While Belarus is confronted with the problem of a spelling reform, its southern neighbour state is once again facing the issue of the status of the Russian language with the Party of Regions’ rise to power. A Kharkiv judge Serhij Łaziuk has validated granting Russian the status of a “regional language”. This precedent has provoked an extremely unsettling question of dubious regional play with the state language.
Peculiarities of language situation in Ukraine.
Comparing Ukraine and Belarus in the sphere of language situation, one may discover a number of common features, as well as differences. The major similarity is that out of all the former USSR republics exactly Belarus, Ukraine and Kazakhstan were linguistically russified to the extent that extensive proportion of the countries’ population abandoned the language of their ancestors for the Russian language. Still, out of the three Ukraine has achieved the greatest success in securing the status of the national language.
The ratio of people using state language is relatively high in Ukraine, though, firstly, about 30% of the whole population is bilingual (i.e. using both the Ukrainian and the Russian languages in everyday communication) and, secondly, the Ukrainian language is extensively used by the minorities (namely and primarily Romanians, Moldovans, Poles, Hungarians and Roma).
The difference between the situation in Belarus and Ukraine lies largely in the fact that while in Belarusian villages of Viciebsk, Mahiloŭ and Homiel regions close to the Russian border people speak trasianka (a mixture of Belarusian and Russian languages), there are districts in Ukraine where even the inhabitants of the most secluded villages do not speak Ukrainian and have never done so. Such regions are mainly the Crimea and Donbass (comprising Donetsk and Lugansk regions). The language situation in other regions of Ukraine is much better than in Belarus, while the majority of big cities’ dwellers in Western Ukraine (including regional centres Lviv and Ternopil) speak classical Ukrainian language rather than “suržyk” (Ukrainian counterpart of trasianka) or a dialect of Ukrainian.
The official status of the Ukrainian language.
The status of Ukrainian is regulated by the law “On the languages in the Ukrainian SSR” adopted in 1989. According to the law, Ukrainian is the state language, while the development of Russian and the securing of its rights are guaranteed. According to the Ukrainian Constitution of 1996, Ukrainian is the only state language and an obligatory means of communication for government bodies and the local governance on the whole territory of the country. Despite the fact Russian and other languages may be employed in this sphere by the executive, local governance bodies and the authorities of the Autonomous Republic of Crimea depending on regional specificity. Besides, Article 53 part 5 of the Constitution of Ukraine guarantees the right of national minorities to receive education in their own language.
The Russian language bears the status of the language of international communication in the Autonomous Republic of Crimea. By the way, in the time of “nationalist” president Kuchma Russian enjoyed a similar constitutional status on the state level, but Russian-speaking Kuchma for some reason cancelled this provision. The official papers determining the status of a citizen are drafted in three languages, namely Ukrainian, Russian and Crimean-Tatar. The language of official communication is Ukrainian, though de-facto its functions are given to Russian.
The Ukrainian legislation does not contain such a concept as “a regional language”, though this term is present in the law drafts by a deputy Kucherenko, who defines regional languages as “the languages traditionally spoken within a certain territory by the citizens of Ukraine numbering fewer than the rest of the population of Ukraine”.
In the Law of Ukraine “On the Ratification of the European Charter for Regional and Minority Languages” one can also find the term the language of minority rather than regional languages. Following is the list of such languages: Belarusian, Bulgarian, Gagaug, Greek, Hebrew, Crimean-Tatar, Moldovan, German, Polish, Urmacel, Urum and Armenian.
Who does the European Charter stand for?
The European Charter for Regional and Minority Languages was ratified by the Supreme Rada as late as in 2005 after several failing attempts in 1999, 2001 and 2002. Despite the fact that the Charter lays down legal equality of the languages of national minorities, the Russian language plays a significant role in the documents.
In the end, we can conclude that from the viewpoint of the international law granting a special status to Russian violates both Article 10 of the Constitution of Ukraine, stating that the official language in the whole territory of Ukraine is Ukrainian and the Charter ascribing equal status to all the languages of national minorities. There is only one region of compact settlement of ethnic Russians in Ukraine, which is the Crimea. There the Russian language holds an official status.
Besides, the activity of local administrations in the Eastern regions of the country is an intentional disregard of Articles 4 and 5 of the Charter, reading accordingly that “nothing in this Charter shall be construed as limiting or derogating from any of the rights guaranteed by the European Convention on Human Rights” and “nothing in this Charter may be interpreted as implying any right to engage in any activity or perform any action in contravention of the purposes of the Charter of the United Nations or other obligations under international law, including the principle of the sovereignty and territorial integrity of States”.
