Yampolskaya who Earlier Said Russia Survives because of God and Stalin Outrages Non-Russians with Her Latest Elevation and Remark

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Sept. 12 – Vera Yampolskaya, notorious for her earlier comment that Russia has survived because of God and Stalin, has outraged non-Russian both by being elevated to head a new presidential council on languages and her declaration that “if Russian is not a native language, then Russia is not a Motherland.”

            At the end of August, Putin replaced the Council on Russian Language with a Council for the Realization of Government Policy in Support of Russia and the Languages of the Peoples of Russia and then named Yampolskaya to head it (idelreal.org/a/esli-russkiy-ne-rodnoy-to-i-rossiya-ne-rodina-aktivisty-raskritikovali-zayavlenie-sovetnika-putina-/33112634.html).

            Yampolskaya’s notoriously Russian nationalist views – on her history in that regard, see idelreal.org/a/32569842.html – Putin’s own words in his order creating the new body, and the fact that only three of the 50 members of the council are non-Russians shows where the Kremlin is heading as far as non-Russian languages and the peoples who speak them are concerned.

            Among those denouncing her words are the following:

·       Farit Zakiyev, a Tatar activist, says that he is glad Yampolskaya said what she did because it makes clear to all exactly what Moscow wants to do, first suppressing non-Russian langauges and then doing away with the national republics. 

·       Daavr Dorzhin, a Kalmyk activist, says that he can’t call Russian a native language because it isn’t for him. Statements like Yampolskaya’s recall Franscisco Franco’s war against Catalan; but it is worth remembering that Franco is dead and Catalan is very much alive.

·       Dorzho Dugarov, a Buryat activist, says simply that “Buryatia isn’t Russia and Russian for us isn’t a native language,” not exactly the conclusion that Yampolskaya and her backers in the Kremlin want non-Russians to draw.

·       Ruslan Gabbasov, a Bashkir activist, says that Yampolskaiya’s words are nothing new. They are fully consistent with what the Kremlin has been trying to do over the last decade but are useful because they are so explicit.

·       Aida Abdrakhmanova, a Tatar activist, says Yampolskaya’s words are especially cynical and evil because they were delivered precisely on the 10^th anniversary of Albert Razin’s self-immolation to protest Moscow’s destruction of his Udmurt language and the languages of other non-Russian nations.