Dictionary of Meaning
<<Back
Please select a letter:
A |
B |
C |
D |
E |
F |
G |
H |
I |
J |
K |
L |
M |
N |
O |
P |
Q |
R |
S |
T |
U |
V |
W |
X |
Y |
Z |
0-9
Click here for Shopping
Russification
*** Shopping-Tip: Russification
:''This article is about the political term. For
Internationalization and localization localization of
computers and
software, see
Russification (computers).''
'''Russification''' is an adoption of the
Russian language or some other Russian attribute (whether voluntarily or not) by non-Russian communities. In a narrow sense, Russification is used to denote the influence of the
Russian language on
Slavic languages Slavic,
Baltic languages Baltic and other languages, spoken in areas currently or formerly controlled by Russia. In a historical sense, the term refers to both official and unofficial policies of
Imperial Russia and the
Soviet Union with respect to their
national constituents and to
national minorities in
Russia, aimed at Russian domination.
The major areas of Russification are
politics and
culture. In politics, an element of Russification is assigning Russian nationals to leading administrative positions in national institutions. In culture, Russification primarily amounts to domination of the
Russian language in official business and strong influence of Russian language on the national ones. The shifts in
demographics in favour of Russian population are sometimes considered as a form of Russification as well.
History
One of the examples of Russification was the replacement of the
Polish language Polish,
Belarusian language Belarusian and
Lithuanian language Lithuanian languagess by Russian, in areas of the former
Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, which became part of the
Russian Empire after the
Partitions of Poland. It intensified after the
1831 uprising and, in particular, after the
January Uprising of
1863. In
1864, the Polish and Belarusian languages were banned in public places; in the
1880s, Polish was banned in schools and offices of the
Congress Kingdom.
A similar development took place in
Lithuania. Its Governor General,
Mikhail Nikolayevich Muravyov-Vilensky Mikhail Muravyov, instituted a complete ban on the
Latin script Latin and
Gothic script Gothic scripts of
Lithuanian language Lithuanians printed matter, as well as a ban on publically speaking in Lithuanian. Mikhail Muravyov was reported as saying, "What the Russian bayonet didn't accomplish, the Russian school will" (''"что не доделал руÑ?Ñ?кий штык—доделает руÑ?Ñ?каÑ? школа."'') This ban was disregarded by the ''
Knygnešiai'', Lithuanian book smugglers. It was lifted only in
1904. Lithuanian and Polish schools were closed; teachers from other parts of Russia, who did not speak these languages, were moved in to teach pupils. The campaign of promoting the
Russian Orthodox faith over the Catholic one, (by closing down
Catholic monasteries, officially banning the building of new churches and giving some of the old ones to the Russian Orthodox church, banning Catholic schools and establishing state schools with teaching of Orthodox religion instead, requiring Catholic priests to preach only officially approved sermons, in the case of marriage between a Catholic and Orthodox person requiring the Catholic to change his or her religion, requiring Catholic nobles to pay 10% of profits additional tax, limiting the amount of land a Catholic peasant could own, etc.) is also usually viewed as part of Russification campaign. As well, after the uprising many manors and great chunks of land were confiscated from those nobles of Polish and Lithuanian descent, who were accused of helping the uprising; later these properties were given or sold to Russian nobles. In a similar way some villages (ones, where there were many supporters of the uprising) were repopulated by ethnic Russians.
Vilnius University, where the language of instruction had been Polish rather than Russian, was closed in 1832. Lithuanians and Poles were banned from having any public jobs (including those of teachers, doctors, etc.) in Lithuania; thus educated Lithuanians were displaced to other parts of the Russian Empire. The laws were changed into the Russian ones that were written in the Russian language - this language became the only administrative and juridical language in the area. Most of these actions as well were stopped due to
Russo-Japanese War; others took a longer time to be reversed (e.g.
Vilnius University was reopened only in
1919, after Russia had lost control of the city).
Still another example is
Ems Ukaz of
1876, banning the
Ukrainian language.
In November 1914 the Finnish press published the Russian secret program for a complete
Russification of Finland.
After the
1917 revolution, the USSR authorities decided to eradicate use of
Arabic alphabet used in
Turkic languages Turkic and
Persian language Persian languages in Soviet-controlled
Central Asia,
Caucasus and Volga region (for instance, in
Tatarstan). The new alphabet in the
1920s for these languages was based on
Latin alphabet, usually inspired by the
Turkish alphabet. It was decided to switch to Latin alphabet, as
Soviet leaders believed in the 'World Communist Revolution'. However, by the mid-
1930s there was a switch of policy towards restoration of some institutions of the
Russian Empire. In
1935-
1939 these languages (including
Tatar language Tatar,
Kazakh language Kazakh,
Uzbek languages Uzbek,
Turkmen language Turkmen,
Tajik language Tadjik,
Kyrghyz language Kyrghyz,
Azerbaijani language Azeri,
Bashkir language Bashkir) were switched to use variations of
Cyrillic alphabet (based on the alphabet used for the Russian language).
Moldova
During the rule of
Stalin, these alphabets were replaced by adaptations of the
Cyrillic alphabet. This also happened when
Bessarabia (most of which became
Moldavian SSR) was taken from
Romania during the
Second World War.
The
Moldovan language introduced then by the Soviet authorities was actually
Romanian language but written with a version of the Cyrillic alphabet derived from the
Russian alphabet. Several of these countries have changed to a Latin alphabet since the breakup of the Soviet Union.
Soviet Union
In the Soviet Union, publications in technical and scientific journals were mostly in Russian; this led to underdevelopment of modern technical and scientific terminology in national languages, further degrading their status. While formally all languages were equal, in almost all Soviet republics the Russian/local
bilingualism was "asymmetric," as in
India: the
titular nation learned Russian, whereas
immigrant Russians generally did not learn the local language.
During the Soviet era, each of the
Soviet Socialist Republics (or Autonomous Republics) inside the Soviet Union were regarded as the eternal and only area of the titular nationality and its language, while the Russian language was regarded as the language for interethnic communication for the whole Soviet Union. As such, schools where non-Russian Soviet languages would be taught weren't available (with a few exceptions) outside the respective ethnically based administrational units of these ethnicities; the same could be said about the cultural institutions. Due to this reason many of the non-Russian communities that existed in the Soviet Union outside their respective administrational units eventually russified. This includes both the tradtional communities (e.g.
Lithuanians in the northwestern
Belarus (''see
Eastern Vilnius region'') or the
Kaliningrad Oblast (''see
Lithuania Minor'')) and the communities that appeared during Soviet times (e.g.
Ukrainians Ukrainian or
Belarusians Belarusian workers in
Kazakhstan or
Latvia, whose children attended primarilly the Russian-language schools and thus the further generations are primarilly speaking Russian as their native language; for example, for 56,91% of Estonia's Ukrainians, 69.76% of Estonia's Belarusians and 36.96% of Estonia's Latvians Russian is the native language). Russian language as well changed the
Yiddish and other languages as the main language of many Jewish communities inside the Soviet Union. The children born in mixed families where one of the parents was speaking Russian as the native language were also more likely to be raised as Russians. The situations that are explained here continues to exist in the Russian Federation and it's autonomous units and, as well, to some extent, a few other former-Soviet countries (see "Present times").
Present times
Many people allege that Russification policies continue in other ex-Soviet territories, mainly in
Belarus under
Alexander Lukashenko's government and in the
Unrecognised state unrecognized de facto independent republics of
Transnistria in
Moldova and
Abkhazia and
South Ossetia in
Georgia (country) Georgia. Some international
NGOs argue that Russification policies are occurring in
Republics of Russia republics inside the Russian Federation like
Mari El, but
Putin's administration has denied these accusations, and retorted by charging that the
NGOs are attempting to destabilize the Volga Republics, as they had, according to the opinion of Russians, done to
Chechnya in the past.
The republics of
Karelia,
Chechnya and
Tatarstan in Russia also tried to switch their alphabets to Latin, but the Latin alphabet was officially banned for Russia's official languages. This position was officially explained with two reasons: a) switching languages required finances, which are limited; b) it is difficult to make adult people accept the changes. Critics cite these rationale as remnants of policy of Russification.
Russian is the language of higher education, trade and business in all regions of Russia. In
Kazakhstan,
Belarus and
Kyrghyzstan Russian has been declared an official language (in Kazakhstan its official status is "Language of interethnic communication"). In Ukraine this issue was one of the issues in the 2004 presidential election:
Viktor Yanukovich supported making Russian a state language while
Viktor Yushchenko opposed it. The current government is unwilling to make Russian a state language. However, despite official government policies, the Russian language dominates the television and newspapers in Ukraine (especially in the eastern and southern parts). The situation is similar in Kazakhstan. In both Ukraine and, to a lesser extent, Kazakhstan, there have been attempts to make the titular languages the main languages for the media and the press (this is referred to as
derussification in those countries), but these have had limited success. In Belarus, such attempts stopped in
1994, with the ascent of
Alexander Lukashenko; most of the administrative, educational and legislative business in Belarus is carried out in Russian.
References
* {{cite book | author=Leonard Szymański | year=1983 | title=Zarys polityki caratu wobec szkolnictwa ogólnokształcącego w Królestwie Polskim w latach 1815-1915 (Sketch of the Tsarist Politics Regarding General Education in the Kingdom of Poland Between 1815 and 1915)| chapter= | editor= | others= | pages=1982 | publisher=Wrocław, AWF | id= | url= | authorlink= }}
* {{cite book | author=Andrzej Chwalba | year=1999 | title=Polacy w służbie Moskali (Poles in the Muscovite Service)| chapter= | editor= | others= | pages=257 | publisher=Kraków,
PWN | id=ISBN 8301127538 | url= | authorlink= }}
* {{cite book | author=Theodore R. Weeks | year=1996 | title=Nation and state in late Imperial Russia: nationalism and Russification on the western frontier, 1863-1914 | chapter= | editor= | others= | pages=297 | publisher=
DeKalb,
Northern Illinois University Press | id=ISBN 0875802168 | url= | authorlink= }}
* {{cite book | author=WÅ‚odzimierz BÄ…czkowski | year=1958 | title=Russian colonialism: the Tsarist and Soviet empires | chapter= | editor= | others= | pages=97 | publisher=New York, Frederick A. Praeger | id= | url= | authorlink= }}
* {{cite book | author=Mykola Serbak | year=1997 | title=Natsional'na politika tsarizmu na pravoberežniy Ukrayni (National Politics of Tsardom in Right-bank Ukraine)| chapter= | editor= | others= | pages=89 | publisher=Kyiv,
Kyiv Shevchenko University Kyiv Shevchenko University Press | id=ISBN 5776390362 | url= | authorlink= }}
* {{cite book | author=Witold Rodkiewicz | year=1998 | title=Russian nationality policy in the Western provinces of the Empire (1863-1905) | chapter= | editor= | others= | pages=295 | publisher=Lublin, Scientific Society of Lublin | id=ISBN 8387833061 | url= | authorlink= }}
* {{cite book | author=various authors | year=2000 | title=Ethnic and national issues in Russian and East European history; selected papers from the Fifth World Congress of Central and East European Studies | chapter= | editor=John Morison | others= | pages=337 | publisher=Houndmills, Basingstoke, Macmillan Press; New York, St. Martin's Press | id=ISBN 033369550X | url= | authorlink= }}
* {{cite book | author=various authors | year=2003 | title=Problemy nacional'nogo soznaniâ pol'skogo naseleniâ na Belarusi (Problems of National Identity of Poles in Belarus)| chapter= | editor= | others= | pages=288 | publisher=Grodno,
Society of Poles in Belarus | id= | url= | authorlink= }}
* {{cite book | author=
Robert Conquest | year=1977 | title=The nation killers | chapter= | editor= | others= | pages=222 | publisher=Houndmills, Macmillan Press | id=ISBN 0333105753 | url= | authorlink= }}
* {{cite book | author=Hélene Carrere d'Encausse | year=1992 | title=Grand défi (Grand Defile; Bolsheviks and Nations 1917-1930) | chapter= | editor= | others= | pages=186 | publisher=Warsaw, Most | id= | url= | authorlink= }}
* {{cite book | author=
Jan Tomasz Gross | year=2000 | title=Revolution from abroad; the soviet conquest of Poland's western Ukraine and western Belorussia | chapter= | editor= | others= | pages=396 | publisher=Princeton,
Princeton University Press | id=ISBN 0691096031 | url= | authorlink= }}
See also
*
Anti-Polonism
*
Anti-Romanian discrimination
*
Autocracy, Orthodoxy, and National Character
*
Germanisation
*
Korenizatsiya
*
Polonization
*
Population transfer in the Soviet Union
*
Russophobia
*
Soviet people
*
Sovietization
*
Ukrainization
External links
-
De-russification/Tatarization (in
PDF)
-
Russification in Lithuania
-
The Civic Identity of Russifying Officials in the Empire’s Northwestern Region after 1863 by Mikhail Dolbilov(in
PDF)
-
Permanent mission of Caucasian Institute for Democracy Foundation opened in Tskhinvali - Regnum News Agency (Russia), 9 december 2005
-
Tatarstan Rejects Dominant Role of Russians -
Kommersant, 6 march 2006
Category:Anti-Polonism
Category:Politics of Imperial Russia
Category:Soviet internal politics
Category:History of Poland (1795–1918)
Category:History of Belarus
Category:History of Ukraine
Category:Neologisms
Category:Types of words
Category:Word coinage
Category:Transliteration
Category:Linguistics
Category:Cultural assimilation
de:Russifizierung
et:Venestamine
pl:Rusyfikacja
sv:Russifiering
uk:РуÑ?ифікаціÑ?
lv:RusifikÄ?cija
*** Shopping-Tip: Russification
