Declaring Russian ‘Language of State-Forming People’ Makes Non-Russians Second Class Citizens, Fayzrakhmanov Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, February 28 – If the Russian Constitution is amended to specify that Russian is “the language of the state-forming people” of the country, then that creates “a hierarchy of peoples” in which the Russians are at the top and the non-Russians are below them, Ayrat Fayzrakhmanov says.

            That is because, the head of the World Forum of Tatar Youth says, from this “logic” it follows that “the other peoples are not state-forming. But did not the Tatars build this state? Did not the Sakha do the same on its distant borders?” And insisting otherwise carries with it a real danger (kommersant.ru/doc/4269834).

            In the future, Fayzrakhmanov says, “the desire to preserve one’s own language may be viewed as contradicting the state ideology and as something harmful for Russia.” And that constitutional provision will thus open the way for even greater promotion of Russian at the expense of non-Russian languages and possibly even their ban altogether.

            “It would be desirable if in the Constitution were written a provision requiring the federal center to preserve languages. Now, only the regions are doing that while the center is creating administrative barriers” to their survival. Moscow has created a Foundation for the Preservation and Study of Languages hasn’t given it sufficient funds to matter.

            The 80 million rubles (1.2 million US dollars) Moscow plans to spend is “laughable” given that more than a quarter of the population consists of non-Russians. It amounts to “three kopecks for each aborigine.”

            At a meeting of the amendment working group which so far has received 900 proposals for change, Vladimir Putin dismissed these fears. While supporting declaring Russian the language of the state-forming people, a backhanded way of declaring that the Russians are that, he said the Constitution would also now feature a defense of non-Russian languages.

            The Kremlin leader said that he also favored an amendment that would declare that “the preservation of ethno-cultural and linguistic multiplicity is guaranteed” on the territory of the Russian Federation. The combination of the two,” Putin continued, is a “very correct” formulation and approach.

            Fayzrakhmanov was not the only Tatar not impressed by that line of argument.  Farid Muhkametshin, the speaker of the State Council of that republic, told Putin that many in Tatarstan are worried that it may become ever less possible to study the language of their forefathers.

            Putin countered that Tatars shouldn’t be worried because “for the first time, the Constitution will include a provision according to which the state will be required to defend the linguistic multiplicity of Russia and of the peoples of Russia.”  But there are at least three good reasons why non-Russians and especially those with republics are right to be worried.

            First, Putin has shown himself in the past an opponent of the languages of the republics and there is no reason to think that he will obey a constitutional provision on their defense anymore than he has respected the other provisions of Russia’s basic law.

            Second, the language Putin does favor links Russian to the language of the state-forming people but does not link the language of any other nation to a political structure, in this case, the republics, and thus represents yet another “hybrid” attack on the republics.

            And third, whatever the Kremlin leader says, the specification that Russians are the state-forming people means that the others are not and that they thus occupy a subordinate position, one that invites or even encourages new attacks against them.