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The Retreat of the Tongue of the CzarsIn the Soviet era, 300 million people spoke Russian. Now, Moscow feels its power ebb each time Pushkin is read in Ukrainian.... The Kremlin has tried to halt the decline by setting up foundations to promote the study of Russian abroad and by castigating neighbors who shove the language from public life. In some nations, a backlash against Russian has stirred its own backlash in the language’s defense. Still, the challenge is considerable. At stake is more than just words on a page. Language imparts power and influence, binding the colonized to the colonizers and, for better or worse, altering how the native populations interact with the world. Long after they gave up their territories, Britain, France and Spain have retained certain authority in far-flung outposts because of the languages they seeded. Czars and Soviet leaders spread Russian in the lands that they conquered, using it as a kind of glue to unite disparate nationalities, a so called second mother tongue, and connect them to their rulers. That legacy endures today, as exemplified by the close relationship between Russia and Germany, which stems in part from Chancellor Angela Merkel’s ability to speak Russian. She learned it growing up in Communist East Germany. But with the language in retreat, there are unlikely to be many future Angela Merkels. For the Kremlin, could there be a more bitter reminder of how history has turned than the sight of young Estonians or Georgians or Uzbeks (not to mention Czechs or Hungarians) flocking to classes in English instead of Russian? ”The drop in Russian language usage is a great blow to Moscow, in the economic and social spheres, and many other aspects,” said Aleksei V. Vorontsov, chairman of the sociology department at the Herzen State Pedagogical University in St. Petersburg. ”It has severed links, and made Russia more isolated.” ... Ukraine’s pro-Western president, Viktor A. Yushchenko, indicated this month that that a deepening understanding of the Ukrainian language is one key to keeping Moscow at bay. ”With our native language, we preserve our culture,” Mr. Yushchenko told the German magazine Spiegel. ”That greatly contributes to preserving our independence. If a nation loses its language, it loses its memory, its history and its identity.” ...In former Soviet satellites in Europe, where Russian was essentially purged after Communism, there has been a small, but noticeable revival. The language is obviously helpful in doing business in Russia’s sizable market, so interest in Russian language is rising. The lingua franca of Communism, it seems, is now an asset in the pursuit of capitalism. Former Soviet republics: Hostile to Russian: Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Ukraine, Georgia. Mixed feelings: Moldova, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan Friendly to Russian:Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan (second official language) This article appeared in Belarusian Review, Vol. 21, No. 3 --------------------------------------------- Copyright 2009 Belarusian Review All rights reserved. belarusianreview@hotmailcom
Clifford Levy
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