ON ISSUES OF LANGUAGE POLICY IN THE RUSSIAN EMPIRE AND USSR

Abstract

Summary

We do not set ourselves the task of studying the language situation and language policy in our country in all historical periods, and we do not try to study the problems of the pre-revolutionary period. But to understand what happened next, it is necessary to explain the general situation in Russia, which developed at least until 1917. In addition, tsarist language policy remained the starting point of language policy for a long time after the revolution: in the 1920s and the first half of the 1930s, it was deliberately repulsed and later tried to revive to some extent.

The Russian Empire was a multinational state, unitary in nature, but its vassals included the Emirate of Bukhara and the Khiva Khanate, autonomous Finland, and the Uryankhai Territory (now Tuva); From 1815 to 1831 (and at some points, including in terms of language until 1863), the Kingdom of Poland was also autonomous. The official concept of the state was not based on any national principles. The population was classified not by nationality, but primarily by religion. Russians always included Ukrainians and Belarusians, and sometimes various Orthodox.

The majority of the non-Christian population was included in the category of so-called foreigners living only in part under all-Russian law and subject to restrictions on their rights and responsibilities. The Russians had no official ethnic privileges, but the state supported not only the Orthodox religion, but also Russian culture and the Russian language. It was the state language, and all other languages ​​had no official status, except for vassal states and autonomies.

The language policy of the tsarist government was almost inconsistent and changed over time. It is equally wrong to consider Russia only as a "prison of the peoples" or to consider the language situation before 1917 as conflict-free. Such a description is also greatly simplified: “In most ethnic regions - mainly in the east, as well as in Poland and Finland - the policy of non-interference in national life was pursued in the spirit of civilized European liberalism. In others, especially in Ukraine and Lithuania, before the first Russian revolution, Russification was carried out in the worst traditions of Eastern despotism. Let us reiterate that this is not entirely true: for example, in 1863-1905, Poland pursued a strict policy of "Russification". In the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, most European countries did not have "enlightened liberalism" in their language policy. At that time, teachers beat Welsh students for speaking their mother tongue, forcing them to wear shoes and clean their toilets, and so on.