Comfortably numb

Im not from Eastern Europe so I don’t really understand this, please explain: Why are Ukranians exactly ‘afraid’ to speak Ukrainian? Is it because Russian has been so dominant in the recent past, now it’s hard to transfer to Ukranian? The relation betweet Ukranians and their language is quite interesting, even now when you’re in this conflict with Russia, Russian is still so widely spoken in Ukraine.

Thank you for the question. This is a problem that is usually ignored in Ukraine and outside. So, let’s begin.

General review: Russian is a second spoken language in Ukraine. According to 2001 population census, 29,6% of Ukrainian citizens called Russian their native language. Only 56% from them are ethnic Russians, others are Ukrainians and ethnic minorities. Russian-speaking population generally resides in big cities, urban and suburban industrial areas. Although Russian doesn’t have official status, it is widely used due to historical reasons.

Russian as native language in Ukraine (2001 census)

Majority language in Ukraine (2001 census)

Ukraine has a long history of Russification. There is no natural ethnic Russian core in Ukraine except for the small rural region near Putyvl in Sumy Oblast. Generally speaking, nearly all Russian population settled here in order to development of cities and low-populated territories during the time of Russian Empire and Soviet Union. To these days Russians have majority in Crimea (after deportation of indigenous Crimean Tatar people in 1944) and in some parts of Donbass where Ukrainian industry is concentrated and significant minority in cities, especially in the Southern and Eastern Ukraine and also Kyiv. There are reasons to say that Russian is colonist language.

Russian is used to be privileged language among the Ukrainians. During the Russian Empire Ukrainian language survived through a lot of bans and was refused to be accepted as an independent. Even through Ukrainians were officially known as “Little Russians”, Russian imperialists didn’t leave attempts to assimilate the whole nation. It was official politic toward all native people, but Ukrainians were special due to being Slavic and descendants of Rus, so it was very important to imperialists to keep them being “Russians”. On the other hand, Soviet authorities forced the idea of Russian being a language of inter-ethnic communication. In the country, which was built on the ruins of the chauvinistic empire, it further worsened the situation with non-Russian languages, including Ukrainian. Ukrainian language was de-facto removed from the informal public usage in the places where there was at least Russian-speaking minority. Ukrainian migrants who settled in cities needed to adopt the Russian-speaking milieu both in Russian Empire and USSR. When my grandparents were in Odesa (major city in Southern Ukraine) in 80s, they were trying to speak Ukrainian as quietly as they could because they wanted nobody to hear them. They were ashamed. In Soviet Ukraine Ukrainian language was believed to be a language of uneducated, rural people. “Villagers’ languages”, “the language of cows”, “rural Russian”, “Little Russian”, “funny language”, “a dialect”, “Polish-Russian mix” are examples of still known and used slurs for Ukrainian language. The strangest slurs I’ve personally heard were “a half-extinct language of the minor ethnicity” and “a local archaic Nazi language”.

Russian language is a political weapon. Russian authorities repeatedly claimed that Russian-speaking population in Ukraine needs their protection. Language issues are a big part of Russian chauvinism toward Ukraine.

So-called “New Russia” (shades of red), territories in Ukraine which are believed to be Russian(-speaking) in minds of Russian nationalists. 

So why are Ukrainians still afraid to speak Ukrainian language? As I said above, it was a big social challenge to freely speak Ukrainian in Soviet times. Situation didn’t improve with independence. Ukrainization was quite soft until 2014. Being a post-Soviet country, Ukraine is still culturally dependent from Russia and Russian language. We share the same modern culture, the same Internet segment, which is Russophonic, while content in Ukrainian language is provided only for Ukrainians because Russians never had any need to know Ukrainian. This is the reason why Ukrainian language is suffering from underrepresentation, while Russian is overrepresented on Ukrainian TV and in media. Even Ukrainian-speaking people got used to use Russian by default. 

Percent of Ukrainian language on TV [1] and radio broadcasting [2] by year. Data could be inaccurate because mixed Ukrainian-Russian programs are believed to be Ukrainian.

Ukrainian language tends to be invisible in Ukraine while Russian is spoken in much richer, much more educated, having much more opportunities, well-connected to Internet big cities in the South, East and North-East, and Ukrainian-speaking minority (big minority, maybe somewhere even majority) has to adopt this. There are reasons to say that Russian is still privileged language.

All of my Ukrainian-speaking family members and friends switch to Russian in public in Odesa every day. Some of them take this situation as normal. Many of them use Russian language everywhere except for informal speaking with each other. One of my Ukrainian-speaking relatives talks in Russian to her child. Why? I don’t know. It’s our social habit. I remember when guests came to my aunt for the first time and they all started to speak Russian. Then the guest heard my aunt speaking Ukrainian to me and smiled. Everyone chilled out and started speaking our language. We don’t know how people in this city will react to us neither other Ukrainian-speaking people do. In this country, Ukrainian-speaking person may get called with slurs, beaten or killed. Of course, situation has improved and in 2020 majority of people wouldn’t care about Ukrainian. But there’s the risk and due to that we have not only a habit, but also a fear that makes us be silent in Ukrainian and speak in Russian.

Majority of Ukrainians prefers not to see this situation as a problem, but this topic always makes people angry and ready to argue with each other.