Language, Ethnicity and the State, Volume 2: Minority Languages in Eastern Europe post-1989

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Language, Ethnicity and the State Volume 2: Minority Languages in Eastern Europe post-1989

Edited by Camille C. O’Reilly

Language, Ethnicity and the State Volume 2

Also by Camille C. O’Reilly THE IRISH LANGUAGE IN NORTHERN IRELAND: The Politics of Culture and Identity LANGUAGE, ETHNICITY AND THE STATE Volume 1: Minority Languages in the European Union (editor)

Language, Ethnicity and the State Volume 2: Minority Languages in Eastern Europe post-1989 Edited by

Camille C. O’Reilly Lecturer in Social Anthropology Richmond College The American International University London

Selection, editorial matter and Chapter 1 © Camille C. O’Reilly 2001 Chapters 2–8 © Palgrave Publishers Ltd 2001 All rights reserved. No reproduction, copy or transmission of this publication may be made without written permission. No paragraph of this publication may be reproduced, copied or transmitted save with written permission or in accordance with the provisions of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, or under the terms of any licence permitting limited copying issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency, 90 Tottenham Court Road, London W1T 4LP. Any person who does any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages. The authors have asserted their rights to be identified as the authors of this work in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. First published 2001 by PALGRAVE Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 6XS and 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N. Y. 10010 Companies and representatives throughout the world PALGRAVE is the new global academic imprint of St. Martin’s Press LLC Scholarly and Reference Division and Palgrave Publishers Ltd (formerly Macmillan Press Ltd). ISBN 0–333–92924–1 This book is printed on paper suitable for recycling and made from fully managed and sustained forest sources. A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Language, ethnicity and the state / edited by Camille C. O’Reilly. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. Contents: v. 1. Minority languages in the European Union – –v. 2. Minority languages in Eastern Europe post -1989. ISBN 0–333–92925–X (vol. 1) — ISBN 0–333–92924–1 (vol. 2) 1. Linguistic minorities—Europe. 2. Ethnic identity—Europe. 3. Language policy—Europe. 4. Language planning—Europe. 5. Europe—Politics and government—1989– I. O’Reilly, Camille. P119.32.E85 L28 2001 306.44’94—dc21 2001021751 10 10

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Printed and bound in Great Britain by Antony Rowe Ltd, Chippenham, Wiltshire

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Contents viii

List of Tables

ix

Acknowledgements

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Notes on the Contributors 1

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Introduction: Minority Languages, Ethnicity and the State in Post-1989 Eastern Europe Camille C. O’Reilly Language, Nationalism and the Yugoslav Successor States Robert D. Greenberg The joint language tradition for Serbs and Croats The languages of the Yugoslav successor states Case study: language identity in Montenegro Conclusion Notes Bibliography Debating Language: The Bulgarian Communities in Romania after 1989 Rossitza Guentcheva In a quest for power: profession – Bulgarian The multiple faces of the mother tongue The histories of the Banat Bulgarians Conclusion Notes Bibliography From Irredentism to Constructive Reconciliation? Germany and its Minorities in Poland and the Czech Republic Stefan Wolff Ethnicity and territory: the triangular relationship between external minority, host-state and kin-state The origins of German minority groups in Poland and the Czech Republic The German minority between 1945 and 1990 v

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17 18 26 33 38 39 42 44 45 50 58 61 63 64

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The Federal Republic’s external minority policy before and after 1990 Germany’s relationship with Czech Republic after 1990: reconciliation at whose expense? Germany’s relationship with Poland after 1990: the great success story? The influence of the expellee organizations: waxing or waning? Caught between the big players? Today’s German minority in the Czech Republic and Poland Notes Bibliography 5

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Language Ideology and Language Conflict in Post-Soviet Belarus Curt Woolhiser Introduction Language ideology: approaches and levels of analysis Language policy in Belarus, 1985–99 (a brief sketch) Elite language ideologies in Belarus The ideologization of linguistic structure in the Belarusian–Russian language conflict Non-elite language attitudes and ideologies Norms of language use as an expression of language ideologies Conclusions Notes Bibliography The Politics of Language in Moldova Tom J. Hegarty The land and languages of Moldova The language situation of Russian Bessarabia Bessarabians find their voices Bessarabia as a province of Romania The Soviet effort to construct a new Moldovan language The Moldavian Soviet Socialist Republic and the Moldovan Language The Moldovan language in the age of perestroika The politics of language in the Republic of Moldova The future of the politics of language in Moldova Notes Bibliography

73 75 77 78 81 86 89 91 91 92 94 97 102 109 117 118 118 120 123 123 124 128 130 131 134 140 149 151 151 152

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Ethnic Discrimination in Latvia John Dobson Introduction Ethnic distribution Citizenship, naturalization and employment Languages and language legislation The language of education Ethnic segmentation in the labour market Ethnic strategy Conclusions Notes Bibliography Language, Nation and State-building in Ukraine: the Jewish Response Rebecca Golbert Introduction The symbolism of language Ethnographic locality Language and nationalism in theoretical perspective Strategies of cultural accommodation and manipulation An alternative view of the nation Conclusions Notes Bibliography

Index

155 155 156 160 167 172 174 177 181 182 185 189 189 191 192 195 198 204 208 210 212 213

List of Tables 2.1 2.2 2.3 2.4 2.5 4.1 5.1 5.2 7.1 7.2 7.3

How many languages? Demographics: Serbo–Croatian speakers The languages of the Yugoslav successor states Where are the successor languages heading? Montenegrin-specific letters German financial support for ethnic Germans in Poland, 1987–94 Overt attitudes toward linguistic variation in two rural communities Evaluation of standard versus non-standard varieties: a matched-guise test Ethnic population distribution Distribution of citizenship by ethnicity, 1997 Distribution of schoolchildren by ethnicity and language of instruction, 1996

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19 24 33 34 37 78 113 115 158 163 173

Acknowledgements I would like to thank Jane Friederichs, Alex Seago, Laura Lengel and Joe Ruane for their support and encouragement during the writing and preparation of this book. Special thanks also to Sharon Foley for reading and commenting on the Introduction, and to Patrizia Fregosi, Peter Kennealy and the librarians at the European University Institute Library in Florence, Italy, for all their help during the time I spent there in June 1999. Thanks also to my family and friends for their love and understanding.

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Notes on the Contributors John Dobson is currently a senior lecturer in Industrial Relations at the University of Salford. After taking a post-graduate degree in Industrial Relations at Warwick University, he worked in the steel industry for five years (1975–80) before leaving to take up a lectureship at the University of Salford. His first visit to Latvia was in 1995, at the height of the banking crisis. During subsequent visits, he has continued to observe the dramatic course of transition from a planned to a market economy and its effect on the lives of the people. Unlike many writers in this area, he has no genealogical links with the Baltic states. Rebecca Golbert is a doctoral candidate in social anthropology at the University of Oxford, specializing in Jewish youth culture and identity in post-Soviet Ukraine. She is completing a dissertation entitled ‘Constructing Self: Ukrainian Jewish Youth in the Making’, and has published an article in East European Jewish Affairs (1988, vol. 28, p. 1). Robert D. Greenberg is an associate professor in the Department of Slavic Languages and Literatures at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He has taught at Yale (1991–92), Georgetown University (1992–94) and at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill since 1994. He is a specialist in South Slavic languages and linguistics and has worked in the former Yugoslavia, primarily on sociolinguistic issues. He has explored issues of language, nationalism and ethnic identity both in Tito’s Yugoslavia and in the years following Yugoslavia’s break-up. His publications include: ‘The Politics of Dialects Among Serbs, Croats and Muslims in the Former Yugoslavia’ (1996), ‘Dialects and Ethnicity in the Former Yugoslavia’ (1998) and ‘In the Aftermath of Yugoslavia’s Collapse: the Politics of Language Death and Language Birth’ (1999). Rossitza Guentcheva is currently a PhD candidate at the University of Cambridge. She works on the relationship between language and state in the Balkans in the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries. She has been a Junior Research Fellow at the Open Society Archives and has lectured in the Department of European Studies at Sofia University. Her publications include ‘Poetics of a Trial’ (in Hungarian), 2000 (June x

Notes on the Contributors xi

1996), and ‘Symbolic Geography of Language: Orthographic Debates in Bulgaria (1880s–today)’, Language and Communication (1999). Thomas J. Hegarty is Professor of History at, and the former Provost and Vice President for Academic Affairs of, the University of Tampa, Florida. He received his PhD from Harvard University in History, with special areas in Russia and China. Hegarty has carried out research and lectured in the USSR since the 1970s. His current research and writing focuses on changes in Moldova while his teaching interests range more broadly from Russia and Eastern Europe across Central Asia to China and Japan. Hegarty is a frequent presenter of papers to scholarly organizations and civic groups on the changing situation in Russia, the USSR successor states, the Yugoslav successor states and China. Camille C. O’Reilly is Lecturer in Social Anthropology at Richmond, the American International University in London. She is the author of a number of articles on nationalism and the Irish language revival; gender, nationalism and the Irish language; the Irish language as symbol; the Irish language movement and the peace process in Northern Ireland; the politics of culture in Northern Ireland, and (with Gordon McCoy) the Ulster-Scots language. She is also the author of The Irish Language in Northern Ireland: the Politics of Culture and Identity (1999). O’Reilly is currently researching long-haul independent travel and ‘backpacker’ tourism. Stefan Wolff is DAAD Lecturer in Modern German Studies at the University of Keele. He received his education at the Universities of Leipzig, Germany, Cambridge and the London School of Economics and Political Science. Wolff’s main areas of research are ethno-territorial cross-border conflicts in Europe and minority rights. Publications include Political and Philosophical Aspects of Strategies Justifying Violence in Northern Ireland (1995) and several articles on Northern Ireland (1998/99), a book on state responses to terrorism (1996), articles on the transformation process in eastern Germany (1998) and two forthcoming edited volumes on German minorities in Europe (1999) and the integration of ethnic German resettlers in the Federal Republic (2000). Curt Woolhiser is an Assistant Professor of Slavic Linguistics in the Department of Slavic Languages and Literatures at the University of Texas at Austin. His research interests include East and West Slavic linguistics, language variation and change, language and dialect contact,

xii Notes on the Contributors

code-switching, language attitudes and language ideology, and language planning and language policy. His publications include ‘The Sociolinguistic Study of Language Contact and Bilingualism in the Former Soviet Union: the Case of Belarus’ (in Harlig and Pleh (eds), 1995) and a series of articles on Belarusian topics for the Supplement to the Modern Encyclopedia of Russian, Soviet and Eurasian History. He is currently working on a monograph dealing with the sociolinguistic aspects of dialect divergence in the contemporary Polish–Belarusian border region, based on fieldwork conducted in Poland and Belarus in 1996–99.

1 Introduction: Minority Languages, Ethnicity and the State in Post1989 Eastern Europe1 Camille C. O’Reilly

The 1990s have seen significant developments for the minority languages of Europe. While changes within the European Union have been largely positive from the perspective of stateless and minority ethnic groups, developments in Eastern Europe have shown more ambiguous results.2 There have certainly been attempts at enlightened treatment of minority linguistic groups in some of the new states that have emerged post-1989, but in others oppression of minority language groups has been both harsh and unabashed. This book has two aims. The first is to bring together a selection of sociological/ethnographically oriented work drawn from a number of different disciplines in order to allow the reader to make comparisons between developments in different states. The second is to examine the interplay between ethnic nationalism, language issues and processes of state formation and re-structuring in the various political and historical contexts of Central and Eastern Europe. The upheaval following the collapse of communism has provided a unique opportunity for social scientists to learn about the making of national languages, and the minoritization of formerly dominant ones. By the close of the tumultuous and often violent twentieth century, it was clear that ethnicity and nationalism had become the primary political idioms, displacing class and overshadowing other issues and other possible modes of political organization. During the last 100 years we have become all too familiar with the destructive potential of ethnic nationalism, and while the politics of ethnicity and identity have been a liberating force in some cases, they have also been used to mask or deny relations of power and ideology which underpin inequality and conflict in much of the world. 1

2 Language, Ethnicity and the State, vol. 2

With the spread of nationalism as the dominant mode of political organization, and the rise of ethnicity as a key means of constructing and expressing group identity, identity politics have become part of today’s hegemonic discourse and political practice. Just as every human being has a gender identity, we must all now have an ethnic identity as an integral and ‘primordial’ aspect of our sense of individual self and group membership. A dominant political theme in the West is that all identities must be respected and understood in their own terms, something that often leads to extremes of cultural relativism which require acceptance and stifle opposition or dissent. This theme has also had an impact, although to a lesser extent, in Eastern Europe. In the politics of ethnicity which dominates both East and West, culture is paramount and virtually untouchable, reified and incorporated into a hegemonic discourse of identity.3 The rise of identity politics has been accompanied by a certain conflation of the concepts culture, ethnicity and nation, with the terms being used almost interchangeably in some contexts – and not just in popular usage but in the academic literature as well. It seems prudent, then, to clarify their meanings and briefly examine the interrelationships between them. While it is likely that there have always been groups formed on the basis of perceived cultural difference and shared blood or kinship, ethnic affiliation began to take on a new significance in the post-war era. Since its first appearance in the social science literature in the 1950s, 4 the term ethnicity has clearly caught hold of the popular and academic imagination. In the space of just a few years, ethnicity has come to be seen as a key aspect of identity, which, along with gender, sexual identity and social class, is central to the construction and negotiation of status and power in state societies (Alonso 1994, p. 391). In spite of (or perhaps because of) its popularity, its meaning tends to be a bit fuzzy, indicating anything from the essence of an ethnic group, to the sense of belonging to an ethnic group, to that which an ethnic group has that makes it distinct from other ethnic groups (Tonkin et al. 1989). Bringing together key elements of the literature on ethnicity, Hutchinson and Smith suggest that an ethnic group generally exhibits six main features to varying degrees: (1) a common proper name; (2) a myth of common ancestry or fictive kinship; (3) shared historical memories; (4) one or more elements of a common culture, usually including religion, customs or language; (5) a link with a homeland, whether or not the ethnic group still occupies the territory; and (6) a sense of solidarity on the part of at least some of the group

Camille C. O’Reilly 3

(Hutchinson and Smith 1996, pp. 6–7). The degree of incorporation of the group clearly varies, both between ethnic groups and within the same group over time, as does the extent to which ethnicity is used instrumentally as a basis for political organization and action. According to common sense notions of the concept, ethnicity is perceived as a ‘natural’ part of being human. The existence of particular ethnic groups tends to be projected into the distant past, and the significance of ethnic identity for an individual’s social standing and status is largely taken for granted. In the academic literature, this perspective is often labelled primordialist, in contrast to instrumentalist and constructivist approaches. Primordialists tend to emphasize depth and ‘givenness’ of ethnic ties, relating them to ties of ‘blood’ and kinship, while instrumentalists tend to see ethnicity as a social and political resource that can be used in the competition for wealth, power and status.5 Constructivists, who may or may not be instrumentalists as well, emphasize the modernity of ethnic groups and highlight how they are constructed through social interaction in particular political and historical contexts. The three approaches are not necessarily mutually exclusive, and many academics tend in practice to draw on a combination of these. In popular usage, however, the primordialist view dominates, a fact that needs to be taken into account in any attempt to understand the workings of the politics of ethnicity and identity. It is important to avoid overly reductionist explanations of ethnicity, particularly the implication that it is ‘tribal’ or in some way tied to our more ‘primitive’ nature. The rise of ethnicity is not a ‘return’ to the atavistic, but rather a concept that was developed and applied in a particular way in the late twentieth century. We get no further in our attempt to understand it by dismissing it as a somehow ‘natural’ or inevitable feature of humanity. Indeed, such thinking on the part of social scientists and other social commentators can contribute to what Schöpflin refers to as reductionist mobilization, ‘the state of affairs where all questions, problems arguments, demands, and so on are interpreted exclusively in ethnonational terms’ (Schöpflin 1995, p. 47). When political articulation is reduced to just this one channel, the compromises and deals that normally characterize democratic systems cannot take place. Schöpflin argues that once deep-level cultural issues come to the fore, material concessions or incentives become useless – issues of cultural identity are difficult to bargain away. Tishkov (1997) confirms this danger with his detailed analysis of ethnic and nationalist politics in and after the existence of the Soviet


Union, calling on academics to stop contributing to the creation of confrontational ethnic ideologies. Social science approaches to ethnicity during the Soviet era were dominated by primordialism.6 While in the West this approach has been heavily criticized and its influence is waning, it is still the leading theoretical orientation in post-Soviet analyses. The work of Lev Gumilev (1989) has been very influential, read by both popular and academic audiences. Tishkov accuses Gumilev of pseudo-scholarship, but points out that his ideas about the nature of ‘ethnoses’ have had an important popular and political impact (Tishkov 1997, pp. 2–3). The ethnographer Yulian Bromley (1977, 1983, 1987, 1989) has also had an enormous influence, popularizing the idea that ethnoses ‘are ancient, self-contained bodies making their own journey through history’ (Tishkov 1997, p. 3). The notion that ethnicity is natural, innate and inescapable had important consequences for the political developments of the 1990s, as academics who ascribe to this view were made part of many governments of the USSR successor states and have influenced both policy and political elites. While it is important to combat overly primordialist analyses, we should also resist the temptation to see ethnicity in overly instrumental terms. Simply highlighting that all ethnic identities are constructed in particular historical, social and political circumstances does not mean that ‘anything goes’ in the formation of ethnic groups and the mobilization of ethnic movements. The cultural features that are chosen to mark boundaries between ethnic groups often have fundamental, persistent and deep meanings for the people concerned, and cannot be brushed aside as mere manipulation to serve the aims of elites. As Smith (1986) has pointed out, aspects of culture and history can be fashioned to support and promote present day needs, but these constructions take place within and are constrained by existing contexts.7 It is true that ethnic identity can be politicized; indeed it can be consciously created for expressly political purposes in some instances (Hanf 1995), but this does not necessarily mean that ethnic identity is shallow or without significance for members of the group in question. There tends to be a great deal of slippage between the terms culture and ethnicity, again both in popular usage and in the academic literature. It could be argued that while any subjectively identifiable group might share a common culture, ethnicity is a conscious awareness of that sharing (Schöpflin 1995, p. 42). Roosens (1995) points out that, in fact, cultural identity may or may not be congruent with ethnic identity. The primary reason why the terms culture and ethnicity are confused stems from the fact that people tend to use only a limited


number of emic cultural traits to define themselves ethnically (Roosens 1995, pp. 30–1). It is quite possible for people to categorize themselves into two distinct ethnic groups in spite of having, from an outsider’s perspective, a great deal of shared culture in common. Ethnic identification is also a narrower form of classification, implying the exclusion of those who are not members of the group. It is entirely possible, on the other hand, to freely acknowledge shared cultural traits across ethnic groups. For example, it is not unusual to speak of a common European culture or specifically European cultural traits, while at the same time acknowledging the ethnic diversity within the region. In addition, culture can change over time, while the ethnic group associated with it is perceived as being static and continuous. There is a substantial literature on nationalism and the relationship between ethnicity and nationalism, a review of which is beyond the scope of this Introduction. 8 It is possible, however, to highlight a few points that are relevant to the orientation of the volume overall, particularly in relation to language and state formation. Once again, it is important to clarify the difference between the terms ‘state’ and ‘nation’. For a working definition of the state we can turn to Hobsbawm, who suggests that the modern model consists of ‘a territory, preferably coherent and demarcated by frontier lines from its neighbours, within which all citizens without exception come under the exclusive rule of the territorial government and the rules under which it operates’, the ideal of which is represented by an ethnically, culturally, and linguistically homogeneous population – the nation (Hobsbawm 1996, pp. 1065–6, emphasis in original). Many theorists have pointed out that the nation has become the single, overarching basis of political community in the modern period. It is common, also, to highlight two aspects of nationalism, the civic and the ethnic. While this volume primarily focuses on the ethnic aspects of nationhood and nationalism, it is worth emphasizing that the power of nationalist ideology derives at least in part from the potent combination of the ideal of popular sovereignty and universal citizenship (the civic element), and the ideal of shared culture as an agent of political legitimization and mark of authenticity (the ethnic element). Although often portrayed as ideal types, the two work in combination in real world situations. Schöpflin argues that while most nations benefit from an ethnic base, this alone is not sufficient foundation on which to build the political community of a state. Likewise, civic unity has proven too weak on its own to form the basis of the states that have taken shape during the last two centuries. The civic


and ethnic elements have developed together, sometimes in competition, sometimes in a way that overlaps, in an ongoing process of definition and redefinition that continues to the present day (Schöpflin 1995, pp. 40–1). On the thorny topic of the modernity of nations, the strong versions of both constructivism and primordialism sometimes go too far. The mass of evidence suggests that nationalism is indeed a modern ideology that has developed along with the dramatic socio-economic, cultural and political changes wrought by industrialization. 9 In other words, nations, like ethnic groups, are constructed within the constraints of particular historical, social and cultural contexts. It is also fair to say that some nations can draw on relatively deep ethnic roots, while others cannot. As Gellner so eloquently puts it: Some nations have navels, some achieve navels, some have navels thrust upon them. Those possessed of genuine ones are probably in a minority, but it matters little. It is the need for navels engendered by modernity that matters. (1997, p. 101) Although nationalism tends to be portrayed as universal, perennial and wholly self-evident (Gellner 1997, p. 7), it is important that we continue to point out that there is indeed nothing ‘natural’ about it. There is little doubt that the dramatic events that took place in Europe during the 1990s have forced us to look at nationalism and ethnic movements in a new light. After the horrors of the second world war, nationalism as a political ideology took on a certain pariah status. With its destructive aspect in the forefront of the popular imagination, the legitimacy of ethnic or national politics seemed to have been seriously undermined. While the ethnic revival was taking hold in Western Europe from the 1960s onwards, in Eastern Europe attempts were being made to contain the potential power of nationalism by institutionalizing it. The intellectuals of the nineteenth century had already begun the work of creating nations, and the ethnic engineering continued during the twentieth century under communist rule, only with different goals in mind.10 In the West, the majority of new ethnic movements that arose in the second half of the twentieth century did not call the integrity of the state into question. Rather, they tended to look for increased access to power or a degree of autonomy within existing state structures. While the exceptions to this general statement have in some cases involved significant levels of violence, as in Northern Ireland and the Basque


Country, other ethnic movements with a nationalist element or wing used non-violent means to pursue their goals. This is in sometimes stark contrast to the rise of nationalist movements in Eastern Europe during the 1990s, such as those that split apart Yugoslavia and rocked the Soviet successor states. The reasons for the slide into violence in parts of Central and Eastern Europe are complex, and analysts are still searching for explanations. It is all too easy to put the phenomenon down to the resurfacing of ageold hatreds, an inevitable consequence of ethnic divisions that were bound to come to the fore after the collapse of authoritarian rule. Aside from being primordialist and overly reductionist, this sort of explanation does little to further our understanding of what happened; nor does it tell us why there was in fact so little resort to violence. In spite of fears and in spite of dire predictions, serious violent conflicts flared in only a few areas. Nevertheless, the virulence of nationalist expressions, both violent and otherwise, have shocked many and posed a real threat to the formation of fledgling democracies. Nationalism has been the driving ideological force in the creation of the new states of Central and Eastern Europe, all of which are ethnically heterogeneous to a greater or lesser extent. Popular political mobilization has been largely ethnic in character, creating problems for both long-standing and newly created minorities, some of whom have experienced considerable discrimination at the hands of ruling titular majorities. Nationalism in many ways came to fill the political vacuum left by the collapse of the communist order. Communism had swept away all other competing ideas, programmes and values, which, according to Schöpflin (1995), made it much easier for an undiluted nationalism to take hold as the primary alternative means of political expression. The weakness of civic institutions and of the civic side of nationalism has meant that ethnic nationalism predominates. There is a strong propensity to see all issues as relating to ethnic nationhood, a situation which will persist until post-communist societies develop identities that crosscut ethnicity and succeed in ‘desacralizing’ ethnic nationalism (Schöpflin 1995, pp. 53–4). The strength of ethnic nationalism in Central and Eastern Europe is also due to specific historical circumstances. To explain the differing impact of nationalism in different parts of Europe, Gellner identifies four ‘zones’, roughly corresponding to historical differences in the relationship between culture and the state. Zone one consists of the societies spread out along the Atlantic coast, including the strong dynastic states centred around Lisbon, Madrid,


Paris and London. Gellner suggests that a dominant, relatively uniform culture roughly coincided with the state in the post-medieval era, long before the age of nationalism deemed this essential. When nationalism came into existence, no great changes were required to accommodate the new ideology (Gellner 1997, pp. 50–1). Zone two lies immediately to the east and corresponds roughly to the territory of the former Holy Roman Empire. Here, according to Gellner, the situation was somewhat more complicated. While a ‘high’ culture existed in Italy and Germany that might form the basis of nationalism, there was no preexisting state because of the region’s history of political fragmentation. In this zone, it was the construction of a unified state that became the central issue (Gellner 1997, pp. 52–3). In zones three and four, corresponding to Central and Eastern Europe, ‘all in all, there were neither national states nor national cultures’ (Gellner 1997, p. 54). According to Gellner, the need to create both state and national culture in a region endowed with a complex patchwork of linguistic and cultural differences was a recipe for disaster (1997, p. 54). His assessment of the situation is stark: The basic point is simple: in conditions such as those which prevail in the Balkans, the Caucasus, the Volga bend, much of central Asia and many other parts of the world, culturally homogeneous nationstates, such as are held to be normative and prescribed by history in nationalist theory, can be produced only by ethnic cleansing. In such areas, either people must be persuaded to forgo the implementation of the nationalist ideal, or ethnic cleansing must take place. There is no third way. (Gellner 1997, p. 56) In spite of the fact that there are no ethnically homogeneous states in Europe whatever the zone, 11 and especially not in Central and Eastern Europe, the ideal of the nation-state has persisted into the new century and shows no sign of decline. How is it that this ideal persists in the face of such a heterogeneous reality? Part of the answer lies in the nature of the modern state itself. Alonso points to the tendency in both common sense and academic accounts to reify the state: ‘Hegemonic strategies, at once material and symbolic, produce the idea of the state while concretizing the imagined community of the nation … through the everyday routines, rituals, and policies of the state system’ (Alonso 1994, p. 382). Many state-centred approaches to understanding nationalism, which emphasize the role of the modern state in the formation of ethnic communi-


ties and nations, make the mistake of treating the nation with undue concreteness. A partial correction to this tendency might be to look, as Smith has argued, at the other side of the coin as well, focusing on the influence of ethnic origin and culture on state formation (Smith 1996, p. 448). Another element in an explanation of the persistence of the nationalist ideal of the state can be found within a major philosophical strand of modernism. In the modernist dichotomy between reason, progress and civilization on the one hand, and emotion, tradition and the state of nature on the other, certain languages came to be seen as the vehicles of rational thought while others were deemed ‘emotional’ or simply inadequate. Those that were believed to have the capacity to promote reason came to be linked to the rational ideal of the modern state, while the others remained ‘stateless’ and linked to the realm of the traditional. Because the ‘stateless’ languages tended to be linked to the old order, they were often perceived as a threat to the state and became the subject of neglect or outright hostility. An ideal of homogeneity emerged, with the equation one language equals one state. Language came to be seen as a significant marker of the boundaries between societies and between states, which, according to the emerging nationalist ideal, should be co-terminus. Once this ideal took hold, stateless languages became minority languages, and their speakers became minority ethnic groups. The logic of language, nation and state became circular and, eventually, self-evident – each language group must constitute a nation, each nation should have a state, each state should have just one language. There is no room for stateless languages in this scenario. They must either be assimilated into the dominant language and culture, or their speakers might make a claim to nationhood in their own right. It should be clear at this point that the label ‘minority’ language is a political construct, the product of nationalist ideology and processes of state formation. It has little to do with absolute numbers or demography – the redrawing of state boundaries can make speakers of the formerly dominant language into a minority, and the minority language into the state language, a scenario that was repeated all over Eastern Europe in the 1990s. As the language of the titular ethnic group became the state language, Russian itself has taken its place as a minority language alongside smaller, stateless languages in the USSR successor states and elsewhere. The primary issue is relative power – minority languages are ‘minor’ only in relation to what is considered to be the national language


(Haberland 1991, pp. 182–3). Some have suggested that the term minority is oppressive in itself, implying deviance from the norm or inadequacy. In the context of Western Europe, the term ‘lesser-used language’ occasionally appears as an alternative, 12 but this does not really avoid the pitfalls associated with the label ‘minority’ and is rather awkward to use. As Haberland points out, not using the term minority can also be oppressive, especially when the group in question clearly identifies itself as such. Avoidance of the term can be a means to define a group out of existence, as when Kurds are referred to as ‘Mountain Turks’ by the Turkish authorities (Haberland 1991, pp. 180–1). A further distinction is sometimes made between regional and minority languages, with the term ‘regional’ referring to those languages with a fairly large territory, and ‘minority’ to those with a small territory, limited development potential, and whose survival appears to be threatened (Tabouret-Keller 1991, p. 49). The problem with this distinction is the difficulty in defining the precise distinguishing characteristics between the two, and its rather simplistic association between number of speakers and relative vitality of a language group. In Western Europe, the creation of the European Union has had a significant impact on the fortunes and future of minority languages. The EU has provided a new forum for minority language groups to voice their demands and concerns, and new institutional structures through which to pursue their objectives. It has also allowed for an increased degree of collaboration between minority language groups across state borders. The EU has come out strongly in support of multilingualism, paradoxically because of the strong monolingualism of its member states. It is, then, the great importance that EU member states attach to their national languages which has necessitated the linguistic pluralism of the EU. In fact, some individual member states have less than ideal records in terms of protecting the rights of their own linguistic minorities. This has been at the root of criticism and resentment over EU attempts to regulate minority rights in the new states of Eastern Europe, particularly those that hope to be among the first to join as the EU expands eastward.13 Voluntary attempts to conform to the ideal of minority rights are likely to be more effective in the long run. As more countries join the Council of Europe, they will be encouraged to sign the Charter on Regional or Minority Languages, which provides an opportunity for states to subscribe to common principles in support of minority languages without being these principles being legally binding.14 The contributions to this volume as well as the existing literature on ethnicity, identity and the state, suggest that there are two different


trends unfolding in Western and Eastern Europe. In the West, it is increasingly common to find a discourse of cultural diversity occurring in the wider context of the EU. Though fundamentally modernist in many respects, paradoxically the EU also stands in opposition to the modernist emphasis on homogeneity. 15 The Maastricht Treaty itself specifically underlines the importance of the diversity of European cultures (Article 128). Language in particular frequently enjoys special treatment in the discourse on diversity. It is now commonplace to highlight the benefits of bilingualism, particularly with reference to the evidence for increased problem-solving skills in bilingual children, a trait seen as essential to a competitive workforce (CEC Report of Activities 1994, p. 12). The authors of Euromosaic conclude that: Given what is claimed concerning the importance of diversity as one of the advantages which Europe has over competing regions in the world economy, there is an obvious need to be able to exploit that advantage. … This leads us to a point which cannot be overemphasised: the need for a programme of action to promote minority language groups as sources of diversity that derives from language and culture … not for the benefit of the various language groups as a European heritage, but for the economic advantage of the entire Community. (Euromosaic 1996, p. 60)16 The West appears to be experiencing a shift from the modernist emphasis on homogeneity, assimilation and unitary identities into an increasingly post-modern focus on difference, heterogeneity and hybrid identities (Grillo 1998), a shift which in the long term will have profound implications for European identities and the survival of minority languages. In Eastern Europe, the modernist model of the state, heavily influenced by ethnic nationalism, still dominates. This is not to say that the post-modern trend described by Grillo (1998) and others has had no impact (or that Western Europe is not still influenced by the modernist model, for that matter). The policies of – and conditions set – by the EU have affected many states, particularly in Central Europe and the Baltic.17 In addition, the same forces of globalization that have led to post-modern and post-industrial configurations of the state in the West will over time transform the East as well. While it is difficult to predict how quickly this paradigm shift will occur, it seems clear that ethnicity and nationalism will continue to play a part in Eastern European politics well into the twenty-first century.


The chapters in this volume are connected by a number of common threads. The first is how processes of state formation and re-structuring affect, and are affected by, the interplay between language, minority rights and ethnic nationalism. In Chapter 2, Greenberg outlines the genesis and eventual deconstruction of Serbo-Croatian. A key element in the creation of the Yugoslav federation, Serbo-Croatian was conceived of as a unifying force. With the break up of Yugoslavia along ethnic lines and the creation of successor states, at least three successor languages have emerged – Bosnian, Serbian and Croatian. Both the creation and the eventual dismantling of Serbo-Croatian demonstrate the power of the one nation/one state/one language equation in the legitimization of the state. A number of chapters deal with the making of a national language and the minoritization of a formerly dominant language, an example being Russian which was systematically demoted across the Soviet successor states and replaced by the languages of titular ethnic groups. In Chapter 5, Woolhiser examines language ideologies in post-Soviet Belarus. Focusing on culture-specific views about language and its role in society, he analyses the political and social interests that underlie these views. Woolhiser contrasts elite and popular understandings, the elites being more ideological in their pro-Russian or pro-Belarusian stances, while the broader population is more likely to tolerate ambiguity and language mixing. In Chapter 6, Hegarty again highlights the one nation/one state/one language equation as he outlines the complex historical interplay between the Russian, Moldovan and Romanian languages and their relationship to the various states that have had jurisdiction over this territory. Moldovan and Romanian are essentially the same, but differing political histories have led to the formation of separate states, and ultimately separate languages. With the creation of the Soviet successor state of Moldova, debates took place not just over the future position of Russian in the state, but over the implications of calling the new official language ‘Moldovan’ or ‘Romanian’. In Chapter 7, Dobson examines attempts to legislate changes in language and culture in Latvia to favour the titular ethnic group, resulting in direct discrimination against ethnic Russians and other Russianspeaking ethnic groups. He focuses in particular on how often contradictory policies of forced assimilation and ethnic exclusion have had a negative economic impact not just on the individuals concerned, but on the economic and political well-being of the state itself. In Chapter 8, Golbert highlights the problem of Russophone minorities in


Soviet successor states through an examination of Ukrainian Jews, a group traditionally identified with Russian language and culture. The ethnically and linguistically diverse population of Ukraine is a phenomenon perceived as highly problematic by the post-Soviet Ukrainian state, which has consequently pushed a policy of ‘Ukrainianization’. The struggle of Ukrainian Jews to re-align their identities within this new context exposes the interface of modernist and pluralist conceptions of the state. Three chapters examine states that have taken what can be described as a more enlightened approach to linguistic minorities. In Chapter 6, Hegarty discusses Moldova’s sometimes faltering attempts to implement linguistic pluralism. In Chapter 3, Guentcheva highlights some of the difficulties associated with official multiculturalism in relation to the Bulgarian minority in Romania. Here, efforts to give representation to minorities have been based on an assumption of ethnic group homogeneity and a reified conception of culture. Once membership of the Bulgarian minority came to confer certain rights and access to power, competition ensued between the two main Bulgarian communities, with linguistic ‘purity’ taken as an indicator of authenticity and ultimately the right to represent the minority as a whole. In Chapter 4, Wolff discusses the sensitive topic of the changing status of the German minorities in the Czech Republic and Poland. He demonstrates the complex triangular relationship between external minority, the host state, and the ‘kin’ state, and how this has been affected by changing conceptions of ethnic and national identity. The impact of EU Eastern expansion also comes into play as Wolff discusses the ways in which the Czech Republic and Poland have attempted to conform to EU guidelines on the treatment of ethnic minorities within their borders. Billig (1995) has argued that language is an ideological construct of nationalism – languages are not simply manipulated in the service of nationalism, they are constructed by the nationalist project. This point comes through in the chapters by Guentcheva, Woolhiser, Hegarty and Greenberg in particular. All of these discuss the role of elites in debates over language during the formation and restructuring of states postcommunism. The instrumental manipulation of language issues goes beyond efforts to shape national identities – it forms part of the struggle for power, heightening conflict and, in some cases, contributing to the outbreak of violence – as happened in Moldova and Yugoslavia. It is clear that the modernist ideal of the state continues to prevail in most of Eastern Europe, in contrast with the increasing emphasis on


multiple and hybrid identities in the EU. As the chapters in this volume show, there have been tentative attempts at pluralism in some states, but the ethnic nationalist ideal dominates. It may be some time before we see a move towards ethnic and linguistic heterogeneity as a resource rather than as a threat. In both its destructive and creative aspects, it seems clear that ethnicity and nationalism will continue to be significant forces as the century unfolds.

Notes 1. Some of the research on which this chapter is based was carried out at the European University Institute Library under the auspices of EUSSIRF, a Large Scale Facility funded by the Training and Mobility of Researchers programme of the European Commission (DG XXII). Sections of this Introduction also appear in slightly altered form in Language, Ethnicity and the State: Minority Languages in the European Union, vol. 1 (Palgrave 2001). 2. This book is most fruitfully read in conjunction with its companion volume, Language, Ethnicity and the State: Minority Languages in the European Union, vol. 1 (Palgrave 2001). 3. For a discussion of this process in relation to nationalism, see Richard Handler’s Nationalism and the Politics of Culture in Quebec (1988). 4. According to Hutchinson and Smith (1996), the term ‘ethnicity’ first appeared in the 1953 edition of the Oxford English Dictionary. It became popular in the social sciences in the 1970s, with Glazer and Moynihan commenting on the newness of the term in their 1975 edited volume Ethnicity: Theory and Experience. 5. See Hutchinson and Smith (1996, pp. 7–10) for a brief synopsis of the primordialist and instrumentalist approaches. 6. See Tishkov (1997), Chapter 1 and Banks (1996) Chapter 2 for discussions of Soviet ethnos theory. 7. See also Benda-Beckman and Verkuyten (1995). 8. For an anthropological perspective on these, see Eriksen (1993), Banks (1996) and Jenkins (1997). 9. See especially Anderson ([1983] 1991) and Gellner (1983, 1997). 10. See Tishkov (1997), especially Chapter 2, for a discussion of ethnogenesis in the USSR. 11. The only real exception to this is Iceland. 12. The term ‘lesser-used language appears in the name of the European Bureau of Lesser-Used Languages – see Ó Riagáin in Language, Ethnicity and the State: Minority Languages in the European Union. 13. For further discussion, see the report Minority Rights and EU Enlargement to the East (1998) and Burgess (1999). 14. The first three Eastern European countries to join were Poland, Hungary and Czechoslovakia, all of which gave positive support during the development of the charter.

Camille C. O’Reilly 15 15. See discussions in Coulmas (1991), Euromosaic (1996) and Burgess (1999), as well as the companion to this volume on minority languages in the EU. 16. Euromosaic: the Production and Reproduction of the Minority Language Groups of the EU (1996) is the result of a comprehensive study commissioned by the European Commission. According to the report, the objective of the study ‘was to ascertain the current situation of the various language groups by reference to their potential for production and reproduction, and the difficulties which they encounter in doing so’ (Euromosaic 1996, Executive Summary). 17. To cite just a few examples, Slovakia has come under pressure over the treatment of its sizeable Hungarian minority, while Estonia and Latvia have had to bow to pressure over legislation denying full citizenship rights to the Russian minority.

Bibliography Alonso, A.M. The Politics of Space, Time and Substance: State Formation, Nationalism, and Ethnicity, Annual Review of Anthropology, 23 (1994) 379–405. Anderson, B. Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism, 2nd edn (London: Verso [1983] 1991). Banks, M. Ethnicity: Anthropological Constructions (London: Routledge, 1996). von Benda-Beckman, K. and Verkuyten, M. Introduction: Cultural Identity and Development in Europe, in K. von Benda-Beckman and M. Verkuyten (eds), Nationalism, Ethnicity and Cultural Identity in Europe (Utrecht, The Netherlands: ERCOMER, 1995). Billig, M. Banal Nationalism (London: Sage Publications, 1995). Bromley, Y. (ed.), Sovremennie etnicheskie protessy v SSSR [Contemporary Ethnic Processes in the USSR], (Moscow: Nauka, 1977). Bromley, Y. Ocherki teorii etnosa [Essays on the Theory of Ethnos] (Moscow: Nauka, 1983). Bromley, Y. Etnosotsial’nie protsessy: teoria, istoria, sovremennost [Ethnosocial Processes: Theory, History, Today] (Moscow: Nauka, 1987). Bromley, Y. Krazrabotke poniatiino-terminologicheskikh aspektov natsional’noi problematiki [On Working Out Terminological Aspects of Nationality Problems], Sovetskaya etnografiia, 6 (1989) 3–17. Burgess, A. Critical Reflections on the Return of National Minority Rights Regulation to East/West European Affairs, in K. Cordell (ed.), Ethnicity and Democratisation in the New Europe (London: Routledge, 1999). CEC (Commission of the European Communities). Lesser Used Languages of the European Union: Report of Activities 1989–1993, COM(94) 602 Final, CB-CO-94627-EN-C (Luxembourg: Office for Official Publications of the European Communities, 1994). Coulmas, F. European Integration and the Idea of the National Language: Ideological Roots and Economic Consequences, in F. Coulmas (ed.) A Language Policy for the European Community: Prospects and Quandaries (New York: Mouton de Gruyter, 1991).

16 Language, Ethnicity and the State, vol. 2 Eriksen, T.H. Ethnicity and Nationalism: Anthropological Perspectives (London: Pluto Press, 1993). Euromosaic: the Production and Reproduction of the Minority Language Groups of the EU (Luxembourg: Office for Official Publications of the European Communities, 1996). Gellner, E. Nations and Nationalism (Oxford: Blackwell, 1983). Gellner, E. Nationalism (London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1997). Glazer, N. and Moynihan, D.A. (eds), Ethnicity: Theory and Experience (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1975). Grillo, R. Pluralism and the Politics of Difference: State, Culture and Ethnicity in Comparative Perspective (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1998). Gumilev, L.N. Etnogenez I biosfera Zemli [Ethnogenesis and Biosphere of the Earth], (Leningrad: Leningrad State University Publishing House, 1989). Haberland, H. Reflections about Minority Languages in the European Community, in F. Coulmas (ed.) A Language Policy for the European Community: Prospects and Quandaries (New York: Mouton de Gruyter, 1991). Handler, R. Nationalism and the Politics of Culture in Quebec (Madison, Wisconsin: Wisconsin University Press, 1988). Hanf, T. Ethnurgy: On the Analytical Use and Normative Abuse of the Concept of ‘Ethnic Identity’, in K. von Benda-Beckman and M. Verkuyten, (eds), Nationalism, Ethnicity and Cultural Identity in Europe (Utrecht, The Netherlands: ERCOMER, 1995). Hobsbawm, E. Language, Culture, and National Identity, Social Research 63: 4 (1996) 1065–80. Hutchinson, J. and Smith, A.D. Ethnicity, Oxford Readers (Oxford University Press, 1996). Jenkins, R. Rethinking Ethnicity: Arguments and Explorations (London: Sage, 1997). Minority Rights and EU Enlargement to the East: Report of the First Meeting of the Reflection Group on the Long-Term Implications of EU Enlargement: the Nature of the New Frontier, European University Institute, Robert Schumann Centre, Policy Papers, RSC No. 98/5 (Florence: European University Institute, 1998). Roosens, E. Ethnicity as a Creation: Some Theoretical Reflections, in K. von Benda-Beckman and M. Verkuyten, (eds), Nationalism, Ethnicity and Cultural Identity in Europe (Utrecht, The Netherlands: ERCOMER, 1995). Schöpflin, G. Nationalism and Ethnicity in Europe, East and West, in C.A. Kupchan (ed.) Nationalism and Nationalities in the New Europe (Ithaca & London: Cornell University Press, 1995). Smith, A.D. The Ethnic Origin of Nations (Oxford: Blackwell, 1986). Smith, A.D. Culture, Community and Territory: the Politics of Ethnicity and Nationalism, International Affairs, 72: 3 (1996) 445–58. Tabouret-Keller, A. Factors of constraints and Freedom in Setting a Language Policy for the European Community: a Sociolinguistic Approach, in F. Coulmas (ed.) A Language Policy for the European Community: Prospects and Quandaries (New York: Mouton de Gruyter, 1991). Tishkov, V. Ethnicity, Nationalism and Conflict in and after the Soviet Union (London: Sage, 1997). Tonkin, E. MacDonald, M. and Chapman, M. (eds), History and Ethnicity (London: Routledge, 1989).

2 Language, Nationalism and the Yugoslav Successor States Robert D. Greenberg

Like religion and ethnicity, language has served as a marker of national identity. For the Slavic peoples, language has played a central role in differentiating among neighbouring Slavic peoples who often share the same religion or cultural heritage. 1 In the former Yugoslavia, language issues have long been both a reflection of interethnic tensions and a catalyst for deepening inter-ethnic animosities. Since the collapse of the Yugoslav Federation in 1991, the insistence that the Serbo-Croatian language be broken up along ethnic lines has at times resulted in what some analysts have considered to be absurd and unnatural consequences.2 The new language divisions have been the subjects of many jokes among ordinary people in the former Yugoslavia, but for the policy makers these new languages are no laughing matter.3 Indeed, given the ethnic polarization in the 1980s and 1990s, language has proven to be a highly emotional and politically sensitive topic. In this chapter, I first provide a brief overview of the history of the language–politics interface surrounding the unified Serbo-Croatian language, as spoken by the former Yugoslavia’s Serbs, Croats, Muslim Slavs and Montenegrins. I then outline the language situation in Yugoslavia on the eve of Yugoslavia’s collapse as opposing nationalist camps were carving out new ethnic successor languages to Serbo-Croatian. This analysis is followed by an attempt to synthesize the main trends in language planning in the Yugoslav successor states, with the emergence of at least three successor languages to Serbo-Croatian (Bosnian, Croatian and Serbian). I conclude with a case study on the polemics surrounding the potential emergence of a separate Montenegrin language, something that would constitute yet another successor language to Serbo-Croatian. Ultimately, I suggest that language issues have continued to be – and 17


are likely to remain – highly politicized in the aftermath of the most recent Balkan wars.

The joint language tradition for Serbs and Croats The turbulent history of the unified language for Serbs, Croats, Muslim Slavs and Montenegrins can be approached in the following two ways: (1) through an analysis of the multiple names given the language since its inception in 1850; and (2) through an analysis of different language unity models which have been historically applied to the unified language. Both approaches reveal that Serbo-Croatian language unity was precarious at best and never truly embraced by the rival ethnic groups. A language with many names The unified language for Serbs and Croats emerged in the middle of the nineteenth century, when several Serb and Croat intellectuals signed the ‘Literary Agreement’ in Vienna on 28 March 1850. Among the signatories were prominent Serb linguists and Croat writers and linguists, including Vuk Stefanovic´ Karadzˇic´ and Djura Danicˇic´ for the Serbs, and Ivan Mazˇuranic´ and Ivan Kukuljevic´-Sakcinski for the Croats.4 Karadzˇic´ was the primary codifier of the new popular Serbian vernacular and reformer of the Serbian Cyrillic alphabet. Serbs have widely embraced him as the founder of the modern Serbian language. For both sides, the ‘Literary Agreement’ served to further separate political agendas, and the agreement is frequently interpreted as a marriage of convenience. On the Croat side, the impetus to sign the agreement grew out of the political platform of the Illyrian movement, which had sought a revival of Croatian cultural autonomy and language. Thus in the 1830s, the primary leader of the Illyrians, Ljudevit Gaj, switched his allegiances from the Zagreb-Kajkavian dialect to the Dubrovnik-Sˇtokavian idiom. This decision served two purposes: (1) to enhance Croatia’s cultural and political autonomy within the AustroHungarian Empire;5 and (2) to further the integration of Croat Sˇtokavian speech territories (especially Southern Dalmatia and Slavonia) into the Croat lands. The choice of the Dubrovnik-Sˇtokavian dialect would bolster Croat unity by appealing to the inhabitants of Dalmatia, who (until 1797) had been under Venetian rule. During the nineteenth century, Dalmatia was governed by Austria (rather than Hungary, which administered much of the rest of the Croatian lands). Simultaneously, the Dubrovnik-Sˇtokavian dialect was similar to Karadzˇic´’s native dialect, and the unity of the Serbian and Croatian

Robert D. Greenberg 19

peoples would enhance South Slavic power within the AustroHungarian Empire. In a similar manner, Vuk Karadzˇic´ had his own political agenda on the Serb side. He viewed the language unity agreement as proof that all speakers of the Sˇtokavian dialect were Serbs; he considered the Croat Sˇtokavian speakers to be ‘Catholic Serbs,’ the Muslim Sˇtokavian speakers to be ‘Muslim Serbs,’ and the Orthodox Sˇtokavian speakers to be ‘Orthodox Serbs’.6 In addition to these divergent motivations for forming the joint literary language, the ‘Literary Agreement’ had a fundamental flaw, since it failed to give the joint language a name. The Serb and Croat signatories could not agree on an appropriate term, and both sides never adequately resolved this issue. Consequently, many different terms have been used to describe the joint language. These terms are presented in Table 2.1. Table 2.1

How many languages?

Terms

Approximate dates when first used

Our language

Since 1850 and the ‘Literary Agreement’ uniting Serbian and Croatian

Croatian or Serbian

Second half of nineteenth century

Croato-Serbian

Since 1954 and the Novi Sad Agreement

Serbo-Croatian

First used in 1867 (Petar Budmani’s grammar)

Croatian literary language

Briefly (1941–45) and in late 1960s

Serbian language

Before 1850 and after 1991

Standard Linguistic Idiom

Product of 1974 Yugoslav Constitution

Bosnian language

Official as of 1992 (term found as early as the seventeenth century)

Bosniac language

Unofficial term for ‘Bosnian’

Montenegrin language

Increasingly spoken about in post-1991 period

Yugoslav language

Proposed in 1861

Illyrian language

Term used by members of the Illyrian movement and by authorities of the Austro-Hungarian Empire inspired by Napoleon’s creation of the Illyrian provinces in the first decade of the nineteenth century.


Given the lack of agreement on the name of the language, both sides often euphemistically referred to the language simply as ‘Our Language’. Serb linguists officially recognized this state of affairs by naming one of their language-oriented journals Nasˇ jezik (‘Our Language’), which was published by the Linguistics Society in Belgrade from 1933 to 1941. In Socialist Yugoslavia, the journal became the official voice of the Serbian Academy of Arts and Sciences’ Institute for the Serbo-Croatian Language, which has continued to publish the journal after the break-up of Yugoslavia. Similarly, The Croatian Philological Society began publishing a journal Jezik (‘Language’) in 1952, dedicated to the ‘culture of the Croatian literary language’. 7 This journal, perhaps surprisingly, has not been renamed in post-1991 Croatia.8 In the years immediately following the ‘Literary Agreement’, the Serb Djura Danicˇic´ and a group of Croat linguists sought to create the cornerstones for the new literary language. 9 In Zagreb they engaged in compiling dictionaries, grammars, handbooks and orthographic manuals. Initially, these linguists used the terms ‘Illyrian language’ or ‘Yugoslav language’ to describe the newly formed joint language for Serbs and Croats. According to Okuka (1998, pp. 19–20), in 1861 the Croatian Sabor (Parliament) in Zagreb voted to name the language ‘Yugoslav’, only to have this decision overturned by the authorities in Vienna, who had previously used the terms ‘Serbian-Illyrian (Cyrillic)’ and ‘Serbian-Illyrian (Latin)’ or ‘Croatian’. After the founding of the Yugoslav Academy of Arts and Sciences in Zagreb (1867), Danicˇic´ and the Croat Vukovites referred to the language as ‘Croatian or Serbian’. One of these Vukovites, Petar Budmani, was among the first to use the term ‘Serbo-Croatian’ in his grammar of 1867.10 During periods of disunity and civil strife, separatist language terms have flourished. The ‘Croatian language’ was declared as the official language of the Independent State of Croatia in 1941, and re-emerged with the Croatian Spring in the late 1960s11 and with Franjo Tudjman’s election as President of Croatia in 1990. While the term ‘Bosnian language’ can be found as early as the seventeenth century,12 it gained official acceptance once Bosnia-Herzegovina seceded from Yugoslavia in 1992. Since 1992, with the increase of tension between Serbia and Montenegro within the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, the Montenegrins have increasingly spoken about a separate ‘Montenegrin’ language, raising the possibility of both a linguistic and political splintering of the rump Yugoslav state. In February 2000, the Matica Crnogorska (Montenegrin Philological Society) declared its support for


the term ‘Montenegrin language’ and rejected the term ‘Serbian language’. It argued that the use of the term ‘Serbian language’ in Montenegro serves as an indicator of Montenegro’s inferior position within the Yugoslav Federation and underscores Serbia’s hegemony over Montenegro. The terms ‘Serbo-Croatian’ and ‘Croatian or Serbian’ were used in both Royalist Yugoslavia and Tito’s Yugoslavia. Many Croats would unofficially refer to their language simply as ‘Croatian.’ By contrast, Serbs in both Yugoslav states readily embraced the term ‘SerboCroatian,’ and generally avoided naming their language simply ‘Serbian’. In Tito’s Yugoslavia, both Serbs and Croats signed the Novi Sad Agreement in 1954, which reaffirmed the existence of the unified literary language. Unlike the ‘Literary Agreement’, this accord sought to once and for all resolve the terminological controversy, by asserting that the unified language has two official variants: Western (‘CroatoSerbian’) and Eastern (‘Serbo-Croatian’).13 The communists were particularly keen that the Croats avoid the term ‘Croatian’, insisting upon the designation ‘Croato-Serbian’. In 1967, the Croats became frustrated with this state of affairs, feeling that the term ‘Croato-Serbian’ denied the right of Croats to decide on their own what would constitute the best designation for their language. They revolted against the term ‘Croato-Serbian’ since it downplayed the accomplishments of Croatian culture and literature prior to the establishment of the joint literary language in 1850. Therefore, Croat linguists and writers actively sought to gain recognition of the separate identity of the ‘Croatian literary language’, and drafted the ‘Declaration on the Name and Position of the Croatian Literary Language’. 14 This declaration sent shock waves throughout the Yugoslav Federation, since it was viewed by the communist authorities as an overt expression of Croatian nationalist aspirations. This linguistic revolt was part of a broader political movement in Croatia in the late 1960s to gain greater autonomy for the constituent Yugoslav republics. This movement is frequently referred to as the ‘Croatian Spring’, and in 1971, Tito clamped down on the instigators of the movement, and the authorities banned many of the separatist Croatian language books which had been published at that time.15 Ironically, during the 1970s and 1980s, many of the demands made by the Croats in the 1960s were quietly met through the 1974 new Federal Constitution. Although the politically correct terms ‘CroatoSerbian’ and ‘Serbo-Croatian’ were ostensibly restored, the constitution further loosened the strict 1954 Novi Sad formula by recognizing the


rights of all the Yugoslav nations, nationalities and national minorities to enhanced language rights. As a result, Republican Constitutions adopted in 1974 in Croatia, Bosnia-Herzegovina and Montenegro granted official recognition to the local republican ‘standard linguistic idioms’. These standard idioms constituted new ‘subvariants’ of the unified language, that is, a Croatian standard linguistic idiom, a Bosnia-Herzegovinian standard linguistic idiom and a Montenegrin standard linguistic idiom. The Serbs did not follow suit in establishing a ‘Serbian standard linguistic idiom’, preferring instead the Novi Sad formula, whereby Serbia would maintain the language called SerboCroatian, or the Eastern variant of the unified language. As already mentioned, Table 2.1, above, lists and indicates the terms used to define the language of the speakers of the formerly unified SerboCroatian language, and indicates the context in which they were used. The proliferation of terms and names applied to the unified language or its constituent parts suggests that language unity was never secure. Some linguists actively supported the unity agenda, while others worked against it.16 Given this turbulent history of language unity, the ultimate break-up of the unified language after 1991 was no surprise. Language unity models and the history of the joint language The years following the ‘Literary Agreement’ reveal that the Serbs and Croats shared a unified language tradition, but never truly had a unified standard language. The proponents of language unity attempted various strategies to maintain the integrity of the joint literary language. As I have suggested elsewhere (Greenberg 1999, pp. 146–7), they had attempted three types of language unity models over the life of the joint language. The three language unity models posited include: (1) centrally monitored unity; (2) governmentimposed unity; and (3) tolerant unity. The centrally monitored model of preserving language unity is typically found in societies where responsibility for determining language norms and proper usage is delegated to an official institution or language academy.17 After 1867, this responsibility was taken by the Yugoslav Academy of Arts and Sciences in Zagreb, where the codifiers of the joint literary language produced grammars, dictionaries and orthographic manuals for the Neo-Sˇtokavian ijekavian dialect shared by Serbs, Croats, Muslim Slavs and Montenegrins. These codifiers included both Serbs and Croats. Government-imposed language unity is the norm in totalitarian systems, where the supreme authority on language matters rests within


an autocratic government ministry, and that ministry imposes language norms on the entire society. This approach was favoured by the government in Royalist Yugoslavia, which sought to impose a single norm of the unified language on members of all ethnic groups within the country’s borders. 18 Serb–Croat tensions had been particularly severe in the 1930s, when King Alexander had declared absolute rule in the Kingdom and attempted to impose the Serbian ekavian standard throughout his Kingdom. This negative episode in the saga of the language union fuelled Croat passions during world war II, when the Fascist regime created a separate Croatian language, replete with neologisms and puristic Croat forms. Tolerant unity is the model that Tito attempted to follow in Socialist Yugoslavia. Such a model, typical of federal states with more than one cultural urban centre that could boast a vibrant vernacular literature, was put in place through the 1954 Novi Sad Agreement which affirmed the existence of a language federation between Serbs and Croats. The Communist authorities had been attempting to avoid the linguistic hegemony that the Serbs had tried to impose on the rest of Royalist Yugoslavia in the inter-war period. Both sides agreed that their language was unified, but that this unity was achieved both through compromise and tolerance of local language varieties – which enjoyed the same level of prestige throughout the country. This tolerance was extended through the 1974 Federal Constitution, which allowed for local varieties of the language to gain official status in the constituent republics. Simultaneously, the constitution guaranteed the rights of Yugoslavia’s other linguistic communities, especially in regions where non-Slavic speakers were a significant minority population. In the 1980s, when nationalism was rekindled in the former Yugoslavia, nationalist politicians exploited the increasing linguistic decentralization and once again used language as a catalyst for furthering ethno-nationalist causes. Linguists on all sides became intent on stressing the uniqueness of the ethnic dialects, especially within the ethnically mixed regions of Croatia and Bosnia-Herzegovina.19 Socialist Yugoslavia’s tolerant language unity was quickly being replaced by intolerance towards language diversity and an insistence upon the ethnic division of the language. Serbo-Croatian on the eve of its demise As the above two sections have suggested, the unified language was constantly under threat of dissolution by the rival ethnic groups who were speaking various dialects of the language. In the final decades of


the Socialist Yugoslav state, competition among the Serbs, Croats and Muslim Slavs grew for the populations of the ethnically mixed regions.20 The official concern was for the language rights of ethnic kin residing outside the borders of their home republic. This concern was strongest within Serbian linguistic circles, where dialectologists actively engaged in documenting the dialects of Serbs residing in Croatia and Bosnia-Herzegovina. In a similar fashion, Croat linguists became concerned with the dialects of ethnic Croats in the Herzegovina and Posavian regions of Bosnia-Herzegovina. The ethnolinguistic complexities within Socialist Yugoslavia are illustrated in Table 2.2. The table reveals that while Croatia, Serbia and Montenegro were clearly home republics to ethnic Croats, Serbs and Montenegrins, respectively, these republics contained significant minorities of other Serbo-Croatian speaking groups. The data further Table 2.2 Demographics: Native/Slavic/Serbo-Croatian speakers (based on 1981 census figures)* Home republic

Ethnic group

%

Croatia

Croats Serbs Yugoslavs

75.1 11.6 8.2

Bosnia-Herzegovina

Muslims Serbs Croats Yugoslavs

39.5 32.0 18.4 7.9

Montenegro

Montenegrins Muslims Yugoslavs Serbs

68.5 13.4 5.3 3.3

Serbia

Serbs Yugoslavs Muslims Serbs Yugoslavs Muslims Serbs Yugoslavs Croats Montenegrins

64.4 4.7 2.3 85.4 4.8 2.7 54.4 8.2 5.4 2.1

Serbs Muslims

13.2 3.7

Serbia proper

Vojvodina

Kosovo

*Other ethnic groups are not included.


show that in Bosnia-Herzegovina no single ethnic group amounted to more than 50 per cent of the population. This table suggests that on the basis of demographic data alone, language separation along ethnic lines might have made some sense in Croatia, Serbia proper, and Montenegro, regions in which the home ‘nation’ held resounding majorities. However, language break-up would clearly not have been in the best interests of the peoples of Bosnia-Herzegovina and Vojvodina, the two areas in the former Yugoslavia with the least homogeneous populations. These data further reveal that as of 1981 Croatia boasted the largest percentage of individuals who identified themselves as ‘Yugoslavs’. According to Bugarski (1992, p. 17), the numbers of Yugoslavs in the various republics were as follows: Serbia: 442 860; Croatia: 379 420; BosniaHerzegovina: 326 960; Montenegro: 31 720; Slovenia: 26 840.21 Yugoslavs are often the most forgotten victims of the wars in the former Yugoslavia. These people were those who either refused to be engulfed in ethnic politics or were products of mixed marriages. Many of these individuals have found themselves stateless as a result of Yugoslavia’s disintegration and, despite the current insistence on separate Croatian, Bosnian and Serbian languages, these individuals are likely to remain eternally ‘Serbo-Croatian’ or ‘Croato-Serbian’ speakers. This demographic picture of the ex-Yugoslavia was significantly altered during the 1991–95 period as a result of massive population shifts and the brutal ethnic cleansing campaigns committed by all sides. The statistics are largely unreliable, but media reports speak of 2 million displaced persons in Bosnia-Herzegovina alone, and anywhere from 600 000 to 1 million refugees from Croatia and Bosnia living in the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. The wars in ex-Yugoslavia have thus far resulted in victories for those seeking ethnically pure states and entities. Croatia drove out its Serbian minority when it stormed the Serb-held regions of Croatia during the summer of 1995. The Dayton Accords later that year confirmed the results of Serb ethnic cleansing in Bosnia by carving out the Bosnian Serb Republic (Republika Srpska) as one of Bosnia-Herzegovina’s two entities. Even within the Muslim-Croat Federation, the second Bosnian entity, many towns and villages remain divided between Muslims and Croats. Sarajevo has been transformed from a multi-ethnic city in 1992 to a city with an overwhelming Muslim majority after the signing of the Dayton Accords. Serbia has become the home to many of the Croatian Serbs and thousands of Bosnian Serbs; the Croat and Hungarian minorities have felt insecure in Vojvodina, and many of them have left


for their mother countries. Kosovo is now well over 95 per cent ethnic Albanian, and the fighting which escalated there after 1998 created yet another massive group of Serb refugees within Serbia. With the erection of new borders in the Balkans and the emergence of largely homogeneous nation-states, a language separation would appear to be a logical outcome. The Croatian, Serbian and Bosnian languages can now develop unhindered, since so few members from the rival ethnic group(s) even have a chance to express their opposition. The hundreds of thousands of ‘Yugoslavs’ are no longer a factor, as those advocates of brotherhood and unity have been overwhelmed by the ethnic nationalists. However, many ex-Yugoslavs now living outside Yugoslavia still do not subscribe to the new language realities being created in their former homelands. Many expatriates from Croatia have complained to the author that they do not understand the new Croatian language, and they feel alienated by the insistence in Zagreb to cleanse the language of perceived Serbianisms. Similarly, Bosnian Muslims living abroad, while referring to their language as ‘Bosnian’, have admitted to the author that there is no real difference among the Serbo-Croatian successor languages.22 Media reports indicate that language tensions will not magically disappear with the new ethnically pure order.23

The languages of the Yugoslav successor states With the violent disintegration of Yugoslavia, the various SerboCroatian speaking successor states have adopted divergent language policies. These policies reflect some of the fundamental differences in the nature of the new states that emerged after the break-up of Yugoslavia. The Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (FRY), for instance, which has maintained the federal principles of Socialist Yugoslavia, has continued the tolerant unity model. In this model, the Serbian language became the official language of a Federal state, which consists of two republics (Serbia and Montenegro) with two distinct dialects. The constitutional arrangements in post-Dayton Bosnia-Herzegovina are even more complex. Bosnia-Herzegovina functions as a confederation, consisting of two often opposed entities – the Bosnian Serb Republic and the Croat-Muslim Federation. Under such circumstances, language conflicts simmer, reflecting the deep ethnic fault lines. Language diversity issues have not yet been resolved; the Bosnian language, originally intended to serve Bosnians of all ethnic groups, has not yet taken on a clear direction. Separate Serbian, Croatian and Bosnian school curricula have been introduced, and the language situation resembles a language


apartheid, rather than a tolerant language arrangement. By contrast, Croatia has emerged as a republic governed from the centre. The government has been noticeably involved in determining language norms and in furthering the separate identity of the Croatian language. Despite these general differences in language policies in Croatia, Bosnia-Herzegovina and the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, the language situation in these Yugoslav successor states continues to be unstable and potentially explosive. Below I discuss the language policies in greater detail, and suggest that language issues in the former Yugoslavia continue to impede ethnic reconciliation among the rival ethnic groups. Croatia The Croatian literary language, based on the same Neo-Sˇtokavian ijekavian dialect originally chosen by Ljudevit Gaj and the Illyrians, became the official language of the Republic of Croatia soon after Tudjman was elected in 1990. The Serbs of the Krajina regions initially complained that Tudjman and his Croatian Democratic Union party refused to grant the Serb minority in Croatia cultural and linguistic autonomy. In particular, the Croatian Serbs were seeking separate instruction in Serbian in the schools, and the right to display bilingual signs, both in Latin (Croatian) and Cyrillic (Serbian). Such a demand would have been absurd in unified Yugoslavia, when most Serbs in Croatia had been using the Latin alphabet, and Serbs in general used Latin and Cyrillic scripts interchangeably. However, under the influence of nationalist rhetoric, the Serbs of Krajina clung to Cyrillic and Orthodoxy as expressions of both their disapproval for the upsurge in Croat nationalism, and their support of a Greater Serbia. Language conflict in Krajina was a precursor to ethnic warfare. Croat linguists have been primarily concerned with cleansing their language of real and perceived Serbianisms. Most vocabulary relating to state institutions has been changed, including the terms for ‘passport’, and ‘embassy’.24 Tudjman himself is said to have suggested new words for sports terminology. Croat linguists have reverted to purist tendencies, tendencies which have long played a role in the development of the Croatian language (Thomas 1991). In post-1991 Croatia, internationalisms such as avion ‘airplane’ or aerodrom ‘airport’ were viewed as Serbianisms, and were replaced with native Croatian words (in this case, zrakoplov and zracˇna luka) often lifted out of obscure nineteenth century dictionaries or newly created words made up of Slavic roots (Greenberg 1999, p. 148). The Croatian government and media


have espoused the acceptance of the New Croatian and have campaigned against all ‘Serbian’ influences on the language. In one widely reported incident, President Tudjman apparently used a Serbian form (srecán ‘happy’), rather than the Croatian one (sretan). This slip of the tongue caused quite a controversy, and official Croatian media were quick in deleting this portion of Tudjman’s speech from future broadcasts. Croat linguists have published many polemical works proving that Croatian is a separate language from Serbian. Several newspaper columns have also appeared exhorting Croats to avoid Serbian lexical items and morphological structures in their speech. These moves have done little to mollify the remaining Serbs in Croatia. These Serbs, even if officially recognized as speaking a minority language, have felt threatened by the official campaign against ‘Serbianisms’ in Croatia. Such an atmosphere of linguistic intolerance indicates that an eventual reintegration of Croatia’s Serbian community into Croatian society is problematic. In a parallel fashion, little progress has been made in returning Serb refugees to the areas of Krajina, which they had inhabited until 1995.25 The Croats have implemented a centrally monitored unity model with noticeable government interference for the Croatian language. Tudjman’s government repeatedly meddled in language issues and language norms. His government’s policy was focused on limiting language variation and the imposition of prescriptive norms. Thus, while Croatian continues to be based on the former Western variant of Serbo-Croatian, the New Croatian has exhibited significant changes. The vast majority of these changes have been lexical, although there is evidence that Croat linguists have also insisted on stricter morphological and syntactic rules as well. All these changes, should the majority of Croatian speakers accept them, will create a Croatian language, which will become increasingly unintelligible to speakers of Serbian and Bosnian. Bosnia-Herzegovina The Muslim Slav population of Bosnia-Herzegovina was recognized in Tito’s Yugoslavia as a constituent nation only in 1971. Prior to that, Yugoslavia’s sizeable Muslim Slav population had been classified as a ‘national minority’. This elevation to ‘nation’ status represented a major step in the building of a new Muslim Slav identity. The six constituent nations of Yugoslavia had their own home republics within the Yugoslav Federation, and for the Muslims the home republic was


clearly Bosnia-Herzegovina, even though the Muslims of that republic were fewer than 50 per cent of Bosnia-Herzegovina’s population (see Table 2.2, above). The 1974 Yugoslav Constitution which enshrined the newly-acquired enhanced privileges of the Muslim Slav population, also guaranteed the rights of all of Yugoslavia’s nations and national minorities to the use of their own languages on the local level (Naylor 1992). For Bosnia-Herzegovina, this provision sanctioned the development of a standard linguistic idiom for the republic based on the Sarajevo dialect with its mixture of features from both the former Western (Croatian) and Eastern (Serbian) variants of Serbo-Croatian. This republican standard linguistic idiom became the basis of the new Bosnian language, which Halilovic´ (1996) defined as a language for Bosnian citizens of all faiths – Muslim, Catholic and Orthodox. This assertion reflected the official Muslim-led government’s policies for the establishment of a multi-ethnic independent Republic of BosniaHerzegovina, which the international community recognized in early April 1992. However, this act of recognition raised the stakes in BosniaHerzegovina, as the Serbs rejected an independent, unitary Bosnian state and sought to remain within Yugoslavia. Thus, international recognition helped precipitate the Bosnian war. During the war, the Serbs and Croats declared their own independent states in areas where their paramilitary units carried out ethnic cleansing campaigns, and where their respective communities became overwhelming majorities. The leaders of the Bosnian Croats, with their self-proclaimed state of Herceg-Bosna, declared Croatian to be their official language. Similarly, the Bosnian Serbs, in their self-proclaimed state of Republika Srpska, decreed that they would adopt Serbian as their official language. In November 1993 the Bosnian Serb leader, Radovan Karadzˇic´, imposed the Belgrade pronunciation in Republika Srpska instead of the local Bosnian Serb (Neo-Sˇtokavian ijekavian) dialect. The Dayton Accords of 1995, which ended the fighting in BosniaHerzegovina, created a weak central Bosnian state with two entities joined in a de facto confederation. These entities have broad autonomy in setting language policies. A centrally monitored or governmentimposed model for language unity is virtually impossible to enforce under such circumstances. The two entities have pursued divergent language policies. Moreover, disagreements have persisted within the Croat-Muslim federation regarding the use of Croatian and Bosnian.26 The Serb Republic has continued to consider Serbian to be the official language throughout the Serb-held areas. The Bosnian Serb parliament has reversed the original wartime insistence on a strict


ekavian-only policy, and followed Belgrade’s lead by allowing for two official pronunciations of Serbian – the ekavian dialect of Serbia proper and Vojvodina, and the ijekavian dialect of Bosnia-Herzegovina, Montenegro and Western Serbia. The Serb Republic’s institutions of higher learning, especially the Philosophy Faculty in Pale near Sarajevo and the Philosophy Faculty in Banja Luka, have received the assistance of linguists from Belgrade University to teach Bosnian Serb students the literature, language and culture of Serbia. Such a Serbian language hegemony within the territory of Republika Srpska is inhospitable to the members of the other two ethnic groups of Bosnia-Herzegovina. Within the Croat-Muslim Federation, there has been a virtual language apartheid policy regarding the co-official status of Croatian and Bosnian. Disputes have erupted regarding instruction in ‘Bosnian’ or ‘Croatian’ in the schools. Bosnian Croat linguists have complained that at Sarajevo University’s Philosophy Faculty, dominated by Muslim Slav professors, Bosnian has become the official language of instruction. In the city of Mostar, which is still bitterly divided in the aftermath of the war, the Muslims and Croats have set up rival universities on either side of the Neretva River. In Croat-majority areas, especially in Western Herzegovina, the school curriculum is similar to that used in Croatia proper.27 Given these ethnic divisions within Bosnia-Herzegovina, the dream of Muslim Slav linguists, such as Halilovic´, to create a non-ethnic ‘national’ Bosnian language, has been stymied by the Bosnian Serbs and Bosnian Croats. With the former looking to Belgrade for their language, and the latter to Zagreb, the Muslim Slavs have been left as the primary promoters of the separate Bosnian language. Since 1992, the Bosnian language, therefore, has de facto become the ‘Bosniac’ language, that is, the language of the Muslim Slavs.28 The codifiers of the new Bosnian language have not yet clearly defined the future path of the language. In Greenberg (1999), the results of my research on the first post-1992 Bosnian language dictionaries (Isakovic´, 1995 and Halilovic´, 1996) are presented. These works continue the Yugoslav tradition of a tolerant unity model for the Bosnian language, whereby language variation is permitted, and many dual pronunciations and lexical doublets are allowed. This tolerance is also reflected in a Bosnian language textbook for foreigners published in 1997 (Pelesic´-Muminovic´ 1997). According to this textbook, the Bosnian language can be written in either the Latin or Cyrillic alphabets. Such a description is reminiscent of all the old textbooks for the Serbo-Croatian language. However, most signs in Sarajevo are in the


Latin alphabet, and the daily newspaper, Oslobodjenje, which used to be published in both scripts (on alternating pages!), appears now only in the Latin script. It is likely that the official language tolerance for Bosnian will be replaced by more prescriptive norms to maximally differentiate the Bosnian language from both Serbian and Croatian.29 This differentiation will most probably occur initially on the lexical level, with the infusion of new Turkish/Islamic vocabulary into the language. On the level of phonology, the Neo-Sˇtokavian ijekavian dialect, that is, the original dialect elevated to literary status in 1850 for the unified language, continues to be the basis for standard Bosnian. It is ironic that this same dialect retains official status for Croatian and is an official variant pronunciation for Serbian as well. The only noticeable phonological innovation for Bosnian is the insistence on maintaining strict pronunciation of the fricative velar consonant h, which has been largely lost in Serbian and to a lesser extent in Croatian. In many instances the codifiers of the Bosnian language have actually increased the frequency of this phoneme in certain words (such as lahko ‘easy’ or sahat ‘hour’), even though most Muslim Slavs in Bosnia-Herzegovina have not previously observed such pronunciation. This discussion reveals that under current circumstances, BosniaHerzegovina boasts three official languages. While it is possible that within a single generation these languages will drift further and further apart, it is not yet clear whether such a development would impede mutual intelligibility. For such a small country, however, the necessity to cater to all three ethnic languages represents a serious burden. This burden is currently most obvious in education, and within the government bureaucracy. Laws will need to be promulgated in three languages and disputes can easily erupt when one or another ethnic group feels slighted by the system. Nowhere else in the former Yugoslavia is language such a clear reflection of the breakdown of ethnic relations as in Bosnia-Herzegovina. The Federal Republic of Yugoslavia The Serbs and Montenegrins were ill prepared for the demise of the Serbo-Croatian unified language, and have bitterly debated the future direction of the Serbian successor language. In Greenberg (2000), I examined much of the emerging literature on the future of Serbian and identified the following main factions of linguists in the FRY (Serbia and Montenegro): (1) advocates of the status quo: modern Serbian as an outgrowth of the Eastern variant of Serbo-Croatian; (2) advocates of rediscovering the Serbian of nineteenth-century Serb language reform-


ers, especially Vuk Karadzˇic´; and (3) extreme Serbian nationalists seeking an ‘Orthodox Serbian’ language and orthography. The first group, the status quo linguists, has thus far maintained a position of dominance. These linguists have advocated that Serbian should adopt two official pronunciations – the ekavian dialect of Belgrade and Novi Sad and the ijekavian pronunciation of the Montenegrins and Western Serbs (Serbs living in Western Serbia, Bosnia-Herzegovina and Croatia). Moreover, these linguists have endeavoured to continue the traditions of Yugoslav linguistics, retaining many of the compromises that Serb linguists had made with their counterparts from other Serbo-Croatian speaking ethnic groups in Socialist Yugoslavia. In their view, the population of the FRY would reject any radical changes to the language and, since Serbs did not initially support the break-up of Yugoslavia, there is no reason to depart from Yugoslav traditions in language matters. The second group of linguists has argued that those who co-operated with the Croats in forging the joint Serbo-Croatian language (the status quo linguists) rendered the Serbian people a disservice. They have rejected this history of compromise with the Croats and have been particularly critical of the 1954 Novi Sad Agreement and the joint orthographic manual of 1960. 30 Rather, they insist upon a return to the principles of Vuk Karadzˇic´ and Djura Danicˇic´. For instance, they have supported the introduction of Danicˇic´’s Latin–Serbian alphabet, which differs slightly from the modern Latin–Croatian alphabet, and they have proposed reforming the rules of Serbian spelling according to Vuk Karadzˇic´’s phonetic orthographic principles. The third faction, consisting of extreme Serb nationalists, has advocated a return to an Orthodox-Serbian orthography and the banning of the Latin script for the writing of the Serbian language. These linguists, ideologically aligned with the Serbian Radical Party, have claimed that all Sˇtokavian speakers are Serbs, alleging that the Muslims and Croats have illegally stolen the Neo-Sˇtokavian ijekavian dialect from the Serbian people. The status quo linguists have thus far succeeded in maintaining the tolerant language unity model, whereby Serbian is the joint literary language for both Serbia and Montenegro. Their commitment to such a model was tested in 1993 when the Bosnian Serbs rejected this model and sought to emphasize their desire to unite with Serbia by abandoning their own native Neo-Sˇtokavian ijekavian dialect in favour of the Belgrade-Novi Sad Neo-Sˇtokavian ekavian pronunciation. Some key figures within the status quo faction, including Pavle Ivic´, supported this


decision, and were bitterly attacked by members of the rival factions. The Montenegrins were particularly perturbed by the apparent support given in Belgrade to the abandonment of the ijekavian dialect, and hastily organized a conference in April 1994 to ensure that the Montenegrin ijekavian pronunciation of Serbian be reaffirmed. Conference attendees blasted the Bosnian Serb decision to impose ekavian in Serb-held areas of Bosnia-Herzegovina, and lamented the dominance of the status quo linguists within Serbian linguistic circles. This debate has served to deepen the linguistic divide between Montenegro and Serbia. Given the political tensions between these two Yugoslav republics since the election of Milo Djukanovic´ as Montenegro’s president in 1997, this divide is likely to deepen in the years to come. In summary, within the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, tolerance of language diversity has been the official policy. This tolerant model has allowed for vigorous and often bitter debate among Serb linguists regarding the future of the Serbian language. It has also sparked controversy based on dialect differences between the two constituent republics of the Federation. Tables 2.3 and 2.4 provide an overview of the complex language situation in the Yugoslav successor states. Table 2.3 shows the current language situation in these states, while Table 2.4 focuses on the future directions of the Serbo-Croatian successor languages.

Case study: language identity in Montenegro In April 1992, Montenegro and Serbia formed the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. The Montenegrin people and the Serbs share the Orthodox Table 2.3

The languages of the Yugoslav successor states

State

Official language(s)

Croatia

Croatian standard language, based on NeoSˇtokavian ijekavian dialect. Serbian is a minority language of the Serbs remaining in Croatia (mostly in Eastern Slavonia)

Bosnia-Herzegovina Muslim-Croat Federation Republika Srpska Federal Republic of Yugoslavia

Croatian and Bosnian; both are based on the same type of dialect. Serbian standard language Serbian in two variants: Neo-Sˇtokavian ekavian and Neo-Sˇtokavian ijekavian.

34 Language, Ethnicity and the State, vol. 2 Table 2.4

Where are the successor languages heading?

Successor language

Future direction

Croatian

Prescriptive norms; neologisms and native ‘Croatian’ archaisms revived. Centrally monitored unity model

Bosnian

Conflict between prescriptivists and non-prescriptivists. The former have the upper hand; insistence on reintroducing the phoneme h and enriching lexicon with Arabic/Turkish borrowings

Serbian

Conflict between linguists seeking to maintain status quo and those espousing radical reforms. The latter include virulent Serbian nationalists who seek to deny orthographic conventions established through the linguistic union with the Croats. Some of these linguists even advocate a ‘Serbian Orthodox orthography’

faith, and a significant portion of the population has historically been pro-Serbian. Likewise, many Serbs have long considered Serbs and Montenegrins to be one people, sharing the same religion and folk traditions as well as the Cyrillic script. The Federal state established in 1992 sought to maintain the system of government of post-1974 Socialist Yugoslavia, whereby the constituent republics would have a high degree of autonomy regarding local matters. This autonomy would be guaranteed through the preservation of republican governments and institutions. As discussed above, within two years of the founding of the FRY, the Montenegrins felt threatened by Serbian linguistic hegemony. In particular, the Montenegrins were alarmed at the perceived attacks on their Neo-Sˇtokavian ijekavian dialect. Linguists were not alone in expressing concern on the status of this dialect. Politicians also made strident pronouncements in the Montenegrin Parliament, insisting that all laws relating to language in Montenegro should refer to the ‘Serbian language in its ijekavian variety’. 31 This language rift foreshadowed the political split which began in earnest in 1997, when Momir Bulatovic´, an ally of then Serbian president Slobodan Milosˇevic´, was beaten in Montenegrin presidential elections by his rival Milo Djukanovic´, who promised market reforms and a break from Milosˇevic´’s legacy. Shortly thereafter, in July 1997, Slobodan Milosˇevic´ assumed the post of Federal Yugoslav president, which further alienated Djukanovic´ and his plans for Western-style


reforms in Montenegro. Before discussing the accelerated moves towards a separate Montenegrin language, however, I shall first provide a survey of the dialect geography of Montenegro and the neighbouring area of the Serbian Sandzˇak. The dialects of Montenegro and the Sandzˇak Not surprisingly, the political borders in the southwest Balkans do not correspond to the dialectal ones. Thus, the dialects in northwestern Montenegro are identical with those across the border in eastern Herzegovina and southernmost Croatia (Dubrovnik). Similarly, the dialects of southeastern Montenegro (also known as the ‘Old Montenegrin dialects’) extend across the republican border into the Serbian Sandzˇak and to the Slavic populations in northern Albania. The only unifying feature of all these Montenegrin dialects can be found in the reflexes of Common Slavic jat′, that is, ije in originally long syllables and je in originally short syllables. Otherwise the two dialect types differ markedly, especially in terms of accentuation. Hence, while the northwest Montenegrin dialects maintain an innovative (‘Neo-Sˇtokavian’) accentual system equivalent to the accentual system codified by Vuk Karadzˇic´ in the nineteenth century, the southeastern dialects (which include both the old Montenegrin capital of Cetinje and the current seat of government in Podgorica), are characterized by archaic (‘Old Sˇtokavian’) accentual features. 32 Moreover, unlike their northwestern counterparts, the southeastern dialects more frequently admit so-called ‘Balkan’ features shared with neighbouring Slavic and non-Slavic languages.33 Sociolinguistically, the northwestern Montenegrin dialects link their speakers northwest to members of three other ethnic groups speaking the former Serbo-Croatian language, while the southeastern dialects are distinctively Montenegrin, shared only with speakers of the Sandzˇak. It would have seemed a natural choice for the would-be codifiers of a new Montenegrin standard language to choose the southeastern dialects as a basis for the new Montenegrin language, since the northwestern dialects share so many phonological features with standard Croatian and Bosnian. However, in the former Yugoslavia, the codifiers of the successor languages have not attempted to elevate the dialect most radically opposed to the dialect of a rival ethnic group. As seen in Table 2.3, above, all three languages that have thus far emerged claim the Neo-Sˇtokavian ijekavian dialect as their own. The Montenegrins have followed this example, and have claimed that their language should also be based on this same dialect. Thus, all four ethnic groups


speaking the formerly unified language have laid claim to the prestigious ‘Southern dialect,’ elevated by Vuk Karadzˇic´ and the Illyrians in the 1850 ‘Literary Agreement’. Montenegrin linguists have justified this claim by asserting that the Montenegrins speak the language closest to that of Vuk Karadzˇic´. For instance, Ostojic´ (1989, pp. 10–11) notes that the Montenegrin standard linguistic idiom, established through the 1974 Montenegrin Constitution, was truly the product of Vuk Karadzˇic´’s reforms, since it is much closer to Karadzˇic´’s language than the ekavian dialects of Novi Sad and Belgrade. This affinity is said to be reinforced by two additional factors: (1) Vuk’s family was originally from Drobnjak in northwestern Montenegro, and therefore Vuk’s native dialect is in fact the Drobnjak dialect and not the Trsˇic´ dialect of western Serbia, and (2) Njegos˘, perhaps the most revered Montenegrin writer, was Vuk’s kindred spirit in that both strongly advocated the use of the vernacular as the basis for the literary language. The movement for a separate Montenegrin standard The movement for an independent Montenegrin state has gained momentum since 1997, when Montenegrin voters rejected the politics of the pro-Milosˇevic´ forces in the Republic. The 1999 bombing campaign against the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia put further strains on the FRY, and has accelerated moves towards Montenegrin secession from the Federation. In November 1999 Montenegro introduced the German Mark as its official currency, and tension between Montenegro and Serbia has continued to rise. In late 1999 and early 2000 there were reports that Milosˇevic´’s special military forces had been deployed in Montenegro, and that paramilitary units were being organized. Montenegrin government leaders have actively sought Western support in their struggle with the central authorities in Belgrade. As Montenegro has inched closer to secession, the Montenegrin language has come closer to realization. Initially, writers and literary figures mostly supported a separate Montenegrin language. By contrast, Montenegrin linguists have allied themselves with Serbian linguists who were seeking to reform the Serbian language and ensure the rights of ‘Serbian in its ijekavian pronunciation’. These Montenegrin reformer-linguists – part of the NeoVukovite faction described above – have attempted to secure Montenegrin linguistic autonomy without creating a completely separate literary language. Thus, for instance, Branislav Ostojic´, a linguist at the University of Montenegro’s Philosophy Faculty in Niksˇic´, is one of


the authors of a Serbian Orthographic manual published by the NeoVukovite faction in 1993 (see Simic´ et al. 1993). This manual was not officially recognized in Serbia, where it has been superseded by the government-supported Orthographic manual published by the Serbian Philological Society (Matica Srpska) in co-operation with linguists of Novi Sad University and the Serbian Academy of Arts and Sciences (see Pesˇikan et al. 1994). Montenegrin linguists have continued their close relationship with Serb linguists at Belgrade University’s Philology Faculty and the success of their attempts to secure a tolerant language union with Serbian Sˇtokavian ekavian speakers continues. Simultaneously, writers at the Montenegrin branch of the international writers’ association (‘Pen Centre’) declared in 1994 that the language of Montenegro is Montenegrin. The following excerpt from their declaration is given on the Montenet website:34 All the Slavonic languages, except the language of Montenegrins, have their ethnic, national name. From the viewpoint of science and the interest of Montenegro, there is no scientific or political reason, for the Montenegrin language not to be named, scientifically and constitutionally, by its [own, ethnic-national] name. The best known of the linguistic separatists in Montenegro is Vojislav Nikcˇevic´, a Literature professor at Niksˇic´’s Philosophy Faculty. He is the author of two Orthographic manuals of the Montenegrin language (see Nikcˇevic´ 1997). Nikcˇevic´ has proposed that Montenegrin be written in either the Latin or Cyrillic script, but that these scripts need to be modified to reflect the unique characteristics of Montenegrin speech. To this end, he has introduced three new graphemes into both alphabets to reflect the Montenegrin sound dz and two soft palatal consonants, which have arisen through Montenegrin ‘new’ jotations, that is, s + j and z + j. Table 2.5 provides a list of the new graphemes introduced:35 Table 2.5 Sound dz soft sh soft3 zh

Montenegrin-specific letters Cyrillic

Latin

s C´ Z´

3 s´ Z´


Pressure for adoption of a separate Montenegrin standard mounted in early 2000 with the declaration by the Montenegrin Philological Society (Matica Crnogorska) in support of Montenegrin linguistic secessionism. Clearly, the Montenegrin language has strong supporters, and the next few years will be fateful for the future of this potentially fourth successor language to Serbo-Croatian. Overall, Montenegro has a well-developed standard linguistic idiom which in recent years has been moving further away from the Serbian ekavian standard. Given the initial Bosnian Serb rejection of ijekavian, the Montenegrins can now claim to be the staunch defenders of a ‘threatened’ dialect. As long as the political rift continues between Serbia and Montenegro, support for a Montenegrin language is likely to grow.

Conclusion As seen in this chapter, the linguistic situation in the former Yugoslavia has been irrevocably transformed since the break-up of the unified country. The precarious language union could not endure such a cataclysmic event, and the Serbo-Croatian language has splintered into three, and possibly four, successor languages. While language separation is relatively simple for Croatia and the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, the situation in Bosnia-Herzegovina remains complex. The three ethnic groups have thus far failed to cooperate on language matters, and if the linguistic divisions continue to deepen, it is likely that the chasm separating the various ethnic groups will be maintained. Such a development puts in doubt the political future of the Bosnian state. Language continues to be a hotly debated issue in all the Yugoslav successor states. Thus far, only the Croats have clearly defined the future of the Croatian language, and have applied strict prescriptive norms to the language. The Serbs are engaged in a power struggle over the future of Serbian, and it is unclear how long the current tolerant unity model will last. Nationalist forces in Serbia could prevail and impose stricter prescriptive norms for the Serbian language. The Bosnian Muslims are similarly caught up in debate over the future of Bosnian. Should the Bosnian language not adopt stricter norms, it will not be sufficiently distinct from the Serbian ijekavian dialects of eastern Herzegovina, northwest Montenegro and western Serbia. In an era where ethnic identity has been the rallying call for nationalist politicians, it is possible that prescriptivism will prevail in all three successor languages. If it does not, the former unified Serbo-Croatian


would still be looked upon as a single language with three different ethnic names – Bosnian, Croatian and Serbian.

Notes 1. The basic division among the Slavic peoples is between Roman Catholic Slavs, Eastern Orthodox Slavs, and Muslim Slavs. A portion of the Catholic and Orthodox Slavs in the central Balkans converted to Islam during the Ottoman period. 2. I recently came across such an analysis from a reporter for Radio Free Europe (see ‘Three Cheers for the Montenegrin Language’ in the Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty Balkan Report, vol. 4, no. 16, from 25 February 2000, available at http://www.rferl.org/balkan-report). Reporting on moves to make Montenegrin – rather than Serbian – the official language of the Republic of Montenegro, the reporter muses that ‘[nationalists] have … gone to great pains to create or exaggerate real or imagined differences between the ‘language’ of their people and those of the neighbors. … [The Bosnian Serb leadership, for instance,] has had voting ballots printed only in Cyrillic in spite of the fact that many Serbs cannot read that script. One may also recall the wartime vogue in Pale and Banja Luka of using Belgrade speech, so that the Sarajevan Biljana Plavsˇic´ often spoke on television with a Belgrade affectation that would be roughly equivalent to Hillary Clinton using the accent of her husband or to an Austrian politician trying to force the pronunciation of Hamburg or Berlin’. 3. When I visited the former Yugoslavia in 1997 and 1998, many people were eager to share the latest jokes about new Croatian or Bosnian words or expressions. 4. The complete list of signatories is provided by Okuka (1998, p. 12). 5. The Illyrians embraced a pan-South Slavic ideology. They believed that by joining forces with ethnic Serbs of Vojvodina and the military borderlands (Krajina regions), they would be able to strengthen Croatian culture under threat of increased Hungarian nationalism and potential Magyarization of the Croatian lands. 6. This notion that all Sˇtokavian speakers are really Serbs has been repeated by radical Serb nationalists in the 1990s. See Marojevic´ et al. (1998). 7. These words appear in the subtitle for Jezik (‘Cˇasopis za kulturu hrvatskoga knjizˇevnog jezika’). 8. Such name changes would be consistent with other name changes carried out in Croatia, such as the renaming of the ‘Yugoslav Academy of Arts and Sciences’ the ‘Croatian Academy of Arts and Sciences’ and the changing of the name from ‘Institute for Language’ to the ‘Institute for the Croatian Language’. 9. The Croat linguists have since been referred to as the ‘Croatian Vukovites’ who adopted Vuk Stefanovic´ Karadzˇic´’s language principles. 10. Budmani also wrote a study of his native Dubrovnik dialect (1883), which is one of the earliest available dialect studies from the Serbian/Croatian speech territory. It is significant, since the Dubrovnik dialect had also served as the basis for the literary standard.

40 Language, Ethnicity and the State, vol. 2 11. Greenberg (1996). 12. See Halilovic´ (1991, 20ff.). 13. The Novi Sad Agreement can be viewed as a last-ditch effort to save the language union. Since the late nineteenth century, the Serbs had been writing in the Belgrade Novi Sad (ekavian) dialect, rather than the Dubrovnik/East Herzegovina (ijekavian) dialect elevated by the 1850 ‘Literary Agreement’. The Belgrade Novi Sad standard had been proposed as the single dialect for the unified language in Royalist Yugoslavia; after world war II, the unified language had de facto split into two standards: ijekavian and ekavian. 14. In the years since the break-up of Yugoslavia, many works dedicated to the history of the Croatian language and the struggles for Croatian linguistic independence have appeared. One such work is Babic´ (1997) that includes a text of the Declaration and materials relating to its history. 15. For more details on the suppression of the ‘Croatian Spring’, see Greenberg, (1999, p. 145). 16. Moreover, as Banac (1984) has pointed out, many Serb and Croat non-signatories to the Agreement were quick to express their opposition, and mounted spirited campaigns against the joint language. 17. As Edwards (1985, pp. 27–8) points out, the French were the first in Europe to establish such an Academy (1635). Other countries, including Germany, Spain and Russia followed suit quite a bit later. 18. Some textbooks of the period go as far as to declare the linguistic and cultural unity of all citizens in Royalist Yugoslavia, including Serbs, Croats and Slovenes. For instance, a Zagreb professor, Franjo Poljanec, wrote in his high school textbook, ‘History of the Serbo-Croatian and Slovene Literary Language’, 1940 (p. 6): ‘It will become especially clear that Serbs, Croats and Slovenes are a single, unified people, of one blood and one language’ (‘Narocˇito cé postati jasna ˇcinjenica da su Srbi, Hrvati i Slovenci jedan jedinstven narod, jedne krvi i jednog jezika’). 19. For a detailed discussion of this phenomenon, see Greenberg (1998). 20. In this period, the prominent Serb linguist Pavle Ivic´ (1971) raised the issue of the language rights of Serbs in Croatia and Bosnia-Herzegovina. He warned that Croatian linguistic separatism would be followed by Serbian language separatism within the borders of the Socialist Republic of Croatia. 21. Bugarski provides the total number of Yugoslavs in the 1981 census (1.22 million), and later provides a percentage in each republic. I calculated the numbers given here based on Bugarski’s percentages. 22. This ambiguity about the distinct nature of a Bosnian language was immediately apparent to me when I called the Embassy of Bosnia-Herzegovina in Washington during November 1997. The recorded message offered two options: the caller could either continue listening to the recording in English by pressing ‘1’ or hear the message in ‘Bosnian or Croatian or Serbian’ by pressing ‘2.’ After pressing ‘2’, I found that there was a single recorded announcement for ‘Bosnian or Croatian or Serbian’. 23. I recently came across two such media reports in the Croatian daily Vjesnik. In one article, dated 21 August 1999, there was a report about an announcement by the President of the Serbian cultural society ‘Prosveta’ regarding the imminent introduction of instruction in Serbian in the Knin–Sibenik schools. This announcement raised many eyebrows in Croatia, and the


24.

25.

26.

27.

28.

29.

30.

article begins defiantly, stating: U Sˇibeniku i Kninu necé biti nastave na srpskom jeziku (‘In Sˇibenik and Knin there will not be instruction in the Serbian language’). One of the reasons given for this decision is that only 60 Serbian children remain in the district out of 2300. Knin had been a Serbian stronghold before the 1991 war. The terms pasosˇ ‘passport’ and ambasada ‘embassy’ have been replaced with putovnica, and veljeposlanstvo. When I called the Croatian Embassy in November of 1997 the answering machine proudly pronounced in Croatian that I had reached the Hrvatsko veljeposlanstvo (‘Croatian Embassy’). However, when I pushed ‘0’ for the operator, the friendly gentleman on the other side answered with the old word, ‘Hrvatska ambasada, dobar dan’ (‘Croatian Embassy, good day!’). After Tudjman’s death in December 1999, and the election of Stjepan Mesic´ as president in early 2000, the rhetoric in Zagreb regarding the plight of the Croatian Serbs has been more conciliatory. Nevertheless, I do not believe that this change will suffice in convincing displaced Serbs from Croatia to return to their often-plundered homes in the Krajina regions. In Greenberg (1998, p. 720), I provide an example of language tensions in the Croat communities of the Posavian region of Bosnia-Herzegovina. A group of Croat linguists traveled to this area in 1997 to express support for the Croatian language and culture in Posavina. In September 1999, the issue of school curricula within Bosnia-Herzegovina continued to be unresolved. According to an article in the Zagreb daily Vjesnik from 26 September 1999, the international community insisted on a temporary solution to the issue of the separate curricula for Croats and Muslims within the Croat-Muslim Federation, whereby the parents of children would have the right to decide which kind of instruction to give their children. The article maintains that in some regions separate Croatianlanguage schools have been set up, despite the opposition of the Muslim community, which has advocated preservation of a single school curriculum for the Federation. Within the Serb entity, the entire educational system has relied on materials and textbooks from Serbia. The term ‘Bosnian’ (bosanski) is geographical, while the term ‘Bosniac’ (bosˇnjacˇki) has been used in Serbo-Croatian to identify the Bosnian Muslims. During my visit to Sarajevo in July 1998, I met with Ibrahim Cˇedic´, the director of the Sarajevo Institute for Language and Literature, where I had conducted dissertation research in 1990. Dr Cˇedic´ told me that the Bosnian linguists were engaged in a debate regarding the future direction of the Bosnian language. He said that one group sought to impose stricter norms based on a central Bosnian dialect, while another group sought to compromise on norms and admit language variation in order to create a Bosnian language that Muslim Slavs from across Bosnia-Herzegovina could embrace. This Orthographic manual, Pravopis srpskohrvatskoga knjizˇevnog jezika (‘Orthographic Manual of the Serbocroatian Literary Language’) was published simultaneously in Zagreb and Novi Sad in 1960. The Zagreb edition was written in the Latin script and was called the orthographic manual of the ‘Croatoserbian’ language; the Novi Sad edition was published in the Cyrillic script.

42 Language, Ethnicity and the State, vol. 2 31. See Greenberg (1999, p. 154) for the emotional debate surrounding a proposed law for High Schools in Montenegro, in which opposition representatives in the Montenegrin Parliament complained bitterly that the law stipulated the use of the ‘Serbian’ language without reference to the ijekavian pronunciation. 32. The northwestern dialects are characterized by the four tones – short rising, long rising, short falling and long falling. These tonal features are part of the Neo-Sˇtokavian system of pitch and quantity, which evolved around the fifteenth century through a strong tendency towards accent retraction. The Croatian, Bosnian and Serbian standards are all based on such a Neo-Sˇtokavian system of accentuation. The distinctively ‘unretracted’ or partially retracted accents in southeastern Montenegro make these dialects radically different from the standard language in terms of pronunciation. 33. The Balkan features constitute structural similarities among the various Balkan languages (Albanian, Arumanian, Bulgarian, Greek, Macedonian, Romanian and southeastern Serbian). These features spread through extensive Balkan language contact, and are generally absent in the dialects of Croatia, Bosnia-Herzegovina, northwestern Montenegro, Vojvodina and the Sˇumadija region of Serbia. For further discussion see Greenberg (1994). 34. The website address is www.montenet.org. 35. In Greenberg (1994), I have identified the sound dz as a Southwest Balkan innovation, possibly inspired by a Balkan Romance substratum. This sound is found in neighbouring Slavic dialects of the Sandzˇak and western Macedonia and is also found in Albanian dialects. Macedonian is the only living Slavic language, which has thus far admitted the Cyrillic grapheme s into its standard orthography.

Bibliography Babic´, S. Deklaracija o nazivu i polozˇaju hrvatskog knjizˇevnog jezika: gradja za povijest deklaracije (Zagreb: Matica Hrvatska, 1997). Banac, I. Main Trends in the Croat Language Question, Aspects of the Slavic Language Question, Volume I, R. Piccio and H. Goldblatt (eds), (Columbus: Slavica, 1984) pp. 189–259. Budmani, P. Dubrovacˇki dijalekat, kako se sada govori, Rad jugoslavenski akademije znanosti i umjetnosti, 65 (1883) 159–79. Bugarski, R. Language in Yugoslavia: Situation, Policy, Planning, Language Planning in Yugoslavia, R. Bugarski and C. Hawkesworth (eds), (Columbus: Slavica, 1992) pp. 9–27. Edwards, J. Language, Society, and Identity (Oxford: B. Blackwell, 1985). Greenberg, R. Southwest Balkan Linguistic Contacts: Evidence from Appellative Language, Journal of Slavic Linguistics 2/2 (1994) 275–83. Greenberg, R. The Politics of Dialects Among Serbs, Croats, and Muslims in the Former Yugoslavia, East European Politics and Societies 10/3 (1996) 393–415. Greenberg, R. Dialects and Ethnicity in the Former Yugoslavia: the Case of Southern Baranja (Croatia), Slavic and East European Journal, 42/4 (1998) 710–22.

Robert D. Greenberg 43 Greenberg, R. In the Aftermath of Yugoslavia’s Collapse: the Politics of Language. Death and Language Birth, International Politics, 36/2 (1999) 141–58. Greenberg, R. Language Politics in Federal Republic of Yugoslavia: the Crisis Over the Future of Serbian, Slavic Review, 59/3 (2000) 625–40. Halilovic´, S. Bosanski jezik (Sarajevo: Biblioteka Kljucˇanin, 1991). Halilovic´, S. Pravopis bosanskoga jezika (Sarajevo: Preporod, 1996). Isakovic´, A. Rjecˇnik bosanskoga jezika (Sarajevo: Bosanska knjiga, 1995). Ivic´ P. Srpski narod i njegov jezik (Belgrade: Srpska knjizˇevna zadruga, 1971). Kasˇic´, Miro. Croatian and Serbian: Delusions and Distortions (Zagreb: Novi Most, 1997). Marojevic´, R. et al. Slovo o srpskom jeziku (Belgrade: Foundation for Truth, 1998). Naylor, Kenneth. 1992. The Sociolinguistic Situation in Yugoslavia with Special Emphasis on Serbo-Croatian, Language Planning in Yugoslavia, R. Bugarski and C. Hawkesworth (eds), (Columbus: Slavica, 1992) pp. 80–92. Nikcˇevic´, V. Pravopis crnogorskog jezika (Podgorica: Crnogorska Pen-Centar, 1997). Okuka, M. Eine Sprache Viele Erben: Sprachpolitik als Nazionalisierungsinstrument in Ex-Jugoslawien (Klagenfurt: Wieser Verlag, 1998). Ostojic´, B. Vuk i knjizˇevni jezik u Crnoj Gori (Niksˇic´: Univerzitetska rijecˇ, 1989). Pelesic´-Muminovic´, F. Bosanski jezik – Bosnian language (Zenica: Bemust, 1997). Pesˇikan, M., Jerkovic´, J. and Pizˇurica, M. Pravopis srpskoga jeyika (Novi Sad: Matica Srpska, 1994). Poljanec, F. Istorija srpskohrvatskog i slovenacˇkog knjizˇevnog jezika (Belgrade: Izdanje kreditne i pripomocńe zadruge profesorskog drusˇtva, 1940). Simic´, R., Córic´, B. Kovac˘evic´, M. et al. Pravopis srpskoga jezika sa rjecˇnikom (Belgrade-Niksˇic´: UNIREKS, 1993). Thomas, G. Linguistic Purism (New York: Longman, 1991).

3 Debating Language: the Bulgarian Communities in Romania after 19891 Rossitza Guentcheva

The December 1989 upheaval in Timis¸oara marked the beginning of a new era in Romanian political, social and cultural life. On 22 December 1989, Ceaus¸escu fled Bucharest, bringing down his government and more than four decades of socialism in Romania. The fall of Ceaus¸escu precipitated an acute debate in Romanian society around ethnic and national differences, patterns of inclusion/exclusion, civic versus ethnic loyalties and the meaning of citizenship and selfidentification. As part of the rhetoric of pre-1945 restoration and in a climate of dispensing with past legacies, Romania was faced with the mounting nationalism of its numerous minorities. Yet, post-1989, Romania encountered simultaneously two conflicting developments. The sharp ethnicization of the polity (Grillo 1980, p. 7; Offe 1996, p. 51; Schöpflin 1996) was coupled with the country’s virtually undisputed ambition to ‘return to Europe’. The European Union has expressed willingness to invite Romania to be among its members, yet one of the strict conditions was that Romania respect the rights of its minority populations. Since WWI, Romania has struggled to assimilate its minorities, yet the failure to assimilate around 1.7 million Hungarians to Romanian language and culture has made Romanian policy towards Hungarians increasingly ‘dissimilationist’. 2 As a counterpart, this has made Romanian policy towards smaller and politically loyal minorities increasingly rewarding. In a climate of EU-sponsored multiculturalism, post-1989 Romania struggled to represent itself in front of European institutions as a state that respects the rights of its national minorities. Thus smaller minorities, such as the Bulgarian minority in Romania, benefited from the concessions the Romanian government granted under the pressure from the large, outspoken and uncompromising Hungarian minority. This, however, produced wave44

Rossitza Guentcheva 45

like transformations on several levels within the Bulgarian minority in Romania. In this chapter I attempt to show that this ‘thaw’ in Romanian minority policy led to the reinforcement of previously weak and confused ethnic boundaries. The Bulgarian minority was constituted as a ‘cultural entity’ by Romanian minority policy. By pledging to recognize and guarantee the ‘right of conservation, development, and expression of ethnic, cultural, linguistic, and religious identity for persons belonging to national minorities’, the Romanian government took ethnic groups to be bounded, continuous and precisely distinguishable from other analogous entities (Handler 1988, pp. 15–16). According to Handler, ‘if culture is pressed into service to distinguish one bounded collectivity from another, it too must be bounded: that is, culture must be analysable and identifiable, such and such a ‘trait’ belonging to this nation or originating in that region’. An ethnic group’s activity can be redefined as a ‘thing’, which is part of the cultural content unique to a bounded social entity. This cultural objectification, as Handler calls it, assigns ‘traits’ to groups and in this way homogenizes them. At the same time, cultural objectification allows a dissimilationist, differentialist understanding of Romanian nationhood to persist and flourish. I will focus primarily on ‘language’ as such a ‘trait’.

In a quest for power: profession – ‘Bulgarian’ The Bulgarian community in Romania consists of two parts: the Bulgarians in the Banat and the Bulgarians in southern Romania (in Wallachia). While the Bulgarians in southern Romania settled there gradually, being primarily economic migrants, the Banat Bulgarians arrived in Romania in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, fleeing from Ottoman revenge after the unsuccessful Cˇiprovets rebellion in 1688. What distinguished the Banat Bulgarians from the rest of the Bulgarians in Romania was their Catholic faith and the specific dialect codified in the 1860s through the Latin alphabet. Unlike the Banat Bulgarians, their brethren in the south were of Orthodox faith and their language exhibited much closer affinity to literary Bulgarian, in addition to being transcribed through the Cyrillic alphabet. Historical divergences added to the religious and linguistic ones: until the end of WWI, the Banat Bulgarians were faithful citizens of the Austro-Hungarian monarchy, whereas the Wallachian Bulgarians had, since the mid-nineteenth century, been subjected to Romanian rule. While at the most the Banat Bulgarians rarely numbered more than


30 000 people, the Bulgarians around Bucharest constituted a more sizeable community. Different scholars put the size of the Bulgarian community in Romania at between 200 000 and 800 000 people, with some extreme interwar Bulgarian nationalists claiming that their number surpassed one million. Both parts of the community were politically loyal to the Romanian state. As a national minority in Romania, Bulgarians became a target of post-1989 state minority policy. With the new constitution and electoral laws of 1990–92, the organizations of the national minorities in Romania were granted the right of representation in parliament.3 This series of legal documents ensured that the smaller national minorities could send a representative to parliament having obtained at least 5 per cent of the average number of valid votes required nationwide to elect a deputy. However, the Romanian government requested that each minority be politically represented by only one organization. In the 1990 general elections political parties and movements of only three national minorities – Hungarians, Germans and Roma – managed to secure parliamentary seats for the Chamber of Deputies through the regular procedure. Yet Armenians, Bulgarians, Greeks, Lipovans, Poles, Serbs, Slovaks and Czechs, Turks and Ukrainians, each obtained one deputy mandate in parliament (Bugajski 1995, pp. 205–6). Although both organizations of the Bulgarian minority, the Union of Banat Bulgarians and Bulgarian Cultural Association, participated with separate lists, the seat went to the Union of Banat Bulgarians. Its president, K. Ivanc˘ov, held it up until 1996, and thus represented the whole Bulgarian community. Although one could still hear nostalgic statements that the number of the Bulgarians in Romania was 500 000 in the 1930s, and that ‘the pure Banat Bulgarian villages have a population of around 30 000’,4 according to the official figures of the 1992 census, 9935 people in Romania had declared themselves Bulgarians. In this way, the MP for the Bulgarian minority had to defend the rights of, nominally, 7652 Bulgarians living in the Banat, and 2283 Bulgarians in the southern part of the country. The fact that only one national minority organization was allocated a place in the Romanian National Assembly fuelled and institutionalized a rivalry between the two segments of the Bulgarian minority. In terms of political representation, both community leaders wanted to represent the minority, aspiring to obtain the deputy mandate. They faced a dual challenge: of magnifying the cultural differences between the two communities in order to claim uniqueness and legitimacy, and


at the same time sticking to the Romanian government’s understanding of the Bulgarian minority as a single cultural entity. An additional site of friction was the financial subsidies for the minorities from the state budget. They were administered by the Council of National Minorities, operating under the Romanian government since 1993. Keen to display proofs for minority-rights protection in order to be admitted into the larger European space, the Romanian state sought to provide financial assistance to its minorities. It sponsored the publishing of periodicals and literature in the mother tongues as well as various complementary activities which would preserve the minority languages as well as minority faiths and cultures. In addition, in 1994, the Council of National Minorities even discussed the inclusion of the histories of the minorities into a new edition of the school textbook History of Romania.5 The Bulgarian minority was allocated substantial sums which were used to publish almost the whole of its literary production. The pledge of Romania to adhere to minority rights protection owed a lot to the generic anticommunist rhetoric of the transition period and to a rejection of Ceaus¸escu’s blatant oppression of nationalities in the country. Yet it was by far influenced by the active pressure of international bodies and Romania’s firm intent to become a member of new Europe. On 1 February 1995, Romania signed the Framework Convention for the Protection of National Minorities.6 The Council of Europe’s criteria of what constitutes a national minority, which Romania accepted in order to facilitate its integration into Europe, revolved precisely around the ‘objective’ and ‘subjective’ markers of language, religion, tradition, cultural heritage and self-identification. Eager to participate in the new European order, Romania duly internalized these ‘quintessential’ features and applied them strictly as criteria for allocating money to its national minorities. Yet by the time these political concessions were implemented, the Bulgarian minority in Romania, harmonious because amorphous and unorganized before 1989, had lost the appearance of coherence. On the day of Ceaus¸escu’s execution – Christmas Day 1989 – as public space started being reclaimed from the Romanian state (Kligman 1990), the Banat Bulgarians formed a Union of the Bulgarians in the Banat. It was officially registered less than a week later, on New Year’s Eve. The first signs of disintegration appeared as early as 7 January 1990, when the Bulgarian Cultural Association of the rival Wallachian Bulgarians was established in Bucharest. In 1992 the Society Bratstvo of the Bulgarians in southeastern Romania was created. Its president was


L. Velchov who, ironically enough, was a Banat Bulgarian. Around that time Velchov also created two new organizations: the Cultural Community of the Bulgarians from the town of Besˇenov and the Bulgarian Community in Romania. These actions were instantly condemned by the Union of the Bulgarians in the Banat, who saw them as a danger to the unity of the Banat Bulgarians and an ill-concealed attempt at appropriating the right of political representation. In the summer of 1992, during the court registration of one of their organizations, the leaders of the Bulgarians in southern Romania pleaded that the material and spiritual culture of the Banat Bulgarian Paulicians7 did not represent the culture of Bulgaria, nor did the Latin alphabet, which was unfamiliar in Bulgaria. Added to these claims were insults against the Banat Bulgarians, who were also called ‘Gypsies’ and ‘petty criminals’ (Násˇa Glás [henceforth NG], 1–15 August 1992). Undermining the homogeneity of the Bulgarian minority from within, the accusations towards the Banat Bulgarians of having a different language, faith and culture further resurfaced as instruments of reclaiming legitimacy and political power. Through the rhetoric of authenticity, the leaders of the Bulgarians in southern Romania attempted to secure the right to represent the minority and the parliamentary seat for themselves. Two members of the organization Bratstvo were admitted to the Council of National Minorities with the status of observers. Yet they repeatedly insisted during informal talks with the council’s officers that the Banat Bulgarians’ Union did not represent all Bulgarians in Romania because its members and governing body were Paulicians, not Bulgarians. Other analogous reasons were pointed out too: the Banat Bulgarians’ faith was Catholic instead of Orthodox; their language contained only a few Bulgarian words and, moreover, was transcribed through the Latin graphics in denigration of the Cyrillic script; their traditions, rites and mores were not Bulgarian but rather resembled those of the Macedonians and Croatians (NG, 16–30 September 1993). The ethnic markers of the Banat Bulgarians, carefully constructed as they were, became associated with impurity, liminality and betrayal of the forefathers’ faith in the eyes of southern Bulgarians. The Banat Bulgarian leaders tried to counter these allegations. They maintained that Velchov’s initiatives imperilled the unity of the Bulgarians in Romania, as well as propounding false ‘patriotic’ ideas whose overarching goal was to assimilate the Banat Bulgarians. All these campaigns, as well as the continued denunciation, indicated a badly hidden aspiration to ‘correct’ the Banat Bulgarian language and


script, their religion and culture. Otherwise, the argument went, one could not explain the reproaches centring around the fact that the Banat Bulgarians did not use the Cyrillic alphabet; that they spoke and wrote in their own dialect; and that they stuck to their own Catholic faith (NG, 16–30 November 1994). During a meeting of the Banat Bulgarians’ Union held in October 1995, the Union’s leaders urged again that compelling counter-evidence be mobilized against Velchov’s accusations that the Banat Bulgarians were Catholic, wrote with Latin letters, spoke a different language, rebelled against the laws of the state, and thus were not able to represent the Bulgarian minority in Romania (NG, 1–15 October 1995). As a chief justification of their right to represent the minority, the Banat Bulgarians quoted the official figures of the 1992 census, according to which 90 per cent of the whole minority lived in the Banat. They summoned the ‘neutrality of statistics’ in order to counteract the charges of ethnic impurity and deficit of ‘Bulgarianness’. Implicit in this attempt at balance was the counter-positing of self-identification to objective identity markers such as language, faith and rites. The sheer fact that the Banat Bulgarians had declared themselves Bulgarian, unlike their co-nationals in southern Romania, had to be a sufficient compensation for their Catholic religion and Latin alphabet, and had to bestow upon them the privilege of leading the whole minority. Drawing on the authority of the census numbers, the Banat Bulgarians blamed Velchov for wishing to increase the size of the southern part of the minority by improper and dishonest means (Demokratsiia, 3 October 1994). During the next census, Velchov was condemned for trying to convince what he pretended were ‘pure Bulgarians’, who for various reasons failed to declare their true nationality, to overtly proclaim their Bulgarianness. This enterprise, according to the Banat Bulgarians, was illegitimate, since Velchov’s ‘victims’ were in fact ‘pure Vlachs’, whom he artificially wanted to make Bulgarians. Adding to this succession of arguments was a judicial decision which was meant to solve the internal struggles within the Bulgarian minority in Romania. During its meeting on 2 October 1995, the regional court in Timis¸oara dismissed the appeal of the Bucharest-based Society Bratstvo against the Union of the Banat Bulgarians in which the society questioned the prerogative of the union to represent the Bulgarian minority in Romania. Preferring the impartiality of bureaucratic procedures to venturing into a debate about the meaning of ethnic labels, the court grounded its conclusion in the factual registration of the union, which was ‘undeniable and uncontrovertible’. This decision


notwithstanding, during the 1996 general elections in Romania, the leaders of the Banat Bulgarians did not succeed in gathering enough votes. The privilege of representing the Bulgarian minority was transferred to the community in southern Romania. Having lost the parliamentary seat, the union lost also the authority to distribute the largest portion of the state financial grant for the Bulgarian minority. This led subsequently to the closing of its newspaper Násˇa Glás because of a lack of financial resources.8 How well-founded were the accusations of linguistic pollution levelled against Banat Bulgarians by their co-nationals in southern Romania? What were the implications of the objectifying and reifying practices of Romanian minority policy for the Banat Bulgarian narrative of belonging? The next section will attempt to propose an answer by analysing the meaning of language for the Banat Bulgarian community.

The multiple faces of the mother tongue In the atmosphere of unexpected freedom and widespread euphoria, on 11 January 1990, the first issue of the Banat Bulgarian newspaper Násˇa Glás appeared in Timis¸oara. It was written, as the third secretary of the Bulgarian embassy in Bucharest noted, ‘in the local dialect, with Latin letters’ (Archives of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs [henceforth AMVnR], o. 47–2, a. e. 158, l. 2). According to its motto, it was to function as a biweekly edition of the Banat Bulgarians’ Union and to circulate around 2000 copies. One of the editorial articles explicitly unveiled the overall goal of the Union: ‘the rights we want to enjoy from now on are the right to be able to speak in our sweet mother tongue, to write and publish in the Paulician–Bulgarian language’.9 In further issues, the editors confirmed their strong commitment to spreading the mother tongue, stating that Násˇa Glás had to be ‘first, the source for learning our written language, and only after that for getting acquainted with our history, faith and culture’ (NG, 1–15 January 1994). The nature of the language the Union of Banat Bulgarians promised to promote through Násˇa Glás, however, was far from clear. In an ardent debate on the newspaper’s pages, the ‘mother tongue’ invited a variety of definitions, through which the distance or the closeness to the external homeland Bulgaria was to be symbolically expressed. One of the readily available definitions of the ‘mother tongue’ was Bulgarian. The Bulgarian scholars recognized, wrote Rev. Vasilcˇin in an


article ironically entitled On the Paulician Language, that ‘our so-called “Paulician language”, that is the language of those three or four [Bulgarian] villages in the Banat, is the second Bulgarian language’. He went further: ‘Should not we be happy that we accomplished miracles and managed to preserve this old Bulgarian language for such a long time?’ (NG, 17 March 1990). The equation of the local idiom with the Bulgarian language and the bestowing upon it the status of a ‘second Bulgarian language’ reflected the perception of a close link between the two variants. This vision replicated the official position of mainstream Bulgarian linguistics towards the Banat Bulgarian idiom, namely that Banat Bulgarian is a dialect of literary Bulgarian. Acknowledging the authority of Bulgarian specialists on language, Vasilcˇin’s account endowed the Banat Bulgarian community with the particular cultural heroism of having kept intact an old language for centuries. In the general rhetoric of preservation of tradition which Násˇa Glás publicly displayed, ‘saving’ a language deserved respect. Here was thus a useful instrument for positive self-assertion, which a community with uncertain political status could easily adopt. Yet the very classification of the local idiom as a ‘second Bulgarian language’ permitted some observers to see more differences than similarities. The framing of these differences as either precious assets or lamentable deviations from literary Bulgarian manifested, in turn, the perception of the cultural distance which separated the Banat Bulgarians from their external homeland. Some of the contributors to Násˇa Glás thought that it was exactly the Paulician language that made the Banat Bulgarian culture particularly valuable, while its link with literary Bulgarian made them ‘authentic’ Bulgarians (NG, 1–5 September 1993). They insisted that the ‘pure Paulician–Bulgarian language’ be taught from the first to the eighth grade at school in parallel with literary Bulgarian. Others, however, overtly voiced their fears that ‘the Banat Bulgarian Paulician language is too poor and unsophisticated to express the whole depth and beauty of our culture and life’ (NG, 16–30 November 1994). Pragmatic concerns supplemented the aesthetic ones in the frequently asked question ‘Why do we need a Paulician language at all?’. Yet the very dissatisfaction with the status of the local idiom perpetuated its separateness and uniqueness, reflecting the deep divide which split the local idiom from literary Bulgarian. The chief distinction between the regional variant and the official Bulgarian language was the use of the Latin alphabet as opposed to the use of the Cyrillic one in both Bulgaria and the Bulgarian community around Bucharest. The Banat Bulgarian Latin alphabet has always been


an object of esteem and a source of pride for the local community. It has been largely conceived as a device which had helped the Banat Bulgarians to make a step towards the modern world and which brought them closer to the ‘light of the rich Western culture’. Transcribing the local dialect with Latin characters was perceived as the reason why the ‘Western nations accepted us better and easier’. The Banat Bulgarian elite strove to promote energetically the perception of the Latin alphabet as the community’s bridge to Europe. Emphasizing the connection between Latin script and the West (to which the Catholic faith was added), the Banat Bulgarian leaders equated Cyrillics (and Orthodoxy) with the East, shaping orthographic and linguistic divergence into civilizational differences. The East–West axis in the debates on language placed the Banat community higher on the scale of civilization than the Bulgarians in southern Romania and even those in the homeland. The association of the Latin alphabet with the civilized West relegated logically the Cyrillic alphabet to a backward East, producing therefore a peculiar strand of ‘nesting orientalisms’ within the Bulgarian community in Romania (Bakic´-Hayden 1995). As Bakic´Hayden writes, the valorized dichotomy between East and West (in which the Orient is associated with backwardness and Europe with the civilized world) has been reproduced within the framework of the Balkans. In this pattern there exists a gradation of ‘Orients’ – nesting orientalisms – where ‘Asia is more “East” or “other” than Eastern Europe; within Eastern Europe itself this gradation is reproduced with the Balkans perceived as most “Eastern”; within the Balkans there are similarly constructed hierarchies’ (Bakic´-Hayden 1995, p. 918). Linguistic difference, couched in terms of East–West, was explored by the Banat Bulgarian community as a device in building hierarchies and claiming superiority and prestige. The Banat Bulgarians’ attempt to portray themselves as more European than their ethnic counterparts was concomitant with a larger discourse of the Banatean elite, which in its turn presented the whole region as the bearer of Central European identity and even as a ‘small Europe’. In the climate of a virtual consensus in post-1989 Romanian society about the need to ‘return to Europe’, the regional elites in the Banat put forward the Habsburg legacy as a proof for the cultural and economic superiority of the Banateans over the rest of the Romanians. The fact that the Banat up until 1918 belonged to the Austro-Hungarian empire, and was intimately connected to Vienna, became part of the new image of the region, while the inferiority of


the rest of Romania was attributed to its ‘Balkan’ character (Chelcea n.d. a, b).10 Other elements of the regional past, such as the presence of large Hungarian, and especially German, minorities, which were associated with Western/Central Europe, entered in the focus of the new regional histories. The intellectuals in the Banat set out to construct an image of the Banat as a multicultural region, where multiple minorities lead a peaceful and friendly life. The Banatean elites explored the representation of the Banat as ‘the Western gate of the country’ as an asset in the struggle over ‘Europe’ as a symbolic resource (Chelcea n.d. a, b). Banat Bulgarians, as one of the Banatean minorities, profited from this strong and positive regional identity by gaining status and self-esteem vis-àvis Romanians outside of the Banat. It is ironic that the Banat Bulgarian minority, which was probably the last to provide the desired image representing the ‘West’ within Banatean pro-occidentalism, had so easily embraced it and used it to orientalize the rest of the Bulgarians in both Romania and Bulgaria. It is also indicative that the Banat Bulgarian leaders sought symbolic affiliation with Europe through cultural markers such as alphabet and religion rather than through the stereotypical features in the West’s image such as modernity, prosperity and industrialization. Post-1989 publications of the Banat Bulgarians abound with appeals to learn the local idiom properly in order to facilitate integration in Europe. As a strategy for mobilization, the image of the decaying mother tongue and of the deteriorating state of literacy was repeatedly evoked. The legacy of nearly four decades, during which the local language had been expelled from schools and Romanian had overwhelmingly penetrated the everyday life of the Banat Bulgarians, had left generations of them with only a scant memory of their mother tongue. ‘After so many years in darkness, we have forgotten even to read in our mother tongue’, a member of the community complained (NG, 30 January 1990). The specific trajectories of the Banat Bulgarian idiom throughout the twentieth century – the paradox that the mother tongue was forgotten and had to be consciously, strenuously learned, in fact, as a second, foreign language – preconditioned the revivalist rhetoric of the need to study it. In this attempt to bring the Banat Bulgarian community back to its roots, tradition, culture and language, the institution of the school was endowed with a paramount role in stimulating its members to learn the mother tongue. Besides the calls for teaching literary Bulgarian and the local idiom in primary schools, the intellectual elite


felt the need to further stimulate the Banat Bulgarian language in secondary schools as well. In 1991, the Union of the Banat Bulgarians announced the success of its negotiations to secure ten places in the Pedagogical Lycée in Timis¸oara for ‘pupils who know the Bulgarian–Paulician language’ (NG, 1–15 June 1991). The local dialect was included in the scholarly programme for Banat Bulgarians: in parallel with literary Bulgarian, it was taught for one hour a week every trimester. Other means for learning the mother tongue involved the mass media. A programme in Banat Bulgarian language started broadcasting within the framework of Radio Timis¸oara as early as December 1989, for half an hour on Sunday afternoons. A TV programme soon followed suit: it was established in 1992 as a branch of TV Arad and was to broadcast ‘in Bulgarian–Paulician’, twice a month. The media assisted in further spreading the Banat Bulgarian variant, in regulating its still unstable norms, and in building and perpetuating its status as a separate language, different from literary Bulgarian. The ambivalence in Banat Bulgarians’ language preferences, their desire to promote the regional idiom as a bridge to the West and at the same time not to sever the links with literary Bulgarian, was most evident in the printing of Násˇa Glás. Despite the repeated pledges that the newspaper ought to be the ‘paramount source for learning our written language’, it was not immediately apparent which was the language whose promotion was so earnestly sought. The newspaper presented an eclectic display of languages, alphabets, transcriptions, translations and transliterations, being the locus of visual coexistence among distinct linguistic varieties. The newspaper’s masthead, which, since issue number 14 became trilingual in Banat Bulgarian, literary Bulgarian and Romanian, functioned as a symbolic shorthand for the troubled and problematic linguistic loyalties of the Banat Bulgarian community. The main corpus of Násˇa Glás was written in the local idiom, in the Latin alphabet. When the editorial board wished to print literary articles from Bulgarian authors, they were most often translated into Banat Bulgarian and transliterated with Latin characters. Thus, through its own language, the Banat Bulgarian community became acquainted with writers who belonged to the Bulgarian literary canon: I. Vazov, N. Vaptsarov, P.R. Slaveikov, D. Talev, I. Iovkov, and so on. Some works of Bulgarian authors, however, were only transliterated so that the texts appeared in the original Bulgarian but using Latin script, as were those letters sent from Bulgaria to the newspaper’s editors.


In February 1991, for the first time a text appeared in Cyrillic, in untranslated and untransliterated literary Bulgarian. To facilitate understanding, the first Cyrillic text had been complemented by a parallel translation and transliteration. The Banat Bulgarian version was set side by side with the literary Bulgarian one. But in the next issue, and on the occasion of Bulgaria’s national day, I. Vazov’s poem ‘Where is Bulgaria?’ was published in Bulgarian Cyrillic without the accompanying appearance of either translation or transliteration. The Banat Bulgarians were left alone, unassisted, to contemplate the authentic cultural production of their former homeland. The printing of Cyrillic texts, nevertheless, did not obey any strict pattern, and was occasional, scattered and somewhat disjointed. Poems such as ‘The sacred alphabet’ were, indeed, left untouched by transliteration in subsequent editions of Násˇa Glás, and new efforts were made to teach the Banat Bulgarian community how to use the Cyrillic alphabet, often by the help of anagrams and games. To further complicate the picture, texts in Romanian were also printed. Works by famous Romanian authors – M. Eminescu, L. Blaga, V. Alecsandri – were, as a rule, translated, but others were published in their original form with a parallel translation in Banat Bulgarian. Since March 1995, a special space in the left-hand corner of Násˇa Glás’ editorial page has been dedicated to publishing the newspaper’s content in Romanian. Romanian, unlike literary Bulgarian, had been well mastered by the community’s members, as the sending of letters in Romanian to the editors testifies. Notwithstanding the palpable diversity of scripts and linguistic varieties on Násˇa Glás’ pages, and the commitment to convey to the Banat Bulgarian community the achievements of Bulgarian culture, the community’s elite actively struggled to preserve, elaborate and promote the local idiom. Although the editor, Ivanc˘ov, had made a promise to Bulgarian diplomats during their meeting in the Bulgarian embassy in Bucharest in January 1990 that the newspaper would soon switch to the Cyrillic alphabet and literary Bulgarian, the editorial board’s practices pointed rather to the contrary.11 There had been envisaged a permanent column, ‘Mother Tongue’, where ‘grammatical and lexical questions of our Paulician mother tongue had to be discussed’. Another mechanism for normalizing the regional idiom was the enrichment of its vocabulary: the newspaper reserved a special place where a ‘dictionary’ with new terms was printed. The editorial board pursued a rigorous language policing of articles and materials submitted for publication, which aimed at codifying and purifying a separate Banat Bulgarian norm. All contributors, who, unable to write in Banat


Bulgarian, sent letters in Romanian, were vigorously criticized. Complaints from several authors testify that the practice of amending texts often blurred the boundaries between correction and censorship. As Smith (1986) has noticed, in an English context, concerns for an elaborate and decent language often function as instruments for suppressing freedom of speech. Censorship of this kind proliferated in Násˇa Glás, taking diverse shapes: the engineer, Dirsa, for instance, was informed that his poems would not be published because of his bad orthography (NG, 1–15 November 1993). These concerted efforts indicate the existence of language engineering directed at regulating the local idiom so that it could be elevated to the status of a respectable language. In the editorial offices, a standard was being coined, polished and offered to a community which lacked sufficient knowledge in the art of reading and writing it. The attempt at forging and codifying a separate Banat Bulgarian language, as opposed to literary Bulgarian, was also visible in book publishing after 1989. In the first eight years after the transition, a dozen books produced by members of the community appeared. The first to be printed were a Prayer book and an Almanac, followed shortly by two histories of Vinga. 12 All of these books were written in the Banat Bulgarian variant. Reflecting a genuine desire for lively cultural exchange, the history of Vinga also contained annotations in Romanian, English and French, and a greeting by the Bulgarian ambassador in literary Bulgarian, transcribed in Latin characters. Augmenting the corpus of books written in Banat Bulgarian, a Compendium on Banat Bulgarian folklore, a small Bible, a collection of poems and a graphics album were published between 1993–97.13 A literary quarterly, Literary Thought, began publishing in 1993. In spite of the fact that the title appeared in Bulgarian Cyrillic and the contents were listed in Romanian, the entire corpus was in Banat Bulgarian. The cultural production of the Banat Bulgarian community after 1989 reflected the ambiguous loyalties of a population trying both to apprehend its own linguistic boundaries and build a separate identity through language. The proximity of the local idiom to literary Bulgarian invited formal comparison and forced the community to address the issue of the relationship between the two. The temptation to retain both linguistic variants, as manifested in school curricula and on the pages of the local newspaper, was an attempt to reconcile Banat Bulgarian and literary Bulgarian and to escape rupture and confrontation with the former homeland. Yet post-1989 cultural practices also demonstrated the unwillingness of the community’s members to


abandon their local speech by either overtly switching to literary Bulgarian or gradually adjusting to it. In the aftermath of 1989, the Banat Bulgarians faced a real alternative and could have easily let their regional linguistic differences dissolve, melt and, finally, vanish by adopting the official language of their external homeland. What they did, instead, was to fix the regional ferment of their local speech, heightening at the same time its prestige. The whole range of attempts to banish the inconsistencies and irregularities of the local variant, which lacked standardization and elaboration due to its exclusion from public space, suggested the firm commitment of the Banat Bulgarians to possess a separate, Banat Bulgarian language. All the multiple enterprises to construct a ‘proper mother tongue’ tended to distinguish and detach it from literary Bulgarian and the language of the Bulgarians of southern Romania. Newspapers, books, radio and TV programmes rendered the distance between Banat Bulgarian and literary Bulgarian even more tangible, and therefore disconnected and severed the two linguistic varieties. By accentuating the dissimilarity of alphabets, grammar and vocabulary, they reclaimed Banat Bulgarian as an independent, autonomous language. By distinguishing themselves from Bulgaria, the Banat Bulgarians symbolically expressed their loyalty to the Romanian state and their wish to remain obedient citizens of Romania, even though they did not belong to the Romanian nation. This represented a wish also to preserve a minority status within a state which pledged to materially support its national minorities and grant them political representation. The Banat Bulgarian elite had found a niche where it could easily reproduce itself by exhibiting cultural difference without the need to question the integrity of the Romanian state. Assimilation into the Romanian nation was not necessary until Romania was willing to respect the specific minority identities and even pay for their maintenance in order to impress international monitoring bodies. Adoption of Romanian ethnic identity was not needed even for the purposes of fast social mobility: minority status conferred enough prestige, privilege and resources in order to be a viable alternative to melting into the Romanian majority. In these circumstances, the concept of Romanian nationhood remained exclusive. The Romanian government’s strategic use of national minorities as proofs and ‘showcases’ of an exemplary democratic treatment diminished the possibilities of any political inclusion that was combined with cultural assimilation. Adoption of literary Bulgarian was not a necessity either: the Banat Bulgarian culture showed enough dissimilarities from that of the


majority to be plausible and sufficient core of a minority identity in the eyes of Romanian officials. Moreover, a potential slide towards literary Bulgarian would have made the Banat Bulgarian community just too close to the community in southern Romania. This would have evened the chances of both communities to get a parliamentary seat and the financial subsidies coming along with it. Within all communities, writes Laitin (1998), there are cultural entrepreneurs, seeking to offer new identity categories, hoping to find ‘buyers’. If their product sells, these entrepreneurs become leaders of newly formed ethnic, religious or other forms of identity groups. The peculiar trilinguality of Literary Thought was the symbol of the ‘new product’ the Banat Bulgarian entrepreneurs were offering: Romanian stood for loyalty and passive integration, literary Bulgarian assured finances from the Bulgarian state, and Banat Bulgarian legitimized the aspirations towards the label ‘Bulgarian minority in Romania’. The numerous procedures for making Banat Bulgarian a homogeneous regional language represented an exercise in drawing symbolic boundaries. Having become a print-language (Anderson 1991), Banat Bulgarian ceased to be a mere peripheral variant positioned at the fringes of official Bulgarian. The pursuit of a separate language soon evolved into a longing for a separate history as Banat Bulgarians engaged in fabricating genealogies and reinventing their past.

The histories of the Banat Bulgarians In April to May 1992, running through four issues of Násˇa Glás, there appeared a series of articles entitled History of the Paulicians by A. Manea, a language teacher in the Pedagogical Lycée in Timis¸oara. As the title conspicuously betrayed, this was an exemplary attempt to construct a history which would endow Banat Bulgarians with an ‘authentic’ genealogy. Its aim was to detach them from Bulgarian history, state and nation, and ‘restore’ them as a separate nationality in the framework of Romania. This endeavour was prompted by the codification of a separate Banat Bulgarian language by an elite which skilfully explored the myth of an organic link between nation and language. In his articles, Manea scrutinized the history of the Bulgarian people since its earliest centuries. The scrupulous reading confirmed his conviction that the Paulicians were not mentioned among the three branches of the Bulgars who came to the Balkan peninsula in the seventh century. The silence over the Paulicians, argued Manea, meant


that they had constituted an autonomous, independent group outside Bulgaria and had had their separate state. He explained that the Paulicians, far from Bulgaria and without having any connection with the Bulgarian people, established their own state on the frontier between Byzantium and the Arab world, ‘near the Emirate Melitene’, with a capital called Tefrike. In 1996, during a scholarly session on the Banat Bulgarians, Manea presented his history to three Romanian professors from the Universities of Bucharest and Timis¸oara. They showed significant interest in the Banat Bulgarian Latin literature but expressed serious doubts in the idea of a separate Paulician state, being reluctant to bestow their academic prestige upon it (NG, 16–31 January 1996). Although the attempt to secure an authoritative validation for a venerable history failed, other members of the community launched further versions of a glorious Paulician past. M. Kastiov (1995) wrote a book, The Paulicians, where he again insisted on the existence of an independent Paulician state as early as the ninth century. On the basis of linguistic evidence, he situated the centre of the Paulician state in today’s Ukraine. Kastiov’s book received substantial advertisement through the weekly Banat-Bulgarian radio programmes, where extensive passages from it were broadcast. The need for a separate state tradition and a dignified lineage has led to the progressive standardization and proliferation of a distinct Banat Bulgarian language. Colonizing the past and inventing histories constituted the fragments of a long project of self-identification. In building their separate identity, Banat Bulgarians followed the only accessible model they possessed in the framework of Romania – that of an identity grounded in ethnic difference. Their elites imitated and pirated (Anderson 1991, p. 156) types of master narratives made available through the practices of other national minorities. To an undisputedly different religion (Catholicism) and a language whose categorization also accentuated difference (Paulician/Paulician–Bulgarian), the community’s members added an appropriate history, hence increasing the number of distinct cultural markers. In this chain of argumentation, the existence of a local idiom promised credibility for the Banat Bulgarians’ tales of belonging. New cultural temporalities were being moulded which had to be commensurate with the community’s separate language and faith. By carving out a space for a restaged past, the Banat Bulgarian norm, successfully promoted as it was, constituted both the pillar and validation of this new brand of ‘shared’ history. The genealogical collage further widened the distance between the


Banat Bulgarians and their former homeland. It distanced them also from the Bulgarian community in southern Romania, serving as yet another estrangement device. Its immediate after-effects and overall legacy were the open clash over definitions and reformulations of notions such as ‘authenticity’ and ‘Bulgarianness’, which probed the limits of the Banat Bulgarians’ loyalties. One entity which persistently failed to acknowledge the seriousness of the internal struggles between the two rival branches of the Bulgarian minority in Romania was the Bulgarian state, the external national homeland in Brubaker’s term. Four consecutive reports on the Banat Bulgarian community, produced by the Bulgarian embassy in Bucharest in 1990, missed the opportunity to take a stance on the identity-building strategies of the Banat Bulgarians. The reports also failed to account for the whole array of cultural practices of the community, while a concept of the Bulgarian–Paulician language and nationality was being designed and refined. During trips to the region the embassy delegates did notice that Vinga, one of the strongholds of the Bulgarians in the Banat, ‘visibly loses its Bulgarian character’. They nevertheless concluded that ‘the Banat Bulgarians have managed to preserve their Bulgarian nationality and consciousness’ (AMVnR, op. 47–2, a. e. 158, II. 10, 12). The external homeland dismissed the Banat Bulgarian linguistic differences as minor deviations, as mere indigenous exotics and eccentricities. Local speech was perceived as ‘almost identical to the dialects of the elderly people in North-eastern Bulgaria’ (AMVnR, op. 47–2, a. e. 158, l. 11). Acknowledging that the Banat Bulgarian language is called Paulician, the embassy recommended that Bulgaria cautiously implant literary Bulgarian within the community. 14 Yet this proposal was threatened by the somewhat self-congratulatory sentiment that ‘for 250 years the Banat Bulgarians had guarded their language, traditions and rites’. The Bulgarian Foreign Ministry prepared a common agenda to guide the relationships with the Bulgarian minority in Romania, where it set as a main goal ‘to endorse the educational and cultural work of the newly-founded Bulgarian societies’ (AMVnR, op. 47–2, a. e. 155A, l. 2). The drafting of a common agenda entailed that the external homeland intended to treat both Banat- and the southern-Romanian Bulgarians together, indiscriminately. No allegations of a deficiency of ‘Bulgarianness’ overshadowed the distribution of financial resources to the two competing minority communities either. The Bulgarian Foreign Ministry preferred to keep open and fluid the categories of


membership in the Bulgarian nation, in order to attract larger communities and pump up the numbers of the Bulgarian diaspora. One further reason contributed to favouring this particular policy. Until 1989, the communist regime had frequently discriminated between various groups of the Bulgarian emigrant communities in order to gain control over them. After 1989 the policy of divide et impera towards the Bulgarian diaspora became firmly associated with the dogmatism of communist practices (Niagulov 1997, p. 308). This negative image compelled post-1989 Bulgarian institutions to refrain from such exclusionary actions and to foster instead an inclusive approach towards segments of the Bulgarian minority abroad. The policy of keeping fuzzy and elusive the boundaries of Bulgarianness when working with the diaspora is utilitarian in its own way: it posits a unified community.

Conclusion Language, as Billig (1995) states, is itself an ideological construction of nationalism, an ‘invented permanency’, which has been created historically in the age of modernity. The concept of a ‘language’ does not create nationalism, it is rather nationalism which creates our undisputed view that there exist, ‘naturally’ and unproblematically, things called ‘different languages’, which we speak (Billig 1995, pp. 29–30). In this chapter I have attempted to show how communities, speaking close, mutually understandable, languages, evoke the notion of language as an estrangement device for the sake of political purposes. I have argued that the Bulgarian community in Romania employed the ‘invented permanency’ of language in order to underline and deepen internal divisions instead of erasing them. The mother-tongue debate fractured the amorphous body of the pre-1989 Bulgarian minority in Romania at a time when ethnic differences were overtly brought back to public space in the 1990s. In talking about language, the community’s representatives imagined it in a particular fashion, so as to disunite and to marginalize rival members in a struggle for power and control over funds, made possible by the post-1989 developments in Romania. The present study has narrated a sequence of legitimating mechanisms which the segments of the Bulgarian minority in Romania employed in order to achieve empowerment. The two groups found themselves locked into a rhetoric of authenticity whose undertones revealed a rational, strategic, ‘inauthentic’ use of ethnicity (Offe 1996,


pp. 57–8). As Offe points out, both leaders and followers of ethnic groups may just pretend to be motivated by values of ethnic identity for the sake of acquisitive ends. Brought into this power-contest was the whole range of identity-building instruments, from ‘selfidentification’ to ‘language’, ‘religion’, ‘rites’ and ‘history’. The new indexical signs of belonging which the Banat Bulgarian community deployed – the smooth incorporation of a different language, faith and history as elements of its collective identity – were stabilized to a great extent thanks to the commitment of the post-1989 Romanian state to respect cultural differences. By its emphasis on cultural specificities for delineating minorities, the Romanian state helped to essentialize cultural differences, solidifying and perpetuating them. By granting parliamentary seats to the minorities, Romania reified their group identities and institutionalized competition for power (Verdery 1996, p. 86). In this way, the wrangling over authenticity of the two segments of the Bulgarian minority in Romania was deeply embedded in the intricacies of the very process of democratization taking place in the country after the fall of communism. In a climate of ethnicization of the politics of transition, democratization brought the Bulgarian community disunion instead of accord. The internal disintegration of the Bulgarian minority, in its turn, also generated impulses to fortify and stabilize the cultural differences. Struggling for resources, symbolic and material alike, coming from both Romania and Bulgaria, the minority itself re-enacted and reproduced its salient distinctions. The two segments, however, did this in their own way, identical in form but different in content. The emphasis the Banat Bulgarians put on their separate language, faith and history was meant to distance them as much from their external homeland as from the rest of the Bulgarians inhabiting the southeastern territories of Romania. Unlike Barth’s (1969) notion of boundary maintenance, which is oriented more to the outside rather than to the inside of a community, the Bulgarian minority in Romania sustained and nurtured internal faultlines. The conflict around the distribution of valued resources appeared as intra-ethnic instead of inter-ethnic one. Language was not used as a ‘glue for societal coherence’ (Offe 1996, p. 14) but rather served as an estrangement device in this struggle, which helped to compartmentalize, enclose and circumscribe the two competing factions. The attempt to find one’s own Other within the same minority group operated as a technique for regimentalizing, encircling and anchoring sub-groups within their own, separate places.


Notes 1. I wish to thank E. Babejová, A. Pavkovic´ and J. Steinberg for their comments on different draft-versions of this paper. 2. I apply Brubaker’s (1992) German nationhood model for Romania. 3. A White Paper published by the Romanian Ministry of Foreign Affairs in 1992 enumerates the legal rights of the minorities. For further discussion of these, see Nedeva 1993, pp. 140–1. 4. See the interview of L. Velchov in Demokratsiia, 3 October 1994; and a letter by the Union of the Banat Bulgarians to chief editors of Bulgarian newspapers, stamped but undated, from the personal archives of K. Ivanc˘ov. 5. This is not to deny that nationalism constitutes a determining feature of Romanian political life after 1989, or that an ultra-nationalist rhetoric is not a persistent characteristic of public space. As Gallagher (1995, p. 95) claims, there is a gap between de facto and de jure recognition of minority rights, the legal acts being quite often a mere decorum. Yet this discrepancy can be witnessed chiefly in attitudes towards the huge Hungarian minority or the Roma. The Bulgarians in Romania, owing to their small number and their political loyalty, could benefit substantially from changes in minority policy taken under the pressure of international bodies. 6. In March 1995, Romania joined also the Pact on Stability, which specifically targeted the problem of national minorities and frontiers. It was drafted as an EU initiative meant to channel the process of integration of the Central and Eastern European countries into the framework of EU. See Benoît-Rohmer, 1996. 7. The self-designation ‘Paulician’ plays a significant role in Banat Bulgarians’ self-perception. Paulicians were the heirs of an Armenian sect, who arrived in the Bulgarian lands in the eleventh century. They were converted to Catholicism by Franciscan monks in the seventeenth century. At the end of seventeenth and the beginning of eighteenth centuries, part of those living in northern Bulgaria emigrated to the Habsburg empire and settled in the Banat. 8. The Union of the Banat Bulgarians claims that the current MP for the Bulgarian minority, Florea Simion, is Romanian. Ivanc˘ov has secured an official confirmation from the Chamber of Deputies of the Romanian Parliament, dating 14 November 1996, that he is a Romanian citizen with a Romanian nationality. The document is in Ivanc˘ov’s personal archives. 9. NG, 16 February 1990. 10. I am grateful to L. Chelcea for sharing with me his two unpublished manuscripts. 11. AMVnR, o. 47–2, a. e. 158, l. 2. Ivanc˘ov made similar promises in subsequent interviews for the Bulgarian press too. See his interview in Demokratsiia, 30 November 1997. 12. See Molitvenie Editia n. p., 1990, 1991; Almanah n. p., 1991; P. Ránkov, ´ Vinga 1741–1991 (Arad, 1991); Vinga-250 gudini (Timisˇvár, 1991). 13. See K. Ivanc˘ov, Banátsci Balgarsci Folklor. Nárudni Pesmi, vol. I (Timisˇvár: Helicon-Banát, 1993); J. Vasilcˇin, Manena Biblija (n. p., 1995); T. Uzun, Stapunci u nipuznátu (Timisˇvár: Editura Marineasa, 1997); P. Augustinov, Grafika (Timisˇvár: Helicon-Banát, 1997).

64 Language, Ethnicity and the State, vol. 2 14. Prominent Bulgarian historians also wish to see the Banat Bulgarian branch melting into the ‘natural integrative centre of the unitary Bulgarian language and culture’ (Niagulov 1999, p. 329).

Bibliography Almanah n. p., 1991. Archives of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs – Sofia [AMVnR], o. 47–2, a. e. 158. Anderson, B. Imagined Communities. Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism, rev. edn (London: Verso, 1991). Augustinov, P. Grafika (Timisˇvár: Helicon-Banat, 1997). Bakic´-Hayden, M. Nesting Orientalisms: The Case of Former Yugoslavia, Slavic Review, 54, 4 (1995), 917–31. Barth, F. (ed.) Ethnic Groups and Boundaries: the Social Organization of Culture Difference (London: Allen & Unwin, 1969). Benoît-Rohmer, F. The Minority Question in Europe. Texts and Commentary (Strasbourg: Council of Europe Publishing, 1996). Billig, M. Banal Nationalism (London: Sage Publications, 1995). Brubaker, R. Citizenship and Nationhood in France and Germany (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1992). Bugajski, J. Ethnic Politics in Eastern Europe. A Guide to Nationality Policies, Organizations, and Parties (New York and London: M. E. Sharpe, 1995). Chelcea, L. Nationalism and Regionalism in the Banat Region in the Interwar Period: Resource Competition, Elites and Cultural Discourses, Unpublished manuscript a. Chelcea, L. Why Did Banat Region Become Multicultural? Social transformation and collective memory during Communism in a pluriethnic seting, Unpublished manuscript b. Demokratsiia, 1994, 1997. Gallagher, T. Romania After Ceaus¸escu (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1995). Grillo, R.D. Introduction, in: R.D. Grillo (ed.) ‘Nation’ and ‘State’ in Europe. Anthropological Perspectives (London: Academic Press, 1980). Handler, R. Nationalism and the Politics of Culture in Quebec (The University of Wisconsin Press, 1988). Ivanc˘ov, K. Banátsci Balgarsci Folklor. Nárudni Pesmi, vol. I (Timis˘vár: HeliconBanát, 1993). Kastiov, M. Palcénete/Pavlikenii (595–1995) [The Paulicians] (Timis¸oara, 1995). Kligman, G. Reclaiming the Public: a Reflection on Creating Civil Society in Romania, East European Politics and Societies, IV, 3 (1990), 393–438. Laitin, D. Identity in Formation: the Russian-Speaking Populations in the Near Abroad (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1998). Molitvenie Editia n. p., 1990, 1991. ´ Násˇa Glás, 1990–1997. Nedeva, I. Democracy Building in Ethnically Diverse Societies: The Case of Bulgaria and Romania, in: I. Cuthbertson and J. Leibowitz (eds) Minorities: the

Rossitza Guentcheva 65 New Europe’s Old Issue (Prague: Institute for EastWest Studies, 1993), pp. 140–1. Niagulov, B. Bulgarskite zadgranichni obshtnosti i Bulgaria [Bulgarian communities abroad and Bulgaria], Rodina, 1–2 (1997), 292–319. Niagulov, B. Banatskite bulgari [The Banat Bulgarians] (Sofia: Paradigma, 1999). Offe, C. Varieties of Transition. The East European and the East German Experience (Cambridge: Polity Press, 1996). Ránkov, P. Vinga 1741–1991 (Arad, 1991). Schöpflin, G. Nationalism and Ethnic Minorities in Post-Communist Europe, in: R. Caplan and J. Feffer (eds) Europe’s New Nationalism. States and Minorities in Conflict (New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996), pp. 151–68. Smith, O. The Politics of Language, 1791–1819, 2nd edn (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1986). Uzun, T. Stapunci u nipuznátu (Timisˇvár: Editura Marineasa, 1997). Vasilcˇin, J. Manena Biblija n. p., 1995. Verdery, K. What Was Socialism, and What Comes Next? (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1996). Vinga-250 gudini (Timisˇvár, 1991).

4 From Irredentism to Constructive Reconciliation? Germany and its Minorities in Poland and the Czech Republic Stefan Wolff

Ethnicity and territory: the triangular relationship between external minority, host-state and kin-state1 In contemporary scholarship, definitions of ethnicity vary greatly. A basic distinction can be made between a primordial school, which holds that ‘ethnicity is so deeply rooted in historical experience that it should properly be treated as a given in human relations’, and an instrumentalist school, which argues that ‘ethnicity is primarily a practical resource that individuals and groups deploy opportunistically to promote their more fundamental security and economic interests and that they may even discard when alternative affiliations promise a better return’ (Esman 1994, p. 10f.). The tangible aspects of ethnicity, such as customs, traditions, language or religion, and the social and political implications that are emphasized by instrumentalists are important components of an individual’s or group’s ethnic identity since they allow boundaries to be more easily drawn between in-group and out-group. Yet, they cannot fully explain the phenomenon in relation to the intense emotions that ‘ethnic issues’ generate. As a self-defined community, ethnic groups are distinguishable by a collective proper name, a myth of common ancestry, shared historical memories, one or more differentiating elements of common culture, the association with a specific homeland, and a sense of solidarity for significant sectors of the population (Smith 1991, p. 21). This link between tangible and intangible aspects is key to understanding the political implications of ethnic identity and of the formation of conflict groups based on ethnicity. The tangible characteristics, 66

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however, are only important inasmuch as they ‘contribute to this notion or sense of a group’s self-identity and uniqueness’ (Connor 1994, p. 104). As such, ethnic identity is an important resource in the struggle for the power necessary to enable an ethnic group to determine its own fate. This desire of an ethnic group to gain political power is expressed in the concept of nationalism – ‘an ideological movement aiming to attain or maintain autonomy, unity and identity for a social group which is deemed to constitute a nation’ (Smith 1991, p. 51). Informed by the principle of self-determination, minorities that are organized into ethno-national movements make claims on behalf of people that can be territorial in nature – at one end of the spectrum, demands are raised for local or regional autonomy (internal self-determination), and at the other, secessionist movements become active or irredentist policies are pursued (external self-determination). Alternatively, minority ethno-national movements can also manifest themselves in demands for legal and political equality, cultural rights or access to educational resources. Obviously, ethno-nationalism is not confined to minorities alone. Majorities, too, can embrace ethno-nationalism as a political ideology so that the relationship between external minority and host-state is often characterized by conflicting doctrines of ethno-nationalisms: external minority and host-nation share, and compete over, the same territory, but they are ‘divided’ by virtue of distinct ethnic identities. While there is, thus, potential for conflict, such conflict is not inevitable. Numerous examples exist of how multi-ethnic states have managed to accommodate diverse ethnic groups through a wide range of policies, including the provision of access to linguistic, educational or religious facilities, as well as to positions of power in the institutions of the state, possibly in combination with various degrees of territorial and personal autonomy at local, regional and/or national level. In contrast, the relationship between external minority and kinstate, as it is based on common ethnicity and a territorially and institutionally divided ethnic nation, is normally not one of ethnic conflict, but rather one of patronage resulting from either one or both of two aspects – national sentiment and national interest. Sentiment concerning the fate of members of the nation living in another state and the desire to unite the national territory and bring together in it all the members of the ethnic nation finds its expression in irredentist or pannationalism (Smith 1991, p. 83). As national sentiment is not always expressed in irredentist nationalism, so is the relationship between


external minority and kin-state not always about the secession of the territory inhabited by the kin-group and its subsequent unification with the kin-state. Informed by domestic and foreign national interests, territorial unification may not be desirable for either kin-state or external minority, or it may not be possible given geo-political or regional interest and opportunity structures.2 As the following two case studies will indicate, the relationship between external minority and kin-state can alternatively be one of ‘repatriation’ or of establishing conditions in the host-state conducive to the preservation, expression and development of the ethnic identity of the external minority.3 Regardless of the form that the relationship between the external minority and its host- and kin-states takes, the very existence of an external minority also establishes a relationship between these two states, which shapes, and is in turn shaped by, the relationship each of them has with the external minority. However, this relationship is not so much determined by the concepts of ‘ethnicity’ and ‘nation’, but rather it is, at least in a historical sense, founded on the notion of ‘territory’, which, for states, possesses certain values in and of itself,4 and sovereignty, in particular in relation to the host-state’s domestic policy. With few exceptions, territorial challenges have been infrequent in Central and Eastern Europe over the past half-century. Challenges to sovereignty, especially over the treatment of ethnic minorities, have rightly or wrongly become more frequent and have been levelled by individual states and international organizations alike. The case of the German minorities in Poland and the Czech Republic will demonstrate how the complex triangular relationship between external minority, host-state and kin-state is affected by, and itself affects, ethnic identity and the opportunities to preserve, develop and express it. To exemplify and substantiate the claims I have made so far on a theoretical basis, I will first give a brief account of the territorial development of the relationship between Germany, Poland and the Czech Republic from the beginning of German settlements to the present, and outline the historical changes in the situation of the two German minority groups in each country, especially in the post-1945 period. I will then summarize the general premises of the external minority policy of the Federal Republic of Germany from 1949 to the present, before turning to specific policy issues in the relationship between Germany and its two neighbouring countries as they have manifested themselves since 1989/90. I will conclude with an analysis of the impact of these developments on the situation of the two minority groups today.

Stefan Wolff 69

The origins of German minority groups in Poland and the Czech Republic The history of ethnic Germans in Central and Eastern Europe reaches back to the early twelfth century when the German expansion to the east began. It encompassed mostly the colonization, but to some extent also the conquest, of areas in Central and Eastern Europe, including parts of today’s Baltic states, Poland, the Czech and Slovak Republics, Ukraine, Russia, Romania, Hungary and Yugoslavia. The German settlement of Bohemia, Moravia and Silesia in today’s Czech Republic, also referred to as Sudetenland from the late nineteenth century onwards (Tonkin 2001), began in the middle of the twelfth century. ‘Culturally’, it was the most successful of all early colonizations. The first German university was founded in Prague in 1348 and the use and codification of German in the Prague chancellery of Karl IV made an important contribution to the development of a standard dialect of the German language. Until the middle of the eighteenth century, Germans were in a majority in the Bohemian crown lands of the Habsburg Empire, but the annexation of large parts of Silesia to Prussia after the Seven Years War in 1763 saw them reduced to the strongest national group after the Czechs. The territorial settlement of St Germain in 1919 established a new Czechoslovak state on the ruins of the Habsburg Empire, with the Sudetenland and its overwhelmingly German population becoming part of it. The rise of nazism in Germany, the increasingly aggressive use of German minorities as foreign policy objects, which had already begun in the era of the Weimar Republic, and the geopolitical interest structures of the Great Powers in Central Europe paved the way towards the Munich Agreement in 1938, in which France and Great Britain gave their consent to the annexation of the Sudetenland by Germany. Within six months of this settlement, Hitler had completely dismembered Czechoslovakia by occupying the remaining parts of the Czech part of the country (and incorporating it as protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia into the Third Reich) and by establishing a puppet regime in Slovakia after awarding significant territories to Hungary. After the second world war, these territorial changes were reversed, and in an attempt to avoid a recurrence of a Munich-like situation, the United States, Britain, and the Soviet Union agreed to the expulsion of the vast majority of Sudeten Germans from the restored Czechoslovak Republic. The German communities in Poland were of different origin. Initially under Polish rule, the Teutonic Order had partly acquired and


partly conquered Prussia. Extensive colonization throughout the thirteenth century brought many German merchants, artisans and clerics to the region people who remained there even after the decline of the Teutonic Order. After a quarter of a millennium of Polish sovereignty over Prussia, the Duchy of Prussia became independent from Poland in 1660. Unification in 1701 with Brandenburg, which itself consisted largely of areas colonized, acquired and conquered from the thirteenth century onwards, made Prussia an integral, and later the dominant, part of the German Empire. As a result of the territorial settlement in Versailles after World War I, Poland acquired a sizeable portion of German territory in Silesia and West Prussia (the Polish Corridor) and with it a German-speaking minority. The westward shift of Poland after 1945 had similar territorial implications, but it was accompanied by large-scale forced population transfers – the expulsion of Poles from what had become Ukraine and their resettlement in areas from which approximately nine million Germans had been expelled. Apart from western Poland, and primarily Upper Silesia, today’s German minority groups in Poland also live in the south-western part of the former East Prussia, which was divided between Poland and the Soviet Union in 1945. Thus, territorial aspects have played a different, yet equally important, part in the development of the relationship between the German minority groups in Poland and Czechoslovakia and their respective host-states and Germany on the one hand, and between these hoststates and Germany on the other. As I will show, this territorial dimension of minority politics – both internal as well as external – continues to influence these relationships. Yet, its impact on the situation of the German minority groups in Poland and the Czech Republic can only be fully understood after a more comprehensive examination of all the historical and contemporary factors that determine minority politics in this context.

The German minority between 1945 and 1990 In many ways, the situation of Germans in Czechoslovakia and Poland between 1945 and 1990 was very similar. Both groups suffered as ethnic minorities in states whose ideological premises placed notions of class above those of ethnic identification; additionally, they suffered as Germans as a consequence of the crimes committed by the nazis during the second world war against Poles, Czechs and Slovaks.

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In Czechoslovakia, of the approximately 3.2 million Germans living in the country in 1945, only around 250 000 remained after the end of the expulsions, about 10 per cent of whom lived in the Slovak part of the country. These Germans were allowed to stay in the country for a variety of different reasons: marriage to a Czech or Slovak national, proven loyalty to the Czechoslovak state in the sense of the Benesˇ Decrees,5 or the need for the state to retain a certain amount of skilled labourers and specialists for the economic reconstruction of the country (Löffler 1997, p. 94f.). The policy agenda of the Communist government towards the country’s still sizeable German minority was simple: economic integration and cultural assimilation (Müller 1993, p. 21). Economic integration was achieved with relative ease, as the vast majority of Germans who were allowed to stay had been hand-picked for their skills. Cultural assimilation was a lengthier process, but over time it was similarly successful: the so-called internal expulsion in the late 1940s and early 1950s destroyed the last remnants of the historical settlement structures of the German population. German schools and the teaching of German as a native language were banned, and the fear of discrimination by authorities and majority population initiated a trend towards ‘voluntary’ assimilation among the younger generations. Initially, however, the government had recognized the value of the German language as a means to transmit its propaganda messages to the minority: from 1951 on, a German-language newspaper existed; after 1957, German cultural groups were allowed under the umbrella of the central trade union organization and a German theatre existed which travelled the country performing plays in German. At the beginning of the 1960s, this policy was abandoned as it seemed to be counter-productive to the official efforts at total assimilation (Müller 1993, p. 22). Another policy change occurred when a more minorityfriendly policy was introduced in the wake of the Prague Spring. The German minority was officially recognized under constitutional law in 1968,6 and members of the minority were allowed to create their own representative forum – the Cultural Association of Citizens of German Nationality. Although neither of these measures was officially reversed after the Warsaw Pact invasion, steps were taken to minimize their positive impact on the German minority, including the replacement of the leadership of the Cultural Association with loyal communists. The official organ of the association, the Prague People’s Paper, could continue, but was turned into an organ of communist propaganda, similar to the other two German-language publications, the New Prague Press and the Czechoslovak Life (Kotzian 1998, p. 21). Thus, while the older


generation had some limited opportunities to preserve their cultural heritage, including its language, traditions and customs, the persistent absence of a public commitment to preserve a German cultural tradition across the generations meant that the assimilation pressure on the younger members of the minority continued unabated (Löffler 1997, p. 95). This, along with the increasing opportunities to emigrate to Germany, resulted in an almost 80 per cent decrease in the number of Germans in just four decades. 7 According to the first post-communist census, by 1991 little more than 50 000 citizens in Czechoslovakia registered as German. The major difference between the Czechoslovak and the Polish case is that in Poland two categories of Germans existed: those who had been citizens of the German Reich before the beginning of the second world war, and ended up on Polish territory because of the westward shift of the country, and those who had been citizens of the pre-war Polish state. Similar to the Czechoslovak case, not every German from either category was expelled from Poland. Skilled workers in the mining and metallurgical industries were often considered essential for the country’s economic recovery and therefore allowed to stay, at least until the late 1950s when Poles were available in sufficient numbers to take over. In addition, those pre-war Polish citizens who had undergone ‘rehabilitation’ in forced labour camps and spoke Polish were offered their Polish citizenship back from the early to mid-1950s on.8 The distinction made by Polish officials, one of the few curious instances when communists and the Catholic Church were united over an issue, was that between the autochthonous or ‘Germanized’ Poles primarily of Upper Silesia and the much smaller German population of Lower Silesia. The former group was treated as originally of Polish or Slavic origin but then exposed to centuries of Germanization. Thus, a policy of re-Polonization was pursued, banning any use of German in public and in religious services. In contrast to this, the Germans of Lower Silesia were recognized, after 1951, as a national minority. They were granted a German-language weekly, the Workers’ Voice (later renamed The Week in Poland), several German primary schools were established, and a number of libraries with German-language books existed in the area as well. In April 1957, a German Social-Cultural Association was founded in Wrocl⁄ aw, which had around 7000 members (Neubach 1998, p. 26). In either case, the overwhelming majority of Germans who became eligible to leave in the late 1950s, after Red Cross mediation between Poland and West Germany, decided to seize this opportunity. The fact

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that about 55 000 Germans from Lower Silesia left virtually destroyed the basis of the cultural life of the German-speaking population there. In addition to them, about 120 000 Germans from Upper Silesia emigrated as well. As a consequence, the assimilation pressure on the remaining Germans in both areas grew, again resulting in even more people emigrating, so that, as a result of several inter-governmental agreements between Poland and the Federal Republic, by 1990, about 1.1 million people of German descent had left Poland.9 With almost all of the ‘recognized’ Germans emigrating, Polish assimilation policy could ‘comfortably’ deny the existence of a German minority until 1989.10 More practically, the policy of forced assimilation also included the decade-long ban of German in school curricula, the discrimination against members of the minority in public sector employment, as well as things as trivial as the prosecution of people who owned kitchen appliances with German labels on them (Strobel 1997, p. 29). On the political level, organizations of the German minority, which had gradually emerged since the early 1980s, were denied official recognition, and their members were subjected to various forms of discrimination (Rogall 1993, p. 33). The failure of the re-Polonization, however, became evident by the end of the 1980s. By 1990, dozens of German Friendship Circles had been founded in Upper Silesia whose overall membership grew to around 300 000 by 1998 (Paweltziki and Kirstein 1998, p. 15).

The Federal Republic’s external minority policy before and after 1990 In contrast to the Weimar Republic, where the situation of ethnic German minorities in Central and Eastern Europe played a central part in foreign policy from the early days on, it only became more and more of an issue in the bilateral relations between the Federal Republic of Germany and Poland and Czechoslovakia from the mid-1950s onwards. By then, Germany’s integration into the Western world had sufficiently progressed through membership of NATO and of the forerunners of today’s European Union. Partly as a result of public pressure and political lobbying by the various expellee organizations, the Federal Republic committed itself to a foreign policy vis-à-vis the communist countries in Central and Eastern Europe that included humanitarian efforts to improve the situation of ethnic Germans in these countries. The possibilities of direct involvement, however, were extremely limited throughout the cold war period. The priority of


promoting peaceful co-existence between East and West did not leave the Federal Republic much room for manoeuvre in its external minority policy. Successive governments, therefore, focused their efforts on facilitating the emigration of ethnic Germans from Central and Eastern Europe to the Federal Republic, primarily from the Soviet Union, Romania and Poland.11 The transition to democracy in Central and Eastern Europe, which began in 1989/90, provided an entirely different structure of new and enlarged opportunities for Germany’s external minority policy. On the one hand, democratization meant the granting of such basic rights and liberties as the freedoms of speech, association and political participation, allowing ethnic Germans in their host-countries to form their own parties, stand for election and actively advocate the interests of their group. On the other hand, it also meant that there were no longer any restrictions on emigration and, given the experience of the past, many ethnic Germans, particularly in Poland, Romania and the Soviet Union and its successor states, seized this opportunity and emigrated to Germany. Both developments required a measured and carefully considered policy response from Germany – domestically to cope with the enormous influx of ethnic German migrants, and internationally to assure the neighbouring states in Central and Eastern Europe of the inviolability of the post-war borders, while simultaneously supporting German minorities at qualitatively and quantitatively new levels and ensuring their protection as national minorities. All this had to happen within the framework of German foreign policy premises in general – the support for the transition to democracy and a market economy; the creation of a new collective security order embracing all states in Europe; and respect for international law and human rights, for example. Given the ethno-political demography of the region with its many national minorities, latent border disputes, and inter-ethnic tensions, it was obvious that the role of minorities would be a crucial one in two ways. The ultimate test of successful democratization would have to include an assessment of whether or not members of national minorities, individually and collectively, were entitled to full equality in their host-societies and had the right to preserve, express and develop their distinct identities in their host-states. Furthermore, it would not be possible to operate a viable collective security system without settling existing ethnic and territorial conflicts and establishing frameworks within which future disputes could be resolved peacefully. Taking these assumptions as a starting point, the German government con-

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cluded that national minorities could play a crucial part in bringing about results in these two interrelated processes as they could bridge existing cultural gaps (Bundestagsdrucksache 13/10845, and BMIPressemitteilung 18 May 1999 and BMI-Pressemitteilung 14 June 1999). The federal government sought to create partnerships with the Central and East European host-states and the German minorities living there that, on the basis of international treaties and bilateral agreements, 12 would promote the government’s ‘overall foreign policy concept of a European peace policy of reconciliation, understanding and co-operation’ (Bundestagsdrucksache 13/3195). Cultural, social and economic measures to support German minorities, although primarily ‘aimed at an improvement of the living conditions of ethnic Germans in their host-countries’, would naturally benefit whole regions and their populations, independent of their ethnic origin, and thus promote interethnic harmony and economic prosperity while strengthening the emerging democratic political structures (Bundestagsdrucksache 13/3428 and Bundestagsdrucksache 13/1116). Thus, by creating favourable conditions for the integration of ethnic Germans in the societies of their host-states, the German government hoped to provide an alternative to emigration (Bundestagsdrucksache 13/3428).

Germany’s relationship with the Czech Republic after 1990: reconciliation at whose expense? In Germany’s relationship with Czechoslovakia, and, after 1993, with the Czech Republic, territorial issues never played a part at intergovernmental level. This was because all West German governments after 1949 had accepted, at least implicitly, the formula of ‘Germany in the borders of 1937’ as the Allied Powers had determined it in the London Protocol of September 1944 (Kimminich 1996, p. 33). More important were the channelling of humanitarian aid to support remaining ethnic Germans and above all to facilitate a comprehensive process of reconciliation. In particular, because of the role of the German minority in the inter-war period and their subsequent expulsion from the Sudetenland, bilateral relations have never been completely free from strains, and have several times been negatively affected by the problems associated with the Sudeten German expellees in the Federal Republic. After years of negotiations and crises, the German–Czech Declaration of 21 January 1997 (Bundestagsdrucksache 13/6787) was the smallest common denominator the two governments could find on the two


most critical issues – the role of the Sudeten Germans in the break-up of Czechoslovakia in 1938 and their collective victimization and expulsion after the end of the second world war. The German government accepted the responsibility borne by Germany in the developments leading up to the Munich Agreement and the destruction of Czechoslovakia, expressed its deep sorrow over the suffering of Czechs during the nazi occupation of their country, and acknowledged that it was these two issues that prepared the ground for the post-war treatment and expulsion of members of the German minority in the country. The Czech government, on the other side, regretted the postwar policy vis-à-vis ethnic Germans, which resulted in the expropriation of property from and expulsion of a large section of the German minority, including many innocent people. Both governments agreed that the remaining members of the German minority in the Czech Republic and the expellees and their descendants would play an important role in the future relationship of the two countries and that the support of the German minority in the Czech Republic was a matter of mutual interest. Thus, a joint German–Czech Future Fund, to which Germany contributed about 140 million Deutschmark and the Czech Republic about 25 million Deutschmark, was set up, part of which is to be spent on projects related to the support of the German minority in the Czech Republic. Because of the sensitivity of the issues involved as well as the much smaller size of the German population in the Czech Republic, the German government has taken a very different approach in relation to financial and other support given to the German minority. In contrast to Poland, direct support for Germans in the Czech Republic is confined to so-called meeting centres, which play an important part in the minority’s cultural life. However, through the activities of various expellee organizations in the Federal Republic, part of whose ‘cross-border’ work receives public funding, Germans in the Czech Republic benefit indirectly from the new approach to external minority policy that the federal government has gradually developed after 1989/90. Ironically, the overriding concern for reconciliation with the Czech Republic has inadvertently been at the expense of the German minority, which has not only received far less support than its counterpart in Poland, but whose situation in the Czech Republic, as will be demonstrated below, has not improved in terms of their public status either.

Stefan Wolff 77

Germany’s relationship with Poland after 1990: the great success story? Historically, the problems between Germany and Poland have been much more complex in comparison to those between Germany and Czechoslovakia/the Czech Republic. German oppression of Poles had been fiercer and had lasted longer than that of the Czechs, and the number of expellees from Poland exceeded those from the Sudetenland by far. In addition, the former Eastern territories of the German Reich had only been placed under provisional Polish administration in the Potsdam agreement, a permanent settlement of their status remaining subject to a peace treaty. Thus, the relationship with Poland had a somewhat higher priority on the German foreign policy agenda, especially in relation to German unification. Within Germany’s policy visà-vis Poland, the German minority in this country always figured prominently in the formulation of policy objectives. Today, the relations between Germany and Poland have their legal basis in a bilateral treaty of 1990, in which the Federal Republic explicitly guaranteed the Oder-Neiβe line as the common border, and in the 1991 Treaty on Good Neighbourly Relations and Cooperation.13 To secure a legal framework for the development of the German minority in Poland was only one part of German foreign policy and has been complemented by substantial material aid in the areas of culture and education (the responsibility of the Foreign Office), economic reconstruction (the responsibility of the Ministry of the Interior), and social and community work (the responsibility of the German Red Cross, before 1990, also through the Ministry of Inner-German Affairs). Material aid had been committed to the German minority before 1989, but in comparatively smaller proportions. The changes in Poland in 1989/90 allowed the allocation of larger funds, through different channels, and for new purposes. Geographically, material support has always been concentrated on the Upper Silesian region. Funding in the education and cultural sector has included a variety of activities. The German government has provided staff support to improve the quality of German language teaching in Poland. 14 Since 1993, members of the German minority in Poland have had access to a special grant programme to study in Germany for a period of up to 12 months. The federal government also provides partial funding for TV and radio broadcasts and print media of the German minority and

78 Language, Ethnicity and the State, vol. 2 Table 4.1

1987 1988 1989 1990 1991 1992 1993 1994

German financial support for ethnic Germans in Poland, 1987–9415 AA

BMI

DRK

BmfiB

– –

– – – 6.8 24.2 26.5 25.7 25.3

2.5 2.4 2.8 3.3 3.1 1.4 1.1 1.4

2.6 3.7 5.5 5.3 – – – –

5.5 3.5 6.5 6.5

All figures in millions of Deutschmark. AA – Foreign Office; BMI – Ministry of the Interior; DRK – German Red Cross; BMfiB – Ministry of Inner-German Affairs Source: Bundestagsdrucksache 13/1036

supplies German newspapers and magazines to the cultural organizations of the minority. Financial aid channelled through the Ministry of the Interior was given to various associations of the minority. The annual amounts increased from 4.7 million Deutschmark in 1991 to 5.8 in 1992 and then dropped to 5.7 and to 5.4 million Deutschmark in 1993 and 1994, respectively. A far larger amount of money, however, has been spent on projects to support the economic recovery of the areas in which members of the German minority live, thus benefiting not only the minorities, but also these regions and their (other) population as a whole. Efforts here were concentrated on infrastructural improvements, for example, water supply systems, and on promoting small businesses and private farms. Funding of such projects increased from 700 000 Deutschmark in 1991 to 8.7 million Deutschmark in 1994 and again to 14.8 million Deutschmark in 1996.

The influence of the expellee organizations: waxing or waning? Ethnic Germans who had been expelled from their traditional homelands after 1945 and had come to the Western zones of occupation began to organize themselves more formally from 1946/47 onwards. With the founding of the Federal Republic in 1949, they began to play an important part in German politics for about two decades. The advent of the new Ostpolitik of the SPD-led government under Willy Brandt after 1969 put an end to this, yet throughout the 1960s, the

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Association of Expellees (BdV) had already gradually lost its leverage over domestic and foreign policy-making. Through the next two decades, this led to a radicalization of some sections of the expellees, while others became engaged in helping ethnic German migrants integrate in German society and gradually establish links to their former homelands. The collapse of communism in 1989/90 was as unexpected for the expellee organizations as it was for the German government. Yet, the perception of the opportunities arising from these dramatic events was rather different between the two, but also within the BdV. Government policy to achieve the unification of the two German states at the price of abandoning all territorial claims and formally guaranteeing the borders of East Germany as those of the united Germany was seen as unacceptable and treacherous by many in the leadership of the BdV. Instead, activists of the organization tried to stage a referendum in Poland under the motto ‘Peace through Free Choice’. This raised completely unrealistic hopes among many members of the German minority in Poland, particularly in Upper Silesia where the response to the signature campaign in support of the referendum had been strong. Yet, these hopes were dashed when German Chancellor Kohl declared at an event celebrating the 40th anniversary of the Charter of the German Expellees in 1990 that the recognition of the Oder-Nei␤e line as Germany’s eastern frontier was the price that had to be paid for the reunification of Germany.16 Even though, for historical reasons, a border question similar to that between Germany and Poland never existed in the relationship between the Federal Republic and Czechoslovakia/the Czech Republic, the rhetoric of expellee activists has, if anything, been more aggressive on the Sudeten German issue, demanding ‘unlimited sovereignty’ for Sudeten Germans in their homeland (Hochfelder 1991, p. 58) and rejecting the ‘belonging of the Sudetenland to any Czechoslovak state’ (Schnürch 1991, p. 83). Maximum demands of this kind were not popular with either the German or the Czech and Polish governments. Subsequently, there have also been more moderate voices and more reconciliatory approaches. As early as 1993, the leadership of the BdV acknowledged the positive steps taken by the Polish government to improve the situation of ethnic Germans in Poland (Dobrosielski 1992, p. 144). Erika Steinbach (1999), the chairperson of the BdV since 1998, stated in a speech delivered to students at Charles University, Prague, that five decades after the end of the second world war ‘coming to terms with


the past cannot be about guilt and retribution. … We have to face the history of this century together in order to build a peaceful and prosperous future’. She even accepted the critique of the Czech ambassador to Germany that it was painful for Czechs to hear her use the term ‘expulsion states’. She emphasized that today’s Czech Republic was a democracy that had not expelled any Germans; yet she insisted that the country, as much as Germany, had to accept the legacy of the past. More importantly for the particularly sensitive relationship with the Czech Republic, Steinbach reassured her listeners that although the expellees loved their ancestral homelands, ‘they respect the dignity of the people living there now. And they do not want … that other people will ever be expelled’ (Steinbach 1999). However, two issues, although not directly contradicting these statements, continue to effect German–Polish and German–Czech relations: restitution of property or adequate compensation and the right for expellees to settle in their former homelands. Both of these premises have strong political implications. The demand for property restitution (or compensation) entered a new phase during the summer of 1999, when the Sudeten German Cultural Association decided to support the filing of a collective court case in the US against the Czech state, and when ethnic German resettlers from Poland who left the country between the 1950s and 1970s brought their case for restitution or compensation to the Polish Supreme Court.17 The BdV and the Sudeten German Cultural Association also demanded on several occasions that accession to the EU be made dependent upon either the restitution of property to expellees or their adequate compensation. The German Chancellor Schröder made it clear in March 1999 that he would not support Sudeten German property claims and that his government did not intend to make any claims itself (BK Pressemitteilung, 9 March 1999). Expellee organizations have nevertheless persisted in their demand to link EU accession to a satisfactory resolution of the property question, often pointing to the examples of Hungary and Estonia, which introduced legislation allowing for property restitution or compensation to expelled Germans. One side effect of this approach by the expellees is the fact that the remaining German minorities in Poland and the Czech Republic are being put in an increasingly awkward position in their host-countries. In this context, one of the leading activists of the German minority in Poland, Henryk Kroll, a member of the Polish Sejm, asked the BdV chairperson, Erika Steinbach, in October 1999, publicly to drop the demand to make restitution/compensation for the expellees a condition of EU accession.

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The issue of a right for expellees to settle in their former homelands also regained prominence in the political debate about the accession of Poland and the Czech Republic to the European Union and the expected extension of EU principles, including the freedom of mobility, to the two countries, thus giving expellees and their children and grandchildren a legal right to return to their homelands, something which has caused considerable unease in Poland and the Czech Republic. However, it is rather unlikely that large numbers of expellees or of their children and grandchildren would actually take up such an opportunity.18 At lower and less formal levels, relationships between expellees and Poland and the Czech Republic have improved significantly. This has taken the form of communal partnerships – between towns in the Federal Republic and in the former homelands of expellees, especially in former East Prussia, Upper Silesia and the Czech Republic – in which expellees are often actively involved. 19 Increasingly, efforts have also been made by the various expellee organizations to foster the dialogue between them and their former host-states at various levels. Joint workshops have taken place in Germany and Poland and the Czech Republic bringing together officials and activists from both sides exploring the past and, even more importantly, ways of how to build the future. Similarly, information trips are organized to the former hometowns and villages of expellees in order to assess the specific needs of these regions and to initiate aid programmes.20 Even less formally, many expellees and their children and grandchildren have got involved individually in projects to facilitate reconstruction of their former homelands after decades of Communism, most of them without any intention of resettlement, border revisions, or the like.21 From this perspective, the work of the refugees, expellees and their children has made a significant and positive contribution to Germany’s external minority policy after 1990 – it has fostered reconciliation and has been a part of the efforts to improve the living conditions of German minorities in their host-countries.

Caught between the big players? Today’s German minority in the Czech Republic and Poland The situation in which the German minority groups in the Czech Republic and Poland find themselves today is the result of many complex developments, not only in these two countries, but also in Germany. It is also the result of geopolitical developments, most


notably the collapse of communism in Central and Eastern Europe, the end of the cold war, and the new quality of the bilateral relationships between the two host-countries and Germany. In general, the situation of both minority groups has significantly improved over the past ten years. This is particularly the case in relation to Poland. Several hundred thousand Germans still live there, the vast majority of them in Upper Silesia in the voivodeships (provinces) of Katowice, Czestochowa and particularly in the Opole voivodeship. They have benefited from financial, material and human resources made available to them by the German government that have enabled the minority, with the consent and support of Polish authorities, 22 to restore in part the German-language education system that had existed before 1945, to revive a rich cultural life for the minority members, and to participate actively in the economic reconstruction of their homeland. Of equal importance has been the fact that the relationships between ethnic Germans and Poles have improved at the local level. After a period of high ethnic tensions in the early 1990s – many of them connected to the activities of the German expellee organizations in Upper Silesia – inter-ethnic co-operation has prevailed since the middle of the decade. The German minority has become an important political force in Upper Silesia and engaged actively and co-operatively in solving problems at local and regional level. Ethnic Germans have become widely integrated in the political process in Upper Silesia and are now also a socially accepted part of the community, something which has manifested itself, for example, in German candidates being put on lists of Polish parties in the Upper Silesian voivodeship and the success of a coalition between the German minority and a Polish party that has been running the Opole voivodeship since the 1998 local elections (Cordell 2000). Parallel to the improvement of relationships at the local level, the relationship between the minority and the Polish state became more constructive, too. A sincere effort has also been made by Polish authorities to implement those aspects of the Treaty on Good Neighbourliness and Friendly Co-operation that were aimed specifically at the German minority. This has included the already cited rapprochement with the expellee organizations from the mid1990s on, the setting-up of a joint German–Polish educational text book commission to achieve consensus on the interpretation of disputed parts of the two countries’ history, the enacting of regulations that make minority radio and TV broadcasts as well as the publication

Stefan Wolff 83

of minority print media possible, and the co-sponsorship of the scholarly Eichendorff journal. Despite the fact that a number of problems remain, such as the lack of sufficient numbers of well qualified teachers of German and of a curriculum for the teaching of German (Paweltziki and Kirstein 1998, p. 16; Schlesische Nachrichten 2/98, p. 5), improvements in the overall situation of the minority have been significant – something which is also evident from the fact that emigration declined considerably after 1992.23 While the numerical strength of the minority is still a disputed matter, the strength of its German identity is not. In 1998, the Association of German Friendship Circles in Poland has had over 300 000 adult members. Almost half of them live in the Opole voivodeship, and approximately another fifth in the Katowice voivodeship. Some 100 000 members are scattered throughout the country, with larger concentrations to be found in Lower Silesia, Masuria and Ermland (Cordell 2000). Overall, the minority is relatively well organized at the national level, even though the focus of its activities is on Upper Silesia. The German minority in Poland as a whole has the will to preserve and develop its strong distinct ethno-cultural identity for generations to come. In many respects, the situation of the remaining ethnic Germans in the Czech Republic is different. Despite the fact that the legislative framework in the Czech Republic is equally, if not more, permissive in relation to national minorities as it is in Poland, the minority’s small size and the fact that it lives scattered throughout the eastern, northern, and western border regions of the country account in part for the fact that the situation for ethnic Germans is more difficult. Fewer than 50 000 people registered either their national identity or mother tongue as German in the 1991 census. The respective figures were 48 556 (or 0.5 per cent of the total population of the Czech Republic) and 40 907 (0.4 per cent). Even at the local level, the situation is not much better: the largest concentrations of ethnic Germans can be found in the districts of Sokolov (6.1 per cent) and Karlovy Vary (3.1 per cent) (Report 1999). The 1968 Constitutional Law on the Status of National Minorities was superseded in January 1991 by the Charter of Fundamental Rights and Freedoms which, in December 1992, became part of the Czech Constitution according to Article 3 of the Constitutional Law of the Czech National Council. Apart from general non-discrimination clauses in Articles 3 and 24, the charter also details specific minority rights: development of their own culture, communication and recep-


tion of information in their own language, forming of ethnic associations, education in their mother tongue, use of their mother tongue in public and participation in the handling of affairs concerning national and ethnic minorities. Although Germans in the Czech Republic are a recognized national minority and are represented in the Council for National Minorities of the Government of the Czech Republic, which advises the government on minority affairs, their small size gives them virtually no chance for political representation at any level.24 However, part of the problem is also that ethnic Germans in the Czech Republic do not have a joint political platform, and even their cultural organizations are deeply split between the Association of Germans in Bohemia, Moravia and Silesia (itself an umbrella organization for various regional groups) and the various successor organizations of the Cultural Association of Citizens of German Nationality, the body that had already existed since the Prague Spring (Kotzian 1998, p. 26). By 1999, 39 civic organisations within the German minority existed in the Czech Republic (Report 1999). More importantly, however, has been the fact that traditional antiGerman attitudes still persist in the Czech Republic, and they do so both at popular as well as official level. This manifests itself, for example, in the law on property restitution which excludes Czech citizens from restitution of property, or compensation, if expropriations took place before 1948, that is, before the communist take-over when the vast majority of expulsions from, and forced resettlements within, Czechoslovakia took place. Existing popular prejudice against Germans and Germany has forced successive Czech governments to take a tough stance on negotiations with Germany on the German–Czech Declaration and its implementation. A 1996 public opinion poll revealed that 86 per cent of those Czechs surveyed would not vote for a party that supported an apology to the Sudeten Germans for the expulsions in the post-war period. Negative images about Germany as a neighbouring state were also uncovered in this survey with about half of all interviewees believing Germany to be an economic threat, 39 per cent seeing it as a political threat and 25 per cent as a military threat. 25 While such views are understandable among those who actually experienced the dismemberment of Czechoslovakia after the Munich Agreement of 1938 and the subsequent German occupation and atrocities committed against the civilian population, they are rather more surprising among younger generation Czechs. One explanation of this phenomenon must certainly be seen in the fact that, despite a decade of democratization, Czech schoolbooks still portray the nation’s

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history as one of an ethnically Czech nation fighting for the preservation of its culture, for autonomy and for statehood against an oppressive German element (Report 1999).26 Czech media have also contributed to the persistence of anti-German feelings through their consistent and disproportionate coverage of hard-line activists of the Sudeten German expellees in the Federal Republic.27 However, despite these difficulties, considerable progress has been achieved since 1989. The Czech state budget subsidizes two weekly papers of the German minority with an average of four million Czech Crowns annually, and has not objected to financial aid from Germany being channelled into the creation of, thus far, 12 meeting centres. Czech Radio has an independent German national minority department, alongside similar departments for the Polish, Slovak and Romany minorities, and regularly broadcasts programmes aimed at the minority. More recently, the Association of Germans in Prague and Central Bohemia has opened a school in Prague that provides Germanlanguage education to its students; these come primarily from the German minority but also include members of other ethnic groups. The state budget covers all operational costs of the school. Otherwise, the provision of a German-language educational system is rather undeveloped for two reasons. On the one hand, numbers of Germans are often so small that German schools, or even German classes, cannot be opened, and the Czech government does not promote the establishment of bilingual Czech–German schools. On the other hand, it must also be recognized that cultural and linguistic assimilation among the younger generation of members of the German minority has progressed so far that many families do not speak German even at home, do not register their children as German at school and are not particularly interested in professing German culture and traditions, partly also because of fears of disadvantages in society. Thus, the German minority in the Czech Republic seems destined to take a different path than its counterpart in Poland. Given that the apparent assimilation of the minority is a consequence of a decadeslong development and not the result of a deliberate policy of post-1989 governments in the Czech Republic, the gradual disappearance of the German minority might be seen as unfortunate by some and regrettable from the point of view of cultural diversity, but it should also be welcomed as a development that coincides with the apparent wishes of the younger generations of ethnic Germans and minimizes the threat to ethnic peace in the Czech Republic.


The situation of German minorities in Poland and the Czech Republic has evolved in dramatically different ways after 1989. While the minority in Poland has been reconstituted and now plays an important part in regional political, social, and economic life and thus has become a player in its own right, Germans in the Czech Republic and the prospects they have for the future have been heavily determined by events outside their control and not always to their advantage. From this perspective, the German minority in the Czech Republic has become caught between Germany, the Czech Republic and the Sudeten German expellees. While an almost identical constellation has worked to the advantage of the minority in Poland, historical and current events have prevented ethnic Germans in the Czech Republic from achieving similar acceptance in Czech society. For both groups, this difference once more illustrates a point made at the beginning of this analysis in relation to ethnic minorities, namely that they ‘are doubly historical in the sense that not only are historical memories essential to their continuance but each such ethnic group is the product of specific historical forces and is therefore subject to historical change and dissolution’ (Smith 1991, p. 20).

Notes 1. As an analytical category, this relationship pattern has been first developed systematically by Rogers Brubaker (1996) in his collection of essays Nationalism Reframed. Brubaker uses the term ‘triadic nexus’ to describe the ‘interactive and interlocking’ nationalisms of ‘national minorities, the newly nationalizing states in which they live, and the external national homelands to which they belong’. (Brubaker 1996, p. 4). 2. Horowitz (1985 and 1991) has emphasized the variety of factors that make successful, or even desirable, irredentas very unlikely. 3. However, if their respective political agendas are mutually incompatible, a conflictual relationship between external minority and kin-state is just as likely. This can either be the case if the irredentist nationalism in the kinstate, or at least by certain political groups in the kin-state, is not reciprocated by the external minority or considered harmful for its relationship with the host-state, or vice versa if the ‘irredentism’ of the external minority is not welcomed by the kin-state. 4. These include natural resources, such as water, iron, coal, oil or gas; they extend to the goods and services produced by the population living in this territory; and they can comprise military or strategic advantages in terms of natural boundaries, access to the open sea, and control over transport routes and waterways. 5. On details of the Benesˇ Decrees cf. Blumenwitz 1993.

Stefan Wolff 87 6. The ‘Constitutional Law on the Status of National Minorities in the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic’ of 28 October 1968 entered into force on 1 January 1969. In Article 3, it granted citizens of Hungarian, German, Polish and Ukrainian (Rusin) nationality the right to education in their mother tongue, to cultural development, to communication with local authorities in their mother tongue, to their own social and cultural organizations, and to print media in their native language. Article 4 included a number of general non-discrimination clauses. 7. In comparison with Poland, emigration from Czechoslovakia to Germany was much smaller in absolute figures: just over 100 000 ethnic Germans left the country for the Federal Republic between 1950 and 1990, with more than one-third of them leaving between 1967–69. Since the second half of the 1990s, less than a hundred ethnic Germans from the Czech Republic have come to Germany on an annual basis. (Infodienst 1997, pp. 2–5) 8. According to one source, the number of those rehabilitated in Upper Silesia by the end of 1947 is estimated at around 850 000. (cf. Cordell 2000). 9. Between 1950 and 1956, less than 60 000 ethnic Germans had been allowed to leave Poland, but in 1957, 98 290 could emigrate, and in 1958 even 117 550. During the following two decades until 1979, over 300 000 ethnic Germans left, and by 1990, another more than 800 000 came to Germany, almost two-thirds of them between 1988–90 (Infodienst 1997, pp. 2–5) 10. The German Chancellor Helmut Kohl and the Polish Prime Minister Tadeusz Mazowiecki revoked this policy of denial officially only in a joint declaration in November 1989. 11. The agreements between West Germany and some of the host-states on repatriation of ethnic Germans included financial arrangements setting ‘per capita fees’ to be paid by the federal government. Average figures of annual emigration of ethnic Germans after 1950 are as follows: 1955–59: 64 000; 1960–64: 18 000; 1965–69: 26 000; 1970–74: 25 000; 1975–79: 46 000; 1980–84: 49 000, 1985–86: 41 000; 1987: 78 000. (Infodienst 1997, pp. 2–5). 12. The key international agreements in this context are the 1990 Copenhagen document of the CSCE and the Council of Europe’s Framework Declaration on minority rights. Bilateral treaties exist between Germany and Poland, the Czech and Slovak Republics, Hungary, Romania and Russia. Major bilateral agreements were concluded with Ukraine and Kazakhstan. For detail, see Heintze (2000). 13. This treaty later on served as a ‘role model’ for other treaties Germany signed with states in Central and Eastern Europe. See note 12, above. 14. The number of teachers sent to Poland has increased from just one in 1989 to 111 in 1994. In addition, four federal government-sponsored experts on German language teaching have been working in Poland since 1994; the German Academic Exchange Service is funding 26 lecturers at Polish universities, and the Goethe Institute has supplied eight lecturers for the further training of Polish teachers of German. 15. Since 1994, the combined annual average of all funds made available to the German minority in Poland has been around twenty-five million Deutschmark. 16. Thereafter the BdV started two further initiatives. One was for the Europeanization of the Oder-Neiβe territories, the other to enable members


17.

18.

19.

20.

21.

22.

23.

24.

25.

of the German minority in Poland to vote in parliamentary elections in the Federal Republic. Both failed. While the legal situation of both groups of claimants is different, their action was, to some extent, triggered by a resolution of the US House of Representatives in 1998, urging ‘countries which have not already done so to return wrongfully expropriated properties to their rightful owners or, when actual return is not possible, to pay prompt, just and effective compensation, in accordance with principles of justice and in a manner that is just, transparent and fair’. 105th Congress, 2nd Session, H. RES. 562 (HRES 562 IH). The interest of most expellees in their former homelands is mostly of a nostalgic sentiment – returning to the places of their (childhood) memory as tourists, rather than as permanent residents. One such example is the twinning arrangement between former Preuβisch Holland/Paslek, the town of Hürth in Germany and the local association of expellees, many of whom originally came from Preuβisch Holland/Paslek. The agreement covers a range of areas, including the preservation of cultural monuments, co-operation in historic research and in cultural matters, promotion of contacts in the fields of tourism and business, humanitarian aid and support for exchange programmes. Another noteworthy case is that of the town of Ratibor in Upper Silesia. Here expellees got actively involved in the construction of a waste water facility, and the chairman of the Silesian Cultural Association in the Federal Republic, Herbert Hupka, for years a target of Communist propaganda, was awarded the town’s Honorary Medal for his efforts. Another example is that of the Kiel, Germany, based organization Aid for You, which, since 1984, has supported ethnic Germans in former East Prussia, primarily with food and clothing. This, very often, takes very basic, yet all the more effective forms. The donation campaign ‘Notopfer Königsberg’ of the BdV state organization Northrhine-Westphalia, for example, funded the provision of running water for one family, of winter food for the cow of another family, and the repair of roofs of several houses. Cf. BdV-Landesverband NordrheinWestfalen (1998). The sculptor Walter Grill, to name just one prominent case, has organized several exhibitions of his work and that of his colleagues in his former hometown of Karlsbad/Karlovy Vary. According to him, the human contact with people living in the former Sudetenland now has managed to overcome many prejudices and fears on both sides. Cf. Grill (2001). The ministerial decree on the right of the German minority to education in their mother tongue entered into force on 17 April 1992, less than a year after the 1991 German–Polish treaty had been ratified. After emigration had peaked between 1988–90 with more than half a million ethnic Germans leaving in just three years, numbers went down to around 1000 emigrants per year for the second half of the 1990s. The only exception to this pattern occurred when the deputy chairman of the Association of Germans, Walter Piverka, was elected as a candidate by the Prague Citizens Forum in the first post-communist elections in June 1990. Cf. Löffler 1997, p. 97. Mlada Fronta Dnes, 9 April 1996, as quoted in Stroehlein, 1997.

Stefan Wolff 89 26. The Report also notes that Czech history text books largely ignore the fact that the Czech lands for centuries had been jointly and peacefully inhabited by large populations of Czechs, Germans and Jews, and that the economic, political and cultural contributions of the latter two to the development of the area are widely disregarded. 27. On the issue of the German–Czech Declaration and its public reception in the Czech Republic, cf. Stroehlein 1997.

Bibliography 105th Congress, 2nd Session, Resolution 562 (HRES 562 IH). BdV-Landesverband Nordrhein-Westfalen, Jahres- und Tätigkeitsbericht 1998 des BdV-Landesverbandes Nordrhein-Westfalen, http://www.bdv-nrw.de. BK-Pressemitteilung, Schröder: Enge Partnerschaft mit Tschechien gewünscht, Bonn: 9 March 1999. BMI-Pressemitteilung, Körper: Unterstützung für verständigungsorierntierte Heimatvertriebene, Bonn: 14 June 1999. BMI-Pressemitteilung, Unterstützung für Partnerschaft zwischen Kommunen in Deutschland und Osteuropa, Bonn: 18 May 1999. Blumenwitz, D. Die Benesˇ-Dekrete aus dem Jahre 1945 unter dem Gesichtspunkt des Völkerrechts, Deutschland und seine Nachbarn, no. 6, February 1993, 5–19. Brubaker, R. Nationalism Reframed (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996). Bundestagsdrucksachen 13/1116, 13/3195, 13/3428, 13/6787, 13/10845. Connor, W. Ethnonationalism. The Quest for Understanding (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1994). Cordell, K. Poland’s German Minority, in German Minorities in Contemporary Europe. Ethnic Identity and National Belonging, S. Wolff (ed.) (Oxford: Berghahn, June 2000). Dobrosielski, M. Deutsche Minderheiten in Polen (Hamburg, 1992). Esman, M.J. Ethnic Politics (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1994). Grill, W. ‘… for an artist, home will be wherever he can freely practise his art’, in Coming Home to Germany? The Integration of Ethnic Germans from Central and Eastern Europe in the Federal Republic, D.G. Rock and S. Wolff (eds) (Oxford: Berghahn, 2001 (forthcoming). Heintze, H.-J. The Status of German Minorities in Bilateral Agreements of the Federal Republic, in German Minorities in Europe. Ethnic Identity and Cultural Belonging, S. Wolff (ed.) (Oxford: Berghahn, June 2000). Hochfelder, H. Über die Ziele sudetendeutscher Politik, in Die Sudetendeutschen und ihre Heimat. Erbe–Auftrag–Ziel, ed. R.-J. Eibicht (ed.) (Wesseding: Gesamtdeutscher Verlag, 1991), 50–9. Horowitz, D.L. Irredentas and Secessions: Adjacent Phenomena, Neglected Connections, in Irredentism and International Politics, N. Chazan (ed.) (Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner, 1991), 9–22. Horowitz, D.L. Ethnic Groups in Conflict (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1985).

90 Language, Ethnicity and the State, vol. 2 Info-Dienst Deutsche Aussiedler (1996). Kimminich, O. Völkerrecht und Geschichte im Disput über die Beziehungen Deutschlands zu seinen östlichen Nachbarn, in Aus Politik und Zeitgeschichte, no. 28, 1996, pp. 28–38. Kotzian, O, Die Sudetendeutschen (Bonn: BdV, 1998). Löffler, H. Sudetendeutsche Siedlungen und Gemeinschaften in aller Welt – von 1827 bis heute (Vienna: Österreichische Landsmannschaft, 1997). Müller, U. Die deutsche Volksgruppe in der Tschechoslowakei – Chancen und Perspektiven, Deutschland und seine Nachbarn, no. 6, February 1993, 20–6. Neubach, H. Kleine Geschichte Schlesiens. (Bonn: BdV, 1998). Noch immer keine Lehrpläne für den Deutschunterricht in der Heimat, Schlesische Nachrichten, no. 2, 1998, p. 5. Paweltziki, R. and H. Kirstein, Oberschlesien (Bonn: BdV, 1998). Report (submitted by the Czech Republic Pursuant to Article 25, paragraph 1 of the Framework Convention for the protection of National Minorities, 1999). http://www.riga.lv/minelres/reports/czech/ czech.htm. Rogall, J. Die deutschen Minderheiten in Polen heute, Aus Politik und Zeitgeschichte 48/93 (26 November 1993), 31–43. Schnürch, R. Konsequenzen sudetendeutscher Heimatpolitik, in Die Sudetendeutschen und ihre Heimat. Erbe–Auftrag–Ziel, R.-J. Eibicht (ed.) (Wesseding: Gesamtdeutscher Verlag, 1991), 83–94. Smith, A. National Identity (London: Penguin, 1991). Steinbach, E. Tschechen und Deutsche – Der Weg in die Zukunft (Vortrag vor Studenten der Karlsuniversität in Prag, 17. März 1999), http://www.bund-dervertriebenen.de/politik.htm. Strobel, G.W. Die polnische Preussenkrankheit und ihre politische Instrumentalisierung, Aus Politik und Zeitgeschichte, B53/97, 21–33. Stroehlein, A. Czechs and the Czech-German Declaration, http://blisty.internet.cz/ 9709/19970917c.html. Tonkin, K. ‘Wir Sudetendeutschen, wir Adlergebirgler’: Ethnic Identity among Expellees from Czechoslovakia, in Coming Home to Germany? The Integration of Ethnic Germans from Central and Eastern Europe in the Federal Republic, D.G. Rock and S. Wolff (eds) (Oxford: Berghahn, 2001 (forthcoming).

5 Language Ideology and Language Conflict in Post-Soviet Belarus Curt Woolhiser

Introduction1 Post-Soviet Belarus has been described as ‘a land of ethnolinguistic paradoxes’ (Rudovich 1998). The language of the titular nationality, despite its official status as a state language (alongside Russian before 1990 and again since 1995), is actively used according to some estimates by no more than a third of the country’s 10 million inhabitants;2 on the other hand, as recently as the 1989 Soviet census, roughly 75 per cent of the population of the Belarusian republic, including 80 per cent of ethnic Belarusians, indicated Belarusian as their ‘native language’ (Chislennost’ 1990, p. 205). Observers of the language situation in Belarus have attributed the progressive decline in the use of the Belarusian language in both public and private spheres over the last half century to a variety of factors, including a relatively weak sense of national identity among ethnic Belarusians, the effects of overt and covert policies of linguistic assimilation under both the Tsars and Soviets, the close genetic and typological relationship between the Belarusian and Russian languages, and the process of rapid urbanization in the post-war period. The objective circumstances surrounding the decline of the Belarusian language, however, are only part of the story. Of crucial importance for an understanding of the contemporary sociolinguistic situation in Belarus are the ways in which the dominant position of Russian and the subordinate status and progressing attrition of the Belarusian language are represented by both supporters and opponents of Belarusian language revival among social elites, as well as the extent to which these representations are accepted or resisted by the population as a whole. Such representations of sociolinguistic hierarchies and the language behav91


iours associated with them are a central component of language ideology, which Irvine defines as ‘the cultural (or subcultural) system of ideas about social and linguistic relationships, together with their loading of moral and political interests’ (Irvine 1989, p. 255). In this chapter I will investigate the expression of language ideologies in Belarus at the level of elite and counter-elite (or oppositional) discourse about language, and at the level of popular, non-elite language attitudes, metalinguistic discourse, and strategies of language use. My goal here is to determine whether in the Belarusian case there is a simple cause–effect relationship between dominant language ideologies and the ideological constructs and language practices of the subordinated speech community, or whether, as suggested by Gal (1993), the subordinated speech community may in fact display multiple, competing and often ambiguous responses to symbolic domination through language. I will present evidence from sociolinguistic and ethnographic fieldwork suggesting that in contrast to the rather categorical formulations characteristic of elite language ideologies in Belarus, among non-elites there exist more nuanced, and often seemingly contradictory conceptions of the social meaning of language structure and language use.

Language ideology: approaches and levels of analysis The study of language ideology encompasses a broad variety of issues and approaches, ranging from ethnographic accounts of apparently neutral cultural conceptions of language structure and function, to the critical examination of the use of linguistic strategies for obtaining or maintaining positions of social dominance or symbolically challenging an existing social order. However, as suggested by the definition of language ideology cited above, the ethnographic and critical approaches are by no means mutually exclusive. With respect to the expression of language ideologies, researchers have argued that they may be situated both at the level of explicit metalinguistic discourse and at the level of overt or covert language attitudes and the everyday linguistic practices of specific speech communities. There is no consensus, however, among students of language ideology as to the extent of congruence between these two levels. Much of the literature on language ideology is concerned with the relationship between standard languages and non-standard or minority language varieties. As Gal notes, the ‘evaluation of linguistic varieties

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as prestigious and able to command high status is not simply a social structural fact produced by state support in education and other institutions. It is also a cultural construction, embedded in broader discourses about the basis of social stratification and the nature of persons’ (Gal 1993, p. 339). Obviously, such a line of analysis requires us to move beyond traditional sociolinguistic approaches to the study of linguistic stratification and the diglossic distribution of language functions in multilingual societies. Bourdieu (1991) notes the intimate connection between the formation of national standard languages and the rise of centralized bureaucratic modern states, focusing in particular on the ideological mechanisms by means of which the national standard acquires its hegemonic position in society. The exclusive role of the national standard language in the educational system, in conjunction with the crucial relationship between the educational system and the labour market, are of course essential preconditions to establish new sociolinguistic hierarchies and promote linguistic unification on a nationwide scale. Bourdieu argues, however, that the hegemony of the standard is largely dependent on its representation by means of the educational system and other prestigious social institutions as an inherently better, more correct form of language than the spoken vernacular(s), a view which becomes ‘unconsciously inculcated’ among other social groups, including speakers of both non-standard dialectal varieties and minority languages (1991, p. 51). This unconscious acceptance by subordinated speech communities of the authority, aesthetic value, correctness and moral superiority of the legitimated language, even if they themselves do not speak it, is an integral part of what Bourdieu terms ‘symbolic domination’. Bourdieu’s conception of symbolic domination has been challenged by researchers such as Woolard (1985) and Gal (1989, 1993), who have drawn on the findings of sociolinguistic studies of speech communities employing non-standard and minority languages. These researchers argue that Bourdieu’s hegemonic conception of the standard variety is overly simplistic, inasmuch as it does not take into account the interaction of the status and solidarity indexing functions of linguistic variants within and across speech communities. Gal points out, moreover, that solidarity-based language ideologies and linguistic practices may in turn display considerable internal diversity, reflecting different conceptions of the relationship between language and social identity among different segments of the subordinated speech community (Gal 1993, p. 338).


Language policy in Belarus, 1985–99 (a brief sketch) The situation of the Belarusian standard language in the Belarusian Soviet Socialist Republic by the early 1980s has been characterized by many observers as nothing less than catastrophic.3 Although there had been notable successes in the propagation of standard Belarusian in the late 1920s and early 1930s, an overall decline in the use of the language in government and party organs, cultural and educational institutions, and other spheres of public life began in the late 1930s after the decimation of the Belarusian-speaking political and cultural elite in Stalin’s purges. The demographic and social consequences of the second world war, post-war immigration and purges of local personnel ensured that by the 1960s the upper echelons of the Belarusian party and state apparatus were dominated by individuals who, whether of Belarusian or other origin, were Russophones with little interest in promoting the use of the Belarusian language. While Belarusian in the Soviet period was not overtly stigmatized at the level of official discourse, a combination of covert Russian language spread policies as well as language attitudes from both above and below served to marginalize the language as a means of public communication in urban areas. At the same time, Belarusian continued to be used (although far from exclusively) in other prestigious forms of communication: the media, literature, theatre, and, to a more limited extent, in education and scholarship. In 1990 Belarus became one of the last Soviet republics to enact language legislation, making Belarusian the sole official state language of the republic. Unlike the language laws in other Soviet republics, however, the Belarusian law was largely a symbolic measure, and Russian continued to dominate in education, the media, government and economic life as it had since at least the late 1940s. It was not until after Belarus gained full independence in 1991 that serious steps began to be taken to bolster the status of the language by increasing the number of Belarusian-language schools in the cities, requiring Belarusian language examinations for university admission, as well as requiring knowledge of Belarusian for employment in the state sector. The official policy of ‘Belarusianization’ soon encountered significant difficulties due to shortages of Belarusian-language textbooks and technical dictionaries, a dearth of qualified Belarusian-speaking teachers and administrators, the indifferent or even obstructionist attitude of much of the political and economic elite, as well as persisting negative stereotypes of the language among part of the population. In spite of

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these problems, however, important progress was made, particularly in the area of primary education. Significantly, however, Russian remained the dominant language of higher education, where there was considerable resistance on the part of the largely Russophone administration and teaching staff to the introduction of Belarusian as the language of instruction, particularly for subjects outside the humanities. Popular dissatisfaction with official corruption and incompetence, as well as nostalgia for the rapid economic growth the republic had enjoyed within the USSR in the 1970s and early 1980s, contributed to the election of the populist Aliaksandr Lukashenka to the presidency in the summer of 1994. Although the language question had not been central to his election campaign, it soon became clear that Lukashenka was sympathetic to the various groups who advocated a return to the language policies of the Brezhnev era. Following his election, Lukashenka drew criticism from Belarusian language advocates for making inflammatory public comments such as: ‘People who speak Belarusian can’t do anything but speak Belarusian. This is because you can’t say anything profound in Belarusian. … There are only two great languages in the world: Russian and English’ (Komsomol’skaia pravda, 7 July 1997). In the spring of 1995, Lukashenka sponsored a referendum, in which voters were asked ‘Do you agree with granting the Russian language equal status with Belarusian?’ Other questions included the return of Soviet-era state symbols, political and economic integration with Russia and the right of the president to disband parliament. The referendum campaign, in which the opposition was effectively denied a public forum to express its views, was accompanied by extensive pro‘bilingualism’ coverage in the official media, employing such innocuous-sounding slogans as ‘Both languages are dear to us’, and ‘We sing in two languages’. While 83 per cent of those who voted in the referendum (accounting for 54 per cent of all registered voters) did support the measure, it is interesting to note that in Minsk, often considered one of the most linguistically russified urban centres in the country, the introduction of Russian as a state language alongside Belarusian received the support of no more than 40 per cent of eligible voters (Belorusskii khel’sinskii komitet 1998, p. 4). Also of interest are the results of a public opinion survey conducted in 1993 with over a thousand respondents representing all regions of the country and the city of Minsk. According to this survey, 60 per cent of the population supported having both Belarusian and Russian as state languages, 23 per cent supported Belarusian as the sole state language, while only 7 per


cent supported having Russian as the only state language (Mechkovskaia 1994, p. 310). Although Belarusian voters had not been asked whether they envisaged equal treatment of the two official languages, the 1995 referendum was interpreted by the Lukashenka administration as a sweeping endorsement of late Soviet-era language policies. In the years since the referendum, there has been a sharp reduction in the number of students receiving their education in Belarusian, plans to expand Belarusian language use in higher education have been suspended and a number of independent Belarusian-language publications have been closed. Inasmuch as the rollback of ‘Belarusianization’ has been accompanied by a general crackdown on opposition parties, independent media and non-government organizations, it is difficult to determine the extent to which current language policies reflect the true preferences of the Belarusian public. In any event, the Belarusian Language Society (an organization created to promote the use of the language and monitor the implementation of the language law) has registered numerous incidents of violations of the constitutional right to the use of Belarusian in education and other spheres.4 Since the 1995 referendum, Lukashenka has increasingly sought to promote the perception of Belarusian language advocates as radical nationalist extremists who are allied with and supported by the Western powers, which he claims seek to undermine Belarusian– Russian integration and prevent the re-emergence of a powerful Eurasian state incorporating most or all of the former Soviet republics. For their part, the pro-independence Belarusophone opposition often portray supporters of Russian as an official language in Belarus as servants of Russian neo-imperialism and an obstacle to the return of Belarus to its rightful place in Europe. Thus, in the drawing of ideological battle-lines in Belarus, both sides have attempted to assign specific linguistic indices both to themselves and to their opponents.5 The growing ideologization of Belarusian language use over the last few years has led to a situation in which the public use of the language in urban areas (outside of a number of traditionally sanctioned contexts, such as the theatre, the official media, folk festivals and the like) may be automatically construed as an anti-regime statement, and is now often treated by the authorities as such. For ordinary citizens, there is a particular risk associated with the use of Belarusian to address representatives of state authority, in particular members of the police and security organs, judges and government officials. 6 Given the current atmosphere of official suspicion and intimidation of citizens

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who insist on exercising their constitutional right to the use of Belarusian in all spheres of public life, it appears unlikely that the language will regain the official status it enjoyed in the early 1990s as long as the current regime remains in power.

Elite language ideologies in Belarus The native language and its relationship to national identity It is by now something of a truism, at least among Western social scientists, that the nationalist doctrine which asserts a fundamental congruence between language, culture and nation is an ideological construct that had its origins in early modern European elite discourse. However, as noted by Blommaert and Verschueren, the equation of national identity with language remains so powerful even today that in the coverage of nationalist movements in the European press there is a tendency to question (if only implicitly) the legitimacy of the claims to nationhood of groups apparently lacking the feature ‘distinct language’ (Blommaert and Verschueren 1992, p. 359). From its inception in the late nineteenth century, the modern Belarusian national movement, like its counterparts elsewhere in Europe, assigned a pre-eminent position to language in defining the nation. The question of language was of singular importance for the Belarusian movement since the population which nationalist leaders sought to mobilize was divided along confessional lines, with a Roman Catholic minority (which indeed initially provided the movement with much of its leadership) and a Russian Orthodox majority. Moreover, while much of the peasantry continued to cling to an identity distinct from both the dominant Polish and Russian ethnic groups, this identity was articulated largely not in national, but in regional or social terms. As the Belarusian peasantry exhibited relatively little consciousness of a shared history and cultural heritage beyond the level of local folk traditions and religious observances, it was language that was seen as the crucial unifying force from which a modern national identity could be forged. The problem with the equation of language with national identity in the case of Belarusian was that the more socially mobile segments of the local population, including the gentry, government officials and the clergy, overwhelmingly tended to identify themselves not as Belarusians, but as Poles if they happened to be Roman Catholic, or Russians if they happened to be Orthodox. The conception of a shared


Belarusian national identity, based on language and cultural heritage, taking precedence over confessional and social distinctions, thus faced tremendous obstacles. However, the Belarusian national movement made considerable progress in the first decades of the twentieth century as it became linked to the cause of social revolution. In contemporary Belarus, Belarusian language advocates continue to espouse the Herderian conception of a distinct language as the quintessential expression of national uniqueness. Today, however, after several decades of linguistic shift toward Russian, a key issue dividing the supporters and opponents of the revival and functional expansion of the Belarusian language has become the definition of the concept of ‘native language’ and its role in determining the optimal language policy for the country. In this connection, Belarusian language advocates point out that despite the functional reduction of Belarusian over the last five decades of Soviet rule, an absolute majority of ethnic Belarusians in the country continue to indicate Belarusian as their native language in national censuses and sociological surveys. It would be a mistake, however, to equate self-declared ‘native language’ with language use in the case of Belarusian. A survey conducted in the late 1970s (Sobolenko 1980), for example, found that although 73 per cent of the ethnic Belarusians living in the cities of the Belarusian republic considered Belarusian their native language, it was used exclusively by only a minority: 12.6 per cent at work and 14 per cent at home. The majority of the respondents reported the frequent use of mixed Russian–Belarusian (57.6 per cent in the workplace and 59.7 per cent at home) or Russian (29.8 per cent at work and 23.6 per cent at home) (Sobolenko 1980, p. 213). The curious discrepancy between the number of people claiming Belarusian as their native language and the number of those reporting that they actually speak it on a regular basis appears to be a product of a peculiarly Soviet (or perhaps more generally Eastern European) notion that a person’s ‘native language’ (Belarusian ródnaia mova, Russian rodnoi iazyk) can be one other than the language which a person has spoken since early childhood and uses in everyday communication. Regardless of the semantics of the concept of ‘native language’, the surprisingly high figures for ‘native speakers’ of Belarusian were used both by Soviet spokesmen in the 1970s and 1980s to counter charges of linguistic Russification, as well as by Belarusian language advocates to point out an alleged discrepancy between the number of ‘native speakers’ of the language and its use in education, public life and the media.

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The language conflict in contemporary Belarus is not, at least in the conventional sense, an ethnic conflict; instead, it is to a far greater extent an ideological conflict within the majority ethnic group. The 11 per cent of Belarusian citizens who identify themselves as ethnic Russians are not a large enough group, numerically speaking, to account for the intensity of language-related polemics in the country. It is a striking fact, moreover, that some ethnic Russians (as well as members of other ethnic groups, including Poles, Tatars and Jews) in Belarus have become defenders of Belarusian language rights, while many ethnic Belarusians (including many members of the current regime) have taken a decidedly anti-Belarusian position. Ideological contestation with respect to the language question is but one dimension of a larger debate within the ethnic majority as to the meaning of ‘Belarusianness’. For Belarusian language advocates, being Belarusian means above all speaking the national language, being conscious of a distinct Belarusian history and culture and supporting Belarusian statehood. The language, and more specifically its standard variety, is assigned in this conception a paramount role in promoting Belarusian national consciousness and securing Belarusian political and cultural independence. For example, the poet Nil Hilevich, former chairman of the parliamentary committee for culture and education and chairman of the Belarusian Language Society states: ‘Linguistic independence is spiritual independence, and without spiritual independence there can be no political, cultural, and generally, state independence. Those who oppose our language are far from ignorant, they understand all this very well’ (Hilevich 1993, p. 8). For the ethnic Belarusian opponents of Belarusian language revival, to be Belarusian means primarily being an inhabitant of Belarus and generally, being of Belarusian descent (as reflected, for example, in the nationality entry in the Soviet-era internal passport). The autonomy of Belarusian culture vis-à-vis Soviet or Russian culture in this conception is not entirely clear. Pro-Russian discourse in Belarus assumes a number of forms and ideological orientations. The relatively more benign, ‘pragmatic’ approach emphasizes the fact that in Europe, as elsewhere in the world, there are countries that have no unique national language (Austria, Belgium, Switzerland), or where the majority speak the language of the former colonizers (Ireland). Some proponents of official bilingualism in Belarus support the continued, and even expanded, use of Belarusian in the cultural sphere as an expression of national distinctiveness, but


maintain that in the interest of economic and technological progress, Russian should remain the dominant language in the spheres of science and business.7 However, in the debates on official bilingualism leading up to the 1995 referendum, a more extreme position, having much in common with Russian nationalist ideologies of the Tsarist era, re-emerged within pro-Russophone discourse in a number of government-sponsored publications, as well as in publications associated with the Communist Party and Russian nationalist organizations. In these publications, it was asserted, for example, that the Belarusian language is merely a dialect of Russian with dubious claims to linguistic autonomy and historical authenticity, or that it is an artificial ‘mova pis’mennikau’ (language of writers).8 The fact that such articles were published or reprinted in government-owned publications without commentary, despite numerous factual errors and distortions, suggests that the views which they expressed were endorsed by the Lukashenka administration. Official conceptions of the role of the Russian language in the USSR and the former Soviet Republics In official Soviet discourse of the 1970s and 1980s, Leninist rhetoric stressing the importance of the use and development of the ‘native language’ in the non-Russian regions was supplemented by a new conception of the Russian language as not only the national language of the ‘Great Russian People’ (velikii russkii narod) and the de facto official language of the Soviet state, but also the ‘second native language’ of all non-Russian citizens of the Soviet Union, the common language of what was termed ‘a new historical community – the Soviet People’ (Kreindler 1982). Since Russian was defined a priori as the ‘language of internationality communication’ throughout the USSR, it was maintained that as the ‘internationalization’ of different spheres of public life in the national republics progressed, the role of Russian, rather than the official languages of the republics, would gain in importance. Another change in official conceptions of the role of Russian in Soviet society dating from this period related to the cognitive and affective dimensions of Russian language use. According to this new conception, Russian was not simply a convenient, neutral instrument of communication between the various national groups within the USSR, but rather the optimal vehicle for conveying the message of communism, serving to cement the political and ideological unity of the Soviet people and to educate the non-Russian peoples in internationalism and Soviet patriotism. For example, in a 1985 collection of

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articles on the role of Russian in the Belarusian Soviet Socialist Republic we read: ‘The Russian language … has become an important factor in strengthening the socio-political and ideological unity of the Soviet people, the development and mutual enrichment of national cultures, and has opened to all of our peoples broad access to the spiritual riches of world civilization’ (Mikhnevich 1985, p. 3). As Kreindler (1982) notes, there was a curious sense of urgency about official Soviet efforts to promote Russian in the 1970s and 1980s. She suggests that Soviet policymakers, having concluded that Marxist–Leninist ideology was no longer taken seriously enough to unify the peoples of the Soviet Union, came to see the Russian language as a key element in forging a new Soviet national identity, the ‘cement’ that would hold the empire together (1982, p. 27). Pool (1980) argues that the continued emphasis on the identity of the Russian language as first and foremost the national language of the ‘Great Russian People’ may have contributed to greater resistance to its adoption as a first language by non-Russians than would have been the case had the language been portrayed in ethnically more neutral terms. Indeed, it could be argued that it was precisely the association of the Russian language with the dominant Russian ethnos in official discourse, together with repeated assertions of support for ‘national languages’ of the non-Russians (despite policies that favoured and rewarded linguistic assimilation), which in fact helped to prevent total language shift among the Belarusians and many other non-Russian groups within the Soviet Union.9 Since the collapse of the Soviet Union, pro-Russian discourse in the former Soviet Republics, including Belarus, has undergone a number of formal changes, while retaining certain fundamental ideological undercurrents. Rather than speaking of the former Soviet Union as a community defined by a shared commitment to Marxist–Leninist ideology and the socio-economic model associated with it, Russian language advocates now tend to portray the former Soviet Union as a distinct civilization shaped by the influence of the Russian language and culture. Thus, the Russian academician Trubachev, from the Russian Language Institute, asserts that in formulating the ‘ideology’ (as he himself puts it) of Russian language policy, it should be taken into account that ‘objectively there continues to exist a Russian linguistic union (iazykovoi soiuz), formed historically within the broad expanses of old Russia, with Russian as the most authoritative language of this linguistic union’ (Trubachev 1996, p. 55). The political implications of this conception are clearly apparent in the Federal Programme on the


Russian language, adopted by the Russian government in the summer of 1996. According to the programme: In connection with the development of international and inter-state integration at the present it is imperative to secure the support at the state level for the Russian language as a powerful social factor in the consolidation of the countries of the CIS, as a stimulus … for the realization of Russia’s geopolitical interests. The Program envisions the strengthening of the position of the Russian language in Russia, in the countries of the CIS and beyond their borders. (Federal’naia programma 1996) This emerging conception of the role of Russian in the ‘Near Abroad’ is largely congruent with the views of the Lukashenka administration, despite Lukashenka’s repeated assertions that Belarusian sovereignty will remain undiminished as the country pursues political and economic integration with Russia.

The ideologization of linguistic structure in the Belarusian–Russian language conflict The standard language ideology As has already been noted above, an important facet of language ideology are culture-specific, socially motivated conceptions of the nature of the standard language. Rather than justifying the existence of a codified standard variety in functional terms – that is, the need to minimize variation in certain styles and registers of spoken and written language in order to facilitate efficient communication – ideologies of the standard language generally operate in more heavily value-laden terms. In the confrontation between the standard and vernacular varieties, we typically see manifestations of the ‘standard language ideology’, which Lippi-Green defines as ‘a bias toward an abstracted, idealized, homogeneous spoken language which is imposed from above, and which takes as its model the written language. The most salient feature is the goal of suppression of variation of all kinds’ (1994, p. 166). In the age of the centralized nation-state, speaking the national standard often comes to be perceived as the most fundamental marker of membership in the nation. Despite the officially acknowledged multi-national character of the former Soviet Union, discussions of the role of the Russian language in

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Soviet society often did not distinguish between its functions as the national language of the Russians and the ‘language of inter-nationality communication’ within the Soviet Union. While Soviet linguists by the 1960s began to cautiously admit the possibility of structural variation in standard Russian both within and particularly outside the Russian Federation, the prevailing opinion among educators, as well as among much of the educated public, was that there was only one correct way of speaking Russian, corresponding ideally to the speech of educated Muscovites and Leningraders. By the 1980s, however, some Soviet linguists began to write of the existence of regional varieties of standard Russian in the republics, termed by the Belarusian linguist Mikhnevich ‘natiolects’ (Mikhnevich 1984). While Mikhnevich notes a certain similarity between the natiolects of Russian and national varieties of polycentric standard languages such as Austrian German and Latin American varieties of Spanish, he cautions against the view expressed by some linguists in the non-Russian republics in the 1970s and 1980s that the local varieties of Russian should be accorded the same status on their own territories as the Moscow–Leningrad norm in ethnic Russian territory. Instead, he asserts that: ‘language policy with respect to the natiolect consists in promoting its convergence with the Russian literary language through organizational, scientific, pedagogical and other means and methods’ (Mikhnevich 1984, p. 102). The question of maintaining the homogeneity of standard Russian in the face of its spreading use among non-Russians was evidently of serious concern to Soviet language planners and policymakers. Indeed, in an article on national language-Russian bilingualism in the nonRussian republics, the Soviet linguists Desheriev and Protchenko consider the ‘struggle against the emergence of local variants’ of Russian in the non-Russian areas to be one of the most important tasks of Soviet language policy (Desheriev and Protchenko 1972, p. 10). In an article on bilingualism in the Soviet Union published in the leading Soviet linguistics journal Voprosy iazykoznaniia, the reader is told unequivocally: ‘the non-Russian must speak Russian the same way as Russians who have a command of the Russian literary language’ (Ivanov and Mikhailovskaia 1982, p. 10). This was clearly incompatible with the notion of an ‘acceptable degree of linguistic interference’ advocated by some linguists in the non-Russian republics as a more realistic goal for non-native speakers of Russian. There are signs of concern on the part of linguists and educational policymakers that the Russian language in Belarus, as the numbers of Russian speakers grew, was also in danger of diverging structurally and


stylistically from the codified Moscow–Leningrad Soviet standard. In the 1970s and 1980s numerous conferences and publications were devoted to the problem of linguistic interference from Belarusian in the Russian speech of Belarusians and the various ways of overcoming it.10 Needless to say, the problem of interference from Russian in Belarusian-language communication, despite the professed official objective of ‘balanced bilingualism’, was hardly ever discussed. Even the language of literature was not immune from the effects of extensive interpenetration of the two closely-related languages. In the early 1980s, Belarusian prose writers writing in Russian were criticized for including lexical, morphological and syntactic elements from Belarusian in their works, and were exhorted to use only those Belarusian ‘exoticisms’ that were congruent with the ‘best examples of Russian literature upon which millions of readers have been educated’ (Ozarovskii 1984, p. 18). Russian-language writers must take pains, they were told, to avoid ‘non-functional’ Belarusianisms, essentially those that are unfamiliar to the ‘Russian reader’, defined evidently as one having no knowledge of Belarusian and operating solely within the framework of Russian national literary traditions. The possibility of a Russian-language work being addressed specifically to a Russian-speaking Belarusian readership, for whom Belarusianisms are hardly ‘exotic’ but may serve quite different stylistic functions, is not even considered: The flaunting of mixed, broken speech may find a sympathetic response among only part of the population. The fact that there is still a considerable number of people who unthinkingly mix the two languages to varying degrees in speech is of course indisputable, but this is their misfortune, not a cause for celebration, and it is inappropriate to surround this pseudo-language (iazykovoi surrogat) with an aura of aesthetic value. (Ozarovskii 1984, p. 18) The same author goes on to recommend that the republic’s ‘Russian Language Service’ exercise greater supervision over Russian-language publications to put a stop to the ‘unregulated flow of functionally unmotivated Belarusianisms’ (1984, p. 20). In Belarus, the practice of defining the Russian language solely in terms of its codified, homogeneous standard variety was exploited by Belarusian language advocates in the late 1980s and early 1990s in their assault on the dominant Russophone ideology. While the supporters of de facto Russian monolingualism decried the effects of Belarusian–Russian bilingualism on Russian ‘language culture’ (kul’tura

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iazyka), even among the university-educated intelligentsia, Belarusian language advocates maintained that in fact, very few ethnic Belarusians, regardless of what they themselves might believe, were true, authentic Russian speakers. Thus, like the defenders of a homogeneous standard Russian in Belarus, Belarusian language advocates denied the legitimacy of local vernacular varieties of speech, albeit with quite different goals in mind. In pro-Belarusian discourse, a common theme is the notion that the teaching of Russian essentially as a first, rather than a second language in Belarus had led to a situation where many people, particularly those without higher education, knew neither Belarusian nor Russian well, but spoke a hybrid language known pejoratively as trasianka (literally, a mixture of hay and straw). 11 The notion of trasianka, however, grew very elastic, being applied not only to any forms of speech that deviated in some way from codified literary Belarusian or standard Russian, but in some cases even to the post-1933 Belarusian standard that was used in the official Belarusian media.12 In Belarusian oppositional discourse, the concept of trasianka implies not only violations of standard language norms, but is associated with specific cultural and cognitive effects. In a well-known 1988 essay, Zianon Pozniak, an archaeologist who went on to become the leader of the Belarusian Popular Front, wrote: Pseudo-language, ‘trasianka’, is the main reason for the low level of culture. Therefore the sphere of its dissemination is the middle and lower strata of society. … A pseudo-languaged individual does not understand the subtleties of spiritual bonds, thinks poorly in abstractions, frequently cannot analyze theoretically, and if he understands complex relationships, he cannot articulate them or clearly explain them to another person. (Pozniak 1988) Since the 1995 referendum that restored Russian to co-official status in Belarus, Belarusian language advocates have again raised the spectre of trasianka, arguing that this type of language has in effect gained official sanction (trasianka-like elements in president Lukashenka’s speech often being cited as evidence of this). For example, the Belarusian linguist Plotnikau, comparing the situation in Belarus with that in Ukraine, asserts that: the Ukrainian–Russian mixed language, or surzhyk, thanks to a more solicitous language policy in Ukraine, does not have a chance to


survive there due to its exceptionally low social prestige. The policy of official bilingualism in our country in practice officially strengthens the status of trasianka as a widespread means of oral communication and makes the struggle for Russian and Belarusian language culture ineffective. (Plotnikau 1998, p. 36) The denigration of mixed forms of speech, while helping to maintain the boundaries between what elites perceive as ‘Russian’ and ‘Belarusian’, entails certain dangers for the Belarusian language movement. Given the strongly normative cast of the language debate, the potential costs of attempting to speak standard Belarusian, in terms of loss of face, are considerable for non-fluent speakers. In other words, by heavily stigmatizing and ideologizing mixed speech, Belarusian language advocates are in effect rejecting potential transitional Belarusophones. At the same time, the devaluation of the increasingly Russified dialect speech of rural Belarusians threatens to undercut language revival efforts by driving a wedge between the urban intelligentsia and the users of Belarusian vernacular varieties as an everyday means of communication.13 One language, two standards? The struggle between the advocates of the Russian and Belarusian languages is not, however, the only linguistic conflict in evidence in contemporary Belarus. Within the Belarusophone intelligentsia, there is a rift between the adherents of two variants of the Belarusian standard language: the dominant standard that has been used, with some modifications, in the Belarusian Republic since 1933 (known by its detractors as narkomauka),14 and the pre-1933 norm, tarashkevitsa,15 used by Belarusians in Poland until 1939 and again during the Nazi occupation, and kept alive by post-war Belarusian émigrés in the West. The differences between the two standards are mainly orthographic, although the pronunciation of some loanwords and the forms of some grammatical morphemes also differ. Texts employing tarashkevitsa are also characterized by the most part by the avoidance of certain calques and borrowings from Russian that became common in standard Belarusian after the 1933 reform. While many of the differences between narkomauka and tarashkevitsa might appear at first glance rather superficial, they are invested with tremendous symbolic importance by both the supporters and opponents of each of the two standards. Supporters of the tarashkevitsa standard maintain that the reform of 1933 was designed not so much to

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systematize and simplify Belarusian orthography, as its proponents claimed, but was intended to bring the Belarusian standard closer to Russian in order to facilitate the linguistic assimilation of the Belarusians. Moreover, the supporters of tarashkevitsa note that not only was the reform preceded by purges of the nationally-oriented Belarusian intelligentsia, but that the reform itself was described and defended in explicitly political terms. For example, the pro-reform spokesman Iurhilevich denounced Belarusian language planners of the 1920s for ‘creating an artificial barrier between the Belarusian language and the language of the Russian proletariat and bringing the Belarusian language closer to the language of fascist Poland’ (Lych 1993, p. 25). Contemporary advocates of tarashkevitsa argue that not only was the 1933 reform imposed by means of violence and intimidation, but that the standard variety which it created did not adequately reflect the unique character of the Belarusian language and was therefore structurally incapable of serving as the standard language of an independent, Western-oriented Belarus. They argue that the narkomauka standard, despite limited reforms in the 1950s and 1960s designed to undo some of the damage inflicted under Stalin, is still permeated with a slavish deference to the linguistic authority of standard Russian models and remains a language of subordination, of passive marginality within a predominantly Russophone environment. In the words of the Belarusian journalist, Siarhei Dubavets, those members of the intelligentsia who continue to employ the narkomauka: ‘have voluntarily remained in the Belarusian Soviet Socialist Republic in terms of spelling’ (Maksymiuk 1998). In the summer of 1998, the Lukashenka regime attempted to shut down the opposition newspaper Nasha niva (Our Field), which is published in tarashkevitsa, on the grounds that it violated the 1997 media law which prohibits the press from ‘distorting the generally accepted norms’ of the language of publication (Maksymiuk 1998). Ultimately, the government’s case against Nasha niva was dropped after a commission of linguists from the Belarusian Academy of Sciences determined that there was no clear definition anywhere in the law of what the ‘generally accepted norms’ for Belarusian were. While the language issue was evidently seized upon by the Lukashenka regime as a convenient, quasi-legal way to do away with a troublesome opposition publication, this incident was represented by the supporters of tarashkevitsa not only as an attack on free speech and a non-officially sanctioned orthography, but above all as an attack on the Belarusian language itself.


In response to those who note the fact that the Belarusian government does continue to subsidize some Belarusian-language publications (mainly those that are more or less apolitical or which serve as a mouthpiece for the government), as well as Belarusian-language state television and radio, Belarusian language advocates frequently argue that the variety of Belarusian employed by the official media is a Russified, surrogate pseudo-language, designed specifically to kill any interest in or respect for the real Belarusian language on the part of the population. For example, in an article in the Russian-language opposition newspaper Imia, we read: the language of the National Television and Radio Company is not Belarusian at all. It is a feeble calque from the Russian. It is a wooden, ponderous, artificial language. Not ‘trasianka’, but not Belarusian either. Indeed, no normal person would want to speak this language. (Khalip 1998) In their critique of Soviet Belarusian language policies, members of the Belarusian national opposition frequently articulate an ideology of authenticity predicated on linguistic distance from Russian. In practice, this orientation is reflected in the use of dialectal grammatical features that were sanctioned by Tarashkevich’s grammar but rendered nonstandard by the reform of 1933, as well as lexemes drawn from Belarusian dialect sources, neologisms coined by puristically oriented language planners in the 1920s, and borrowings from Polish. The opponents of a return to the tarashkevitsa standard have frequently argued that any attempts to reform the standard language yet again would merely undo decades of language codification efforts, leading to linguistic confusion and frustration among ordinary users of the language and ultimately to a further weakening of its position in Belarusian society. It would be mistaken, however, to assume that the defenders of the post-1933 standard are necessarily all guided by purely pragmatic considerations. At a 1997 conference in Minsk on the state of the Belarusian language in the latter part of the twentieth century, a sizable number of those present spoke out in favour of reform. One of the more adamant anti-reformists was the prominent linguist, Zhurauski, who attacked supporters of tarashkevitsa by linking them to Belarusian collaborators with the Nazis during WWII and Belarusian émigrés in the West. Somewhat undermining his political neutrality in the matter, he cited statements by ‘simple Belarusian workers’ critical of the proposed reforms taken from neo-Communist pro-regime

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publications such as My i vremia (‘We and Our Time’) and Tovarishch (‘Comrade’) (Zhurauski 1998, p. 15). The rhetoric of his attack on tarashkevitsa advocates at times bore a chilling resemblance to that of the official anti-tarashkevitsa campaign of the 1930s.

Non-elite language attitudes and ideologies The elite language ideologies that I have examined thus far suggest the existence of fundamental splits within Belarusian society into antagonistic camps based on language attitudes and allegiances. While there are undeniably deep divisions within the urban elite, the results of ethnographic and sociolinguistic fieldwork in smaller towns and rural areas suggest that these divisions may not extend as deeply into the fabric of Belarusian society as is sometimes believed. Moreover, these data indicate the existence of complex and sometimes contradictory folk ideologies of language that present a challenge to prevailing elite conceptions that view the parallel use of Belarusian and Russian, as well as mixtures of the two languages, as abnormal. In this section I will discuss the expression of language ideologies among both rural and urban Belarusian speakers, as reflected in overt and covert language attitudes and strategies of language use. Although the majority of my data were obtained in the western Belarusian city of Hrodna and the surrounding rural areas, with less systematic field observations in the capital, Minsk, and other smaller towns in the central and western Belarus, regions of I would argue that my data are fairly representative of the situation in much of the country. Indeed, in contrast to Ukraine, for example, observers have noted the absence of significant regional differences with respect to the sociolinguistic situation of the Belarusian language. In order to investigate attitudes toward the different language varieties in use in community repertoires, and to explore the functions of the ideological construct of ‘native language’ in the discourse of national identity from 1996 to 1999, I conducted with the assistance of local fieldworkers a series of sociolinguistic interviews (160 in all) with speakers representing four different age groups in several villages in the Hrodna region in western Belarus. In addition, a psycholinguistic language evaluation experiment (matched-guise test) was carried out with 32 young people ages 14 to 25 in the same villages and 20 others in the same age group in the city of Hrodna. In the light of the highly critical attitudes of many leading younger members of the Belarusian intelligentsia toward the post-1933 variant


of the Belarusian standard language, I first decided to explore popular attitudes toward this standard, as used more or less consistently in Belarusian state television and radio. In particular, I wanted to test the claim made by some of the proponents of language reform that the post-1933 standard was so close to Russian that it fostered a negative attitude toward the language as a whole on the part of many Belarusians and was an important factor in the language’s decline. To elicit attitudes toward this specific variety of standard Belarusian, I posed the questions, ‘Would you like to be able to speak Belarusian the way it is spoken on Belarusian radio and television’, and ‘Would you like your children to be able to speak Belarusian as it is spoken on Belarusian television and radio?’ For comparison, I also included the same type of questions with respect to contemporary standard Russian as used in the Russian media. Significantly, out of 160 rural respondents, 93 per cent said that they would like to be able to speak standard Belarusian in the form employed by the official electronic media, and 97 per cent stated that they would like their children to be able to do so. At the same time, we find almost identical figures for standard Russian, 93 per cent and 98 per cent. This suggests that among rural residents, at least in this part of Belarus, the support for true bilingualism, as opposed to preferential treatment for one language or the other, is far more extensive than the supporters of Belarusian or Russian official monolingualism have argued. In the sociolinguistic questionnaire, respondents were also asked to indicate, at their discretion, the reasons for their answers. Although less than half of the informants actually provided this additional information, these explanations are also very revealing with respect to popular conceptions of the standard language and its relationship to national identity, as well as the local manifestations of the standard language ideology as applied both to standard Belarusian and standard Russian. Among the positive responses to the questions concerning the Belarusian standard language, the most common can be arranged in several broad categories: (1) aesthetic qualities/correctness; (2) native language; (3) national identity or citizenship; (4) and usefulness (as reflected in such statements as ‘it may come in handy’ or ‘it’s good to know more than one language’). The majority of the positive responses, given by informants representing a broad range of backgrounds, including schoolchildren, university students, tractor drivers, milkmaids, technicians and

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accountants, focused on the first three criteria, that is, aesthetic qualities and correctness, native language and national identity/citizenship. These include such responses as ‘I like the way it sounds’, ‘it’s a beautiful language’, ‘because it’s more attractive than Russian’, ‘the pure language is beautiful’, as well as ‘because it’s my native language’, ‘because I like the pure Belarusian native language’, ‘because I am a Belarusian’, ‘because Belarus is our homeland’, ‘because we live in Belarus’, and so on. These responses suggest that the official Belarusian standard language, regardless of how russified it may appear to some members of the opposition, commands considerable authority and loyalty among average Belarusians simply because it is the established standard. In other words, the formal properties of the ‘legitimate’ language as compared with other related language varieties are largely irrelevant for those who accept its authority, although speakers, under the influence of the standard language ideology, will come to rationalize the normative status of the standard in terms of perceived aesthetic or other criteria. At the same time, the widespread acceptance of the more russified post-1933 standard, seen in conjunction with favourable attitudes toward the Russian standard language, suggests that the Russian standard still commands considerable authority as a criterion for correctness in language for many contemporary Belarusians. As for the negative evaluations of the official standard language among rural informants, which, as I have already noted only accounted for about 7 per cent of all responses, most did not elaborate on the reasons for their judgement. One response, by a local youth studying at the university in Hrodna, is interesting in that it alone reflects the viewpoint of young urban Belarusophone intellectuals that the language of the official Belarusian-language electronic media is not authentically Belarusian: ‘ixniaia havorka – heta zdzek nad movai’ (the way they talk is a mockery of the language) (the phrase ‘a mockery of the language’ is a common trope in pro-tarashkevitsa discourse). Other reasons given for not wanting to speak standard Belarusian include the desire not to stand out (female collective farm accountant, age 28), or the absence of a motivation to learn to speak the standard: ‘uzhe pryvyk da dzeravenskaho iazyka, belaruski mne ne pryvychny’ (I’m already used to the village language, I’m unaccustomed to Belarusian – mechanic, age 26); ‘nashto mne heto? Mne i pa-zmeshanamu dobro’ (why do I need it? I’m fine speaking the mixed language) (saleswoman, age 20). The respondents’ comments concerning their attitudes toward standard Russian exhibit many of the same motifs that we see in the case of attitudes toward standard Belarusian. The most common responses


relate to aesthetic criteria (’it’s a beautiful language’, ‘it’s the most beautiful language’, and so on), as well as usefulness (’it’s the most widely spoken language’, ‘it’s good to know several languages’, ‘I’ll need to know it’, ‘it’s good to be educated’, and so on). Significant, however, is the almost total absence of comments relating to the ‘native language’/’national identity/citizenship’ parameters, the only exception being the response of a 22-year-old locksmith, who stated that he would like to be able to speak standard Russian ‘because Russia defends us, it is our motherland’. The negative comments with respect to the desirability of being able to speak Russian, like negative responses to standard Belarusian, were relatively few in number, and ranged from the purely utilitarian, ‘we speak the way we’re used to speaking’ (farm machinery operator, age 37), ‘we don’t need it’ (accountant, age 28), ‘no one speaks that way here’ (schoolteacher, age 63), to the highly emotional ‘to hell with Russian, I don’t want to speak it’ (agronomist, age 46). Puristic ideologies of language have clearly had an impact on speakers’ perceptions of their own speech. For most villagers, standard Belarusian is viewed essentially in the same terms as standard Russian – that is, as a related code, but distinctly different from what they speak (even though the dialects of this region are quite close to the literary standard in many respects). While the older generations, particularly those born prior to 1940, generally refer to their home language as ‘paprostu’ (‘the simple way of speaking’), ‘prostaia mova’ (‘simple language’), ‘pa-svoimu’ (‘our way of speaking’), ‘svaia havorka’ (‘our own dialect’), the generations born after the 1940s increasingly designate their speech as ‘zmeshanaia mova/zmeshany iazyk’ (‘mixed language’), usually implying by this a mixture of Belarusian and Russian, and in some cases, Polish. This evaluation, as linguistic data from the region testify, is a fairly accurate assessment on the part of younger villagers of an ongoing breakdown in the intergenerational transmission of traditional dialect features and the spread of borrowings from Russian. In contrast to the ‘impure’, ‘mixed’ speech of the village, some respondents indicated their preference for standard Belarusian and/or standard Russian, representing to their mind the ideal of linguistic purity. Thus, in reference to standard Belarusian, comments were made such as ‘I like the beautiful, undistorted language’ (tractor driver, age 63), ‘I like pure Belarusian’ (accountant, age 21), and in reference to standard Russian: ‘I like it when people speak a language that is pure and not mixed with any other language’ (schoolgirl, age 18), ‘I’d like to be able to speak purely’ (electrician, age 47).

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As was noted above, the concept of ‘native language’ is typically not very revealing about language use or language proficiency in Belarus and in many other parts of the former Soviet Union where there has been extensive shift from non-Russian languages. At some level, however, responses to the question ‘What is your native language?’ do provide an indication of an individual’s group identification (and possibly to some extent, language loyalty), particularly in light of the fact that unlike the ‘nationality’ entry, there were in theory fewer externally-imposed constraints on possible responses to this question. The data on ‘native language’ from my sociolinguistic survey of villages in the Hrodna region are more or less typical for the country as a whole in the 1989 census: 82 per cent of those who identified themselves as being of Belarusian nationality indicated Belarusian as their native language, while 12 per cent (the majority of them in the younger age groups) gave Russian as their native language. To further investigate overt attitudes toward the various languages in use in the communities investigated, including not only the Belarusian and Russian standard languages, but also local dialects, Polish and mixed varieties of speech, I also included the following questions in the sociolinguistic questionnaire: ‘Which language do you prefer to speak?’ and ‘Which language do you like most of all?’ From the responses to the questions regarding language preferences (summarized in Table 5.1 for two villages, Matsveeutsy-Ulezly and Shurychy), we find that in everyday communication a majority of respondents claim a preference for a non-standard variety, usually characterized by the respondents as mixed Belarusian–Russian. We may speculate that the high figures for mixed Belarusian–Russian, as compared with either Belarusian or Russian, apart from limitations in competence in the two standard languages, reflect that fact that speaking mixed Table 5.1 Overt attitudes toward linguistic variation in two rural communities (%) (1)

Which language do you prefer to speak? Dialect (pa-prostu) Mixed Matsveeutsy-Ulezly: 6 81 Shurychy: 0 81 Which language do you like most of all? Dialect (pa-prostu) Mixed Matsveeutsy-Ulezly: 3 21 Shurychy: 0 9

Belarusian 6 9

Polish 0 3

Russian 3 6

Belarusian 40 63

Polish 0 9

Russian 28 9

(2)


Belarusian–Russian allows villagers to assert two identities at once: loyalty to the local ‘team’, and ‘modernity’, associated primarily with urban (that is Russophone) culture. The preference for what is termed ‘mixed language’ (meaning mixed Belarusian–Russian), rather than traditional dialect, standard Belarusian or standard Russian, in in-group interaction can be interpreted as an expression of a hybrid cultural identity. It is, in the terminology of Le Page and Tabouret-Keller (1985), an ‘act of identity’. At the same time, in the responses to the question ‘which language do you like most of all?’ we find that the most widely used form of speech, ‘mixed language,’ has relatively low ratings, reflecting the widespread stigmatization of mixed forms of speech in the society as a whole. There is also a rather striking difference between the two villages in the degree of preference for standard Belarusian and standard Russian. This division is a reflection of confessionally-based cultural differences within the Belarusian-speaking population: MatsveeutsyUlezly is an exclusively Orthodox village, while Shurychy is exclusively Roman Catholic. As has been noted by students of the history of Belarusian nationalism, Catholics have played and continue to play a key role in the movement’s leadership, despite a tendency of many Catholics in Belarus to identify themselves as Poles. Not surprisingly, the majority Orthodox population has been more heavily influenced by the ‘all-Russian’ orientation of the Orthodox Church in Belarus. While overt attitudes toward standard Belarusian, standard Russian and the other varieties of speech employed in the local speech economy reflect the prevalence of the ideology of the standard as the sole legitimate form of the national language, the results of the matched-guise experiment are indicative of a somewhat more complex picture and reflect a parallel set of covert language attitudes. 16 For this experiment, a short, relatively colloquial passage from a novel by the Belarusian writer Uladzimir Karatkevich was recorded by a male and a female in four different versions or ‘guises’: the standard Belarusian original, standard Russian, standard Polish and mixed Belarusian– Russian of the type commonly spoken by the younger generation in rural areas (largely Russian lexis, but with considerable Belarusian phonological, morphological and syntactic interference). The respondents were asked to evaluate the voices with respect to a variety of social and personal characteristics on a five-point scale, with ‘5’ as the highest rating. In accordance with the standard procedure for matched-guise experiments, respondents were told that they would hear eight different voices, both male and female (rather than just two

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voices reading in four different language varieties) and that the focus of the experiment was the role of vocal quality as a basis for speaker evaluations, rather than language per se. The use of recordings of the same speakers using different languages or language varieties to convey the same content allows us to control for the variables of voice quality and message, thereby isolating the effects of language attitudes (or rather stereotypes associated with speakers of a given language) on the evaluation of a speaker’s social and personal attributes. The matched-guise data, shown in Table 5.2 (minus the data on the standard Polish guises), reveal two interesting facts. First of all, with respect to ‘status traits’, such as level of education, prestigious employment, ‘culturedness’ and intelligence, the standard Belarusian guises scored as well or even higher than the standard Russian guises, and of course, as might be expected, much higher than the mixed Belarusian–Russian guises. These results contrast with findings in studies of attitudes toward other subordinated or minority languages; indeed, in Lambert’s (1960) pioneering study, it was found that Quebecois French speakers rated English guises much higher than their Table 5.2 Evaluation of standard versus non-standard varieties: a matchedguise test (Note: averages for urban respondents (Hrodna) given in parentheses.) Belarusian

status traits 1. educated 2. has a prestigious job 3. cultured 4. intelligent solidarity traits 5. generous 6. hardworking 7. flexible/accommodating 8. good-natured

Russian

Mixed

m

f

m

f

m

f

4.5 (3.6) 4.1 (2.6) 4.3 (4.0) 4.2 (3.5)

4.6 (3.7) 4.5 (2.8) 4.4 (4.0) 4.2 (3.8)

4.1 (3.7) 4.0 (2.9) 4.2 (3.8) 4.0 (3.6)

4.2 (3.6) 4.0 (2.7) 4.3 (3.7) 4.1 (3.6)

3.5 (2.5) 3.1 (2.0) 3.6 (3.3) 3.5 (3.0)

3.7 (2.6) 3.2 (2.4) 3.6 (3.3) 3.7 (2.9)

3.7 (3.4) 3.5 (3.6) 3.7 (3.8) 4.0 (3.9)

4.2 (3.0) 3.4 (3.8) 4.5 (3.3) 4.1 (3.7)

3.7 (3.2) 3.5 (3.3) 3.7 (3.3) 3.5 (3.7)

3.4 (3.2) 3.5 (3.4) 3.4 (3.3) 3.7 (3.7)

4.1 (3.4) 4.2 (3.5) 4.1 (3.6) 4.2 (3.7)

4.1 (3.3) 4.1 (3.6) 4.2 (3.0) 4.5 (3.5)


French counterparts with respect to many status and personality traits. Clearly, the fact that knowledge of standard Belarusian is a prerequisite for certain positions associated with intelligentsia status does give the language more cachet than perhaps local varieties of French had in Quebec in the early 1960s. On the other hand, with respect to ‘solidarity traits’, such as ‘generous’, ‘hardworking’, ‘flexible/accommodating’ (pamiarkouny) and ‘good-natured’ (lahodny/dabrazychlivy), characteristics central to the traditional Belarusian ethnic self-image, the mixed Belarusian– Russian guise was found to have the most positive ratings among rural respondents (interestingly, the urban respondents in Hrodna tended to rate the standard Belarusian guises slightly higher than the mixed guises with respect to these characteristics). This suggests that there may be some truth to the assertion by the Belarusian linguist Tsykhun that in a situation where mixed Belarusian–Russian becomes the usual means of communication it has the potential to become a means of identification or group solidarity for its speakers (1998, p. 87). The data I have cited suggest that while villagers accept the authority of the imposed standard languages, Russian and Belarusian, in prestigious social spheres (education, the media, government), village speech, particularly that of the more innovative younger speakers, continues to carry connotations of what the British sociolinguist Peter Trudgill (1972) has called ‘covert prestige’ in reference to stigmatized working-class speech varieties in Great Britain. President Lukashenka’s Belarusian-accented Russian and limited ability in standard Belarusian are ridiculed by the intelligentsia, but his use of mixed speech has been said by some observers to be part of his appeal to average Belarusians, especially in smaller towns and in the countryside. The data from the matched-guise test support the conclusion that the majority of the younger rural population are reasonably well integrated into a Russo-Belarusian speech community, in which standard Russian and Belarusian are complementary and at times overlapping ‘high’ forms of language, while mixed Russo-Belarusian forms of speech have largely supplanted the traditional dialects as markers of ingroup, local solidarity. As for the urban respondents from the city of Hrodna, in Table 5.2, above, we see that the evaluations of the different varieties are less sharply differentiated, reflecting the absence of covert prestige associated with mixed varieties of speech, although the standard Belarusian guises still have a slight edge over the Russian and

Curt Woolhiser 117

mixed guises with respect to both status traits such as ‘cultured’ and solidarity traits such as ‘hard-working’.

Norms of language use as an expression of language ideologies In conditions of symbolic domination, the linguistic practices of the subordinated group may serve to either legitimize or subvert the authority of the imposed legitimate language. One of the typical manifestations of symbolic domination in multilingual contexts is the accommodation norm, described by Woolard (1989) in her account of bilingual behaviour in Catalonia. According to the conventions of the accommodation norm, strangers should always be addressed in the politically dominant language (in this case, Castilian) unless they provide cues as to their identity as members of the subordinate speech community. Laitin (1998, pp. 138–9) notes a similar situation in postSoviet Kazakhstan, where Kazakh speakers will automatically switch to Russian in linguistically mixed groups, or in the presence of someone not known to be a speaker of Kazakh (whether a non-Kazakh or a Russophone ethnic Kazakh). One byproduct of the accommodation norm is the frequent feeling of speakers of the dominant language that ‘no one speaks the local language’, since they themselves are almost never addressed in it. In the Belarusian context, the accommodation norm is almost universal among urban Belarusophones, with the sole exception of some members of the Belarusophone intelligentsia and some younger speakers who were educated in Belarusian-language schools in the period from 1990 to 1996. Lying outside the sphere of application of the ‘accommodation norm’ are the ritualized uses of standard Belarusian in certain types of public oratory, particularly in the sphere of culture and education and in the official electronic media. Indeed, flouting the accommodation norm is viewed as more or less neutral in at least one type of speech event in contemporary Belarus: interviews with representatives of the official Belarusian-language media. Typically, the interviewer will continue to speak in Belarusian with both Russian and Belarusian-speaking interlocutors. Russian speakers in this situation display two strategies: continued use of more or less standard Russian, or partial accommodation to the Belarusian-speaking interviewer through the use of individual Belarusian words or idioms. Significantly, this situation does not even strike most Belarusians as


unusual – it is simply the way things are done by the Belarusianlanguage media.

Conclusions As I have tried to demonstrate in this chapter, language ideologies are a crucial nexus between perceptions of social reality, language structure and language use. These connections become particularly salient in a multilingual context where political and social interests become explicitly or implicitly tied to different varieties of language. Traditional macrosociolinguistic studies of functional domains of language use, usually based primarily on survey data, provide only a partial picture of the sociolinguistic situation. Of equal, if not greater importance for the understanding of language conflicts are culture-specific views about language and its role in society, as well as the political and social interests that underlie such views. In contemporary Belarus, public discussion of language issues is a battlefield of competing claims of pro-Russian and pro-Belarusian discourse. The effects of Soviet language policy have created an apparent consensus among broad segments of the society as to the dominant role of Russian in urban communication, yet the continued attachment of the majority of Belarusians to their language as an ethnic symbol provides an opening for ideological challenges to the hegemonic position of the Russian language in Belarus. The fairly clear-cut divisions among elites with respect to the language question are less characteristic of the broader population, among whom we generally find a greater tolerance of ambiguous linguistic allegiances and language mixing than we find at either end of the spectrum of elite language ideologies. The contradictory aspects of popular language attitudes and language behaviour in Belarus are primarily a result of the tensions between the status and solidarity functions of the competing languages and language varieties and are a reflection of the stillproblematic role of the Belarusian language as a component of the Belarusian national identity.

Notes 1. Research for this chapter was supported in part by grants from the International Research and Exchanges Board (with funds provided by the National Endowment for the Humanities and the U.S. Information Agency),

Curt Woolhiser 119

2.

3. 4. 5. 6.

7.

8. 9.

10. 11. 12.

13.

the Social Science Research Council, the American Council of Learned Societies and the University of Texas at Austin. None of these organizations is responsible for the views expressed. According to the 1999 Belarus census, only 36.7 per cent of respondents claimed to speak Belarusian at home, while 62.8 per cent claimed to speak Russian as the home language (RFE/RL Newsline, 16 December 1999). These figures are comparable with the results of a 1989 sociological survey cited by Mikulich (1996, p. 117), which indicated that no more than 39.5 per cent of the population speak Belarusian as their primary language. For an overview of the sociolinguistic situation in Belarus in the Soviet period, see Bulyka (1989) and Marples (1999). See, for example, Pal’stsiuk 1997 for a partial list of violations documented over the course of 1997. For a political scientist’s perspective on the political symbolism of the Russian and Belarusian languages in post-Soviet Belarus, see Goujon 1999. For example, two young men detained in the summer of 1999 after an unsanctioned anti-Lukashenka demonstration in Minsk were fined, although the prosecutor was unable to prove that they actually took part in the demonstration, on the grounds that by insisting on speaking Belarusian in the courtroom they were expressing their solidarity with the demonstrators (Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty Daily Report, 9 August 1999). In 1996, Siamon Sharetski, the newly-elected speaker of the Belarusian parliament (disbanded by president Lukashenka in December of that year), proposed just such an allocation of language functions in the legislature: Belarusian was to be used for discussion of cultural issues, and Russian for economic issues (OMRI Daily Digest, 15 January 1996). A number of publications expressing such views are discussed in Zaprudski (1996). The notion that the Russian language is above all the ‘property’ of the (Great) Russians is potentially somewhat damaging to the Lukashenka administration’s efforts to promote Russian monolingualism in Belarus. Perhaps for this reason Lukashenka asserted that the modern Russian language was not solely the creation of the Russian people, but was the product of the common efforts of the ‘Slavs’ (that is, Russians, Ukrainians and Belarusians) (Imia, May 17, 1995, cited in Goujon (1999, p. 676, fn. 46). See, for example, the chapters on interference in Mikhnevich 1985. On the numerous definitions and uses of the term trasianka see Tsykhun 1998. Bilaniuk (1998, pp. 105–6) notes a similar vagueness and ideological coloration of the term ‘surzhyk’, used in reference to mixed Ukrainian–Russian speech, in language-related polemics in contemporary Ukraine. A similar predicament in the case of the Occitan movement in France is noted by Eckert (1983): ‘… the movement, with its elaboration of standard Occitan and its politicized context, tends to stress the language as a vehicle of intellectual, political and artistic communication. The language is, therefore, not the language of these people’s personal experience, but a symbol of that language. It is paradoxical that while the real thing is more accessible to these people, only its symbol has value’ (1983, p. 299).

120 Language, Ethnicity and the State, vol. 2 14. From Savet Narodnykh Kamisarau, the Council of People’s Commissars, by whose decree it became the official standard in the Belarusian Soviet Socialist Republic. 15. Named after the Belarusian activist, Branislau Tarashkevich, author of the first Belarusian grammar, who was imprisoned by the Poles and later repressed by the Soviets as an alleged Polish spy. 16. The matched-guise technique was pioneered by the Canadian researcher Lambert (1960) in the study of attitudes toward English and French in Quebec. The matched-guise technique has been used recently for the study of attitudes toward Russian and national languages in the former Soviet republics of Estonia, Latvia, Ukraine and Kazakhstan, as discussed in Laitin (1998).

Bibliography Belorusskii khel’sinskii komitet, O narushenii lingvisticheskikh prav korennoi natsii Respubliki Belarus, unpublished manuscript, 1998. Bilaniuk, L.M. The Politics of Language and Identity in Post-Soviet Ukraine, unpublished PhD dissertation, University of Michigan, 1998. Blommaert, J. and Verschueren, J. The Role of Language in European Nationalist Ideologies, Pragmatics 2:3 (1992), 355–75. Bourdieu, P. Language and Symbolic Power (Cambridge: Polity Press, 1991). Bulyka, A.M. Mounaia situatsyia u BSSR, Belaruskaia linhvistyka 36 (1989), 3–10. Chislennost’, vozrastnaia struktura, sostoianie v brake, chislo i razmer semei, natsional’nyi sostav, uroven’ obrazovaniia i istochniki sredstv sushchestvovaniia naseleniia Belorusskoi SSR: Po dannym Vsesoiuznoi perepisi naseleniia 1989 g. (Minsk, 1990). Desheriev, Ju. D. and Protchenko, I.F. Soiuz ravnopravnykh narodov i russkii iazyk, Russkaia rech’, 5 (1972). Eckert, P. The Paradox of National Language Movements, Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development, 4:3 (1983), 289–300. Federal’naia programma “Russkii iazyk, Rossiiskaia gazeta, 8 August 1996. Gal, S. Language and Political Economy, Annual Review of Anthropology 18 (1989), 345–67. Gal, S. Diversity and Contestation in Linguistic Ideologies: German Speakers in Hungary Language in Society 22 (1993), 337–59. Goujon, A. Language, nationalism and populism in Belarus, Nationalities Papers 27 (4) (1999), 661–77. Hilevich, N. Iak ne spynits’ uzykhodu sontsa … (Minsk: Navuka i tekhnika, 1993). Irvine, J.T. When Talk isn’t Cheap: Language and Political Economy, American Ethnologist 16:2 (1989), 248–67. Ivanov, V.V. and Mikhailovskaia, N.G. Russkii iazyk kak sredstvo mezhnatsional’nogo obshcheniia: aktual’nye aspekty i problemy, Voprosy iazykoznaníia 6 (1982), 3–13. Khalip, I. Belorusskii iazyk kak faktor riska, Imia 20:152, May 21, 1998.

Curt Woolhiser 121 Kreindler, I. The Changing Status of Russian in the Soviet Union, International Journal of the Sociology of Language 33 (1982), 7–39. Laitin, D. Identity in Formation: the Russian-Speaking Populations in the Near Abroad (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1998). Lambert, W.E., et al. Evaluational Reactions to Spoken Languages, Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology 60, no. 1 (1960), 44–51. Le Page, R.B. and Tabouret-Keller, A. Acts of Identity: Creole-Based Approaches to Ethnicity and Language (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985). Lippi-Green, R. Accent, Standard Language Ideology, and Discriminatory Pretext in the Courts. Language in Society 23 (1994), 163–98. Lych, L. Reforma belaruskaha pravapisu 1933 hoda: idealahichny aspekt (Minsk: Navuka i tekhnika, 1993). Maksymiuk, J. End Note: Language on Trial. RFE/RL Newsline, August 11, 1998. Marples, D. Belarus: a Denationalized Nation (Amsterdam: Harwood Academic, 1999). Mechkovskaia, N.B. Iazykovaia situaciia v Belarusi: eticheskie kollizii dvuiazychiia, Russian Linguistics 18 (1994), 299–322. Mikulich, T.M. Mova i etnichnaia samasviadomasts’ (Minsk: Navuka i tekhnika, 1996). Mikhnevich, A.E. (ed.) Russkii iazyk v Belorussii (Minsk: Navuka i tekhnika, 1985). Mikhnevich, A.E. K kharakteristike grammaticheskogo vzaimodeistviia blizkorodstvennykh slavianskikh iazykov, Zeitschrift für Slawistik 30 (1984) 1, 100–7. Ozarovskii, O.V. K voprosu o nefunktsional’nykh belorusizmakh i sluzhbe russkogo iazyka, Russkii iazyk (Minsk) 4, 1984, 10–20. Pal’stsiuk, V. Frahmenty monitorynhu, padrykhtavanaha Tavarystva belaruskai movy, Forum 6–7 (1997), 12–27. Plotnikau, B.A. Unutranyia faktary suchasnaha stanu belaruskai movy, in: L.I. Siameshka and M.P. Pryhodzich (eds) (1998), 35–7. Pool, J. Whose Russian Language? Problems in the Definition of Linguistic Identity, in: E. Allworth (ed.), Ethnic Russia in the USSR: the Dilemma of Dominance (New York: Pergamon Press, 1980), 237–48. Pozniak, Z. Dvuiazychie i biurokratizm, Raduga 3 (1988), 36–50. Rudovich, S. ‘Kraina etnamounykh paradoksau?’ [review of Mikulich 1996], Spadchyna 2 (1998), 223–38. Siameshka, L.I. and Pryhodzich, M.P. (eds), Belaruskaia mova u druhoi palove XX stahoddzia. (Minsk: Belaruski dziarzhauny universitet, 1998). Sobolenko, E.R. Sovremennye etnolingvisticheskie protsessy, in: V.K. Bondarchik (ed.), Etnicheskie protsessy i obraz zhizni (Minsk: Navuka i tekhnika, 1980), 193–49. Trubachev, O.N. Zanimaias’ zakonom o russkom iazyke, in: E. Troitskii (ed.), Patriotizm: obshcherossiiskii i natsional’nyi (Moscow, 1996), 54–7. Trudgill, P., Sex, Covert Prestige and Linguistic Change in the Urban British English of Norwich, Language in Society 1 (1972), 179–95. Tsykhun, H. Trasianka’ iak ab’ekt linhvistychnaha dasledavannia, in: L.I. Siameshka and M.P. Pryhodzich (eds) 1998, 83–9. Woolard, K.A. Language Variation and Cultural Hegemony: Towards an Integration of Sociolinguistics and Social Theory, American Ethnologist 12:4 (1985), 268–78.

122 Language, Ethnicity and the State, vol. 2 Woolard, K.A. Double Talk: Bilingualism and the Politics of Ethnicity in Catalonia (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1989). Zaprudski, S. ‘Iazykovaia garmoniia: belorusskii variant’, Nioman 8 (1996), 192–210. Zhurauski, A.I. ‘Destruktyunyia ukhily u suchasnai belaruskai move’, in: L.I. Siameshka and M.P. Pryhodzich (eds) 1998, 12–15.

6 The Politics of Language in Moldova Thomas J. Hegarty

The land and languages of Moldova1 Moldova is a successor state which achieved its independence in 1991 when the Soviet Union imploded. With an area of only 13 000 square miles, it is located north of the Black Sea although it lacks a coastline on the sea. It is surrounded on one side by Romania, which lies just across the Prut River. On its other three sides lies the Ukraine, with which it shares access to the Dniester River (Moldova, in World Fact Book 1999). The republic, though small, has had a complicated history. It was in earlier times – with minor differences in its borders and major changes in its overlords – a short-lived medieval kingdom; a part of the larger principality of Moldova that was under the suzerainty of the Ottomans; a territory and then a province of the Russian Empire named Bessarabia between 1812 and 1917; a shaky republic in 1918; a province of Romania until 1940; a union-republic of the Soviet Union, called the Moldavian SSR; and, since 1991, an independent state. Throughout its history it has been multi-ethnic, multi-lingual, and multi-cultural. The largest group in the area are the Moldovans, who are descended from the same people as those who in the nineteenth century created the Kingdom of Romania. By that time, however, the Moldovans of Bessarabia had been separated from them for more than half a century (Kristof 1974, pp. 19–38; King 1999, pp. 3–18; Feldman 1975, pp. 46–59). Also living in the republic are many other ethnic groups. In order of size, there are Ukrainians, Russians, Gagauz (Christian Turks) as well many smaller groups of Bulgarians, Jews, Germans, Gypsies and most other ethnicities from across the former Russian Empire or the USSR. Despite the presence of many minorities 123


and their languages, only the Moldovan and Russian tongues have achieved positions of dominance (Jewsbury 1983, pp. 1–18). In ancient and medieval times, the history, language, culture and composition of the population of the territory of today’s Moldova were the same as those of the principalities which constitute today’s Romania. Imperial Russia took the eastern half of a larger principality called Moldova and gave their new holding the name Bessarabia. At first they only subtly influenced the area’s language and culture. In an age of dynastic rather than national aspiration, there was no effort to turn the Moldovans or Bessarabians into Russians. It was only over a long period that the Russian language emerged into dominance (Jewsbury 1976, pp. 147–59; van Meurs 1994, pp. 45–84).

The language situation of Russian Bessarabia Until 1818, under Russia’s Alexander I (1801–25), the local elite retained its administrative autonomy. In many cases, they were incorporated into the Russian gentry. Though Russian and Moldovan were both used as the languages of administration and justice, the courts gave Moldovan preferential status and applied the customary law of the territory. Nonetheless, many members of the elite began to use Russian both as a sign of their status and as a means of facilitating their dealings with the military and civil officials sent out from St Petersburg (Jewsbury 1976, pp. 55–153). To consolidate its hold on Bessarabia, the Imperial government set about increasing the population and, hence, the wealth and security of the area. Bessarabia was lightly populated in 1812, with approximately 250 000 people, and was capable of supporting many more. The territory had few native Russian speakers other than a small number of descendants of runaway serfs and religious schismatics who had sought refuge there. Ukrainians were more numerous. They had made their way across the Dniester River to farm the rich and still empty lands. The government began to encourage the migration of ethnic groups from other parts of the empire and from Europe. More Ukrainians now crossed the river. Jews arrived in the towns, retaining Yiddish but quickly becoming competent in both Russian and Moldovan. German settlers, regarded as industrious and advanced in their agricultural practices, were given farmland. Bulgarians and Gagauz, already present, increased their numbers. Russian nobles also came to take advantage of large estates which were granted them. They would doubtlessly have brought serfs to work their fields if the Imperial government had not

Thomas J. Hegarty 125

decided to keep serfdom out and make Bessarabia a model for the Christian peoples of the Balkans who were still under the Turkish yoke. As the ethnic groups settled in the countryside, they generally formed villages consisting only of their own group. Though the settlements were close by one another, there was little mixing and no violence (Livezeanu 1995, p. 94, fn. 11; van Meurs 1994, pp. 46–8). Russian civil and military officials soon complained to St Petersburg over the ineptness and corruption of the Moldovan elite. Even before Alexander I died in 1825, the government took steps to bring the province more closely into line with the Empire as a whole. Russian laws, currency and administrative practices were imposed. The changes were not aimed at russification so much as at standardization of practices; nonetheless, they had a cultural impact. Knowing Russian became more important. Nevertheless, for many years, Romanian was used in public business alongside Russian and official announcements appeared in both languages (Jewsbury 1976, pp. 143–61). By the time that Nicholas I (1825–55), succeeded Alexander I, the Imperial government undertook a few direct efforts at russification. The actions reflected the tsar’s general policy of imposing ‘Autocracy, Orthodoxy and Nationality’ on the Empire. ‘Nationality’, often rendered as ‘Russian ways’, was at this time largely focused on advancing Orthodoxy. Since the Moldovans were – like Romanians – Eastern Orthodox Christians, the changes in the area of religion were limited to encouraging the use of the Russian language in religious services. In the political realm, Russian became the sole official language of administration after 1833, though Moldovan still had to be used with those who had not learned it. No effort was made, however, to convince Moldovans that they were in any way different from the people who lived across the Prut. But the modest effort at promoting Russian was reinforced by the arrival of more Russian-speakers to the area, many coming to the towns on government business. There were also Russians who had not come willingly. Bessarabia was a place to which the Imperial government exiled some political dissenters and critics. The territory was soon known to wags as the ‘Siberia of the West’. The Russian poet Alexander Pushkin was one of the many who experienced life in Bessarabia against his will. He wrote scathingly of the capital, Kishinev (van Meurs 1994, pp. 46–8; Jewsbury 1976, pp. 66–74; King 1999, pp. 26–78). By the late 1850s, approximately one million people lived in Bessarabia. Though Moldovans continued to be the majority and were concentrated in the countryside, Russians, Ukrainians, Jews and other


people who spoke Russian made up almost one-third of the population and resided mostly in the cities and towns. In the urban areas, Russian became the normal language not only for the transaction of official business but also for social use. The Moldovan upper classes began to send their children to Russian language schools in Bessarabia and universities in Russia. In the rural areas, however, Moldovan speech – now called ‘Bessarabian’ – remained dominant (Livezeanu 1990). By the second half of the nineteenth century, Bessarabia had become a full-fledged Russian province. In it, the Moldovan language steadily lost ground as a cultural vehicle as a result of the continuing standardization of governmental practices and the ongoing settlement of nonMoldovans. In the reign of Alexander II (1855–81) the Imperial government took a step towards russification when it found itself challenged in its control of the area. After Russia lost the Crimean War in 1855, the victorious European powers weakened its position on the Black Sea by awarding some southern districts of Bessarabia to the Principality of Moldova. That entity was emerging from Ottoman overlordship and would, in due course, together with its sister state of Wallachia, establish the Kingdom of Romania. For the two decades in which it held the slice of territory, the principality did much to reinforce Moldovan ways. In reaction, in the rest of Bessarabia, the Imperial government reduced the number of schools which taught in Moldovan. Following the Russo-Turkish War of 1876–77, when Russia regained its lost territory, it subjected the entire province to stronger controls to assure loyalty to the autocracy, obedience to the government and the greater use of the Russian language (van Meurs 1994, pp. 51–2). Sterner efforts at russification were made under Alexander III (1881–94). Russian became the mandatory language of instruction in the schools. Few opportunities were missed to exalt both Russian language and culture. But, even then, increased urbanization and modest economic growth had a greater effect on establishing Russian as the language of preference. The growing cities and towns were multiethnic and multi-cultural enclaves where Russian served as a necessary lingua franca for the population, including the Moldovans who worked there. Though Russian culture set the tone for the province as a whole, the Moldovan tongue remained very much alive outside the urban areas. The overwhelming majority of Moldovan peasants did not go to school and hence were not much affected by the spread of Russian. But through the arrival of other ethnic groups, the demographic data soon showed that the percentage of ethnic Moldovans had decreased rela-


tively. In absolute terms, like other groups, they increased their numbers, but, while they had comprised 86 per cent of the population in 1817, they made up only 48 per cent in 1897 (Livezeanu 1995, pp. 95–6). The Moldovan language was also running the risk of petrification. As educated Bessarabians used Russian, slippage occurred in the level of the native language. Polite society, in eschewing it, took from it the linguistic creativity and innovation that educated speakers and writers naturally have. This loss occurred at the same time that Moldovans were cut off from the renaissance which Romanian was undergoing in the Principalities of Moldova and Wallachia. In the 1860s the language of what was soon to be Romania, was strengthened and modified. To reclaim and reflect their Roman heritage, the intellectuals and made substantial borrowings from French and Latin. They eliminated many Slavic words and changed the orthography of their language, replacing the Cyrillic alphabet with the Latin one. The change came about at least in part from the desire to be more closely connected with Western Europe and to demonstrate distinctiveness from Slavic Eastern Europe (van Meurs 1994, pp. 48–50, 127; Heitmann 1965). As the Romanian language changed, Moldovan remained as it was. Bessarabians soon had trouble understanding visitors from Romania, while the Romanians ridiculed Moldovans for their old fashioned usages. Though illiterate Bessarabians were not affected by the alphabet change in Romania, the educated, who used Cyrillic in writing both their own language and Russian, now found it more difficult to read materials from across the Prut. Linguistic changes had widened a geographic and political divide. Over time, both the educated and the illiterate began to lose sight of the fact that their language was in essence the same one as in Romania. Though the educated might still speak Moldovan in casual conversations, they seldom used it in public discourse or in business dealings. Moldovan as a spoken language was preserved by uneducated villagers who knew no other tongue. Their illiteracy and isolation had the effect of preserving them from the spread of Russian. While villagers were all but untouched by the growth of Russian, the lower-class Moldovans working in the towns were obliged to learn some Russian in order to hold their lowly jobs. The involvement of the urbanized Moldovans in pogroms, such as the Easter Day massacre of Jews in 1903, may have been, in part, a channelling of general resentment and anger into violence against a hapless minority (King 1991, pp. 49–51).


Bessarabians find their voices A modest Moldovan revival occurred in the reign of Nicholas II (1894–1917), despite russification efforts of the government. Young ethnic Bessarabians, who had studied at Russian universities, gained familiarity with the concepts of nationalism and socialism. Some even took an active part in the revolution of 1905. Along with a smaller number of members of their fellow group who were schooled in Bucharest or Iasi in the Kingdom of Romania, they returned to their home province with heady ideas. During the quasi-constitutional period from 1906–13, these young dissidents began to write articles and publish journals in the Moldovan language to present their points of view to members of their fellow ethnic group. There was little response, however, as Bessarabia, like the rest of the Empire, was in a period of relative quiet. As right wing groups of Bessarabians formed organizations in support of the Russian autocracy, the young people on the left founded societies and associations, through which they communicated their thoughts on a range of issues to Moldovan people (van Meurs 1994, pp. 52–3; Livezeanu 1995, p. 96; King 1999, pp. 28–30; Pelivan 1919, p. 7). Russia’s entry into World War I in 1914 soon created conditions under which new ideas could thrive. The breakdown caused by three years of a disastrous war and the two Russian Revolutions of 1917 gave young Moldovans opportunities to take action. The war was first felt in the heavy conscription of young Moldovan men and, even though there were fewer hands left to farm, there were demands for the greater production of grain. Soon, however, as Russia lost control to the Germans of much of its eastern territories, it could no longer govern or protect Bessarabia. Even before the Imperial government collapsed in February, the province was suffering from marauding bands of deserting soldiers. When the monarchy was swept away, Bessarabians were supportive of the Provisional Government in Petrograd (the wartime name of St Petersburg) and showed enthusiasm for becoming a part of a new Russian Democratic Federation which would offer autonomy and civil rights. Unfortunately, under the conditions of ongoing war and revolution, Bessarabians were forced to fend for themselves. Many ethnic Moldovans, along with representatives of other ethnic groups, were propelled into positions of leadership. By their greater numbers, the Moldovans had for once a dominant voice. Many of them, who had been writing articles in their native language, now revived the public use of spoken Moldovan.


Their speeches soon demonstrated its strength and flexibility (Livezeanu 1995, pp. 97–8; 1990, pp. 158–66). As confusion reigned in Petrograd, Bessarabian military and social organizations began in the summer of 1917 to call for the establishment of a governing assembly. Spontaneously arising groups – soldiers’ soviets (councils), peasant associations and ethnic gatherings – elected or appointed members to a National Assembly, called in Moldovan Sfatul T‡a˘rii. The 138 assembly members celebrated at an opening ceremony on 21 November 1917. The deputies were mainly Moldovans but there was also representatives of the other ethnic minorities and of all social classes. There was much collaboration to stem the growing anarchy inside the province as well as to deter the aggression of a now independent Ukraine, which wanted to make Bessarabia a part of its new state. On 2 December, the Sfatul declared that Bessarabia was an autonomous republic which would, when conditions permitted, become part of a democratic Russian federation. However, the assembly was not able to keep order for long and was even chased from its capital by the arrival of detachments of Bolshevik forces. Some members of the Sfatul then decided to invite troops from Romania to suppress disorder and drive out the Bolsheviks. A Romanian army arrived in mid-January 1918 and, by the end of the month, had driven the Reds across the Dniester. On 24 January, 1918, with the prospects of a democratic Russian federation dead, the Sfatul T‡a˘rii proclaimed the independence of the ‘Moldovan Democratic Republic of Bessarabia’. But the Romanian army remained on the scene and affected the course of events which followed. The Sfatul voted on 27 March, 1918 to unite with Romania. The representatives’ options were few. In addition, Romanian troops patrolled Chis‡inau˘, their planes flew overhead and the Romanian prime minister paced the lobby waiting for the decision. Still, the Sfatul set 14 conditions, that is, rights and privileges that Bessarabia would retain before and after the union. Without their acceptance, the arrangement was to become null and void. The conditions included a freely elected regional assembly, control over local budgets and administrative organs, respect for the rights of ethnic minorities, a general amnesty for crimes committed during the war, and the completion of the land redistribution which the socialists in the Sfatul had advanced. By autumn, however, with similar local assemblies in Transylvania, Bukovina and other ‘Romanian’ territories voting for immediate union with the Kingdom, some leaders urged the Sfatul to withdraw its conditions and pass an absolute act of union. Meeting in the middle of the night and without a quorum on


27 November, 1918, the Sfatul voted unconditional union with Romania and, after its decision, dissolved itself. Romania thereby gained Bessarabia and would in 1920 secure international recognition of the annexation; it also took on a tremendous challenge. It now had a Moldovan population which, despite the efforts of intellectuals who preached pan-Romanianism, did not generally think of themselves as Romanian, as well as many minority group members who had no positive feelings for the Kingdom (Livezeanu 1990, pp. 166–70; Roberts 1951, pp. 161–2, 165–9; King 1999, pp. 32–5; van Meurs 1994, pp. 59–72, 354–60, 384–94).

Bessarabia as a province of Romania The Romanians began at once to make changes in the calendar, alphabet and customs, something which did not please the Moldovans, who preferred their own. The innovations caused sufficient dissension to be observed and reported by visitors. Nevertheless, the unification was recognized at the Paris Peace Conference on the basis of the similarity of history and language of the two peoples. Russia’s new Soviet government objected and never abandoned its hope of regaining its ‘lost province’. The irredentism of the Bolsheviks, expressed in raids and attempted subversion, remained a concern to Romania in the years from 1918 to 1940 when it held Bessarabia (van Meurs 1994, pp. 51–2, 72–8, 289–94; King 1999, pp. 37–41). As subjects of the Kingdom of Romania, Moldovans now entered upon a period of Romanian language dominance. With the help of teachers from other parts of the Kingdom, the standard language was widely taught in the Latin alphabet, was used everywhere for official purposes, and was strongly encouraged in other situations. Though Moldovans often resented the fact that people from the kingdom treated them as yokels because of their more antiquated vocabularies and lack of knowledge of how things were done in Bucharest, educated Moldovans now recognized Romanian as their own language. Many of the uneducated peasants, however, hearing strange words, continued to claim that they did not speak Romanian, only Moldovan. Their would-be civilizers soon developed an ambivalence toward them. On the one hand, the villagers were undeniably ‘culture heroes’ who had held on to their language and ways for more than a century; on the other hand, they were so suspicious of Romanian ways that they drove their mentors to distraction (Livezeanu 1995, pp. 100–20; King 1999, pp. 41–51).


In the 1920s, the government launched a campaign of cultural Romanianization, the major targets of which were non-Romanian speakers. Nevertheless, the activities affected Moldovans as well. The intention was to elevate standard Romanian and to establish a new Romanian-speaking intelligentsia in the province. The cultural onslaught was grandiose in its conception, but soon became bogged down because of the lack of funds and the shortage of teachers. Still, the Romanians held on and continued their work. Neither Soviet propaganda efforts nor infiltration from the other shore of the Dniester River succeeded in subverting Bucharest’s control over Bessarabia (Livezeanu 1995, pp. 112–18). The Russian language and culture of course survived in Bessarabia. The number of Russian speakers was sizable and many such speakers were too important to be crudely assimilated, but the Russophones, despite their vigour, now found themselves at a disadvantage. They were able to retain some schools and preserve other public uses of their language, often by appeals to the League of Nations under the terms of the Minority Protection Treaty. In general, Romania only reluctantly complied with minority rights but, nonetheless, Russian was regularly spoken, heard and read, especially in the cities (Livezeanu 1995, pp. 119–20).

The Soviet effort to construct a new Moldovan language To counter Romanian culture in Bessarabia, the Soviets created on the left bank of Dniester River (‘Transnistria’ in Romanian) a tiny ‘autonomous’ area within Ukraine with the name of Moldavian Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic (MASSR). It was intended to be a springboard for the recovery of Bessarabia. Although Moldovans made up only one-third of its population and not all Moldovans in the Ukraine were included in it, the USSR presented it as the true homeland of ‘Moldavians’. (‘Moldova’ in its Russian form is ‘Moldavia’; the name was not a Soviet neologism.) Making obvious the fact that the goal of the MASSR was to gain Bessarabia from Romania, the city of Chis‡inau˘, within Bessarabia, was declared to be its capital. On USSR maps all of Bessarabia was included within its borders. In the new MASSR, Soviet bureaucrats and scholars, including a few ethnic Moldovans, began to develop and apply theories about alleged differences between the ‘Moldavian’ and Romanian ethnic groups and languages. Their goal was to disprove any Romanian claim based on language and ethnic kinship and hence to make the action of incorpo-


ration in 1918 into an illegal act (King 1999, pp. 68–9; van Meurs 1994, pp. 78–9, 112–15, 128–31). The MASSR became a laboratory for Soviet policy makers and cultural planners. Their goal was to ‘moldovanize’, in other words, to construct a new Moldovan identity based on separateness. Though the plan was motivated by Soviet foreign policy objectives, the social and linguistic engineers of the MASSR sincerely wanted to give the culturally backward Moldovans a literary language of their own that would put them on the same level their neighbours. As the basis for it, they selected a spoken dialect of the peasants of central Bessarabia. But it proved difficult to make a successful literary construct. Their first Moldovan grammar book and dictionary were criticized for being too ‘Romanian’. When the leaders made a greater effort to increase the language differences by introducing some 7500 new words based on rural speech, Moldovans did not embrace the innovations (King 1999, pp. 70–4; Deletant 1996, pp. 53–66). By the 1930s, the planners were ordered to stop their concentration on the ‘Moldovanization’ of the language and to pursue two goal for making Moldovans different from Romanians. The first goal was to deny ethnic connections between the two peoples. In response, social engineers defined the special qualities of Moldovans and identified the elements of their national culture. Although history and language were most often used to demonstrate differences, some scholars claimed anthropological variations as well. The second goal was to educate the peasants of the MASSR quickly and bring them into state and party structures. The party and local government set about recruiting greater numbers of ethnic Moldovans, especially women, into leadership roles, establishing schools to promote Moldovan and establishing a Moldovan-language publications programme to provide reading materials for the newly literate. The effort soon encountered great obstacles. The educational level was extremely low. 80 per cent of school-age children came from illiterate families and there were very few trained teachers who could instruct in Moldovan. Though the number of Moldovan children in school increased, few were taught in their own language (King 1999, pp. 75–7). Though the number of publications in the Moldovan language did increase substantially in the late 1920s and 1930s, the intelligibility of what was printed soon became a concern. Critics, for example, argued that the official newspaper Plugarul Ros (The Red Plowman) was too ‘Romanian’ for common people to understand. When the writers and editors used more peasant expressions and vocabulary items, the articles were criticized for being artificial and


unintelligible. Nevertheless, during the First and Second Five Year Plan periods, from the late 1920s to the mid-1930s, adult mass literacy made gains. Programmes took place in village clubs, libraries, museums and other cultural centres. In general, however, the peasants remained at a low educational level and became wary of political propaganda. The neologisms of the constructed ‘Moldovan’ language often impeded new readers’ comprehension. Moldovans did not gain important posts in the government and party. They did secure positions in educational and cultural organs, but later, when the policy was judged a failure, many of them were held accountable and lost their jobs or even their freedom (King 1999, pp. 77–9). In 1930, the MASSR’s cultural policy and leaders found themselves under attack. The Central Committee of the Ukrainian Communist Party – the ‘parent’ organization of the Moldovan Party – detected a ‘right wing’ deviation: allegedly, the cultural policies were spreading nationalism among the people. Leaders were accused of advancing issues of language and ethnography that were difficult for the people to follow and of neglecting other important educational tasks, such as teaching the Russian language and promoting brotherly relations among Soviet peoples. New leaders were appointed but it was too late for any local initiatives. In 1932, authorities in Moscow decreed the use of the Latin alphabet in place of Cyrillic. In the MASSR, Latin orthography had been rejected as the hallmark of the Romanian language. The change at once ended the most obvious visual difference between the Romanian and Moldovan. Though latinization was not aimed at the MASSR alone and was applied to many of the ethnic languages in the Soviet Union, the impact on Moldovan was especially profound since it undermined a much-asserted difference from Romanian. One explanation for Moscow’s action was that Soviet leaders hoped that it would facilitate the Soviet influence not only in Bessarabia but in all of Romania, which was experiencing considerable political turmoil. The Politburo may well have imagined the possibility of gaining not just Bessarabia but the entire kingdom. The official reason given for the change was a more modest one: it would facilitate the study of other languages and would prove easier to teach to illiterates because there were fewer letters in its alphabet. The introduction of the new alphabet was accompanied by a campaign of implementation but it almost immediately floundered because of the scarcity of resources. There was little money to organize programmes, few teachers trained to instruct, and a shortage of Latin alphabet type and typewriters. Even worse, Moldovans seemed uninterested in learning to read and write using


Latin letters and avoided the classes (King 1999, pp. 79–84; van Meurs 1994, p. 130). The change in the alphabet had an important unintended effect on the Moldovan language. Efforts to create a separate Moldovan language had stopped and the differences from Romanian existed only in the claims of the linguistic engineers. Steadily, peasant words and pronunciations and most of the neologisms were dropped. A new grammar book published in the early 1930s resembled a contemporary Romanian one. The primers printed in the new alphabet even contained selections drawn from previously ignored works of Romanian writers. The vocabulary and style of the other side of the Prut was being brought to Moldovans (King 1999, p. 88; van Meurs 1994, p. 130). The Latin alphabet stage did not last long in the MASSR. In 1939 an order came to return to Cyrillic. The ‘latinizers’ were then denounced for polluting the Moldovan language with Romanian. Lists of taboo words were published. A new Cyrillic alphabet, different from the Cyrillic alphabet of the 1920s, was put into place. It proved an adequate device for the transliteration of literary Romanian. The new cultural leadership which stepped to the fore criticized those who had tried to develop a language on the basis of a peasant dialect. The new argument was that, though the literary language needed to be brought as close as possible to the language of the toiling masses, it ought not to be made ‘simpleminded’ (in Moldovan, prost). Thereafter, the grammar, pronunciation and lexicon of Moldovan came to resemble those of standard Romanian. A few peculiarities remained, mostly in the heavy use of Russian scientific terms, but the languages were becoming identical. The MASSR had not lived up to the expectation that it would be the springboard for the recovery of Bessarabia but developments in the MASSR had created for the future both a large number of loyal cadres and many helpful linguistic and ethnographic pseudo-explanations of Moldovan separateness (King 1999, pp. 84–8; van Meurs 1994, p. 130).

The Moldavian Soviet Socialist Republic and the Moldovan language The ‘return’ of Bessarabia occurred through unexpected opportunity. The Nazi-Soviet pact of 1939 and the secret protocol, in which Hitler’s expressed lack of interest in what happened to Bessarabia, encouraged the USSR to demand the cession of the territory. In 1940, the Kingdom of Romania, lacking friends, was forced to comply. The Soviets imme-


diately utilized some of the tendentious scholarship and propaganda churned out in the MASSR to support the seizure; they advanced the myth that Bessarabia was unconnected with Romania either in its language or its ethnicity and argued that it belonged, not with an alien people, but with its Soviet kin. The USSR transformed most of its new acquisition into the Moldavian Soviet Socialist Republic (MSSR or, for short, ‘Moldavia’). Some, but not all, of the territory of the MASSR on the other side of the Dniester, was included in it. The newly created Moldavian SSR was a union-republic, that is, one of the top-level territorial divisions of the union, which, by the Soviet Constitution of 1936, had the theoretical right of secession. That prerogative was meaningless at the time but it became an important matter in 1991 when the Soviet Union was falling apart and the union-republics claimed the right to go their own way. But in 1940 the new Moldavian Soviet Socialist Republic was far from being able to escape its fate (van Meurs 1999, pp. 85–8; 138–41; King 1999, pp. 91–3). The USSR immediately launched a major effort at ‘sovietizing’ the territory by deporting large numbers of ‘Bessarabian’ Moldovans and by placing in leadership positions some more ‘dependable’ Moldovans from the former MASSR and even greater numbers of Russians and Ukrainians. The new bosses launched an attack on private businesses and on the many privately owned farms. They nationalized factories and shops, deported their ‘capitalist’ owners, and initiated with breakneck speed the process of collectivizing agriculture. The Cyrillic alphabet was re-imposed, accompanied by propaganda barrages to the effect that the languages of ‘Moldavians’ and Romanians had nothing in common (Gribincia 1996, pp. 21–41). The sovietization of Moldavia would doubtlessly have gone forward unabated were it not for the Nazi invasion of the USSR in June 1941. The Romanians entered the war as Hitler’s allies, regained Bessarabia and reversed the process of Soviet transformation. The MSSR was again part of the Kingdom of Romania and the standard Romanian language and the Latin alphabet were restored. Private property was given back to owners who had not been deported. Unwisely, the Romanian role did not stop at taking back what had been theirs. They accepted from the Germans control over the area across the Dniester, an area which had never belonged to them. Transnistria, stretching as far as Odessa, soon became a dread place of concentration camps and extermination for hundreds of thousands of Eastern European Jews. The Romanians often outdid the Nazis in their cruel zeal to effect the Final Solution (van Meurs 1994, pp. 88–91, King 1999, pp. 93–4).


In mid-1944, the Red Army succeeded in driving out the Romanians and the Germans. The MSSR was restored and the transformation of the territory and the people was resumed. Transnistrian, Russian and Ukrainian Communist carpetbaggers, who had survived the war elsewhere in the Soviet Union, arrived in droves to take important positions in the Communist Party, the government and the new socialist economy. The so-called ‘anti-social’ elements among the native population were purged. Since Moldovans were the majority population, large numbers of them were deported, often on the pretext that they had collaborated with the fascists. Intellectuals and other potential leaders became special targets (Gribincia 1996, pp. 123–9; King 1999, pp. 95–7). The Soviets re-established the political and linguistic distance that had existed between the MSSR and Romania. The purging, and the earlier flight to Romania at the end of the war, of many writers and other intellectuals, effectively deprived Moldovans of a native intelligentsia. The absence hurt the quality of literature and scholarship for a generation. The Moldovan works that appeared in the late 1940s and the 1950s were the products of people from the former MASSR. Their education had been sporadic and their command of Moldovan was not strong. Many more works were published in the Russian language as outsiders arrived to occupy the top positions in cultural institutions (King 1999, pp. 98, 134–8, 140–1; van Meurs 1994, pp. 131–3). Soviet professors and academicians, drawing largely on the work of the 1920s in the MASSR, refined the arguments that the ‘Moldavians’ were and had always been a people of a different ethnic background, language and historical experience, even in earliest times. A number of Soviet linguists developed arguments that the grammar, syntax and vocabulary of Moldovan were distinct and its sounds, unlike those of Romanian, could only be properly represented by the Cyrillic alphabet. Using Cyrillic was of course mandatory (King 1999, p. 101; Dima 1991, p. 45ff, 94–6; van Meurs 1994, pp. 131–5). Concomitantly, the Soviets continued the process of changing the demographic composition of the MSSR. The republic was hastily put through the distressing processes of collectivization of agriculture. Moldavia had already suffered through the Soviet invasion of 1940, the German and Romanian invasion of 1941, and the Soviet re-conquest of 1944. In the post-war era, hundreds of thousands of people in the countryside were uprooted, deprived of their land and animals, and organized into kolkhozes (collective farms). Agricultural productivity suffered greatly. In addition, severe droughts in 1945 and 1946 all but wiped out the crops. Famine and organized mass deportations between


1946 and 1950 made the situation catastrophic. The great famine in 1946–47 was the result of the government’s decision to requisition grain even though it was needed to feed the people who had raised it. Between the end of 1946 and August 1948, at least 115 000 peasants died of hunger and related illnesses. A ‘dekulakization’ campaign, intended to eradicate supposedly rich peasants, was carried out indiscriminately and eliminated even more people from the villages. Deportations resumed. On two days in July 1947 alone, 11 000 Moldovans were taken to Siberia and Kazakhstan and dumped on the bare ground. Many soon died of hunger and exposure. From 1945 to 1951 some 16 000 more families were sent off to Central Asia and Siberia. After the collectivization campaign was completed, the government put in place in 1955 a programme of so-called ‘voluntary’ migration of peasants to work in the Volga area or Kazakhstan. The districts most affected were those with large Moldovan populations. An estimated 40 000 Moldovans were sent out of the republic. In addition, in the 1950s, Moldovans were subjected to the terror of ‘show’ trials and campaigns to root out non-existent secret organizations and saboteurs (Gribincea 1996, pp. 123–39; King 1999, pp. 100–1). Political conditions improved somewhat after Stalin’s death in 1953. Some deportees were allowed to return. But food shortages continued and the leadership of the Republic remained largely in the hands of outsiders. The MSSR became a place of on-the-job training for rising Slavic political figures, some of whom, like Leonid Brezhnev, went on to become leaders of the Communist Party of the USSR. The few Moldovans who achieved high office were usually the more slavicized ‘Transnistrians’, rather than the ‘Bessarabians’. In the countryside, where Moldovans remained numerically dominant, the largely Slavic managers of the collective farms and agro-businesses became the economic elite. They joined the predominantly Slavic leaders of the Communist Party of Moldova (CPM) and the administrators of the union-republican government, who were the political elite (Dima 1991, pp. 46–7). Even as deportation and resettlement of Moldovans were going on, many other people from all across the Soviet Union were brought in to take the better jobs in new industries. The newcomers were outsiders, people who had no connection with Moldavia and did not want to, nor need to, learn Moldovan. Russian was the lingua franca for all the ethnic groups employed in industry and in the towns. Though the Soviet constitution gave nominally equal status with Russian to the language of the titular national group in each republic, Russian was the


de facto official language. Moldovan was little taught beyond elementary school. With few exceptions, middle and higher schools utilized Russian as their instructional language while Moldovan was not even a required subject. As under the Russian Empire, the cities and towns were Russian-speaking, a place where the Moldovans who settled needed to learn at least some of the dominant language (Dima 1991, pp. 71–89; King 1999, p. 101). Although efforts to construct a separate Moldovan language had ceased, the government of the MSSR realized that interaction between its citizens and Romanians might undermine the claim of distinctiveness. Accordingly, cultural contacts were reduced between the MSSR and its neighbour across the Prut. The importation of Romanian books and journals was stopped. Visits to Romania were generally not allowed. Despite governmental efforts to limit influences, the years from 1960 to 1980 were nonetheless the time in which literary Romanian quietly spread among educated speakers and writers of Moldovan. Cyrillic spelling had to remain but what was written and spoken by the educated became more and more similar to standard Romanian. By the 1960s scholars across the Prut noted the changes in Moldovan writing. Outside of the Cyrillic alphabet and the loanwords and acronyms from Russian, there was now little to distinguish the two languages in their literary forms. Affected much more slowly was the speech of the peasantry, who still lived together in largely homogeneous villages and socialized within their own ethnic group. Their numbers were growing despite deportations because they had a much higher birthrate than either the Russians or Ukrainians. Since they often had gone no further than lower school, most lacked fluency in Russian. Together with their attitudes, separate lifestyle, and higher birthrate, their relative ignorance of Russian kept assimilation from happening among them (Livezeanu 1981, pp. 573–92; King 1999, p. 101; Eyal 1990, p. 127). The Moldovans who were in danger of losing their native language were those who had been resettled; they often became assimilated. Less imperilled were those who lived and worked in the Russian-speaking towns inside the MSSR because most of them retained a close association with villages. Moreover, the urban Moldovan population was steadily growing and there were more people in the towns to whom one could speak in the native tongue. Somewhat affected were the young Moldovans who went to Russian-language institutions for their middle and higher education. Though they did not forget their language, many became more comfortable in professional situations in


speaking and writing Russian. Facility in Russian in the 1960s and 1970s was crucial to career mobility, both in terms of rising in your job and in gaining employment in other parts of the USSR. The young people who failed to attend Russian schools generally found themselves with limited career mobility even within the MSSR (Crowther 1991, p. 189; King 1999, p. 101; Arutunian 1980, pp. 113, 176). As a result of deportations, resettlement and in-migration, Moldovans decreased from 68.8 per cent of the population in 1941 to 63.9 per cent in 1979, rising slightly to 64.5 per cent in 1989. In the same years, Ukrainians increased from slightly more than 11 per cent in 1941 to almost 14 per cent in 1989. Russians increased from 6.7 per cent to 13 per cent. Minority ethnic groups, including the Gagauz and the Bulgarians, suffered a relative decline (King 1999, pp. 97, 99–100; Fischer-Galati, 1973, pp. 1–3). Moldovans not only lost some of their demographic predominance but, until the late 1960s, lacked native leaders. The Moscow-oriented Metropolitan Orthodox Church was not an effective national agency. No great writers or scientists had yet emerged in the former Bessarabia since the devastation of the 1940s and 1950s. But a new generation was emerging in the MSSR, one that was better educated and already accustomed to the literary language of Romania. They soon got help from their kin across the Prut (King 1999, p. 111; Dima 1991, pp. 96–100). In Romania, intellectuals and scholars had wanted since 1945 to present their views on Moldova and the Moldovan language but were forced by their own regime, which was appropriately fearful of the USSR, to maintain two decades of silence. After the mid 1960s, however, two leaders of the People’s Republic of Romania, Gheorghe Georghiu-Dej and, especially, Nicolae Ceaus¸escu, though archly Stalinist in their internal policies, were nationalistic with regard to the ‘Bessarabian question’. Ceaus¸escu in particular encouraged his historians, linguists and ethnographers to focus on the commonalities between Romania and Moldova. At first they published their findings in recondite journals. Later on, however, they wrote articles for the population at large. These publications fell into the hands of the new group of Moldovans (King 1999, pp. 111–12; Dima 1991, pp. 47–59). In the MSSR, younger ethnic intellectuals were taking their places in the cultural establishments. Interested in their language and history, they began to raise questions. Why did ‘Moldavians’ play so small a role in the union-republic which bore their name? Why was ‘Moldavian’, an official language of the union-republic that bore its name, not used equally with Russian? Why were leaders and adminis-


trators not required to use the national language in all governmental and legal matters? And, why was ‘Moldavian’ not taught at all levels in the schools? Their questions received no immediate answers as the political leadership in Kishinev intensified the effort to keep out books, magazines and newspapers from Romania. Nonetheless, Moldovans received steady affirmation that their language was the same as Romanian. Journals and books from across the Prut were smuggled in and were passed from hand to hand. Moreover, Moldovan speakers could listen to Romanian radio, which began to broadcast with a new, more powerful transmitter from Ias‡i, just across the river. Hearing standard Romanian spoken reinforced the process of making the two languages identical. The influences from across the Prut strengthened intellectuals’ desire to get answers to the questions that they had been asking. To combat the barrage from across the Prut, the Moldovan Communist Party leaders commissioned a counter-literature to ‘prove’ the uniqueness of the Moldovan past. Hand-picked scholars reinterpreted the same archaeological and historical evidence that the Romanians used. Whenever the evidence did not suffice for their side of the argument, they merely increased the stridency of their arguments. Unfortunately for them, changes soon occurred in Moscow which affected the language questions (Dima 1991, pp. 47–54; King 1999, pp. 131–8).

The Moldovan language in the age of perestroika After Mikhail Gorbachev came to power in the mid-1980s, his policies of glasnost’ and perestroika had the unintended effect of stimulating regionalism and nationalism. Ethnic Moldovans were not alone in reacting to opportunities to comment on a half-century of Soviet mistakes. All the peoples of the MSSR had reasons to be dissatisfied. Moldova had been made unhealthy by pollution and environmental destruction, especially through the excessive use of fertilizers and chemicals. Moreover, since the 1970s, the republic had also experienced economic decline, made worse by the corruption of government officials and industrial and farm managers. The movements that began were not single-minded but the disparities among them were not visible at first. Moldovans, the largest group within the republic, took the lead. By the mid 1980s, they could make their voices heard: they were a majority not just in the countryside but in many of the towns. In addition, they had critical numbers in key places, which could later provide crowds for demonstrations. The language issues clearly excited


the new town-dwellers. As a people recently come to a new milieu, they clearly saw the benefits in having their own language raised in importance (King 1999, p. 102; Dima 1991, pp. 141–2). The stirrings in Moldova were documented in early 1988 when a report from the 20th Moldovan Komsomol Congress described unrest among the ethnic groups and blamed it on insufficient use of Moldovan and other local languages. Further revelations occurred a few months later during the preparation for the 19th Conference of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU). The Secretary of the Communist Party of Moldova (CPM), Semion Grossu, submitted a plan to increase ethnic harmony by encouraging greater ‘national-Russian bilingualism’, advancing both Moldovan and Russian. In practice, as everyone understood, this would continue the de facto dominance of Russian. Grossu repeated his recommendations at the conference, only to receive the reply that his approach was not reducing public discontent. New organizations, whose existence was made possible by glasnost’ and perestroika, emerged to advance other ideas on the language situation. They were ‘informal groups’ like the Moldovan Movement in Support of Perestroika and the Alexei Mateevici Literary–Musical Club. Their members included writers, journalists and educators. They called for the party to increase Moldovan-language educational opportunities and address the ‘white spaces’ in Bessarabian history such as the annexations of 1812 and 1940. The ‘informals’ were not originally political but they soon turned into an organized opposition to the CPM leadership. In Moscow, Chairman Gorbachev welcomed the movements as indicators of both the growth of, and the need for, perestroika. As a result, the ‘informals’ often bypassed the local party leadership and appealed directly to Moscow (King 1999, pp. 122–3; King 1991, p. 115; Foreign Broadcast Information Service Daily Report – Soviet Union 21-04-88, p. 109; Dima 1991, pp. 143–4). The ‘informals’ over time went beyond cultural questions to urge such changes as the transformation of the Soviet Union into a union of sovereign states, the establishment of a market economy with mixed property ownership, legal guarantees of human rights, and stronger environmental policies. But they did not forget their original issues. They demanded that the Romanian and Moldovan languages be acknowledged as identical, that Moldovan be designated as the state language of the MSSR, and that Moldovan be written with the Latin alphabet. Though the CPM denounced the views of the ‘informals’, their leaders were able to call together huge mass meetings which were soon too large for the local party to ignore or to easily suppress,


especially under the watchful and reform-oriented gaze of Moscow (King 1999, p. 124; Crowther 1991, pp. 190–1). In part because of Grossu’s heavyhandedness with respect to the language issue, the CPM began to lose control. The Supreme Soviet of the MSSR, once its rubber stamp, now came to the fore. In July 1988 it formed, together with the Moldovan Academy of Sciences, an Interdepartmental Commission for the Study of the History and Problems of the Development of Moldovan. The charge to the commission was to look into the history of Moldova, the appropriate alphabet for writing the language, and the future status of the Moldovan language. Before the report was ready, the CPM leadership brought out a set of guidelines on language policy. Their document asserted that any one considering a greater role for the Moldovan tongue needed to take into account ‘the Leninist nationalities’ policy’ and the role of other languages spoken in the republic. The recommended approach was, predictably, the development of ‘full national-Russian bilingualism’ because Russian was the natural language of interethnic communication, both within Moldova and with the other Soviet republics. The party guidelines also asserted that the Cyrillic alphabet remained the only appropriate medium for writing Moldovan, both because it had served the language well from early times and fitted its phonetic structure. Adopting the Latin alphabet, it was claimed, would hurt cultural development and cause much of the population to become functionally illiterate. The guidelines made one statement that the opposition could use. A passage read: ‘Moldovan and Romanian are languages of the same Romance group. Between them there is not a great deal of difference’. Leaders of the informal organizations ridiculed the party’s document for admitting that though the two languages were admitted to be nearly the same, nonetheless they needed to be viewed as distinct and kept apart. The lack of logic and the unresponsiveness to the issues soon led to a reaction not previously seen in the MSSR: picketing, large demonstrations, numerous petitions with lengthy signature pages, and a massive letter-writing campaign. So great was the uproar that the Communist Party of Moldavia withdrew its guidelines with the lame explanation that they had been offered merely to promote discussion. At the end of December 1988 the Interdepartmental Commission published its recommendation that the demands of the informal groups be accepted and implemented (King 1999, pp. 124–5, 127–8; King 1991, pp. 117–19; Socor, 12 May 1989, p. 6). In May 1989, the leaders of the ‘informals’ established an umbrella organization called the Popular Front of Moldova. The use of the term


‘of Moldova’, rather than ‘Moldovan’ is evidence that there was intention to include other ethnic groups. The 200 delegates that met in Chisinau to create a numerically impressive but amorphous body included representatives from the Russian, Ukrainian, Bulgarian and Gagauz populations. The Front soon issued a 20-point programme, including demands for political restructuring, sovereignty and environmental cleanup. Also included were the fundamental cultural issues: finding a solution to the question of Moldovan identity and making Moldovan the state language of the republic (Socor, 09-06-89, pp. 23–6). In the summer of 1989, the experts and staff members prepared drafts of language legislation for the Supreme Soviet’s consideration. Moldovan politicians soon acted like political leaders everywhere, taking public positions on questions and communicating their views to, and asking for the opinions of, their constituents (King 1999, pp. 129–30; van Meurs 1994, pp. 95–7; Socor, 1989 1:11). Unfortunately, the wording of the draft laws soon disturbed interethnic relations. Tensions rather quickly arose as Slavs and Gagauz felt threatened by the loss in status of Russian. When the perestroika period had begun, Moldovans, Slavs and Gagauz all wanted to reduce Moscow’s control and to end micro-management from afar, as well as corruption and pollution. But now, non-Moldovans began to pull away. The Gagauz had already begun in April to organize separately. Among Russophones, a large organization opposed to the primacy of the Moldovan language was formed in the summer of 1989. It was called Edinstvo (Unity) and was a branch of a movement existing across the Soviet Republics to bring together opposition to nativist cultural reforms. Edinstvo had its first meeting in Chisinau in July 1989 and drew support from some local Russians and Russophones (King 1999, pp. 138–9; Dima 1999, pp. 148–50). Demonstrations by both the Popular Front and Edinstvo occurred as the Supreme Soviet deliberated the language issues in late August 1989. Just outside its meeting place in Chis‡inau˘, the Popular Front of Moldova applied pressure by convening what it called a ‘Grand National Assembly’ (Marea Adunare Nat‡ionala˘). It was a gigantic mass rally that claimed to represent the will of the Moldovan people. The assembly was attended by half a million people, some of whom carried Romanian flags and placards printed in Latin script. The crowd listened to speeches by intellectuals and public figures who discussed taboo subjects in Moldovan history and asserted that Moldovan culture had been weakened over the previous half-century. Though the language


issue was discussed, it was placed within a larger agenda of political issues. The Popular Front later published the views of the assembly’s leaders in a document entitled ‘On State Sovereignty and Our Right to the Future’. It outlined the history of the region by dealing with the Russian seizure in 1812 of half of the Ottoman province of Moldova to create Bessarabia, the 1918 unification of Bessarabia with Romania, and the Soviet seizure of Bessarabia in 1940. The document demanded full national sovereignty and claimed local control over all resources and a veto power over laws of the USSR which might contravene those of the republic. Also contained in the document were demands for control over foreign policy, a new law on citizenship, and the right of secession from the USSR. The leaders of the Front believed that they were expressing everyone’s accumulated grievances against Soviet power. Yet by their emphasis on the special role for the Moldovan language, they caused concern among others. In support of counterpositions, in places with large Russian and Russian-speaking populations, like the Transnistrian cities of Tiraspol, Bendery and Rîbnit‡a, workers protested against making Moldovan the state language. To a large extent, their strikes came about under the instigation of the Russophone political and economic elite of the Transnistrian area who feared the loss of their positions and perquisites if Moldovans came to power in the Republic. More than 100 enterprises, mainly in Transnistria, went on strike. At the same time, the Gagauz took steps to declare their independence and proclaim their own sovereign state within southern Moldova (King 1999, pp. 140, 186–7). Despite the turmoil, the Supreme Soviet voted for new language laws on August 31 1989. Moldovan alone was given the status of a state language. A clause guaranteed protection to the Gagauz language while another ascribed to Russian the role of language of interethnic communication, both between the Soviet republics and among ethnicities within the MSSR. The clauses did not allay fears and suspicions. NonMoldovans resented the fact that state employees would be expected to become competent enough to carry out their duties in Moldovan in five years when a language test would be administered to them. The laws referred to the state language only as ‘Moldovan’. By avoiding the word ‘Romanian’ the lawmakers may have felt that they were allaying the concerns of non-Moldovans. If so, they were mistaken (Chinn and Kaiser 1996, pp. 168–72). In their demonstrations, the Moldovans were not leaderless, any more than the Transnistrian strikes were leaderless. The language issue had spurred a national movement, but it came not so much from a


spontaneous uprising as from the emerging elite’s encouragement and organization of people of less sophistication. Among the self-appointed leaders were younger intellectuals and academics who were eager to replace the previous generation and to advance historical and linguistic accuracy. In the countryside, Moldovan schoolteachers, whose numbers had greatly increased after May 1987 when more instruction in non-Russian languages was mandated, gave them avid support. The teachers also ignited among their students a zeal for both Moldovan language and culture. Urban Moldovans proved especially open to the arguments of the intellectuals. While the leaders believed the villages to be the sources of strength, their most significant support came from the towns, where men and women, who had relatively recently arrived, knew that few of their fellow ethnics had as yet reached higher managerial positions. Their dissatisfaction and their numbers provided the pressure for effecting change (King 1999, pp. 132, 255 ff.36; 145–6). Moldovan politicians and administrators, who were not a part of Grossu’s inner circle, embraced perestroika and worked with the Popular Front to advance the language issues (King 1999, pp. 133–8). The emergent politicians were men in their forties who had been born in ‘Bessarabia’. Their predecessors were mainly aging men from across the Dniester, whether Russian, Ukrainian and Moldovan, who, in 1944, were seen as more trustworthy because they were already sovietized. More comfortable in Russian than in Moldovan, they became entrenched in high Party, state and cultural posts until the 1980s. Their younger rivals were better educated and had had the experience of working in the countryside as heads of districts or as managerdirectors of collectives. They understood the Moldovan rural population and were often of peasant origin themselves. Most of them spoke Moldovan with facility, though all were also comfortable in Russian (King 1999 pp. 134–5; Crowther 1991, p. 186). Unlike the old-timers, the new politicians were willing to work with the ‘informals’, which could serve as the means of advancement over a group that was already in disfavour in Moscow. But problems lay ahead. The leaders of the informal groups had acted as if all their goals were shared by other ethnicities, but, by the time the Popular Front had been established, some were prepared to advance Moldovan interests at the expense of other people, especially ‘Russian oppressors’. Worse still, some of Popular Front leaders began to promote the idea of merger with Romania, particularly after the unpopular Ceaus¸escu regime was ended there in December 1989. Other


ethnicities began to pull away. Among them were the Transnistrians, whose Russophone leaders resented the rise of the ‘Bessarabian’ elites, and the Gagauz, who feared forcible assimilation into Romanian culture and perhaps even into Romania. Fault lines began to appear among the Moldovans themselves. As the more radical members of the Front pushed for union with Romania, more moderate people were focused on gaining control over cultural and economic resources within a looser Soviet federation (King 1999, pp. 142, 146, 151). Through the elections to the MSSR Supreme Soviet in February and March 1990, the Popular Front gained power, particularly when the Gagauz and Transnistrian deputies walked out in protest against Moldovan nationalism. As more extreme members of the Front became the dominant voices, divisions within Moldovan society grew wider. Public opinion polls in 1990 indicated serious disagreements on the future of the Republic. The political fall-out from the language laws and the Front’s control of the legislature marked the onset of violent conflict. Because the Front was in power, the minorities were no longer contending with an interest group but rather with the government itself. The disputes with the Transnistrians and Gagauz, which had been brewing, escalated as the ministers of state became highhanded and arbitrary in their treatment of non-Moldovans, including purging some from important cultural institutions and reducing Russian language instruction in the schools. As ethnic Moldovans witnessed the rapid Romanianization of street names and public symbols, they understandably feared the worst with regard to union with Romania (King 1999, p. 225). The Transnistrians and Gagauz now took steps to establish their own political entities and declare themselves as independent of Moldova. In August 1990, the ‘Republic of Gagauzia’ was declared across five southern districts and the ‘Dniester Moldovan Republic’ was proclaimed in Transnistria in September 1990. Battles began between Moldovan police and the often better armed irregulars who supported the minorities (King 1999, pp. 217–20). Because of the economic importance of Transnistria, the revolt there was of great consequence to the Moldovan government. The area on the ‘left’ bank of the Dniester (looking south from Moscow) differed considerably from the rest of Moldova. It had had a distinctive history from the end of the eighteenth century to 1940. In the years after World War II, it had achieved a higher degree of industrialization and urbanization than the rest of the MSSR. Although a first glance at its statistics would lead to the conclusion that the Moldovans constituted


a plurality in the area, the Slavs, taken together, outnumbered them. Ukrainians were the next largest group, followed by Russians, but it was the Russian language and culture which they shared. Many of the residents were relative newcomers, living in a Soviet-style environment without a connection to Moldova proper. Transnistrians also had their own emerging leaders, who, like their counterparts in Chis‡inau˘, wanted to hold on to their positions and achieve their own agendas. In Tiraspol, the largest city of the area, politicians and factory managers strongly influenced the counter-movement. Since the language issue and the fear of a union with Romania truly distressed many Russophones, they were easily drawn to them. What was happening, however, was not a simple division between Slavs and Moldovans. Many Russians and Ukrainians supported the central government while Moldovans were to be found among the defenders of Transnistria. In Moldova proper, there were three times as many Russians and Ukrainians than in Transnistria; most proved loyal to their government. It was not ethnicity that determined political stance but cultural orientation (King 1999, pp. 178–94; O’Loughlin et al. 1998, pp. 332–58). In 1991, the government of Moldova was insufficiently sensitive to minority concerns. As a result, by 1992, the new republic soon found itself in a short but bitter civil war with Transnistria for its territorial integrity. The battling soon drew to the rebel side some Cossack irregulars as well as other Russian volunteers from all over the former USSR. In addition, the 14th Army, a force left on Moldovan territory from Soviet times, entered the fray. It received a charge from the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) to restore the peace between the two sides, but, from the start, its officers and enlisted personnel, many of whom were residents of the area, supported Transnistria. The Army’s weapons and troops were used in the battles. Russia took control of the force from the CIS in part to keep its arsenals and men out of Transnistrian hands (Socor, 22-08-92; Kolsto et al. 1992, pp. 973–1000). After the bloodshed of 1992, the conflict settled into a cold war. The ‘Dniester Moldavian Republic’ (DMR), unrecognized by any nation which itself had legal status, was protected by Russian troops. In the breakaway statelet, three languages – Russian, Ukrainian and Moldovan – were recognized as official but it was the Moldovan language which suffered from discrimination. By law it could not be taught or written except in Cyrillic letters. The Soviet effort of 1920s to differentiate


‘Moldavian’ from Romanian appeared to be still active (Dima 1999, pp. 52–3; ‘Russification …’, 15-10-92). Moldovan leaders began to work to bring about a reunion with Transnistria and to negotiate with the government of Russia for the removal of its troops. While the then President of the Russian Federation, Boris Yeltsin, from time to time publicly urged the resolution of the conflict and agreed in 1994 to a gradual pullout of Russian forces, little happened. Agreements were reached and signed but never ratified. Moreover, some members of the Russian Duma, and other Russian nationalists over the years, stiffened the resistance of the Dniester Republic by promising it aid and support. The Transnistrians vigorously opposed any plan for the removal of Russian troops and induced the Russians to tie any withdrawal to the achievement of a total resolution of the conflict with Moldova. By resisting various plans through quibbling and non-performance of agreements, the Transnistrians stalled a reunion. The President of the DMR has frequently asserted that his state deserved recognition as an independent entity and that the only acceptable basis for discussing reunion would be as two equal and independent states. Desperate to recover a key industrial region, Moldova offered the broadest forms of autonomy and participation in setting internal and foreign policy but stopped short of conceding the unitary nature of the state. A decade has now passed since the Transnistrian declaration of independence. Reunion is no closer even though the Moldovan government has greatly improved since that time in its attitudes toward minorities and their languages (King 1999, pp. 198–208; O’Loughlin et al. 1998, p. 353). At the time that interethnic strife was heating up in late 1991, another Moldovan group was rejecting the idea of merger with Romania. Some former communists took up the cause of Moldovan independence. In February 1991, the then presiding officer of the Supreme Soviet, Mircea Snegur, later to be the country’s first president, called attention to differences with ‘our sister country, Romania’ and emphasized the desire of Moldovans for sovereignty. The doctrine of ‘two Romanian states’ – separate but friendly – had emerged. It also reflected the attitude of the Moldovan people who in opinion polls overwhelmingly preferred independence. Other factors in advancing the goal of independence included a delayed reaction to decades of propaganda about the separateness of the MSSR, the political aspirations of Moldovan politicians, the unimpressive political and economic conditions of the ‘motherland’, which disappointed visiting


Moldovans, and, lastly, the memory of the interwar years when Bessarabia had been the poorest and most miserable of the Romanian provinces (King 1999, pp. 149–51, 152–3). Though Moldovan leaders had demonstrated their intention to take their republic out of the Soviet Union in the spring of 1991, it was the August coup by communist hardliners in Moscow against Gorbachev which provided the occasion for the break. On 27 August, 1991, the Moldovan parliament declared the independence of the new Republic of Moldova (King 1999, pp. 152–3).

The politics of language in the Republic of Moldova After the civil war with Transnistria, the Popular Front lost much of its following and gave way to leaders who adopted ‘Moldovanism’ as their political stance. In February, 1994, in preparation for upcoming elections, the leaders of the then dominant party, the Agrarian Democrats, organized a well-publicized conference on national identity, entitled ‘Our Home, the Republic of Moldova’. Speakers emphasized the need for consolidating independence and regaining territorial integrity. Mircea Snegur, first President of the Republic, who as the presiding officer of the Supreme Soviet had recognized the Romanian heritage of Moldova, now condemned Pan-Romanianism. He accused Moldova’s intellectuals, who were the activists in the movement, of doubting ‘the historical foundation of our right to be a state, to call ourselves the Moldovan people’. He used some of the arguments of the MSSR when he asserted that in Romania ‘… (O)ur brother or sister speaks a little bit differently from the way we do’. The printed version of Snegur’s speech emphasized Moldovan separatism by citing references to Romanian historical and literary works in which the term Moldovan was used to describe the ethnic majority of Bessarabia. He also developed the argument that Moldova was merely returning to independence, having been a self governing principality in the fourteenth century and, more recently, a short-lived republic in 1917–18. The ‘Moldovanist’ line aided Snegur’s party, led by former communist directors of industry and collective farms, to win the election of 1994 and secure a majority in parliament. The most significant minority party was, however, the Socialist Unity Bloc, which not only opposed pan-Romanianism but advocated the use of Russian as the republic’s official language. The bloc drew its strength from Russophones and from some older Moldovans who were disadvantaged by the Western-oriented economic policies of the majority party (King 1999, pp. 153–6).


The new government set about reversing or suspending some aspects of the language policies which had offended ethnic minorities. The constitution adopted in 1994 did not use the name Romanian for the Moldovan language and made no mention of the relationship between Romanian and Moldovan. The language tests for state employees mandated by the 1989 laws were suspended and the State Department of Languages, which had been charged with checking on employees’ facility in Moldovan, was all but closed down. Though there were periodic demonstrations by former Frontists and, especially, teachers and students, against the language decisions, the year marked the point at which Moldova became in actuality a bilingual state. Though the government embarked on an effort to conciliate the Russophones, the dominance of the Moldovan language grew as people saw in its mastery a stepping stone to success in the republic, just as a generation earlier they had regarded the mastery of Russian. Many parents now preferred to send their children to Moldovan schools. Despite that, Russian continues to be much spoken, read and written (King 1999, pp. 159–60). Since 1994, the Moldovan government has tried to build a nation on a civic, multi-ethnic basis rather than on Moldovan ethnicity. It has emphasized the historic multi-ethnic heritage of both Bessarabia and Transnistria. The 1994 constitution did not call Moldova a ‘national state’ of Moldovans but rather referred with inclusive language to the ‘people of the Republic of Moldova’, Article 111 of the Constitution made a commitment to a special autonomous status for the most ethnically heterogeneous areas. The 1991 citizenship law had already been a liberal one, declaring that all persons living in the republic as of June 1990 were eligible to become citizens regardless of their ethnicity, language, length of residence or other criteria. The new Moldovan passports do not have a line for ethnicity in the way Soviet passports used to. The State Department for National Relations and the Institute for National Minorities within the Academy of Sciences provides governmental support for minority cultural activities and native language instruction. By its policies and actions, Moldova has won the praise of the Ukraine, Bulgaria and Turkey for the treatment of their ethnic kin. International organizations have lauded the steps toward the creation of a civic-based inclusive state. From their historical experience, Moldovans have drawn on a reservoir of interethnic tolerance, making multi-ethnicity again became a source of national pride (King 1999, pp. 168–77). Though the supporters of union with Romania are by no means gone and can still provoke demonstrations over the name of the


national language or over the demand that Romanian rather than Moldovan history be taught in the schools, they appear at present to be marginalized. Yet, in future, a sinkhole may open. Many young Moldovan students are imbibing with their lessons the panRomanianism of their teachers. They are often the major participants in pro-Romanian demonstrations. When they supplant their elders in 15 or 20 years, what may the political and linguistic results be (King 1999, pp. 227–30)?

The future of the politics of language in Moldova Unsurprisingly, as pan-Romanianism and Romanian irredentism surface from time to time, most Moldovan leaders have come to view Romanian intentions toward their country with some suspicion and irritation. They have, however, welcomed and organized a high degree of cultural interaction with their neighbour but nevertheless reject the notion of an inevitable future merger. There is an irony: they seem at times to echo their earlier counterparts in the Moldavian SSR when they retort that the Moldovan language has small differences in syntax, pronunciation and vocabulary from standard Romanian speech. They stand on firmer ground when they assert the very real differences in the historical experiences of the two countries during the last two hundred years. The language issue remains alive. Transnistrians are still suspicious of Moldovan intentions. But the country is rising above the linguistic divisions of the recent past. It is not age-old hate that separates, but rather the reflections of a different economic system and culture, and of the violence that occurred just a short time ago. In a country that is willing to extend linguistic and cultural freedom to all its citizens and to provide autonomy and special status where they are needed, political reintegration may yet prevail.

Note 1. The terms relating to Moldova, its largest group of people, their language and their territory are often confusing. Moldovans are the majority ethnic group in a multi-ethnic state whose name their republic bears. The Russianlanguage form for ‘Moldovan’ is ‘Moldavian’. Under either name, they are similar in ethnic background to their neighbours, the Romanians The languages of the two peoples are all but identical. They did not, however, share

152 Language, Ethnicity and the State, vol. 2 much of their recent histories. Most Moldovans at the present time do not feel that they are Romanian. Many politically-motivated attempts have been made since 1812 to convince the Moldovans of what they were or were not, and several efforts at linguistic engineering have taken place. As argued here, the efforts have had much to do, perhaps in unexpected ways, with the creation of the Moldovan national identity of today. To reduce confusion, I have used the term ‘Moldovan’ as much as possible to refer to the majority ethnic group and its language. The exceptions occur when another term from history better expresses the sense of the event. On the other hand, for the geographical terms, I have generally applied the chronologically correct term: Moldova, Bessarabia, the Moldavian Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic (MASSR), the Moldavian Soviet Socialist Republic (MSSR), and the Republic of Moldova. I have used either the Russian form of the name of the Moldovan capital, Kishinev, or the Moldovan form, Chis‡inau˘, depending on the linguistic usage of the people in charge at the time. For the territory across the Dniester River on which the MASSR and, more recently, the Dniester Moldovan Republic (DMR) were formed, I have used the Moldovan-language form ‘Transnistria’ instead of such linguistically mixed terms as Transdniester, Trans-Dniester and Transdniestria. They are all the same place. For a balanced introduction to the origins of Moldovans, see Kristof (1974, pp. 22–4). Russians claim a larger role for the early Slavs in the formation of the Moldovan people. Romanians reject the Slavic role. Moldovans, the people between, accept and reject whatever strands please them. The author wishes to thank the University of Tampa for a Delo grant which made the completion of this chapter possible.

Bibliography Arutunian, V. Opyt etnosotsialisticheskogo issledovaniia obraza zhizni: po materialam moldovskoi SSR (Moscow: Nauka, 1980). Chinn, J. and Kaiser, R. Russians as the New Minority: Ethnicity and Nationalism in the Soviet Successor States (Boulder, Colorado, Westview Press, 1996). Clark, C.U. Bessarabia: Russia and Roumania on the Black Sea (New York: Dodd, Mead, 1927). Clem, R.S. (ed.) The Soviet West: Interplay between Nationality and Social Organization (New York: Praeger, 1975). Crowther, W. The Politics of Ethno-National Mobilization: Nationalism and Reform in Soviet Moldavia, Russian Review, 50 (April 1991), 183–203. Deletant, D. Language Policy and Linguistic Trends in the Republic of Moldavia, 1924–1991, in D.L. Dyer (ed.) Studies in Moldovan (Boulder, Colorado: East European Monographs distributed by Columbia University Press, New York, 1996), pp. 53–88. Dima, N. From Moldavia and Moldova: the Soviet–Romanian Territorial Dispute (Boulder, Colorado: East European Monographs, distributed by Columbia University Press, 1991).

Thomas J. Hegarty 153 Dima, N. The Moldavian-Dnestr Republic: a Geo-Political Game, Journal of Social, Political and Economic Studies. 24, 1 (Spring 1990) 38–63. Dyer, D.L. (ed.) Studies in Moldovan (Boulder, Colorado: East European Monographs distributed by Columbia University Press, New York, 1996). Eyal, J. Moldavians, in G. Smith (ed.), The Nationalities Question in the Soviet Union (London and New York: Longman, 1990) pp. 123–45. Feldman, W. The Theoretical Basis for the Definition of Moldovan Nationality, in R.S. Clem (ed.), The Soviet West: Interplay between Nationality and Social Organization (New York: Praeger, 1975), pp. 46–59. Fischer-Galati, S. Moldavia and the Moldavians, Section V, Culture, in the volume: Project C/73-13, Attitudes of Major Soviet Nationalities, vol. V, Moldavia (Cambridge, Massachusetts. Center for International Studies, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 1973), 1–3. Foreign Broadcast Information Service Daily Report – Soviet Union (hereafter FBISSOV). (Washington, DC: FBIS-SOV, 21 April 1988, 1–9. Gribincia, M. Agricultural Collectivization in Moldavia: Basarabia during Stalinism, 1944–1950 (Boulder, Colorado: East European Monographs distributed by Columbia University Press, New York, 1996). Heitmann, K. Rumänische Sprache und Literatur in Bessarabien und Transnistrian (Die sogennante moldauische Sprache und Literatur), Zeitschrift fur Romanische Philologie, 81, 1–2 (1965), 102–56. Jewsbury, G.F. The Russian Annexation of Bessarabia: 1774–1828: a Study of the Imperial Expansion (Boulder, Colorado: East European Monographs, 15, 1976). Jewsbury, G.F. An Overview of the History of Bessarabia, in M. Manoliu-Manea (ed.), The Tragic Plight of a Border Area: Bessarabia and Bucovina (Los Angeles: Humboldt State University Press, California, 1983), pp. 1–18. King, C. The Politics of Language in the Moldovan Soviet Socialist Republic, in D.L. Dyer (ed.), Studies in Moldovan (Boulder: East European Monographs, distributed by Columbia University Press, New York, 1991). King, C. The Moldovans: Romania, Russia, and the Politics of Culture (Stanford, California, Hoover Institution Press, 1999). Kolstø, P. and Edemsky, A. with N. Kalashnikova. The Dniester Conflict: Between Irredentism and Separatism, Europe-Asia, 45, 6 (1992) 973–1000. Kristof, Ladis K.D. Russian Colonialism and Bessarabia: a Confrontation of Cultures, Nationalities Papers, 2, 2 (1974) 22–4. Livezeanu, I. Urbanization in a Low Key and Linguistic Change in Soviet Moldavia, Part II, Soviet Studies, 33, 4 (1981), 573–92. Livezeanu, I. Moldavia, 1917–1990: Nationalism and Internationalism Then and Now, Armenian Review, 43, 2–3 (Summer/Autumn, 1990) 153–93. Livezeanu, I. Cultural Politics in Greater Romania. (Ithaca and London, Cornell University Press, 1995). Moldova, in The World Factbook, 1999 (http://ciapubs. bilkent.edu.tr/ publications/factbook/md.html). O’Loughlin, J., Kolossov, V. and Tchepalyga, A. National Construction, Territorial Separatism, and Post-Soviet Geopolitics in the TransniesterMoldovan Republic, Post-Soviet Geography and Economics, 39, 6 (1998), 332–58. Pelivan, I. The Union of Bessarabia with Her Mother-Country, Roumania (Paris: Imprimerie des arts et des sports, 1919).

154 Language, Ethnicity and the State, vol. 2 Roberts, H.L. Rumania: Political Problems of an Agrarian State (New Haven, Connecticut: Yale University Press, 1951). Russification, Ideological Measures in ‘Dniester Republic’, RFE/RL Daily Report, 15 October 1992 (http://muhu.www.ee/E-LIST/1992/92-10/92-10-15-16-09-440200/). Socor, V. Moldavian Proclaimed Official Language in the Moldavian SSR, Radio Liberty Report on the USSR, 1, 11 (1989). Socor, V. Popular Front Founded in Moldavia, Radio Liberty on the USSR (9 June 1989), 23–26. Socor, V. Unofficial Groups: Some Unexpected Gains in Elections in Moldavia, Radio Liberty Report on the USSR (12 May, 1989) 17–20. Socor, V. Russia’s Fourteenth Army and the Insurgency in Eastern Moldova, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL) Research Report, 1, 36 (22 August 1992), 48. van Meurs, W.P. The Bessarabian Question on Communist Historiography: Nationalist and Communist Politics and History-Writing (Boulder, Colorado, East European Monographs, distributed by Columbia University Press, New York, 1994).

7 Ethnic Discrimination in Latvia John Dobson

Introduction The collapse of the Soviet Union and the communist system in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) during 1988–92 has led to the revival of deep-rooted national antagonisms, which some fear may jeopardize the entire post-communist reconstruction and, in extreme cases, threaten the integrity of the state (Bremmer 1996; Norgaard 1996, p. 11). Ethnic tension has already, and tragically, derailed economic recovery in the Balkans, as well as in Albania, Bulgaria, Armenia and Azerbaijan (Allsopp and Kierzhowski 1997 p. 2). But the presence of substantial ethnic minorities has also resulted in ethnic tension and widespread discrimination in many other former communist countries, most notably Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Romania, the Slovak Republic and all CIS countries (Fidrmuc 1995, p. 382). Although rarely mentioned, Latvia, together with Estonia, has a higher proportion of ethnic minorities (often erroneously called nationalities) than any other transition economy. This chapter looks at the attempts which governments (dominated by ethnic Latvians) have made to change the language and culture of Latvia since independence and its impact on ethnic minorities. So far-reaching have been the effects of this legislation, that it may be viewed as state-sponsored ethnic discrimination. Latvia’s complex multi-ethnic population had long co-existed peacefully, but independence in 1991 turned ethnicity and language into highly controversial and emotive issues, with implications for human rights, the labour market and Latvia’s relations with the outside world. The newly independent Latvian state has introduced laws on citizenship and language that discriminate, both directly and indirectly, 155


against many of the substantial non-ethnic Latvian population. In particular, the titular ethnic group is attempting to replace Russian as the dominant language by making Latvian the official state language and promoting its use in everyday life through legislation. Needless to say, this legislation is highly controversial amongst the ethnic minorities, many of whom do not speak the new state language. But this legislation is also central to Latvia’s international relations, with the West showing concern about the potential abuse of human rights and Russia showing concern about the treatment of ethnic Russians (Cichock 1999). How the Latvian government handles these problems of ethnic identity and language may determine its eligibility for European Union membership. At issue are fundamental and complex questions of ethics and human rights, concerning the right of one ethnic group to reverse ‘historic wrongs’ by reasserting their dominant position at the expense of other ethnic groups. Should a national identity based on monolingualism and monoculture be created in a society which is highly multilingual and multicultural? Throughout the chapter, the terms ethnic Latvian and ethnic Russian will be used, rather than simply Latvian and Russian, in order to avoid the implicit assumption that non-Latvian ethnic groups are foreign nationals who in some sense do not belong. This assumption is easily drawn in states with titular ethnic groups, and is often reflected in literature of ethnic Latvian or émigré ethnic Latvian origin (Plakans 1994). Indeed, much of the previous literature takes as its starting point the unstated premise that ‘it is their (the ethnic Latvians) country’. The section below outlines the ethnic composition and cultural characteristics of the Latvian population, while the sections from pp. 160–74 onwards detail the recent legislation on citizenship, language and education, respectively. This is followed, on pages 174–81, with an examination of the labour market and its inter-ethnic impacts and a discussion of the contradictions embodied in Latvian policy closes the chapter.

Ethnic distribution It is sometimes argued that Latvia, in common with the other Baltic states, inherited a substantial Russian and ethnic minority population as a legacy of 50 years of Soviet rule (Jones 1997, p. 30). Such a view is a gross oversimplification. Latvia has a long history of multi-ethnicity; with communities of Germans, Gypsies, Jews, Poles, Belarusians and Estonians establishing themselves between the thirteenth and nine-

John Dobson 157

teenth centuries. Russian Old Believers 1 arrived in the seventeenth century, Orthodox Russians after 1721 when the territory of Latvia was annexed to the Russian Empire, and during the inter-war period, Russians fleeing the Soviet state (Dribins 1996; Melvin 1995, pp. 27–9). The Russian Empire’s only census reveals that only 68 per cent of the population spoke Latvian as their native language in 1897, and this figure was considerably lower in the cities and the eastern region (Zvidrins 1992, p. 359). Following an influx of immigrants from central Russia, the proportion of native Latvian language speakers fell to 60 per cent before the first world war. During the inter-war years, the ethnic Latvian share of the population rose to a peak of almost 80 per cent by 1939, in part because of the active promotion of the Latvian national identity and language by the newly independent Latvian state (Lacombe 1997). However, considerable changes in the ethnic mix of the population have taken place since 1939. Ethnic Germans, who formed 3.3 per cent of the population in 1935, were forcibly repatriated to Germany during the nazi occupation and large numbers of Gypsies and Jews, who together formed 5.5 per cent of the population in 1935, were massacred or died in the holocaust. Large numbers emigrated after the second world war, with one hundred thousand, mainly ethnic Latvians, leaving in 1944 alone. Between 1945 and 1946, 60 000 people were deported and a further 43 000 in 1949, in the purges associated with the collectivization of agriculture (Muiznieks 1997, p. 378). As part of the Soviet Union, Latvia achieved the highest per capita income of any Soviet state, as a consequence of the large industrial enterprises and substantial military bases and factories that were established. Due to the scarcity of labour, this was accompanied by a large population influx from other Soviet states, with immigrants filling the void left by post-war emigration (Kirch et al. 1993, p. 174; Norgaard 1996, p. 170; Martinsons and Valdemars 1992, p. 37). Some commentators have seen this immigration as part of a deliberate Soviet policy to ‘Russifiy’ Latvia (Karklins 1994, p. 145; Martinsons and Valdemars 1992, p. 34; Muiznieks 1997, pp. 380–1). This perception has been compounded by the Russification of other non-ethnic Latvian groups – especially Belarusians, Ukrainians, Poles and Tartars, many of whom now speak Russian as their first language and identify with ethnic Russians. Russian is the language spoken at home for 84 per cent of Ukrainians and Belarusians (UNDP 1997, p. 63). Indeed, ethnic division and identity is often based on language, with the population divided into Russian (Russophones) and Latvian-speaking ethnic groups. However, the ethnic Russian population has a distinctive


Baltic–Russian culture, and by the 1970s, the post-war Russian settlers had largely assimilated with the pre-existing ethnic Russian population (Dreifelds 1996, p. 165; Kolsto 1996, p. 624). This ‘Balticanization’ of the Russian immigrants has made the distinction between the pre-1940 ethnic Russian population and the post-war immigrants – made for the purposes of citizenship – extremely artificial. As shown in Table 7.1, these population movements reduced the ethnic Latvian share of the population from 75 per cent in 1935 to 62 per cent by 1959, reaching a all-time low of 52 per cent in 1989. By contrast, the ethnic Russian share of the population rose from 11 per cent in 1935 to 26 per cent in 1959, finally peaking at 34 per cent in 1989 (Dribins 1996, p. 12). Ethnic Latvians are disproportionately concentrated in the older age groups, and in 1989 formed a minority in the 19–44 age group (Dreifelds 1996, pp. 150–1). The proportion of ethnic Latvians in the population has risen since independence, mainly because substantial numbers of non-ethnic Latvians have emigrated, fuelled in part by a fear of discrimination (Aasland 1996, p. 27). Between 1989 and 1993, there was a net emigration of 98 441 members of the ethnic minorities and a net immigration of 4689 ethnic Latvians.2 But this exodus of non-ethnic Latvians peaked in 1992, and total net emigration was only 7252 in 1996 (UNDP 1997, p. 50). As those who emigrated were mainly the younger and better educated sections of the workforce, this has potentially adverse economic consequences, particularly as Latvia has negative natural population growth, an ageing population and a high dependency ratio (Dreifelds 1996, pp. 150–5; UNDP 1996, p. 29). Further, the withdrawal of the Soviet military was completed in 1994, involving the repatriation of 50–80 000 personnel, although 22 000 ex-military pensioners were Table 7.1

Ethnic population distribution (%)

Latvian Russian Belarusian Ukrainian Polish Lithuanian Jewish Total population (1000s)

1935

1959

1979

1989

1997

75.5 10.6 1.4 0.1 2.5 1.2 4.8

62.0 26.5 2.9 1.4 2.8 1.5 1.7

53.7 32.9 4.4 2.6 2.5 1.5 1.1

52.0 33.9 4.4 3.4 2.2 1.3 0.8

56.7 30.2 4.2 2.8 2.5 1.4 0.5

1906

2094

2503

2667

2456

Source: Dribins (1996); Vebers (1996); UNDP (1997).

John Dobson 159

allowed to remain under the April 1994 agreement with Russia (Melvin 1995, pp. 51–3). The ethnic Latvian share of the population reached 57 per cent in 1997, but this figure is based on the ethnicity entry in passports and may be an underestimate (UNDP 1997, p. 49). According to the NORBALT survey, 59 per cent of the population were ethnic Latvian in 1994 (Aasland and Cesnuityte, 1997, p. 14). However, these global figures mask marked regional variations, with the proportion of ethnic non-Latvians being much higher in urban than rural areas because post-war immigrants predominantly settled in the main cities where the large industrial plants were located. Indeed, large-scale migration underpinned the rapid industrialization and urbanization of Latvia. In none of the seven largest towns do ethnic Latvians comprise more than half of the residents (Norgaad 1996, p. 174). Ethnic Latvians formed 37.7 per cent of the population of Riga in 1994 and only 13.8 per cent in the second largest city, Daugavpils, although they do comprise two-thirds of the population in the smaller towns (Dreifelds 1996, p. 148; UNDP 1997, p. 51; Zvidrins 1992, p. 362). With the exception of the eastern province of Latgale, most rural areas have a non-ethnic Latvian population of less than 20 per cent. Latgale, on the other hand, has a long established non-ethnic Latvian population which now amounts to 60 per cent of the total population and reaches 73 per cent in the urban areas of the province (Dribins 1996; Dreifelds 1996, p. 150; UNDP 1995, Ch. 7). This geographic concentration of Russianspeakers has resulted in the displacement of Latvian as the dominant language, and partly explains the practical difficulties they now experience in learning Latvian. Although most people in Latvia have a clear and distinct awareness of their ethnicity – ethnicity has been registered in passports for almost a century – questions of ethnicity, language and identity are often quite complicated in practice (Melvin 1995, p. 27; UNDP 1997, p. 50; King and Barnowe 1994). People do not always speak their ethnic language; nor do they necessarily identify with their ethnic group or ethnic ‘homeland’. In 1989, 10 per cent of the population reported a native language different to their ethnic group (UNDP 1997, p. 50). Peaceful co-existence and co-operation between the various ethnic groups has long been notable, with residential districts and blocks of flats being ethnically mixed. Confirmation also comes from the high rate of intermarriage; in 1996, 34 per cent of all marriages and 17 per cent of ethnic Latvian marriages were ethnically mixed (Aasland 1994, p. 239; Dreifelds 1996, p. 161; UNDP 1995, 1997, p. 49). For children


of these mixed marriages, there is a degree of arbitrariness about ethnic identification, with the outcome being determined by the language spoken at home, the school attended and finally, at the age of 16, with a declaration of ethnicity (incorrectly called nationality) on a passport application form. However, considerations of the balance of advantages between ethnic groupings are also important. Children of ethnic Latvian mixed marriages were more likely to be brought up as Russian speaking during the Soviet era, but are now more likely to identify with the ethnic Latvians because of employment and other advantages. This change was occurred during the 1980s when the largest source of population increase for the ethnic Latvians resulted from the assimilation of 30 000 people. The 1989 census found that two-thirds of youths under 26 years, who came from Latvian/Russian ethnically mixed families, considered themselves to be ethnic Latvian (Zvidrins 1992, pp. 361–2). During the first period of Latvian independence (1918–39), the rights of ethnic minorities were protected. They were guaranteed the right to elect representatives to parliamentary, state and municipal institutions, and from 1918–34, 16–19 per cent of representatives in Latvia’s parliament came from ethnic minorities. State and municipal institutions were also required to maintain as many schools for national minorities as were needed to educate children in their ethnic language and, when the numbers of children were too small to justify a dedicated school, to provide minority language education within mixed schools (Dribins 1996, pp. 6–8). German, Russian, Jewish, Polish and Belarusian school boards existed, a practice which continued during the post-war Soviet era, when what has come to be known as the Leninist nationalities policy drew a distinction between political matters and cultural issues. Ethnicity was defined as culture and children continued to have the right to be educated in their ethnic language (Schöpflin 1991, p. 7).

Citizenship, naturalization and employment The new Latvian state was defined as a renewal of the inter-war independent state created in 1920, rather than as a replacement for the Latvian Soviet Socialist Republic (LSSR), and citizenship of the USSR 3 was not recognized as qualifying for citizenship of Latvia, even for residents of Latvia. Only those who were citizens of Latvia at the time of the Soviet annexation in 1940 and their direct descendants were automatically entitled to Latvian citizenship by the 1991 and 1994 Citizenship Acts. Children of mixed marriages were granted citizenship

John Dobson 161

if one parent had been a Latvian citizen in 1940.4 Being born in Latvia was not sufficient to qualify for citizenship, and one-third of all those denied citizenship were born in Latvia. In 1995, 12 per cent of all children born in Latvia were born stateless, which breached Latvia’s obligations under the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNDP 1997, p. 53). This approach was more restrictive than that adopted by the first independent Latvia, which gave citizenship to all residents within its borders, regardless of nationality/ethnicity (LNHRO 1996a, p. 2). Estonia and Latvia are the only post-Soviet states to have denied the resident population of post-war immigrants, the same rights as original citizens (Kolsto 1996; Ott et al. 1996). Non-titular ethnic groups in both countries have been lobbying hard for Latvia and Estonia to adopt a similar inclusive view of citizenship, but with little success. The Latvian law on citizenship was amended in March 1995, but this amendment was limited, granting automatic citizenship upon registration to ethnic Latvians and Livs,5 and people educated in schools with Latvian as the language of instruction, or in the Latvian section of mixed schools (UNDP 1995, Ch. 2). At the beginning of 1997, almost 1.8 million people were registered as citizens, leaving almost 30 per cent of the population without this status. Although very controversial and opposed by many ethnic-Latvians, a naturalization process was introduced in 1994, which would in principle allow most other residents to become citizens, and therefore some commentators assumed that citizenship was no longer a problem (Bryant 1997; USDS 1996). However, this is not true. The stated aim of the naturalization process is to develop a national consciousness and to promote integration (NBRL 1997, p. 5), but this assumes that ethnic minorities are willing to accept assimilation into the ethnic-Latvian language and culture. Unfortunately, the prolonged debate and delay merely served to heighten ethnic tension and reinforce perceptions of a separate identity. Furthermore, the eventual acceptance of naturalization owed more to international pressure than domestic consensus, and the procedure adopted is both contentious and restrictive.6 As well as knowledge of Latvian history (which required the candidate to answered 150-question-long questionnaire) and the constitution, the procedure involves a written and oral Latvian language test, which many Russian speakers see as discriminatory, because, as discussed below, it forms a major barrier to naturalization. Moreover, the Naturalization Board has itself admitted that the application procedure is highly bureaucratized (NBRL 1997, p. 8), and therefore likely to form


an almost insurmountable obstacle for some sections of the population. Perhaps even more important, operational screening mechanisms were invoked which prevented the majority of non-citizens from applying for naturalization. 7 A naturalization ‘queue’ was formed which gave priority to spouses of ten-years standing, and young people born in Latvia. Of the 700 000 permanent residents who were technically eligible for naturalization, from February 1995 until December 1996, only those born in Latvia and aged 16–20 (about 30 000 individuals) could apply for citizenship, and only 3000 of these actually did so.8 This was extended in 1997 to include those aged up to 25. Furthermore, residents who were not born in Latvia were prevented from applying for citizenship until the year 2001. By the end of June 1997, only 5000 people had become naturalized citizens – less than 5 per cent of those eligible (UNDP 1997, p. 54). Only a further 1.2 per cent of ethnic Russians were citizens in 1997 compared with 1995, while an extra 14.5 per cent of Lithuanians and 4.9 per cent of Estonians became citizens under provisions which allowed them special treatment (UNDP 1997, p. 49). The European Commission (1997) and the UNDP (1997) saw this queuing system as a device to prevent the administration from becoming overwhelmed, and saw no reason why it could not be accelerated given the low take-up rate. But as Muiznieks (1994, p. 4) has argued, restrictive naturalization procedures were used as a deliberate means to preserve the political and ethnic dominance of ethnic Latvians, a view which is supported by the way in which the citizenship and naturalization procedures were implemented. Initially, pro-independence activists started compiling a list of citizens. After independence, many of these activists were employed in the Department of Citizenship and Immigration (DCI) of the Ministry of the Interior. The DCI developed into a controversial and highly nationalistic department. Russian-speaking applicants were routinely subjected to discriminatory treatment; large numbers were arbitrarily denied permanent residence permits, applicants were asked to provide unnecessary documentation or documentation which was difficult to acquire, and there was generally an unnecessary delay in processing applications. When applicants brought civil actions against the DCI, the department systematically refused to implement court decisions (LNHRO 1996b, p. 20; Smith et al. 1998, p. 104; Norgaard 1996, p. 191).9 Particularly controversial was the DCI’s systematic refusal to grant permanent resident status to an estimated 140 000 eligible non-

John Dobson 163

citizens. As a result they became ‘outlaws’ with no legal right to work, no right to state benefits including pensions and medical treatment; neither were they allowed to take the language tests, get married or register the birth of their children. The activities of the DCI where tolerated by the Latvian government. Almost by definition, the citizenship laws have had a disproportionate effect on different ethnic groups (Reardon and Lazda 1993, p. 541). Most ethnic Latvians and the very small indigenous population of Liv’s qualified, whereas most immigrants who arrived after the second world war together with their descendants did not. By 1997, 61 per cent of all ethnic Russians (452 981 people) were still without citizenship, making them by far the largest group, although the proportion amongst other ex-USSR ethnic groups was even larger with 80 per cent of Belarusians and 93 per cent of Ukrainians being without citizenship. Table 7.2 details the impact of the citizenship law on ethnic groups with over 2000 inhabitants in Latvia. The greatest impact of the citizenship law has been on ethnic groups in urban areas. In rural areas, two-thirds of ethnic Russians are citizens, and this rises to 90 per cent in the rural districts of Latgale – a province close to the Russian border with a long-established ethnic Russian

Table 7.2 Ethnicity

Distribution of citizenship by ethnicity, 1997 Total population 1997

Total citizens 1997

Latvian Russian Belarusian Ukrainian Polish Lithuanian Jewish Roma German Tatar Estonian Armenian Other

1 393 611 741 980 104 213 68 173 62 182 34 893 12 770 7 939 3 589 3 435 2 808 2 668 18 003

1 382 346 288 999 20 993 4 739 38 975 12 139 6 347 7 196 1 129 177 1 382 344 4 012

98.3 37.7 19.2 6.0 60.8 20.3 44.7 89.2 25.7 4.2 44.3 11.8 10.0

99.2 38.9 20.1 7.0 62.7 34.8 49.7 90.6 31.5 5.2 49.2 12.9 22.3

Total

2 456 264

1 768 778

70.6

72.0

Source: UNDP 1997, p. 49.

% of ethnic population having citizenship 1995 1997


population (Aasland 1996, p. 37). There are 321 600 ethnic Latvians living in Riga most of whom are citizens (315 400), and although they form only 39.7 per cent of the population of Riga, they comprise 70.1 per cent of all citizens. By contrast, there are 361 900 ethnic Russians in Riga who form 44.7 per cent of the population, but only 23.3 per cent of citizens (Vebers 1996, p. 10). A similar picture exists in other large cities. Recently, major and extremely controversial changes have been made to the naturalization procedures. In June 1998, the Saeima (Parliament) voted to amend the Law on Citizenship, in large part in response to international pressure. The ‘window’ system restricting who can apply was abolished, and the 19 000 children of non-citizens who were born in Latvia after independence were granted automatic citizenship upon registration. This later provision was particularly controversial because automatic registration allows these children of ethnic minorities to become citizens without having to possess a Latvian language qualification and opponents argued that this would undermine the attempt to establish the Latvian as the national language. They argued that all citizens should be able to speak the national language, but worse, that such amendments constituted a threat to the language because these children would in turn have children who also would be unable to speak Latvian. The Fatherland and Freedom Party initiated a referendum 10 to challenge these amendments. This was held in October 1998 and failed but only by a small majority (53 per cent for the amendments; 45 per cent against). The referendum, the campaign and the result demonstrate just how controversial the issue of citizenship remains. Significantly, the act also transferred responsibility for all issues pertaining to citizenship from the nationalistic DCI to the more liberal Naturalization Board. The language and history tests were also simplified, although the history test still involves a total of 93 questions. Rather surprisingly, the initial take-up rate for children born in Latvia after independence has been very low – in the first five months of 1999, only 108 applications for registration as citizens were received (NBRL 1999a). These 1998 amendments have transformed the impact of the citizenship laws. In 1999 the Naturalization Board expects to receive 16–18 000 applications, compared with 5608 in 1998 (NBRL 1999a). This increase in applications has also been accompanied by an increase in the number of people granted citizenship. In the first five months of 1999, 3901 people had been granted citizenship compared with 1132 during the same period in 1998 (NBRL 1999b). However, notwith-

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standing the euphoria amongst the ethnic minorities, it may be premature to believe that the problems of citizenship are over, because major obstacles to naturalization remain. The main beneficiaries of the 1998 amendment are likely to be the relatively well educated and wealthy – people who can afford the application fee and language lessons, and have the ability to master the language. This increase in applications, then, may quickly fall once this group achieves citizenship, and the vast majority of the non-citizens, estimated at 646 000 in 1998, will remain (LCHR&ES 1999, pp. 41–2). Perhaps the main significance of the 1998 Citizenship Amendments is their long-term effect in ensuring a situation where no further children are born without citizenship, and that the citizenship problem will gradually decline and eventually disappear as the existing population of non-citizens gradually die. In the meantime, non-citizenship has a severe affect on the lives and political representation of ethnic minorities. Only citizens are allowed to vote and stand for election; nearly a third of Latvia’s voting age population, therefore, cannot participate in the electoral process. And the legislature (the Saeima) fails to represent the interests of ethnic minorities, because it is dominated by ethnic Latvians (89 out of 100 seats in 1993) and nationalist parties (Smith et al. 1998, p. 113; UNDP 1996, p. 87; UNDP 1997, p. 54). The rights of non-citizens to political protest is also severely limited – non-citizens are prohibited from forming political organizations (which have to be officially registered) and Riga City Council regularly refuses non-citizens permission to hold public meetings and demonstrations or change the time and venue of proposed demonstrations (USDS 1996). In March 1998, police in Riga violently broke up a demonstration, comprised mainly of pensioners, who were protesting against becoming stateless. Non-citizens were also disadvantaged in the allocation of shares in privatized businesses, and in their rights to purchase property. Until recently, there were also restrictions on the freedom of non-citizens to travel abroad. Even more important are the various laws that prohibit the employment of noncitizens in numerous occupations and sectors, as follows: Senior public servants, the civil service, the Diplomatic and Consular Service, Customs Officers, National Militia Services (army), the Border Guard Force, State Security Officers, the Police Service, Fire Service, crew members on Latvian National Airlines, 11 crew on Latvian ships, some professions – pharmacists, veterinary pharmacy, civil airline pilots, land surveyors, forestry inspectors, private detectives, armed private security guards, lecturers and researchers in the


Latvian Medical Academy, and lawyers (barristers and assistant barristers, judges, public prosecutors).12 The stated reason for reserving certain jobs for citizens is ‘national defence’, although there are some obvious objections to the argument that members of ethnic minorities, many of whom were born in Latvia, are a threat to national security. Also, it is far from clear how occupancy of some of the jobs on the list could conceivably constitute a threat to national defence. Even the Latvian Human Rights Office found itself unable to defend the inclusion of all these jobs and reported that these restrictions breached Latvia’s obligations under the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (LNHRO 1996a). Following the LNHRO report, there has been some minor easing of these restrictions; non-citizens are now allowed to work in customs and the fire service and those non-citizens who have managed to retain employment in the civil service can now legally remain, although new recruits must have citizenship (UNDP 1997, p. 57). This discrimination against non-citizens is particularly severe because so many of the restricted occupations are concentrated in the large cities, where the non-ethnic Latvian and non-citizen population is highest, and also because the restrictive naturalization procedure has denied many non-citizens the right to safeguarding their jobs by becoming citizens. In 1997, 28 per cent of the population (687 486 people) were barred from holding jobs in these major areas of employment. It is difficult to estimate the exact number of workers affected by this legislation because enforcement has been uneven. The government appears to have been reluctant to force mass dismissals for fear of provoking a domestic and international crisis (Karklins 1994, Ch. 6, p. 143; NBRL 1997, Ch. 4; UNDP 1995; USDS 1996). And in some areas of employment, the number of non-citizens is so large that mass dismissals would paralyse the service: for example, only 14 per cent of the police in Riga were ethnic Latvian (Oxenstierna 1991, p. 258). Although there have been no reports of mass dismissals, it is clear that a large number of workers have lost their jobs, especially in the public sector where the legislation has been more strictly enforced. Norgaard (1996, p. 151) notes that the ‘fight against crime’ was reduced when several former policemen were dismissed because they could not obtain citizenship. There has also been a gradual replacement of noncitizens through new appointments and promotions. Some noncitizens found their position intolerable and resigned. Enforcement in the private sector has been more uneven. Some employers have been

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willing to give their workers time to become citizens, and others have only applied the legislation to new recruits. Many employers have simply ignored the legislation. As Norgaard (1996, p. 112) argues ‘the Balts are generally uncertain about laws in general. This insecurity and the Soviet experience when laws were part of the official rhetoric have resulted in indifference or law-nihilism so that the Balts merely try to live their lives regardless of political authorities and rules’.

Languages and language legislation For 50 years, two parallel school sub-systems existed side by side with tuition provided in both Latvian and Russian, and with most nonethnic Latvians attending Russian language schools. However, data on ethnicity grossly oversimplifies the linguistic situation. Although most non-ethnic Latvians were educated in Russian, they received compulsory tuition in Latvian, but this was often rudimentary with the result that the majority of those graduating from Russian language institutions were only fluent in Russian (Karklins 1994, pp. 151–8; UNDP 1996, p. 14). By contrast, the majority of those graduating from Latvian language institutions were fluent in both Latvian and Russian. During the Soviet period, Russian was de facto the official language and, outside the rural areas, most ethnic Latvians were fluent in Russian. The 1989 census found that while 81 per cent of the population were fluent in Russian, only 62 per cent were fluent in Latvian, and only 23 per cent of non-ethnic Latvians could speak Latvian (UNDP 1995, Ch. 2). This was confirmed by Aasland (1994, pp. 236–8) who found that, in 1992, only 22 per cent of Russians living in Latvia were fluent in Latvian, 54 per cent had great difficulty with the language, and 10 per cent did not have any understanding. Furthermore, ethnic Russians aged 15–30 did not report a higher knowledge of Latvian than other age groups, and 20 per cent of Russians who had lived in Latvia all their lives understood little of the language. Russians living in areas with large Russian populations were less likely to know Latvian, and even one-quarter of Russians married to a Latvian partner understood little or no Latvian. In the big cities, only half the population spoke Latvian, but 90 per cent knew Russian. A similar picture exists amongst the other ethnic minorities and even some ethnic Latvians can only speak Russian (Vebers 1996, p. 18). Although more non-ethnic Latvians can now speak Latvian – surveys in 1996 and 1997 put the figure between 36 per cent and 53 per cent (UNDP 1997, p. 58) – a lack of knowledge of Latvian is still restricting naturalization. The


Naturalization Board, the public body given responsibility for overseeing and implementing the law on naturalization, including its language tests, was highly concerned about the low application rate by the first group eligible to apply. Its own survey into the reasons for the low take-up rate found that only 10 per cent of non-citizens aged 13–20 years considered themselves to be sufficiently fluent in spoken and written Latvian (NBRL 1997, p. 31). Steps to increase the importance of the Latvian language pre-date independence. In autumn 1988, the Supreme Council recognized both Russian and Latvian as state languages (LSSR Law on Languages, May 1989). The intention was to enable people to use the language of their choice, but this necessitated that public officials be conversant with both languages ‘on the level necessary for the execution of their professional responsibilities’ (Karklins 1994, p. 154). A three-year transitional period was specified in order that state employees lacking Latvian language skills could acquire them. However, Russian remained the dominant language and the bilingual stance of the 1989 law was abandoned in 1992 when Latvian was declared the only official language. This act has had a major discriminatory effect on Russian speakers because anyone applying for a job in state organizations or private companies after 5th May 1992 had to prove mastery of Latvian. However, because the law was vaguely drafted, in practice it has been interpreted to apply only to those whose work involves written or oral contact with the surrounding society, and its impact has therefore been greatest for state employees and shop workers (Norgaard 1996, p. 179). Existing employees have been effected by the introduction of Latvian language tests under which occupations are restricted according to the grade of pass in the language examination. The current law sets three levels of proficiency and applies to both the public and private sector. An elementary knowledge is required for low-level positions, such as concierge in public buildings and unskilled workers. Occupations such as postal employees, nurses and clerical positions require the intermediate level, and the highest level of Latvian language competency is required for officials in responsible positions such as heads of administrative offices, judges and doctors (Karklins 1994, p. 154). Taken together, the various Acts which define citizenship and reserve certain occupations for citizens, require a knowledge of the Latvian language in order to achieve naturalization, and the post-independence Language Acts, severely restricts the employment opportunities which are legally available to the Russian-speaking population. The

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language laws, in particular, have greatly alarmed the Russian-speaking population who see them as an instrument intended to exclude them from the labour market. This view was confirmed when the Latvian Labour Law code was changed to allow employers to dismiss workers who could not fulfil their professional duties due to inadequate Latvian Language skills. Although large numbers of Russian speakers have expressed a wish to study Latvian (Aasland 1994; Rose and Maley 1994; UNDP 1997, p. 58), this is not easy since neither the language teaching nor the tests are provided free by the state and private language courses are expensive (Norgaard 1996, p. 180). Furthermore, the State Employment Service does not finance language courses for the unemployed, even though one-third of unemployed non-ethnic Latvians find job opportunities restricted by an inadequate knowledge of Latvian (UNDP 1997, p. 59). The impact of the prohibitive cost of learning Latvian should not be underestimated, given the poverty of much of the population. In 1996, 68 per cent of the population had expenditure levels below the crisis subsistence minimum of 52 Lats per month (UNDP 1997, p. 37). The shortage of language teachers and courses is also a serious constraint, especially in Russian-speaking areas, and the Latvian government has asked the United Nations Development Programme to assist with the establishment of a National Programme for Latvian Language Training (Smith et al. 1998, p. 112; UNDP 1996, pp. 73–5). By June 1993, 135 000 public sector employees had taken the language tests but only 67 per cent passed (Norgaard 1996, p. 179; UNDP 1995, Ch. 2). Although some state employees were given dispensations in order that they could improve and retake the exam (Karklins 1994, p. 154), this only provided a temporary reprieve and many were dismissed or left voluntarily because they felt their position was intolerable (Norgaard, Ch. 5; Smith et al. 1998, p. 104). As a result, there has been considerable replacement by ethnic Latvians in the central administration and in the police. In February 1993, one-quarter of all teachers (a total of 2300 people) had not passed the required language test, and the Minister of Education gave them until the end of the year to pass otherwise they would be dismissed. In December 1996, the Minister of Education raised the level of language certificate required by teachers in ethnic minority schools to the highest level with effect from 1 September 1998. This requirement was without regard to the language level actually required for the fulfilment of their professional duties, and will cause further staff to lose their jobs (UNDP 1997, p. 60). The Education Ministry reported that 615 teachers had not


passed the test by this date, but the real figure is probably closer to 1200 or 10 per cent of all teachers, because school returns are likely to be an underestimate. Similarly, school teachers in Estonia have also been threatened with dismissal because of their lack of knowledge of the new state language. A State Language Inspection Board (the Language Police) was established in 1992 to monitor the implementation of the Law on Languages by conducting spot checks on business and state institutions. The office employs 18 inspectors who impose fines on employers whose workers do not possess the required language certificate. The language laws have met with substantial resistance and as with the laws to reserve jobs for citizens, compliance has been arbitrary. The board receives a substantial number of complaints about doctors, nurses, store clerks, housing officials and the like who cannot speak Latvian. And although some workers have been dismissed because they did not hold the required language certificate, others have been retained. Employers have used the language laws to discipline workers whose performance is unsatisfactory, and as a selection criteria for redundancy (Norgaard 1996, p. 180; Smith et al. 1998, p. 104). A number of workers have claimed that the language certificate system was subject to abuse (a) because forged certificates were relatively easy to obtain; and (b) because employers would purchase a certificate for favoured workers. For this reason, an attempt was made in 1997 to allow the ‘language police’ to apply language tests to workers who actually possessed the required certificate, but these were abandoned when the president refused to sign the necessary legislation. Latvia adopted a new and extremely controversial Language Act in December 1999, which aims to promote a dramatic extension in the use of Latvian in everyday life, including in private business organizations. Although subject to substantial domestic and international lobbying and criticism, especially by the High Commissioner for Ethnic Minorities for the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE), the Saeima passed an earlier version of this Act in July 1999 by a substantial majority (73 for; 16 against). However, the new president refused to sign this Bill, expressing concern that the Act would breach Latvia’s international treaty obligations 13 and that it would act as a major obstacle to EU membership, since protection of ethnic minorities is one of the admission criteria. Although the Latvian government is arguing that the revised Act, passed in December 1999, satisfies the OSCE High Commissioner and the EU presidency, this may be premature and the legislation remains contentious, with human

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rights organizations continuing to argue that the Act unfairly discriminates against minorities. Estonia adopted a similar and equally controversial Language Act earlier in 1999, and as one of the countries earmarked for early EU entry, the decision reached on Estonia’s application is likely to have implications for Latvia. Although the Act has been amended so that private business is no longer required to conduct all meetings and correspondence in Latvian, the organizers of any business meeting are required to arrange for meetings to be translated into Latvian if this is requested by any participant. Critics of the Act have expressed concern about the cost of this and its implications for business efficiency. The Act also requires foreign specialists and foreign members of a company administration working in Latvia to know and use the state language to an extent necessary for the performance of their duties, otherwise they must themselves ensure that a Latvian translation is available. Opponents of the act have argued that this will deter much-needed foreign investment. The requirement in the original Bill that all public events had to be held in Latvian has been amended so that the Act only requires that events organized by state and municipal institutions must be held in Latvian. The new Act also requires that all state and municipal institutions must provide information intended to inform the public in Latvian only, although there is a provision which allows the government to approve specific exceptions. Particularly controversial is the requirement that state and municipal institutions are only allowed to accept documents written in Latvian. It is anticipated that this new Act will have a substantial impact on the lives of the Russian-speaking ethnic minorities, although it is far from certain how it will be implemented, and what effect it will have in practice. One possibility is that the Russian speakers, who have already been put at an employment disadvantage in the public sector, may now face discrimination in the private sector if private business tries to reduce translation costs by holding all meetings in Latvian and only employing Latvian speakers. However, it is also possible that predominantly Russian-speaking business organizations may be reluctant to employ ethnic Latvians least they incur the cost of having to translate meetings into Latvian. It is also possible that individuals who exercise their right to have meetings translated into Latvian may be viewed as ‘trouble-makers’ and be subject to social pressure – in which case the Act may have little effect on current practice. Particularly worrying is the effect which the ‘Latvian language only’ requirements placed on state and municipal organizations will have on


the many poor people who cannot speak Latvian and who will be unable to afford to have information, letters and forms translated. The substantial number of Russian-speaking poor will effectively be precluded from communicating with the state and excluded from the limited social welfare system. It is difficult to envisage how the Act can possibly be implemented in the area of Latgale, with its largely Russian-speaking population and shortage of Latvian speakers.

The language of education The independence movement placed great emphasis on the ‘renewal of the minority cultural infrastructure’ which included a right to be educated in the ethnic language,14 and this policy was implemented in the early years of independence. In 1995, there were more than 20 different minority cultural societies functioning, and it was possible to be educated in one of eight languages in Russian, Jewish, Polish, Estonian, Ukrainian, Lithuanian, Roma and Belarusian schools (UNDP 1995). All the principal minorities had state-financed schools or classes, while the smaller ethnic groups taught Tatar, Armenian, Azeri, German and Liv and other languages in Sunday schools. Although the education law of 1991 gave individuals the right to be educated in their native language, it also stipulated that all children must be taught the state language and must pass the language examination in order to complete their middle-level education. However, this relatively liberal approach to ethnic minorities has changed. The government elected in autumn 1994 was committed to ending the long-standing right of ethnic minorities to be educated in their own language and, as an interim measure, required all non-Latvian language schools to teach two or three subjects in Latvian from September 1996. To comply with this measure, most Russian language schools chose to teach non-mainstream subjects in Latvian (physical education, music, art, home economics, and, less often, geography, Latvian culture or history). This does not necessarily reflect an attempt to frustrate the law so much as an extreme shortage of teachers who can teach in Latvian, with recruitment made difficult because of extremely low pay (UNDP 1996, p. 68).15 This approach was extended by the 1998 Education Law that require all state high schools to use Latvian as the sole language of instruction by 1 September 2004. As shown in Table 7.3, virtually all Russian, Ukrainian and Belarusian children, as well as a large proportion of Poles, Jews and other non-Latvian children, attend Russianlanguage schools; the impact of this policy is therefore likely to be

John Dobson 173 Table 7.3 Distribution of schoolchildren by ethnicity and language of instruction, 1996 Ethnicity

Number of students

Instructed in Latvian Number %

Instructed in Russian Number %

Latvian Russian Belarusian Ukrainian Polish Lithuanian Jews Estonian Roma Other

215 790 98 181 7 510 5 576 5 527 2 642 1 074 184 809 2 541

200 594 5 611 738 491 629 1 456 25 51 500 290

93.0 5.7 9.8 8.8 11.4 55.1 2.3 27.7 61.8 11.4

15 001 92 422 6 732 4 927 4 294 1 090 691 116 263 2 249

7.0 94.1 89.6 88.4 77.7 41.3 64.3 63.0 32.5 88.5

Total

339 834

210 385

61.9

127 785

37.6

Source: UNDP 1997, p. 62.

severe. In 1996, 38 per cent of all children attended Russia-language schools, and there are 66 Russian-language schools in Riga alone. As the UN Human Development Report (UNDP 1996, p. 65) noted: ‘Changing the language of instruction for thousands of students in a short period of time is not feasible’; however, this is what is being attempted. Many teachers in Russian-language schools are not able to teach their subject in Latvian and fear that they will be dismissed. Given the severe shortage of teachers who are able or willing to teach their subject in Latvian in Russian schools, the quality of teaching in ex-Russian language schools is likely to decline. The change in language is likely to cause educational problems for children whose Latvian-language skills are inadequate. Some parents have sent their children to Latvian-language schools, but found it necessary to transfer them back to Russian-language schools after their children experienced learning difficulties. It should be noted that for some children from ethnically mixed families the intention is that they are to be educated in their third language. The change in the language of education is also likely to cause educational problems when children in the same class have dramatically different language skills. One consequence of this new Act is likely to be the growth of private Russian-language schools – an option only available to the children of the wealthy. A further attempt to undermine Russian occurred in 1998, when English rather Russian was made the compulsory foreign language in Latvian language schools (UNDP 1997, p. 60).


The move to tuition in Latvian has been even swifter in higher education. Prior to 1992, institutions of higher education ran parallel classes in Russian and Latvian, but the 1992 Languages Law required all state-financed higher education to be conducted in Latvian beyond the second year. The 1998 Education Act extended this to include the first year with effect from 1 September 1999. Although some tuition in Russian continued after 1992, by necessity, by 1994–95, four-fifths of all higher education students were educated in Latvian. This, together with the requirement to pass a Latvian language exam in order to graduate, has disadvantaged those Russian-speaking students who are not proficient in Latvian (Dreifelds 1996, pp. 158–9; UNDP 1996, pp. 72–3). This has led to a growth of private universities, which generally teach in Russian, but this simply delays confronting the language problem until the point of labour market entry.

Ethnic segmentation in the labour market It has been argued that the Latvian labour market is characterized by ethnic segmentation, and that the ethnic Latvians were heavily discriminated against during the Soviet years (Oxenstierna 1991, p. 258). Therefore, one purpose of the citizenship and language laws is to redress this discrimination. While a knowledge of Russian and membership of the Communist Party may have given ethnic Russians employment advantages in the early post-war years, this advantage appears to have been eroded by 1989, with no ethnic group predominating in the highest paying jobs. Russian was widely spoken by ethnic Latvians outside the rural areas, and although ethnic Latvians were under-represented in the Communist party, they still had a sizeable membership. In 1989, ethnic Latvians accounted for 52 per cent of the population and 40 per cent of Party members, compared with ethnic Russians who formed 34 per cent of the population and 43 per cent of the Party (Muiznieks 1994, p. 2). Using data on employment structure from the 1989 census, some authors have attempted to analyse employment structure by ethnic composition, and found that although ethnic Latvians were underrepresented in the highest paying jobs, they were also under-represented in the lowest paying jobs (Muiznieks 1994). There was segmentation by sector, with non-ethnic Latvians comprising 63 per cent of all industrial employment and 70 per cent of transport workers, while ethnic Latvians predominated in agriculture, the health services, education and artistic and cultural work. However, given their geographical concentration in

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the large industrial towns, it is to be expected that the post-war immigrants and their descendants would continue to figure heavily in industrial employment (Martinsons and Valdemars 1992, p. 36). This can hardly be considered an employment advantage given the major dislocation in trade flows caused by the collapse of COMECON and the 1998 economic crisis in Russia (UNDP 1998, p. 57). Industrial employment has fallen rapidly, and accounted for only one quarter of workers in 1996, compared with 40 per cent in 1989 (UNDP 1997, p. 89). Even so, many enterprises are still over-manned by Western standards and are threatened by bankruptcy or re-organization and privatization. Concern has been expressed that restructuring risks ‘increased social and ethnic tension if unemployment rises unevenly among different nationalities in the labour market’, especially if employment elsewhere is restricted by the citizenship and language Acts (Dreifelds 1996, p. 160; Oxenstierna 1991, p. 258). Privatization was delayed, but this was because ethnic Latvian politicians were reluctant to give control of trade and industry to other ethnic groups, rather than out of any concern with the employment effects on ethnic minorities (Aasland et al. 1997, p. 135; UNDP 1996, p. 50). Unemployment Officially there was no unemployment in the Soviet economy and an unemployment register did not exist until January 1992. Since then, transition has resulted in substantial unemployment, much of which is long term. Registered unemployment has risen from 5.8 per cent in 1993 to 7.7 per cent by May 1997 (MBLS), although this is known to substantially understate real unemployment.16 But even in unemployment, ethnic minorities face discrimination, because only Latvian citizens and those who possess the status of permanent residents are allowed to register,17 thereby excluding those whose application to become permanent residents has been rejected (Oxenstierna 1991, p. 270). But, more importantly, since October 1996, only workers who possess a Latvian language qualification are allowed to register as unemployed, thereby debarring many more non-ethnic Latvians (USDS 1996; UNDP 1997, p. 58). The practical impact of this measure is, however, lessened, because those who register do not automatically qualify for unemployment benefit,18 indeed fewer than half qualify; in addition, the level of unemployment pay is extremely low – well below the crisis subsistence level (Rose 1997, p. 2).19 This partly explains the low rate of registration, as does the travel costs involved in registration for those living in rural areas (Reardon 1996, p. 633).


The official figures show that unemployment has affected all ethnic groups, although the ethnic Russian share of the total is about 5 per cent more than their share of the population while that of ethnic Latvians is about 5 per cent less. This is confirmed by the NORBALT survey, which found that the unemployment rate of ethnic Russians was 19 per cent as against 14 per cent for ethnic Latvians (Aasland 1997, p. 111). Ethnic Russians were more afraid of losing their jobs than were ethnic Latvians – 73 per cent as against 57 per cent, which is hardly surprising since they were more likely to have experienced unemployment during the previous year and to remain unemployed for longer (Priede 1996, p. 131; Schaefer et al. 1993, p. 167; Rose 1995b, p. 13; Rose 1997, p. 1). Nevertheless, it would be wrong to attribute these differences wholly to ethnic discrimination and the effect of the government’s discriminatory legislation, because regional, occupational and industrial factors are also important (Aasland 1997, p. 105). Unemployment is particularly severe in towns whose dominant enterprises have closed, and the potential for geographic mobility to equalize spatial unemployment differentials is inhibited by the prevailing housing shortages. Particularly severely affected by unemployment is the eastern region of Latgale, which is largely ethnic Russian and has an unemployment rate of 24 per cent (Priede 1996, p. 135). Aasland has statistically investigated the factors which determine a person’s probability of being unemployed. Using five variables (sex, education, age, urbanization and ethnicity), he found that ethnicity had a considerable impact on a person’s probability of being unemployed (Aasland 1997, p. 113). However, further investigation revealed that, demographically speaking, a combination of citizenship and gender were more important than ethnicity per se. Unemployment was greatest amongst ethnic Russians without citizenship, and the highest probability of unemployment was found amongst ethnic Russian women whose unemployment duration was also longer (Aasland 1997, p. 115). Although language was not included as a variable, citizenship may be acting as a proxy for language. And the rigorous enforcement of citizenship and language laws in the public sector may have disproportionately effected ethnic Russian women. But whether or not existing differential unemployment rates are a consequence of employment discrimination, the dire prospects facing the unemployed partly explains the importance of the struggle between ethnic groups to advance and protect their labour market position through the citizenship and language legislation.

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Ethnic strategy The inter-war Latvian government pursued a multicultural ethnic policy and strongly protected the rights of minorities, including their language rights. This approach was initially embraced by the independence movement, which sought support from the ethnic minorities and advocated cultural autonomy, including the right to minority language schooling, but this was quickly abandoned once independence was secured (Melvin 1995, p. 37; Muizneiks 1997, p. 387; Smith et al. 1998, p. 101). One explanation for the rejection of multiculturalism is that the current Latvian state faces a substantially different situation to the pre-war government. The ethnic Latvian population is relatively much smaller than during the inter-war period and it is argued that Latvian culture and language will not survive alongside a substantial Russian-speaking population (Melvin 1995, p. 34; Smith et al. 1998, p. 96). This is why post-war immigrants and their descendants were not extended the same rights as the pre-existing population, and why calls to copy Lithuania’s inclusive citizenship laws have been rejected – ethnic Russians make up barely 8 per cent of Lithuania’s 3.7m population. A number of points can be made about these arguments. Firstly, it is inconceivable that Latvian language and culture would be under threat in a multicultural society – minority languages are under threat when the population drops below 2000, not 1.4 million! The term ‘under threat’ is a slogan used by ethnic Latvians to rally support for a nationalist cause, and means the ‘dominant language and culture’ rather than ‘in danger of extinction’. The nationalist project aims to establish a nation-state based on the Latvian language and culture in a territory which is at present highly multicultural, and multiculturalism is rejected because it cannot guarantee supremacy for the titular ethnic group. However, this strategy raises considerable ethical questions. Should the descendants of an ethnic group which was wronged by the Soviet annexation be allowed to reclaim the dominant position occupied by their parents and grandparents, especially at the expense of another group who entered the territory under the justified impression that they qualified for citizenship? And if the terms of immigration are to be changed retrospectively, should these revised terms also be inflicted on the descendants of these immigrants (Smith et al. 1998, Ch. 5)? Another argument for withholding civil rights from ethnic Russians is the fear that ethnic Russians are not committed to an independent


Latvian state (Aasland 1994). Latvia is militarily strategic for Russia, and ethnic Russians are viewed as a potential ‘fifth column’ should Russia again become an external threat (Rebas 1994). Some nationalists go so far as to argue that national security requires a substantial reduction in the non-ethnic Latvian population and aim to return to the situation of the inter-war years, when ethnic Latvians made up 75 per cent of the population (Norgaard 1996, p. 188; Smith et al. 1998, p. 105). There is, however, little evidence that ethnic Russians are committed to re-unification with Russia (Karklins 1994, Chs. 3 and 4; Melvin 1995, pp. 35–6; Volkov 1996, p. 51). The independence movement formed in 1988 did not divide totally on ethnic lines and, in the plebiscite of March 1991, 74 per cent of all voters including a third of all Russian speakers opted for Latvian independence (Muiznieks 1997, p. 391; Smith 1998, p. 97). More recently, the Central and Eastern Eurobarometer found that only 24 per cent of the population saw the country’s future as lying with Russia (1995, pp. 38, 59). Some nationalists are opposed to assimilation, believing that ‘Latvia is for Latvians’ and that Latvia must be ‘Latvianized’ by repatriating non-citizens. They argue that the independent Latvian state has inherited from the USSR a complicated and unstable ethnic structure with representatives of more than 100 ethnic groups who are not committed to Latvia. Their presence is the result of a deliberate policy of ‘Russification’ which must now be reversed (Vebers 1996, p. 4). This approach was adopted by the Department of Citizenship and Immigration (PID) whose press officer is quoted as saying that ‘all along, the PID has been reminding and stressing that sooner or later all these 700 000 residents will have to leave Latvia’ (Muiznieks 1994, p. 9). While some nationalists have argued for compulsory repatriation, others see discrimination, especially in employment, as a legitimate way to achieve voluntary repatriation. If the non-Latvian population is not to be repatriated, then the language laws have been promoted as part of a deliberate attempt to place all non-ethnic Latvians in a subordinate positions (Plakans 1991, p. 260). Apart from the substantial ethical questions, little consideration is given to the economic consequences of such actions, which could be severe given Latvia’s declining and ageing population, especially since emigration has centred on younger and better educated workers (Dreifelds 1996, pp. 150–5; UNDP 1996, p. 29). There is substantial evidence that the non-ethnic Latvian population intend to stay. In 1992, Aasland found that three-quarters of ethnic Russians wanted Latvian citizenship, with only 4 per cent having

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definitely decided to leave, and a further 9 per cent saying they were more likely to leave than to stay (1994, pp. 252–4). This picture had not changed by 1994 when the NORBALT survey found that only 4 per cent of ethnic Russians had any plans to leave, compared with 7 per cent of ethnic Latvians. Similarly, only 4 per cent of non-citizens had any plans to emigrate (Aasland 1996), and about one-quarter of these cited ‘political reasons’ as a reason for wanting to move (Aasland and Cesnuityte 1997, p. 18). Paradoxically, one reason why so few ethnic Russians wish to leave Latvia is that they do not closely identify with Russia. The Russian nationality was both dominant and ill defined within the USSR and as a result was less strongly institutionalized than other nationalities, and increased ethnic self-awareness is in a large part a response to assertiveness on the part of the titular nationality (Brubaker 1996, p. 49; Melvin 1995, p. 9). In any event, the economic and housing situation in Russia means that emigration is not a realistic option for most ethnic Russians (Norgaard 1996, p. 189). And since Latvia has a realistic expectation of economic integration into Europe, there are economic and political advantages which may encourage the non-ethnic Latvians to remain (Brubaker 1996, p. 175). The decision to allow only citizens to vote and form political organizations has dramatically affected the political process. Political organizations have tended to mobilize their constituents along ethnic lines with ethno-politics and ethno-nationalism becoming central to the political process. Following independence and the removal of the external threat from Russia, political fragmentation left a fear of ethnic Russians as the main unifying issue. In part, members of the titular nation have a vested interest in protecting and institutionalizing ethnic and linguistic differences. If they can secure over-representation in national and local government, central administration, the courts, the media, schools and universities, then they have achieved a virtual exclusive domination over the state’s major institutions and, considerable benefits for those who are members of this new political class (Smith et al. 1998, p. 99). Restricting the rights of ethnic minorities enhances the career opportunities for the new, young and ambitious political class. Ethnic Latvian politicians sympathetic to the problems facing non-Latvians were largely driven out of mainstream politics, as were moderate Russian-speakers (Melvin 1995, p. 39). Although repatriation has been rejected in favour of a policy which aims to assimilate non-ethnic Latvians into the Latvian language and culture through the naturalization procedures and language laws, it is important to examine the political dynamics behind this policy. An


assimilation strategy has gradually triumphed – but not because it has been adopted by the legislature. The legislature is dominated by the nationalist politics of the ethnic Latvians which has not only systematically failed to protect the rights of ethnic minorities, but has been willing to pass measures which reflect considerable discrimination. However, these nationalist tendencies have been restricted by international pressure, especially from the OSCE, the Council of Europe and the EU. These bodies have been able to exert influence because Latvia sees its future economic and political security with integration into Europe and membership of European institutions and NATO (Lane 1997; Smith 1998, p. 108). It should be noted, however, that this pressure has mostly been exercised, not through the legislature, but though the exercise of the presidential veto of the more extreme measures. This, together with the narrow majority achieved in the 1998 referendum, indicates just how precarious is the more liberal approach of the last two years. Nevertheless, to describe the current assimilation policy as liberal may be to misrepresent the ethical questions and human rights implications involved. Assimilation implies the adoption of a model of cultural standardization, in which all residents are expected to speak the same language and share the same national culture. There is a dramatic difference between ‘voluntary assimilation’, which has seen the gradual elimination of the Liv population, and the current ‘forced assimilation’ which required ethnic minorities to renounce their identity and language. There is widespread hostility amongst the ethnic minorities to the approach to citizenship and language adopted by the titular ethnic group (Rose 1995a, pp. 38–41; Smith et al. 1998, pp. 110–12). However, this alienation has not yet resulted in the mass politics of political action, although there have been occasional signs of tension. The Russian-speaking population has remained leaderless and has been unable to establish strong representational organizations (Melvin 1995, pp. 39–43). The Latvian Committee on Human Rights has compared the position of ethnic Russians in Latvia with black South Africans under apartheid, and called for the enforcement of the country’s obligations under the Human Rights Treaties signed by Latvia since independence. There is also a real danger that the discrimination strategy may produce the Russian intervention it was designed to prevent. Russia’s relationship with its diaspora has become a domestic political issue (Melvin 1995, Ch. 2). It has frequently expressed concern about the treatment of ethnic Russians in both Estonia and Latvia and in 1992 succeeded in establishing a UN committee of investigation into

John Dobson 181

Latvia. In 1998, Russia threatened economic sanctions, which if implemented could have serious implications for the Latvian economy, since transit and port services account for one-quarter of all exports (UNDP 1997, p. 19 and 1998, p. 27). Apart from the natural interest which Russia has for the welfare of its diaspora in the ‘new abroad’, there is also an element of self-interest that fears ‘an uncontrollable influx into Russia of the Russian and Russophone population from the nonRussian successor states’ (Brubaker 1996, p. 150).

Conclusions The Latvian population has for many years been ethnically mixed, and it is unlikely that the economy can withstand the marginalization, exclusion or loss of a large section of the Russian-speaking labour force, notwithstanding the deflationary shock which the country has experienced in the transition from central planning. Yet this is precisely the outcome that recent ethnicity legislation invites. Language has become a central issue of cleavage between ethnic groups as the ethnic Latvians struggle for political and economic dominance in the newly independent state, a struggle which runs the risk of exciting significant social discord. At the centre of the debate is the status of post-war immigrants and their descendants: are they permanent residents who should enjoy the same rights as all other members of the population, or are they representatives of an occupying colonial power who should now return home? This debate is further complicated because the post-war immigrants and their descendants do not exist as a separate group in practice because they have already assimilated with the pre-existing populations of ethnic minorities. Although ambiguous, the Latvian government’s policy exhibits an emphasis on maintaining the dominance of ethnic Latvians through assimilation and restrictions on the freedoms of non-citizens, including their choice of language. Some ethnic Latvians clearly intend that this discrimination will force ethnic minorities to return to their ‘own’ country. Although relationships between different ethnic groups have long been marked by co-operation, on occasion commentators have not been optimistic about the future (Martinsons and Valdermars 1992, p. 40). Nevertheless, the government appears to believe that ethnic Latvian dominance can be achieved without social conflict (Dribins 1996, p. 3). It is difficult to get figures on the actual number of people who have been dismissed or denied employment as a result of the language and citizenship laws. It seems certain, however, that the application of the


laws has been uneven in their impact, especially between the public and private sector. To some extent the laws have been flouted. Perhaps the most important effect has been the tremendous feelings of anger and insecurity which they have produced amongst the non-ethnic Latvian population – the very feelings of alienation from the Latvian state which the assimilation strategy was designed to avoid. Another unintended consequence of the legislation has been to further reinforce the ethnic segmentation of employment. By denying ethnic Russians employment in the increasingly lowly paid public sector, they have been forced to gain employment in the much higher paid private sector and, as a result, business and industry continues to be dominated by ethnic Russians (Smith et al. 1998, p. 100). The failed attempt in 1999 to extend the writ of the Latvian language to the private sector was in part an attempt to give an employment advantage to ethnic Latvians and restrict the employment opportunities of ethnic minorities. Finally, it should be noted that Latvia can ill afford to repudiate the principles of equal treatment inherent in Western conceptions of democracy and freedom, if they desire to be integrated into Western Europe. There are signs that Western countries and institutions are no longer prepared to be as tolerant as they were in the early days of independence. The European Council meeting in Copenhagen in 1993 set a number of criteria which CEE countries must meet if they are to join the EU and a number of these are ‘political’ criteria, including ‘human rights and respect for and protection of minorities’. There are alternative strategies for Latvia, not least that of ‘multiculturalism’, which accepts that the Baltic states are the homelands of a variety of minority groups, including ethnic Russians and other Russian-language speakers, who can legitimately claim to have a relationship with the region that stretches back centuries.

Notes 1. Old Believers fled Russia to escape religious persecution in the mid-seventeenth century. They opposed the adoption of liturgical changes by the Russian Orthodox Church based on the texts and practices of the Greek Church. These were instituted by the patriarch Nikon, who affirmed the absolute primacy of the Orthodox Church over the Russian state. 2. See Carter et al. (1993) for a wider discussion of population and nationality movements.

John Dobson 183 3. See Ginsburgs, 1990, for a discussion of USSR citizenship, and pre-independence arguments against using this as a basis for Latvian citizenship. 4. Post-war immigrants and their descendants denied automatic citizenship are classed as stateless persons, although most, but by no means all, have been granted the status of permanent residents. 5. The Livs are one of the original inhabitants of the territory now called Latvia, but due to assimilation their numbers are now very small, and their language close to extinction. In March 1995, there were only 203 registered Livs and probably fewer than 50 speak the native language and almost all of these are elderly (UNDP 1995). 6. In order to apply for naturalization, applicants must meet the following conditions (Norgaard 1996, p. 196): have been registered as permanent residents for at least 5 years from 4 May 1990 (Article 12:1,1), have competence in the Latvian language (Article 12:1,3), know the Latvian national anthem and have a knowledge of Latvian history (Article 12:1,4), have a legal income (Article 12:1,5), swear allegiance to Latvia and to defend Latvia with their lives (Articles 12:1,6 and 18). Further, in order to apply they must not have: worked for the KGB, not have been convicted of a crime which resulted in a prison sentence of over 1 year (Article 11), acted unconstitutionally, and have advocated fascist, chauvinist or communist totalitarian ideas after 4 May 1990 (Article 11). This latter provision has the effect of excluding from citizenship those who supported the 1991 Moscow coup. However, there are exceptions to the above provisions. Those ‘who have attained special merit for the good of Latvia’ (Article 13:5) can be granted citizenship immediately, and this has been used to grant citizenship to successful sports persons, including those in the successful Latvian National Ice Hockey Team. Estonians and Lithuanians who have lived in Latvia for 5 years (Article 13:1,6) can also be granted citizenship immediately, as can persons who have ‘an excellent command of the Latvian language’ (Article 13:1,8). Persons who have been married to an ethnic Latvian or Latvian citizen for at least 10 years (Article 13:1,1) can also qualify for immediate citizenship. From 1999, children of non-citizens, born in Latvia after 21 August 1991 can also apply for automatic registration. 7. This procedure was itself only adopted after the president refused to sign a law passed by parliament in 1994, which introduced a quota system to restrict the number of individuals who could achieve naturalisation to 0.1 per cent of citizens (about 2000 people per annum). The original bill was passed by 66 votes for and only 11 against despite strong international pressure from the CSCE and the Council of Europe, and concern that the proposals would antagonize Russia, and prevent Latvia joining the Council of Europe (EECR 1994, p. 12; Melvin 1995, pp. 43–4; Norgaard 1996, p. 194). The inclusion of the quota system resulted in Latvia entering the Council of Europe a year after the other Baltic states. 8. Eligibility for national service and the high application fee (30 lats) are among the deterrents (NBRL 1997). 9. 1300 civil actions have been brought against the DCI, 90 per cent of which were won by the plaintiff. In one-third of these cases, the DCI has refused to reverse their original decision (Norgaard 1996, p. 192).

184 Language, Ethnicity and the State, vol. 2 10. A referendum is allowed by the 1922 constitution but had never before been used. The Fatherland and Freedom Party had tried to organize a referendum to challenge the 1994 Naturalization Law, but failed to gather enough signatures. 11. The Latvian National Airlines ceased trading in 1998. 12. The laws which restrict the employment of non-citizens are: The Law on the Rights and Responsibilities of Citizens and People 1991; The Law on the Civil Service 1994; The Customs Code of the Republic of Latvia 1991; The Law on National Militia of the Republic of Latvia 1994; The Regulation of the State Land Service on the Licensing of Afforestation Inspectors 1993; Amendments to the Law on Fire Safety 1994; Amendments to the Law of the Police 1994; Law on Judicial Powers 1992; The Law on the Office of Public Prosecutor 1994; The Law on the State Security Service 1994; The Law on the Diplomatic and Consular Service 1993; Statutes of the Latvian Medical Academy 1993; The Law on the Bar 1993; The Law on Detective Activities 1993 and 1994; Temporary Regulations on Purchase, Possession and Use of Firearms and Special Means of Self-Defence 1993; The Law on Aviation 1993; The Sea Code 1994; and The Law on Pharmaceutical Practice 1993. 13. See LNHRO 1996b, P30–32 for a list of Human Rights Treaties which are binding on Latvia. 14. The rights of ethnic minorities were protected by the 1991 law ‘On the Free Development and Rights to Cultural Autonomy of Latvia’s National and Ethnic Minorities’ and the 1991 Education Law. 15. Teachers pay was increased to 80–90 lats per month in 1995 following a strike in 1994, although this still leaves many families below the poverty threshold (UNDP 1996, p. 70). 16. Using the ILO definition of unemployment, the NORBALT survey found an unemployment rate of 17 per cent in 1994, only 20 per cent of whom received any unemployment benefit (Aasland 1996, p. 132). In 1997, the labour force survey found that real unemployment was 15 per cent and that one-quarter of the unemployed had been unable to find work for over three years, and a further 30 per cent for between one to two years (UNDP 1998, p. 66). 17. In addition, workers are only allowed to register as unemployed provided they possess an income from other sources of less than the minimum wage, and in order to remain on the unemployment register, they must report to the employment service once a month. 18. Only the registered unemployed, who have worked at least 12 weeks during the previous year, the first-time job seeker, or those returning to the labour market after maternity leave, or taking care of a sick, elderly or disabled relative qualify for unemployment benefit. 19. There are two levels of unemployment pay: 90 per cent of the minimum wage for those who have paid the social tax for at least six months in the preceding twelve and 70 per cent for those who have not (MBLS 1997). In February 1996, the minimum wage was increased from 28 lats per month to 38 – a rate still well below the crisis subsistence level, and only just over half the poverty threshold. At the end of 1996, the Ministry of Welfare calculated the crisis subsistence level to be 52 Lats per family member per month (UNDP 1997, p. 36). The Central Statistical Bureau estimated the

John Dobson 185 poverty threshold (defined as the full minimum subsistence level basket of goods and services) to be 73.8 Lats per month.

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186 Language, Ethnicity and the State, vol. 2 Ginsburgs, G. The Citizenship of the Baltic States, Journal of Baltic Studies, Vol. XXI, No. 1, Spring, 1990, 3–26. Jones, C. Go to the top of the class, The Banker, April, 1997, 57–60. Karklins, R. Ethnopolitics and Transition to Democracy – The Collapse of the USSR and Latvia (Baltimore: The John Hopkins University Press, 1994). King, G.J. and Barnowe, J.T. Complementary and Conflicting Personal Values of Russophone Managers in Latvia, Journal of Baltic Studies, Vol. XXV, No. 3, 1994, 249–72. Kirch, A., Kirch, M. and Tuisk, T. Russians in the Baltic States: to Be or Not to Be?, Journal of Baltic Studies, Vol. XXIV, No. 2, Summer, 1993, 173–88. Kolsto, P. The New Russian Diaspora – an Identity of its Own? Possible Identity Trajectories for Russians in the Former Soviet Republic, Ethnic & Racial Studies, Vol. 19, No. 3, 1996, 609–39. Lacombe, G. Nationalism and Education in Latvia, 1918–1940, Journal of Baltic Studies, Vol. XXVIII, No. 4, Winter, 1997, 309–38. Lane, T.A. The Baltic States, the Enlargement of Nato and Russia, Journal of Baltic Studies, Vol. XXVIII, No. 4, Winter, 1997, 295–308. LCHR&ES Human Rights in Latvia in 1998 (Riga: Latvian Centre for Human Rights and Ethnic Studies, 1999). LNHRO Opinion of the Latvian National Human Rights Office on Differences in Rights of Citizens and Persons without Latvian Citizenship (Riga: Latvian National Human Rights Office), 18th December 1996a. LNHRO 1996 Annual Report (Riga: Latvian National Human Rights Office, 1996b). Martinsons, M.G. and Valdemars, K. Post-Soviet Reform in Latvia: Early Progress and Future Prospects, Journal of Economic Studies, Vol. 19, No. 6, 1992, 33–52. MBLS Monthly Bulletin of Latvian Statistics, Vol. 5, No. 36, June (Riga: Central Statistical Bureau of Latvia, 1997). Melvin, N. Russians Beyond Russia – the Politics of National Identity, Royal Institute of International Affairs, Chatham House Papers (London: Pinter, 1995). Mostov, J. Endangered Citizenship, in M. Kraus and R.D. Liebowitz (eds), Russia and Eastern Europe After Communism (Boulder, Colorado: Westview Press, 1996). Muiznieks, N.R. Latvia’s Changing System of Ethnic Stratification, paper presented at a conference on ‘Democracy and Ethno-politics’, organized by the Latvian Academy of Sciences, March 9–11, 1994, Riga: Latvia. Muiznieks, N. Latvia: Restoring a State, Rebuilding a Nation, in I. Bremmer and R. Taras (eds), New States, New Politics: Building the Post-Soviet Nations (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997). NBRL On Naturalization in Latvia (Riga: The Naturalization Board of the Republic of Latvia, 1997). NBRL Report on the Activities of the Naturalization Board since June 1998 (Riga: The Naturalization Board of the Republic of Latvia, 1999a). NBRL Naturalization Process in Latvia (Riga: The Naturalization Board of the Republic of Latvia), June 11th, 1999b. Norgaard, O. The Baltic States after Independence (Cheltenham: Edward Elgar, 1996).

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8 Language, Nation and Statebuilding in Ukraine: the Jewish Response Rebecca Golbert

Introduction Ukraine became independent from the Soviet Union in December 1991 through a republic-wide referendum. The new state inherited certain legacies from its Soviet predecessor, the most important of which included an ethnically and linguistically diverse population with distinct regional and local loyalties. The legacy of Russification can be seen in the linguistic demography of the country; according to the 1989 Soviet census, 60 per cent of the inhabitants of Ukraine called themselves native Ukrainian-speakers, 40 per cent native Russian-speakers. It is important to note that linguistic allegiance is not determined solely by ethnicity; in addition to ethnic Russians, Jews, Poles, Greeks, other non-Russian ethnic minorities and some ethnic Ukrainians are Russophone.1 However, linguistic, cultural, and ethnic loyalties in Ukraine are, in part, regionally defined. The eastern and southern regions of the country, geographically and historically sharing greater ties with Russia and home to the majority of the ethnic Russian population, are predominantly Russian-speaking;2 western Ukraine, which fell under different empiric influences and maintained greater periods of independence from Russian and Soviet power, is predominantly Ukrainian-speaking and ethnically Ukrainian, despite pockets of Hungarian, Romanian and Czech-speaking communities in the Transcarpathian region of the southwest and the predominantly Russian-speaking city of Chernovtsy in the Carpathian region. Rather than embrace the prevalence of ethnic, linguistic and regional differences among its citizenry, the post-Soviet Ukrainian state has perceived this diversity as highly problematic; it has continued to push 189


forward with its policy of Ukrainianization, a policy by which Ukrainian society is transformed into a society of Ukrainian-speakers and cultural members. The focus of the policy is predominantly linguistic,3 seeing in language “the spiritual means for the consolidation of Ukrainian society” and the means for political unification (Kuzio 1998, p. 179). During the late perestroika period, Ukrainian language policies were supported as a kind of affirmative action policy to rectify years of Russification; the 1990 law ‘On Languages in Ukraine’ began the official process of promoting language shift (Kuzio 1998, pp. 169–70). This process became enshrined in the 1996 constitution, in which Ukrainian is declared the official state language and ‘the state “guarantees the comprehensive development and use of the Ukrainian language in all spheres of society throughout the entire territory of Ukraine” (article 10)’ (Kuzio 1997, pp. 127–30).4 The Jewish community, like other Russian-speaking populations in Ukraine, has historically prioritized Russian language, literature and culture and aligned itself with the Russian destiny (in political, social and historical terms). Thus, for the Jews of Ukraine, the process of Ukrainianization is not just a question of linguistic and cultural transition; it poses significant questions about social and political identity, about loyalty and belonging, about the future Ukraine holds for its Jews. This chapter is drawn from ethnographic research within the Jewish community in Kiev and focuses in part on the attitudes of young people. It also draws on one case study of the interaction among various Russian-speaking ethnic minorities in a conference setting. However, it is, for the most part, an ethnography of Jewish responses to Ukrainianization and the nation-building process. The Jewish response includes sympathetic understandings of the process, the historical context in which it has arisen, and the need for redefining national identity within an independent Ukraine. Yet, it also includes reflections on immediate experiences of Ukrainianization within the education system, the workplace, and other public spheres, giving rise to criticisms of the poor quality of Ukrainian language skills transmitted in these domains, the barriers to educational and economic opportunities created by the abrupt language shift and the ideological thrust behind the language issue. Jews have nevertheless learned to accommodate the social and cultural contexts of Ukrainianization, distinguishing in which domains Russian or Ukrainian is appropriate or preferable. There are many examples of shrewd and strategic forms of accommodation, manipulation, even subtle forms of resistance.

Rebecca Golbert 191

However, this ethnography seeks to go beyond the predominantly functional forms of political correctness, code-switching, diglossia and other social and linguistic strategies of Jews within the context of Ukrainianization to pose certain underlying conceptual questions about the Ukrainian Jewish contemporary imagination: do Jews see Ukrainian as the language of their future and that of their children? Has there been a fundamental shift in the way Ukrainian Jews evaluate Ukrainian language, literature and culture? Do they, as a whole, embrace the Ukrainian nation-building project and the linguistic, cultural and historiographical shifts written into the script of the new Ukraine? Or do Jews imagine themselves part of an alternative Ukraine, in possession of an alternative Ukrainianness – one that recognizes and even embraces greater linguistic and cultural freedom, divergent personal and collective histories, local and regional loyalties – for which there is little or no space in the current imagination of the state? Where do Jews stand in the current nation-building process, and does that process allow for alternative constructions of Ukraine and Ukrainianness, particularly on the part of the state’s diverse cultural and linguistic minorities? The language issue, symbolically and integrally intertwined with the Ukrainian nation-building process as a whole, allows us to locate the intersection of language, loyalty, minorities, the nation and the state through an analysis of the behaviours and discourses of Ukrainian Jews and an exploration of their place in the imagery of post-Soviet Ukraine.

The symbolism of language Ukrainian and Russian are mutually intelligible languages. Both eastern Slavic languages, they share much in common linguistically; however, they have many symbolic differences, particularly in the way the two languages are perceived within the borders of Ukraine. Russian is the linguistic legacy of empire and imperial expansion.5 Up until recently, it remained the language of education and opportunity, the language of the elite and of prestige. In the terminology of diglossia, Russian was the high language, the language of high culture, art and literature. In the new Ukraine, Russian is the language of a large linguistic minority, which includes both ethnic Russians and other native Russian-speakers. It also refers to a regional designation (as mentioned above), focusing on the southern and eastern regions of the country, which have felt a greater influence from Russia. Thus, for many native Ukrainianspeakers, the continuing presence of Russian and Russian-speakers in


these particular regions attests to the ongoing role of Russia in Ukraine and remains an impediment to full independence. Nevertheless, Russian continues to be the lingua franca among most ethnic minorities in Ukraine, regardless of the mother-tongue spoken at home. Ukrainian is now the official language of the state. However, it carries with it the legacy of its status in the tsarist and Soviet periods, a status which was stigmatized and equated with the low language of the Ukrainian peasantry. Since the nineteenth century, there has existed a small but active Ukrainian literary elite, mainly in the west of the country, which has revived and maintained the high culture, art and literature of the Ukrainian language and embodied the oppression of the language and its people. Thus, up until recently, Ukrainian has been associated with the Ukrainian nationality, 6 in both its high and low forms, and has not served as a widespread lingua franca among the different ethnic minorities, except in certain regions of western Ukraine.7 In the post-Soviet Ukrainian space, the symbolic and functional roles of Ukrainian and Russian are in tremendous flux. Certainly, with the official state policy of language shift, the status and prestige of Ukrainian, the domains in which it is spoken and in which it has become the new language of power and opportunity have increased and continue to increase daily. However, at least for the time being, many of the above-mentioned symbolic differences between Ukrainian and Russian remain and continue to reflect significant regional differences; ethnic and cultural differences; diverging patterns of language usage, loyalty, and diglossia; differences in historical consciousness and experience; and differences in attitudes to the nation and the state.

Ethnographic locality In the summer of 1998, I attended a conference in Kiev on issues of social protection in minority communities. This conference, organized by the lay leaders of three representative communities – that of the Jewish community, the Finnish community and the Greek community – was an attempt to lay out certain models of community welfare and to offer and exchange concrete advice concerning ways of caring for one’s own elderly and social and physical dependants in cases where the government and the public sector were failing. The conference was open to leaders and practitioners from all the minority communities in Ukraine. Indeed members of almost every community were present to

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share their expertise and learn from one another. My main point focuses on the language component of the conference, which, during the course of the presentations, became politicized, even challenged, and which, I believe, can be used to draw out important issues concerning the relevance of the language issue more generally for the participation and integration of minority communities in Ukrainian society today. The lingua franca of the conference was Russian. 8 The panels were chaired in Russian and reports given in Russian; questions and exchanges took place in Russian. Ukrainian was spoken, but only by ethnic Ukrainian officials and academics and a few Russophone presenters who believed it politically correct to present their work in Ukrainian. Ukrainian-speakers were respected and welcomed as long as they spoke Ukrainian fluently. Those who struggled through their speeches in poor Ukrainian were gently harassed and ultimately forced to explain themselves in Russian. Otherwise, exchanges between native Russian and Ukrainian-speakers were conducted in the usual Ukrainian way – each speaking his/her mother-tongue and carrying on a prolonged bilingual conversation.9 The conference progressed smoothly and unconsciously in the above-described way until a former deputy of the Supreme Soviet (Verkhovnyi Sovet), a well-known and respected politician of Armenian nationality, got up to speak. Though he evidently knew Ukrainian, he gave his speech in Russian. In the first part of his speech, he raised concern over the increasing xenophobic and intolerant tendencies occurring in his hometown of Kharkov. He cited examples from the press raising alarm over the number of ‘foreigners’ (non-Ukrainianspeakers/non-ethnic Ukrainians?) on television, radio and other entertainment media and calling for their replacement with ethnic Ukrainians. He challenged this ultra-nationalist view (though he saw it as the expression of a small and non-influential segment of the population), stating that minorities in Ukraine are guaranteed the same entitlements as other Ukrainian citizens and no one with Ukrainian citizenship is more or less ‘Ukrainian’ (in the civic sense of the word)10 than any other. In the second part of his talk, he addressed the other side of the coin – the need for minorities to express their loyalty and respect for Ukrainian language and culture and the Ukrainian nation, considering that they are full citizens of Ukraine and have been granted all the rights and freedoms of cultural expression and political and social participation by the state. In short, he persuasively argued that minority communities in Ukraine have a very fair deal and should


always remember to show their respect for the cultural traditions of the country to which they belong. The former deputy was applauded by members of the audience. However, when he stepped down from the podium, he was addressed in Ukrainian by a Ukrainian official seated at the end of the panel: ‘If you are speaking about respect for the linguistic and cultural traditions of Ukraine, why didn’t you give your speech in Ukrainian?’ The woman seemed to smile smugly, as if she thought her comment clever. The former deputy of Armenian nationality responded in kind, that is, in Ukrainian: the context, he thought, had called for Russian, and he was sorry if she had taken offence. The woman did not look very satisfied with his answer. After a moment of silence, representatives of other communities sitting in the audience spoke up. Interpreting such a comment on the part of a Ukrainian authority as an affront to minorities and a questioning of their loyalty to the state, an ethnic Bulgarian spoke up in defence of his ‘close friend and colleague’. He was enraged and told the official as much, choosing Russian as his medium of expression; he in fact demanded an apology from her. An intense discussion and series of statements followed, predominantly in Russian, which in my mind reveal the underlying tensions concerning language, loyalty and the position of minorities in Ukraine. Most interesting was the comment made by the chairperson of the panel. He apologized for chairing the conference in Russian and clarified that he was neither born nor raised in Ukraine nor educated in Ukrainian. He spoke Ukrainian, had learned it and was still learning it all the time, but felt more comfortable chairing a conference panel in Russian and believed that his colleagues would be sympathetic to that need. In fact, he stated, rather less apologetically, that we should all be understanding of one another’s needs. He again apologized if his language choice had offended but clarified that he would continue speaking Russian, the language in which he felt most confident. What was behind this statement? Forthrightness? Political correctness? Something else? The controversy died down, the conference proceeded as before, and few were intimidated into switching the language of communication. Later on, at the dinner and reception, though the informal discussion continued in Russian, many of the ‘national’ performances were presented in various ethnic minority languages (excluding Russian) as well as in Ukrainian. Here Ukrainian was embraced as the language of translation for the cultural arts of minority communities. Songs were sung in the language of the Roma and in Ukrainian, in Bulgarian and in

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Ukrainian. Even more telling, several performers chose to sing traditional Ukrainian folk songs as part of their repertoire. Everyone in the room, regardless of nationality, joined in. Did this cultural domain differ so dramatically from the earlier domain of the conference? Why the different attitudes towards the Ukrainian language and its usage in these distinct but interconnected public settings? Before turning to an analysis of responses to the language dilemma – responses which reveal an alternative conception of the intersections of language, loyalty and Ukrainianness from that of the state – I want to explore the loaded comment of the Ukrainian official. Her comment reflects the dominant nationalizing construction of what it means to be and act ‘Ukrainian’. Behind it rest implicit assumptions about language and loyalty, language and national identity. The comment also betrays assumptions about the linguistic and cultural use of public space within the nationalizing state.

Language and nationalism in theoretical perspective The relationship between language and nationalism is frequently discussed in the literature on nationalism and in the sociolinguistic literature. The relationship is complex and multi-dimensional. It is also not an inevitable relationship. Nationalism can stride ahead without the aid of a specific ‘national language’, as can language – both mothertongues and lingua francas – function at home and in informal settings, in school, at work, in the market place, in trade, across borders, without being pushed as the official language of the state (Edwards 1984, pp. 284–9; 1985, pp. 11–12). Nevertheless, nationalism and language often further one another’s cause, and this relational dynamic has been well documented in the literature on nationalism, ethnicity and language (for example, Anderson 1991 [1983]; Edwards 1984, 1985; Fishman 1989; Spinner 1994; Kuzio 1998; Laitin 1998). The relationship has also been seized upon by would-be nationalists, 11 in support of claims that nation and state-building rest upon the success of the nationalizing project – in the Ukrainian context, the project of Ukrainianization. This nationalization project is often assumed unproblematically to incorporate a linguistic and culture shift to the language and culture of the dominant ethnic community. As Kuzio writes, ‘even “state to nation” models of nation-building based upon territorial citizenship and individual rights are still, in of themselves, assimilatory to the culture and language of the core ethnic group’ (1998, pp. 4–5).


The national language and culture are also assumed to be entitled to precedence in all public spaces. In fact, it is believed that they must take precedence in order for the nation-building process to be achieved. As Kuzio asserts, ‘there is the centrality of national identity to civil society’ (1998, p. 4). Jeff Spinner clarifies, ‘Languages that are not supported by public institutions or in civil society will have a hard time surviving’ (1994, p. 147). Referring to the Quebecois policies ‘intent on imposing French on the public space in Quebec’ (1994, p. 148), he states, ‘without public measures, French will almost surely fade in Quebec’ (1994, p. 156). Kuzio has made the same argument for Ukraine and the Ukrainian language (1998, pp. 185–97). There is a third factor tied to the nationalism and language relationship. It is often left implicit but it is by far most significant in any discussion of the relationship of minorities to the nationalizing state. It is the question of loyalty. In nationalist doctrine, ‘Freedom and self-realization depend upon identification with the nation, the source of political power, and loyalty to the nation-state overrides all other allegiances’ (Edwards 1985, p. 12). Of what does this loyalty consist? Let us look, for example, at the language of Kuzio in his discussion of the nation-building process in Ukraine to see how these three concepts merge within his analysis. Kuzio asks and answers in various ways throughout his text: ‘Can one be a Ukrainian patriot, loyal to the independent state, without knowledge of the Ukrainian language?’ He asks further: ‘Could a Ukrainian state exist without a Ukrainian language?’ (1998, p. 177). Although Kuzio offers up different possible viewpoints to these questions, for him they are rhetorical. At various moments throughout his book, he refers to the Russian-speaking population of Ukraine as ‘those with a pre-modern identity’ (1998, p. 5), ‘(d)e-nationalised masses … with no civic or national cultural elements’ (1998, p. 177), and, if potentially left leaning, ‘patriotically untrustworthy communists’ (1998, p. 178). For Kuzio, Ukrainian language is essential to the survival of Ukraine. Moreover, the linguistic transition to Ukrainian of Russian-speakers is the fundamental test of their loyalty and their ‘Ukrainianness’. Such a view is clearly implied in the following statement: (Shapovalov and Alekseyev, cited in Kuzio 1998, pp.178–9) ‘Unfortunately therefore, the closeness of Russians and Ukrainians in their history, ethnicity and religion places greater emphasis upon language as a marker of a different identity. The Ukrainian language had become such a “principled question” because it “plays a role as the sole criteria from which one can differentiate ‘one’s own’ from ‘foreigners’” (1998, pp. 178–9). How does the mere

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acquisition of the national language differentiate us from them, Ukrainians from Russians? In Kuzio’s conception, the acquisition and use of Ukrainian brings with it a whole new set of cultural values and political loyalties: ‘A person who speaks the Ukrainian language will also choose a certain historical, cultural, spiritual and intellectual tradition’. And the reverse is therefore also assumed: ‘Is it not surprising, they wonder, that some Russophone Ukrainians remain committed to a pan-Slavic/Little Russian (rather than a Ukrainian national) historiography?’ Kuzio brings us back around to the interrelationship between language, nationalism and loyalty to the state and its linguistic, cultural, historical tradition: ‘Is there not therefore an interconnection between language, one’s attitudes to statehood and Ukraine’s historical past?’ (1998, p. 179). Admittedly, Kuzio’s views are extreme. However, some of this nationalist paranoia surrounding the demarcation of language as a test of loyalty and local/foreigner status can be sensed in the statement of the Ukrainian official at the conference. Few would outright label Russian-speakers in Ukraine as ‘foreigners’, ‘traitors’, or ‘patriotically untrustworthy communists’ – implying that their loyalty lies with the former Soviet regime and its successor state Russia rather than with the Ukrainian state. However, Kuzio is not alone in his general assumption that language shift reflects a shifting commitment to the state. Let us turn briefly to the rational choice model of the ‘tipping game’, applied by David Laitin as a way of explaining the dynamics of identity shift, here conflated with linguistic shift (1998, p. 22), among the Russianspeaking populations of Estonia, Ukraine, Kazakhstan and Latvia (1998, pp. 21–35). Relying on plotted graphs, Laitin attempts to explain the functional dynamic between allegiance to the national and non-national speech community in terms of payoffs and social pressures: ‘The payoff for an individual linguistic choice depends on how many other individuals made the same choice’ (1998, pp. 26–7). He explains further: ‘As more Russians learn the titular language, others will perceive the trend and calculate that the payoffs for not speaking the titular language will, before too long, be lower than those for learning it. As this process unfolds, and the feeling spreads that the direction of change is toward the language of the national state, the rate of change will rapidly increase’ (1998, p. 28). Here Laitin links the linguistic shift with a parallel identity shift: ‘Calculations about these returns, I hypothesize, will have implications for the likelihood of a linguistic tip, with a concomitant change in the Russian population’s social identity; perhaps after the tip they will see themselves as “Bilingual


Russian-Titulars”’ (1998, p. 29). 12 This apparent shift to a titular identity implies a comparable shift in political allegiance.

Strategies of cultural accommodation and manipulation The language controversy at the conference and the blanket judgements about the status and allegiance of Russian-speakers versus Ukrainian-speakers in Ukraine overlook the realities of linguistic and cultural accommodation actually occurring in the day-to-day. The unidimensional and non-contextualized theory of language shift encompassed in the ‘tipping game’ and the implicit assumption that shifting language commitment and political commitment are directly tied fail to take into account the code-switching abilities and diglossic strategies of the Jewish community and other Russian-speaking communities and the contextual nature of language usage and choice.13 Among Jewish organizations in Kiev, there appear certain strategies of diglossia. Ukrainian functions as the official language, particularly for matters relating to the state (legal documents, organizational charters, government registrations) and the public sphere (conferences, exhibitions). Russian is the main language of communication within the community, from informal interaction, to organizational meetings and seminars, to larger communal events. 14 However, if Ukrainian society is in some way targeted, the language of choice may switch to Ukrainian. Thus, academic research institutions such as the Institute of Judaic Studies, reaching out to the larger Ukrainian intellectual community and perhaps seeking favour with government officials, make a point of publishing many of their books in Ukrainian and conducting conferences officially in Ukrainian. This approach is not restricted only to local Jewish institutions. The Israeli Cultural Centre, under the auspices of the Israeli Embassy, held a one-day conference on Ukrainian attitudes towards the Holocaust, to which local Ukrainian and Jewish academics and Ukrainian government officials were invited to speak. It was conducted almost solely in Ukrainian. Nevertheless, the daily reality is more complicated. Although these diglossic distinctions exist, they are not necessarily observed. Moreover, a single domain may be interpreted as diglossic, allowing for a shift in language usage as the context shifts from formal to informal. For example, the programme of the Annual Conference on the History and Culture of Jews in Ukraine 15 was written in Ukrainian, and the introductory session was conducted in Ukrainian. Individual panels, papers and discussions reverted back to Russian with some Ukrainian

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and bilingual interchanges. The same goes for publications, whether literary anthologies, conference proceedings or journals. The cover and title may be in Ukrainian, chosen with an eye for political correctness. The table of contents lists articles in both Russian and Ukrainian, reflecting the language choice of each contributor, and the contents of the publication will shift from one language to the next with each chapter, each contribution. Jewish newspapers, targeting a narrower audience, are more likely to have Russian or Hebrew in their titles; nevertheless, they often display Russian and Ukrainian-language articles on the same page. For staff members of the Institute of Judaic Studies, who spend their hours preparing academic and literary texts and conference proceedings for publication, this means an ability to work in and switch between the two languages. Although the researchers and staff are predominantly Russophone and informal conversations and staff meetings are conducted in Russian, their publications may be prepared and published in Ukrainian, Russian or both. The language behaviour of the Jewish community comes as no surprise to anyone who has grown up in the bilingual environment of Ukraine, especially in the largely Russian-speaking capital of Kiev, which reflects and caters to the day-to-day language needs of its local population, the broader population of Ukraine, and the Ukrainian language politics of its nationalizing government. This trend is reflected outside the Jewish community, particularly in the media. It is common to turn on the television and watch an interview conducted bilingually – the interviewer asking questions in Ukrainian and the interviewee answering in Russian. A television channel’s advertising may be predominantly Ukrainian but its films and programmes predominantly Russian. Despite, or perhaps in part because of, language politics in favour of Ukrainian, bilingualism is the current reality and is reflected in aspects of formal daily life (even in parliament). However, for Russophone communities, despite strategies of accommodation to a linguistically changing public sphere, where the formal meets the informal,16 there tends to be a diglossic shift back to Russian. Take, for example, an average day in the life of a Jewish student at one of the state universities. The student listens to lectures, engages in formal class discussion, takes oral exams and does written assignments in Ukrainian. However, he or she is likely to interact in Russian with his/her classmates before and after class, in the halls, during lunch and outside the university. This same experience with formal/informal language shifting now faces Russian-speakers in most government schools,


even Jewish schools. It is described adeptly by Anya, a Jewish student at the Medical Institute in Kiev:17 I speak Ukrainian. I can speak it, write it, read it. I have no problems, no worse than in Russian. I have attended university for four years and take classes and exams in Ukrainian. There was no problem to enter university; you can take the entrance exams in Russian or Ukrainian. Officially only in Ukrainian, but if your examiners permit, you can answer in Russian. Same for exams in university. I answer in one or the other depending on my mood. … Sometimes I answer in Ukrainian, sometimes in Russian. I speak Russian at home, at the institute among friends. The students speak Russian. Thus, for Jews and other Russian-speakers, Ukrainian has become the formal language of the public sphere, while Russian remains the language of informality and intimacy.18 Moreover, it appears from Anya’s description and other examples sited above, that Ukrainian has not yet fully established its functional dominance in the public domain, only a symbolic precedence. Room continues to exist for more informal expressions within this formalized space – to ‘answer in Russian’ at a state university ‘if your examiners permit’, to shift the dominant language of use part way through a conference at the national public library in Kiev. At times, however, the formal/informal pattern of language usage is not permissible. Anya compares the situation at Kiev State University to that of the Medical Institute. According to a friend who studies at the former, most of the students are ethnic Ukrainian (and native Ukrainian-speakers). If you make a mistake in Ukrainian, everyone laughs and mocks you. There is greater pressure to speak Ukrainian in all classroom contexts. In contrast, when a lecture in Ukrainian at the Medical Institute has concluded, the professor immediately shifts back to Russian to take questions. The more informal context of discussion proceeds in Russian. However, even at the Medical Institute, a system of monitoring has been put in place to curtail such ‘abuses’. ‘Donoshchiki’, tattletellers, report those professors who use Russian in class, even in response to a question posed to them in Russian. ‘I was also reported’ – Anya avows, for having responded in kind to a question posed to her while she was teaching. Here, in describing the ridiculousness of the situation, Anya speaks for a moment in exaggerated Ukrainian to emphasize the point.

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When the social pressure to speak Ukrainian turns to coercion, it may become more difficult to accommodate the designated domains of language usage. Anya may be willing to answer questions (posed in Russian) in Ukrainian during the elective she teaches to avoid being reported to the department, but she is not willing to report others. She describes an evaluation form that went around the institute with the heading of The Ministry of Security of Ukraine. The questions were as such: ‘Which professors teach in Russian? Which classes use Russian books? Which use Ukrainian? Which professor refuses to teach in Ukrainian? Which department teaches in Russian? Do you know Ukrainian?’ Although Anya did not know the intended aim of the evaluation form, she refused to fill it out. She was told that since she chose not to fill out the form, she was not ‘Ukrainian’. Her response was as follows: ‘Ya ne Ukrainka [usually an ethnic designation] i ne donoshchtik’ – ‘I am not Ukrainian and I am not a tattletale.’ Anya’s response reflects a rather unsubtle form of resistance. Even the question-taking in Russian at the end of classes may be interpreted not simply as a shifting of domains (to lessen the social distance between teacher and students) but as a subversion of the new language rules and a risk in the face of being reported to the university department or beyond. These behaviours may reflect responses to the excessive pressures of language politics and a rejection of policies of coercion and intimidation. In this light, the formal/informal pattern of language usage observable among members of Jewish and other Russian-speaking communities may at times be re-evaluated to reveal subtle, and sometimes not so subtle, forms of resistance in the place of political correctness and accommodation. The Jewish domestic sphere is less likely to entail diglossic language shifts of the kind described above. I rarely heard Ukrainian spoken in the homes of Jews, except to repeat a Ukrainian phrase heard in another context, to refer to some very specific phenomenon with no counterpart in Russian, or, once in a while, to tell a Ukrainian joke. These were rare moments of code-switching, single utterances, before resuming a conversation in Russian. Where children were present, phrases picked up in Ukrainian language kindergartens and schools were sometimes heard. Small children at times confused Ukrainian words with Russian words. These mistakes were quickly corrected by parents, occasionally revealing a certain frustration that their children could not fully distinguish between the two languages and the domains in which they should be spoken. Parents seemed to share an implicit understanding about the delineation of domains, which they


sought to transmit to their children. It was also rare to hear Ukrainian spoken among the Jews I met in the Jewish youth clubs and at other Jewish youth gatherings (discos, parties, birthdays, informal get-togethers). Once in a while they threw out a Ukrainian phrase that everyone understood. Often they did so in an exaggerated manner, perhaps in mimic of something heard on television or in class that day. This ‘code-switching for effect’ could be interpreted as a mocking form of accommodation, a subtle expression of resistance to the increasing presence of Ukrainian in the daily life of young Russophone Jews. One medium in which I did hear Ukrainian freely and unselfconsciously used was in song. Ukrainian was often praised by Russianspeakers for its softer, more melodic sounds and lyrical qualities. Just as Ukrainian folk music seems to have infiltrated the cultural life of the different minorities in Ukraine (as pointed out above in reference to the conference reception), so too Ukrainian pop culture and music have infiltrated the Russian-speaking youth scene, and the Jewish youth scene at that. At disco nights organized by Jewish youth organizations, Ukrainian music was played, sung, and danced to alongside Russian and sometimes Israeli music. When young people gathered around the guitar to sing songs, the repertoire was predominantly Russian, but once in a while Ukrainian songs were thrown in, both folks songs and recent pop, and no one hesitated to sing along. This trend is even stronger among teenagers and school-goers. At Jewish summer camps, Ukrainian songs were sung with almost as much frequency as Russian songs, and everyone knew the words. The language of spoken communication among the staff and campers, however, remained (except for selective individual cases) Russian. It would appear that music and the cultural arts are perceived by Jews and other minorities as being in another realm. The conference on social protection was considered an acceptable, even appropriate, domain in which to communicate in Russian. On the one hand, it was a formal gathering, supported by the state and housed in a national institute (The Institute of International Affairs). On the other, it was informal, organized by and for minority communities and centred around issues of concern primarily to minorities. The lingua franca among these communities is Russian; for many, it is also the mother tongue. If the conference had been organized around issues concerning the larger Ukrainian society and targeting a broader Ukrainian-speaking audience, the choice of language may have been different. The conference topic, its scope, and the make-up of its participants in part determined the level of formality. Ukrainian officials had

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been invited, but they were invited to address the concerns of minority communities. Their presence was more formal; they kept their distance through their use of Ukrainian. Russian, once the official language of state, was now perceived as the language of a significant minority. In an attempt to minimize social distance and create a less formal atmosphere, organizers and participants expressed themselves in Russian. This is why the ethnic Armenian politician addressed his audience in Russian. He would surely have addressed a speech to parliament in Ukrainian. Within a theory of context and appropriateness, the two contexts demand very different responses and uses of language. Why did the Ukrainian official believe the context called for a formal statement? Does this conflict of sociolinguistic perspectives and expectations reflect different views of the use and delineation of space within the state? Whether or not the content and constituency called for greater informality, when the use of Russian was challenged at the conference, its continued use in the public sphere could also be interpreted as a form of resistance to active pressure and intimidation on the part of the state. Were the Ukrainian officials at the conference threatened by the alternative (non-Ukrainian?) use of public space or by the display of cultural and linguistic unity on the part of diverse national communities? Did they see this conference as a challenge to the success of Ukrainian nationalism and minority integration within the nation – the entire spectrum of national minorities gathered together under one roof, yet choosing to communicate not in the language of the nationalizing state but in the language of the former empire? Do Ukrainian minorities and the ethnic Ukrainian mainstream hold competing images of the nation, the state, minorities and national loyalty? Language- and allegiance-focused theories often assume that language shift entails the wholesale adoption of the national language in all social contexts, even seeping into the private sphere to replace the mother-tongue. However, relying on rational choice theory and noncontext specific numerical calculations of shifting language usage, the tipping game cannot explain the current social dynamics of language usage and the questions of agency involved in language accommodation, manipulation and resistance in various cultural and social contexts over the short term, nor can it predict them over the long term. The fact that Jews and other Russian-speaking minorities continue to speak Russian at home, among friends, and in certain other appropriate contexts, while becoming fluent in Ukrainian in school, university, the workplace, print and media, and other social spaces, complicates


blanket assumptions about language usage, identity and political commitment. Can their behaviour be considered to constitute language shift? Would not Kuzio judge their patriotism differently depending on the context in which he observed their use of language? The continuing presence of large speech communities tied together by a nonnational language creates the possibility that alongside strategies of language accommodation in the public sphere, there will remain a cultural and social space, a more intimate space, for alternative linguistic expression. This reality complicates language-based assumptions about loyalty and patriotism. It also reflects an alternative view of the nation rooted in greater linguistic, social and cultural freedom.

An alternative view of the nation If simplistic theories about language shift can be empirically challenged, assumptions about identity and loyalty embedded in these theories must also be problematized. Just as language usage in a linguistically and culturally shifting state is inherently more complicated than theories about language and nationalism allow, so too constructions of identity and belonging and their links to language, culture, the nation and the state must be explored in all their complexity rather than reduced to simplistic equations. The linguistic behaviours and cultural strategies of the Jewish community and other Russophone communities in Ukraine reflect identities and attitudes towards the state, which do not necessarily conform to the current nation-building project. It is these identities and attitudes to which I now turn. Most young Jews believe they must know and respect the Ukrainian language; they also realize that they will be at a clear disadvantage if they do not master Ukrainian but plan to pursue their future in Ukraine (see Spinner 1994, pp. 145, 147–8). Nevertheless, Ukrainian Jewish attitudes towards concepts of citizenship (grazhdanstvo), homeland (rodina), the people (narod), national identity and culture, the nation and national belonging are often ambiguous and selfcontradictory. Jews consider themselves to be civic Ukrainians, 19 not ethnic Ukrainians. Their belonging is defined through citizenship. Anya states: ‘Net, konechno net [ia ne schitaiu sebia ukrainka]. Nu, u menia ukrainskoe grazhdanstvo, [ia] grazhdanin Ukrainy, grazhdanka Ukrainy. Ia ukrainskaya evreika’ – ‘No, of course not [I do not consider myself Ukrainian]. I have Ukrainian citizenship, I’m a citizen of Ukraine, a

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citizen [feminine form] of Ukraine. I am a Ukrainian Jew.’ Thus, Jews can be Ukrainian citizens, Ukrainian Jews, but they cannot be simply Ukrainians – ‘ukrainets, ukrainka’ – a term implicit of membership in an Ukrainian ethnic elite. In spite of the occasional ambiguity of the civic component20 and the total lack of an ethnic component, Jews like Lida feel profoundly tied to Ukraine: ‘Even so, deep in my soul, I will of course consider myself a part of Ukraine.’ Lida extends this avowal to refer to all Ukrainian Jews: ‘In any case, every Jew considers her/himself part of Ukraine, I think.’ What does it mean to be part of Ukraine and to feel this tie deep in the soul, and yet, share no sense of belonging to the ethnic Ukrainian nation? Moreover, many Jews were against the break-up of the Soviet Union. In voting for independence in the referendum, they were seeking a decentralization of power from Moscow to Kiev, not a full break from the centre. Young Jews who did not vote in the referendum articulate the break in terms of the emergence of borders and administrative barriers between relatives, friends and territories, sharing a common language, culture and historical memory. Zhenya states: I think everyone has a subjective attitude because to live 200, 300 years with Russia. … Imagine, it is simple, there live two identical peoples, but between them a border, and they speak one language, they have the identical meanings of words … yes, that is, they have some of their own particularities, but much that is similar, a language that is practically one. If, through Zhenya’s eyes, Ukraine is not a separate nation or people but historically, culturally and linguistically tied to Russia, to what does he refer when he states: ‘Ya shtitayu sebya chast’ etogo naroda, ya vse takie misl, rodina zdes’’ – ‘I consider myself part of this people; I, as such, meaning, my homeland is here’? His terms need clarification: naroda, rodina, zdes’. People, homeland, here. Where is here? Where are the borders of Zhenya’s homeland and his people? They certainly go beyond the borders of Ukraine: ‘For me homeland is Kiev, for me homeland is Moscow. For me homeland is Crimea. It is all my homeland, there it is all my homeland. Homeland is those places that are attractive to me, that I love. Homeland is those places in which I find a common language.’ The expression ‘naiti obshtii yazik’ (to find a common language) is idiomatic, referring not so much to speech but to shared values and outlook. It is evident, however, that the source of


shared values between these locations is Russian language, culture and historical experience. Lida too is critical of independence: ‘When it was the Union it was one country.’ Now people have grown further apart from one another. Her relatives are dispersed across the former Soviet Union, having found themselves citizens of separate countries. Lida discursively confines her belonging to the concept Ukraine; yet, in her imagery, the borders of the nation do not necessarily coincide with those of the state. The framework of identification may be wider than the state or more localized. In Zhenya’s discourse, localized and regional identities take precedence over national identity. When he goes to Russia, he does not feel himself first and foremost to be Ukrainian: ‘But yes, I consider myself Kievlianin [an inhabitant of Kiev]. I consider myself generally by all measures a Kievlianin. The mentality of a Kievlianin generally. Wherever I have been, whether in St Petersburg or Moscow, I have felt myself as a Kievlianin.’ Consider Lida, who calls her homeland Kiev: ‘Homeland is the place where a person was born in any case. It is, I say, for example not Ukraine, but it is Kiev, specifically Kiev itself.’ In these discourses, Kiev is self-contained and cosmopolitan. Despite its location and role as the capital, it stands beyond the boundaries of the Ukrainian nation-state. It is home and homeland, the focus of nostalgia for Jews who have left or consider leaving, the focus of an emerging transnational, largely Russian-speaking identity. Zhenya moves from the local to the regional as a source of identification, breaking Ukraine down into separate regions, which maintain their own distinct identities: In Ukraine … there are the inhabitants of Kharkov region, Russianspeaking, … a Russian-speaking group in the South, a Russian-speaking group in the East of Ukraine, … a Ukrainian-speaking group of central Ukraine. They all do not belong to the other. … That is, in Ukraine, Ukraine does not consider itself a single people Ukrainians [edinim narodom ukraintsami]. … For example, I will go to western Ukraine, I will feel like a stranger, and it will be strange to me. If Zhenya feels like a stranger in western Ukraine, he feels at home in eastern Ukraine, whose population he describes in the following way: On this territory, a people of its own, neither Russian nor Ukrainian [ne russkie ne ukraintsi], emerged. It is, you know, … a people of

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eastern Ukraine, … it is a mix of Russians, Ukrainians, Poles, Jews. From this mix emerged a third, … They have their own views, their own values. Zhenya believes that the mixed Russian-speaking population of Ukraine has come to share its own particular characteristics and way of viewing the world. It has consolidated its own unique collective identity distinct from a Russian or Ukrainian (ethnic) identity: … (O)n the given territory, where generally a Russian-speaking but not all Russian population lives, it, naturally, it is very mixed and the conception is mixed therefore. This territory … a kind of special territory you know, the Russian-speaking population of Ukraine – it is a distinct nation already. It is simply, even … a kind of national group. In Zhenya’s discourse, Ukraine does not consist of one people but several, distinguished by regional, cultural and linguistic identities. The mixed21 Russian-speaking population of Ukraine may be considered one national group. Language is the most defining aspect of this group, bringing together Russians, Jews and other non-Russian, Russian-speaking communities within a single collectivity. If Ukrainian Jews belong to this distinct regional and linguistic group, where do they stand in the Ukrainian nation-building process? They feel obliged to know and respect Ukrainian language, culture and traditions, in addition to their own, but how do they feel about them? Despite strategies of accommodation and diglossic language use, reflecting fluency in the national language and culture of Ukraine, Jews do not partake of a sense of national self-consciousness heightened by the embracing of Ukrainian language, culture and historical traditions. For most, Ukrainian culture is removed and distant. They do not feel it the way they feel Russian culture: (Zhenya) ‘Without a word, Russian culture is close to me. … That is, in Russian language, there is also its own. … I understand it all, that is, it is all mine, I feel it all.’ In contrast, (Zhenya) ‘Ukrainian culture I unfortunately don’t know at all.’ Even for those Jews well acquainted with the writings of Ukrainian philosophers, writers and historians, theirs is often a detached interest: (Anya) ‘It is simply interesting … but unfortunately, I do not relate to Ukrainian culture.’ Thus, Ukrainian Jews do not share in the imagination of a Ukrainian national society consisting of traditions they do not call their own: (Zhenya) ‘I do not belong to it. I do not feel myself


part of some collective society, that considers itself, identify themselves as Ukrainians [kak kakikh-to vot ukraintsev].’ However, when Ukrainian society is looked at in another way, embracing its diverse cultural and linguistic traditions and the populations, which reflect them, the answer may be different. Jews may feel themselves at home in Ukraine the way they do not feel themselves abroad: When I go to Russia, I consider myself a non-resident. I do not consider myself Russian. I consider that I belong to this collective society, that is, in principle yes. Yes, I consider myself a part, specifically, of a Ukrainian collective society. (Zhenya) How can we make sense of this contradiction within a single discourse? Zhenya goes on to explain: ‘But it means that … it is on the level of daily life. … That is, … not on the cultural level, not on the linguistic level, on a kind of everyday level, we identify ourselves. … That is, on a spiritual level, we consider ourselves … yes, just a society slightly different.’ Two different imageries of Ukraine are operating here, the first more exclusive, nationalistic, less tolerant of linguistic and cultural difference, a Ukraine threatening and unimaginable to Jews. ‘Ukraina eto dlia Ukrainstev’ – ‘Ukraine is for Ukrainians’, as some of Anya’s ethnic Ukrainian friends say. Foreigners should leave, but this doesn’t include you, they assure Anya. Anya is never sure if they mean to assure her or all Jews. The line between who is a ‘foreigner’ and who is a ‘Ukrainian’ is at times ambiguous, as Kuzio’s comments about the cultural and national demarcation of language remind us (Kuzio 1998, pp. 178–9). The second imagery of Ukraine is broader, more inclusive. It includes all those like Zhenya, Anya, Lida and other Russian-speakers who grew up on this territory and in this society and feel a part of Ukraine in a way they do not feel part of Russia. They belong to Ukraine, but not to the nationalist, ethnic conceptualization of Ukraine; they belong to the Ukraine of their experience and imagination, with its Russian linguistic and cultural influences and mixed society. Can it be that there is more than one imagined community inside Ukraine, depending on who is doing the imagining?22

Conclusions The processes of nation and state-building in Ukraine cannot be separated out from their relationships to the Ukrainian and Russian lan-

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guages. This is not because, as Kuzio believes, Ukrainian language is the source of political unity of the Ukrainian people, but because language is inherently tied to conceptualizations of belonging to the nation in the imagination of the state and its inhabitants. Ukrainian Jews continue to accommodate the Ukrainianization process, integrating themselves into the transitioning social, economic and intellectual life of Ukraine. They see the process as a necessity both for themselves and for a nation asserting its identity after years of repression. However, they distinguish between Ukrainians reviving their cultural and linguistic traditions and the state imposing an ethno-historical view of the nation on its inhabitants. Ukrainian Jews envision Ukraine as a bilingual and diglossic space, reflective of cultural, regional and historical diversity and inclusive of their own experiences. While using Ukrainian more and more in the public sphere – in their studies, their professions, their dealings with society and the state – they continue to assert their sense of Russianness in more intimate domains. Here, language shifts are revealed to be partial and contextual and not indicative of shifts in social and political identity. On the contrary, as Russian sheds its stigma of imperialism and Ukrainian becomes nationalized, and as the diglossic values and usages of the two languages change, a Russian-speaking identity becomes symbolic of the informal, the local and the regional, of alternative conceptions and experiences of history and memory within the Ukrainian state. This Russian-speaking identity is deeply tied to Ukraine; as Nemiria writes of ethnic Russians: ‘The majority of Russians … have lived here alongside the Ukrainians long enough to forge their identity with the region and not with their “historical motherland”’ (1996, p. 9). Spinner writes for the case of Quebec, that the transition to a Frenchspeaking Quebecois culture creates an ‘overarching memory’ or ‘imagined community’ for the people of Quebec, and that ‘ [t]his collective memory does not preclude other, smaller collective memories like those of the Haitian or Jewish Quebecois’ (1994, p. 159). He believes that language-based nationalism is less exclusive than other forms of nationalism (1994, p. 164). However, the project of Ukrainianization is not only about language. Implicit within its language agenda is a predominantly ethno-cultural and ethno-historical experience of the nation, with the potential to deny alternative spaces of cultural expression and memory, many of which are language-based. This can only serve to alienate the Jewish community and other minority communities, for whom the process of Ukrainian self-imagining may become irreconcilable with the national imagining of the Ukrainian state.


Notes 1. According to the 1989 Soviet census, ethnic Ukrainians accounted for approximately 12 per cent of the 40 per cent native Russian-speakers. Other studies cited by Taras Kuzio note lower percentages of native Ukrainianspeakers than earlier recorded in the Soviet census and thus greater proportions of ethnic Ukrainians among native Russian speakers (1998, pp. 179–80). 2. Grigory Nemiria cites a statistical breakdown of 48 per cent Russophone ethnic Ukrainians, 30 per cent Russophone Russians, and 15 per cent Ukrainophone Ukrainians among the adult population of the left bank of Ukraine (Ukrainian territory east of the Dnepr River) (1996, p. 10). 3. Although it has clear cultural and ethno-historical overtones. 4. State measures taken in this direction include policies of language transition within education, the civil service and the military; the addition of obligatory courses on Ukrainian language, culture and history within the national school and university curriculums; the privileged allocation of resources to the Ukrainian-language media and press. 5. Spread through deliberate tsarist and Soviet policies of Russification. 6. Nationality (natsional’nost’) here and elsewhere in the chapter does not mean citizenship; it is the politico-juridical designation of ethnic group in the Soviet nationalities policy. The term continues to be used today. Other terms applied by the Ukrainian state to refer to its ethnic communities derive from the term nationality – national minority (natsional’noe menshinstvo), national community (natsional’naia obshchina). 7. Ukrainian is potentially a lingua franca; however, in actuality it does not function as one except in formal public contexts. Although most inhabitants of Ukraine know Ukrainian in some capacity, they are far less likely to use it in daily interaction, except in western Ukraine, where the diglossic value of Ukrainian as a vernacular is more widespread. 8. I think it is safe to say that for most conference participants Russian was also the mother tongue. 9. A functional aspect of communication in a country long used to the informal interaction of two vernaculars, despite formally shifting contexts of diglossia and patterns of linguistic regional dominance. 10. See later in the chapter for a discussion of ethnic and civic distinctions, which are built into the Russian terminology. 11. Sometimes the line between scholar and nationalist is blurred. 12. To argue that Russians will become titulars is to argue that they will become members of the dominant ethnic group of the state. Titular refers to the special legal and political status, under the Soviet nationalities policy, of the ethnic groups who had their own republics. It defines a distinct ethnic-territorial link between members of the titular nationality (that is, ethnic Ukrainians) and their titular republic (Ukraine). The term continues to be used to indicate the dominant ethnic groups in the Soviet successor states to the republics. 13. It is my feeling, based on more general observations in the field, that many of the following linguistic observations may be true for the larger Russophone community in Ukraine; however, my examples are mainly drawn from observations within the Jewish community in Kiev. Kuzio cites

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14.

15. 16.

17.

18.

19.

20. 21. 22.

examples of bilingual behaviour more generally in Kiev and elsewhere in Ukraine, as indications not of contextual language use and diglossia but of a gradual transition process to Ukrainian (Kuzio 1998, pp. 180–4). Yiddish is spoken only among elderly Jews, and even many of them have forgotten it. There is some effort at revival and some young people are learning it, but it does not feature as a mother tongue for most Ukrainian Jews today and affects the language politics very little. Organized by the Institute of Judaic Studies. By informal, I mean a context of greater intimacy, in which the social distance between speakers has been narrowed, due to the sharing of a mother tongue, cultural values and experience, ethnicity. In the Russophone community, linguistic and cultural affinity is the primary source of greater intimacy; in a strictly Jewish context, all three shared aspects – language, culture, ethnicity – are present. From here on, I will refer to three young Kiev Jews with whom I conducted lengthy interviews. Anya is a fourth year medical student. Lida recently finished her studies at a technical institute and has since left for Chicago (shortly after the interview was conducted). Zhenya is a fourth year student in Judaic studies and philosophy at the International Solomon University (the Jewish university in Kiev). The interviews were conducted in Russian and the translations are my own. The original quotation is included only when the Russian terminology loses its distinct meaning in translation and is relevant for the discussion. Does Ukrainian ever enter the informal and private sphere of interaction? We cannot after all assume that Russian is the native tongue of all Ukrainian Jews. There are those who come from bilingual homes, where both languages are spoken at an intimate level. This is mostly the result of intermarriage between ethnic Ukrainians and Russian-speaking Jews. During my travels to Jewish summer camps staffed by young Jews and catering to Jewish children from the Transcarpathian and Carpathian regions of western Ukraine, I came across some native Ukrainian-speakers, especially among the campers. They spoke Ukrainian while everyone else around them spoke Russian. I also came across some counsellors from Transcarpatia for whom Hungarian was just as intimate a language as Russian, even when they did not know it as fluently. They claimed to codeswitch informally at home between Russian, Hungarian and Ukrainian. The term civic Ukrainian is an attempt to distinguish between the ethnic Ukrainian nationality and the broader category of citizenry, inclusive of ‘non-ethnic Ukrainians’. For lack of space, the complexity of attitudes of Ukrainian Jews towards citizenship will not be addressed in this chapter. Nemiria also refers to the ‘mixed identity’ of Russians and Russian-speakers in Ukraine (1996, p. 9). The case of Ukrainian Jews becomes more complicated when we consider their diasporic status, their propensity for multiple migrations, and the continued transnational links maintained between Jewish communities at home in Ukraine and in second diasporas around the world. However, further aspects of Ukrainian Jewish transnationalism are beyond the scope of this chapter.


Bibliography Anderson, B. Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism (London: Verso, 1991 [1983]). Edwards, J. Language, Diversity and Identity, Linguistic Minorities, Policies and Pluralism, J. Edwards (ed.) (London: Academic Press, 1984) pp. 277–310. Edwards, J. Language, Society and Identity (Oxford: Basil Blackwell Ltd, 1985). Fishman, J.A. Language and Ethnicity in Minority Sociolinguistic Perspective (Clevedon: Multilingual Matters Ltd, 1989). Kuzio, T. Ukraine: State and Nation Building (London: Routledge, 1998). Kuzio, T. Ukraine Under Kuchma: Political Reform, Economic Transformation and Security Policy in Independent Ukraine (New York: St. Martin’s Press – now Palgrave, 1997). Laitin, D.D. Identity in Formation: the Russian-Speaking Populations in the Near Abroad (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1998). Nemiria, G. Regionalism: an Underestimated Dimension of State-Building in Ukraine, No. 8, Occasional Papers on Changes in the Slavic-Eurasian World, Slavic Research Centre, Hokkaido University, March 1996, Sapporo. Spinner, J. The Boundaries of Citizenship: Race, Ethnicity, and Nationality in the Liberal State (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1994).

Index Accommodation norm, Belarus, 117 Albania, ethnic tensions, 155 Anderson, Benedict, 14, 58, 59, 195 Armenia, ethnic tensions, 155 Armenians, Latvia, 163, 172 Romania, 46 Ukraine, 193, 194, 203 Assimilation, Czech Republic, 85 Czechoslovakia, 71, 72 Latvia, 158, 160, 161, 179–80, 182 linguistic see Linguistic assimilation Moldavian Soviet Socialist Republic (MSSR), 138 Poland, 73 Romania, 44, 57 Austria, national language, 99 Autochthonous languages, Poland, 72 Azeri, 172 Baltic states, German settlement, 69 Balticanization, Russians, 158 Belarus, accommodation norm, 117 Belarusian Soviet Socialist Republic, 94, 101 Belarusianisms, 104 Belarusianization, 94, 96 Belarusianness, 99 bilingualism, 95, 99–100, 104, 110 Catholic faith, 97, 114 Communist Party, 100 covert prestige, 116 enthnolinguistic paradoxes, 91 independence (1991), 94 Jews, 99 linguistic assimilation, 91, 107 newspapers, 107 official languages, 95–6, 105 Orthodox faith, 97, 114 Poles, 99 Polish language, 113, 114, 115

population, 91, 119 public opinion, 95–6, 98 purges, 94 referendum, 95, 96, 105 Russian language, 91, 94, 95–6, 101, 104–5, 110–18 Russians, 99 Russification, 98, 157 Russophones, 94, 95, 104, 107, 114 solidarity traits, 115, 116 standard language ideology, 102–6 status traits, 115, 116 Tartars, 99 titular nationality, 91 World War II, 108 Belarus language, decline, 91 dialects, 112, 113 higher education, 96 identity, 97–100 ideology, 96–106, 109–18 Language Society, 96, 99 legislation, 94 mass media, 108, 110, 111 matched-guise test, 109, 114–17, 120 mixed language, 111, 112, 113, 114, 115, 116 narkomauka, 106, 107 nationalism, 97–100 native language (rodnaia mova/rodnoi iazyk), 91, 97–100, 109, 112, 113 policies, 94–7 revival: advocates, 104–5, 106; opponents, 99 rural/urban speakers, 109–18 Russification, 111 school curriculum, 94 standard language, 106–9, 110, 112, 113, 114 subordinate status, 91 tarashkevitsa, 106–7, 108, 109, 111 213

214 Index Belarus language continued trasianka, 105, 106, 108 vernacular varieties, 105 Belarusians, Latvia, 156, 158, 160, 163, 172, 173 Poland, 106 Belgium, national language, 99 Bessarabia, Bulgarians, 124 Gagauz, 124 German minorities, 124 Imperial Russia, 124–9 Jews, 124, 125 Moldovan language, 124, 126, 127 Moldovan revival, 128 National Assembly, 129 population, 124, 125, 126–7 Romania, 128, 129–32, 133, 134–5, 149 Romanian language, 125, 130–1 Romanianization, 131 Russian language, 125, 126, 127, 131 Russians, 124–5 Russification, 125, 126 Russophones, 131 Ukraine, 129 Ukrainians, 124, 125 World War I, 128 Yiddish, 124 see also Moldova Bilingual education, Latvia, 167 Bilingualism, advantages, 11 Belarus, 95, 99–100, 104, 110 Moldavian Soviet Socialist Republic (MSSR), 141 Ukraine, 193, 199, 209 Bosnia-Herzegovina, Bosnian Serb Republic (Republic Srpska), 25, 26, 29, 30, 33 Croatian language, 30, 31 Croats, 24 dialects, 29, 30, 31 displaced persons, 25 ethnic divisions, 23, 25, 26, 30, 31 higher education, 30 language policies, 26, 27, 29 Muslim-Croat Federation (HercegBosna), 25, 26, 29, 30, 33, 41

Muslims, 28–9, 30, 31, 38 newspapers, 31 official languages, 31, 33 population, 24, 25 school curriculum, 26, 30, 41 secession (1992), 20, 29 Serbian language, 30, 31, 33 Serbs, 24 standard linguistic idioms, 22, 29 Bosnian language, Arabic/Turkish borrowings, 31, 34 Bosniac, 19, 30 codification, 30 Cyrillic alphabet, 30 differentiation, 31 future direction, 34 history, 19, 20 Latin alphabet, 30–1 pronunciation, 31 school curriculum, 26 successor language, 12, 26, 30–1 unity models, 30 Brandt, Willy, 78 Brezhnev, Leonid, 95, 137 Bulgaria, ethnic tensions, 155 Romanian Bulgarians, 60 Bulgarians, Banat, 45–62 Bessarabia, 124 Bulgarianness, 60, 61 Catholic faith, 45, 48, 49, 59 codification, 58 Cyrillic alphabet, 45, 48, 49, 51, 52, 55, 56 dialects, 45, 54 diaspora, 61 histories, 58–61 identity, 59 Latin alphabet, 45, 48, 51–2, 54, 56 literary languages, 53, 54, 55, 57, 58, 60 mass media, 54, 57, 59 Moldavian Soviet Socialist Republic (MSSR), 139, 143 Moldova, 123 mother tongue, 50–8 national minority, 45, 46 newspapers, 50, 51, 52, 54–5, 56, 57 Orthodox faith, 45, 48

Index 215 Paulicians, 48, 50, 51, 54, 55, 58–9, 60, 63 population, 46, 49 quest for power, 45–50 Romania, 13, 44–64 school curriculum, 53–4 Ukraine, 194 Wallachia, 45, 47 Catholic faith, Belarus, 97, 114 Bulgarians, 45, 48, 49, 59 Ceaus¸escu, Nicolae, 44, 47, 139, 145 Charter for Regional or Minority Languages, 10 Citizenship, Estonia, 15, 161 Latvia, 15, 160–7, 177, 183 Lithuania, 177 Poland, 72 Ukraine, 193, 204–5 Civil rights, Latvia, 165, 177 Code switching, Ukraine, 191, 198, 201, 202 Collectivization, Latvia, 157 Moldavian Soviet Socialist Republic (MSSR), 135, 136–7 COMECON, 175 Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS), 147 Communism, collapse, 1, 7, 79, 82 Croats, 21 Czechoslovakia, 71 Eastern Europe, 73 ethnic engineering, 6 nationalism, 7 Communist Party, Belarus, 100 Latvia, 174 Moldavian Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic (MASSR), 133 Moldavian Soviet Socialist Republic (MSSR), 136, 137, 141, 142 Ukraine, 133 Community, Jewish, 192 Council of Europe, 10, 47, 180, 183 Covert prestige, Belarus, 116

Croatia, Croatian spring, 20, 21 Eastern Slavonia, 33 ethnic divisions, 23 independence (1941), 20 Krajina, 27, 28 language policies, 27–8 official languages, 33 population, 24, 25 Serbs, 24, 25, 27, 28 standard linguistic idioms, 22 Croatian language, Bosnia-Herzegovina, 30, 31 future direction, 34, 38 Latin alphabet, 27, 32 literary languages, 19, 20, 21, 27 neologisms, 23, 34 school curriculum, 26 successor language, 12, 26, 27–8 unity models, 28 World War II, 23 Croats, Bosnia-Herzegovina, 24 communism, 21 dialects, 24 Illyrian movement, 18 joint language tradition, 18–26 Vojvodina, 25 Vukovites, 20 Culture, bounded collectivities, 45 diversity, 11 ethnicity, 4–5 identity, 4 nationalism, 8 Russia, 207 Ukraine, 207 Cyrillic alphabet, Bosnian language, 30 Bulgarians, 45, 48, 49, 51, 52, 55, 56 Moldovan language, 127, 133, 134, 135, 136, 138, 142, 147 Montenegro, 34, 37 Romanian language, 127 Serbian language, 18, 27 Czech Republic, assimilation, 85 Bohemia, 69, 84 ethnic tensions, 84, 155

216 Index Czech Republic continued European Union (EU), 13, 80 German-Czech Future Fund, 76 Germans: minorities, 13, 68, 69, 76, 79, 80, 81, 83–6; population, 83; prejudice against, 84; settlement, 69 Germany, 75–6, 84 Gypsies, 85 mass media, 85 minority rights, 83–4 Moravia, 69, 84 newspapers, 85 Poles, 85 school curriculum, 85 Silesia, 69, 81, 84 Slovaks, 85 Sudetenland, 76, 79, 80, 84, 85 Czechoslovakia, assimilation, 71, 72 communism, 71 Cultural Association of Citizens of German Nationality, 71 economic integration, 71 Germans: expellees, 69, 75, 76, 77, 79–80, 81, 84, 85, 86; financial aid, 76; minorities, 70–2 Germany, 73 Munich Agreement (1938), 69, 84 newspapers, 71 population, 71 Prague Spring, 71, 84 St Germain settlement (1919), 69 Sudetenland, 69, 75, 76, 77, 84, 85, 86 Czechs, Romania, 46 Ukraine, 189 Danicic, Djura, 18, 20, 32 Demography, see Population Deportations, Latvia, 157 Moldavian Soviet Socialist see also Moldova Republic (MSSR), 135, 136, 137 Dialects, Belarus language, 112, 113 Bulgarians, 45, 54

Yugoslavia, see Serbo-Croatian language Diglossia, Ukraine, 191, 192, 198, 201, 207, 209, 211 Discourse, identity, 109 Russian ethnos, 101 Djukanovic, Milo, 33, 34 Dniester Moldovan Republic (DMR), 146, 147–8, 152 Domain, delineation, 201 Jewish, 190, 200 private, 198, 200 public, 195, 198, 200 Eastern Europe, communism, 73 democracy, 74 European Union (EU), 10, 11 modernism, 13 nationalism, 7 titular ethnic groups, 7 Edinstvo (Unity), Moldavian Soviet Socialist Republic (MSSR), 143 Education, curriculum, see School curriculum national standard language, 93 Emigration, see also Higher education German minorities, 72–3, 74, 83, 87 Latvia, 157, 158, 178 Employment, Latvia, see Latvia English, covert prestige, 116 as great language, 95 Quebecois, 115 schools, Latvia, 173 Eriksen, Thomas H., 14 Estonia, citizenship, 15, 161 European Union (EU), 171 language legislation, 171 minorities, 155, 180 Russian language, 197 school teachers, 170 Estonians, Latvia, 156, 163, 172, 173 Ethnic groups, characteristics, 2–3, 66–7

Index 217 cultural features, 4 definition, 66 ethno-national movements, 67 irredentism, 67 Moldova, 150 native languages, 159 political power, 67 self-defined community, 66 self-determination, 67 traits, 45 Ethnic minorities, minority languages, 9 Serbo-Croatian language, 24–5 Ethnicity, affiliation, 2 constructivist approaches, 3, 6 culture, 4–5 identity, 2, 67 instrumentalist approaches, 3, 4, 66 meaning, 2 nationalism, 1, 5, 11 politics, 1–2 primordialist approaches, 2, 3, 4, 6, 7, 66 reductionism, 3, 7 Euromosaic, 11, 15 European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages, 10 European Commission, Latvia, 162 European Community, see European Union European Union (EU), cultural diversity, 11 Czech Republic, 13, 80, 81 Eastern Europe, 10, 11 Estonia, 171 Euromosaic, 11 human rights, 182 language policies, 10 Latvia, 156, 170–1, 180, 182 Maastricht Treaty (1992), 11 minorities, 1, 13, 182 minority languages, 10 multilingualism, 10, 44 Poland, 80, 81 Romania, 44, 63 Expellee organizations, Germany, 73, 76, 78–81

Expellees, Germans: Bund der Vertriebenen (BdV), 79–80; Czechoslovakia, 69, 75, 76, 77, 79–80, 81, 84, 85, 86; organizations, 73, 76, 78–81; Poland, 70, 72, 77, 80–1 see also Deportation Poles, Ukraine, 70 property claims/restitution, 80, 84 right of return, 81 Finns, Ukraine, 192 Foreigners, Ukraine, 193, 197, 208 Former Yugoslavia, see Yugoslavia France, Occitan movement, 119 Freedom of speech, censorship, 56 French language, Quebec, 115–16, 196, 209 Gagauz, Bessarabia, 124 independence movement, 144, 146 Moldavian Soviet Socialist Republic (MSSR), 139, 143, 144, 146 Moldova, 123 Republic of Gagauzia, 146 Gaj, Ljudevit, 18, 27 Gellner, Ernest, 6, 7, 8 German language, newspapers, 71, 72, 85 polycentric, 103 school curriculum, 72, 73, 85 German minorities, Bessarabia, 124 Czech Republic, 13, 68, 69, 76, 79, 80, 81, 83–6 Czechoslovakia, 70–2, 75, 76 emigration, 72–3, 74, 87 expulsion see Expellees external minorities policy, 68, 73–5, 81 Latvia, 156, 157, 160, 163, 172 medieval expansion, 69 Moldova, 123 newspapers, 71, 72, 85 Poland, see Poland repatriation, 87, 157 Romania, 46, 53, 74 German-Czech Declaration (1997), 75

218 Index Germany, bilateral agreements, 73, 75, 77 Bund der Vertriebenen (BdV), 79–80 Czech Republic, 75–6, 84 Czechoslovakia, 73 expellees, organizations, 73, 76, 78–81 external minorities policy, 68, 73–5, 81 Federal Republic, 68, 73–5, 78–9 foreign policy, 73, 74, 75 German-Czech Future Fund, 76 London Protocol (1944), 75 Munich Agreement (1938), 76 Nazism, 69, 70, 76, 134, 135 Oder-Neisse line, 77, 89 Poland, 73, 77–8, 79 Prussia, 69, 70 re-unification, 79 Third Reich, 69 Treaty on Good Neighbourly Relations and Cooperation (1991), 77, 82 Weimar Republic, 69, 73 Gorbachev, Mikhail Sergeyevich, 140, 141, 149 Greeks, Romania, 46 Ukraine, 189, 192 Gypsies, Czech Republic, 85 Latvia, 156, 157 Moldova, 123 Handler, Richard, 45 Higher education, Belarus language, 96 Bosnia-Herzegovina, 30 Latvian language, 174 Ukraine, 199–201 Hilevich, Nil, 99 Hitler, Adolf, 69, 134 Hobsbawm, Eric, 5 Homeland, 205, 206 Hungarians, Romania, 44, 46, 53 Slovakia, 15 Ukraine, 189 Vojvodina, 25

Hungary, ethnic tensions, 155 German settlement, 69 Identity, Belarus language, 97–100 Bulgarians, 59 culture, 4 discourse, 109 ethnicity, 2, 67 Jews, 190 national, 195 politics, 2, 190 regional, 206–7 titular, see Titular identity Ideology, Belarus language, 96–106, 109–18 elite languages, 97–109 language, 13, 61, 92–3, 117–18 linguistic structure, 102–9 nationalism, 6, 7, 13, 67 non-elite languages, 109–17 Illyrian language, 19, 20 Illyrian movement, 18, 36 Immigration, Latvia, 157, 158, 161, 163 Institute of Judaic Studies, Ukraine, 198, 199 International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, 166 Israeli Cultural Centre, Ukraine, 198 Ivancov, K., 46, 55 Jews, Belarus, 99 Bessarabia, 124, 125 community, 192 concentration camps, 135 domain, 190, 200 Hebrew, 199 holocaust, 135, 157, 198 identity, 190 Latvia, 156, 157, 158, 160, 163, 172, 173 Moldova, 123 nationality, 204–5 Pogroms, see Pogroms Romanians, 135 Ukraine, 13, 189–209 Yiddish, 124, 211

Index 219 Karadzic, Radovan, 29 Karadzic, Vuk Stefanovic, 18, 19, 32, 35, 36 Kazakhstan, 117, 137, 197 Kiev, Ukraine, 190, 198, 199, 200, 205, 206 Kievlyanin, 206 Kohl, Helmut, 79 Kosovo, population, 25 Kukuljevic-Sakcinski, Ivan, 18 Kurds, 10 Kuzio, Taras, 190, 195, 196, 197, 204, 208, 209 Laitin, David, 195, 197 Language, ideology, 13, 61, 92–3, 117–18 Latvian, fluency, 167 nationalism, 195–8 symbolism, 191–2 titular language, 9, 12, 197 Language legislation, Belarus, 94 Estonia, 171 language tests, Latvia, see Latvian language Latvia, 168–72 Language of inter-nationality communication, Russian, 100, 103, 144 Language policies, Belarus, 94–7 Bosnia-Herzegovina, 26, 27, 29 Croatia, 27–8 Moldova, 150 Russia, 101 Serbo-Croat, 26–7 Ukraine, 105, 190 Language shift, Ukraine, 190, 192, 195, 197, 199, 203, 204 Language unity models, Bosnian, 30 Croatian, 28 Serbian, 32, 33, 38 Serbo-Croat, 22–3, 26 Languages, literary, see Literary languages Latin alphabet, Bosnian language, 30–1

Bulgarians, 45, 48, 51–2, 54, 56 Croatian language, 27, 32 Moldovan language, 133, 134, 135, 141, 142 Montenegro, 37 Romanian language, 127, 133 Serbian language, 32 Latvia, assimilation, 61, 158, 160, 179–80, 182 bilingual education, 167 citizenship: 1991 law, 160; 1994 law, 160; 1995 law, 161; 1998 law, 164, 165; civil rights, 165, 177; eligibility, 160–4, 183; employment, 165–6; language tests, 161, 164, 165; noncitizens, 15, 161, 162–3, 164, 165, 166, 184 collectivization, 157 Communist Party, 174 Daugavpils, 159 Department of Citizenship and Immigration (DCI/PID), 162–3, 164, 178, 183 deportations, 157 emigration, 157, 158, 178 employment: citizenship, 165–6; ethnic segregation, 174–6; language tests, 168–9; mass dismissals, 166; restricted occupations, 164–5, 168; unemployment, 169, 175–6, 184 ethnic discrimination, 155–82 ethnic distribution, 156–60 ethnic strategy, 177–81 ethnic/national populations: Armenians, 163, 172; Belarusians, 156, 158, 160, 163, 172, 173; Estonians, 156, 163, 172, 173; Germans, 156, 157, 160, 163, 172; Gypsies, 156, 157; Jews, 156, 157, 158, 160, 163, 172, 173; Lithuanians, 158, 163, 172, 173; Livs, 161, 163, 172, 180, 183; Poles, 156, 158, 163, 172, 173; Roma, 163, 172, 173; Russians, 157–8, 160,

220 Index Latvia

continued 163, 164, 172, 173, 176, 177–9; schools, 160, 172–3; Tartars, 163, 172; Ukrainians, 158, 163, 172, 173 European Commission, 162 European Union (EU), 156, 170–1, 180, 182 Fatherland and Freedom Party, 164, 184 history tests, 161, 164 Human Rights Office, 166, 180 immigration, 157, 158, 161, 163 independence (1918–39), 160, 177 independence (1991), 155 industrialization, 157, 159 intermarriage, 159–60, 167 Latgale, 159, 163, 172, 176 Latvian Soviet Socialist Republic (LSSR), 160, 168 Latvianization, 178 monolingualism, 156, 168 multiculturalism, 177, 182 naturalization, 161–2, 164, 183 Naturalization Board, 161, 164, 168 non-titular, 161 Orthodox faith, 157 passports, 159, 160 population, 157–60 privatization, 165, 175 purges, 157 referendum (1998), 164, 180, 184 Riga, 159, 164, 165, 166, 173 Russian language, 167, 168, 172, 173, 197 Russification, 157, 178 Russophones, 157, 159, 168, 171 schools: English, 173; minorities, 160, 172–3; teachers, 169–70, 172, 173 stateless persons, 161, 165 titular ethnic group, 12, 156, 179 World War II, 157 Latvian language, business efficiency, 171 certificates, 169, 170 fluency, 167 foreign investment, 171 higher education, 174

language lessons, 165, 169 Language Police, 170 legislation: 1989 law, 168; 1992 law, 170, 174; 1999 law, 170, 171–2 national language, 164 National Programme for Latvian Language Training, 169 native language, 157 official language, 168 schools, 161, 169–70, 172–3 State Language Inspection Board, 170 tests: citizenship, 161, 164, 165; employment, 168–9; school teachers, 169–70 under threat, 177 Leninism, nationalities policy, 142, 160 native languages, 100 Linguistic assimilation, Belarus, 91, 107 Czech Republic, 85 see also Assimilation Lipovans, Romania, 46 Literary Agreement (1850), 18, 19, 20, 21, 36 Literary languages, Bulgarian, 53, 54, 55, 57, 58, 60 Croatian, 19, 20, 21, 27 Moldovan, 132, 138 Romanian, 134, 139 Russian, 103, 104, 191 Serbian, 32 Ukrainian, 192 Lithuania, citizenship, 177, 204–5 Lithuanians, Latvia, 158, 163, 172, 173 Livs, Latvia, 161, 163, 172, 180, 183 Loyalties, Ukraine, see Ukraine Lukashenka, Aliaksandr, 95, 96, 102, 105, 107, 116, 119 Maastricht Treaty (1992), 11 Marriage, intermarriage/mixed marriages, 159–60, 167 Mass media, Belarus language, 108, 110, 111 Bulgarians, 54, 57, 59

Index 221 Czech Republic, 85 Russian language, 110 Ukraine, 193, 199 Matched-guise test, Belarus language, 109, 114–17, 120 Mazuranic, Ivan, 18 Milosovic, Slobodan, 34, 36 Minorities, assimilation, see Assimilation democracy, 74 Estonia, 155, 180 ethnic, see Ethnic minorities European Union (EU), 1, 13, 182 expulsion, see Expellees external minorities policy, 67, 68, 73–5, 81 Germans, see German minorities OSCE High Commissioner, 170 repatriation, 68, 87, 178 schools, Latvia, 160, 172–3 Ukraine, 189, 193 Minority languages, curriculum, see School curriculum European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages, 10 European Union (EU), 10 nationalism, 9 oppression, 1, 10 stateless languages, 9 Western Europe, 10 Modernism, Eastern Europe, 13 homogeneity, 11 nationalism, 9, 11 Moldavian Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic (MASSR), Bessarabia, 131–2 Communist Party, 133 cultural policy, 133 illiteracy, 132–3 Soviet Union, 131–6 Moldavian Soviet Socialist Republic (MSSR), assimilation, 138 bilingualism, 141 Bulgarians, 139, 143 collectivisation, 135, 136–7 Communist Party, 136, 137, 141, 142

deportations, 135, 136, 137 Edinstvo (Unity), 143 Gagauz, 139, 143, 144, 146 informal groups, 141, 142, 145 perestroika, 140–9 Popular Front of Moldova, 142–3, 144, 145, 146, 149 population, 138, 139 purges, 136 restoration, 136 Romania, 139–40, 145–6, 148–9 Romanianization, 146 Russian language, 137–9, 145 Russians, 135, 136, 137, 138, 139, 143 Russophones, 143, 144, 146 Soviet Union, 135–49 Sovietization, 135 titular nationality, 137 Transnistrians, 136, 137, 144, 146 Ukrainians, 135, 136, 138, 139, 143 World War II, 135–6 Moldova, Bessarabia, see Bessarabia Bulgarians, 123 Dniester Moldovan Republic (DMR), 146, 147–8, 152 ethnic groups, 150 Gagauz, 123 German minorities, 123 Gypsies, 123 independence (1991), 123, 149 inclusivity, 150 Jews, 123 language policies, 150 linguistic pluralism, 13 Orthodox faith, 125 pan-Romanianism, 149, 151 passports, 150 politics, 12, 123–51 politics of language, 149–1 Principality, 126, 127 Russians, 123 Russophones, 149, 150 Transnistrians, 151 Ukrainians, 123 Moldovan language, Bessarabia, 124, 126, 127

222 Index Moldovan language continued Cyrillic alphabet, 127, 133, 134, 135, 136, 138, 142, 147 Latin alphabet, 133, 134, 135, 141, 142 literary languages, 132, 138 neologisms, 133, 134 newspapers, 132 peasant expressions, 132, 134 perestroika, 140–9 school curriculum, 138, 140, 145 Soviet Union, 131–4 Moldovans, meaning, 152 Ukraine, 131 Monolingualism, Latvia, 156, 168 Montenegro, codification, 35 Cyrillic alphabet, 34, 37 dialects, 26, 30, 32–3, 34–6, 48 Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (FRY), 20–1, 25, 26–7, 31–3 language identity, 33–9 Latin alphabet, 37 Montenegrin language, 19, 20–1, 35, 36–8 population, 24, 35 Serbian language, 21, 32–3 standard linguistic idioms, 22, 36 successor language, 31, 35, 38 Mother tongue, Bulgarians, 50–8 Ukrainians, 192, 193 Movements, Gagauz independence, 144, 146 Illyrian, 18, 36 nationalism, 6–7, 67 Multiculturalism, Latvia, 177, 182 Music, folk, 195, 202 popular, 202 Russians, 202 Ukrainians, 194–5, 202 Muslims, Bosnia-Herzegovina, 28–9, 30, 31, 38 Yugoslavia, 24, 26, 28–9 Narkomauka, Belarus language, 106, 107 Natiolects, 103

Nation, alternative view, 204–8 state distinguished, 5 National language, see also Official languages Austria, 99 Belgium, 99 Latvia, 164 nationalism, 195 precedence, 196 Switzerland, 99 Ukraine, 197 National Programme for Latvian Language Training Nationalism, Belarus language, 97–100 civic, 5, 7 communism, 7 culture, 8 Eastern Europe, 7 ethnicity, 1, 5, 11 ideology, 6, 7, 13, 67 minority languages, 9 modernism, 9, 11 movements, 6–7, 67 political idioms, 1 Soviet successor states, 7 Ukraine, 195–8 Yugoslavia, 23 zones, 7–8 Nationality, Jews, 204–5 Russians, 100–1 titular: Belarus, 91; Moldavian Soviet Socialist Republic (MSSR), 137 Ukrainians, 204–5 Nation-building, national language, 196 Ukraine, 190, 191, 196, 204, 207 Nations, nationalizing: Belarusianization, 94, 96; Latvianization, 178; rePolonization, 72, 73; Romanianization, 131, 146; Sovietization, 135; Ukrainianization, 13, 190, 191, 195, 209 Native languages, Belarus, 91, 97–100, 109, 112, 113

Index 223 ethnic groups, 159 Latvia, 157 Leninism, 100 Naturalization, Latvia, 161–2, 164, 183 Newspapers, Belarus, 107 Bosnia-Heregovina, 31 Bulgarians, 50, 51, 52, 54–5, 56, 57 Czech Republic, 85 Czechoslovakia, 71 German language, 71, 72, 85 Moldovan language, 132 Poland, 72 Ukraine, 199 NORBALT survey, 159, 176, 179, 184 Novi Sad Agreement (1954), 19, 21, 22, 23, 32, 40 Official languages, Belarus, 95–6 Bosnia-Herzegovina, 31, 33 Croatia, 33 Latvia, 168 Soviet Union, 100 Transnistria, 147 Ukraine, 190, 192, 198 see also National language Old Believers, 157, 182 Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), 170, 180 Orthodox faith, Belarus, 97, 114 Bulgarians, 45, 48 Latvia, 157 Moldova, 125 Passports, Latvia, 159, 160 Moldova, 150 Soviet Union, 99, 150 Peace of Versailles (1919), 71 Pogroms, Easter Day (1903), 127 Poland, assimilation, 73 autochthonous languages, 72 Belarusians, 106 citizenship, 72 European Union (EU), 80, 81

Germans: emigration, 72–3, 74, 83, 87; expellees, 70, 72, 77, 80–1; financial aid, 78; Friendship Circles, 73, 83; integration, 82; language teaching, 77, 83; minorities, 13, 68, 69–70, 72–3, 74, 77–8, 80, 81; settlement, 69 Germany, 73, 77–8, 79 newspapers, 72 re-Polonization, 72, 73 school curriculum, 72, 73, 83 Silesia, 70, 72, 73, 77, 79, 82, 83 Poles, Belarus, 99 Czech Republic, 85 Latvia, 156, 158, 163, 172, 173 Romania, 46 Russification, 157 Ukraine; expellees, 70; minorities, 189, 207 Polish language, Belarus, 113, 114, 115 Political correctness, Serbo-Croatian language, 21 Ukrainian language, 191, 193, 194, 199 Politics, ethnicity, 1–2 identity, 2, 190 Popular culture, Ukraine, 202 Population, Belarus, 91, 119 Bessarabia, 124, 125, 126–7 Czech Republic, 83 Czechoslovakia, 71 Kosovo, 25 Latvia, 157–60 Moldavian Soviet Socialist Republic (MSSR), 138, 139 Montenegro, 24, 35 Serbia, 24, 25 Serbo-Croat speakers, 24–5 Ukraine, 189 Vojvodina, 24, 25 Purges, Belarus, 94 Latvia, 157 Moldavian Soviet Socialist Republic (MSSR), 136

224 Index Refugees, Serbia, 25, 26 Yugoslavia, 25 Regional languages, 10 Regionalism, Soviet Union, 140 Ukraine, 109, 189, 191, 192, 206–7 Religion, Catholic, see Catholic faith Islam, see Muslims Judaism, see Jews Old Believers, 157, 182 Orthodox, see Orthodox faith Repatriation, German minorities, 87, 157 minorities, 68, 178 Roma, Latvia, 163, 172, 173 Romania, 46 Ukraine, 194 Romania, Armenians, 46 assimilation, 44, 57 Bessarabia, 128, 129–32, 133, 134–5, 149 Bulgarians, 13, 44–64 Council of National Minorities, 47, 48 Czechs, 46 ethnic tensions, 155 ethnicization, 44 European Union (EU), 44, 63 financial subsidies, 47 Framework Convention for the Protection of National Minorities, 47 Germans: emigration, 74; minorities, 46, 74; settlement, 69 Greeks, 46 Hungarians, 44, 46, 53 Lipovans, 46 Moldavian Soviet Socialist Republic (MSSR), 139–40, 145–6, 148–9 Poles, 46 political representation, 46, 50 Roma, 46 Serbs, 46 Turks, 46

Ukrainians, 46 Romanian language, Bessarabia, 125, 130–1 Cyrillic alphabet, 127 Latin alphabet, 127, 133 literary languages, 134, 139 politics, 12 renaissance, 127 Romanianization, Bessarabia, 131 Moldavian Soviet Socialist Republic (MSSR), 146 Romanians, Jews, 135 Ukraine, 189 Russia, Bessarabia, 124–9 culture, 207 economic crisis, 175 Germans, settlement, 69 language policies, 101 Revolution (1917), 128 see also National language Russian language, Belarus, 91, 94, 95–6, 101, 104–5, 110–18 Bessarabia, 125, 126, 127, 131 Estonia, 197 Federal Programme, 101–2 greatness of, 95 internationality communication, 100, 103, 144 Latvia, 167, 168, 172, 173, 197 literary languages, 103, 104, 191 mass media, 110 Moldavian Soviet Socialist Republic (MSSR), 137–9, 145 Moscow-Leningrad norm, 103 natiolects, 103 national identity, 100–1 Russian Language Institute, 101 Soviet successor states, 9, 100–2 Soviet Union, 100–1, 102–3 standard language, 110–11, 114 titular ethnic group, 9 Transnistria, 147 Ukraine, 190, 191–4, 198, 202–3 see also Russophones Russianness, 209

Index 225 Russians, Balticanization, 158 Belarus, 99 Bessarabia, 124–5 ethnic, 101 Great Russian People, 100, 101, 119 Latvia, 157–8, 160, 163, 164, 172, 173, 176, 177–9 Moldavian Soviet Socialist Republic (MSSR), 135, 136, 137, 138, 139, 143 Moldova, 123 music, 202 Transnistria, 147 Ukraine, 206–7 Russification, Belarus, 98, 157 Belarus language, 111 Bessarabia, 125, 126 Latvia, 157, 178 Poles, 157 Tartars, 157 Ukraine, 189, 190 Ukrainians, 157 Russophones, Belarus, 94, 95, 104, 107, 114 Bessarabia, 131 Latvia, 157, 159, 168, 171 Moldavian Soviet Socialist Republic (MSSR), 143, 144, 146 Moldova, 149, 150 Ukraine, 189, 193, 197, 199, 204, 206–7, 211–12 see also Russian language School curriculum, Belarus, 94 Bosnia-Herzegovina, 26, 30, 41 Bulgarians, 53–4 Croatian language, 26 Czech Republic, 85 German language, 72, 73, 85 Moldovan language, 138, 140, 145 Poland, 72, 73 Serbian language, 26, 27 Schools, Estonia, teachers, 170 Latvia: minorities, 60, 172–3; teachers, 169–70, 172, 173

Schöpflin, G., 3, 5, 6, 7, 44, 160 Schröder, Gerhard, 80 Serbia, Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (FRY), 20–1, 25, 26–7, 31–3 population, 24, 25 refugees, 25, 26 Sandzak, 35 Serbian language, Bosnia-Herzegovina, 30, 31, 33 Cyrillic alphabet, 18, 27 dialects, 24, 26 Latin alphabet, 32 literary languages, 32 Montenegro, 21, 32–3 Neo-Vukovites, 36–7 orthographic manuals, 37 pronunciation, 32 school curriculum, 26, 27 successor language, 12, 26, 31–3 unity models, 32, 33, 38 Serbo-Croatian language, Croato-Serbian, 21, 25, 29 deconstruction, 12, 17, 22 dialects: Bosnia, 29, 30, 31; Croats, 24; Dubrovnik-Stokavian, 18; ekavian, 23, 30, 32, 33; ijekavian, 22, 27, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 38; Montenegro, 26, 30, 32–3, 34–6, 38; NeoStokavian, 22, 27, 29, 31, 32, 34, 35; Sarajevo, 29; Serbian, 24, 26; Stokavian, 19; ZagrebKajkavian, 18 ethnic divisions, 23 ethnic minorities, 24–5 eve of demise, 23–6 home republics, 24 joint language tradition, 18–26 language policies, 26–7 Literary Agreement (1850), 18, 19, 20, 21, 36 many names, 18–22 Novi Sad Agreement (1954), 19, 21, 22, 23, 32, 40 our language, 19, 20 political correctness, 21 population, 24–5 Serbo-Croatian, 21, 22, 25, 29, 31

226 Index Serbo-Croatian language continued standard linguistic idioms, 19, 22 unity models, 22–3, 26 Serbs, Bosnia-Herzegovina, 24 Croatia, 24, 25, 27, 28 joint language tradition, 18–26 Romania, 46 Shift, Ukraine, language, 190, 192, 195, 197, 199, 203, 204 Siberia, 137 Slovak Republic, ethnic tensions, 155 German settlement, 69 Slovakia, Hungarians, 15 puppet regime, 69 Slovaks, Czech Republic, 85 Smith, Anthony D., 4, 9, 56, 66 Socialism, Yugoslavia, 21, 24–6 Soviet successor states, 4, 7, 9, 12–13 Belarus, see Belarus Latvia, see Latvia Moldova, see Moldova nationalism, 7 primordialism, 4 Russian language, 9 Ukraine, see Ukraine Soviet Union, collapse, 101, 155 Germans, emigration, 74 Latvia, see Latvia Marxist-Leninism, 101 Moldovan language, 131–4 MSSR, see Moldavian Soviet Socialist Republic (MSSR) Nazi-Soviet pact (1939), 134 official languages, 100 passports, 99, 150 perestroika, 140–9, 190 primordialism, 4 regionalism, 140 Russian language, 100–1, 102–3 Ukraine, 205, 206 World War II, 135–6 see also Russia Sovietization, 135 Spanish, polycentric language, 103 Sphere, domestic, 201

Spinner, Jeff, 195, 196 Stalin, Joseph, 94, 107, 137 Standard language ideology, approaches, 92–3 Belarus, 102–6 symbolic domination, 93 Stateless persons, Latvia, 161, 165 States, definition, 5 ethnic homogeneity, 8 formation, 9, 12 kin-states, 67–8 state-building, 195 stateless languages, 9 Switzerland, national language, 99 Symbolic domination, 93 Tarashkevitsa, Belarus language, 106–7, 108, 109, 111 Tartars, Belarus, 99 Latvia, 163, 172 Russification, 157 Tipping game, 197, 198 Tishkov, Valery, 3–4 Tito, 21, 23 Titular identity, Belarus, 91 Eastern Europe, 7 ethnicity, 7, 9, 12, 156, 179 Latvia, 12, 156, 161, 179 Moldavian Soviet Socialist Republic (MSSR), 137 titular language, 9, 12, 197 Ukraine, 197–8 Transnistria, civil war, 147, 149 Dniester Moldovan Republic (DMR), 146, 147–8, 152 meaning, 152 official languages, 147 Russian language, 147 Russians, 147 Slavs, 147 Ukrainians, 147 World War II, 135 Transnistrians, Moldavian Soviet Socialist Republic (MSSR), 136, 137, 144, 146

Index 227 Moldova, 151 Tudjman, Franjo, 20, 27, 28 Turks, Romania, 46 Ukraine, Armenians, 193, 194, 203 Bessarabia, 129 bilingualism, 193, 199, 209 Bulgarians, 194 citizenship, 193 code switching, 191, 198, 201, 202 Communist Party, 133 cultural accommodation, 198–204 culture, 207 Czechs, 189 diglossia, 191, 192, 198, 201, 207, 209, 211 eastern, 189, 191, 206, 207 enthnographic locality, 192–5 Finns, 192 foreigners, 193, 197, 208 German settlement, 69 Greeks, 189, 192 higher education, 199–201 homeland, 205, 206 Hungarians, 189 independence (1991), 189, 205, 206 Institute of Judaic Studies, 198, 199 Israeli Cultural Centre, 198 Jews, 13, 189–209 Kiev, 190, 198, 199, 200, 205, 206 language policies, 105, 190 language shift, 190, 192, 195, 197, 199, 203, 204 loyalties: national, 191, 193, 195, 196; political, 190; regional, 189, 191 mass media, 193, 199 MASSR, see Moldavian Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic minorities, 189, 193 Moldovans, 131 national language, 197 nationalism, 195–8 nation-building, 190, 191, 196, 204, 207 newspapers, 199

Paulicians, 59 Poles: expellees, 70; minorities, 189, 207 popular culture, 202; population, 189 referendum, 189, 205 regionalism, 109, 189, 191, 192, 206–7 Roma, 194 Romanians, 189 Russian language, 190, 191–4, 198, 202–3 Russians, 206–7 Russification, 189, 190 Russophones, 189, 193, 197, 199, 204, 206–7, 211–12 Soviet Union, 205, 206 symbolism of language, 191–2 titular identity, 197–8 Ukrainianization, 13, 190, 191, 195, 209 Ukrainianness, 195, 196 western, 189, 206 Ukrainian language, informers, 200–1 literary language, 192 mistakes, 200, 201 official language, 190, 192, 198 political correctness, 191, 193, 194, 199 Quebecois compared, 196 resistance, 201 social pressure, 200–1 subversion, 201 surzhyk, 105, 119 titular language, 197 Ukrainians, Bessarabia, 124, 125 Latvia, 158, 163, 172, 173 Moldavian Soviet Socialist Republic (MSSR), 135, 136, 138, 139, 143 Moldova, 123 mother tongue, 192, 193 music, 194–5, 202 nationality, 204–5 Romania, 46 Russification, 157 Transnistria, 147

228 Index United Nations, Convention on the Rights of the Child, 161 Velchov, L., 48, 49 Vojvodina, Croats, 25 dialects, 30 Hungarians, 25 population, 24, 25 Wallachia, 45, 47, 126, 127 Western Europe, cultural diversity, 11 cultural relativism, 2 ethnic revival, 6 EU, see European Union minority languages, 10 World War I, Bessarabia, 128 World War II, Belarus, 108 Croatian language, 23 Latvia, 157 Moldavian Soviet Socialist Republic (MSSR), 135–6 nationalism, 6 Soviet Union, 135–6 Transnistria, 135

Yeltsin, Boris, 148 Yiddish, Bessarabia, 124 Ukraine, 211 see also Jews Yugoslavia, Bosnia, see Bosnia-Herzegovina Croatia, see Croatia Dayton Accords (1995), 25, 29 ethnic cleansing, 25, 29 Federal Republic, 20–1, 25, 26–7, 31–3 German settlement, 69 joint language tradition, 18–26 Montenegro see Montenegro Muslims, 24, 26, 28–9 nationalism, 23 refugees, 25 Royalist Yugoslavia, 21, 23 Serbia, see Serbia Serbo-Croat, see Serbo-Croatian language socialism, 21, 24–6 successor states, 12, 17–42 unity models, see Language unity models Yugoslavs, 24, 25, 26

Language, Ethnicity and the State, Volume 2: Minority Languages in Eastern Europe post-1989

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Minority Languages in Europe: Frameworks, Status, Prospects

Church, State, And Society in Eastern Europe

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Ethnicity, Nationalism, and Minority Rights

Fourth International Conference on Minority Languages: Volume 2: Western and Eastern European Papers

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