Charter should be ratified with reservations
I was surprised to read the assertion from the Razumkov Center’s Serhy Shengin, “Now we face total Ukrainization” [“Language charter causes stir,” Nov. 21]. Meanwhile, I fully agree with the view expressed by Vaad chairman Josef Zissels, “It would be easier for the charter to win ratification if Russian had been excluded and dealt with separately.”
Ukraine’s 1992 law on national minorities was considered by the Council of Europe to be one of the best in Central-Eastern Europe. Surprisingly for many Westerners, however, Ukrainian-speaking Ukrainians very often find themselves in the position of a minority in their own country. Only a quarter of the national circulation of newspapers and journals is published in Ukrainian. Just try to find Ukrainian newspapers at kiosks in Eastern and Southern Ukraine. The number of books in Ukrainian is even lower. When I present these figures at international conferences, I am ashamed.
While the number of school and university students studying in Russian has been falling since independence, it is still more than a quarter. And it is possible that the actual figure is higher than in official statistics. The Russian language predominates in schools and universities in the east and south. Parents whose children go to schools and kindergartens in Kyiv know that as soon as the bell rings for break, most teachers and pupils immediately switch to Russian.
Study of Russian is still obligatory in some Ukrainian schools. Other children communicate fluently in Russian though they have never formally studied it. We continue to share a common information space with Russia, and the pressure from the Russian language is enormous. But it is English, not Russian, that has become the language of international communication.
The Russian language predominates in business, show-business and sport. If the Klitschko brothers or Andriy Shevchenko spoke Ukrainian in public, it would be an attractive example for youth. Unfortunately, they don’t.
If Ukraine had a stable democratic system of the Western type, I would wholeheartedly support two state languages. Perhaps, that will happen in the future. However, at this stage, the introduction of Russian as a second state or official language would only mean further ghettoization of Ukrainian.
But what happens if the Russian language is proclaimed as official one at the regional level, as the European Charter for Regional and Minority Languages demands? This compromise may be appropriate in Crimea (with the same status for Ukrainian and Crimean Tatar languages), and in Donetsk, Luhank and maybe some other regions. The problem is that if we stick to formal criteria for the number of Russian-speakers (both Russians and Ukrainians) in other regions, we will find that the Russian language turns out to be official in almost every region of the country. Thus, the outcome would be equally dangerous for the Ukrainian language.
It is clear that Ukraine should ratify the European Charter, but with certain reservations. These reservations should be clarified in discussions with parliamentarians and experts.
Prof. Olexiy Haran,
School for Policy Analysis,
University of Kyiv-Mohyla
