Paul
Goble
Staunton, October 16 – Ever more
Kalmyks are using Russian rather than Kalmyk both in public and at home, but
they retain their national identity and many of them expect their language to
come back as part of the process of national rebirth, according to a
Kavkazskaya politika portal journalist.
Nikolay Protsenko spoke with Tamara
Esenova, a Kalmyk who heads the Russian language department of Kalmyk State
University, about the state of the Kalmyk language and of Kalmyk national
identity at the present time and about the prospects of both (kavpolit.com/articles/kalmytskij_duh_no_russkimi_slovami-28861/).
The Kavkazskaya politika journalist
said that “the first thing that hits one in the face in Kalmykia compared to
other national republics [in the region] is the predominance of Russian in
everyday life.” Esenova responded that
that has been the increasingly the case over the last 100 years, the result of
Soviet policy, deportation, and the multi-national nature of the republic.
When the Kalmyks returned from their
deportation, she said, “there were not a sufficient number of teachers with a
knowledge of Kalmyk.” Schools in that language began to close, and “by the
1990s, a system of teaching all subjects in Russian was in place.” Kalmyk is
not taught only in classes about the Kalmyk language and Kalmyk literature.
But despite this and despite the
contraction of places where Kalmyk is used, Esenova continued, “a Kalmyk who
speaks Russian continues to remain a profoundly national personality as long as
he has national character and national behavior.” Their survival can be seen in
many places, including in journalism.
Kalmyk journalists, being Buddhists,
for example, are less inclined to sensationalism than are their Russian
counterparts even when they are writing in Russian. And she added that “language is like riding a
bike – once you learn to do it, you will quickly recall it when you need or
want to.”
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