Ukrainian Language: 400 Years of Linguocide
Ukraine celebrates the Day of Ukrainian Literature and Language in October. Our language (I’m Ukrainian, you know) has overcome a difficult path to this celebration:
It has gone through numerous criminal decrees and genocide against its speakers by the Russian Empire, the USSR, and then Russia. With the start of the full-scale invasion in 2022, interest among Ukrainians in our history and culture has grown. So today, I have prepared a chronology of the linguicide of the Ukrainian language.
(For you to know, and for me — to remember.)
Let’s jump right in.
1622 — Tsar Michael Romanov (Michael of Russia), at the request of Patriarch Filaret of Moscow, ordered all copies of Kyrylo Stavrovetskyi’s “Teaching Gospel” printed in Ukraine to be burned.
1688 — Patriarch Joachim of Moscow ordered the burning of “The Crown of Christ” by Anthony Radivilovsky and works by Petro Mohyla, Lazar Baranovych, and Innokentiy Gizel on the streets of Moscow.
1696 — The Polish Sejm introduced the Polish language in the courts of Right-Bank Ukraine.
1720 — Peter I (Peter the Great) issued a decree prohibiting book printing in the Ukrainian language and removing Ukrainian texts from church books.
1729 — Peter II of Russia ordered all state decrees and regulations written in Ukrainian to be rewritten in Russian, and Ukrainian schools were closed.
1731 — Ukrainian-printed books were removed from Ukrainian churches and replaced with Moscow editions, and teaching in colleges was to be conducted exclusively in Russian. In a secret instruction, Empress Anna Ioannovna (Anna of Russia) ordered that Ukrainians not marry Poles and Belarusians.
1763 — Catherine II issued a decree prohibiting teaching in Ukrainian at the Kyiv-Mohyla Academy.
1769 — The Synod of the Russian Orthodox Church banned the printing and using Ukrainian primers.
1775 — The destruction of the Zaporizhian Sich and the closure of Ukrainian schools at the regimental Cossack offices.
1780 — The burning of the Kyiv-Mohyla Academy library, one of the richest in Ukraine, that kept books from the times of Kyivan Rus.
1789 — The Polish Sejm’s Educational Commission ordered the closure of all Ukrainian schools.
1804 — A special royal decree banned all Ukrainian-language schools.
1817 — The introduction of the Polish language in all public schools in western Ukraine.
1832 — The reorganization of education in Right-Bank Ukraine on general imperial principles with the transition of instruction to the Russian language.
1847 — The crackdown on the Cyril and Methodius Brotherhood (which was another blow to the development of Ukrainian culture and education) and the intensification of the brutal persecution of the Ukrainian language and culture, including the banning of works by Taras Shevchenko, Panteleimon Kulish, Mykola Kostomarov, and other Ukrainian thinkers.
1859 — The Ministry of Religion and Education of Austria-Hungary attempted to replace the Ukrainian Cyrillic alphabet with the Latin alphabet in Eastern Galicia and Bukovina.
1862 — The closure of free Sunday Ukrainian schools for adults in the territory of Ukraine controlled by the Russian Empire.
1863 — The Valuev Circular prohibits printing Ukrainian-language religious and popular educational literature.
“There never was, is not, and never shall be a separate Little Russian* language,” the document states.
* “Little Russian” is what they called the Ukrainian language, denying its existence as separate and independent.
1864 — The Statute on Primary School, according to which education must be conducted exclusively in Russian.
1869 — The introduction of Polish as the official language of education and administration in Eastern Galicia.
1876 — Emperor Alexander II of Russia’s Ems Ukaz banned Ukrainian stage performances and prohibited printing and importing Ukrainian-language literature from abroad.
1881 — The prohibition of teaching in Ukrainian in public schools and delivering church sermons in Ukrainian.
1884 — Alexander III of Russia bans Ukrainian theatrical performances in all provinces.
1888 — Alexander III’s decree prohibiting the use of Ukrainian in official institutions and the baptism of children with Ukrainian names.
1892 — The prohibition on translating books from Russian into Ukrainian.
1895 — The Main Directorate of Press Affairs banned publishing children’s books in Ukrainian.
1900s — The removal of the words “Ukraine,” “Ukrainian,” “Zaporizhian Sich,” “Cossack,” and others from texts.
1910 — Pyotr Stolypin’s government closed all Ukrainian cultural societies and publishing houses, prohibited lectures in Ukrainian, and banned the opening of non-Russian clubs.
1911 — The resolution of the VII Noble Assembly in Moscow for exclusively Russian-language education and the inadmissibility of using other languages in schools of Russia.
1914 — Nicholas II’s decree abolished the Ukrainian press and prohibited the celebration of the 100th anniversary of Taras Shevchenko’s birth.
1922 — The proclamation of the “theory” of the struggle between two cultures in Ukraine — the urban (Russian) and the rural (Ukrainian), with the former meant to prevail.
1924 — The Law of the Polish Republic restricts the use of the Ukrainian language in administrative bodies, courts, and educational institutions in the territory of Ukraine under Polish control.
1926 — Stalin’s letter sanctioning the fight against “national deviation,” marking the beginning of the persecution of Ukrainian activists.
1933 — Stalin’s telegram ordering the “cessation of Ukrainization.” The destruction of the Ukrainian intelligentsia, including writers, and the removal of the letter “Ґ” from Ukrainian orthography.
1938 — The decree “On the mandatory study of the Russian language in schools of national republics and regions.”
1947 — Operation Vistula, the forced resettlement of about 150,000 Ukrainians from ethnic Ukrainian lands to disperse them among Poles in Western Poland to accelerate their Polonization.
1961 — The proclamation of the “merging nations” policy meant total Russification of the peoples of the Soviet Union.
1970 — The prohibition of defending dissertations in Ukrainian.
1974 — The decree “On the preparation for the 50th anniversary of the creation of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics,” which for the first time proclaimed the creation of a “new historical community — the Soviet people.”
1978 — The decree “On measures to further improve the study and teaching of the Russian language in the union republics.”
1984 — The introduction of higher salaries for Russian language teachers compared to Ukrainian language teachers.
1989 — The decree on the “legislative consolidation of the Russian language as the national language.”
1990 — The Supreme Soviet of the USSR adopted the Law on the Languages of the Peoples of the USSR, which granted Russian the status of an official language.
Since 2014, in the territories of Ukraine occupied and annexed by Russia, people have been persecuted for using the Ukrainian language. Ukrainian literature and history books have been destroyed, and educational institutions have been de-Ukrainianized.
After the start of the full-scale war, in the temporarily occupied Ukrainian territories, the “administration” forces teachers to conduct lessons exclusively in Russian, and the local population suffers persecution and torture.
Thanks for reading! More articles of mine here:
- “I F**king Hated Russia(ns) Before It Was Cool”
- Tourist in Own Country: My Way from Work in Kyiv
- Why “Great Russian Literature” Is Fake
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