If we give it, as the cinema people would say, “a long shot,” everything seems to be self-evident. Those who want Ukraine to be a Ukrainian state are for the Ukrainian language, and those who are not interested in what Ukraine will be, who are interested not in Ukraine, but in comfort (whether their own or corporative) are for Russian. It is also self-evident which language is preferred by those who do not want any Ukraine at all.

Now let''s take a closer look. What does Russian bring for the representatives of the diverse national communities of Ukraine – from Jews and Armenians, to the Gagauz, Rusyns and Krymchaks? The answer is the same as it always has been: it brings assimilation and destruction. It is only in the fevered imagination of teachers of Marxist-Leninist philosophy that the cultures of the national peripheries bloomed thanks to their “older brother.” In reality, things ended with a translation of “The Internationale” into the language of the ethnic minority, the creation of an official folk music ensemble, and the publication of a journal filled with standardized texts about happy life, written in the letters of a national alphabet. There was even a slogan, “National in form, socialistic in content.” This language policy stressed how this form was crippled and backwater, especially since the contents of this form were even more disgustingly-socialist than in Russian.

What could Russian give us now? Or, better said, not the language itself, for it decides nothing, but its status. It will hasten the demise of national cultures in Ukraine. We will all become “Russian” just as the Jews of the Baltic countries and Kyrgyzstan become “Russian” in Israel.

Why? Because we will become a minority within a minority, will become not an independent community, but a fraction of the “Russian” minority. We should be aware that the overwhelming majority of Ukrainian national minorities now speak Russian. The preservation and strengthening of this state does not need any help. It is well-known that entropy increases if left to its own devices – it is the reduction of entropy that requires effort. Second-generation Georgians in Ukraine know their own language badly, Armenians know theirs ever worse, and Jews who are less than 70 years old do not know Yiddish. All of them are Russian-speaking, and will not learn their language just because, since only romantic enthusiasts make efforts for the sake of effort. Others do something only if there is no choice or when there are great benefits.

Do Georgians, Armenians, Greeks and Jews want to be seen as “Russians” by Ukrainian society? At the same time, do they want to be seen as “ethnic minorities” by Russian society? Do we understand that a Russian-speaking territory has no place even for Ukrainian uniqueness, much less for us.

Right now we are minorities in Ukrainian territory, even with our Russian language. With Russian having a legal status in Ukraine we will become minorities in Ukraine''s Russian minority. The way of apartheid - “divided development” - is being thrust down our throats.

What will come about if 10% of the population will be allowed to not adapt, to not need to preserve their culture as a minority culture, yet at the same time needing to integrate into Ukrainian society? What will come about if they are able to withdraw from society, not studying Ukrainian, not integrating into Ukrainian society at large? They will inevitably try to join a more powerful center of this culture. Hungarians to Hungary, the Polish to Poland, the Russians and the Russian-speaking will most certainly not cast their aspirations towards Great Britain. On the way, the Hungarians will absorb all Hungarian-speaking minorities (if any exist), and the Russians will “help” the Georgians, Jews, and Armenians to start on a path back to the “prison of the peoples.”

Do we, the national communities, want this shameful fate. Do we want to become, as we dissolve, fertilizer for the creation of fringe Russian communities, which will certainly be perceived as something second-rate in the metropolis? In Ukraine we can build our own identity striking off from Ukrainian, but we cannot build our own identity striking off from Russian, for this would mean a minority within a minority.

Jewish history holds the next horrid episode: in Warsaw, the Nazis drove all Jews into a ghetto. And, together with those Jews who identified themselves as such, they also sent those Jews who had earlier attempted to stop being Jewish, who renounced their people in the most radical way possible – who had been christened. This had been the worst fate of all – the vykrests (slang for Jewish converts to Christianity – transl.), who had attempted to integrate through lousing their national identity, had found themselves in double isolation, in a ghetto within a ghetto. They were persecuted by Germans and ostracized by Jews.

Right now, a ghetto is being created in Ukraine for Russians, Hungarians, and Romanians. This is most likely to later be able to fan the flames of a national insult, or maybe to “help,” using the mask of the “liberator” (in Georgia, they can tell you how it''s done in great detail). Should we really participate in the creation of such ghettos and save ourselves a special spot in them?

But, perhaps, those who speak Russian will just begin to build a new identity, akin to the francophones in Canada, or Belgium, or Switzerland, and will not become the “Folksruss” of their Third Rei... Sorry, Rome. This is possible in theory, but is hardly believable. What will this identity be based on, what will it be formed by? On the other hand it is obvious what will form the identity of Sudete... My bad again, Donetsk Russians as part of the “Eurasian” (almost said Aryan there) territory. Do not accuse me of Russophobia – everything said here can be applied just as easily to Hungarians and Romanians. Their “Fatherlands” are merely a bit more civilized.

But if Ukrainian is the only language of law, the only language of status in our country – are we not in the same danger regardless? Indeed, we face the same dangers, but they will be much easier to overcome, for we will be a national community among a people that lives in its land, and will be able to not fence ourselves off, and not be assimilated, but to integrate preserving our national and community customs.

This is exactly why the Russians in the East (and the Hungarians and Romanians in the Southwest) want to commit their majority to paper territorially, at least through the boundaries of a “regional language.” They do not wish to acknowledge that they are just as much a minority as Georgians, Armenians, Jews, and Roma, who have been living here since the most ancient times (which is true!), but who are living not on their own land, but on Ukrainian land. For each Russian, Jew, or Greek individually, Ukraine may be (and it would be wonderful if it were) be their own dear homeland, but for all of them as national groups, the understanding that this is the land of Ukraine, which has been giving them refuge, is essential. The status of a community on the land of another people is very difficult to accept for some, but that is the way is, that is fact.

As soon as Russians in the Crimea accept the Crimean Tatars as the masters of that land, and themselves to be a community which is living on it, the irresolvable contradictions will disappear, though those that can be solved will remain. Perhaps this should be examined in more detail, but this is a topic for a separate article, perhaps best written by one of the Crimean Tatar intellectuals.
Thus, I believe that all national communities should reject the legal securing of the status of other languages, as it is a threat to them. Yet how should Ukraine itself behave? Perhaps the state should ignore all national minorities and the problem of preservation of their languages? Naturally, it should not.

Ukraine must lay down clear criteria of its relationship with national communities, and I believe that the main criteria must be their external statehood. Ukraine must support Ukraine-centric tendencies, but give all other states the opportunity to help their diasporas and to spend money on them. Perhaps this strengthening of ties can even have some sort of tax remission. Ukraine must watch over the fact that their vector of activity be directed not inside of Ukraine, but outside.

I''ll explain. Let Armenia open courses that teach Armenian language or Armenian culture, open Armenian centers, organize scholarship programs in universities and integrate Ukrainian Armenians back in their historic homeland. Armenia can finance newspapers in Armenia, as well as the translation and showing of Armenian movies and so. Ukraine should not impede this in any way, but neither should it give these efforts any status or legitimation – this is either a private or community matter of a particular diaspora. The only thing Ukraine should watch for is any present anti-Ukrainian activity.

Incidentally, this is how the Jews do it. The State of Israel finances ulpans, supports schools, helps develop the Jewish identity, but its policy is unambiguous: in Ukraine, one can realized oneself only as a Ukrainian Jew, but one can be a Jewish Jew only in the Jewish state (or within a Jewish community). Ukraine spends neither effort nor funds on such things (and unfortunately, does not even give this issue attention).

This is the way it should be with Georgians, Armenians, Jews, Hungarians, Russians, Poles. National traditions, language, and so on should be either at their own expense, or at the expense of their national state.

If the Russian community – note, not a Russian-speaking, but the Russian – feels and understands that it is a community in Ukrainian (!) land, then it, even considering its size, will have three choices: either realize itself in Ukraine, accepting the Ukrainian language, Ukrainian worldview, and slowly naturalizing, realize itself in the metropolis, with a slow deflux of population, or to wall itself off within the community. This is about what happened with the Russian community in France and the Jewish community in America. But most Russian speakers in Ukraine are russified Ukrainians, who require a special rehabilitation program, as they are people with a traumatized identity.

So are the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages and its values meaningless for us? Of course not. But it should be remembered that its purpose is to protect dying languages. What threatens Russian, or Hungarian, or Polish? What threatens German, even in France? Should France or the Czech Republic be financing it?

The preservation of languages that have state or official status in some other country, their fate and wellbeing should not be the concern of the Ukrainian state and Ukrainian society. Let Germany think of German, Russia – of Russian, and our country should be thinking first and foremost of the preservation and development of Ukrainian. But not only Ukrainian.

Ukraine must take under its wing and take responsibility (at least in part) for the preservation of languages which exist in its territory, but which have no official or state status in other countries. Urum, Rumeian, Gagauz, Karaim, Krymchak, Yiddish, Romani – the list of languages which truly need help goes on and on. Hebrew is the concern of the State of Israel, New Greek – of the Hellenic Republic, but languages indigenous to our land are our concern. We can argue whether Rusyn is a full language or just a dialect, but we must still take care that it lives, so that the linguistic diversity of Ukrainian is preserved. I would even give surzhik (Ukrainian and Russian mix. - transl) special status, for it too is part of our heritage, our identity.

There is one language, excepting Ukrainian, which I believe should have official status in Ukraine. This is the Crimean Tatar language. It should unquestionably have all legal rights in Crimea, together with Ukrainian, and no one should occupy any official position without knowing Ukrainan and Crimean Tatar. I am not talking about giving it the status of a second official language in the entire Ukraine, but this is the only language that has the right to say, together with Ukrainian, “I am home.”

“Forum of Nations,” July 2012