Paul
Goble
Staunton, October 1 – The language issue
is riling public life even in places where public politics has been largely
absent in recent years. Among such locales is the Komi Republic, where the
fight has heated up to the point that one commentator suggests one can speak of
two competing groups, “the colonists” and “the natives.”
In a commentary for the regional affairs
portal 7X7, Viktor Vaykum says that in that Finno-Ugric republic, “some parents
do not want their children to study Komi because they would prefer they receive
instruction in foreign languages (primarily English)” (7x7-journal.ru/post/98925).
But other parents in the republic,
he continues, “not only want [Komi] to be studied but also want to see the
revival of Komi language schools that have been closed by Soviet and Russian
imperialists” so that these schools can be “an instrument for the preservation
of restoration of their own culture.”
As a result, Vaykum continues, “we
can observe a conflict consisting of two protest groups – the colonists and
their descendants on the one hand, including those who live in cities … and the
autochthonian population … for whom was initially established this territorial
unit, earlier called an autonomous oblast and today nominally having the status
of a Republic.”
On this issue, the two groups are
far apart, he says; but they have one thing in common: Moscow takes almost all
of the earnings of the republic and gives back almost nothing, something
officials and residents have long complained about. (For an example, see 7x7-journal.ru/item/97175.)
The language dispute appears likely
to make it impossible for the two sides to unite into “a powerful opposition movement
of the republic level.” Indeed, he implies that may be one of the reasons
behind the Kremlin’s current campaign. But there may be a way forward
nevertheless.
Vaykum suggests three possible
resolutions of the language dispute in Komi.
The first or “European” variant, he says, would require both languages
to be studied as requirements, an approach whose only major downside is that it
would likely accelerate the outmigration of people who don’t want to learn
Komi.
The second or “American” variant would
require the study of one of the state languages but not both, something that
would do little to solve the current dispute unless somehow each side came to
an agreement. And the third “libertarian” variant” would “completely delegate
the language choice to schools, parents, and pupils.”
Vaykum says that in his view, the
best variant is the European one, modified to the extent that instruction in
any one language would require that at least 10 percent of any one school’s
pupils spoke it, even though that might open the door to official manipulation
of the figures to promote one or another outcome.
He adds that “as a Komi native and
European,” he is most opposed to choosing only one language because it is or
should be “impossible to ignore the interests of almost a third of the
population of our region in a democratic state.”
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