Putin’s Attacks on Ukrainian Culture Prompting Young Non-Russians within RF to Take an Interest in Their Own

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Aug. 28 – Putin’s war in Ukraine is having yet another consequence for the Russian state that he did not intend or want: it is leading ever more young non-Russians within that country’s borders to take an interest in their national languages and national cultures, according to interviews carried out by the People of Baikal portal.

            They show that “since February 2022” when Putin began his expanded invasion of Ukraine, “the interest among young representatives of indigenous peoples” in the Russian Federation “in their culture has grown” (baikal-journal.ru/2024/08/28/ne-prinimayut-menya-za-svoyu-iz-za-nemoty-na-rodnom-yazyke/).

            The portal notes that “in social networks bloggers speaking native languages are becoming popular, language schools are attracting ever more students, and the Yandex news service is promising to add to its electronic translation function more than  20 languages of the peoples of Russia.”

            The comments of Naile Mullayeva, 29, are particularly striking.  The product of a mixed Tatar-Slavic marriage, she grew up in a Russian family after her parents divorced but alone among them, she bears the Tatar family name of her father. As a teenager, she was ashamed of that and even changed her name to her mother’s Russian one for her VKontakte account.  

            Mullayeva says that at that time, she “did not recognize or consider significant Tatar culture. [Her] grandfather lives in a Tatar village and knows the language perfectly, but we for some reason always spoke exclusively in Russian. In school in Kazan, we were taught Tatar, and I even took an examination in it but the level of my knowledge was low.”

            “I do not regret that I didn’t study the language as a youth,” she continues. “At that time, I had other thoughts. But better late than never and I began to be interested in my culture when I was about 25.” However, “the chief trigger for studying my native language was February 2022” [emphasis added], the date Putin launched his expanded invasion of Ukraine.

            Mullayeva adds: “I think for many others this also became a reason to turn to their roots. Over the past two years, interest in the culture of the national minorities has increased, although it is unfortunate that the reason for this was a series of tragic events … It is hard to watch another’s culture being attacked and not want to defend one’s own.”

            She says that she uses “difference resources” to study Tatar, including the Tatar TV telegram channel; and she says that she especially likes to see pictures of Tatar costumes and jewelry and listen to Tatar musicians.  But she says that she is against compelling anyone to study Tatar as “radical Tatar nationalists” do.

            “It seems to me,” Mullayeva concludes, “that they have chosen the most unpleasant way to popularize culture, through negativity and condemnation.” Learning one’s national language should be the conscious decision of the individual” and not something anyone else forces upon them.