No One has Done More to Degrade Status of Russian Language than the Kremlin, Latynina Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, November 9 – Over the last 20 years, the period of Vladimir Putin’s rule, “no one has done as much for the degradation” of the status of Russia “as has the Kremlin itself, Yuliya Latynina says, because language is a kind of currency, something people will and to use if its core country is flourishing but will turn away from if it isn’t.

            On her “Access Code” program, the Russian journalist and commentator says that “truth be told” this degradation of Russian did not begin with Putin or the overthrow of the USSR but rather with the Bolshevik seizure of power in 1917 and its policies both generally and toward Russians and non-Russians alike (echo.msk.ru/programs/code/2533979-echo/).

            The Russian Empire for better or worse would have seen its language, Russian, overwhelm the languages of those the empire had conquered. There wouldn’t have been any Ukrainian let alone Belarusian, Tatar or Bashkir, although there might have been some in the North Caucasus who would continue to have spoken Avar or Chechen.

            It’s likely, Latynina continues, that even Georgian and Armenian might have succumbed as well; but they had the advantage of a distinctive alphabet and an ancient and large body of writings in their languages.  Consequently, unlike so many of the others, they might have survived.

            If the Empire had survived another century before coming apart, it is entirely likely that the successor states would be dominated by those who speak Russian. Similarly, Latynina argues, if Scotland becomes independent at some point, there is little likelihood that its people will stop speaking English.

            But 1917 happened, and “the victory of the Bolsheviks was for the Russian language an absolute catastrophe,” not only because Russian culture was isolated from the world and contaminated by politics but because the Bolsheviks promoted the conservation and even development of national languages.

            The reason they did so is that “the Bolsheviks did not consider Russia as Russia” but rather saw it as a base for world revolution. “On the coat of arms of the USSR was displayed the earth,” an indication that for the Bolsheviks, the borders of their country were supposed to expand along with revolutions.

            The USSR isn’t going to be put back together, she says; but Russian might have retained its position in the non-Russian countries had Russia developed economically, culturally and educationally in ways that would have made it an attractive magnet.  But that hasn’t happened and doesn’t look likely to.

And still worse, Russia has behaved so aggressively toward many of its neighbors that it is no surprise their people have turned away not only from it but from its language as well, a sharp contrast to the situation with former British or French colonies or with the influence of the US or China.

In this sense, then, Latynina says, “the chief troglodyte Russophobe, conducting a war against the Russian language and at the same time against the Russian economy and Russian culture, is the Kremlin itself.”