Non-Russians Opposed to Putin’s War in Ukraine See Use of Their Native Languages as Form of Anti-War Protest

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Nov. 30 – Putin is continuing his war against the non-Russian peoples and their languages even as he engages in a war against Ukraine, and increasingly, non-Russians who oppose both his wars are making use of their native languages as a  powerful form of protest, even though Russian media generally ignores such actions, Semyon Grigoryev says.

            As a result, among many of the nations within the current borders of the Russian Federation, the commentator says, non-Russian languages are becoming “the language of protest” not only against Putin’s war in Ukraine but his war against his own population (novayagazeta.eu/articles/2023/11/30/chuvashskii-svobodnee-russkogo).

            In an article for Novaya Gazeta, Grigoryev describes how these two sets of attitudes are reinforcing one another in ways that may be creating even bigger problems for the Kremlin. He ranges widely, including statements by activists in various republics who say that they believe that “saying ‘no to war’ in one’s native language has special power.”

            Among the evidence he offers for his conclusions, the commentator notes that 15 languages of the peoples of the Russian Federation have already died over the last century, despite Russian claims to the contrary. He provides a link to a Moscow Institute of Linguistics study that makes that point (jazykirf.iling-ran.ru/list_2022.shtml).

            Putin’s war on the non-Russians and their languages, Grigoryev concludes sadly, has achieved its greatest “victories” in the cases of the numerically small peoples who have lost educational and other opportunities to use their languages and whose young men are being sent to Ukraine where they are dying at five times the rate of Russians.

            The sad fate of the numerically small peoples has long been lamented, but Putin’s campaign against all speakers of languages other than Russian in his country has now reached the point where even the largest non-Russian groups, such as the Tatars, the Ukrainians, and the Bashkirs, now fear that the survival of their languages and peoples is at risk.

            But at least in the short term, Putin’s war abroad has combined with his war at home to spark greater opposition among many non-Russian groups to both; and one of the clearest indications of this is the spread of the use of non-Russian language signs and declarations in protest actions involving non-Russian groups.