussian lands were never called "Belorussian" - only Kresy or Ziemie Pólnocno-Wschodnie 'Northeast lands' (see the analogous Czarist R term mentioned above, section 1.11). The Belorussians in Poland published a number of journals dealing with language problems in Vil'nius, e.g. Kryvich (1925-1926; first appeared in Kaunas, Lithuania 1923-4), Bielaruskaja krynica (1925-1930), Rodnaia mova (1930-1931), Kalos'se (1935-1939). Hence, R. Szporluk's assertion that there

Belorussification, Russification and Polonization

18.

19. 20.

21.

51

was no popular Br-language press in Poland, except for a brief period during the 1920s, needs qualification ("West Ukraine and West Belorussia: historical tradition, social communication and linguistic assimilation," SS 3 1 , 1 9 7 9 , 1 , 80). On the fate of Belorussians in interbellum Poland, see Lubachko 1972, chapter 9. The penetration of Br into certain areas of endeavor was gradual. For example, the Belorussian Communist Party organ Zvezda (literally 'star'), which was founded in Minsk in 1917, appeared only in R up until 1926; from 1926-1928, there were parallel R and Br editions, following which the paper came out exclusively in Br — as Zviazda — even though the Br word for 'star' is zorka. By the end of the NEP period, Belorussians had achieved a slight majority in the ranks of the Belorussian Communist Party (Lubachko 1972:70). Statistics are given in the Vsesoiuznaia perepis'..., especially vol. 10, table 6,9-49. The literature on this topic is voluminous. For a comprehensive bibliography and further discussion, see Wexler 1977:52-64. For parallel discussions about U, see S. Smal'-StocTcyi, "Pytannia pro sxidnoslovians'ku pramovu," II Miqdzynarodowy zjazd slawistów. Ksiçga referatów. Sekcja 1. Jçzykoznawstwo (Warsaw 1934), 122-6; M. Chubatyi, Knjazha Rus'-Ukrajina (New York-Paris 1964). Of course, it was not until the 14-15th centuries that the three contemporary Eastern Slavic languages crystallized in their present form. Recently, some Soviet writers have also been pushing back the chronology of Br sound changes to before the total incorporation of Belorussia in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. For example, A.A. Krivitskii, A.E. Mikhnevich and A.I. Podluzhnyi, Belorusskii iazyk dlia nebelorusov (Minsk 1978:6) claim that dzekan'e, tsekan'e, hardening of r and the hushing consonants, the rise of y, i after interconsonantal r, I, and prothetic consonants and vowels already existed by the 14th century. It seems to us that many of these innovations should be dated still earlier, e.g. r>r'(12th century), prothetic vowels (12th century?), dispalatalization of postdental consonants and ts\ ts' (by the 13th century), ch\ ch'~>ch, cR (early to middle 13th century), prothetic consonants (13th century), development of y, i after interconsonantal r, I (by the 13th century), t', d'~>ts', dz' (between the 14-16th century) (Wexler 1977).

22. In the 1920s there were important achievements in the fields of linguistic geography and technical terminologies; see e.g. P. Buzuk, Sproba linhvistychnai heahraß Belarusi (Minsk 1928) - covering Central and Eastern Belorussia, contiguous Ukraine and Russia. Terminological activity was first organized in Minsk under the aegis of the Belaruskaia shkol'naia rada (Belorussian School Council) in 1919-1920. This council was replaced in 1921 by the Navukovaia terminalëhichnaia kamisiia (Scientific Terminological Commission), created by the Scientific-Literary Section of the People's Commissariat of Education. In 1922, the newly-created Instytut Belaruskai Kul'tury (IBK) (Institute of Belorussian Culture) inaugurated a series of 24 terminological dictionaries, which continued up to 1931. For bibliographical details, see Wexler 1974:361-2. The IBK also published Yiddish terminological dictionaries as well, e.g. lawrèiskaia tèrminolëhiia: matematychnaia terminolëhiia, no. 2 (Minsk 1926). There were also Yiddish linguistic journals published in the BSSR (see Lingvistishe zamlung 1-3, Minsk 1933-1936, Tsaitshrift 1-5, Minsk 1926-1931). Of interest to Br was L. Vilenkin, Yidisher shprakhatlas fun Sovetnfarband (Minsk 1931) - the first dialectal atlas produced in the USSR. Since both

52

23.

24. 25. 26. 27. 28. 29. 30.

31. 32. 33. 34. 35.

36.

37. 38. 39. 40. 41.

42. 43.

Paul

Wexler

Br and Y, the 2 national languages of the BSSR, were spoken outside the USSR, it would be instructive to compare them in terms of Soviet attitudes towards non-Soviet language planning and vice versa. The Yiddish dictionary cited above expressed approval of the principles of standardization advocated b y the Yiddish Scientific Institute in Vil'nius (1926: foreword). There are many other "split" Soviet languages that should be studied in this context, e.g. U, Armenian, Uighur, etc. Western Belorussian regulators in Poland tended to place more emphasis on cultivating unique and archaic Br terms than did their Soviet counterparts. Could this be due to a closer study of Old Br documents in Western Belorussia? la. Stankevich, in Rodnaia mova 1930, 3-4, 90. "Ab move," Belarus' 1920, no. 137. R.K., "Da uzhyvan'nia nekatorykh slow u belaruskai move," As 'veta 2 (1928), 146. "Knihapis," Kryvich 4(1923), 62. However, newzametka 'imperceptibly' is currently the norm. Ibid. See "Kul'tura movy," Uzvyshsha 1927.5.197 and M. Kohan, "Ètymolëhichnyia natatki," ibid., 1929.8.102 respectively. Ja. Stankevic, "Zacemki ζ kryvickaje (belaruskaje) movy," RM 5 (1930), 110-1. The author was a West Belorussian, but this view found support in the BSSR as well. See also "Knihapis," Kryvich 4 (1923), 63. Dubowka 1929:108. In the early 16th century writings of F. Skaryna, we find only evrei (Slownik movy Skaryny 1, Minsk 1977). R.K., 3 (1928), 118. "Ab move," Belarus' 1920, no. 137. "Kul'tura movy," Uzvyshsha 1927.5.198. See also the West Belorussian A.K., "Nasym mowawiedam na ùvahu," Bielaruskaja krynica 48 (1928). IBK, vol. 3, Heohrafichnyia i kosmohrafichnyia tèrminy i nazovy niabesnykh tsel (Misk 1923), 8. Br pawdzen' means also 'noon' - the only meaning of cognate R polden'. Note that pre-1933 titles that do not conform to current Soviet Br norms are now cited in the USSR in standardized form, e.g. the above title appears as Heohrafichnyia i kasmahrafìchnyia tèrminy i nazvy niabesnykh tsel in the Belaruskae movaznawstva... 1969:332. la. Tros'ka and R. Kazela, "Nekal'ki nezakranutykh pytan'niaw ζ nashaha pravapisu i hrafiki," As'veta 1926.7.87-8. Historical t and d before front vowels became affricated (see note 21 above), but this development currently does not affect foreign words, except occasionally before a suffix, e.g. kamandzir 'commander'. See partyia and hvardyia cited in section 3.3 below. IBK, vol. 2, Praktyka i teoryia litaraturnaha mastatstva (Minsk 1923), 7. Ibid., 8, See ΐdwuznacznosc. Ibid., 19. See Ρ mowaznawca. Ibid., 20. IBK, vol. 9, Nomina anatomica Alboruthenica (Minsk 1926), 96. See also U nabolon ', proposed by the West Ukrainian Ie. Lukashevych, Anatomychnyi slovnyk (materiialy) (Lvov 1926), 17. See also Ρ nabIonek~German Deckzellenschicht. IBK, vol. 9, 98. IBK, vol. 6, Batanika ahul'naia i specyial'naia (Minsk 1924).

Belomssification, Russification and Polonization

53

44. IBK, vol. 14, Slownik matematychnae tèrminalëhii (Minsk 1927). The earlier terms were cited in the IBK, vol. 1, Èlementamaia matèmatyka (Minsk 1922). 45. IBK, vol. 3, 1923. 46. IBK, vol. 4, Tèrminalohiia lëhiki i psykhalohii (Minsk 1923). 47. IBK, vol. 5, Heolëhiia, mineralëhiia, kryshtalëhraflia (Minsk 1924). 48. See, Slownik pedahohichnykh dystsyplin (praektj (Minsk 1930), pp. 260-2, L. Balrovich, L. Spilewski, V. Bandarènka, S. Vol'fson and Iu. Matsinkevich, "Navuka" na sluzhbe natsdemawskai kontrrevoliutsyi 1, part 2 (Minsk 1931), and discussion in Wexler 1974, chapter 11. 49. The political boundaries of Belorussia changed radically in 1939, 1941 and 1944. In 1939, most of the Belorussian ethnographic territories formerly controlled by Poland were united with the BSSR, except for the Vil'nius district which became part of the Lithuanian SSR. In 1941, German-occupied Belorussia, known now as Heneral'ny Kamisaryiat Belarusi 'General Commissariat of Belorussia' (which, together with the Commissariats of Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia, constituted the territory designated as Ostland), lost additional areas, e.g. the former Polish region of Bialystok was annexed by East Prussia and the Brest, Hömel' and Pinsk provinces were ceded to the Reichskommissariat of the Ukraine; the Vil'nius district remained in Lithuania. However, parts of the RSFSR, namely Smolensk province and parts of the Briansk province were to be added to Belorussia. For details, see N.P. Vakar, Belorussia. The making of a nation. A case study (Cambridge, MA 1956), 176ff; for a map, see Lubachko 1972:151; In 1944, Poland regained Biaiystok and Vil'nius remained in Lithuania. 50. "Kul'tura movy," BH 1943, no. 49 U. Iurèvich objected to the variant siannia (Slova i vobraz: naziranni nad movai mastatskaha tvoru, Minsk 1961:59). 51. "Kul'tura movy," BH 1943, no. 60. The recommended terms are also found in the dictionaries of M. and H. Haretski 1918 and M. Shatèrnik, Kraiovy slownik Chervenshchyny (Minsk 1929). 52. "Kul'tura movy," BH 1943, no. 43. 53. Ibid., no. 61. 54. Ibid., no. 25. 55. Ibid., no. 75. 56. Ja. Stankevic, "Za rodnuju movu," Bielaruski hotas 1944, no. 26. 57. "Kul'tura movy,"BH 1943, no. 70. 58. A. Mikalawski, "Achys'tsits' belaruskuiu movu ad raseishchyny," BH 1942, no. 29. 59. "Kul'tura movy," BH 1943, no. 52. 60. Non-Br placenames are also used in a Russified form, e.g. Br A7ew>R Kiev vs. Br *Kyiw, expected from U Kyjiv. On the use of Russified Br toponyms in R, see Z.V. Rubtsova, "Iz istorii peredachi belorusskikh toponimov na russkii iazyk." Vostochno-slavianskaia onomastika (Moscow 1979), 113-130. Br family names often appear in R in a Ukrainianized form (see V.P. Ragoisha, Problema perevoda s blizkorodstvennykh iazykov, Minsk 1980, 137ff). 61. The terminological publications of the puristic period were subject to an all-out attack during the Stalinist period. After the death of Stalin, the attacks abetted but there still is no detailed discussion of the dictionaries (see e.g. the bibliography of Krivitskii, et al. 1978). Paradoxically, some of the Br neologisms had been proposed once for R, e.g. R avtograf 'autograph' was replaced by svoeruchnoe

54

62.

63. 64. 65. 66. 67. 68. 69. 70.

71. 72. 73.

74. 75.

76.

77.

Paul Wexler ('self + 'handed') in V.l. Dal*, Tolkovyi slovar' zhivogo velikorusskogo iazyka 4 (Moscow 1866), but the term is no longer current (see archaic R svoeruchnyi 'in one's own hand' and Br ulasnapis on p. 6 above). Kirunak had earlier replaced napramak, regarded as a Ukrainianism (U napriamok 'direction') modeled on R napravlenie (la. Lësik, "Tlumachèn'ne da retsenzii na Praktychnaia hramatyka: kurs pershy, " Vestnik narodnogo komissariata prosveshcheniia 1, 1922, 9: separate pagination). Pit'naia had been recommended by the IBK, vol. 3 (Minsk 1923). A. Osipaw, "Pra dzetstva i vydavetstva," LM 1939, no. 39. la. Kazeka, "Ab chystatse belaruskai movy," LM1939, no. 21. Babrovich et al. 1931:127-8. Siabryna and supolka are in fact not Polonisms; Ρ also has artel. See Osipaw 1939. U. Iurevich, "Da pytannia vymawlennia," LM 26 May 1951. M.P. Loban, "Suflks ir u belaruskai move," LM 17 September 1948. M.H. Bulakhaw, "Ab move paèzii i litaraturnai norme," LM 24 October 1953; ibid., "Ab narmalizatsyi belaruskai litaraturnai move," Polymia 11 (1953), 137-9. The zero ending maintains maximum parallelism with R. The Dyialektalahichny atlas belaruskai movy (Minsk 1963), map 101 and p. 540 of the commentary show that -aw with feminine hard stem nouns is widespread in Central and Northwest Belorussia but not in the Northeast bordering R dialects. Only stol'ki and kol'ki are given in M.K. Klyshka, Slownik sinonimaw i blizkaznachnykh slow (Minsk 1976). Ibid. 1976:339 charaterizespekny as a regional synonym oipryhozhy. The data show greater tolerance for rejected puristic recommendations than closure to anti-puristic recommendations, but our limited corpus does not perimit any generalizations. See Slownik belaruskikh havorak pawnochna-zakhodniai Belarusi i iae pahranichcha (Minsk 1979ff). See the citations in M.V. Ababurka, Dyialektyzmy w tvorakh belaruskikh savetskikh pis'mennikaw. Karotki slownik - davednik (Minsk 1979). The term is cited in M.A. Zhydovich, Materyialy dlia slownika minska-maladzechanskikh havorak (Minsk 1970). The description of -ir- in Br dictionaries is taken from N.S. Vasilevskii, "O belorusskikh glagolakh s suffiksom -irava- (ν sravnenii s takimi zhe obrazovaniiami ν russkom i drugikh slavianskikh iazykakh)," Sia via orientalis 29 (1980), 1-2, 259264. This and other recent modified anti-puristic pronouncements have, curiously, appeared in foreign rather than Br periodicals (see discussion in Wexler 1979:483, note 3). For discussions of Soviet linguistic research, see G.Y. Shevelov, "Belorussian and Ukrainian," in T.A. Sebeok, ed., Current trends in linguistics 1 (the Hague 1963, 1970 3 ), 217-264 (especially 250ff); A.I. Zhuravskii, "Belorusskii iazyk," Sovetskoe iazykoznanie za 50 let (Moscow 1967), 55-63; ibid. [Zhurawski] and A.A. Kryvitski, Belaruskae movaznawstva ν Akademii Navuk BSSR (Minsk 1979). For bibliographies of Soviet linguistic research in Br, see Belaruskae movaznawstva... 1967; Slavianskoe iazykoznanie (Moscow 1963ff); M.R. Sudnik, "Belarusistyka napiaredani 50-hoddzia Saiuza SSR," Belaruskaia linhvistyka 1 (1972), 5-14. For

Belorussifìcation, Russification and Polonization

78.

79.

80.

81. 82.

55

bibliographies of Soviet linguistic research in Br, see Belaruskae movaznawstva... 1967; Slavianskoe iazykoznanie (Moscow 1963ff); M. R. Sudnik, "Belarusistyka napiarèdadni 50-hoddzia Saiuza SSR," Belaruskaia linhvistyka 1 (1972), 5-14. For bibliographies of Soviet and non-Soviet studies, see "Selected bibliography on Byelorussia," JBS, beginning with 3 (1973), Iff. See, e.g., the Tlumachal'ny slownik ... 1977; Etymalahichny slownik belaruskai movy (Minsk 1978ff); Slownik belaruskikh havorak pawnochnazakhodniai Belarmi... 1979ff; Dyialektalahicny atlas belaruskai movy 1963 (replacing Buzuk 1928 - see note 22); Linhvistychnaia heahrafiia i hrupowka belaruskikh havorak (Minsk 1968). There is relatively little publication of technical terminologies in this period. In the 1970s, a number of important Br linguistic journals began to appear in Minsk, e.g. Belaruskaia linhvistyka (1972ff), Belaruskaia mova i movaznawstva (vols, 1-4, 1973-1976), continuing as Belaruskaia mova (vol. 5, 1977ff). Since World War II, Poland has ceased to be a source of Br linguistic journals (see note 17 above), though linguistic studies are published occasionally by the Belaruskae hramadska-kul'turnaha tavarystva w Pol'shchy (Belorussen Socio-Cultural Association in Poland) in Balystok (e.g. Navukovy zbornik 1964). Significant journals covering all aspects of Belorussian life and language are also being published in the emigration, e.g. Zapiski of the Belorussian Institute of Arts and Sciences (MunichNew York 1962ff) and the JBS, published by the Anglo-Byelorussian Association (London 1965ff), and separate publications of both associations. A third publication, Veda, was published by the Fr. Skoryna Kryvian Society of Arts and Sciences in New York between 1951-1954. Useful discussion on language and literature can be found in the Belorussian review 1-8 (1955-1960), published by the Institute for the Study of the USSR in Munich. One wonders whether the growing Russification of the Br-speaking masses both inside and outside the BSSR is a factor in Moscow's decision to tolerate a deceleration in the Russification of the Br language. For a Soviet discussion of Br-R bilingualism, see Pytanni bilinhvizmu i wzaemadzeiannia mow (Minsk 1982). G.N. Aksenova claims that 77% of the citizens of the BSSR constantly use R besides their own language, which makes the BSSR the republic with the highest degree of bilingualism (Russkii iazyk ν natsional'noi shkole 1982,1, 27-30). For an example, see Letter to a Russian friend. A 'samizdat' publication from Byelorussia, written by an anonymous Soviet Belorussian in R and reprinted (with an English translation) by the Association of Byelorussians in Great Britain (London 1979). See also J. Zaprudnik, "Belorussia and the Belorussians," in Z. Katz, et al., eds., Handbook of major Soviet nationalities (New York-London 1975), 66^9. Multilingualism in the Soviet Union (the Hague 1972), 153. For a discussion of the difficulties in ranking the factors favoring the Russification of the Belorussians, see Szporluk 1979:76-98. Belorussians residing in the RSFSR and the Baltic Republics also show a high rate of linguistic assimilation. See discussion in Guthier 1977:57-8. For useful analyses of the 1970 census data, see R. Taagepera, "The 1970 Soviet census: fusion or crystallization of nationalities?" SS 23 (1971-2), 2, 216-221; J.A. Newth, "The 1970 Soviet census," SS 24 (1972-3), 2, 200-222; B.D. Silver, "Methods of deriving

56

83.

84. 85. 86.

87.

Paul Wexler data on bilingualism from the 1970 Soviet census," SS 27 (1975), 4, 474-97. The 1979 census preliminary data for the BSSR are given in Vestnik statistiki 1980, 8. See Bahrovich 1962:57-8, note 74; V.D. Barmichev, V edinom soiuze (Minsk 1972), 194, 198; Lewis 1972:95, 101. For figures from 1913-1928, see Guthier 1977:59. Comprehensive statistics for Br book and periodical publishing from 1918-78 are found in Pechat' SSSR ν 1978 g.; statisticheskii sbornik (Moscow 1979), 20, 61, 70, 82. Ragoisha notes, however, that 26.9% of the Br-language books published in 1976 were translations from other, mainly Soviet, languages (1980:170-1) - very often through the intermediary of a R text (ibid., 168ff). It is interesting that recent Soviet discussions of the press in the BSSR are deliberately vague about the relative use of Br and R in book publishing and periodicals (see, e.g. the Belaruskaia savetskaia èntsyklapedyia 12, Minsk 1975, chapter 18; Iu. D. Desheriev, "Razvitie obshchestvennykh funktsii belorusskogo i drugikh literaturnykh iazykov ν Belorusskoi SSR," in Razvitie obshchestvennykh funktsii literaturnykh iazykov, Moscow 1976,95-6, 99). See Szporluk 1979:82, 84. See Zapurdnik 1975:63 and M. Kulikovich, "Belaruski tèatr na shliakhu dènatsyianalizatsyi," Belaruski zbornik 11 (1959), 88-9. See H. Lipset, "The status of national minority languages in Soviet education," SS19 (1967), 2, 181-9; Lewis 1972:196-198; B.D; Silver, "The status of national minority languages in Soviet education: an assessment of recent changes," SS 26 (1974), 1,28-40; K.Kh. Khanazarov, Reshenie natsional'noiazykovoi problemy ν SSSR (Moscow 1977), 137, Radio Liberty 30/80, Jan. 1980 cites information from Narodnoe prosveshchenie (1979, 1, 41) to the effect that in 1979 22% of the schools in the BSSR were R-language, but they were attended by 61% of the pupils. S. Shermukhamedov states that more than half of the school children in the BSSR study in R (Russkii iazyk - velikoe i moguchee sredstvo obshcheniia sovetskogo naroda, Moscow 1980, 139). It is curious that the first edition of Krivitskii et al. (Minsk 1973), intended for R speakers, appears in a tirage of only 2000, with the second edition (Minsk 1978) in 2200 - though the appearance of a second edition attests to some demand to learn the language. The leveling out of ethnic and linguistic differences called for by the theory of a unified "Soviet" culture takes a number of forms. For example, the Br language and culture seem to be defined as legitimate only within the BSSR, even though the Belorussian ethnographic borders are broader. Note that the Dyialektalaichny atlas belaruskai movy 1963, despite its name, only maps the Br dialects on the territory of the BSSR - omitting Br dialects spoken in Poland, the Ukrainian SSR and RSFSR, Also the recent Belaruskaia savetskaia èntsyklapedyia, vols. 1-12 (Minsk 1969-1975) is frequently vague about the ethnic affiliation of Belorussians, e.g. Dz. M. Kavalew is listed as a "Soviet Russian" (vol. 5, 1972, 201 - but as a "Belorussian" "Polish" (vols. 5, 1972, 434). Finally, Br literature in R translation is often defined as an integral part of the R literary heritage (see Ragoisha 1980:201) — which is reminiscent of the old claims that all three Easter Slavic languages are derived from a common "Old R" language, and that the literary tradition of Kievan Rus' is part of the history of " R " (see also discussion on p. 5 above).

ROMAN SOLCHANYK

Language Politics in the Ukraine

The importance of language in the life of a nation requires no special elaboration. The native language, particularly for the so-called "non-historical" or stateless nations of Eastern Europe, has served as a focus of national awareness. This is not to say that language alone defines nationality. Rather, for nations like the Ukrainian, whose efforts at attaining national statehood have largely been frustrated, the role and status of the native language (i.e., "the language question") has been and continues to be a paramount issue in the quest for legitimization and authentication of the nation itself. The language, to paraphrase Joshua Fishman, becomes to a large extent the message of nationalism. 1 The symbolic function of language, implicit in the foregoing, has been noted in the case of the Ukrainians. Thus, Walker Connor has written that Ukrainian unrest is popularly reported as an attempt to preserve the Ukrainian language against Russian in-roads....This propensity to perceive an ethnic division in terms of the more tangible differences between the groups is often supported by the statements and actions of those involved. In their desire to assert their uniqueness, members of a group are apt to make rallying points of their more tangible and distinguishing institutions. Thus, the Ukrainians, as a method of asserting their non-Russian identity, wage their campaign for national survival largely in terms of their right to employ the Ukrainian, rather than the Russian, tongue in all oral and written matters. But would not the Ukrainian nation (that is, a popular consciousness of being Ukrainian) be likely to persist even if the language were totally replaced by Russian, just as the Irish nation has persisted after the virtual disappearance of Gaelic, despite pre-1920 slogans that described Gaelic and Irish identity as inseparable? Is the language the essential element of the Ukrainian nation, or is it merely a minor element which has been elevated to the symbol of the nation in its struggle for continued viability? 2 One might add that this "high visibility" of the language question in the Ukrainian case has been conditioned not only by the purposefulness of the nation seeking to establish its identity, but also by the determination of

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politically dominant but ethnically alien national groups seeking to obliterate it. As a result, the language question (and consequently language politics) has been a prominent feature of the Ukrainian national movement from its inception in the middle of the last century to the present day. 3

The Tsarist Legacy "There h'as not been, there is not, and there can not be any kind of separate Little Russian language." This statement, in a letter from Minister of Internal Affairs Petr Valuev to Minister of Education Aleksandr Golovnin in July 1863,4 reflected the prevailing attitude of the tsarist bureaucracy towards the Ukrainian language and, by extension, towards the Ukrainian nation in the latter half of the nineteenth century. Not only government officials and administrators, but the majority of Russian public opinion - whether of liberal or conservative persuasion — shared the view that Ukrainians were simply a "Little Russian" offshoot of the "all-Russian" nation. From this perspective, the "Little Russian tribe," which consisted of some thirteen million people in 1860, could hardly expect its vernacular to be recognized as a legitimate language. In the aforementioned letter, Valuev wrote that their dialect, spoken by the common people, is that very same Russian language, but spoiled by the influence of Poland; the all-Russian language is as comprehensible to the Little Russians as it is to the Great Russians, and even more comprehensible that the so-called Ukrainian language that is currently being created for them by certain Little Russians and especially Poles.s Although maintaining that the Ukrainian language was nonexistent, the authorities nonetheless proceeded to ban it. On June 20, 1863 Valuev issued a secret decree approved by Tsar Alexander II forbidding the use of Ukrainian in all publications excepts belles lettres, singling out religious books, educational materials, and all publications intended for the peasant masses.6 This Draconian measure, subsequently known as the Valuev Circular, was prompted by the confluence of certain social and political developments that, in turn, produced what has been described as "a hysteria that seized Russian officialdom and a large segment of the educated public between 1861 and 1863." 7 Most important were the Polish insurrection of January 1863 and the emergence of a specifically Ukrainian literary-cultural movement known as ukrainofil'stvo. After the liquidation of the Cyril and Methodius Society in the spring of

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1847, the Ukrainian movement in Russia developed along strictly apolitical lines, focusing on ethnographic research, literary activities, and educational work among the masses. This work was carried on by representatives of the Ukrainian intelligentsia, which by the end of the 1850s was organized into loosely knit groups called hromady in such major centers as St. Petersburg, Kiev, Poltava, Chernihiv, and Kharkiv. The late 1850s and early 1860s were marked by a revival of Ukrainian literary life. In 1857 Panteleimon Kulish and Danylo Kamenets'kyi founded the first Ukrainian publishing enterprise in St. Petersburg. In 1856-1857 Kulish published his two volume Zapiski o Iuzhnoi Rust. This was followed by the publication of the works of Marko Vovchok (Mariia Vilins'ka), Ivan Kotliarevs'kyi, Hryhorii Kvitka-Osnovianenko, Mykola Hatsuk, Danylo Mordovets', and others. The third edition of Taras Shevchenko's Kobzar appeared in 1860. In October 1858 Kulish unsuccessfully petitioned the Ministry of Education to allow the publication of a Ukrainian journal. Finally, in January 1861 Osnova - the first Ukrainian periodical publication in Russia - appeared in St. Petersbury under the editorship of Vasyl' Bilozers'kyi and in close cooperation with Kulish and Mykola Kostomarov. The new monthly published materials in both Russian and Ukrainian. Shortly therafter, in July 1861, the weekly Chernigovskii listok began publication, also in both languages.8 The hromady played an important role in the movement to organize Sunday schools for the lower classes, the first of which was established in Kiev in October 1859. Instruction in these schools, which in some respects were independent of the Minsitry of Education, was conducted in Russian and Ukrainian. Between 1859 and 1862, according to one source, 111 Sunday schools were opened in Ukraine alone.9 Efforts were also made to introduce Ukrainian into the officially administered schools system. In 1862 the St. Petersbury Committee for the Promotion of Literacy petitioned the authorities regarding the use of Ukrainian as the language of instruction in elementray schools in Ukraine. 10 The authorities eventually came to view the activities of the hromady as evidence of Ukrainian "separatism," "Polish-Jesuit intrigue," and the like. Already in June 1862 all Sundary schools in Russia were closed by imperial decree. By order of the Tsar a special investigating commission headed by Prince Aleksandr Golitsyn was convened in St. Petersburg to examine "Little Russian propaganda," particularly in Right Bank Ukraine. In September 1862 members of the Poltava hromada were arrested and exiled on charges of propagating subversion and separatism under the cover of literacy societies;

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arrests were also made in Kiev, resulting in the exile of several members of the local hromada.11 The government's fears and suspicions were nurtured by the conservative and reactionary press. The appearance of Osnova was greeted in the Slavophile camp with critical articles questioning the validity of a separate Ukrainian nation, literature, and language. Slavophiles such as Ivan Aksakov and Vladimir Lamanskii were prepared to recognize the existence of a Little Russian dialect whose functions were limited to the peasant marketplace, but there could be no talk of a distinct Ukrainian literature and language. This was the essence of Lamanskii's polemics with Chernyshevskii in the Slavophile newspaper Den' in 1861. 12 The Polish insurrection transformed the discussion about ukrainofil'stvo from a literary-cultural debate into a question of state politics. In 1862 Sovremennaia letopis', the weekly supplement to Katkov's Russkii vestnik, could still agree to provide the Kiev hromada with a forum to state its goals and aims in the form of the collective "Otzyv iz Kieva." By the following year, however, Katkov was writing that in 1863, as a result of the weakening of Russian censorship, the Ukrainian movement has advanced so far that the government very nearly recognized this common, crude, and unrefined dialect as legal, widely used, and literary. In another instant the government would have been obliged to permit instruction in the schools in this crude language throughout the vast Ukraine. The people would even begin reading the Bible and, in the end, government laws would be promulgated in Ukraine in this common dialect. 13 Similarly, in his O zarozhdaiushcheisia tak nazyvaemoi malorusskoi literature (Kiev, 1863), the Chernihiv writer and pedagogue Ivan Kul'zhinskii gave the following characterization of the language of his countrymen: The Little Russian dialect is an anomaly among languages. To be truthful, it is the bastard child of Russian and Polish, born in the kitchen and raised in the back yard of human thought and world. Now you are washing this bastard, dressing it up, bringing it into the drawing room, and demanding that it be recognized as a legal heir. It is difficult to say what has the upper hand in your undertaking — false humanism or genuine insolence? 14 In the aftermath of the Valuev Circular, such diatribes became superfluous. Osnova died a more or less natural death in October 1862; Chernigovskii listok was banned in August 1863; and the 1864 school statute regulating primary education precluded teaching in languages other than Russian. In the latter half of the nineteenth century there were no official schools in Ukraine with Ukrainian as the language of instruction. 1 s Restrictions on the Ukrainian language were intensified by the Ems Ukaz

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of May 18, 1876, which in effect banned Ukrainian from public life in Russia. As in the 1860s, the unfounded fear of Ukrainian separatism served as the basis for repressive cultural measures. Specifically, the scholarly work of the Southwestern Branch of the Imperial Russian Geographic Society — which was established in Kiev at the end of 1872 and which served as a focus of Ukrainian life — was judged a threat to the unity of the Russian Empire. On the basis of denunciations forwarded to the government, an important role in which was played by the school official and head of the Kiev Archeographic Commission Mikhail Iuzefovich, as well as anti-Ukrainian polemics in the press, 16 in the summer of 1875 Tsar Alexander II ordered the creation of a special commission "to put an end to ukrainophile propaganda." The commission's recommendations served as the basis for the secret decree signed by the Tsar while taking the cure in Ems. It prohibited: (1) the import into Russia of all books and brochures published in Ukrainian without the special approval of the Main Administration for Printing; (2) the publication of original works or translations into Ukrainian, with the exception of historical documents and belles lettres-, and (3) all stage preformances, public lectures, and lyrics to musical compositions in Ukrainian. 17 Mykhailo Drahomanov, a central figure in the Kiev hromada and in the events leading up to the Ems Ukaz, commented appropos the 1876 measures: "Now it is a question of the form, not the content, of Little Russian literature, about literature per se, and not about politics or in general about ideas." 18 In January 1881 the governor-generals of Kiev and Kharkiv submitted memoranda to the Ministry of Internal Affairs urging that certain limitations on Ukrainian language and literature be lifted. 19 This may have prompted the Minister of Internal Affairs, Count Nikolai Ignat'ev, to propose a review of the Ems Ukaz to the new tsar, Alexander III. Accordingly, a commission was formed under the chairmanship of Pobedonostsev which advised that the 1876 restrictions remain in force, but with certain modifications: Ukrainian dictionaries could now be published on the condition that they adhere to the rules of Russian orthography, or rules used not later than the eighteenth century; lyrical compositions were also permitted, but only if they followed Russian orthography and subject to the approval of the Main Administration for Printing; and stage performances and public concerts in Ukrainian could be organized by decision of local authorities on a case by case basis. Exclusively Ukrainian theater companies and performing groups, however, were prohibited. These recommendations were approved by the Tsar in October 1881 and acquired the force of law.2 0 In essence, the restrictions imposed in 1863, 1876, and 1881 governed

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Ukrainian cultural life in Russia until the reforms that followed the 1905 Revolution. The regime's intolerance towards all things Ukrainian often resulted in tragicomic situations, not the least of which was the spectacle of Ukrainian folk concerts performed in French. An accurate reflection of the times is the scandal associated with the Eleventh Archeological Congress held in Kiev in 1899, which was precipitated by the refusal to permit Ukrainian delegates from Austrian Galicia to present their papers in Ukrainian. 21 The censorship laws governing Ukrainian publications were reviewed again in December 1904, this time by the Council of Ministers, on the basis of a decree by Tsar Nicholas II on December 12, 1904. The ministries of education and internal affairs were instructed to obtain opinions from the Imperial Academy of Sciences, Kiev and Kharkiv universities, and the governorgeneral of Kiev concerning the restrictions of 1876 and 1881 and present them to the Council of Ministers.22 Although all of the parties involved advised that the restrictions be lifted, in September 1905 the Council of Ministers decided that such a step would be "inopportune." 23 Events, however, took a different turn. The October Manifesto and the provisional press regulations of November 24, 1905 rendered existing censorship practices null and void, although the Ems Ukaz was never formally repealed. On October 24 the newspaper Kievskie otkliki was the first to publish an article in Ukrainian, a piece by Serhii Iefremov protesting against the Jewish pogroms in Kiev that accompanied the proclamation of the October Manifesto. 24 By July 1, 1906 the authorities had issued thirty-four permits for Ukrainian periodical publications. The most important of these was Rada, the first Ukrainian-language daily in Russia, which was published in Kiev in 1906-1914. 25 The year 1905 also witnessed the first organized campaign for the school system, which took the form of a mass petition drafted by the Ukrainian community in Kiev on February 26. 2 6 The language question in the schools was debated at the sessions of the last two Dumas, and a draft law providing for instruction in Ukrainian in elementary schools was submitted to the Third Duma on March 29, 1908. 27 None of these efforts proved successful, although several private and specialized gymnasia in Kiev, Odessa, and Kamianets'-Podil'skyi were permitted to teach in Ukrainian; for a short time in 1907-1908 lectures in Ukrainian were read at Kharkiv and Odessa universities by professors Mykola Sumtsov and Oleksander Hrushevs'kyi, respectively. 2 8 The expectations produced by the 1905 Revolution proved to be illusory. The liberalization of the censorship regulations not-withstanding, the Ukrain-

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ian press was consistently faced with the arbitrariness and chicanery of local administrators and bureaucrats. With the outbreak of war in the summer of 1914, all forms of organized Ukrainian life in Russia, and above all the press, were silenced.2 9 It was at this time, in 1913-1914, that Lenin began to take an active interest in the national question as an important factor in the Bolshevik struggle against the tsarist regime. This was reflected, in addition to his theoretical articles on the subject, in the speech to the Fourth Duma by the Unkrainian Bolshevik deputy Hryhorii Petrovs'kyi in May 1913. The address was drafted by Lenin and devoted considerable attention to the government's discriminatory practices against the Ukrainian language.30

From Lenin to Stalin, or From Ukrainization to "linguistic Sabotage" Lenin's view on the national question, including his pronouncements on language policy, are well known. One or another variation on" the theme "The National Question in the Works of V. I. Lenin" has been the subject of countless Soviet articles and monographs; there is also a considerable body of Western scholarly literature on the subject.31 What is often overlooked, however, is that the Leninist approach to the national question was by no means immediately and universally accepted by other leaders of the Bolshevik party, to say nothing of the rank-and-file membership. In Ukraine, this resulted in the curious situation whereby Lenin's recipes for the solution of nationality problems had little impact in the realm of practical application until the early or mid-1920s. Following the October Revolution, Lenin's party made several attempts to extend its influence to Ukraine but it was not until the very end of 1919 that a more or less stable Soviet regime was installed in Kharkiv. Several important factors both domestic and international contributed to these early failures. Not the least of these was the inability or unwillingness of the Bolsheviks to come to terms with the fact that in 1917-1919, side by side with the all-Russian revolution, Ukraine had also experienced a national revolution. The former occurred largely in the Russian or russified urban centers and the latter in the predominantly Ukrainian countryside. Between the two there was little communication and even less understanding. Nikolai Popov, one of the early chroniclers of the Communist Party (bolsheviks) of Ukraine (KP[b] U) and a prominent party figure in his own right, formulated the problem as follows:

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The greatest blunder in the work of all of our disjointed party organizations in Ukraine, none of which were united under the leadership of a single center, was that — disregarding the significance and role of the national question and the national movement - right up until October they conducted virtually no work among the massess in the Ukrainian language. As a result, they had little success mastering the ukrainized part of the army and the special Ukrainian military units which, in the final analysis, the Provisional Government was forced to allow. For this very reason the influence of our party in Ukraine on the peasantry, including the poorest strata, before and after October was very small regardless of the fact that the structure of the Ukrainian village itself, because of its higher level of development of productive forces and class differentiation, provided far and away more favorable conditions for Bolshevik work than the structure of the village in central Russia.3 2 In short, the initial experiment of Soviet rule in Ukraine witnessed the failure of the Bolsheviks to communicate, both figuratively and literally, with the Ukrainian masses, which constituted 80 percent of the country's population. The conflict between theory and practice in the national question became apparent during the period of the first Soviet regime in Ukraine, which lasted from late December 1917 to March 1918. Ukrainian historiography has characterized this period as a relapse into the worst excesses of Russian chauvinism and ukrainophobia. The storming of Kiev in early February 1918 by Mikhail Murav'ev's Red Guards was accompanied by a campaign against even the slightest manifestations of Ukrainian national consciousness. Pavlo Khrystiuk, a prominent Ukrainian Socialist Revolutionary leader, wrote that anyone found speaking Ukrainian in the streets of occupied Kiev was often subject to summary execution. The Bolshevik struggle against the bourgeoisie frequently took a secondary position to the struggle against the Ukrainian intelligentsia. Simultaneously with the destruction of the Ukrainian intelligentsia came the destruction of Ukrainian culture. From the theoretical equality of languages and cultures there emerged in reality the unconditional domination of the Great Russian, Muscovite culture as during the old tsarist regime. The Muscovite language was dominant in all government and public institutions. In secondary and higher schools and indeed in all urban schools there was a return to the old ways: the Muscovite language, the Muscovite intelligent-pedagogue again assumed their previous dominant positions.3 3 Khrystiuk's observations were later substantiated by Volodymyr Zatons'kyi, who recalled how in Kiev he and another Ukrainian Old Bolshevik, Mykola Skrypnyk, were almost executed by Bolshevik troops for their ukrainianism:

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The dialectic of life is that in fact those very same Red Guards who despised Petliura and along with him everything Ukrainian, those who very nearly executed Skrypnyk and me in Murav'ev's Kiev — it was they and not Hrushevs'ki who were building Soviet Ukraine....Objectively, it was those who were doing the executing for the Ukrainian word — they were the ones who in fact built Ukraine. 34 As it turned out, Zatons'kyi was spared the dubious benefits of Murav'ev's cultural philanthropism by producing a document bearing Lenin's signature. The second attempt to establish a Soviet regime in Ukraine, under the leadership of Georgii Piatakov (party) and Khristian Rakovskii (government), lasted from January to August 1919. It too left a great deal to be desired in terms of Ukrainian national interests. Piatakov, one of the leaders of the Kiev organization of the Russian Social Democratic Labor Party (RSDRP), was a confirmed Luxemburgist who opposed Lenin's concept of national self-determination already in the pre-October period. In 1915 he joined Nikolai Bukharin in denouncing national self-determination as reactionary and Utopian. At the Seventh (April) All-Russian Conference of the party in 1917 Piatakov led those who urged the Bolsheviks to drop their advocacy of the right to national self-determination, arguing that such a policy would play into the hands of "petty bourgeois reaction." 35 He repeated these demands at the Eighth Congress of the Russian Communist Party (bolsheviks) (RKP[b] ) in March 1919 - i.e., at the time that he stood at the head of the part in Ukraine. According to Piatakov, the party should repudiate not only its fundamental slogan, the right of nations to self-determination, but also that which reserved this right only for "the toiling masses of each nation." In practice, he maintained, such slogans served only to consolidate counterrevolutionary forces, as was the case in Finland and Ukraine. 36 Piatakov's views on the national question were shared by Rakovskii. In an articles entitled "A Hopeless Affair," which was published in Izvestia on January 3, 1919 — i.e., shortly before he was named chairman of the Council of People's Commissars (RNK), in Ukraine Rakovskii described Ukrainian peasants crumpling and throwing away Ukrainian-language Bolshevik literature in disgust while avidly reading similar publications in Russian. To reach the Ukrainian peasantry, he argued, address it in Russian. 37 In his first official declaration as head of the Ukrainian government, which was made at a session of the Kharkiv Soviet in January, Rakovskii made no mention of the national question, referring only to the need to conduct elementary education in the native language. Similarly, there were no references to the national question in Rakovskii's speech to the first meeting of the Kiev

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Soviet held on February 13, 1919. He was forced to address the issue only in response to questions from Ukrainian and Jewish socialist deputies: "I did not talk about the national question only because it must be approached most thoughtfully and most carefully. Those who reduce the whole national problem to the language question are acting very superficially." 3 8 In his explanation, Rakovskii is quoted as characterizing the discussion about introducing Ukrainian into the schools and government bureaucracy in Ukraine as "Linguistic music." As for declaring Ukrainian the state language, Rakovskii labeled any efforts in this direction as "reactionary and totally unnecessary." He assured his listeners that he had spent five months in Kiev and freely understood every Ukrainian. With regard to the peasantry in Ukraine, Rakovskii was convinced that it considered itself Russian. 3 9 As late as 1921 the head of the Ukrainian government was able to write: The Ukrainian Mensheviks and SRs augment the demands of the Russian Mensheviks and SRs with the national ingredient, the supremacy of the Ukrainian language in state institutions, counterposing this slogan to the equality of the Russian and Ukrainian languages, which was part of the government's progam. The supremacy of the Ukrainian language would have had to have meant the supremacy of the Ukrainian petty bourgeois intelligensia and the Ukrainian kulaks.4 0 The turning point in the Bolshevik approach to the national question in Ukraine came in the summer of 1919, when the Soviet Ukrainian government and the KP(b)U were forced t o seek refuge in Moscow for the second time in a little over a year. It became clear that a réévaluation of policy would have to be made, and at the Eighth Conference of the RKP(b)in December 1919 the Ukrainian question was reexamined. The initiative came from Lenin, whose " D r a f t Resolution of the TsK RKP(b) on Soviet Rule in Ukraine" was accepted by the party's Central Committee in November and subsequently adopted by the party conference. The resolution obligated all party members to facilitate in every way the removal of all obstacles to the free development of the Ukrainian language and culture....Members of the RKP in Ukraine must in practice adhere to the right of the toiling masses to learn their native language and use it in all Soviet institutions, opposing in every way attempts by artificial means to push the Ukrainian language into the background and, quite the opposite, striving to transform the Ukrainian language into a weapon of communist education of the toiling masses. Immediate steps should be taken so that all Soviet institutions have a sufficient number of employees conversant in the Ukrainian language and that in the future all employees are able to make themselves understood in the Ukrainian language. 41

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The reaction of the KP(b)U delegates at the conference was far from enthusiastic. With the exception of Iakov Epshtein (Iakovlev) and Zatons'kyi, the representatives from Ukraine were critical of the resolution, viewing it as a concession to Ukrainian nationalism.4 2 This was symptomatic of the prevailing sentiment within the KP(b)U towards ukrainization not only in December 1919 but also in the years that followed. Ukrainization was largely understood in terms of a forced compromise made necessary, on the one hand, by the complete fiasco of previous policies and the growing criticism of Ukrainian left social democrats and socialist revolutionaries and, on the other hand, by realization that Soviet rule in Ukraine could not be maintained without accomodating the demands of a genuine national revival. As a result, ukrainization was a slow and tortuous process that underwent several distinct phases, encountering opposition at every turn. 4 3 The decisions of the Eighth Conference mark the beginning of what may be termed "declarative ukrainization": the party and government issued resolutions and decrees with little or no impact on practical policies. Indeed, already in January 1919 Rakovskii's government declared that "the language of instruction in the schools depends on the will of the local worker and peasant populations" 44 This was confirmed by an order of the People's Commissariat of Education the following March, which also announced that the long-repressed Ukrainian language would be aided in its development. 45 In February 1920 a decree of the All-Ukrainian Central Executive Committee (VUTsVK) guaranteed Ukrainian an equal status with Russian in all civil and military institutions; anyone found in violation of the decree would be "subject to the full severity of military-revolutionary laws." 46 The following September the RNK ordered that a plan be drawn up for the establishment of schools of all grades and categories with Ukrainian as the language of instruction. Ukrainian books and newspapers were to be published and Ukrainian-language courses were to be organized for government officials. 47 In the meantime, opposition to ukrainization continued. At the Fifth Conference of the KP(b)U in November 1920 Zinov'ev advanced what was later to become known as the concept of "struggle between two cultures": We feel that language should develop freely. In the final analysis, after a few years the language that is more rooted, more animate, more cultured will be victorious. Our policy, therefore, is to show the Ukrainian village — honestly, not in word but in deed — that the Soviet regime does not prevent it from speaking and teaching its children whichever language it chooses.4 8 The essence of Zinov'ev's argument, according to party historian Popov,

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was that "the party should wait until the 'more cultured' Russian language wins." At the same meeting Skrypnyk rhetorically asked what had become of the resolution adopted the previous year. It was, in his words, a "lost charter." 4 9 The degree to which ukrainization was being ignored could be seen from the resolution on the national question adopted by the First AllUkrainian Council of the KP(b)U in May 1921, which found it necessary to restate the December 1919 resolution and remind party members that it continues to remain in force today, has not been anulled by any congress nor by any party meeting, requires no commentaries, and should be put into practice by the party with the greatest decisiveness. 50 Regardless of party directives, anti-ukrainization sentiment continued to grow. In the fall of 1922 Hryhorii Hryn'ko was ousted as People's Commissar of Education for his "excessive haste in carrying out ukrainization" and replaced by Zatons'kyi. 5 1 At the same time the Central Committee circulated a letter attacking Ukrainian-language schools in the countryside. The majority of newspapers that had switched from Russian to Ukrainian ceased publication, and the publishing houses in Ukraine began to increase the volume of Russian-language books. In March 1923 Dmitrii Lebed', second secretary of the KP(b)U, provided the anti-ukranization forces with a theoretical framework for their arguments by advancing a full-blown concept of the struggle between the Russian and Ukrainian cultures. In Ukraine, he argued, there were two cultures, one urban and the other rural. The urban culture was Russian and progressive and the rural culture Ukrainian and backward. The party's role in the struggle between the two was to support the advanced, proletarian culture of the Russians. 52 Popov characterized these early years as a period of "stand-still" in the implementation of nationalities policy. 5 3 On Lenin's initiative the Twelfth Congress of the RKP(b) once again addressed itself to the national question, producing the most comprehensive statement on the subject to date. Lebed's ideas were repudiated and a new phase of ukrainization was ushered in. The first steps were taken by the party. On May 4, 1923 the Politburo formed a committee charged with supervising the implementation of the directives formulated at the recently concluded party congress; a similar committee was established by the RNK on Mary 25. 5 4 On June 22 the Central Committee adopted the first in a series of resolutions designed to ukrainize the party apparatus, and on July 27 an analogous program for schools and cultural-educational organizations was adopted by the government. 5 5 On August 1 a joint resolution of the VUTsVK and the RNK incor-

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porated measures to guarantee "the Ukrainian language a position corresponding to the numerical superiority of the Ukrainian people in the Ukrainian SSR." 56 A special committee that had been formed to verify the work of the government organs reported at the end of 1924 that far from all the institutions took ukrainization seriously, and as a result the decree of the VUTsUK and the RNK was not wholly carried out....After a year's work we have achieved barely half of what we expected. Although our successes indicate that some work is being done, it is nevertheless insignificant. 5 7

In view of the fact that only 44 percent of government employees knew the Ukrainian language, the final date for ukrainization was extended to January 1, 1925. s 8 The situation in the party was no better. At the Eighth Conference of the KP(b)U in May 1924, Emmanuil Kviring, the newly appointed first secretary of the party, noted that ukrainization of the party apparatus was "a difficult matter." 5 9 The only significant progress was in the ukrainization of the schools. By October 1, 1923 over 61 percent of elementary schools were Ukrainian and almost 12 percent were mixed Russian-Ukrainian; the institutions of higher education remained predominantly Russian. 60 By 1925 the proportion of Ukrainian schools had grown to almost 71 percent while the share of mixed schools was reduced to over 7 percent. 61 In view of the generally unsatisfactory results, ukrainization was the major topic on the agenda of the April 1925 plenum of the Central Committee. Its resolution read, in part, as follows: As a result of t w o year's work, the party has achieved some results with regard to the ukrainization of the Soviet apparatus and elementary education. However, these achievements were made mainly from below, by way of the natural ukrainization of the Soviet apparatus that has contact with the peasantry and by way of the ukrainization of the lower schools. The ukrainization of the party and trade union apparatus, party life, party work, and all of public Soviet life as a whole was confronted with difficulties and in some areas with passive resistance from a section of the workers and party members. 6 2

The plenum also decided on a change in party leadership, replacing Kviring with Lazar Kaganovich. Shortly thereafter, on April 20, 1925, the VUTsK and the RNK issued a decree "On Measures for the Urgent Realization of the Complete Ukrainization of the Soviet Apparatus." 63 With the arrival of Kaganovich in Kharkiv the ukrainization program was

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transformed into an ideological battlefield for a variety of interrelated issues reflecting several shades of party opinion. The fundamental question underlying the debate that unfolded in 1925-1926 was whether ukrainization was to retain its original purpose - i.e., the vehicle for maintaining contact (smychka) with Ukrianian peasant masses, or whether it was in fact to be viewed as the basis for a full-blown Ukrainian national renaissance. The latter position was defended by Oleksandr Shums'kyi who, as People's Commissar of Education, was responsible for overall cultural development in Ukraine. Shums'kyi's basic sentiments were shared by Skrypnyk, although he argued them in a far less obtrusive fashion that was calculated to placate the party leadership in Moscow. The hard core opponents of ukrainization found their spokesman in Iu. Larin (Mikhail Lur'e), who in early 1925 began to criticize the party's nationalities policy for its alleged disregard of the needs of interests of national minorities in the various republics. In Ukraine, charged Larin, ukrainization had unleashed Ukrainian chauvinism directed at the Russian minority, which was being forcibly ukrainized in "Petliura-type fashion." 64 Although Larin's charges were officially censured as a combination of exaggerations and willful misrepresentations concocted for the purpose of supporting the Russian national deviation in the KP(b)U, the degree to which he could count on the support of influential party leaders could be seen from the fact that at the end of 1926 the central party organ in Moscow, Bol'shevik, provided Larin with the opportunity to argue his case on its pages.6 s Between these two extremes was the majority opinion represented by Stalin and Kaganovich which saw in ukrainization a way for the party to broaden its social base and guarantee it political legitimacy. The debate over ukrainization continued into the late 1920s with Kaganovich, Stalin's representative in Ukraine, emerging as the final victor. It was established that the raison d'être of ukrainization was not to foster the development of Ukrainian language and culture as such, but rather to direct it along suitable channels for acceptable purposes. The victory was an ideological one that served as the basis for the complete turnaround in Soviet nationalities policy that was an integral part of the "Stalin revolution." Nonetheless, in 1925-1930 ukrainization witnessed significant achievements, particularly in the educational system. It has been argued that more was accomplished during this period than in the earlier stages of the program. 66 In June 1926 the Central Committee of the KP(d)U was able to report that 80 percent of all elementary schools were Ukrainian, which corresponded to the proportion of Ukrainians in the republic, and that 60 percent of the press had been ukrainized. In a little over a year, the propor-

Language Politics in the Ukraine 71 tion of Ukrainians in the party had increased from 37 percent to 47 percent and in the Komosmol from 50 percent to 61 percent. 67 In July 1925 the Central All-Ukrainian Commission for Ukrainization of the Soviet Apparatus of the RNK was formed to coordinate ukrainization of the government bureaucracy. 68 Within the first six months of 1926, the volume of government business conducted in Ukrainian increased from 20 percent to almost 65 percent. 6 9 On July 6, 1927, the VUTsVK and RNK issued a wide-ranging new decree on the equality of languages and development of Ukrainian culture that overhauled and systematized all previous legislation bearing on language status and usage in Ukraine. 70 By the end of 1927, 75.8 percent of all pupils in elementary schools received instruction in Ukrainian; 6.9 percent attended mixed schools; and 10.6 percent were taught in Russian. On the secondary level, which then consisted largely of seven-year schools, 60.7 percent attended Ukrainian schools; 14.7 percent mixed schools; and 15.5 percent Russian schools. 71 In the same year, 93.9 percent of Ukrainian pupils in the republic were taught in Ukrainian; the corresponding figure for Russians was 66.1 percent. 72 Paradoxically, the 1930s witnessed continued adherence to ukrainization and, simultaneously, the massive physical liquidation of the Ukrainian intelligentsia. Initially, the great terror was directed primarily at the non-party intelligentsia; later it engulfed card-carrying cultural figures as well as important party leaders like Syrypnyk. The first major blow was struck against the All-Ukrainian Academy of Sciences (VUAN) in March-April 1930, taking the form of a show trial of the imaginary Union for the Liberation of Ukraine (SVU). Among the forty-five defendants accusted of conspiring to overthrow the Soviet regime in Ukraine were a number of prominent linguists (Vsevolod Hantsov, Hryhorii Holoskevych, and Hryhorii Kholodnyi) who had played a significant role in the standardization of the Ukrainian language in the latter half of the 1920s. 73 The adoption of a standard Ukrainian orthography in 1928 was now portrayed as part of a larger process termed "linguistic wrecking"; proponents of linguistic purism were linked to treasonous activity against the state. The SVU trial led to further arrests and the closing down of linguistic institutes, and also pointed an accusing finger at Skrypnyk. As Shums'kyi's successor to the post of People's Commissar of Education, Skrypnyk had been active in the debates about the Ukrainian language and was on record as a supporter of linguistic purism. In articles written in 1931-1932, Skrypnyk was still able to temporize with regard to the campaign that was unfolding on the "language front." By June 1933, however, Skrypnyk was being held responsible for the forcible

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ukrainization of Russian school-children and fostering the "linguistic separatism" of the Ukrainian language from Russian. 74 At the June 1933 plenum of the Central Committee of the KP(b)U, Pavel Postyshev, who had been sent to Ukraine from Moscow as second secretary, declared: Thus, the area which until recently was under the leadership of comrade Skrypnyk - I have in mind the People's Commissariat of Education and the entire system of the organs of education in Ukraine — has been shown to be the most littered with wrecking, counterrevolutionary, and nationalist elements. 75 One month later Skrypnyk committed suicide. The campaign against nationalist deviation in Ukrainian linguistics continued. The resolution of the joint plenum of the Cenral Committee and Central Control Commission of the KP(b)U in November 1933 defined the deviations in terms of "tearing away" the Ukrainian language as much as possible from Russian; eliminating from the Ukrainian language analogous Russian words and replacing them with Polish, Czech, and German words; and forcible ukrainization of schools. 76 In 1934 the Institute of Linguistics of the VUAN began publication of the journal Movoznavstvo, the main task of which was to conduct the struggle on the "language front." The shift towards greater emphasis on Russian reached its apex with the March 1938 ail-Union party and government decree providing for the obligatory study of Russian in all non-Russian schools in the USSR. A similar decree was adopted in Ukraine on April 20. 7 7 At the Fourteenth Congress of the KP(b)U in June 1938, the new Ukrainian party leader Nikita Khrushchev declared: Enemies of the people and bourgeois nationalists recognized the power and influence of the Russian language and culture. They knew that this was the influence of Bolshevism, the influence of the teachings of Lenin-Stalin on the minds of the Ukrainian people, on Ukrainian workers and peasants. That is why they were rooting out the Russian language from schools. In many Ukrainian schools German, French, Polish, and other languages were studied, but not Russian....Comrades! As of today all of the peoples will be studying the Russian language.78 The tendency towards identifying the Russian people, its culture, and language with the interests of socialism reached its apogee during the war years, and was symbolized by Stalin's toast to the health of the Russian people in May 1945. This was a far cry from 1931, when a Ukrainian party ideologue could write:

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It is argued, that in the USSR the language that is supposed to engulf all other languages is, of course, the Russian language, and in order to cover up the great-power content of this proposal the Russian language is called "the language of all-Union communist culture," the language of the October Revolution, "the language of our single Soviet economy," and the like. Obviously, the Russian language, as the language of the leading segment of the world proletariat, as the language of the a great culture, has world significance. But does this mean that being the language of revolution is a national characteristic only of the Russian language?....the language of revolution exists wherever there is a proletariat that is struggling for revolution or has accomplished it. 7 9 The strident campaigns of the 1930s against "bourgeois nationalists" and "enemies of the people" could not but have a negative impact on ukrainization. As early as October 1934, Postyshev stated: One must admit bluntly, openly, and in a Bolshevik manner that recently we have seen a slackening of work on ukrainization in certain areas. In certain institutions of higher learning there has been a let up on lecturing in Ukrainian, things are not as they should be across the board with regard to ukrainization of the system of party education, the situation is not entirely satisfactory in this regard on some levels of the Soviet and party apparatuses, especially the oblast and central levels. And some of our party organizations have lately let their atention fall off in this most serious area of work. 8 0 Ukrainzation as such, however, was never formally repudiated. Indeed, at the level of general education schools (elementary and seven-year schools) it kept pace with the overall expansion of the school network. In the 19351936 school year, 83 percent of pupils in general schools were studying in Ukrainian, and in 1937 a greater proportion of pupils were being taught in Ukrainian than a decade earlier. 81 Thus, the Stalin revolution had created a situation whereby in 1951 a prominent Ukrainian poet could be denounced in Pravda for a poem entitled "Love Ukraine," while Ukrainian schoolchildren could happily sing odes to the leader of the world proletariat and study the exploits of tsarist generals in their native language. 82

Language Politics in the Khrushchev Era The language question has played a prominent role in the political and cultural life of Ukraine during the three decades since Stalin's death in 1953. Thus, within three months of the dictator's passing, Leonid Mel'nikov, first secretary of the Ukrainian party was replaced by Oleksii Kyrychenko, the

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first Ukrainian to be entrusted with that position. Mel'nikov's dismissal was accompanied by charges of distortion of nationalities policy in the newly acquired Western Ukrainian regions, including the elimination of Ukrainian as the language of instruction in institutions of higher education. 83 Khrushchev's expose of Stalin's crimes at the Twentieth Congress of the CPSU in 1956 and the attendent destalinization campaign gave a fresh impetus to the liberalization of Soviet nationalities policy. For Ukrainians, the revelation that Stalin would have deported the entire Ukrainian nation had such an undertaking been feasible suggested an end to officially sponsored ukrainophobia. In a sense, ukrainianism as such was rehabilitated along with the Ukrainian party apparatus and individual political and cultural figures who had perished or were silenced during the purges. Ukrainian-language journals for the study of history, language, and literature, economics, and law were established. The implication was that the development of Ukrainian national culture was once again a legitimate sphere of activity. This included, of course, concern for the Ukrainian language, which found expression in articles published in the party and literary press. In early 1958, for example, one could read the following in Pravda Ukrainy : Imagine a propagandist who delivers a lecture "The Development of Ukrainian Culture, National in Form and Socialist in Content" in the Russian language, although he himself is Ukrainian and his audience consists of Ukranians. But really, this is absurd. Any yet many comrades do not notice this absurdity. Comrade Tymchak worked as a secretary of the Terebovlia raion committee of the party. He is a native of the western oblasts of Ukraine, but he never addressed the people in the native language. Or another propagandist - comrade Shapoval, also a Ukrainian. He gives us the following gems: "ia slazhivaiu plan," "govoryl," "vypoFniat' " and the like. You listen to him and you think: Why are you speaking in broken Russian and disparaging the native language? 84 Writers and philologists took the lead in propagating the virtues of the Ukrainian language. Typical in this respect was the lengthly article "Let Us Love and Respect the Native Language!" by Anton Khyzhniak, chief editor of Literatuma hazeta, which was written with a view towards the upcoming Fourth Congress of the Ukrainian Writers' Union in March 1959. 8 s Urging his colleagues to devote more attention to the perfection of the Ukrainian language in their own usage, Khyzhniak at the same time issued a broadside at the Institute of Linguistics in Kiev for its indifference to the preparation of dictionaries and the training of qualified linguists. This criticism was picked up by Pavlo Pliushch, head of the Department of Ukrainian Language at Kiev University, who strongly intimated that the Institute was

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purposely hindering the development of the Ukrainian language. Ukrainians, he concluded, should decisively struggle aginst manifestations of disrespect towards the Ukrainian language, which can sometimes be seen in everyday life, as well as in offices, institutions of higher education, and other establishments. The struggle for the culture of the native language is simultaneously a struggle for raising its authority as the vehicle of discourse for the multimillion Ukrainian people; language is truly a "powerful organ," a mighty voice of the people. 6 The return to "Leninist norms," however, did not imply that the new party leadership was prepared to dismantle the attributes of privilege and superiority bestowed upon the Russian language in Stalin's time. Nor did it mean that the dissemination of Russian in the non-Russian republics was to be halted. On the contrary, the proposed school reform embodied in the November 1958 theses of the Central Committee of the CPSU and the USSR Council of Ministers - which rescinded the obligatory study of the native language in Russian schools in the non-Russian republics - suggested that the role and status of the Russian language was to be enhanced. The opposition that this proposal elicited in the republics led the authorities to sidestep the language issue in the ail-Union law that was adopted in December, although eventually all of the republics passed legislation in the spirit of the theses.8 7 In Ukraine, there was extensive criticism of the projected reform by representatives of the republican party apparatus as well as the intelligentsia. Both deputies from Ukraine who took part in the discussion of the draft law at the USSR Supreme Soviet session — Mykhailo Hrechuka, first deputy chairman of the Council of Ministers, and Stepan Chervonenko, Central Committee secretary responsible for ideology — argued against making study of the native language optional in Russian schools. This was also the position taken by Petro Tron'ko, a secretary of the Kiev oblast party committee, in the authoritative party journal Komunist Ukrainy. Two highly respected men of letters, Maksym Ryl's'kyi and Mykola Bazhan, spoke in favor of retaining the status quo in a joint article published in Pravda while the Supreme Soviet was in session.8 8 The language issue was also discussed by party members of the Kiev writers' organization, who rejected the notion that parents be the sole arbitrators of such an important question as language study, and urged that control over all schools in the republic be vested in the Ministry of Education in Kiev. 89 In March 1959, on the eve of the Ukrainian Supreme Soviet session that was to act on the proposed school reform, Ukrainian writers met for

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their Fourth Congress. The keynote speech, delivered by Bazhan in his capacity as head of the Writer's Union, included a lengthy discourse on the richness and beauty of the Ukrainian language and the writer's obligation to further its development. Similarly, Ryl's'kyi's entire presentation was devoted to such themes as language purity and the maintenance of linguistic standards, with appropriate references to Lomonosov, Pushkin, Maiakovskii, Engels, and Lenin. Such sentiments also found their way into the resolution adopted by the congress.90 The Ukrainian Supreme Soviet incorporated the controversial language thesis into its law "on Strengthening Ties between School and Life and on the Further Development of the System of Public Education in the Ukrainian SSR," which was adopted on April 17 without any serious discussion. In his report on the draft law, Minister of Education Ivan Bilodid explained that the Council of Ministers was being charged with developing measures guaranteeing, in the schools with the national language [as the language] of instruction, all the necessary conditions for studying and improving the quality of instruction of the Russian language, which is a powerful means of inter-nationality discourse, consolidation of the friendship of the peoples of the USSR, and familiarization of pupils with the treasures of Russian and world culture. Similar measures were to be undertaken with regard to Ukrainian and other languages in schools with Russian as the language of instruction for those pupils "expressing a desire to study these language." 91 It is apparent from Bilodid's report that the accent was clearly placed on the Russian language. This was confirmed several months later by Chervonenko, who wrote in Komunist Ukrainy that there was a growing number of pupils attracted to the study of Russian. "In this connection," he said, "the network of schools with Russian as the language of instruction is being increased." 92 Indeed, the available data indicates that after the 1958-1959 reform the proportion of Russian-language schools in Ukraine expanded, albeit modestly, and continued to increase steadily in the 1960s (see Table 1). More important than the respective number of Ukrainian and Russian schools is the proportion of pupils attending each type of school. Such data is not readily available in Soviet publications, and since the early 1970s it appears to have been withheld altogether. That which has been published, however, reveals a significant increase in the percentage of pupils enrolled in schools with Russian as the language of instruction. Thus, in the 1953-1954 school year 74.9 percent of pupils attended Ukrainian schools, while 23.8

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Table 1. General Education Schools in the Ukrainian SSR According to Language of Instruction, 1953-1970 Year Number 1953-54® 1955-56 3 195 7-5 8 a 1961-62 b 1963-64 c 1969-70 d

25,192 25,034 25,464 33,309 24,485 23,036

Ukrainian Percentage 85.2 85.3 84.7 82.1 81.8 80.7

Number 4,027 4,051 4,355 6,292 over 4,500 5,505

RussianPercentage 13.6 13.8 14.5 15.5 over 15.0 19.3

Sources: a. John Kolasky, Education in Soviet Ukraine: A Study in Discrimination and Russification (Toronto: Peter Martin Associates, 1968), pp. 50-51. b. Bilinsky, The Second Soviet Republic, p. 163. c. Alia Bondar, "Osvitnii nyvi - dobrine zerno," Radians'ka Ukraina, December 5, 1964. d. Dneprovskaia pravda February 8, 1970, cited in Molod' Dnipropetrovs'ka vborot'bi proty rusyfikatsii (Muncih: Suchasnist', 1971), p. 40. The percentages are slightly inflated as they are derived from the total number of Ukrainian and Russian schools rather than the total number of all schools in the republic.

percent were enrolled in Russian schools. In 1955-1956 the corresponding figures were 72.8 percent and 26.3 percent. 9 3 Detailed statistics, including a breakdown into three grade-groups, were published for the 1967-1968 school year (see Table 2). These figures show that enrollment in Ukrainian schools had dropped to 62 percent, with 37.2 percent of pupils attending Russian schools. 94 A further Shift in the direction of increased enrollment in Russian schools was reported by Minister of Education Oleksandr Marynych at the end of 1973: In recent years there has been an increase in Ukraine in the number of pupils who are drawn to the study of the Russian language and [to the study of] all subjects in the Russian language. Whereas ten years ago 30 percent of pupils studied in Russian schools and 70 percent in Ukrainian schools, this year almost 40 percent are in Russian schools and about 60 percent in Ukrainian schools. This tendency is growing, especially in the cities. Overall, the proportion of pupils receiving their elementary education in Russian almost doubled during the twenty years between 1953 and 1973.

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Table 2. Language of Instruction of Pupils in the Ukrainian SSR, 1967-1968 Grades 1-4 Number Percentage Ukrainian Russian Moldavian Hungarian Polish

2,093,764 1,287,918 18,751 9,995 162

61.39 37.76 0.54 0.29

Grades 5-8 PercentNumber age 1,997,158 1,168,688 17,183 9,456 184

62.55 36.60 0.53 0.29

Grade? 9-10 Number Percentage 514,961 308,713 2,799 2,562 53

62.11 37.23 0.33 0.30 -

Sources: lu. D. Desheiiev, Zamkonomernosti razvitiia literatumykh iazykov narodov SSSR ν sovetskuiu epokhu: Razvitie obshchestvennykh funktsii literatumykh iazykov (Moscow: Izdatel'stvo Nauka, 1976), pp.69-71.

The general direction in which Soviet language, policy was moving, implicit in the school reform of 1958-1959, came into sharper focus at the Twentysecond Congress of the CPSU in October 1961. The section on nationality relations in Khrushchev's speech on the draft Program of the CPSU, although seemingly balanced, nonetheless stressed assimilationist trends. With regard to the language question, Khrushchev noted "the growing aspiration of the non-Russian peoples to master the Russian language, which in fact has become the second native language for the peoples of the USSR." In a similar vein, he referred to "the positive significance of the voluntary study of the Russian language for the development of inter-nationality cooperation." 96 The new party Progam reflected this sentiment, although it did not enshrine the concept of two native languages. The future disappearance of language distinctions among the nations of the USSR was characterized as "a considerably slower process than the effacement of class boundaries." Officially, Russian was proclaimed "the common language of inter-nationality discourse and cooperation of all the peoples of the USSR."9 7 Shortly after the Congress, the USSR Academy of Sciences established the Scientific Council on the Composite Problem "The Objective Laws of Development of National Languages in Connection with the Development of Socialist Nations," which was charged with organizing and coordinating research affecting language policy in the USSR. The Twenty-second Congress of the CPSU served as the backdrop for heated polemics in the party and literary press about the merits and, indeed, the future of national languages and cultures in the USSR. The most widely commented affair centered on the Daghestan! writer Akhmed Agaev, whose

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article in Izvestiia in December 1961 urged non-Russian writers to produce "national literature" in the Russian language. Agaev was challenged by the Russian poet Vladimir Soloukhin.9 8 Similar controversies undfolded on the pages of the Ukrainian press in the early 1960s, pitting such well-known writers as Borys Antonenko-Davydovych and Ryl's'kyi against proponents of "linguistic internationalization." 99 In Kiev, one of severi counterparts to Agaev was Ivan Kravtsev, who gained noteriety by his publicistic articles advocating greater use of the Russian language in schools, the media, and even in private conversation in the home. 1 0 0 Another was Ivan Bilodid, director of the Institute of Linguistics of the Ukrainian Academy of Sciences from 1961 until his death in 1981. Bilodid's views on the language question were hardly a source of inspiration for the nationally conscious Ukrainian intelligentsia: Unity with progressive Russian culture and with the great Russian language, which generously lay bare treasures fo all people and their languages, is one of the finest historical traditions in the development of the culture and language of the Ukrainian people. The task of our secondary and higher schools, of the appropriate scientific research institutions and departments, and, on a larger scale, the task of the Academy of Sciences of the Ukrainian SSR, the Minstries of Education, Higher and Secondary Specialized Education, and Culture, and of radio, cinema, the press, literature, and various kinds of publications, especially the scientific popular ones, is the further improvement of the quality of teaching Russian language and literature, propagating knowledge of the Russian language, and multifaceted and broad aid in mastering the culture of the Russian literary language. 101 Bilodid played an inordinately influential role in language politics in Ukraine. Prior to his twenty-year tenure at the head of the Institute of Linguistics, he served as minister of education between 1957 and 1962 — i.e., during the implementation of Khrushchev's school reform. 10 2 The editors of Voprosy iazykoznaniia added fuel to the fire created by the Agaev affair by raising the question of the future of certain non-Russian languages in a lead article in the January 1962 issue of the journal. 1 0 3 The editorial was particularly distressing for Ukrainians because it did not explicityly refer to the Ukrainian language as among those with a guaranteed future. As late as 1966, at the Fifth Congress of the Ukrainian Writer's Union, the editors of the journal were taken to task even by orthodox writers like Leonid Novychenko: It seems to me that this kind of "classification" is totally anti-scientific. I also want to note that in the article there is not so much as a reference to the

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languages of the two largest peoples in the Soviet Union after the Russians: the Ukrainian and Belorussian languages. Why? Could it be that the linguists who put together and edited the article forgot about them?! Clearly, this is not the case. It is easy to guess that the authors simply feel that the Ukrainian and Belorussian languages do not belong to those "having a future," although they do not come right out and say it. 1 The early 1960s also witnessed the emergence of the idea that linguistic unity, based on the Russian language, is one of the characteristics of the Soviet people as "a new historical community." This was the position taken by Kravtsev in his book Razvitie natsional'nykh otnoshenii ν SSSR published in Kiev in 1962. 1 0 5 Some authors even went so far as to describe the Soviet people as "a single nation with a single language." 106 In the meantime, in Ukraine opposition to the party's cultural and language policies gained strength with the appearance of a younger generation of writers and poets on the literary scene. Known collectively as the shestydesiatnyky or "Sixties Group," they soon began to leave their imprint on cultural politics in Kiev. Characteristic in this respect was the Third Plenum of the Board of the Ukrainian Writers' Union in January 1962, at which the critical voices of Ivan Dzyuba and Ivan Drach demanded, inter alia, that the Ministry of Education take steps to improve the teaching of Ukrainian language and literature in the schools. 107 The frustration and resentment that had built up over the language issue came into the open at the Republican Scientific Conference on Questions of the Culture of the Ukrainian language held in Kiev on February 11-15, 1963, which was the first of its kind organized in Ukraine. The conference turned into a spontaneous protest, with unscheduled speakers condemning official policies such as "the absurd theory that a nation has two languages." The Soviet press provided only scanty information about the proceedings of the conference. A detailed report, however, appeared in a Ukrainian-language journal published in Poland. According to this source, the conference approved a petition addressed to the Central Committee of the Ukranian party and the government of Ukraine which demanded that: (1) Ukrainian be the language of instruction in all higher and secondary specialized schools and vocational schools, and that textbooks for these schools be published in Ukrainian; (2) education in pre-school institutions attended by Ukrainian children be conducted in Ukrainian; (3) all business be conducted in Ukrainian in offices and enterprises, on railroads and other forms of transportation, and in commerce; (4) the Academy of Sciences, institutes, and publishing houses issue scholarly works largely in Ukrainian; and (5) that film studios produce artistic and

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scientific films only in Ukrainian, and that films made outside of Ukraine be translated into Ukrainian. In addition, it was proposed that Ukrainians living outside of their republic be provided with Ukrainian general education schools, and that a public committee to promote the development of the culture of the Ukrainian language and its expansion into all spheres of state and public life be estabished within the Institute of Linguistics. 108

Shelest and the Rise of Dissent The civic engagement demonstrated by those participating in the conference reflected the changes that had been wrought in the political atmosphere of destalinization. Petitions and appeals to party and government bodies were accompanied by public protests, the emergence of samizdat, and a loosely organized dissident movement. The experience of Mykola Plakhotniuk, as related in a recent samizdat document, is perhaps not untypical of the evolution of a Ukrainian dissident in the early 1960s. Born in 1936, Plakhotniuk enrolled in the Kiev Medical Institute in 1960, where he was active as a Komsomol organizer in the cultural sector. In 1963, he began to attend meetings at the Kiev Club of Creative Youth "Suchasnyk," which organized literary and cultural activities for younger intelligentsia under the auspices of the Kiev oblast committee of the Komsomol. The club was frequented by Ivan Svitlychnyi, Ievhen Sverstiuk, Viacheslav Chornovil, Vitalii Korotych, Mykola Vinhranovs'kyi, and other representatives of the shestydesiatnyky. For Plakhotniuk, the road to more than nine years in Soviet psychiatric hospitals and his current term of four years in a labor camp began in the summer of 1963, when he wrote a letter to the Ministry of Higher and Secondary Specialized Education arguing that instruction in his Institute be conducted in Ukrainian: The letter was forwarded to the rector of the Institute, Prof. Vasyl' Dmytrovych Bratus', and he called Plakhotniuk in for a talk. The rector said that he agreed with every word in the letter, but that he could not change anything because there are foreigners studying in the Institute who must be taught in Russian. He also noted that, unfortunately, the Ukrainian language was dying off, especially among the working class. After the talk, which the rector conducted in perfect Ukrainian, they both left for a Komsomol conference at the Institute where, although no foreigners were present, the rector delivered his address in Russian. Plakhotniuk immediately asked to speak, and took the podium directly after the rector. He said that everyone in the audience understood Ukrainian, and that there was no reason for Komsomol members to be ashamed of their native language. 109

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Thus, comments the anonymous author of the document, Plakhotniuk became a "white crow." Dissent in Ukraine, which strongly accented national rights, was in a sense abetted by the policies of Petro Shelest, who held the post of first secretary of the Ukrainian party from July 1963 until his dismissal in May 1972. Although Shelest's impact on the political and cultural life of Ukraine in the 1960s and early 1970s remains to be fully elucidated, it is generally agreed that he represented a current of opinion within the party apparatus that sought to legitimize a form of national communism in Ukraine. 110 His public statements, most notably his speech at the Fifth Congress of the Ukrainian Writers' Union in Novemeber 1966 urging further development of the Ukrainian language and culture, earned him the reputation of a defender of Ukrainian interests against Moscow's assimilationist policies. It was during Shelest's tenure in Kiev, in the summer of 1965, that the Ministry of Higher and Secondary Specialized Education drew up a project for the gradual ukrainization of higher education institutions in Ukraine. 111 Meanwhile, the dissident movement continued to grow. Among the samizdat documents from this period that reached the West, a considerable proportion addressed themselves to language issues. In February 1964, a petition by ten residents of Kiev to the Ukrainian Supreme Soviet, the Central Committee of the Ukrainian party, and the Council of Ministers of the Ukrainian SSR reiterated most of the proposals put forth the previous year at the conference on the culture of the Ukrainian language. 112 Another document from about the same time urged Ukrainian parents to demand that authorities provide Ukrainian schools for their children: Russian parents are making depositions to school directors that their children will not study the Ukrainian language. Ukrainian parents have the same right with regard to the Russian language. The Program of the CPSU states that all peoples have the right to freely choose any kind of school for their children....Fathers and mothers of pupils! Demand native-language schools so that the people of Ukraine will be suitably literate. 11 3 In December 1964, an Initiative Committee of Communists of Ukraine addressed a letter to communist parties in Eastern Europe and the West calling their attention to "the russification and colonialist policies of Moscow." 1 1 4 Several months later, in Febrary 1965, Sviatoslav Karavans'ki petitioned the prosecutor of the Ukrainian SSR to indict Minister of Higher and Secondary Specialized Education Yurii Dadenkov for violating the language rights of Ukrainians. 115 Dissatisfaction was not limited to intellectual circles. Dzyuba's Internationalism or Russification?, submitted to

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Ukrainian party and government authorities in December 1965, reproduces a letter to Pravda from two young miners from the Donbass requesting that the party explain its position on the Ukrainian language : All. in all, one could still write very, very much about the contradictions in the situation of the Ukrainian language, which everybody knows perfectly well. We would only like this question to be more definite and clear. If the time for the final Russification of the Ukrainian people has come, we should actively work in that direction. If not, we should adopt decisive measures to support the development of the Ukrainian language. 11

In another document cited by Dzyuba, seventeen mothers of Ukrainian preschool children addressed the Ministry of Education with a complaint against "the reactionary language policy of the Ministry of Health as it is practiced in the day nurseries and kindergartens of our locality and likewise of the whole of Ukrainian SSR." 1 1 7 By June 1965, developments in Ukraine attracted the attention of the Moscow samizdat journal Politicheskii dnevnik. Its evaluation of the situation, particularly with regard to the regime's language policy, is worth noting: The tendency towards nationalism in Ukraine represents, to a considerable degree, a reaction to the jaded methods of leadership and administration that flourished under Khrushchev not only in the economic, but also in the cultural sphere (not to mention the period of Stalin's cult of personality). In recent years, the legal demands and rights of the Ukrainian nation have not always been observed. As an example, one could cite the higher educational establishments of L'viv, where the language of instruction has been switched to Russian (that which is appropriate for Odessa or Kharkiv does not apply to L'viv). In cities in Ukraine, even in Kiev, there are very few schools with Ukrainian as the language of instruction, and there is little and poor training in love for the native language; apparently the situation is much better in this respect among the small nationalities of Daghestan. 1 1 8

"Nationalist inclinations," wrote Politicheskii dnevnik, "are reflected in the activity of some government and even party organs, and they are also widely disseminated among a segment of the Ukrainian intelligentsia." Several months after these lines were written, at the end of August and in the beginning of Septemeber 1965, the security organs conducted a sweep of Ukrainian intellectuals, some of who were secretly tried the following year. This prompted further protests and appeals in defense of the persecuted, producing such classics of Ukrainian samizdat as The Chornovil Papers and Dzyuba's Internationalism or Russification? The arrests and trials of 1965-1966 also created a stir among Ukrainians in

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the West. In January 1967, the Communist Party of Canada, which had a strong contingent of Canadian-Ukrainians, decided to dispatch a seven-man delegation to Ukraine "on a mission of enquiry and discussion concerning the policy and the experience of the Communist Party and the Government of Ukraine in dealing with the national question." 119 The delegation filed a report that focused heavily on the language issue. Its conclusions were far from complimentary: It became evident in the course of our discussions that there are real differences in the understanding of and approach to the language question at the various levels of party organization and amongst different leading comrades, even though they all believe themselves to be subscribing to the Leninist national policy. In addition to variations of understanding and attitudes between individuals, we found instances of gaps between declared policy and practice. 120 The report cited Shelest to the effect that problems that had existed in the past were being overcome. Shelest is quoted as having told the delegation: "Yes, some comrades have on occasion expressed mistaken ideas about what they call the merging of languages, but only a fool could imagine that there is any possibility of Russian taking over in Ukraine." 121 The optimistic picture presented by the Ukrainian party leader was offset by the remarks of Andrii Skaba, ideological secretary of the Central Committee, who "declared that what is important is that technique [sic] develops, not the language in which text books are published." According to the delegation's report, it didn't bother him, he stated, whether in the hydro station in Burshtyn, there were more signs in Russian or in Ukrainian....This attitude, that language was secondary or unimportant, that it is a technique [sic], the building of Communism alone which counts, was one that we found to be widespread. 122 Eventually, the report of the Canadian delegation was subjected to criticism both by elements from within the Communist Party of Canada and by prominent government, academic, and cultural figures in Kiev, and was quietly retracted. 123 In the meantime, however, Ukrainian authorities were confronted with another embarassing situation in the form of John Kolasky's documentary expose Education in Soviet Ukraine: A Study in Discrimination and Russification, which was published in Canada in 1968. Kolasky, a high school teacher and member of the Communist Party of Canada, spent two years in Ukraine as a student at the Higher Party School in Kiev. During that time, from September 1963 to August 1965, he became disenchanted with what he saw, "especially the fact that everywhere the Russian language was dominant." Kolasky wrote:

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The party propaganda, that the non-Russians themselves had initiated this natural process of merging all languages into one, proved unconvincing. Daily observation contradicted the official explanation; everywhere in Kiev there was evidence of pressure to impose the Russian language. In addition there were my personal experiences. Many Russians with whom I came into contact displayed open contempt because I spoke Ukrainian. Occasionally there were even insults. 1 2 4

Kolasky's book was a strong indictment of educational and language policies in Ukraine. Faced with unrest at home and beleaguered by criticism from abroad, the authorites were compelled to respond to Kolasky's charges.12 s The recourse to "administrative measures" against the Ukrainian intelligentsia in 1965-1966 in effect signaled the impending demise of Shelest's policies of consensus-building. The inordinate attention that was devoted to the language question at the writers' congress in 1966, including Shelest's calls to "preserve and respect our beautiful native Ukrainian language," in fact marked the high point of official concern in this area. In retrospect, one wonders to what degree the entire affair was orchestrated in order to placate the widespread discontent evoked by the regime's repressive measures. This is not to suggest that Shelest's "ukrainianism" was simply a charade. He continued to support the interests of the Ukrainian language and culture in his public statement and writings after 1966, albeit in a much more restrained fashion. In his speech to students at Kiev University in September 1968, Shelest called for the compilation of new textbooks, which he insisted "must be published in the Ukrainian language."12 6 His address at the Twentyfourth Congress of the Ukrainian party in 1971 included a reference to the need "to stand guard over the clarity and purity of our language." At the same forum, the well-known writer Iurii Smolych, citing Shelest's remark, added that "it is first of all we writers who should respect and develop and disseminate the native language." Smolych cautioned, however, that enrichment of the contemporary Ukrainian language should proceed as a result of innovation and mutual influences with all the languages of the socialist nations, and not through its archaization which, unfortunately, is characteristic of certain writers who peer into the remote past.1 2 7

A few months later, at the Sixth Congress of the Ukrainian Writers' Union, several speakers (Rostyslav Bratun', Dmytro Pavlychko, Kost' Hordiienko, Vitalii Korotych) expressed concern for the development of the Ukrainian language. 128 The tone, however, was set by Shelest, who urged that a struggle be conducted in equal measure against both stereotyped and hackneyed terminology and "the littering of our language." The emphasis, none-

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theless, was on criticism of those who showed "excessive enthusiasm for obsolete vocabularly, archaisms, and expressions that are not intrinsic to our contemporary language." 12 9 In the late 1960s, newspapers and journals published articles by advocates of language purity and proper usage such as Antonenko-Davydovych. His article in Literatuma Ukraina in November 1969, advocating the reincorporation of the letter "g" into the Ukrainian alphabet, caused a minor sensation. It was answered by Vitalii Rusanivs'kyi, deputy director of the Institute of Linguistics, who categorically rejected Antonenko-Davydovych's arguments. Rusanivs'kyi's article was accompanied by a statement from the editorial board of Literatuma Ukraina stating that it backed the criticism of Antonenko-Davydovych. The "discussion" was thereby officially closed and moved to the pages of samizdat.130 In 1970, Antonenko-Davydovych was able to publish his extremely popular guide to proper language usage, Iak my hovorymo, which was issued by the Radians'kyi Pys'mennyk publishing house in an edition of 65,000 copies. The book was subjected to a highly damaging review in Literatuma Ukraina by Hryhorii Kolesnyk, scientific secretary of the Institute of Linguistics, who accused Antonenko-Davydovych of "a subjective perception of the linguistic process" and a "tendentious attempt to archaize the vocabulary of the contemporary Ukrainian literary language." Interestingly, a completely different evaluation was presented in the authoritative Moscow journal Voprosy literatury, expressing amazement at the position taken by Kolesnyk. 131 By the end of 1971, an astute observer of the Ukrainian scene could probably sense that the defenders of language equality in Ukraine were engaged in an uneven struggle. In September of that year, the Ukrainian Academy of Sciences established a Department of Russian Language in the Institute of Linguistics - the first of its kind in the academies of the nonRussian republics. 132 A sign of the times was the publication of a book in Kiev in which the late Fedot Filin, director of the Institute of the Russian Language in Moscow, could write : The Soviet people is not only a state-political and socio-economic community. This community is also beginning to acquire certain ethnic characteristics, one of which is the Russian language as the language of inter-nationality discourse. 133

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Shcherbitsky: Brezhnev's Man in Moscow A crucial turning point in Ukrainian politics was the widespread arrests of Ukrainain intellectuals in January 1972 and, four months later, Shelest's ouster from the leadership of the Ukrainian party and his removal to Moscow. It soon became obvious that Shelest was dismissed because he either would not or could not implement Moscow's nationalities policy in Ukraine. He was succeeded by Volodymyr Shcherbitsky, a long time associate of Brezhnev. What followed was a thorough purge of Ukrainian cultural life and the imposition of strict ideological controls. 134 One of the areas affected was, of course, language policy. In March 1972, shortly before Shelest's dismissal, the samizdat journal Ukrainian Herald reported that the Central Committee of the Ukrainian party had initiated a campaign against "archaisms" in the Ukrainian language, and that a move was underway to bring the literary language closer to "the living language" - i.e., to the mixed Ukrainian-Russian jargon commonplace in large urban centers in Ukraine. 13 5 This was borne out by later developments. At a plenum of the Central Committee on April 17·, 1973, Shcherbitsky included "the littering of the Ukrainian language with archaic words and artificial expressions" in his criticism of Ukrainian writers. The same charges were repeated by Valentyn Malanchuk, ideological secretary of the Central Committee, at a meeting of party members of the Kiev writers' organization in October. 136 A much more ominous step, reported in the last issue of the Ukrainian Herald to have reached the West, was a decision of the Politburo of the Ukrainian party in 1973 to gradually shift the language of publication of scholarly journals from Ukrainian to Russian. 137 A comparison of the data on regularly published journals of the Ukrainian Academy of Sciences for 1969 and 1980 shows that during that time the percentage of jourals publishedd in Ukrainian decreased from 46.6 percent to 19 percent (see Table 3). This was accomplished by converting a number of already existing Ukrainian and bilingual journals and by publishing newly established journals exclusively in Russian. The same policy was adopted with regard to the socalled interdepartmental periodicals issued by universities and institutes, at least nine of which were converted to Russian between 1977 and 1979. These included such non-technical publications as Problemy filosofti, Pytannia ateizmu, Naukovi pratsi ζ istorii KPRS, and Pytannia istorii SRSR. In January 1973, the Dnipropetrovs'k evening newspaper Dnipro vechimii became Dnepr vechemii.13 8

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Table 3. Journals of the Ukrainian Academy of Sciences: Language of Publication, 1969 and 1980 Year

1969 1980

Ukrainian Number Percentage 14 8

46.6 19.0

Russian Number Percentage 11 32

36.6 76.2

Bilingual Number Percentage 5 2

16.6 4.8

Sources: Akademiia rtauk Ukrains'koi RSR 1969 (Kiev: Naukova Dumka, 1969), pp. 266-268, and Akademiia nauk Ukrains'koi RSR (Kiev: Naukova Dumka, 1980), pp. 408-414.

The last ten years have also witnessed a sustained effort to improve the study and teaching of the Russian language in Ukrine. This, of course, is a Unionwide development. It is also not entirely new. A scientific-methodological conference on this problem was organized by the Ministry of Education in Kiev already in October 1961, 1 3 9 An important feature of the current campaign, however, is the emphasis that has been placed on expanding Russian-language study in the preschool institutions of the non-Russian republics. Various aspects of improving the teaching of Russian in the national schools were discussed at a major all-Union scientific-practical conference held in Tashkent in October 1975. According to one source, the Tashkent meeting was the first to raise the issue of broad experimental work regarding the teaching of Russian to non-Russian preschool children. 1 4 0 In Ukraine, a follow-up conference on "Ways of Increasing the Effectiveness of the Study of the Russian Language in Schools of the Ukrainian SSR in Light of Decisions of the Twenty-fifth Congress of the CPSU" was convened in Odessa in October 1977, with 450 persons attending. The conference heard a report by Minister of Education Marynych in which he stated that research in Ukraine "substantiated the psychological possibilities of parallel mastery of the Russian and Ukrainian language by children of the younger school-age group." 1 4 1 Accordingly, the conference recommended that the network of preschool institutions and groups with Russian as the language of instruction be expanded. 1 4 2 The Odessa conference coincided with another development that reflected increased concern for Russian-language training in schools the appearance of the first issue of the bimonthly journal Russkii iazyk i literatura ν shkolakh USSR.14 3 Approximately one year later, in September 1977, a republican seminar devoted to improving the teaching of Russian language and literature was convened in Zaporizhzhia. 144

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The various organizational and scholarly initiatives that had been undertaken to improve Russian-language studies in the republics culminated, at the all-Union level, in the October 13, 1978 decree of the USSR Council of Ministers "On Measures for Further Improving the Study and Teaching of the Russian Language in the Union Republics."145 Approximately two weeks later, on October 31, the Collegium of the Ukrainian Ministry of Education adopted a resolution in line with the ail-Union decree. 146 It provided for: (1) initiating the teaching of Russian in Ukrainian schools in grade 1 (instead of grade 2 as heretofore) as of 1980-1981 school year; (2) increasing the number of hours devoted to Russian in grades 2 and 3 ; (3) reducing the size of classes for Russian-language study; and (4) increasing the number of schools with intensive study of Russsian from 17 to 200. 1 4 7 According to the "Program of the Russian Language for Grade 1 of General Education Schools with Ukrainian as the Language of Instruction," beginning in the school year 1980-1981 first graders in Ukrainian schools were to receive one hour of instruction per week in Russian during the first term and three hours during the second. Altogether, seventy hours of Russian-language study were scheduled for the school year. 148 In the aftermath of the second all-Union conference on Russian-language studies in the national republics, which was held in May 1979, various republican conferences and seminars concerned with one or another aspect of the same problem were convened in Odessa (1979), Poltava (1980), Uzhhorod (1980), Rovno (1980), and Chernivtsi (1981). At the end of 1981, it was reported that since 1978 the Collegium of the Ministry of Education in Kiev had examined the question of improving the teaching of Russian in the republic's general education schools on two occasions. 14 9 The precarious situation of the Ukrainian language on the eve of Shelest's ouster and during the first few years of Shcherbitsky's rule is perphas best documented in the last two issues of the Ukrainian Herald. Issue six, dated March 1972, is particularly rich in statistical data on the press and schools. In addition to the previously mentioned excerpts from Dadenkov's report on higher education in Ukraine, which provides otherwise unavilable information on various universities and institutes, one can find detailed reports on the status of the Ukrainian lnaguage in schools in the city of Kiev and in the Crimean Pedagogical Institute. The combined seventh and eighth issue, dated spring 1974, in effect sums up the results of Soviet language policy: Russification begins in the preschool institutions for children. On the whole, nurseries and kindergartens in Ukraine are predominantly Russian....In

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Sokhanyk

Ukraine, the Ukrainian school has become a problem. Thus, in the cities of Donbass there are no Ukrainian schools whatsoever, nor are they to be found anywhere in Crimea. In such cities as Kharkiv, Zaporizhzhia, Mykolaiv, Dnipropetrovs'k, Kherson, Odessa, and many others, a few solitary Ukrainian schools have remained, but only on the outskirts. Some graduates of L'viv institutions of higher education who are sent to work in Donbass, but do not want their children to attend Russian schools, are forced to send their children to grandmothers, if they live in Western Ukraine, where Ukrainian schools still exist. Their demands that Ukrainian schools be opened in the cities where they must work elicit the same response: the accusation of Ukrainian bourgeois nationalism with the attendant consequences. 150 Soviet officialdom's inclination to view language loyalty as a political crime is not uncommon in Ukrainian Samizdat. Thus, in Vasyl's Stus's essay "I Accuse," written in the Dubrovlag camp in 1975, he relates how investigators confronted him with the "testimony" of one of the witnesses for the prosecution, who confidently asserted: "I knew right away that Stus is a nationalist, because he always spoke in Ukrainian." 151 Various aspects of the language question are reflected in the samizdat literature originating in the camps. Vladimir Osipov's January 12,· 1977 statement in defense of Ukrainian political prisoners "forcibly cut off from their native language and national culture" is particularly interesting given his views on the national question. 1 5 2 The issue of restrictions on non-Russian languages imposed by camp authorities is raised in the first declaration of the "Ten-Day Period of Solidarity of Peoples," signed by sixteen Ukrainian, Russian, Armenian, Estonian, Jewish, and Tatar political prisoners on August 1, 1978. 1 5 3 In November 1977, six Ukrainian political prisoners in the Sosnovka camp announced the formation of a "Society for the Defense, Promotion, and Perpetuation of the Ukrainian Language." 154 The language issue has also been discussed in several .documents issued by the Ukrainian Helsinki Group, and in Iurii Badz'o's analytical essay on the national question. 15 5 In the area of so-called establishment dissent, the 1970s were but a pale reflection of the Shelest period. The Seventh Congress of the Ukrainian Writers' Union in April 1976, the first presided over by Shcherbitsky, did not address itself to the language question at all, although Bratun' - in what can only be described in terms of a certain degree of fortitude — did question the wisdom of the dissolution of the language and literature departments of the Institute of Social Sciences in L'viv. 156 In 1977, Oles' Honchar managed to write a sentimental article praising the Ukrainian language in a specialized journal that is most probably read only by aficionados of language culture. 1 5 7 Pavlo Zahrebel'nyi, the current head of the Writers' Union, had

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some very unflattering things to say about the language of Ukrainian novels at a plenum of the Writer's Union Board in April 1978. He reminded his listeners that "language, like traditions, is not simply inherited - it is acquired by indefatigable and unremitting work." 1 5 8 In a later article based on his speech at the plenum, Zahrebel'nyi confided that "among Ukrainian writers one can even find those who hardly know their native language."1 s 9 In 1978 and 1979, the work of Ukrainian linguists was examined on several occasions by the Academy of Sciences in Kiev, which criticized the Institute of Linguistics for, inter alia, failure to produce the requisite varieties of dictionaries, including dictionaries of dialects, and shortcomings in propagating the culture of both the Ukrainian and Russian languages. 160 The March 1979 session of the Academy's general assembly served as a forum for Honchar's spirited defense of the continued validity of the Ukrainian languages: All of us hold the beautiful Russian language in high esteem as the language of friendship and inter-nationality discourse, and the Ukrainian language which in the course of centuries was formed through the efforts of many generations of toiling people and its intelligentsia — as the language which was defended against tsarist reaction by the brightesh minds of Russia, who predicted a great future for this language. It showed itself capable of fully recreating fifty-five volumes of the immortal works of Lenin, it showed the strength to pass on to the people the imperishable beauty of Homer's poems, and the sum of that contemporary knowledge incorporated, let us say, in the Entsyklopediia kibernetyky. 16 "A few years ago," added Honchar, "republican television had the program 'Culture of the word.' Was it necessary to close it down?," he asked. A thoughtful reading of Honchar's speech sheds more light on the current status of the Ukrainian language than any scholarly analysis. Here is perhaps the foremost contemporary Ukrainian prose writer prefacing what very much appears to be a plea for the existence of a language bearing the name of a people more than forty-two-million strong in the USSR alone with the obligatory gesture of servility before the "beautiful" and "highly esteemed" Russian language. From the very start, therefore, the second-class status of his own language is clearly defined. The argument itself, presumably intended for those internationalists in Moscow and Kiev who would perfer to see Ukrainian vanish well before communism is victorious on a world scale, is based largely on the authority of progressive-thinking Russians whose own sense of national identity was not threatened by the existence of the Ukrainian language and, of course, on the "immortal" Lenin. In this context, the

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reference to the two-volume cybernetics encyclopedia published in Ukranian in 1973, the first of its kind in the Soviet Union, bears a markedly dissonant note. Perhaps not very much more should be expected at a time when the current minister of education in Kiev firmly asserts that "the Russian language is the language of the great Russian people, the language of the first socialist state in the world, the language of the great Lenin, and the language of the new historical community of people - the Soviet people." 1 6 2

Prospects for the Future Brezhnev's death in November 1982 and the asumption of power by Iurii Andropov has been followed by a perceptible shift in the rhetoric of Soviet nationalities policy. The evidence thus far suggest that the new leadership of the CPSU is inclined to favor greater and perhaps more rapid assimilation of its multinational population. This is reflected, above all, in Andropov's revival of the concept of merger (sliianie) of nations as a legitimate objective in his speech marking the sixtieth anniversary of the formation of the USSR in December 1982. 1 6 3 Moving from the theoretical to the practical, at the end of May 1983 it was announced that the Politburo of the CPSU had examined the question of additional measures to improve the study of the Russian language in general education schools and other educational establishments in the Union republics, and that an appropriate decree was adopted by the party's Central Committee and the USSR Council of Ministers. 164 More recently, it has been disclosed that the 1983-1984 curricula call for "more intense study of the Russian language in the national schools." 165 In Ukraine, the language question remains high on the agenda. At a joint plenum of the boards of creative unions and organizations of the USSR and RSFSR held in December 1982 to mark the sixtieth anniversary of the USSR, Zahrebel'nyi felt compelled to praise the virtues of the Russian language. "We often talk about it," he said, "as the means of inter-nationality discourse. This is not enought. For all of us, the Russian language is above all the greatest cultural value." 166 More important than such panegyrics, which have become de rigueur for representatives of the non-Russian intelligentsia (especially when speaking in Moscow), are the implications of Shcherbitsky's comments on the language question at a meeting of the Ukrainian party aktiv in March 1983. He noted the importance of the Russian language, qualifying it as a language not only of inter-nationality but also international discourse, and reminded his listners that "side by side with the native language, it is

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necessary to continue to perfect the study of the Russian language in the schools." Shcherbitsky then proceeded to criticize "the completely unwarranted enthusiasm for archaic linguistic forms and the needless use of foreign words" in certain literary works, especially translations, as well as in lectures. In the process, he singled out Zhovten', the literary monthly published by the L'viv writers' organization. 1 6 7 It is interesting to note that the largest group of contributors to this journal — which maintains a very strong regional profile — are from Western Ukraine, where linguistic russification is much less prevalent than in other parts of the republic. Another aspect of Scherbitsky's speech that deserves attention is the clear attempt to offset the obvious emphasis on the Russian language with positive references to the native language. "One must always show concern for the purity, study, and knowledge of the native language," he asserted. This "even-handedness" in the public statements of certain republican party leaders and experts on the national question when discussing language issues is a relatively recent phenomenon. It has been particularly evident in the Baltic states, where popular disaffection with Soviet language policy has resulted in protests and demonstrations. Although difficult to ascertain with any degree of certainty, there may well be a body of opinion in Moscow that recognizes the need to temper the campaign to disseminate the Russian language in the republics if unpleasant situations are to be avoided. 16 8 In this connection, it is worth citing the remarks made by Oleksandr Kapto, ideological secretary of the Ukrainian Central Committee, at the all-Union conference on international upbringing held in Riga in June 1982. Referring to anti-Soviet propaganda in the West, Kapto argued: The theme of "russification," of which everyone is sick and tired, is overgrowing with new insinuations. It is being perceived in scholarship, education, publishing, the press, even in demographic policy and in social psychology. And all of this is being hysterically interpreted in terms of "ethnocide," "linguicide," and "denationalization." Therefore, fully supporting the constructive suggestions and proposals made by Avgust Edvardovich Voss with regard to increasing attention to the study of the Russian language in the Union republics, I would like to remind you that this problem is also acute with a view towards the ideological struggle. 169 Kapto's words were carefully chosen and sufficiently vague to preclude a definitive judgement as to what exactly he wanted to say. It does seem, however, that there is an underlying note of caution in his argumentation. Whatever the case may be, there is little doubt that Soviet policy can be flexible and adaptive on nationality issues, as in other areas, if it chooses

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to be. This may well explain the fact that in the spring of 1981, Ukrainian television began airing a program entitled "The Living Word," which is devoted entirely to the Ukrainian language, and that in December of that year Kiev hosted a republican scientific-practical conference on "Ways of Improving the Effectiveness of Teaching and Learning the Ukrainian language in Light of the Decisions of the Twenty-sixth Congress of the CPSU." 170 Obviously, such palliatives do not alter the fundamental thrust or direction of the regime's language policy. Between 1959 and 1979, the proportion of Ukrainians in the USSR who declared Ukrainian to be their native language decreased from 87.7 percent to 82.8 percent. In Ukraine, the corresponding figures were 93.4 percent and 89.1 percent (see Table 4). These statistics speak for themselves. But do they tell the whole story? A look at the language profile of the city of Kiev shows that during the same twenty-year period the proportion of Kievans who declared Ukrainian to be their native language increased from 43.7 percent to 52.8 percent (see Table 5). The Ukrainian element in the national composition of the capital also grew: from 60.1 percent in 1959, to 64.8 percent in 1970, and reaching 68.7 percent in 1979. 1 7 1 The Soviet geographer Vadim Pokshishevskii has argued that in the USSR it is the cities more so than the countryside that have become the focal points of national culture and ethnic consciousness. 172 Another Soviet scholar maintains that the proportion of Russians in the cities of the non-Russian republics is the single most important factor determining linguistic processes with regard to the given republic's indigenous nationality as a whole. 1 7 3 Bearing this in mind, a long range perspective for the Ukrainian language (and nation) may appear in a different light. At the same time, it must be remembered that the Soviet system is such that linguistic processes can be seriously effected by staple administrative fiat. A case in point is the recent decision to publish a parallel Russian-language edition of Kiev's only evening newspaper, Vechirnii Κγτν.ιη* Clearly, ethno-linguistic trends in the Ukrainian capital do not justify such a move. Then again, perhaps these trends — from the standpoint of Soviet policymakers interested in accelerating the merger of nations — are precisely at the heart of the issue.

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Table 4. Percentage of Ukrainians Claiming Ukrainian as Their Native Language, 1959-1979

USSR Ukrainian SSR

1959

1970

1979

87.7 93.4

85.7 91.4

82.8 89.1

Sources: V.l. Naulko, Etnichnyi sklad naselermia Ukrams'koi RSR. Statystyko-kartohraflchne doslidzhennia (Kiev: Naukova Dumka, 1965), p. 115 ; V. I. Kozlov,Natsional'nosti SSSR, Etnodemograficheskii obzor, 2d rev. and enL ed. (Moscow: Finansy i Statistika, 1982), pp. 240-241; and Roman Solchanyk, "The Ukraine and Ukrainians in the USSR: Additional Data from the Soviet Census of 1979," Radio Liberty Research, 339/80, September 23,1980.

Table 5. Population of Kiev: Language Affiliation, Thousands and Percentages) 1959»

1959,1970,

1970

and 1979 (In

1979

Actual

Percentage

Actual

Percentage

Actual

Percentage

482.6 593.8

43.7 53.8

827.4 775.2

50.7 47.5

1,132.1 961.3

52.8 44.8

400.7 632.3

24.5 38.7

503.9 911.3

23.5 42.5

As Native Language: Ukrainian Russian As Second Language: Ukrainian Russian

-

*Data on knowledge of a second language were not collected for the 1959 census. Sources: Roman Solchanyk, "The Ukrainization of Kiev Continues: Partial Results of the 1979 Census," Radio Liberty Research, 68/80, February 15,1980.

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Roman Solchanyk

Notes 1. Joshua A. Fishman, Language and Nationalism: Two Integrative Essays (Rowley, Mass.: Newbuiy House Publishers, 1972), pp. 40 ff. 2. Walker Conner, "Nation-Building or Nation-Destroying?," World Politics, Vol. 24, No. 3 (April 1972), 337-338. 3. The language question in the Western Ukrainian territories in the period prior to their incorporation into the Ukrainian SSR (1939-1945) lies beyond the thematic framework of the essays in this volume. A general survey of the problem is presented in the appropriate sections of Ukraine: A Concise Encyclopaedia, 2 vols. (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1963 and 1971). See also Paul R. Magocsi, Ukrainian Heritage Notes: The Language Question in Galicia (Cambridge, Mass.: Ukrainian Studies Fund, 1978). 4. Mikh. Lemke, Epokha tsenzumykh reform 1859-1865 godov (St. Petersburg: Tipo-litografiia Gerol'd, 1904), p.303. 5. Ibid. 6. Ob otmene stesnenii malorusskago pechatnago slova (St. Petersburg: Imperatorskaia Akademiia Nauk, 1905), p. 8. For a discussion of censorship regulations affecting Ukrainian publications in the pre-1863 period, see Nik. Fabrikant (pseud.), "Kratkii ocherk iz istorii otnoshenii russkikh tsenzumykh zakonov k ukrainskoi literature," Russkaia mysV, Vol 26, No. 3 (March 1905), 128-129. 7. Basil Dmytryshyn, "Introduction," in Fedir Savchenko, Zaborona ukrainstva 1976 r., 2d ed., Harvard Series in Ukrainian Studies, Vol. 14 (Munich: Wilhelm Fink Verlag, 1970), p. xvi. This is a reprint of the 1930 edition published in Kharkiv-Kiev. 8. Serhii Iefremov, Istoriia ukrains'koho pys'menstva, 4th ed., Vol. 2 (Kiev-Leipzig: UkrainsTca Nakladnia, 1919), pp. 43-51; M. A. Zhovtobriukh, Mova ukrains'koi presy (Do seredyny dev"-ianostykh rokiv XIX st') (Kiev: Vydavnytstvo Akademii Nauk Ukrains'koi RSR, 1963), p. 238; Istoria ukrains'koi literatury, Vol. 3 (Kiev: Naukova Dumka, 1968); pp. 58-67, V. Dmytruk, Narys ζ istorii ukrains'koi zhurnalistyky XIX st. (L'viv: Vydavnytstvo L'vivs'koho Universytetu, 1969), pp. 49-68; Istoriia Ukrains'koi RSR, Vol. 3 (Kiev: Naukova Dumka, 1978), pp. 396397 and 528-530; and Knigovedenie. Entsiklopedicheskii slovar' (Moscow: Izdatel'stvo Sovetskaia Entsiklopediia, 1982), p. 546. 9. Istoriia Ukrains'koi RS, p. 503. 10. Sergei Efremov, "Vne zakona: Κ istorii tsenzury ν Rossii," Russkoe bogatstvo, Vol. 12, No. 1 (January 1905), 70. See also Istoriia Ukrains'koi RSR, pp. 503504. 11. P. Gurevich, " 'Délo o rasprostranenii malorossiiskoi propagandy'," Byloe, Vol. 2, No. 7 (July 1907), 169-175; V. Miiakovs'kyi, "Istoriia zaslannia P. Chubyns'koho," Arkhivna sprava, No. 4 (1927), 6-13; R. Serbyn, "La 'Société politigue secrete' de Kharkiv (Ukraine), 1856-1860," Communications historiques 1973 (Ottawa: La société historique du Canada, 1973),pp. 159-177;and G.I. Marakhov, Sotsial'no-politicheskaia bor'ba na Ukraine ν 50-60-e gody XIX veka (Kiev: Izdatel'stvo pri Kievskom Gosudarstvennom Universitete Izdatel'skogo Ob"edineniia Vyshcha Shkola, 1981), p. 136.

Language Politics in the Ukraine 12.

13. 14. 15.

16. 17.

18.

19.

20. 21.

22. 23.

24.

25.

97

See Chemyshevskii's articles "Novye periodicheskie izdaniia," "Natsional'naia bestaktnost'," and "Narodnaia bestolkovost'," all published in Sovremennik in 1861, and Pavlo Zhytets*kyi's response to Lamanskii, "Russkii patriotizm," published in Osnova in March 1862, in Khrestomatiia materialiv ζ istorii ukrains'koi literatury, Vol. 1 (Kiev: Derzhavne Uchbovo-Pedagogichne Vydavnytstvo Radians'ka Shkola, 1959), pp. 248-275 and 306-321. Quoted by Fabrikant, 132. Quoted by I. Ivan'o Ocherk razvitiia esteticheskoi mysli Ukrainy (Moscow: Isskustvo, 1981), p. 167. Elzbieta Hornowa, "Przesladowania ukrainskiej kultury przez rzad caiski za panowania Aleksandra II," Zeszyty Naukowe Wyzszej Szkoly Pedagogiczej im. Powstancow Sìaskich w Opole, Seria A, Filologia rosyjska, Vol. 9 (1972), 119121; V.l. Borysenko, Borot'ba demokratychnykh syl za narodnu osvitu na Ukraini ν 60-90-kh rokakh XIXst. (Kiev: Naukova Dumka, 1980), p. 19. See Vydumki "Kievlianirta" i pol'skikh gazet o malorusskom patriotizme (Kiev: V tipografii gazety Kievskii Telegraf, 1874). The most authoritative work on the Ems Ukaz remains that of Savchenko, cited in n. 7. See also Ivan KrevetsTcyi, " 'Ne bylo, net i byt' ne mozhet!'," literaturnonaukovyi vistnyk, Vol. 7, No. 26 (April-June 1904), 129-158 and No. 27 (JulySeptember 1904), 1-18, and Roman Solchanyk," Lex Jusephovicia: Ζ pryvodu 100-littia zaborony ukrainstva," Suchasnist', Vol. 16, No. 5 (May 1976), 36-68. Mykhailo Drahomanov, Po voprosu o malorusskoi literature (Vienna, 1876), in Literaturno-publitsystychni pratsi, Vol. 1 (Kiev, Vydavnytstvo Naukova Dumka, 1970), p. 352. For the text of the memorandum of the Governor-General of Kharkiv, Prince Aleksandr Dondukov-Korsakov, see [Ivan Franko], "Sukhyi pen'," Literaturnonaukovyi vistnyk, Vol. 8, No. 29 (Jauary-March 1905), 88-97. Ob otmene stesnenii, pp. 11-12. Spectator, "Z rosyis'koi Ukrainy," Literaturno-naukovy Vistnyk, Vol. 2, No. 8 (1899), and Mikh. Grushevskii, "Ukrainskii vopros," in Ukrainskii vopros: Stat'i (Moscow: Izdanie T-va Rodnaia Rech', 1917), pp. 18-19. Ob otmene stesnenii, pp. i-ii. Mykhailo Hrushevs'kyi, "Hanebnii pam"iati," in Rozstriliane vidrodzhennia: Antolohiia 1917-1933, comp. Iurii Lavrinenko (Paris: Instytut Literacki, 1959), p. 921. Hrushevs'kyi's article was first published in the Kiev journal Ukraina, 1926, No. 4, 46-51. The Academy of Sciences' report constitutes the bulk of the materials published in Ob otmene stesnenii. On the reports submitted by the commissions of Kiev and Kharkiv universities, see Jan Slavik, "Ruska viada a ukrajinske hunti pred svetovou valkou," Slovansky prehled, Vol. 22, No. 3 (March 1930), 212-219. I.F. [Ivan Franko], "Pershe vol'ne slovo na Ukraini," Literatumo-naukovyi vistnyk, Vol. 8, No. 32 (October-December 1905), 160, and S. Rusova, "Periodicheskaia ukrainskaia pressa," Kniga, No. 11 (January 18,1907), 1. Ievhen Chykalenko, the main organizer and financier of the Ukrainian press in Russia, provides a vivid account of Rada's beginnings in his Spohady (18611907), Vol. 3 (L'viv: Nakladom Vydavnychoi Spilky Dilo, 1926), pp. 74-126. See also Serhii Iefremov, "Vidhuky ζ zhyttia i pys'menstva," Literaturno-naukovy i

98

26. 27. 28.

29.

30. 31.

32. 33. 34. 35. 36. 37. 38. 39. 40. 41. 42.

Roman Solchanyk vistnyk, VoL 10, No. 38 (April-June 1907), 142-154. For the text of the petition, see [Ivan Franko], "Iz suchasnykh faktiv," Literaturno-naukovyi vistnyk, Vol. 8, No. 30 (April-June 1905), 68-70. For the text of the proposed legislation, see O. LototsTcyi, Storinky mynuloho, Vol. 3 (Warsaw: Wb-ainsTcyi Naukovyi Instytut, 1934), pp. 96-102. D. Doroshenko, "Ukraina ν 1906 rotsi," Ukraina, Vol. 1, No. 1 (January 1907), 22-23; F. MatushevsTcyi, "Z ukrainsTcoho zhyttia," Literaturno-naukovyi vistnyk, VoL 10, No. 40 (October-December 1907), 152-155; and Volodymyr Doroskenko, Ukrainstvo ν Rosii: Novisshi chasy (Vienna: Nakladora Soiuza Vyzvolennia Ukrainy, 1917), pp. 72-75. A characteristic view of officialdom's view of Ukrainian matters during this period is the June 23, 1916 police report "Zapiska ob ukrainskom dvizhenie za 19141916 gody s kratkim ocherkom istorii etogo dvizheniia, kak separatistko-revoliutsionnago techeniia sered naseleniia Malorossii," in Osyp Hermaize, "Materiialy do istorii ukrainsTcoho rukhu za svitovoi viiny," Ukrains'kyi arkheohraflchnyi zbimyk, Vol. 1 (Kiev: Ζ drukarni Ukrains'koi Akademii Nauk, 1926), pp. 274354. See Gosudarstvennaia Duma. Chetvertyi sozyv. Stenograficheskie otchety 1913 g. Sessiia pervaia. Chast'II (St. Petersburg: Gosudarstvennaia Tipografiia, 1913), pp. 1778-1792. For an original interpretation of the formulation of Lenin's ideas on nationalities policy, and especially the language question, see Isabelle Kreindler, "A Neglected Source of Lenin's Nationality Policy," Slavic Review, Vol. 36, No. 1 (March 1977), 86-100. M.M. Popov, Narys istorii Komunistychnoi partii (bil'shovykiv) Ukrainy, 2d ed. (Kharkiv: Vydavnytstvo Proletarii, 1929), pp. 120-121. Pavlo Khrystiuk, Zamitky i materiialy do istorii ukrains'koi revoliutsii. 1917-1920 rr., Vol. 2 (Vienna: Ukrains'kyi Sotsiologichnyi Instytut, 1921), pp. 149-150. V. Zatons'kyi, Natsional'na problema na Ukraini (Kharkiv: Dezhavne Vydaynytstvo Ukrainy, 1927), p. 79. James E. Mace, Communism and the Dilemmas of National Liberation: National Communism in Soviet Ukraine, 1918-1933, pp. 23-24 (manuscript to be published in the Harvard Ukrainian Research Institute's Monograph Series in 1983). Vos'moi s"ezd RKP(b) mart 1919 goda. Protokly (Moscow: Gosudarstvennoe Izdatel'stvo Politicheskoi Literatury, 1959), p. 81. Mace, p. 35. Quoted by Popov, p. 185. Pavlo Khrystiuk, Zamitky i materiialy do istorii ukrains'koi revoliutsii, Vol. 4 (Vienna: Ukrains'kyi Sotsiologichnyi Instytut, 1922), pp. 172-173. Quoted in I. Lakyza's introduction to Ostanni partiini dokumenty ζ natsional'noi polityky KP(b)U (Pro natsionalistychnyi ukhyl u KP[b]U t.t. Shums'koho i Maksymovycha) (Kharkiv: Derzhavne Vydavnytstvo Ukrainy, 1927), p. vii. Vos'maia konferentsiia RKP(b) dekabr' 1919 goda. Protokoly (Moscow: Gosudarstvennoe Izdatel'stvo Politicheskoi Literatury, 1961), pp. 189-190. See especially the speeches of Rakovskii, Bubnov, and Drobnis in Vos'maia konferentsiia RKP(bJ„pp. 95-104 and 109-111.

Language Politics in the Ukraine 43.

44.

45. 46. 47. 48. 49. 50.

51. 52.

53. 54.

55. 56.

57. 58. 59.

60. 61.

62. 63. 64.

99

For a delineation of the successive stages of Soviet language policy in Ukraine, see Iurii Sherekh (Iurii Shevel'ov), "Pryntsypy i etapy bol'shevytsTcoi movnoi polityky na Ukraini," Suchasna Ukraina (Munich), June 29, July 13, and July 27, 1952. Kul'turne budivnytstvo i> Ukrains'kii RSR. Vazhlyvishi rishennia Komunistychnoi partii i Radians'koho uriadu 1917-1959 rr. Zbirnyk dokumentiv, Vol. 1 (Kiev: Derzhavne Vydavnytstvo Politychnoi Literatury URSR, 1959), p. 31. Harold R. Weinstein, "Language and Education in the Soviet Ukraine," The Slavonic Year-Book (American Series, I), 1941, p. 129. Kul'turne budivnytstvo, p. 63. Ibid., pp. 71-72; Weinstein, p. 129. Quoted by Popov, p. 240. See V. SadovsTcyi, Natsional'na polityka sovitiv na Ukraini (Warsaw: Ukrains'kyi Naukovyi Instytut, 1937), p. 71, and Popov, p. 272. Komunistychna partila Ukrainy ν rezoliutsiiakh irisheniakh z"izdiv i konferentsii 1918-1956 (Kiev: Derzhavne Vydavnytstvo Politychnoi Literatury URSR, 1958), p. 126. Popov, p. 274. See E.F. Girchak, Na dva franta ν bor'be s natsionalizmom, 2d ed. (MoscowLeningrad: Gosudarstvennoe Sotsial'no-Ekonomicheskoe Izdatel'stvo, 1931), pp. 19-22, and Mykola Skrypnyk, Do teorii borot'by dvokh kul'tur, in Statti i promovy, Vol. 2, Pt. 1 (Kharkiv: Derzhavne Vydavnytstvo Ukrainy, 1929), pp. 97-119. Popov, p. 271. P.P. Bachyns'kyi, "Zdiisnennia lenins'koi natsional'noi polityky na Ukraini u vidbudovnyi period (1921-1925 rr.)," Ukrains'kyi istorychnyi zhurnal, 1966, No. 1, 102. Kul'turne budivnytstvo, pp. 239-242. Kul'turne budivnytstvo, pp. 242-247. The July 27 and August 1 legislation is analyzed in detail by V.N. Durdenevskii, Ravnopravie iazykov ν Sovetskom stroe (Moscow: Izdatel'stvo Rabotnik Prosveshcheniia, 1927), pp. 78-82. M. Vaisfligel', "Pro ukrainizatsiiu rad"aparatu," Visty VUTsVK, October 8,1924. Ibid. "Vseukrainskaia partiinaia konferentsiia," Pravda, May 16, 1924. Lebed's report to the conference revealed that only 30 percent of the Party membership considered itself to be Ukrainian. Ia. Riappo, "Pro ukrainizatsiiu shkoly," Visty VUTsVK, August 9,1924. By Comparison, in 1922 Ukrainian schools constituted over 50 percent of the total and mixed schools accounted for over 16 percent. See Iurii Shevel'ov, "Ukrainizatsiia: Radians'ka polityka 1925-1932 rokiv," Suchasnist', Vol. 23, No. 5 (May 1983), 43. "Postanovlenie plenuma TsK KP(b)U ob ukrainizatsii," Pravda, May 10, 1925; Kul'turne budivnytstvo, p. 283. The full text is reproduced in A. Khvylia, Natsional'nyi vopros na Ukraine (Kharkov: Gosudarstvennoe Izdatel'stvo Ukrainy, 1926), pp. 123-128. Tsentral'nyi Ispol'nitel'nyi Komitet 3 sozyva 2 sessiia. Stenograficheskii otchet

100

65. 66. 67. 68. 69. 70. 71. 72. 73.

74. 75. 76.

77. 79. 79. 80. 81. 82.

83. 84. 85.

86.

Roman Solchanyk (Moscow: Izdanie TsIK Souiza SSR, 1926), pp. 458-468. For a detailed discussion of Larin's role in KP(b)U politics, see Robert S. Sullivant, Soviet Politics in the Ukraine, 1917-1957 (New York and London: Columbia University Press, 1962), pp. 139-145. Grichak, pp. 38-48; Popov, p. 291. Shevel'ov, 37 ff. Budivnytstvo Radians'koi Ukrainy. Zbirnyk, Vyp. 1: Za lenins'ku natsional'nu polityku (Kharkiv: Derzhavne Vydavnytstvo Ukrainy, [1929]), p. 61. Shevel'ov, 42-43. Budivnytstvo Radians'koi Ukrainy, p. 61. The full text is reproduced in Durdenevskii, pp. 145-154. Weinstein, 132. And. Richyts'kyi, Natsional'ne pytannia doby nastupu sotsiializmu svitli nastanov XVI z"izdu VKP(b) (Kharkiv: Partvydav Proletar, 1931), p. 17. On the discussions leading to the adoption of a standard orthography, see Oleksa Syniavs'kyi, "Korotka istorila 'Ukrains'koho pravopysu'," Suchasnist', Vol. 22, No. 1-2 (January-February 1982), 98-116. The article is reprinted fromKul'tura ukrains'kohoo slova, Vyp. 1 (Kharkiv-Kiev: Derzhavne Vydavnytstvo Literatura i Mystetstvo, 1931,pp. 93-112). Mace, pp. 390-395. P.P. Postyshev, V borot'bi za lenins'ko-stalins'ku natsional'nu polityku partii (Kiev: Partvydav TsK KP[b] U, 1935), p. 19. For the text of the resolution, see S. Kossior and P. Postyschew, Der bolschewistische Sieg in der Ukraine. Reden auf dem Vereinigten Plenum des ZK under der ZKK der Kommunistischen Partei Der Ukraine (Bolschewiki) im November 1933 (Moscow-Leningard: Verlagsgenossenschaft auslasendischer Arbeiter in der UdSSR, 1934), pp. 153-173. The standard work on language politics in Ukraine in the 1930s remains Roman Smal'-Stots'kyi's, Ukrains'ka mova ν Sovets'kii Ukraini (Warsaw: Ukrains'kyi Naukovyi Instytut, 1936). Kul'turne budivnytstvo, pp. 740-744. Quoted by Ivan Maistrenko, Istorila Komunistychnoi partii Ukrainy (Munich: Suchasnist', 1979), p. 160. Richyts'kyi, pp. 33-34. Postyshev, p. 104. Weinstein, 141-142. This bizarre "duality" of the Stalinist period is emphasized by Isabelle Kreindler, "The Changing Status of Russian in the Soviet Union," International Journal of the Sociology of Language, No. 33 (1982), 10-13. Yaroslav Bilinsky, The Second Soviet Republic: The Ukraine after World War II (New Brunswick, N. J.: Rutgers University Press, 1964), p. 18. V. Nuzhnyi, "O nashei progagande," Pravda Ukrainy, February 6,1958. Anton Khyzhniak, "Liubimo, shanuimo ridnu movu!," Literatuma hazeta May 20, 1958. For readers' responses to this article, see "Ridna mova-nashe bahatstvo," Literatuma hazeta, July 15, 1958. P.P. Pliushch, "Nevidkladni pytannia rozvytku ukrains'koi movy," Literatuma hazeta, September 26, 1958.

Language Politics in the Ukraine 87.

88. 89. 90. 91. 92. 93. 94.

95. 96. 97. 98.

99. 100. 101. 102. 103.

101

See Yaroslav Bilinsky, "The Soviet Education Laws of 1958-9 and Soviet Nationality Policy," Soviet Studies, Vol. 14, No. 2 (October 1962), 138-157, and Vernon V. Aspaturian, "The Non-Russian Nationalities," in Prospects for Soviet Society, ed. Allen Kassof (New York-Washington-London: Frederick A. Praeger, 1958), pp. 168-173. Bilinsky, The Second Soviet Republic, pp. 30-31. See also M. Syvits'kyi, "Problema movy ν shkolakh Ukrainy," Nash e slovo (Warsaw), January 25,1959. "Vykhovuvaty liudei komunistychnoho zavtra," Literaturna haze ta, December 19,1958. See Literaturna haze ta for March 11,13, and 17,1959. Zasedaniia Verkhovnogo Soveta Ukrainskoi SSR (Piatogo sozyvaj (Pervaia sessiia) (15-17 aprelia 1959 godal): Stenograficheskii otchet (Kiev: Gosudarstvennoe Izdatel'stvo Politicheskoi Literatury USSR, 1959), p. 28. S. Chervonenko, "Tisnyi zv"iazok ζ zhyttiam - neodminna umova uspikhu ideolohichnoi roboty," Kommuist Ukrainy, 1959, No. 7, 38. Kolasky, pp. 50-51. It is interesting to note that in the spring of 1967 Minister of Education Petro Udovychenko assured a visiting delegation of the Communist Party of Canada that "whereas Ukrainians constituted 77 percent of the population, 82 percent of all the pupils attending school are enrolled in schools in which all tuition is in the Ukrainian language." See "Report of Delegation to Ukraine," Viewpoint (Toronto), Vol. 5, No. 1 (January 1968), 3. The figure of 82 percent surely refers to schools, not pupils. "Sovershenstvovat' prepodavanie russkogo iazyka vo vsekh natsional'nykh shkolakh strany," Narodnoe obrazovanie, 1974, No. 3, 9. XXII s"ezd Kommunisticheskoi partii Sovetskogo Soiuza. 17-31 oktaïbria 1961 goda. Stenograficheskii otchet, Vol. 1 (Moscow: Gosudarstvennoe Izdatel'stvo Politicheskoi Literatury, 1962), p. 217. Programma Kommunisticheskoi partii Sovetskogo Soiuza. Priniata XXIIs"ezdom KPSS (Moscow: Izdatel'stvo Politicheskoi Literatury, 1974), pp. 115-116. See Borys Lewickyj (Lewytzkyj), Polityka narodowosciowa Z.S.A.R. w dobie Chruszczowa (Paris: Instytut Literacki, 1966), pp. 138 ff., and Jacob Ornstein, "Soviet Language Policy: Continuity and change," in Ethnic Minorities in the Soviet Union, ed. Erich Goldhagen (New York: Frederick A. Praeger, 1968), pp. 132-133. Bilinsky, The Second Soviet Republic, pp. 32-34; Kenneth C. Farmer Ukrainian Nationalism in the Post-Stalin Era: Myth, Symbols and Ideology in Soviet Nationalities Policy (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff Publishers, 1980), pp. 133ff. See M.T. Shch[yrba], "Natsional'ni ta internatsional'na kul'tura: Pravyl'ni i putani pohliady," Nasha kul'tura (Warsaw), 1962, No. 3,4-5. I.K. Beloded, Russkii iazyk - iazyk mezhnatsioml'nogo Obshcheniia narodov SSSR (Kiev: Izdatel'stvo Akademii Nauk Ukrainskoi SSR, 1962), pp. 17-18. For a vivid description of Bilodid's reputation among Ukrainian intellectuals, see John Kolasky, Two Years in Soviet Ukraine (Toronto: Peter Martin Associates Limited, 1970), pp. 66-70. "XXII s"ezd KPPSS i zadachi izucheniia zakonomernostei razvitiia sovremennykh

102

104. 105. 106. 107. 108.

109. 110. 111. 112. 113. 114. 115.

116. 117. 118. 119. 120. 121. 122. 123.

Roman Solchanyk natsional'nykh iazykov Sovetskogo Soiuza," Voprosy iazykozanaiia, 1962, No. 1, 3-9. V z"izdpys'mennykiv Radians'koi Ukrainy 16-19 lystopada 1966roku. Materialy z"izdu (Kiev: RadiansTcyi Pys'mennyk, 1967), pp. 226-227. Cited by M.I. Kulichenko, "Razrabotka problemy istoricheskoi obshchnosti ν sovetskoi istoriografli," in Osnovnye napravleniia izucheniia natsional'nykh otnoshenii ν SSSR (Moscow: Nauka, 1979), pp. 44-45. A.A. Isupov, Natsional'nyi sostav naseleniia SSSR (po itogam perepisi 1959 g.) (Moscow: Statistika, 1964), p. 9. "Vsi syly tvoichosti - budivnytstvu komunizmu," Literaturna ha zeta, January 16, 1962. D. Porkhun, "Dolia ridnoi movy," Nasha kul'tura (Warsaw), 1963, No. 3, 5-6. This article appears in Russian translation in Natsional'nyi voprosvSSSR: Sbomik dokumentov, comp. Roman Kupchinsky (Munich: Suchasnist', 1975), pp. 26-28. For related documentation, see the correspondence between Vasyl' Lobko, a participant of the conference, and Ryl's'kyi in Suchasnist', Vol. 10, No. 2 (February 1970), 81-109. Arkhiv Samizdata (Munich), No. 4650, p. 9. The literature on the Shelest period is quite extensive. For a balanced judgement, see Borys LevytsTcyi (Lewytzkyj), "Petro Shelest ν Ukraini persona non grata," Ukrains'kyi samostiinyk (Munich), Vol. 23, No. 6 (June 1972), 13-19. For details, see V. Chornovil, "Iak i shcho obstoiuie Bohdan Stenchuk (66 zapytan' i zauvah 'internatsionalistovi')," in Ukrains'kyi visnyk, Vypusk 6 (ParisBaltimore: P.I.U.F. and Smoloskyp, 1972), pp. 24-30. "Borot'ba za ridnu movu na Ukraini," Suchasnist', Vol. 8, No. 9 (September 1968), 73-75. Ibid.,75-76. "Zvernennia do kommunistiv us'oho svitu," Suchasnist', Vol. 9, No. 12 (December 1969), 92-98. Reproduced in The Chornovil Papers, comp. Vyacheslav Chornovil (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1968), pp. 170-174. See also Karavans'kyi's essary "About One Political Error" regarding the 1959 school reform in Ukraine in ibid., pp. 174180. Ivan Dzyuba, Internationalism or Russification? A Study in the Soviet Nationalities Problem (London: Weidenfeld and Nicholson, 1968), p. 191. Ibid., p. 159. "Natsional'nyi vopros ν SSSR," Politicheskii dnevnik, No. 9 (Iiun' 1965) in Politicheskii dnevnik 1964-1970 (Amsterdam: Fond imeni Gertsena, 1972), pp. 90-91. "Report of Delegation to Ukraine," 1. Ibid., 10. Ibid., 2. Ibid., 11. See John Weir, "On the Delegation to the Ukraine," Viewpoint (Toronto), Vol. 5 No. 4 (November 1968), 20-22; "To the Central Executive Committee of the Communist Party of Canada and to Members of the Delegation from the CP of

Language Politics in the Ukraine

124. 125. 126.

127. 128. 129. 130.

131. 132. 133. 134. 135. 136. 137. 138. 139.

103

Canada Who Visited the Ukraine in Maich-April 1967" Communist Viewpoint (Toronto), Vol. 1, No. 4 (September-October 1969), 57-61; and Ferment in the Ukraine, ed. Michael Browne (London: Macmillian, 1971), pp. 214-215. Kolasky, Education in Soviet Ukraine, p. xii. 0. Dzeverin, O. Savchenko, and V. Smal, Public Education in Soviet Ukraine: Actual Facts vs. Nationalistic Fabrications (Kiev: Association for Cultural Relations with Ukrainians Abroad, 1969). Cited by Jaroslaw Pelenski, "Shelest and His Period in Soviet Ukraine (19631972): A Revival of Controlled Ukrainian Autonomism," in Ukraine in the Seventies, ed. Peter J. Potichnyj (Oakville, Ont.: Mosaic Press, 1975), p. 290. Roman Szporluk notes that soon thereafter a special publishing house was established to issue both Ukrainian and Russian textbooks. See his "The Ukraine and the Ukrainians," in Handbook of Major Soviet Nationalities, ed. Zev Katz (New York: The Free Press, 1975), p. 45. XXIV z"izd Komunistychnoi partili Ukrainy. 17-20 bereznia 1971 roku. Stenohrafichnyi zvit (Kiev: Vydavnytstvo Politychnoi Literatury Ukrainy, 1972), pp. 56 and 148. Literatuma Ukraina, May 23 and 25,1971. Literatuma Ukraina, May 20,1971. Borys Antonenko-Davydovych, "Litera, za iakoiu tuzhat'," Literatuma Ukraina, November 4, 1969; V. RusanivsTcyi, "Za chym turzhyty?," literatuma Ukraina, November 28, 1969; and "Dyskusiia navkolo statti Borysa Antonenko-Davydovycha 'Litera, za iakoiu tuzhat'," in Ukrains'kyi visnyk, Vypusk 3 (Winnipeg and Baltimore: "The New Pathway" and Smoloskyp, 1971), pp. 92-94. Hryhorii Kolesnyk, "Chy zh tak my hovorymo?," Literatuma Ukraina, January 29, 1971, and A. Kuznetsov, "V arsenalakh slova," Voprosy literatury, 1971, No. 5, 224-225. I.K. Beloded, " 'Vsiak suschii ν nei iazyk'," Vestnik Akademii nauk SSSR, 1978, No. 6,96. F.P. Filin, "Natsilla i mova," in V.l. Lenin i rozvytok natsional'nykh mov (Kiev: Naukova Dumka, 1971), p. 20. See Roman Solchanyk, "Politics and the National Question in the Post-Shelest Reriod," in Ukraine after Shelest, ed. Bohdan Krawchenko (Edmonton: Canadian Institute of Ukrainian Studies, 1983), pp. 1-29. Ukrains'kyi visnyk, Vypusk 6, p. 26. Radians'ka Ukraina, April 20; 1973; "Zavzhdy ζ partiieiu, zavzhdy ζ narodom," Literatuma Ukraina, November 2, 1973. See also V. Iu. Malanchuk, "Ideini dzherela literatury," Vitchyzna, 1973, No. 12,1-16. Ukrains'kyi visnyk, Vypusk 7-8 (Paris-Baltimore-Toronto: Smoloskyp and P.I.U. F., 1975), p. 121. Letopis' periodicheskikh i prodolzhaiushchikhsia izdanii 1971-1975. Pt. 2: Gazety (Moscow: Kniga, 1981), p. 226. I am grateful to Professor Roman Szporluk for calling this to my attention. V.l. Masal'skii, "Razvitie metodiki prepodavaniia russkogo iazyka ν obshcheobrazovatel'noi shkole ν Ukrainskoi SSR," Russkii iazyk i literatura ν shkolakh USSR (hereater cited as RIaL), 1977, No. 2, 24, and Beloded, Vestnik Akademii nauk SSSR, 97.

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140. A.M. Bogush, Obuchenie russkomu iazyku ν detskom sadu (Kiev: Radianslca Shkola, 1983), p. 7. 141. "Respublikanskaia nauchno-prakticheskaia konferentsiia 'Putì povysheniia effektivnosti izucheniia russkogo iazyka ν shkolakh Ukrainskoi SSR ν svete reshenii XXV s"ezda KPSS'," RIaL, 1977, No. 1, 7. 142. Ibid., 29. 143. V.E. Malanchuk, "Opyt raboty partiinykh organizatsii po internatsionarnomu vospitaniiu trudìashchikhsia," in Partila ν period razvitogo sotsialisticheskogo obshchestva. Materialy Vsesoiuznoi nauchno-teoreticheskoi konfererttsii "XXV s"ezd KPSS i razyitie marksistsko-leninskoi teorii." Moskva. 4-6 oktiabria 1976 goda (Moscow: Izdatel'stvo Politicheskoi Literatury, 1977), p. 93. 144. L.E. Ivashen', "Respublikanskii seminar metodistovslovesnikov." RIaL, 1978, No. 1, 95-96. 145. See Yaroslav Bilinsky, "Expanding the Use of Russian or Russification?," Russian Review, Vol. 40, No. 3 (July 1981), 317-332, and Roman Solchanyk, "Russian Language and Soviet Politics," Soviet Studies, Vo. 34, No. (January 1982), 23-42. 146. The text of the reslution has not been published in the press. An outline of its contents was first made available to the public in "Udoskonaliuvaty vyvchennia i vykladannia rosiis'koi movy ν zahal'noosvitnykh shkolakh i pedagogichnykh navchal'nykh zakladakh respubliky," Radians'ka osvita, November 11, 1978. For the date of its adoption, see "Prohrama ζ rosiis'koi movy dlia 1 klasy zahal'noosvitnykh shkil ζ ukiainsTcoiu movoiu navchannia," Pochatkova shkola, 1980, No. 2, 75, and "Z pozitsii sovermennykh trebovanii," RIaL, 1982, No. 1,8. 147. L.N. Karpova, "Na povestke dnia - obuchenie russkomu iazyku i literature ν sel'skoi obshcheobrazovatel'noi shkole," RIaL, 1979, Np. 2, 78. 148. Pochatkova shkola, 1980, No. 2, 75-76. 149. "Mova braterstva i druzhby," Radians'ka osvita, October 17,1981. 150. Ukrains 'kyi visnyk, Vypusk 7-8, p. 75. 151. Arkhiv Samizdata (Munich), No. 2307, p. 4. 152. Khronika tekushchikh sobytii, Vypusk 45 (New York: Izdatel'stvo Khronika, 1977), p. 35. 153. Arkhiv Samizdata (Munich), No. 3646, pp. 1-5. 154. Arkhiv Samizdata (Munich), No. 3230, p. 1. 155. See The Human Rights Movement in Ukraine: Documents of the Ukrainian Helsinki Group 1976-1980, ed. Lesya Verba and Bohdan 1980), and Iurii Badz'o, Vidkrytyi lyst do Prezydii Verkhovnoi Rady Soiuzu RSR ta Tsentral'noho Komitetu KPRS (New York: Vydannia Zakordonnoho predstavnytstva Ukrains'koi hromads'koi hrupy spryiannia vykonanniu Helsinks'kykh uhod, 1980). Badz'o's essay, probably written in the spring of 1979, is available in German translation as Protest aus Kiew gegen Menschenrechtsverletzungen: Ein sowjetischer Wissenschaftler berichtet (Munich: Gesellschaft zu Förderung der Ukrainischen Helsinkigruppe, 1981). 156. VII z"izd pys'mennykiv Radians'koi Ukrainy 14-16 kvitnia 1976 roku. Materialy z"izdu (Kiev: Radians'kyi Pys'mennyk, 1977), p. 88. 158. Oles' Honchar, "Tsvit narodnoho slova," Kul'tura slova, Vypusk 12 (1977), 13-20.

Language Politics in the Ukraine 159.

105

Pavlo Zahrebel'nyi, "Obrii romanu," Radians'ke literaturoznavstvo, 1978, No. 7, 26.

160.

161. 162. 163. 164. 165. 166. 167.

168. 169.

170. 171.

172.

173. 174.

See "Stan i perspektyvy leksykohrafichnykh doslidzhen' ν Akademii nauk URSR," Visnyk Akademii nauk Ukrains'koi RSR, 1978, No. 10, 5-6, and "Pro diial'nist Instytutu movoznavstva imeni O. O. Potebni," Visnyk Akademii nauk Ukrains'koi RSR, 1979, No. 4, 6-8. "Zahal'ni zbory Akademii nauk Ukrains'koi RSR," Visnyk Akademii nauk Ukrains'koi RSR, 1979, No. 7, 29. M.V. Fomenko, "Sovershenstvovat' izuchenie i ptepodavanie russkogo iazyka i literatury," Rial, 1979, No. 3, 4. See Roman Solchanyk, "Andropov Tries an Old Plan to Unify His Many Nations," The Wall Street Journal, June 7, 1983. "V Politbiuro TsK KPSS," Pravda, May, 27,1983. lu. Vasil'ev, "V pervyi raζ vo vsekh klassakh," Trud, August 12,1983. "Vsegda s partiel, vsegda s narodom," Literatumaia gazeta, December 8,1982. Radians'ka Ukraina, March 26,1983. These criticisms were repeated by Zahrebel'nyi at an enlarged session of the Presidium of the Board of the Ukrainian Writers' Union held in July. See "Dovir"ia partii zobov"iazuie," Literaturna Ukraina, July 14, 1983. For Details, see Roman Solchanyk, "USSR's Great Language Debate," Soviet Analyst, Vo. 11, Nos. 24 and 25 (December 8 and 22,1982), 7-8 and 4-7, respectively. A.S. Kapto, "Problemy aktualizatsii internatsional'nogo i patrioticheskogo vospitaniia ν usloviiakh obostrivsheisia ideologicheskoi bor'by," in Vospityvat' ubezhdennykh patriotov-internatsionalistov (Moscow: Izdatel'stvo Politicheskoi Literatury, 1982), p. 66. The conference materials were published in issues four through seven of Ukrains'ka mova i literatura ν shkoli for 1982. On the television series, see Oles' Lupii, "Barvy 'Zhyvoho slova'," Literaturna Ukraina, December 4,1981. Solchanyk, Radio Liberty Research, 68/80. This data is taken from the report of the Statistical Administration of Kiev published in Prapor komunizmu, January 10, 1980. Parts of that data were later published in P.T. TronTco, Kiev sotsialisticheskii (Kiev: Naukova Dumka, 1982), p. 93, and G.P. Izhakevich, "Moguchee sredstvo edineniia narodov Sovetskogo Soiuza," RIaL, 1982, No. 4, 7. See Szporluk, Handbook of Major Soviet Nationalities, p. 42. See also his "Kiev as the Ukraine's Primate City," in Eucharisterion: Essays Presented to Omeljan Pritsak on His Sixtieth Birthday by His Colleagues and Students, ed. Ihor Sevcenko and Frank E. Sysyn, Vol. 3/4, Pt. 2 (1979-1980) of Harvard Ukrainian Studies, 843-849, and "Urbanization in Ukraine since the Second World War," in Rethinking Ukrainian History, ed. Ivan L. Rudnytsky (Edmonton: Canadian Institute of Ukrainian Studies, 1981), pp. 180-202. la. Z. Garipov and A.A. Susokolov, "Pervaia Vsesoiuznaia shkola-seminar po etnosotsiologicheskim problemam," Sovetskaia etnograflia, 1979, No. 4, 214. " 'Vechirnii Kyiv' maie rosiisTcoho 'dviinyka'," Svoboda (Jersey City, N.J.), August 10,1983.

PART TWO

LANGUAGES OF THE CAUCASUS AND CRIMEA

EDWARD LAZZERINI

Crimean Tatar: The Fate of a Severed Tongue

"Everyone knows what happens to a man without a language; there is no need to explain. If it is bad for a man, it is the same for a nation." 1 Ismail Bay Gaspraly

Introduction Writing in Russia during the final decade of the tsarist regime, the Crimean Tatar reformer, Ismail Bey Gaspraly, may be excused for failing to foresee the tragic irony in the words forming this chapter's epigram that we, with the advantage of hindsight, can appreciate so readily. After all, who could imagine the success which Stalin's government would enjoy when it assaulted the entire Crimean Tatar population one May morning in 1944 and transported a nation of 250,000 men, women, and children by cattle truck and then sealed boxcar into the insufferably hot, barren depths of Central Asia? How could any man anticipate not just the physical and material tragedy that deportation would mean for the Tatars, 2 but also the cultural tragedy that would follow in its wake? Not only were these people involuntarily displaced, forced to leave behind most of their worldly possessions, and virtually abandoned to the elements, but they were also condemned to a slow cultural death. Dispersed within the Uzbek SSR, denied schools to teach and preserve their native language, a press to publish their literature, and scholarly bodies to support study of their history and culture, the Crimean Tatars became a lost people and their language (for a second time) a severed tongue. 3 Only through a remarkable, dogged, and dangerous effort involving mass petitions and public demonstrations that began in 1957 have the Crimean Tatars drawn

110 Edward Lazzerini attention to their plight, wrung certain cultural concessions from the Soviet authorities, and launched the difficult process of reviving their language and reclaiming their history. The events and developments of the past forty years, however, reflect only some of the experience affecting the Crimean Tatar language under the impact of Soviet domination. In the pages that follow, after surveying the evolution of the language before 1917, I shall focus on the pre- as well as post- 1944 periods to analyze Soviet linguistic policy in the Crimean Tatar context, the effects of its implementation, and the response of the native users.

Origins and History to 1917 The early history of the Crimean Tatars and their linguistic development is naturally complex, but clearly it was influenced fundamentally by migrations of various Turkic-speaking peoples into the Crimean peninsula between the twelfth and sixteenth centuries. In the aftermath of the Mongol conquest of the region in 1241, the first wave of such migrants, commonly called Tatars, arrived to settle the area north of the mountains stretching east to west and rising from the southern shore. The Golden Horde continued to provide settlers for the next two hundred years, including several major clans — the Giray, Shirin, Barin, Mansur, Argin, Sedzhevut, and Yashlav — who would form the upper class of the emerging Crimean Khanate. 4 These Tatars were linguistically a part of what is termed the Kipchak branch of the Turkic family. They would eventually give their name to the common culture and language that gradually developed from the fifteenth century onward, although to this Kipchak root were grafted other elements during that process. Some of these elements were of limited though significant influence, affecting the lexicon primarily and providing the literary language with an unusual array of synonyms. 5 In such a manner was Nogai important. As a semi-nomadic eastern Kipchak people who settled eventually in the northeast of the peninsula, the Nogays enriched Tatar vocabulary with respect to natural objects, the concerns of daily life, and certain forms of economic activity. 6 Likewise, Arabic and Persian, as the linguistic transmitters of Islamic religion and culture, served to broaden Tatar, especially in those areas reflecting high culture. Ultimately, however, the language that contributed most not only to the Tatar lexicon but to Tatar phonetics as well as literary style and form was Anatolian (Ottoman) Turkish, which belonged to the

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Oghuz branch of the Turkic family.7 In the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries Ottoman Turks settled the southern shore of the Crimea as part of an imperial effort to control the northern littoral of the Black Sea. As a result, not only did Istanbul exert a political influence on the Khanate, but through that influence also provided a linguistic ideal toward which the Tatar literati seem to have strived. Still, the impact of Ottoman on the evolution of Crimean Tatar continues to defy easy assessment. The extreme paucity of belles-lettres from the crucial fifteenth to eighteenth centuries explains much of the difficulty, and this fact has forced students of Tatar language and culture to rely almost solely upon official documents (mainly international correspondence) that escaped destruction of the Khanate in 1783. 8 Based upon these records, the scholarly consensus recognizes a mixing of Kipchak and Oghuz elements, although the balance of the mix appears to vary according to data and to the destination of the document. Thus, on the one hand, the passage of time shows a clear trend away from the use of Kipchak Turkic to what a team of French scholars calls "osmanli fortement qipcaquisé," and finally to Ottoman pure and simple.9 On the other hand, those documents addressed to Ottoman or Transylvanian princes are much more Oghuz-influenced in their vocabulary than are those addressed to Russian princes, in which Kipchak elements predominate. 10 Whatever the exact character of the written language by the mid-eighteenth century, further ottomanization was likely so long as the Khanate remained autonomous or within the sphere of Ottoman political influence. With the Khanate's destruction at Russian hands and the annexation of the region to the empire in 1783, however, the political link between Tatars and Anatolian Turks was broken. Culturally matters might not have changed as drastically as they quickly did had the Tatar elite (both secular and religious) not abandoned its native milieu by emigrating in large numbers or by assimilating into Russian society. The loss of most of the educated class and of the patronage that traditionally supported cultural activity and schooling was for Tatar society calamitous. How much so is attested by the literary, educational, and intellectual stagnancy that epitomizes the decades from 1783 to the early 1880s. 11 To my knowledge there simply is no evidence of the cultural application of a Tatar written language during that century in the Crimea. The Tatar tongue, in its most articulate forms, had been severed. Language and literature, of course, survived in the vernacular. But dialectal differences continued to divide the region and its native inhabitants. For this, the evidence from folk songs is revealing.12 Those recorded near Bak-

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hchisarai were akin to Kipchak phonetically and morphologically, while those collected further south near the village of Tuvak reflected a fundamental Oghuz character. In fact, as more recent linguists have pointed out, the dialectal map of the Crimea was even more complex. For example, the Soviet specialist, E.V. Sevortian, identifies three major dialects (northern, or steppe; central; and southern) at the borders of which one could find other dialects or sub-dialects; while the German scholar, Gerhard Doerfer, distinguishes between Crimean Nogay, Crimean Tatar, and Central Crimean Turkish (which itself breaks down into three sub-dialects, but serves as the link between Crimean Ottoman and Tatar). 1 3 Such linguistic realities, coupled with the socio-economic and demographic decline of Tatar society, left little optimism about the future of the language and its users. In the midst of the cultural depression affecting the Tatar community in the nineteenth century, Ismail Bey Gaspraly addressed the language issue as part of a broader effort to reform and renew not only his native Crimean society but that of all Turco-Muslim peoples as well. 14 Like colleagues in other parts of the Russian Empire (Abdulqayyum Nasyri among the Volga Tatars or Hasan Bey Melikov Zardabi among the Azerbaidzhanis) and in the Ottoman Empire (Shemseddin Sami, Ahmed Midhat, and Mehmed Emin), Gaspraly recognized resolution of the "Language question" (lisan meselesi) as a precondition of improvement in other social areas. Without the adaptation of language to current realities, the modern needs of society would not be met. The destiny of the Turkic-speaking world, in sum, depended in large measure upon establishing a vehicle of written communication that was accessible to all with a modicum of training. Achievement of this goal became one of Gaspraly's life-long pursuits; like others, he envisioned the need for reform in two major areas. 15 First, Gaspraly sought to define the "pure" Turkic lexicon of his native tongue and simplify its syntax by focusing attention on the vernacular (in particular, the ottomanized form of Tatar spoken in the interstices between central and southern Crimea, where he was reared) and on folk literature. 16 Shorn of foreign borrowings (especially Arabic and Persian), of "bizarre jargon" and "bookishness," 17 the new language would prove more comprehensible to even the semi-literate, or, as he more dramatically stated it, to "the porters and boatmen of Istanbul,... [as well as] the Turkic camel drivers and shepherds of the interior of China." 1 8 His interest in purification, however, was neither complete nor excessively romantic, as witnessed by his persistent use of Russian and russianized words from other European languages whenever natural Turkic equivalents were unavailable.

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Second, to accompany these changes Gaspraly advocated modification of the Arabic script to include use of vowel designators and diacritical marks, as well as elimination of redundant letters. Furthermore, he introduced punctuation. 19 Together, these moderate alterations were expected to overcome widely-perceived limitations to the Arabic script itself and difficulties associated with its adaptation to the Turkic languages. In short, such changes would enhance the prospect of universal Turkic, let alone Crimean Tatar, literacy. Gaspraly's efforts in this area were always complicated by two factors: his interest in going beyond the revival and "modernization" of the separate Turkic tongues to create a pan-Turkic literary language, and his decision to base his linguistic reforms excessively on Oghuz (some argued, Istanbuli) elements. From the beginning his espousal of such policies aroused considerable protest, especially from outside the Crimea. As the nineteenth century waned and the turbulent events of 1904-1906 unleashed forces of protest and created new opportunities for expression of budding ethnic consciousness among various Turkic groups, Gaspraly's ideas faced ever greater challenges. "Linguistic particularism" found growing numbers of adherents and rapidly overshadowed the notion of a pan-Turkic literary language.20 When Gaspraly would call for "bringing about language unity" (lisany birleshtirmek), the Kazan Tatar poet Abdullah Tukay, for example, asked: "Do you receive the newspaper Terctiman [Gaspralys's newspaper] ? Do you find even one Tatar word in it.?" 2 1 When Gaspraly insisted on the need for a common Turkic literary language, the same Tukay sarcastically retorted: "We were Tatars and have remained Tatars. The Turks are in Istanbul, but we are here." 22 And so it went from 1906 to 1917: what had begun as a discussion over the literary language was transformed into a major controversy over ethnic identity. The question, "In what language should I speak and write," was broadened to "Who am I?", and "Am I a Turk or a Tatar?" 23 Despite Gaspraly's popularity and extraordinary influence in his home area, the disputes that raged along the Volga, in the Caucasus, and even in Central Asia did not pass the Crimea by. Younger Tatar intellectuals and students both in Russia and in the Ottoman Empire found Gaspraly's moderate position vis-à-vis the tsarist regime, his failure to denounce the despotism of the Ottoman sultan, and especially his pan-Turkic schemes to be unimaginative, untenable, and unsuited to the needs of the Crimea's indigenous people. The nationalism of the new generation, in large measure spawned and nurtured by Gaspraly himself, proved more radical, more narrowly focused, more romantic and emotional, and less given to compromise than

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that embraced by Ismail Bey. And after decades of trying to create a literary language to serve local and pan-Turkic needs, Gaspraly found himself thwarted by those whose hopes for the Crimea far outweighed their concern for Turkic brethren in other regions and lands. 24 Thus, the call for a true Crimean Tatar literary language, less tied to the Oghuz branch and reflecting a broader commitment to tatarchylyk ("Tatarness") once again left the language problem unsettled. 25 It would remain so until after the October Revolution.

The First Soviet Period, 1917-1944 For two decades after the October Revolution, the experiences of the Crimean Tatars followed in general outline those of other minorities scattered throughout the USSR. Lenin's promise of national (ethnic) self-determination and of respect for minority rights encouraged many Tatars who supported the Bolshevik cause (or, at least, the revolution) to pursure significant cultural and political autonomy for their local society within some federalist Soviet arrangement. During the 1920s and early 1930s, when the Kremlin's policy was one of korenizatsiia (nativization) within minority regions, such goals seemed all the more attainable. Visible successes in the cultural/social arenas both reflected the period's trend and held out great promise for the future. Thus, under the leadership of local nationalists/communists like Veli Ibrahimov, the Crimea was subjected to policies designed to promote "tatarization" despite the decided numerical inferiority of Tatars (179,094 in 1926) to other ethnic groups inhabiting the peninsula (706,757). 26 As a result of the brief coincidence of korenizatsiia with Tatar ethnic aspirations, a new infrastructure of schools, scientific institutions, libraries, museums, theaters, and publishing houses was created that was very much Tatar in content, if not in form. From all of this emerged a new Tatar intelligentsia and a vigorous assertion of Tatar culture. As is well known, Stalin's rise to political preeminence produced significant policy shifts affecting virtually every area of Soviet life from the late 1920s onward. Among minorities a relentless and often deadly campaign against "nationalist deviations" culminated not only in the physical liquidation of countless persons but also in the abandonment of korenizatsiia and the suppression of the last remnants of real cultural autonomy. Internationalism and its contradictory but attendant Great Russian chauvinism that came to define the parameters of dicussion concerning the "nationality problem"

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under Stalin's guidance were themselves reflections of the triumph of political and econimic centralization that would ultimately limit to forms alone the significance of cultural particularims among ethnic groups. As the Kremlin leaders brought the power of the central government to bear upon local affairs, the goal of uniformity inevitably forced a reversal not only of previous policy but also of many of its cultural accomplishments. Thus, for example, in the Crimea the number of periodicals and newspapers published locally in Tatar declined from virtually two dozen in 1935 to nine three years later. 27 It is, understandably, against this larger canvas of Soviet political, economic, and social change during the pre-World War II period that we must place any treatment of the Tatar language and its evolution. Clearly the korenizatsiia policy rendered significant support to the spoken and written language, its scholarly study (especially after 1925 in the Oriental Institute of Tavrida University, in Simferopol'), its spread among former illiterates (thanks particularly to the Tatar Teachers' Schools established in Kefe, Bakhchisarai, Yalta, and Simferopol'), and its use as an official (with Russian) medium for local political, judicial, educationa, and cultural affairs. The relative liberality of the 1920s served further to encourage reform of the language in response to perceived linguistic, educational, and social needs which, as we have seen, were widely held long before 1917. Yet, purely local interests were not the sole factors contributing to the resurgence of discussion over alphabet reform, orthographic and pronunciation standardization, and the dialectic base for the written language. In neighboring Turkey similar issues taxed the ingenuity and imagination of many faced with the task of creating a modern nation. Above all, the adoption of the Latin alphabet by the Turkish Republic cannot be dismissed as inconsequential in its effect on the thinking of Turkic-speaking intellectuals in the USSR. Even more influential, however, was the interest shown in such matters by virtually every major Turkic-speaking group, interest supported by the central government through sponsored debate in such journals as Zhizn' natsional'nostei (March, 1922, and again in 1924), convocation of inter-regional and all-union conferences, and creation of all-union commissions and committees.2 8 Of the major gatherings and deliberative bodies, the following list should suffice to underscore the point: May, 1922 Organization of a Commission on the Latinization of Writing (within the Commissariat of Nationalities) April, 1924 Meeting of Ail-Union Scientific Association of Oriental Studies, at which a commission was set up to prepare for an All-Union Turcological Congress

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Feb. 26-March 6, 1926 All-Union Turcological Congree (Baku) at which the Latin alphabet was adopted for all Turkic languages June 3-7, 1927 First Plenum of All-Union Committee of the New Turkic Alphabet (Baku) January 7-12, 1928 Second Plenum of All-Union Committee of the New Turkic Alphabet (Tashkent) December 18-23, 1928 Third Plenum of All-Union Committee of the New Turkic Alphabet (Kazan') May 6"-13, 1930 Fourth Plenum of All-Union Committee of the New Turkic Alphabet (Alma-Ata) June 2-9, 1931 Fifth Plenum of All-Union Committee of the New Turkic Alphabet (Tashkent) February 15-19, 1933 First Plenum of Scientific Council of the All-Union Committee of the New Alphabet (Moscow) Among Crimean Tatars, according to the few sources at our disposal, 1924 witnessed the beginning of extended and often bitter debate over linguistic matters. Early in that year a delegation from Azerbaidzhán, where a model for the transition from Arabic to Latin script had already been devised and enjoyed wide acceptance among language planners, arrived in the Crimea to propagandize the new alphabet with Moscow's blessing.2 9 While some Tatars supported latinization, many others, including Veli Ibrahimov, Hasan Sabri Ayvazov, and the linguist Bekir Chobanzade, objected and strove, so Soviet analysts declare, to sabotage the change. While alphabet reform was just one of a number of linguistic issues that required attention, spawned conferences, and generated controversy, it was the most important because ultimately its resolution was a political act tied to the great transition from NEP to Stalinist social engineering. Until the convocation of the Turcological Congress in May, 1926, the Tatar "latinists" were unable to organize themselves effectively against the "arabists" who were both the most vocal supporters of korentatsiia and in control of local party and governmental organs, especially the Commissariat of Public Englightenment (Narkompros). Every suggestion to latinize was rejected by gatherings that Narkompros sponsored, including that held in October, 1924, during which modification of the Arabic script was proposed and accepted. 30 The Turcological Congress represented a turning point because as an all-Union gathering its call for latinization provided the latinists with crucial national support against local opponents. Despite continued resistance by the Arabists, as during a meeting in November, 1926, when the carefully chosen conferees repudiated the Latin script, 31 their defenses were

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about to crumble before the power of the central government and its strategy of building at least the impression of mass support against the "obstructionists." Quickly seizing control of the print medium and harnessing the discipline and enthusiasm of party stalwarts to form "mass" organizations like the Society of Friends of the New [Latin] Alphabet, the latinists and their Kremlin backers were able to use "the people" against recalcitrants like Ibrahimov, circumvent their authority, and accuse them of "bourgeois nationalist" or other counter-revolutionary sins. 32 Ibrahimov's arrest in January, 1928, and execution in May opened the way to the wholesale purge of the local Communist Party and intelligentsia, and coincided, not by accident, with the convocation of the First All-Crimean Congress of the Society of the Friends of the New Alphabet. This "popular" gathering brought an end to the discussion over latinization by voting to legitimize the new alphabet. 3 3 It remained only for the government to "respond" to this expression of social will by decreeing adoption of a thirty-one-letter Latin alphabet in 1929. Once the political aspect of the "language problem" vanished, other, more purely linguistic matters could be attended to. Thus, in the fateful year 1928 the First Crimean Scientific Conference on the Orthography of the Crimean Tatar Literary Language was held in Simferopol'. Sessions focused upon various topics, but the most extended discussion was over the dialect that ought to serve as the basis of the literary language. Chosen by unanimous vote was the speech of the central belt between the steppe and the mountain areas. Over the next several years second (1929) then third conferences (1934) were held to continue work on matters of grammar, orthography, pronunciation, development of terminology, and compilation of dictionaries. 34 Finally, in 1938, by an act that reflected the political realities of mid-life Stalinism, the Latin alphabet was replaced by Cyrillic for Tatar as it was for all other non-Slavic languages save Armenian and Georgian.

The Second Soviet Period, 1944-Present One could characterize briefly the linguistic situation among Crimean Tatars on the eve of World War II as follows: The major Turkic dialects and several transitional ones continued to co-exist. Two decades of effort to define a written form of Crimean Tatar had been generally successful, despite the increasing intrusion of politics into otherwise purely linguistic matters. Standardization was reflected in the new Cyrillic alphabet, to be sure, but

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also increasingly in the orthography, grammatical forms, and rules for assimilating foreign words. Not all deficiencies, however, had been overcome. As one Western specialist has observed, the written language during the first Soviet period "was an unmistakable illustration of [the Crimea's] dialectic variety." 35 And for their part, contemporary Soviet linguists are quick to point out that the Cyrillic alphabet devised for Tatar does not meet fully the needs of that language, with some, for example, suggesting a return to use of certain Latin letters abandoned in 1938. 36 Finally, the changes wrought by two alphabetic shifts must still have affected the ability of society as a whole to employ its own written language with ease. These persistent problems notwithstanding, the Crimean Tatar written language was thriving, and in the years immediately preceding 1941 both the number of new book titles and their tirazh continued to grow. The following incomplete statistics suggest the pattern: 3 7 Year

1935 1936 1939

Number

of Titles

109 124 153

Tirazh

430,000 421,000 830,000

Although the number of periodicals published in the language had declined, a complete educational system flourished in which the local language was taught by some 3,000 instructors.3 8 What altered this situation drastically was Stalin's decision in the spring of 1944 to declare the entire Tatar population guilty of collaboration with Nazi occupation forces, and then deport it to Central Asia. For more than a decade after, the Tatars found themselves living under what was termed a "special settlement" regime that severely restricted their mobility even within the region they now inhabited, proscribed their dwelling in major cities, excluded them from military service, and prohibited their involvement in agricultural activity. As difficult as their material life may have been, the Tatar condition was worsened still by official denial of their history and cultural heritage. The Crimea, stripped of its native inhabitants, was also purged of all reminders of the Tatars' former presence, including traditional cemeteries, place names, and monuments. In addition, Soviet historiography performed radical surgery to excise whole epochs from Tatar history while anathemizing still other periods and personalities. The ultimate act in this saga was the abolition of the Crimean ASSR and its transformation into an oblast' within the Ukrainian SSR(June, 1946). Little of the cultural nature escaped victimization. In their Central Asian "reservations" the Tatars were denied entirely the very support structure that

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had only recently been expanded to enhance their cultural development and ethnic identity. Gone were the state-funded ethnic schools, theaters, musical groups, and social clubs. Gone too were the institutional settings for Tatar literary and linguistic study, the publication of Tatar periodicals and books, the tranining of Tatar-language instructors, and the very teaching of the language. The regime capped its assault on the Tatars and their tongue in two ways: first, by withdrawing from them their "Crimean" designation and promoting the concept that they were simply Tatars, and second, by denying language status to what these people spoke and implying it to be nothing more than a minor dialect of the Tatar in use along the Volga. What befell the Crimean Tatars, then, is extraordinary in the annals of relations between powerful and weak societies: for a second time they were subjected to conditions beyond their control that threatened the survivability of their culture and practically reduced their language to a pre-literate state. A Tatar poet, Eshref Shemizade, has written that "a nation can exist only under the condition that it has its own literary language."3 9 Such a sentiment has been voiced time and again by representatives of groups finding themselves threatened with the decline and even death of their written tongue, whether they be Tatar, Basque, Breton, or Kirgiz. For the Tatars, the threat was exceptional between 1944 and the mid-1950s as the regime did everything within its power to strip them of their identity and cause their disappearance as an independent ethnic component of the multi-national Soviet society. Had Stalin not died in 1953, and had his successors not decided to ameliorate some of the worst features and consequences of the system he helped create, the fate of the Tatars might easily have been sealed. Ironically, the Party's controlled and limited retreat provided the opportunity for the Tatars to organize a campaign that pursued "three r's" of a different sort: restoration of lost social, economic, and cultural rights, recognition of their ethnicity (involving revision of official treatment of their history, rehabilitation of cultural heroes, and provision for a separate place among the Soviet peoples), and return to their homeland. While achievement of the last goal has thus far eluded the Tatars, their efforts have forced significant concessions from the regime with regard to the first two sets of concerns. Language has been very much at the center of Tatar attention over the past twenty-five years, although certainly less visibly so to the outside world than, say, the often dramatic attempts to return to the Crimea. The principal task, of course, has been to revive the language in its written form so as to make it a vehicle for literary creativity and both a support for and expression of ethnic identity. Since the mid-1950s the Tatars have made remarkable

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progress toward these ends, and underlying this progress have been the following developments: 1. Permission to publish two periodicals - the newspaper Lenin Bayraghy (since 1957) and the socio-literary review Yyldyz (since 1980) - and to offer both radio and television programs in their native language; 2. Creation of the Crimean Tatar Literary Council of the Uzbekistan Writers' Union, which provides legitimacy to the literary use of the language and an official sponsoring agent for conferences, symposia, and workshops to study and promote Tatar literature; 3. Establishment of a Section for Crimean Tatar Publications within the Ga'fur Gulam Publishing House in Tashkent, which serves as the sole outlet for books in the language; 4. Creation of a Department of Crimean Tatar Language and Literature at the Nizami Tashkent Pedagogical Institute (around 1968), where a variety of activities are organized to support the language, including academic courses covering Tatar linguistic history, literary history, and folklore, as well as training of Tatar language teachers. By 1981 approximately two hundred youths had graduated from the Department's program and had gone out to teach the language in cities and towns where Tatars are heavily concentrated; 5. At least since 1970, some schools have been teaching the language of Tatar children. While information is sketchy, the number of institutions so involved appears to be increasing modestly, and they are apparently needed: according to a samizdat source, the illiteracy rate among Tatars for their own language exceeds 80 percent; 40 6. Growing publication opportunities not only for belles-lettres but also for language texts. From 1975 through 1980, more than sixty books have been published, including, apparently, a Tatar grammar for use in primary education. 41 The consequences of these developments for the future of the Tatar language can hardly be exaggerated. While we must recognize that progress has come fitfully and only after extraordinary effort, we must also acknowledge the very dfferent present condittion, and hence potential, of the language from what it was two and one-half decades ago. Like other minority language in the USSR, Tatar must still face the continuing challenge of Russian and the aspiration of the CPSU to encourage the development of homo sovieticus. But Tatar now has a better chance of resisting than was the case earlier. If the kind of public pressure that has become a hallmark of Tatar life continues to be applied, we can reasonably expect the positive trends of the 1960s and 1970s to extend well into the present decade.

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For the language, its use and study, problems remain. To date, little scholarly research on Tatar linguistic themes has appeared in print. The cause is partly, I suspect, the residual effects of mainstream Soviet turcology's adherence to official negative attitudes toward the language that were formulated after the events of 1944. In fact, one of the glaring lacunae in the printed material available to support the language results from the lack of dictionaries, whether bi-lingual, Tatar-Tatar, etymological, or any of the other types. Lenin Bayraghy's frequent printing of a Tatar-Russian glossary, a few dozen words at a time, is useful but hardly adequate. In addition, as noted previously, the Cyrillic alphabet in force for Tatar does not fully meet the phonetic realities of the languages. Despite these problems, I am struck by the current vitality of Crimean Tatar. Not only has there been a revival of interest in and use of the language, especially in its written form, but if a series of articles in recent numbers of Lenin Bayraghy and Yyldyz are any indication, we may also be witnesses to the commencement of a new phase of concern for the language.4 2 Having resolved the controversy over its use, Tatars now seem ready to debate the character of the language they call ana dilmiz (our tongue). Specifically, for the authors of the articles in question, at issue is the lexicon of the language. Some have suggested that words derived from Arabic, Persian, and other unrelated languages be eliminated and replaced by new ones rooted in Turkic. Others, to the contrary, object to such "purification" as ahistorical, narrowminded, confusing, and ultimately self-defeating. We would be mistaken, I believe, to interpret this debate as pitting Tatar nationalists against Tatar internationalists, that is, as possessing a primarily political meaning. Rather I am more inclined to view it as a controversy among Tatar nationalists, all seriously interested in the vitality of their native tongue and the survival of their ethnic identity, but at odds intellectually over the best way to ensure both. If my interpretation is correct, and barring the unforeseen actions of the central government, the health of Crimean Tatar should continue to improve.

Notes 1. "Can yani Dil Meselesi," Terciiman, No. 5 (January 22,1908), p. 1. 2. In this chapter the word "Tatar" refers to the former population of the Crimean Peninsula, and is not meant to include those whose homeland is the Volga-Ural region (the so-called Volga, or Kazan Tatars).

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3. How "lost" they became is graphically revealed by the Soviet censuses compiled since World War II, wherein "Crimean Tatar" is not an ethnic variable, but is subsumed under the less precise and broader rubric "Tatar." 4. See F.F. Lashkov, "Arkhivnyia dannyia o beilakakh ν Kiymskom khanstve," Arkheologicheskii s"ezd: Trudy, VI, No. 4 (1889), pp. 96-107, and "Istoricheskaia spravka ob obrazovanii ν Tavricheskoi gubernii tatarskikh dvorianskikh rodov," Zapiski odesskago obshchestva istorii i drevnostei, XXIII (1901), pp. 4143. 5. E.V. Sevortian, "Krymsko-tatarskii iazyk," Iazyki narodov SSSR, volume II: Tiurkskie iazyki (Moscow, 1966), p. 257. 6. S.R. Izidinova, "Osobennosti dialektnoi leksiki krymsko-tatarskogo iazyka," Sovetskaia tiurkologiia i razvitie tiurkskikh iazykov ν SSSR. Tezisy dokladov i soobshchenii (Alma-Ata, 1976), p. 216. 7. E.V. Sevortian, "Krymsko-tatarskii iazyk," p. 234. 8. See A. Samoilovich, "K istorii krymsko-tatarskogo literaturnogo iazyka," Vestnik nauchnogo obshchestva tatarovedeniia, No. 7 (1927), pp. 27-33; and M. Ivanics, "Formal and Linguistic Peculiarities of 17th-century Crimean Tatar Letters Addressed to Princes of Transylvania," Acta Orientalia Academiae Seienriarum Hungaricae, XXIX, No. 2 (1975), pp. 213-224. 9. A. Bennigsen, e t.al. (comp.), Le Khanat de Crimée dans ¡es Archives du Musée du Palais de Topkapi (Paris, 1978), passim. Of the documents presented in this volume, the earliest (dated 1453 to 1476, i.e., before the establishment of a firm Ottoman foothold in the Crimea) are described as written in Kipchak. Those dating from 1477 to the early sixteenth century were generally written in Ottoman with Kipchak influences. After 1510, Ottoman was the language employed. 10. M. Ivanics, "Formal and Linguistic Peculiarities," p. 224; and A. Samoilovich, "K istorii krymsko-tatarskogo literaturnogo iazyka," p. 28. 11. On the Cultural decline of Crimean society during this period, see Edward J. Lazzerini, "The Crimea Under Russian Rule, 1783 to the Great Reforms," in History of Russian Colonization, ed. by Michael Rywkin (forthcoming). 12. O. Chatskaia, "Chansons tatares de Crimée," Journal Asiatique, CCVIII (1926), pp. 342-343. 13. E.V. Sevortian, "Krymsko-tatarskii iazyk," p. 257; G. Doerfer, "Das Krimtatarische," Philologiae Turcicae Fundamenta, vol. II (Wiesbaden: Franz Steiner Verlag, 1959), pp. 369-370. 14. For a study of Gaspraly's life and thought, see my unpublished Ph.D. dissertation "Ismail Bey Gasprinskii and Muslim Modernism in Russia, 1876-1914," University of Washington, 1973. 15. Ibid., Chapter VII; also, Gustav Burbiel, "Die Sprache Isma'il Bey Gaspralys," Ph.D. dissertation, Universität Hamburg, 1950. 16. Ismail Bey Gaspraly, "Soz ewel," Tonguch, cited in Tercuman, No. 26 (March 15, 1906), p. 1; also, K.C. Seydahmet, Gaspiraly Ismail Bey (Istanbul, 1934), pp. 37-38. 17. K.C. Seydahmet, Gaspiraly Ismail Bey, pp. 37-38; Ismail Bey Gaspraly, "Za desiat' let," Terciiman, No. 3 (January 27,1981), p. 5, and "Vopros o iazyke," Terciiman, No. 91 (November 7,1905), p. 182. 18. Ismail Bey Gaspraly to Mehmed Emin, March, 12, 1899.

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19. For a detailed analysis of Gaspraly's linguistic reforms, see G. Burbiel, "Die Sprache," pp. 33-47; and V.G. Gafurov, "Alfavit krymsko-tatarskogo iazyka," in Voprosy sovershenstvovaniia alfavitov tiurkskikh iazkyov SSSR (Moscow, 1972), pp. 99-101. 20. In 1910 the editorial staff of the Volga Tatar review Shura sponsored a survey of public opinion concerning this issue. Much of the information gathered was collected in an unusual and valuable volume edited by Rizaeddin Fahreddin entitled Til Yarisi (Kazan', 1910). 21. Cited in G. Khalit, Tukai i ego sovremenniki (Kazan', 1966), p. 116. 22. Ibid. 23. On the pan-Turkist/pan-Tatarist controversy, see S.A. Zenkovsky, Pan-Turkism and Islam in Russia (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1967), Ch. VIII. 24. For a discussion of the "nationalism" of the younger Tatar generation in the Crimea, see E. Kirimal, Der Nationale Kampf der Krimtürken (Emsdetten, 1952), Ch. II. 25. The newspaper Va tan Khadimi, published in Karasubazar from 1906-1908, served as a vehicle for proponents of the "new" Tatar. 26. Tsentral'noe statisticheskoe upravlenie SSSR. Otdelenie perepisi. Vsesoiuznaia perepis' naseleniia 1926 goda (Moscow 1928), volume V, otd. 1, p. 5. 27. A. Fisher, The Crimean Tatars, p. 147. 28. William Fierman's excellent unpublished doctoral dissertation provides a detailed analysis of the language controversy as it evolved among the Uzbeks. See his "Nationalism, Language Planning and Development in Soviet Uzbekistan (19171941)," Harvard University, 1979. 29. M. Nedin, "Bor*ba za novyi alfavit ν Krymu," Alfavit oktiabria. Itogi vvedeniia novogo alfavita sredi narodov RSFSR (Moscow, 1934), p. 126. 30. Ibid., p. 127. 31. Ibid., p. 128. 32. Immediately following the Turcological Congress, the leading cultural review, Yeni Diinya, began devoting a section of each number to the prining of latinized texts. See V.G. Gafurov, "alfavit," p. 101. 33. M. Nedin, "Bor*ba," p. 129. 34. For brief discussions of the work of these conferences, see V.G. Gafurov, "Alfavit," pp. 101-103. 35. H.W. Brands, "Neuere Krimtatarische Sprach- und Literaturzeugnisse aus Mittelasien," Central Asiatic Journal, XIV, No. 4 (1970), p. 289. 36. For example, see V.G. Gafurov, "Alfavit," p. 105. 37. H.W. Brands, "Neuere," p. 291. 38. This figure is suggested by Ayesha Seytmuratova, "Comment," Journal of the Institute of Muslim Minority Affairs, II, No. 2/III, No. 1 (Winter, 1980-Summer, 1981), p. 211. 39. Cited in A. Fisher, The Crimean Tatars, p. 199. 40. AS 3170, Sobrante dokumentov samizdata, volume XXX (Munich, 1978), p. 4. 41. "Edebiyat Sahasyndaki Chalîshmalar," Emel, No. 124 (1981), p. 18. 42. See especially A. Veliev, "Til'ge Muqayt Olmaly," Lenin Bayraghy, No. 18 (February 11, 1982), p. 4; "Tanyshym ne ichyun Oyzarmady," Lenin Bayraghy, No.

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Edward Lazzerini 123 (October 14, 1982), p. 4; and letters to the editor, Lenin Bayraghy, No. 129 (October, 1982), p. 4. For a Somewhat different interpretation of this debate, see John Soper, "Criticism of Crimean Tatar Literary Journal," Radio Liberty/Radio Free Europe, Turkic Department Program Backgrounder, December 7,1982.

ALEXANDRE BENNIGSEN and CHANTAL LEMERCIER-QUELQUEJAY

Politics and Linguistics in Daghestan

Introduction In the late 18th century when the Russian vanguards reached the North Caucasus mountains, they encountered a fierce resistance which slowed down their advance for nearly a century. The territory was finally conquered and occupied only after the crushing of the 1877-1878 uprising in Daghestan. It has often been said that nowhere else did the tsarist Russian advance face such a long and well organized resistance as in Daghestan and Checheniia — a resistance which has never been completely overcome, for the territory was only superficially pacified. In 1917, the Mountaineers rose again trying to free themselves from the "Infidel's" rule. They desperately fought first the White Annies and then the Red Army. In the North Caucasus, the Bolsheviks inherited the legacy of Imperial Russia and found themselves facing the same unrest and the same revolts. Between 1920 and 1941, Daghestan and Checheniia were the least secure of all the Soviet republics. The last major uprising took place during the last war, in 1941-1942. It was crushed in the winter of 1943 and the entire Muslim population of the Checheno-Ingush ASSR was rounded up and deported to Siberia and Kazakhstan. This political background must be kept in mind when we discuss the Soviet linguistic policy in Daghestan. Before the Revolution this small area presented a curious and paradoxical picture of both diversity and unity. The factors for disunity were more numerous: 1. The territory had no geographical or ethnic cohesion. The flat lowlands of the Caspian steppes were populated by Turks (Kumyks, Azeris, Nogais), while the high mountains were populated by the Ibero-Caucasian tribes. 2. Daghestan had never been politically unified, and when the Russians penetrated into the area it was divided between half a dozen principalities

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Alexandre Bennigsen and Chantal Lemercier-Quelquejay

and several scores of so-called "Free Societies" who were opposed and even hostile to each other. 3. The country lacked economic and social unity. On the eve of the Revolution, some nationalities (Kumyks and Avars) had a "class society" with a complicated social structure including a land nobility at the top and a proletariat at the bottom, while others (the Lezgins, Dargins, Andis, Tabasarans...) had never reached the feudal stage and were still "classless" clannic communities. 4. Finaly, Daghestan presented the picture of a linguistic mosaic. Three branches of languages are represented in this relatively small area: a) The Turkic branch, in the lowlands with three different languages: the Azeri which can be considered an autochtonous language of Southern Daghestan, the Kumyk, in the central part, and the Nogai in the Northern part of the republic. b) The Iranian branch, represented in the Southern Daghestan by the Tati, which is spoken by a curiously mixed nationality mostly Jewish with Muslim and Christian minorities. c) The Ibero-Caucasian branch, represented by 21 languages, is divided into some hundred dialects, all very different from each other. Practically every valley, every village speaks its own dialect often incomprehensible to the people in the neighboring village. To complete this chaotic picture, it is necessary to mention the numerous and sometimes important immigrant colonies in the lowlands, speaking their own languages, such as the Kazan Tatars, the Armenians, the Georgians, the Ossetians, the Chechens, the Germans, the Ashkenazic Jews, and of course the most important of all, the Russians. Bilingualism or trilingualism was a general phenomenon, especially in the mountains and followed the principle of vertical polylingualism: people of the highest valleys were obliged to learn the language of the more advanced neighbors living below them, which language served as the lingua franca for commercial relations. Thus, the Andi and Dido tribes used Avar, while the Avars in turn used Kumyk or Nogai in their relations with the lowlands. In the same way, the Tabasarans in Southern Daghestan used Lezgin, and the Lezghins in turn used Azeri Turkic. By the late 19th century, a number of Daghestanis had already aquired some knowledge of spoken Russian. However, none of the autochtonous languages had succeeded in becoming the common lingua franca for the whole territory. The following table gives an approximate idea of the linguistic complexity of Daghestan:

Politics and Linguistics in Daghestan

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