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Sociolingüística internacional


Language policy in the Russian Federation: language diversity and national identity, by Marc Leprętre


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Insofar as the policies implemented by the State in order to ensure the equality between nations were based on the Marxist-Leninist interpretation of the dialectical relations established between the different nationalities, the underlying motivations of linguistic and national policies were that the modernization of the different ethnic groups of the USSR could not be achieved if the autochthonous populations didn't manage to reach a high level of literacy, culture and social and political consciousness. At the same time, the new needs of the Soviet society (industrialization, technologic challenges, building of socialism) required the creation of a new society with an adequate critical mass of individuals able to deal with new technical and intellectual tools in order to implement and make real the projects designed by the State. On the other hand, the Socialist Revolution happened in a country which didn't possess the objective conditions for its consolidation -the structure of the population was overwhelmingly formed by peasant, the urban proletariat was scarce, the level of industrialization still low according to Western standards as well as the political and cultural development of the population- although the new regime managed to set up new structures of power after a long civil war.

Nevertheless, the strengthening of the new State and the building of socialism required a radical change in the social, political, cultural and economic composition of the country. As far as the industrialization of the USSR was a sine qua non condition for its own survival, the most effective and fast way to gain the support (or neutrality) of the non-Russian nationalities, as well as to inculcate into them the new political culture was to use the autochthonous languages as one of the main tools of this process of learning and change. It was therefore necessary to set up a new educational system and new cultural, ideological and communicative domains in different languages. This is the reason why language policy was from the very beginning one of the main cruxes of the Soviet policy towards nationalities. Language policy was carried on by the Narkomnats (9) by means of four main activities, namely: the selection of a standard code for every autochthonous language and its dissemination as a common language of communication for the populations of the autonomous territorial units; the modernization of the lexicon according to the needs of a modern industrial society; the reform or creation of new alphabets for the autochthonous languages; and the large-scale literacy campaign in the peripheral regions by means of the teaching of the autochthonous languages in new national school systems. As a long term result of this kind of policies, at the end of the Soviet Union the overall picture of the sociolinguistic situation of both the autochthonous languages and Russian as the common language of communication between all the parts of the State was as follows:

Table 1. Ethnic groups, knowledge of Russian and of the language of the titular ethnic group (1989)

Republic

Majority groups (%)

% Knowledge of Russian

% Knowledge of language of titular ethnic group by other groups

Armenia

Armenis (93)
Azeris (3)

45
19
--
7
Azerbaidjan

Azeris (83)
Russians (6)
Armenians (6)

32
--
69
--
15
7
Belarus

Belorussians (78)
Russians (13)

80
--
--
27
Estonia

Estonians (62)
Russians (30)

35
--
--
15
Georgia

Georgians (70)
Armenians (8)
Russians (6)
Azeris (6)

32
52
--
35
--
26
24
10
Kazakhstan

Kazakhs (40)
Russians (38)

64
--
--
9
Kyrgyztan

Kyrgyz (52)
Russians (22)
Uzbeks (13)

37
--
39
--
12
4
Latvia

Latvians (52)
Russians (34)

68
--
--
22
Lithuania

Lithuanians (80)
Russians (9)
Poles (7)

38
--
67
--
38
21
Moldova

Moldovans (65)
Ukrainians (14)
Russians (13)

58
80
--

--
14
12

 

Tadjikistan

Tadjiks (62)
Uzbeks (24)
Russians (8)

31
22
--
--
17
4
Turkmenistan

Turkmens (72)
Russians (10)
Uzbeks (9)

28
--
29
--
2
16
Ukraine

Ukrainians (73)
Russians (22)

72
--
--
34
Uzbekistan

Uzbeks (71)
Russians (8)

27
--
--
5

Own elaboration from the data provided by Natsionalnii Sostav Naseleniia SSSR (1991).

 


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