Language Policy in the Soviet Union

Chapter 2: An Overview of Soviet Language Policy

The Early Soviet Years

• In 1917 between 70% and 100% of population of various republics was illiterate

• Vast numbers of different languages and cultures precluded simply sending out teachers

• First was necessary to target which languages would be developed

The Early Soviet Years, cont’d.

• Lenin claimed to believe that all minorities should be treated equally, but that nationalism is incompatible with Marxism

• Lenin’s goal is unification of all people via assimilation, not diversity

• But nationalism was useful when it could be used to advance the proletarian cause, if people would support the revolution because they believed they would have the right to self-determination, they were led down that path…

The Early Soviet Years, cont’d.

• The right of every ethnic group to use their own language was a founding principle, as seen in Article 121 of 1936 Constitution

• Early Bolsheviks were mostly Jewish urban elite, and had a hard time communicating beyond their group, even speakers of Russian dialects could not comprehend them

• And then there were all the other languages, spoken mostly by even less educated peoples

The Early Soviet Years, cont’d.

• As a result, Bolsheviks needed a language to communicate with the people, but did not want to cede power to them

• Overtly inclusive language policies were used to Russify native languages, by imposing Russian orthography, lexicon, grammatical patterns

The Early Soviet Years, cont’d.

• Due to political infighting, Narkomnats (People’s Comissariat of the Nationalities) failed to secure education in native languages, instead Narkompros (PC for Enlightenment) created educational programs that promoted the domination of Russian

Constructing Nationalities

• Soviet state undertook to classify citizens by nationality, and this often entailed constructing nationalities, since many people identified themselves according to language or religion (the criteria of tsarist censuses), not ethnic group

• Ethnographers in European Russia focused on language, but those in Central Asia focused on physical characteristics (while Central Asians were themselves focused on religion)

Constructing Nationalities, cont’d.

• In 1927 ethnographers suggested 172 nationalities, but Soviet state wanted a shorter list of “major” nationalities

• The idea was to gradually integrate them into a larger Soviet nationality

• Problem with selecting a term: natsional’nost’ implied some consciousness of culture and history, but narodnost’ did not

The Nationalities Question

• In 1930s Soviet government developed a theory of nationalities to include a class component with an explicit hierarchical organization

• Claimed a unidirectional development from more primitive, backward, to an official nationality with its own territory, language, culture, and economy

The Nationalities Question, cont’d.

• Natsia (nation), natsional’nost’ (nationality, developed group), narodnost’ (ethnic group, underdeveloped group), narod (folk, ethnic group): a nation is a group of people linked to a governmental nation, with a designated territory

• Every nation is a nationality, but not every nationality is a nation

• Every nation and nationality could be an ethnic group, but not every ethnic group is a nationality or nation

National in Form, Socialist in Content

• Lenin viewed nationalities as being on the path toward the development of the Soviet state, and for him the content of the message was more important than the form (language)

• This would be accomplished by “convergence and fusion of peoples” – the ethnic groups would just naturally coalesce to form a single Sovietskii narod

Stalin and the Nation State

• From 1927 to 1953, Stalin defined Soviet policy:– “A nation is a historically evolved, stable community of

people, based upon the common possession of four principal attributes, namely: a common language, a common territory, a common economic life, and a common psychological make-up manifesting itself in common specific features of national culture”

– A nation need not have its own separate national state

Stalin & the Nation State, cont’d.

• Stalin defined a nation as – A stable community of people with– Common territory– Common language– Common economic life– Common psychological make-up

• This definition decided who could (or could not) be a nation in the USSR

Nativization (korenizaciia)• Education in indigenous languages

– Practical goal was to educate indigenous peoples and get them into the workforce

– Political goal was to reconcile them with Soviet rule

– This went well in Georgia & Armenia, slowly in Central Asia & Siberia

Nativization (korenizaciia), cont’d.

• Problems:– Lack of trained teachers and materials --

those who were sent to Leningrad for training didn’t return

– Low education levels, many educated people were bourgeoisie

– Some languages were unwritten, and teachers gave up and taught in Russian

Nativization (korenizaciia), cont’d.

• Nativization abandoned in late 1920s, Russian promoted as best means to Soviet society

• Stalin shifts focus from national autonomies to centralized gov’t. & economy in 1930s, labels nationalism “dangerous”

Nativization (korenizaciia), cont’d.

• Outcomes:– Essential link between language and ethnicity,

language as main criterion for nationhood– Officially recognized language provided

recognition as an ethnic group– In order to be officially recognized, a language

had to be written, which led to the creation of dozens of literary languages into which Soviet political information was translated

The Literacy Campaign(Likbez: likvidaciia bezgramotnosti)

• At time of Revolution only 19 languages had a written form

• Lack of clear linguistic boundaries

• Basic research to identify and codify languages was a priority

The Literacy Campaign(Likbez: likvidaciia bezgramotnosti)

• ABCD Hierarchy developed by Party in 1920s to rank nationalities (all defined by language, other factors are size, orthography, territory):– A: Small bilingual nationalities lacking written

language, territorially scattered -> All education in Russian

– B: Small & medium monolingual nationalities lacking written form, territorially compact -> Primary education and propaganda in native language, secondary & higher education in Russian

The Literacy Campaign(Likbez: likvidaciia bezgramotnosti)

– C: Medium & large monolingual nationalities with written form in compact territory -> All education in native language, but Russian compulsory from 3rd grade on

– D: Developed nations with written form -> All education in native language, but Russian compulsory from 3rd grade on

– Literacy went from 24% in 1897 to 51% in 1926 to 81% in 1939 to 99.7% in 1979

Standardization

• Sometimes the various dialects of a language were incomprehensible, so even when a “native” language program was developed, the “natives” had to learn what was essentially a foreign language

• In 1932, 80 of 127 Eastern nationalities of USSR had acquired written languages, in 1936, 90 out of 102 Soviet nationalities had a written language

Alphabets and Orthography

• Orthographies of languages (7 options)– 1) no written form at all– 2) written form in Cyrillic– 3) tradition of using Latin script (Moldavian and German)– 4) tradition of using Arabic script (Turkic, Tajiki, and some Nakh-

Dagestani and North Caucasian), viewed as uniting those peoples with Islam and non-USSR peoples

– 5) Mongolian script (Buriat & Kalmyk), viewed as uniting them with Buddhism and non-USSR peoples; see http://www.omniglot.com/writing/buryat.htm

– 6) Unique orthographies (Georgian http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georgian_script , Armenian http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Armenian_alphabet )

– 7) Chinese (Chinese immigrants)

Alphabets and Orthography, cont’d.

• 1920s – many languages (except Georgian & Armenian) were switched to Cyrillic, or had new Cyrillic orthographies invented for them

• Arabic-script languages were converted to Latin, completed by 1928-9

• Early 1930s drive toward Latin-scripts affected nearly all languages (there was even a proposal to convert Russian, to distance it from tsarist past) and especially small languages in Siberia, but by late 1930s, shifted back to Cyrillic; several languages shifted back and forth…

Alphabets and Orthography, cont’d.

• 1940 All languages had to use Cyrillic (few exceptions: Armenian, Georgian, Baltic states, Karelian, Yiddish)

• Implementation of Cyrillic letters was often clumsy, ignoring the phonemes in the languages

Language Policy under Stalin 1930-1950

• Stalin ended nativization in 1934 and made Russian compulsory for all in 1938, at the same time as all languages were being converted to Cyrillic

• This added up to Russification

• By 1950s all loanwords (often technical terminology) were written in original Russian form in all languages

Marrist doctrine

• Nikolai Marr (1865-1934) most influential Soviet “linguist”

• Inspired by Marx, class struggle, dialectical materialism

• Social change takes place through conflict, and happens in sudden leaps (not gradually)

• So does language change

Marrist doctrine

• Knew Georgian, but was not a trained linguist

• Posited genetic relationships that are not supported by linguistic research, for example common ancestor for Caucasian and Semitic (refuted by Meillet and others)

• Very popular until renounced by Stalin in 1950

• Russification further intensified afterward

Language policy after WWII

• Mid 1950s – major shift in language policy, new focus on Russian as THE language of the USSR

• Khrushchev – Soviet people united by both politics and language

• Relative importance of languages – smaller languages could not be developed

• 1958-9 Еducation reforms: instruction of Russian increased at expense of other languages, Russian becomes compulsory everywhere

Brezhnev and the 1970s

• Russification further accelerated; goal is establishment of Sovetskii narod with “a common language”

• 1936 Constitution had guaranteed a right to instruction in native language, but in 1977 this was re-worded as an opportunity or possibility of access

• Russian comes to dominate local administration also

Language and Education

• Overall trend was from using native language as language of instruction to using Russian as language of instruction

• 1938 – Russian became compulsory for all children, but still there were problems with qualified teachers and centralized textbooks even for Russian

• The changing of indigenous orthographies from Latin to Cyrillic only exacerbated problems with teaching materials

• Supply of teachers and materials further deteriorated during WWII

The Press

• The government also had to control/censor all of the newspapers and publications in all of the languages.

• Republics usually had two newspapers, one in titular language and one in Russian, and both derived their articles from nationwide newspapers

Perestroika• 1985 Gorbachev: all young Soviet

citizens had some Russian training, as had the majority of others

• Massive language shift toward Russian (feared in some regions, eg. Armenia)

• Gorbachev focused on economic and political issues and did not change language policy

Perestroika, cont’d.

• In years leading up to break-up of USSR, there was a break-up of language policy:– 1987 use of Moldovan expanded and converted to

Romanian spelling– 1989 Estonian promoted to state language in

Estonian SSR, and same happened in Latvia and Lithuania, and then in all Republics except RSFSR and Transcausasian Republics (which had done this in 1978)

– 1990 Central Soviet government declared Russian to be THE state language of USSR