Стратегічна панорама (Dec 2020)
LANGUAGE POLICY IN BELARUS AND KAZAKHSTAN (COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS AND CONCLUSIONS FOR UKRAINE)
Abstract
The article analyzes the background and outcomes of the introduction of official bilingualism in Belarus and Kazakhstan. This topic is quite relevant to Ukraine given that specific political forces repeatedly attempted to give Russian language state or official status at least at the regional level. The choice of the subject is determined by the fact that Belarus and Kazakhstan as well as Ukraine were the most Russified republics of the former Soviet Union had similar language problems after they declared independence. Based on the analysis of official documents, sociological and statistical data, it was revealed that the introduction of bilingualism in Belarus and Kazakhstan had different scope, goals and outcomes. In Belarus, state bilingualism, as a continuation of Soviet Russification, led to the marginalization of the Belarusian language and the practical deprivation of the titular nation of an important component of its identity. In Kazakhstan, the policy of official bilingualism provided for the expansion of the use of the Kazakh language in all areas. However, since the free use of Russian is a statutory right, the promotion of the Kazakh language was limited mainly to ethnic Kazakhs and other turk ethnic groups, almost without affecting Russians and other minorities, among whom the level of knowledge and use of Kazakh is extremely low. Nowadays, official bilingualism is becoming an obvious obstacle to building a Kazakh political nation. These examples show that the policy of official bilingualism in countries burdened by the legacy of Russification poses risks to national security. Thus, we can conclude that the changes to the Ukrainian legislation aimed at ensuring the functioning of the Ukrainian language as the state language, overcoming the consequences of the Russification of the Ukrainian cultural and information space, were adopted on time.
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