Another Signal of Moscow’s Intentions: Ethnic Buryat who Doesn’t Know Buryat Now Republic Head Replaced Ethnic Russians who Did Know that National Language

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Sept. 9 – It is common ground that the survival of minority languages depends not only on the availability of and access to instruction in them but also and in many ways even more on the use of those languages in public spheres. Where they are widely used, they will be respected and survive; where they are not, they almost certainly will disappear.

            One of the clearest signs of their likelihood of survival is when ethnic Russians who live in these areas and especially those who are sent in to occupy key positions feel that they must learn the non-Russian languages – and when they don’t feel such a need, then the future of those languages is at risk regardless of whether they are taught in schools or survive in homes.

            That makes a development Aleksandra Garmozhapova, the head of Free Buryatia  , points to especially significant. She points out that earlier Russian rulers of her homeland learned Russian but now an ethnic Buryat doesn’t even speak the language of his own people (nemoskva.net/2024/09/09/pomozhet-li-nam-mestnaya-identichnost/).

            When the head of the republic who is a member of the titular nationality doesn’t think he must know and use the language of the republic, that sends a powerful signal to his co-nationals that they don’t need to learn it and use it, she explains, a sharp contrast to the situation in which even ethnic Russians feel that it is important that they know and use the titular language.

            In the 1990s, the head of Buryatia was an ethnic Russian, Leonid Potapov, even though an ethnic Russian, spoke Buryat well; now, Aleksey Tsydenov, an ethnic Buryat who heads the republic, doesn’t, although some ethnic Russians in the republic leadership, including the speaker of its parliament, Vladimir Pavlov, do.

            This pattern undoubtedly extends to other non-Russian areas where Russians have been inserted as leaders such as Dagestan and signals in the clearest possible way Moscow’s real intentions for the non-Russian languages and their peoples. But in addition to that, it calls into question the approach of many analysts to ethnic issues in the Russian Federation.

            Many of them are inclined to count the number of non-Russians in top positions in the republics as an indication of Moscow’s tolerance for and support of the titular nationalities; but in fact, installing a member of the titular nationality who does not speak the national language is a much more serious attack on such nations than even having an ethnic Russian there who does.