Some tough talking from the EU at this week’s EU-Russian summit in Samara.
Essentially, in the light of Poland and Estonia’s recent problems with Russia, Jose Barroso, the European Commission’s President, has told Russian President Vladimir Putin that if you mess with one of us, you mess with all of us:
“We had an occasion to say to our Russian partners that a difficulty for a member state is a difficulty for the whole European community,” said Barroso.
“The Polish problem is a European problem. The Lithuanian and Estonian problems are also EU problems.
“It is very important if you want to have close co-operation to understand that the EU is based on principles of solidarity.”
Of course, tough talking is all very well - but will the EU follow it through with tough actions? So far, there is precious little sign of anything but words from the EU’s member states.
Putin, by the way, took the opportunity to have a little grumble about Estonia:
“They didn’t just disperse demonstrators. They killed one demonstrator. We demand that the criminals be brought to account,” Mr Putin said.
A fair enough request - but possibly not an issue which requires economic sanctions.
Picture courtesy of g8russia.ru.
May 18th, 2007 at 1:37 pm
“A fair enough request”? The “demonstrator” who died was a drunken looter stabbed by another looter over vodka. Criminals are being brought to account — Russophone vandals the Kremlin would like to paint as noble “defenders of the Soldier-Liberator” so-called.
May 18th, 2007 at 2:05 pm
I think that the EU should be sorting out Latvia and Estonia first, before trying to intimidate Russia with this solidarity nonsense. Any country that denies its people passports on the basis of language deserves to be thrown out of the EU until they get their act together. It beggars belief that such a system is even allowed to exist in the EU. Our Prime Minister was offered Barroso’s job before he got it and I have no doubt he would have dealt very severely with the Baltics on this issue. Never mind the statues, they’re just a circus side-show. And before anyone retorts ”they must learn Estonian, etc”, do Canadians have to speak English and French before they get passports? I think not. Have the Baltics never heard of bilingual countries? And it seems to me also that Estonia is actually doing these provocative things with statues because they are now EU members and expect Brussels and Strasbourg to help bail them out -they wouldnt have had the courage to do it if they were outside the EU. The EU should be throwing out these countries until they deal with their citizenship issues. You dont see Ireland sending home the hordes of Latvians that come there to work because they dont speak Irish(most of the time their English is rubbish too).
May 18th, 2007 at 7:18 pm
Andy, I thought you might have found a way to work a Polish meat joke into your headline, but whatever.
I think any reasonably minded person would admit that the disputes between new member states and Russia have gotten wildly out of hand - but does anyone really thing that great progress would have been made at this summit if Russia was importing Polish meat, if Lithuania were receiving oil again, and if Estonia’s sovereignty were respected? All these small symbolic conflicts just serve to expose the most critical fractures of the EU, and the tendency to pursue national interest over Union interest. If it wasn’t about fighting over a statue, it would be about fighting over a pipeline.
I agree with Katinka Barysch, whose paper we blogged about today (http://www.robertamsterdam.com/2007/05/the_politics_of_reciprocity.htm).
Russia is setting the agenda at this summit, and is enjoying its exercise of leverage.
May 18th, 2007 at 8:15 pm
Greg, bilingualism wouldn’t solve anything.
First, it’d allow vast amounts of local russophone population to remain monoglottal, whereas public servants would be forced to learn russian - just like old times. Also, it’d be a hugely asymmetrical bilingualism. Estonian is spoken - as first languague - by about a million people, whereas right next to us is a 200-million strong russophone area. It would be a cultural suicide.
The languague is what’s kept us from being russianized. Languague is a huge part of being ‘estonian’, for all intents and purposes more so than any genetic/ethnic factors.
For example, our ambassador to Russia, Marina Kaljurand - the one who had to be defended from nashists during a press conference. She’s ethnic russian (with some latvian blood thrown in), i.e. if Estonia were a enthno-fashist state it’s claimed to be by Russian media, she’d be royally screwed. But she speaks estonian. Is Estonian citizen, one could even say she’s a patriot. I can’t think of anyone who’d say she’s _not_ estonian.
About all the poor locals unable to get citizenship - if you’ve lived here for 30, 40, _50_ years, and don’t speak enough languague to pass a simple test, well, that only shows your utter disregard towards the country you live in, doesn’t it? The days of unconditional supremacy of russian languague & culture at _our_ country are, thankfully, over.
May 19th, 2007 at 12:35 am
GER O’BRIEN, are you saying that Estonia ‘throws out’ people who can’t speak estonian? You know that’s not true (though it will become true in Russia if recently proposed legislation passes). You might also want to take a look at, say, German nationality law - you will find that adequate command of the german language is a requirement.
May 19th, 2007 at 5:03 am
Mait
bilingualism doesnt work - where has that been been shown to happen, precisely? Bilingualism wouldnt work in Estonia simply because Estonians, in their nationalist fervour, dont want it to work. It works perfectly well in Canada, Ireland, New Zealand and Spain(which has three or four offical languages). Nobody is contending that ALL civil servants would have to be fluent in both languages, that doenst happen anywhere and isnt practical. In Ireland one can do all of ones business with the state entirely in Irish or English, through your whole life, but it isnt a pre-requisite for civil servants to have Irish before they get a job with the state - I should know, I worked for a government body at home for 8 years. In Estonia, its less than half of the population, many of whom are elderly, born in Estonia, speak Russian and suddenly they cant have passports, the most basic of human dignities, simply because they dont want to learn what is frankly a useless language? Its like something you’d expect from apartheid South Africa or Northern Ireland in the sixties. Its simply outrageous. As for Estonia being ‘Russianised’ because a minority of people want to use Russian, that’s simply nonsense. If all you Estonian-loving Estonians keep speaking your own language, how can it be threatened? Its not as if Russian is being ‘forced’ on you any more. The only ‘disregarding’ being done here is that by the Estonian state against a minority of its own people, many of whom were actually born in Estonia. Its shocking and I’m furious at the EU for not dealing with it.
Salsa -thats immigration, a different matter altogther, whereby immigrants are expected to integrate properly into a host nation after being there for 6-10 years. The ‘Russophones’ have been in Estonia much longer than that, many of them born there, and they are an ethnic minority not an immigrant community. Its not the same thing at all. By the way I said nothing about ‘throwing people out’, I complained about people not being able to get passports or state jobs.
May 19th, 2007 at 6:23 am
Ger,
But they _are_ immigrants. The russians who held citizenship before Soviet occupation still have it, together with their descendants.
It’s not a *new* country. Legally, Estonia was just in limbo from 1940-1991. All institutions, including citizenship, were reinstated together with the republic.
You ignore the fact that there are different kinds of nationalism. The languague is what defines an estonian. It’s similar to France, where the nation is defined by citizenship, not ethnicity.
Comparison with irish isn’t quite fitting. I mean, irish languague is used daily by, what, 10% of the population? Estonia’s laws are to prevent exactly that from happening, to keep us from being overwhelmed by a vastly (100x) larger culture.
If civil servants wouldn’t have to be proficient in both languagues… I was born in USSR. I never again want to deal with a public servant who demands I speak ‘human’ when I try to get my stuff done in estonian.
May 19th, 2007 at 6:25 am
Bilingualism “works perfectly well in Canada, Ireland, New Zealand and Spain”?
Though Canada is bilingual — the only province that’s bilingual is New Brunswick. The official language in Québec is French, and some aspects of Loi 101 and related legislation are more stringent than the language laws in the Baltics. There was a massive exodus of stubborn monolingual Anglophones when the laws were first passed. Québec is not a nation-state, was not under totalitarian occupation, and has demographics that are far more favorable to French than the demographics here are to Latvian or Estonian. French is a major language, too, which makes a profound difference (the only places where Latvian and Estonian are spoken are Latvia and Estonia, whilst there are numerous nations in la Francophonie.) Conversely, French has been dying out in the rest of Canada.
In Spain, in Catalonia, a 1992 decree “established Catalan as the normal language of
instruction and put an end to the gradual character of the introduction of Catalan in the schools.” That is far more radical than the education reforms in the Baltics.
Ireland? “Planning controls now require new housing in Gaeltacht areas to be allocated to English-speakers and Irish-speakers in the same ratio as the existing population of the area.” Hmm. Though there is now a revival, see Donncha Ó hÉallaithe: “‘It is an absolute indictment of successive Irish Governments that at the foundation of the Irish State there were 250,000 fluent Irish speakers living in Irish-speaking or semi Irish-speaking areas, but the number now is between 20,000 and 30,000.”
Perhaps you consider language death as an ideal? New Zealand? The Māori are a mere 14% of the population, and most Māori lack fluency and do not speak their language even at home.
“Russophones” are not an ethnic minority, sorry — a Daugavpils Pole who is a Russophone because Stalin closed the Polish schools and because the Soviet Union responded to attempts to teach migrants Latvian with purges doesn’t become a “Russian.” There is a distinction between being born in occupied Estonia or Latvia and being born in a free country — just as there is a distinction between a national minority and an imperial one.
But you reveal yourself by describing Estonian as “frankly a useless language.” Sorry, but Estonian is Estonia’s national language. I can assure you that it’s quite useful in Estonia. “Apartheid?” That’s a ridiculous word to use (though quite popular among Russophonbe radicals)– apartheid was a policy designed to prevent people from integrating, based upon the color of their skin. Learning Estonian doesn’t mean forgetting Russian, and no one here asks the Russophones to abandon their language or culture.
You could look at another “bilingual” country — Belgium. It’s strictly divided along geographic lines, by language (only Brussels is bilingual, and Dutch is in steep decline there). Belgium has deep divisions and barely holds together — the two communities are increasingly separate politically; the education systems, for example, are managed by the “Communities,” not the federal government. It is a federation. We are not federations but unitary nation-states with liberal minorities policies — Latvia provides state-supported education in six languages, for instance.
De facto, of course we’re bilingual (increasingly, multilingual). What Mait wrote above re asymmetrical bilingualism is the most relevant aspect — the fact is that few Russophones spoke our languages at the restoration of independence. The situation has improved considerably, and that’s an indication that our integration policies are working. There isn’t one form of bilingualism or muliculturalism — there are many different models. What we don’t want is a continuation of asymmetrical bilingualism — that you don’t seem to understand why is frankly strange. I live in Daugavpils, a heavily Russophone city. Lettophones find it more difficult to live here than Russophones, even today. I don’t think a child should have to learn Russian to see a doctor — it is the doctor’s job to learn Latvian. It’s common sense that if more people know Russian than Latvian (still true if we consider both the first and second language of speakers), it’s Latvian that’s under threat. Anglophones in Québec are less than 8% of the population, but Francophones still see a need to protect French through legislation. How much more so is this valid in countries that are sovereign, speak minor languages, and were brutally occupied?
May 19th, 2007 at 8:56 am
Mait/Peteris,
whilst both your respective points about Canada, Ireland, Spain etc are interesting, they do not in any way excuse the denial of passports to a large portion of the populace. In using those countries as examples, the thrust of my argument was not about the protection of languages, which to my mind takes a poor second place to human rights. The fact is in all those countries mentioned, one can choose to exclusively use one of at least two or more languages in their interaction with the state and in their daily lives. There is no obligation to learn/speak one language simply because a majority of the population insist so. Again, while very interesting, the nitty-gritty of what happens in Ireland, etc, is of no relevance to what’s happening in the Baltics. The governments of Latvia and Estonia deny passport/ciizenship to a portion of the population who do not want to learn a language - of course its a form of aparteid. A passport is a basic human right, the granting of which shouldnt be denied at the whim of a majority filled with zeal for a particular language. Immigrants? After 40-60 years in the country? They werent immigrants until 1990, were they? Do people in their forties etc, really have to now go and learn a highly complex language( seemingly Estonian is extremely hard to learn)? If you insist that they are immigrants, shouldnt Ireland and others apply the same standards? Ireland has a huge Latvian population and in most cases their English is, frankly, atrocious. I’ve no doubt that of all the European immigrants to Ireland the Baltics have the worst standard of English. Buying a packet of smokes at home almost requires subtitles. Should we start stopping them from entering or throw them out because they dont speak decent English? After all we let them vote even, and they have a far more tenuous claim to Ireland than Russophones have to Latvia and Estonia.
And on the subject of Ireland -Irish was in decline long before the Irish state came into being and it had as much to do with us choosing to speak English after independence than anything else. Irish, whilst loved by most of us, was ignored by us as we realised it’s better all round to speak English. And even so, around 300,000 of us speak enough to manage and can fill in official forms, etc in Irish. Irish is kept alive by the Gaeltacht and by schools, but it is not forced upon us and we can take it or leave it. We choose to leave it, though my own father insists on using it all the time.
May 19th, 2007 at 3:56 pm
A passport is a basic human right, the granting of which shouldnt be denied at the whim of a majority filled with zeal for a particular language. Immigrants? After 40-60 years in the country? They werent immigrants until 1990, were they?
They have passports — aliens’ passports. The Baltic states were under occupation until August 1991. The non-citizens never held Latvian or Estonian citizenship — they held Soviet citizenship. The Soviet Union, which had nearly reduced us to minorities in our own countries, ceased to exist, thank Bog, and these people were granted permanent resident status in the spirit of tolerance and understanding — but not automatic citizenship. Many of them had opposed the very existence of our Republics. They have the opportunity to naturalize. Language is most definitely not the sole obstacle to their naturalization — resentment of the process, animus against their countries of residence, apathy, the fact that they can live perfectly well without citizenship, etc., are all factors. Many live in a little Russia (or USSR) of the mind, which is quite easy to do. You can clearly see that in footage of the rioting in Estonia, where not a few are chanting the name of the country that is the primary successor of the state that occupied us and is engaged in rehabilitating its nasty legacy. Many also live in Russian media space — a media space that is increasingly devoted to bashing the Baltics and has a habit of recycling Stalinist distortions of history.
Citizenship includes responsibilities. Debates between candidates and political discourse is in Estonian in Estonia and in Latvian in Latvia, for the most part — granting voting rights to a person who doesn’t understand what’s going on, can’t be bothered with learning a couple of thousand words of the language of the country he or she lives in, or simply disrespects or detests the Republic, would be a dangerous and irresponsible thing.
The nitty-gritty of what happens in Ireland, Canada, and other countries, especially in multinational/multicultural ones, is indeed relevant — the mechanics are extremely important, and though every society is more or less unique, one can compare approaches to similar problems. I successfully showed, I believe, why your comment about bilingualism in Canada, etc., was superficial and off base.
Dominique Arel, who wrote in Gagnon and Tully’s Multinational Democracies (Cambridge, 2001), that multinational states can be politically stable “but not because of the deceptively appealing concept of the civic state, which glosses over the the important issues.” States can be stable when they “reverse
assimilatory trends,” which “can be obtained through ‘politically incorrect’ means, such as closing all Castilian-language schools in
Barcelona and eliminating freedom of choice in the language of instruction for immigrant parents in Montreal.”
As to the Balts in Ireland having bad English — they’ve only been there for a little while and mostly work the jobs you no longer want to do yourselves. English dominates in Ireland, and I somehow doubt that too many Letts expect you to learn Latvian. Latvia did not occupy Ireland, deport the Irish, etc. In Estonia, though not in Latvia, non-citizens can vote in local elections, by the way. We can vote in local elections in Ireland just as you can vote here, after a period of residency — we’re EU citizens, and these rights are mandated. Non-citizens in Latvia and Estonia are equivalent to third country nationals — not being EU citizens, most EU Member States do not permit them to vote.
It’s quite true that there’s a tragic element in the situation of some non-citizens here — most aren’t guilty of anything, having been the pawns of a totalitarian régime. Restoring our statehood, rejoining Europe and obtaining a measure of security, and rebuilding our country wasn’t and isn’t easy. We don’t want to live in Ruslatviya, though, you see. To use an analogy — if someone invades your house, steals the title to the property and moves his extended family in whilst kicking part of yours out and killing another part, you might have a pretty rough life for the decades that they ran it. Once you legally regained title, bloodlessly except for some last-minute murders, you really might want to make some changes. Being a nice bloke, you invite this somewhat dysfunctional family and their many descendants to make themselves at home. You might ask them to learn to communicate in the language of your family rather than be forced to communicate in theirs, no? You might ask them to respect the property rather than continue to demolishing it. You might expect them not to refrain from admiring the rapist next door, and you could ask that if they wish to participate and become co-owners of the house, they stop trying to deny the fact that the house was stolen and a lot of bad things happened in it.
May 22nd, 2007 at 8:34 am
Switzerland has three official languages.
Lithuania doesn’t have the same problems as Latvia and Estonia. This is because Lithuania doesn’t have the same linguistic policy as the other two Baltic republics.
In point of fact, Estonia and Latvia haven’t made it so easy for the non-speakers of the Estonian or Latvian languages to learn the given language. All this as discriminatory laws have been put in place.
There’re Latvians and Estonians opposed to those discriminatory policies.
Likening Russia to a “rapist” does nothing to imrove the situation.
May 22nd, 2007 at 8:34 am
Scuze misspell in my last post.
May 23rd, 2007 at 3:27 am
“Lithuania doesn’t have the same problems as Latvia and Estonia. This is because Lithuania doesn’t have the same linguistic policy as the other two Baltic republics.”
True, but it’s more accurate to say they don’t have the same citizenship policies. Lithuania gave citizenship to all its permanent residents, regardless of ethnicity, shortly after regaining independence.
On another note, Estonia’s northern neighbor, Finland, has always had Swedish (the language of its former master) as co-official language. But this hasn’t led to a decline in the use of Finnish - in fact, the opposite has happened.
May 23rd, 2007 at 4:21 am
Dear Estonians:
the ‘alien’s’ passport is not a proper passport. It’s not widely recognized. At least it wasn’t until recently — if that has changed, please inform me.
Furthermore: most Russian speakers in Estonia supported Estonian independence in 1990, is this how you show gratitude? What would you have done if the Russian speakers would have opposed independence?
Regarding Soviet citizenship: prior to Estonian independence, nobody in Estonia had anything but Soviet citizenship. Estonia then gave passports to those who happen to speak Estonian, but not to those who don’t.
Because ‘language’ is the defining feature of what it means to be Estonian? Ok, fine.. but maybe if you gave citizenship to your former fellow citizens, and then helped them - as in actively helped them - to learn Estonian in addition to Russian (while also teaching Estonian kids Russian), maybe you would all benefit?
Please take a look at your trade data — all real economic activity is predominantly with Russia in Estonia. EU loans and grant distribution does not count as real economic activity in my books.
Always keep in mind: nobody needs Estonia, but Estonia needs everybody else. The only reason Estonia and the other Baltics got into the EU and NATO was to rub Russia, and get NATO onto the Gulf of Finland. Didn’t cost much for either EU or NATO, considering the minuscule size of the Baltic populations.
It’s all about politics of symbolism, except that when the Baltics joined the Western club, Russia could do nothing about it. Now it’s back, and it has attitude.
In the long run, Estonia doesn’t matter — but considering its geography, it would do better to seek a long-term strategic relationship with ALL its neighbors. Russia will still be there when the EU is long gone and history, but will Estonia?
May 23rd, 2007 at 4:32 am
“We don’t want to live in Ruslatviya, though, you see. To use an analogy — if someone invades your house, steals the title to the property and moves his extended family”….
and so on.
Comparing houses, households, families, etc. to countries betrays a level of analytical confusion that would require too much time to set straight.
In economics, this kind of thinking got us Mercantilism and all the bloody (literally) nonsense that came with it.
Countries ain’t houses, and nations ain’t families. Or are you telling me that you feel obliged to put up any odd ‘ethnic’ Estonian into your physical house if he is down and out? Because that’s what we do with family.
If not, I guess you’re a really lousy family man.
And would you extend this courtesy to any odd Slavic Estonian speaker if he came around to ask to be put up? IF not, then this would prove your thesis about ‘language’ defining Estonians wrong, because you are making exceptions.
National identity, state-hood, etc, is defined by those who have the power to define it. And I guess the Estonian Russians simply screwed up and failed to exercise their potential power.
History is unkind to the losers. But history is also a wheel, and it keeps turning as it marches on.
Still the millwheel turns
it turns forever
though what it uppermost
remains not so.
Estonia’s hour of petty-minded, EU sponsored triumph may last many a year. But then again, it may not. Who can tell?
May 23rd, 2007 at 7:36 am
RM/Mike,
you managed to put into words what I’ve been struggling to get at here.
‘Aliens passport’ - hilarious. Does that mean they can visit other planets and Russia visa-free, but not the EU? Its a disgusting situation, brought on by narrow minded, insular nationalist nonsense. There is NO justfication for denying these people passports, and again, what bothers me most is that the EU have actually taken the Baltics side in all this. Again, if Bertie Ahern were in charge I dont believe that would be the case, but as we have seen 2nd-choice goalkeeper Barrosso is singularily incapable of the most basic negotiations let alone dealing with somebody complex like Russia. Its an astounding situation and sadly one that really does damage to the whole of the EU in the eyes of Russians. Estonia and Latvia remind me of the little runt in the nightclub that gets all his bigger friends into fights because someone steals his girlfriend or makes jokes about his height. Everyone ends up getting a black eye over it.
May 23rd, 2007 at 12:27 pm
Reminds me of a Russian’s reply to an Ustashe leaning Croat.
The former’s retort went along the lines of:
Why do people from small countries scream the loudest?
May 23rd, 2007 at 12:28 pm
“On another note, Estonia’s northern neighbor, Finland, has always had Swedish (the language of its former master) as co-official language. But this hasn’t led to a decline in the use of Finnish - in fact, the opposite has happened.”
****
Excellent point.
May 23rd, 2007 at 7:35 pm
The non-citizens in Estonia and Latvia are de facto citizens of Russia — the successor state to the USSR. They can easily apply for Russian citizenship and many have done that. Having Estonian or Latvian citizenship is hardly a basic human right.
As of January 2007 they can visit EU countries visa-free.
May 23rd, 2007 at 7:49 pm
Elise,
”non citizens”?
unless I’m mistaken, Russian passport holders cannot visit the EU without a visa - please correct me if I’m wrong.
May 23rd, 2007 at 8:24 pm
Non-citizens - holders of the alien’s passport. We don’t call them ‘aliens’ in Estonia.
Russian citizens still need a visa to visit the EU, even if they are permanent residents of Estonia.
May 24th, 2007 at 6:51 am
So Elise that dont have a proper passport of the country they were born in, simply because they refuse to learn Estonian, whilst Estonian speakers are free to travel and work through the whole of the EU, including my beloved Ireland, where I now need a translator to buy a pint or a packet of fags because of the poor English of Balts.
Irony lost on you, vozhmozhno?
Sounds like racism, bigotry and small-country nationalism to me.
May 24th, 2007 at 10:13 am
Regarding the analogy to a house — even if you subscribe to the “imagined community” view of Anderson, the nation is still a community. In Switzerland, there are cantons in which one of the many obstacles to obtaining Swiss citizenship includes a mailing to every citizen with biographies of each applicant, so that people can choose whom they adopt into the body politic on an individual basis.
Re not having a proper passport — they weren’t born in Eeesti Varbariik or Latvijas Republika; they were born in occupied territory styled Estonskaya SSR or Latviskaya SSR.
Considering the fact that many were opposed to the very existence of our countries, it is quite natural that the citizens would ask them to integrate prior to giving them citizenship.
Racism? Citizenship isn’t based upon ethnicity. Those who held citizenship and their descendants got citizenship whether they spoke our languages or not, or whether they were Russians, Udmurts, or Martians. The rest must naturalize, and the process is a straightforward one — more generous than it is in many a country.
Re Finland — the Republic was created as a bicommunal state, essentially. Part of the reason for that is that the Finland Swedes were long loyal to Finland — describing Sweden as a “colonial master” is very misleading. Also, a handful of speakers is obviously not as threatening as the sorts of demographics seen here. As I’ve already pointed out, there are strict language laws in Québec despite the fact that Anglophones are ca. 8% of the population.
“Lithuania doesn’t have the same problems as Latvia and Estonia. This is because Lithuania doesn’t have the same linguistic policy as the other two Baltic republics.” Lithuania does indeed have a similar linguistic policy — it has a different citizenship policy. The main reason it could afford one was that it wasn’t colonized to the extent Latvia and Estonia were.
May 24th, 2007 at 10:25 am
“National identity, state-hood, etc, is defined by those who have the power to define it.”
Yes, exactly. According to our constitution, power is vested in the people of Latvia. The formal relationship between a person and the state is citizenship. It was and is up to the citizens of Latvia to decide whether and how to extend citizenship to others. By a narrow margin, voters in a referendum decided that those born after the end of the occupation can get citizenship even if their parents are not citizens.
Estonian policy differs — there’s more linguistic latitude in Narva than there is in Daugavpils, and non-citizens can vote in local elections.
But some here refuse to accept the basic concept — citizens decide upon citizenship, whether by referendum or through their elected representatives. “Small-country nationalism”? Fine, call it that. Being small and being democratic, we naturally take a more personal view of citizenship. Because, unlike in Russia, it’s meaningful here.
The OSCE, the Council of Europe and the EU have gone over our laws with a fine-toothed comb. Of course there are those who disagree with our laws, and I have close friends who strongly disagree, of different ethnicities. But, though there have been recommendations (not directives) we do not adopt, our legislation is fully in line with Europe’s.
The fact that we successfully emerged from totalitarian occupation is significant. You might peruse, for example, the decision of the Grand Chamber of the European Court of Human Rights with regard to Zhdanok vs. Latvia.
May 24th, 2007 at 10:37 am
“The only reason Estonia and the other Baltics got into the EU and NATO was to rub Russia…” “Estonia doesn’t matter…”
It’s quite difficult to have a serious discussion as long as so many people hold such sentiments, and similar sentiments are mushrooming all over the ‘Net. We got into the EU because we wanted to get into the EU and because we met the requirements for getting into the EU. Most people here (including not a few ethnic Russians, by the way) are strongly supportive of NATO, for obvious reasons. I feel a surge in my sense of security every time I see a NATO jet fly along our eastern border.
We’d love to have a good relationship with Russia and we have tried very hard to develop one. That relationship won’t come about by nodding when Russia propagates Stalinist lies, denies the occupation, treats us like inferiors, etc. Most Europeans and Americans understand our situation quite well, despite the amount of ludicrous propaganda the Kremlin continuously regurgitates.
May 24th, 2007 at 11:43 am
“Re Finland — the Republic was created as a bicommunal state, essentially. Part of the reason for that is that the Finland Swedes were long loyal to Finland — describing Sweden as a ‘colonial master’ is very misleading. Also, a handful of speakers is obviously not as threatening as the sorts of demographics seen here. As I’ve already pointed out, there are strict language laws in Québec despite the fact that Anglophones are ca. 8% of the population.”
****
As someone else earlier noted at this discussion, the majority of Estonia’s Russian population voted for independence from the USSR.
As for Quebec - in Quebec City, French is by far the dominant language with not such a great use of Eng. When the Quebec Nordiques of the NHL existed, the public address announcer at Le Colisee was 100% in French, with no translation.
Along with some other present day realities, the many Estonians and Latvians denying Estonian and Latvian WWW II Nazi manner doesn’t reflect clear thinking societies.
BTW, I know some Finns who differ from the above quoted soft perspective Under Imperial Russia - Finland enjoyed the greatest autonomy of any nation in a European empire.
May 24th, 2007 at 12:20 pm
I’m not going to repeat my arguments here ad nauseam. I said my piece. Until the Baltic nationalists here come up with something new to say, I will take leave of this exercise in futility.
Nationalists generally do not enter a discussion to change their point of view, hence their total disregard for any argument that may show how they are mistaken.
Regarding Swiss citizenship rules, immigration policies, etc… The Swiss, like the Austrians and Germans, have some of the most racist citizenship rules in Europe. Why don’t you take France as a model, for example? I guess that wouldn’t serve your purpose because it would show how discriminatory and abusive your rules are.
Final comment: I don’t waste my time on anybody who is incapable of seeing why the ‘house’ analogy for countries is dumb. Plonk.
Enjoy your EU grant financed little Neverneverland.
May 24th, 2007 at 12:21 pm
Peter
”Estonskaya SSR or Latviskaya SSR.”
Are these places now part of Estonia and Latvia respectively, or the Russian Federation? Which is it? If the former, then surely they are entitled to Estonian/Latvian citizenship, as these countries are the successor states to the above. Denying them that on the basis of language IS racist and biggoted. Were you born in the SSSRs or the new Estonia/Latvia? If the former is the case, then by your own logic surely you shouldnt have an EU passport either, just like the Russian speakers? You are in the poorest manner possible using flimsy, dodgy arguments to defend an appalling policy based on the learning of a language belonging to countries who have hardly had 50 years of independent existence. Its ridiculous and frankly I’m shocked. And I wish, reading this nonsense, that I’d voted ‘No’ to the Nice Treaty that allowed the Baltics into the EU. It would hardly have been anyone’s loss except yours.
As for NATO security, you are only fooling yourselves. Like the Czechs and Ukraine, your countries are simply a means to an end for the United States, and you have served your new masters quite well by the looks of things, doing your best to upset the Russians. Maladyets!
Mike, what you’re saying is spot on, but remember these guys think bilingualism doesnt work at all. Hilarious. They dont actually care what we say.
May 24th, 2007 at 12:28 pm
RM
I’m having to repeat myself over and over as well. Its a waste of time really. The sad thing is both Ireland and Germany are now going to be coughing up cash to keep these little provinces afloat. Depressing. Ireland has for the last ten years been a net contributor to the EU budget and I never felt bad about that until now. Look what we’re paying for.
May 24th, 2007 at 2:14 pm
I don’t live in the EU anymore. I haven’t lived there for more than ten years. Went back one year. Left again, and have no intentions of going back.
Europe is killing itself. In so many ways, it’s sad. I will stop here, because I am crossing the PC line…
May 24th, 2007 at 2:28 pm
And yes Ger, it’s not right for me to be proficient in just one language. Many Americans are like that, care of English being a modern day lingua Franca.
At the same time, they’re some numb minded multi-lingual folks out there.
May 24th, 2007 at 4:04 pm
Estonia’s naturalisation policy is obviously working - the percentage of ‘non-citizens’ has dropped from 32% in 1992 to 9% in 2006. Within a decade in will no longer be an issue. The majority of Russian-speakers in Estonia have realised that it is in their interest to speak Estonian. Young Estonians, like myself, don’t speak Russian these days.
I would hate to see another Finno-Ugric language become extinct since there aren’t many of them left. The Soviets were very successful in absorbing them. We will make sure Estonian survives, no matter how much Mr. Putin whines.
By the way, Estonia is not a successor state to the Estonian SSR. Estonia is a successor state to the first Republic of Estonia. Throughout the Soviet occupation the Republic of Estonia had a government in exile. Republic of Estonia, legally, never ceased to exist.
May 24th, 2007 at 5:14 pm
The actual sentiments of Baltic Russians tend to get lost in this kind of discussion. Since Estonia is a very wired country, there are lots of blogs by Esto-Russian bloggers you can read to get an idea of how they think (in fact the whole “ZheZhe” phenomenon started in Estonia, not Russia).
In the wake of the recent events, I did an informal survey of such blogs. I repost here a post I made on another discussion group:
-
The most common opinions expressed were:
1. These events are about discrimination against the minority in Estonian society. Partly this is seen as a legal matter, but there’s also a strong, intangible cultural flavor - i.e. a feeling the Russians get that, despite what the gov’t says, they’re not really
*supposed* to integrate into society.
2. “We are Russians culturally - but we are also Europeans, and don’t identify with the Russian Federation.” They have lived in Estonia all their lives, it’s their home - why should it reject them? So they are caught in a sort of national limbo.
3. Actions of the Russian gov’t (& esp. groups like Nashi) are regarded as cynical, self-serving and pointless. They don’t view
Moscow as speaking for them - they want Brussels to sort things out.
I append below a post by an Esto-Russian blogger, a woman c. 30 years old. She wrote it in English for some reason (maybe to increase
exposure?). I put it here because it reflects pretty well the tone of most of the posting I’ve read over the past couple of days.
*************************************
I have to say that:
– I am not the cattle I am an Estonian citizen
– I was born in Estonia and have absolutely nothing to do with the
USSR and/or Russia whatsoever
– I want the voice of my people TO BE HEARD and our opinion, memory
and values treated with every possible respect and esteem.
Unfortunately nothing of this happens in the present Estonian reality.
– I am AGAINST the vandalism of Russian teenagers but I am also
AGAINST discrimination of my people, which has been happening allover
Estonia since 1991 and which ended with the bloody battle of the last
days
– I am sure that the Russian community MUST officially condemn the
crime of marauders but I am also sure that the prime minister MUST
apologize for all the unpardonable mistakes he has made and
voluntarily send in his resignation
As life shows the integration politics of Estonia are extremely
ineffective and short-sighted. They result in riots and victims.
It is a very distinct sign that something is definitely rotten in the
state of Denmark.
Estonia as a country needs a new social engineering, a new integration
policy and a new officially shown attitude towards Russian minority.
Otherwise looting, violence and killing will be part and parcel of the
sad future of my country.
May 24th, 2007 at 5:37 pm
“Estonia as a country needs a new social engineering, a new integration
policy…”
Have fun with this idea, if you insist. I’m afraid our affection for engineers of human souls died with our supposed affection for Stalin. All that the rioters managed to prove is that the policy is the correct one. The Russians who refuse to respect the country they live in more than ever resemble Sudetenland Germans ca. 1938, just as Russia increasingly resembles Germany ca. 1938.
May 24th, 2007 at 7:00 pm
“Why don’t you take France as a model, for example? I guess that wouldn’t serve your purpose because it would show how discriminatory and abusive your rules are.”
Yes yes what an wonderful idea, because I think we can all agree that France is the best example of how to treat your minorities and make them feel like a part of society. I know I personally can’t think of one single minority related riot in France. EVER!!!
They are clearly all assholes, well your average state at least. Just a shame about the people caught in the middle, in this instance between two states given to nationalist macho posturing, rather than sensible problem solving.
Just my two banal cents.
All the best
Frederik
Oh and what a very nice blog you have here, I almost forgot to say that.
May 24th, 2007 at 8:38 pm
France doesn’t even sign the Framework Convention, let alone abide by it. It would be unconstitutional. There are no minorities in France — everybody’s French. The French like to come and lecture the Balts about the Rights of Man, but that’s neither here nor there.
May 25th, 2007 at 5:59 am
Interesting discussion filled with useful arguments and a lot of misconceptions. Some have suggested that the state discriminates against non-citizens who cannot participate in the political process. But you cannot discriminate against people who are non-citizen by choice. Any non-citizen can naturalize and become a citizen, no questions asked. The question comes up why don’t some of non-citizens have any intention of naturalization.
Some say they feel betrayed by politicians of the time of independence restoration. Understandably so. They’re right to feel that way. At the same time, how many times we, as citizens, bought into pre-election gobbledygook by our politicians who continued to do what they’ve always done once elections were finished. Are we disappointed? Yes. Do we continue to be law-abiding citizens? Yes. Disappointment in the promises doesn’t justify their unwillingness to go through naturalization process to become citizens of this country.
Another reason cited, very pragmatically, is mandatory service in the army. That’s almost a goner. The government is considering to switch to the professional army soon, thus abolishing the military service.
Another reason they say the citizenship is theirs by right. Only a state, doing the will of the people, can grant or take away someone’s rights. The full-fledged rights are theirs for the taking. You just have to know the language and the history to do it.
The other real reason for lack of integration in this country is the presence of two different media spheres. The Russophone community lives in the Russian media sphere of influence. They watch their news from Moscow and they trust it. It was refreshing to see some Russian-speaking Estonians be disappointed in the TV news from Moscow when they were covering recent events in Tallinn.
Perhaps, it’s my Russian side of the family, I don’t want to stereotype, but they have no clue what’s going on in Latvia. They even refer to “our prime minister” every time Russian PM shows up on TV.
May 25th, 2007 at 6:54 am
Aleks: if you read Russian, you might find this article, by U. of Tartu professor Jelena Grigorjeva, interesting. Among other things she disagrees with your statement about “Russian media sphere of influence.”
http://mariart.livejournal.com/28375.html#cutid2
And here’s the same article in Estonian:
http://www.epl.ee/?arvamus=384666
May 25th, 2007 at 12:42 pm
“The Russians who refuse to respect the country they live in more than ever resemble Sudetenland Germans ca. 1938, just as Russia increasingly resembles Germany ca. 1938.”
****
Bullshit! Estonia more resembles that.
BTW, I understand that the Sudeten Germans did have a lergitmate beef. This in no way justified the Nazi, Polish and Hungarian attack on Czechoslovakia in 1938.
May 25th, 2007 at 3:29 pm
Mr. Potato Head: Perhaps, Estonia is somewhat different in that regard. Here in Latvia, Russian-language press is the most poisonous press in the country. It offers opinions, twisted opinions, and nothing but opinions. And opinions are mostly the same: a) citizenship to all; b) Russian as a second state language.
After reading some parts of the article, I cannot and will not justify the pogroms in Tallinn. No national pride, nothing else can be used as an excuse for something so inexcusable. Shouts “Russia, Russia” alone could be considered weird from someone who believes Estonia is their home.
May 25th, 2007 at 4:55 pm
“The Russians who refuse to respect the country they live in more than ever resemble Sudetenland Germans ca. 1938, just as Russia increasingly resembles Germany ca. 1938.”
This is funny: the Sudeten Germans had lived in that region for centuries. Until WWI, Prague was predominantly a Jewish and German city, with Czechs constituting a minority there.
If I were an Estonian, I wouldn’t touch this parallel with a ten-foot pole…
Which just shows how ignorant nationalists really are. Any argument will do for them, no matter how absurd.
May 30th, 2007 at 3:53 am
Reluctant Muscovite:
Being a combination of Germanized Czechs, Jews and ethnic Germans, the Prague Germans had different origins and a separate identity from the Sudeten Germans, themselves a grouping of at least four regional populations united by their residence in Bohemia-Moravia.
The problems of Estonia’s Russophones are similar to the problems of other immigrant minorities elsewhere in Europe, especially immigrant minorities produced by immigration to regions with industries that have since collapsed. Estonia’s Russophones are overwhelmingly concentrated in the industrialized northeastern country of Idu-Viramaa (sp?) and in Tallinn, especially in Tallinn’s suburbs, and were attracted to work in the sorts of Soviet-era industries which were doomed to fail outside of a Communist political economy. Despite Estonia’s relatively liberal citizenship laws–citizenship isn’t meted out only to descendants of citizens, but is rather available to long-term residents who, among other things, have a certain amount of fluency in the Estonian language–something like this was bound to happen.
A thought experiment for y’all: How would Russians react if thirty million or so German colonists who had been settled in Russia after the Nazi conquest mourned the dissolution of the Nazi empire, treated Russian history and language as irrelevant concerns, and warned that if the Russians kept tearing down Nazi monuments Germany would make them feel sorry?
May 30th, 2007 at 8:33 am
Randy,
you ask:
“A thought experiment for y’all: How would Russians react if thirty million or so German colonists who had been settled in Russia after the Nazi conquest mourned the dissolution of the Nazi empire, treated Russian history and language as irrelevant concerns, and warned that if the Russians kept tearing down Nazi monuments Germany would make them feel sorry?”
Good point. I don’t think there would be many Russians left by now, if that had been the case. The rest would be uneducated, barely able to read or write their own language, working only as servants and farm hands.
Nobody can imagine how they would react to anything, because comparing the Post-Stalin USSR to Nazi Germany is quite tricky.
Something else: considering there are about 40% Russophones in Tallin, how come there are NO Russian language signs anywhere? There are English language signs all over the place in Moscow, for example.
Estonia has English language signs as well, but nothing in Russian.
May 30th, 2007 at 9:42 am
“Nobody can imagine how they would react to anything, because comparing the Post-Stalin USSR to Nazi Germany is quite tricky.”
Yes. Also, Randy’s experiment seems to be based on the common stereotype that all Balto-Russians are drunken Sovoks who long for Comrade Stalin to come back and restore “order.” (Sorry Randy if I misread you, but that’s how it looks to me.) You can find people like that, but they are by no means the norm in that rather diverse and complex group.
May 30th, 2007 at 12:55 pm
ReluctantMuscovite:
“Good point. I don’t think there would be many Russians left by now, if that had been the case. The rest would be uneducated, barely able to read or write their own language, working only as servants and farm hands.”
Let’s say that Hitler died conveniently before the worst of his schemes vis-a-vis the Russians could be achieved, just as Stalin died in 1953 just before he could invade western Europe and deport the Jews to Soviet Asia, and that the new pragmatists in Berlin gave administration of Russia over to the Vlasovites.
“Randy’s experiment seems to be based on the common stereotype that all Balto-Russians are drunken Sovoks who long for Comrade Stalin to come back and restore “order.” (Sorry Randy if I misread you, but that’s how it looks to me.)”
They’re clearly not, as evidenced by (among other people) the Estonian ambassador in Moscow. Clearly, some are, if not drunken, then Stalinist nostalgics. Why else so vehemently oppose moving a monument to an army of a state responsible for killing five times as many Estonians as the Nazis ever did from the heart of the Estonian capital?
“You can find people like that, but they are by no means the norm in that rather diverse and complex group.”
Agreed. Why should the opinions of people of that ilk be considered? One might as well say that the Balts are dominated by people who want to send Soviet-era immigrants out of the country posthaste on cattlecars.
May 30th, 2007 at 1:07 pm
“Something else: considering there are about 40% Russophones in Tallin, how come there are NO Russian language signs anywhere? There are English language signs all over the place in Moscow, for example.”
It looks like Montréal, then. (~50% Francophone, ~25% Anglophone, the remainder drawn from various immigrant populations.)
The obvious answer, in the cases of Montréal and Tallinn, is that the locally dominant nationality has long been submerged and is anxious to ensure that its verancular language becomes and remains the lingua franca of the city’s population, else this population becomes marginalized in its largest city. (Bad things would result from this, from both ends.)
Is this fair? Leaving aside the possibility of intensified ethnic conflict if Québécois or Estonians did get so marginalized, so long as the local citizenship regime is permeable and there are changes to learn the local language I’m not inclined to oppose it. I’m fairly confident about Estonia’s citizenship regime, but I’m somewhat skeptical about language-learning opportunities.
May 30th, 2007 at 2:25 pm
“Why else so vehemently oppose moving a monument to an army of a state responsible for killing five times as many Estonians as the Nazis ever did from the heart of the Estonian capital?”
Randy: if you can read Russian, I recommend the article I linked to above, by Jelena Grigorjeva. It answers your question in some detail.
May 31st, 2007 at 10:46 am
From the most recent Action Ukraine Report:
“ASK YOUR U.S. REPRESENTATIVE TO SUPPORT A RESOLUTION
CONDEMNING RUSSIAN INTERFERENCE IN ESTONIA!
Ukrainian National Information Service (UNIS)
Washington, D.C., Wednesday, May 30, 2007″
****
I’ve read where the Estoninan government has propped Ukrainian lamguage schools in Estonia. A likely diversionary divide and conquer tactic, which likely explains the kind of above quoted advocacy.
May 31st, 2007 at 1:00 pm
Randy, the fact that you claim the situation in Tallin for Russophones is similar to the situation for Anglophones in Montreal shows your complete ignorance of Canadian affairs. There are English language signs everywhere in Montreal. You can live and work in Montreal without speaking a word of French.
It seems you have never been to Montreal and have no understanding of what’s going on there.
Since I have spend a lot of time in Montreal, your comparison betrays a level of ignorance that can only be explained by your need to buttress pre-determined conclusions with unfounded arguments.
By the way: little Luxembourg is tri-lingual, with Luxemburgish being spoken pretty much only there, and doing fine.
None of the arguments brought forward by the Estonian nationalists and their supporters so far stand up to even superficial examination. Maybe the Estonian position can be defended, but so far, I haven’t seen it.
Yuck to Estonia’s government.
May 31st, 2007 at 5:02 pm
ReluctantMuscovite:
“Randy, the fact that you claim the situation in Tallin for Russophones is similar to the situation for Anglophones in Montreal shows your complete ignorance of Canadian affairs.”
That’s an interesting conclusion, since I’m a Canadian resident in Canada who has visited Montreal on a couple of occasions and knows some Montrealers.
“There are English language signs everywhere in Montreal. You can live and work in Montreal without speaking a word of French.”
1. Are you seriously saying that in Tallinn, where 40% of the population is non-Estonian and Russophone, it’s impossible to get by speaking no language other than Russian? Never mind Narva where the near-totality of the population is Russophone.
2. Are you aware of the efforts that Québec has put into promoting French-language use among non-Francophones and immigrants, all in an effort to make French just as prominent and attractive a language as English? An immigration policy that selects for Francophones, an education policy that streams immigrants automatically into the French-language education system, a sign law that requires the most prominent words on a sign to be in French … all of these things exist to promote French as a general language of Québec, to some extent at the expense of English.
“By the way: little Luxembourg is tri-lingual, with Luxemburgish being spoken pretty much only there, and doing fine.”
This is correct, but you forget that Luxembourg wasn’t successfully conquered and forcibly assimilated by either Germany or France since its independence, and that immigration to Luxembourg took place under the full control of the democratically elected Luxembourg government.
More to the point of your implicit comparison with Estonia, the language situation in Luxembourg is substantially different from that of Estonia.
http://www.luxembourg.co.uk/lingua.html
http://www.oecd.org/document/0/0,2340,en_2649_201185_37034816_1_1_1_1,00.html
http://www.eu2005.lu/en/savoir_lux/societe_tradition/luxembourgeois/index.php
The very late emergence of Letzebirgisch as a written language distinct from German is one difference of note–the Estonian literary tradition stretches back a good few centuries, and Estonia’s Finno-Ugric heritage separates it substantially from Russian–while the growing progress of French seems to be in part a consequence of the post-war reaction against Germany and the German language (again, parallels with Estonia’s attitude towards Russian). Finally, as the last link notes, children of Portuguese and Italian background–the largest foreign-language communities–are not streamed into separate Lusophone and Italophone education systems, but are put into the general system with two hours a week in their native language.
“None of the arguments brought forward by the Estonian nationalists and their supporters so far stand up to even superficial examination. Maybe the Estonian position can be defended, but so far, I haven’t seen it.”
You’ve managed to display fairly substantial ignorance about language policy in Québec and Luxembourg, and about the ways in which these policies can be implemented in Estonia. I’m inclined to say that they should be. There are problems–there might not be enough Estonian-language teachers for Russophone children, say, or the standards set for language fluency might be too high–but these don’t bring the basic goals of Estonian language policy for universal fluency in Estonian into disrepute. From the simple point of social justice, it’s important that all of the inhabitants of the country share fluency in the national language, else deprived ghettos be formed. It’s worth noting that despite the lack of Lusophone public education in Luxembourg, intergenerational transmission of Portuguese remains high–there’s no reason to think that an absolutely and relatively larger Russophone community won’t manage to survive universal Estonian-medium education.
Mr. Potato Head:
“Randy: if you can read Russian, I recommend the article I linked to above, by Jelena Grigorjeva. It answers your question in some detail.”
I’m not a Russophone but I have AltaVista Babelfish, so I’m fine.
Grigorjeva makes good points about the Bronze Soldier issue as being not so much a flashpoint on its own terms as symbol of deeper problems with integration and concerns over the future of the Russophone community. I don’t buy her case entirely, though–I favour Estonian-medium public education on the grounds of social justice, and despite the divergent experiences of the Second World War, laying flowers on a memorial to the dead soldiers of an army that enabled a near-genocide has to be recognized as a pretty provocative act regardless of intent. Some sort of communal memorial to all of the people who died in the Second World War, regardless of ideology or ethnicity, would be a good thing.
As for Russia’s reaction, feh. Empires never like to be reminded of their crimes against their former subjects.
June 1st, 2007 at 3:40 am
On the other hand, Russia hating ideologues don’t acknowledge that the USSR was more than just Russians.
Much like how Nazism had the willing support of many non-Germans.
June 1st, 2007 at 4:38 am
While one could, conceivably, live in Montreal without speaking French, it would be a fairly dull life. More to the point, why would you want to? Your career and social life would be very, very restricted.
In order to avoid being tarred as someone ignorant of conditions in Montreal, I’ll add that I was born in Montreal, lived there for 30 years, go back regularly to visit my family (all of whom remain there, speaking English and French quite happily) and will return there in two years, permanently.
June 1st, 2007 at 6:52 am
I’m late to the party… so here:
“considering there are about 40% Russophones in Tallin, how come there are NO Russian language signs anywhere?”
I can’t say about Tallinn (two l’s), but in Riga it’s not against the law to post a sign in Russian. In fact, a Russian-language newspaper here had a competition for the best Russian-language sign in Latvia. Unfortunately for the newspaper, not many businesses participated. Most signs are in Latvian. Still.
“On the other hand, Russia hating ideologues don’t acknowledge that the USSR was more than just Russians.”
It’s not just Russians, but it’s certainly are Russophiles. Russian, as we were told under the Soviets, was the lingua franca of the Soviet Union. Russian, we were told, was the language of the communication between the people. Russian was taught in every single socialist country. Russian language and culture were at the core of the Soviet Union.
So, to me, this is so much more than just the question of ethnicity. Here in Latvia, for example, people with Latvian last names like Voss, Pelse, Pugo, Aksnis, were die-hard Russophiles, some of whom didn’t want to speak Latvian.
June 1st, 2007 at 7:24 am
It made perfect sense for Russian to be the lingua Franca of the USSR.
The borders of the USSR essentially consisted of the Russian Empire. Russians were the majority group, with many non-Russians knowing Russian, but not many of the other languages encompassing that land mass.
The languages of other peoples were also promoted. The Armenian SSR’s emblem has Armenian words. In the Communist created Ukrainian SSR, there was a linguistic Ukrainianization campaign in regions where Russian was the preferred language. Such coercion no doubt enhanced the Russo-Ukrainian dialect Surzhyk.
June 1st, 2007 at 7:36 am
“The borders of the USSR essentially consisted of the Russian Empire. Russians were the majority group, with many non-Russians knowing Russian, but not many of the other languages encompassing that land mass.”
Not true in the Baltics. Less than 10 percent of the population was Russian. Russian was not spoken as wildly and I suspect your every-day people didn’t know Russian. One of the first order of business after the Soviet invasion in 1940 was re-drawing the educational curriculum to include Russian as a mandatory language.
Besides, your suggestion that Soviet Union encompassed former Russian Empire also suggests the heavy Russian base of the Soviet Union. So you can’t say, it was more than just the Russians.
June 1st, 2007 at 8:16 am
Oh yes I can and did so in a matter of fact way.
The Baltics were part of the Russian Empire. Between the war years, they were independent.
Then there’s the matter of how the USSR promoted other languages besides Russian. Some examples were given in my last post.
MANY non-Russians making up the USSR. Stalin was one of ‘em.
June 1st, 2007 at 9:16 am
By the way, according to this report, Estonia is actually planning to strengthen its economic ties with Russia, despite the recent spat:
http://www.lenta.ru/news/2007/05/31/estonia/
IMHO, it’s further proof that (at least in this part of the world) politics is a sideshow, and business is the real politics.
June 1st, 2007 at 11:47 am
Then there’s the matter of how the USSR promoted other languages besides Russian. Some examples were given in my last post.
MANY non-Russians making up the USSR. Stalin was one of ‘em.
And what made him Georgian? When was the last time you heard him speak Georgian? He was a pure Russophile. All of non-Russians were Russophiles, who abandoned their national identity in favor of the Russian — and later, the Soviet one.
June 1st, 2007 at 11:59 am
Forgive me, but lenta.ru is not a credible source of information. Having said that, notice the last line: no financial obligation… so it’s nice on paper, but you can’t yet say that the economic relationship — and consequently the Estonia’s dependency on Russia — will increase.
June 1st, 2007 at 1:07 pm
“And what made him Georgian?”
Uh, the fact that he WAS Georgian? That he grew up there, spoke the language natively, almost became a Georgian priest, took his vacations there until he was an old man, favored Georgians (e.g. Beria) in his personal circle, let Pasternak live because he liked his translations of Georgian poetry, and so on?
“When was the last time you heard him speak Georgian?”
Never - that particular speech event must have occurred no later than 1953, long before I was born. But he spoke the language all his life, and never shook his strong Georgian accent in Russian.
“He was a pure Russophile.”
Well, he had an odd way of showing it: killing and persecuting so many Russians, and suppressing or perverting their culture and traditions.
“All of non-Russians were Russophiles, who abandoned their national identity in favor of the Russian — and later, the Soviet one.”
Please, this is an extremely simplistic statement. Half the population of the USSR were non-Russians, and most of them didn’t abandon their national identity.
June 1st, 2007 at 1:26 pm
Michael Averko:
“The languages of other peoples were also promoted. The Armenian SSR’s emblem has Armenian words. In the Communist created Ukrainian SSR, there was a linguistic Ukrainianization campaign in regions where Russian was the preferred language.”
And then there were the great famines of the 1930s. What a coincidence that the dead tended to be drawn from among the emergent rural middle classes, just the strata of people known for supporting the rise of their local vernaculars against imperial tongues.
Soviet support for local, non-Russian, languages can fairly be described as at best halting in practice.
June 1st, 2007 at 1:42 pm
“Soviet support for local, non-Russian, languages can fairly be described as at best halting in practice.”
“Erratic” is a better word for it. Ukraine has been mentioned. In the 1920s, the Ukrainization campaign was very serious. By 1930, something like 90% of everything printed in the UkrSSR was in Ukrainian (my source: Richard Overy’s book “The Dictators”).
About that time, Stalin became paranoid about Ukrainian nationalism. We know the results.
June 1st, 2007 at 2:04 pm
Mr. Potato Head:
“Uh, the fact that he WAS Georgian? That he grew up there, spoke the language natively, almost became a Georgian priest, took his vacations there until he was an old man, favored Georgians (e.g. Beria) in his personal circle, let Pasternak live because he liked his translations of Georgian poetry, and so on?”
In his early days, yes. Since coming to power, no. Georgia became the test-site for his tight grip on power in late 1920s. And I’m quite certain that’s not how the great patriot of his motherland, who was proud to be Georgian, and who loved all things Georgian, behaves.
“When was the last time you heard him speak Georgian?”
“Never - that particular speech event must have occurred no later than 1953, long before I was born. But he spoke the language all his life, and never shook his strong Georgian accent in Russian.”
That’s kind of a cope out. Have you ever heard him speak in Georgian in official newsreels?
“He was a pure Russophile.”
“Well, he had an odd way of showing it: killing and persecuting so many Russians, and suppressing or perverting their culture and traditions.”
He certainly had shown as equal attitude to his own people, no?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georgian_Affair
“All of non-Russians were Russophiles, who abandoned their national identity in favor of the Russian — and later, the Soviet one.”
“Please, this is an extremely simplistic statement. Half the population of the USSR were non-Russians, and most of them didn’t abandon their national identity.”
I guess it all comes down to what a national identity is. For example, the number of Latvian-speakers in Latvia was on the decline because of the Russification policies. And with the language, the national identity was diminishing. In Latvia today, there are many Russified Poles, Lithuanians, Roma, and even Latvians who are still embracing Soviet culture and the Russian language as their own. They had no national identity of their own at all.
So, perhaps, it was oversimplification.
June 1st, 2007 at 2:04 pm
The Ukrainian-language impetus mirrored what was going on all over the USSR at the time. The programme of “korenizatsiia.” I wrote my master’s thesis on the twists and turns of that policy in the Karelian Workers’ Commune, later the K-FSSR, then back to simple autonomous republic status within the RSFSR.
The history of korenizatsiia and the backlash against it is very intersting - unlike this comment of mine.
June 1st, 2007 at 2:05 pm
Randy,
you are a Canadian? Oh my, I shudder. Well, here it is:
You say:
1. Are you seriously saying that in Tallinn, where 40% of the population is non-Estonian and Russophone, it’s impossible to get by speaking no language other than Russian? Never mind Narva where the near-totality of the population is Russophone.
Randy: where are the Russian language signs in Tallin? They exist in Montreal, everywhere. Which is why I said that comparing Montreal to Tallin is misleading, to put it mildly.
I don’t speak French. I have no problem getting around in Montreal, since almost everywhere you can find signs in English. You know that. There are no Russian language signs anywhere in Tallin. I didn’t see them. It’s all Estonian and English, with the occasional German.
Montreal also has a significant Chinese population that uses Chinese signs quite prominently.
now you write:
“2. Are you aware of the efforts that Québec has put into promoting French-language use among non-Francophones and immigrants, all in an effort to make French just as prominent and attractive a language as English?”
Uh, yeah. I am. Heck, I wrote academic essays on that. And not only ‘just as’, but more so.
“a sign law that requires the most prominent words on a sign to be in French … all of these things exist to promote French as a general language of Québec, to some extent at the expense of English.”
Dude, do you notice you are undermining yourself? French is given prominence, and it’s the only ‘official’ language, which means that whenever you deal with the government you cannot expect to be able to use English. BUT — there are no laws AGAINST the usage of English in public, there are rules proscribing it, limiting it to lesser prominence — and yet, you can use it. You can hold jobs speaking only English, just not in government. Most importantly, even as a monolingual Anglophone, you are allowed to vote in elections — which is why the PQ lost two referenda on Quebec sovereignty.
French in Quebec is thriving, because an effort has been made to promote it. English has been delegated to second rank, but it is not absent from public life. When you go to Tallin, you wouldn’t know there are any Russians, because there are no public signs in Russian anywhere. Not in shops, not in public buildings, nowhere.
Even Moscow has English prominently displayed in many areas, particularly the down-town area, where ALL street signs are Cyrillic and Latin.
It’s kinda funny that you, as an Anglo-phone who probably thinks Lowell Green is bang on when it comes to language issues, should support the Estonians…
June 1st, 2007 at 2:08 pm
Blair,
I won’t tar you as ignorant, since your comment is very much correct. My inability to speak French had to do with the fact that why I like Montreal and the Francophones, I don’t like French. I wish they spoke another language, like, Russian for example. I just really can’t stand the French language;) But I like Quebeckers…
June 1st, 2007 at 2:10 pm
Blair, good reference, so I guess you read “The Soviet Union as a Communal Apartment” by Slezkine. I wish that article were required reading for anybody jabbering on about language and ethnic policies in the USSR.
Which university?
June 1st, 2007 at 2:29 pm
RM,
Well, to each his or her own. I like French and, having grown up with its Quebecois (and especially Montreal variant - joual) I miss it. There’s only one Frenchman I know well in Kyiv, and we only talk about rugby.
The Quebecois are fairly difficult to dislike - anyone who goes to a business lunch on Friday at 1, not planning to return to the office at all, gets my respect for real joie de vivre!
I haven’t read the particular Slezkine work to which you refer (or, if I have, it’s lost in the fog of time,) but I have read a lot of his other stuff. He gets respect too. I’m looking forward to reading his history of Jews in the USSR.
I did my BA at McGill, then my MA at Carleton and St. Petersburg State.
June 1st, 2007 at 2:44 pm
Mr. potato Head:
“Please, this is an extremely simplistic statement. Half the population of the USSR were non-Russians, and most of them didn’t abandon their national identity.”
They weren’t the people running the USSR, were they?
June 1st, 2007 at 2:47 pm
Randy,
send me an e-mail at khlynov@gmail.com. We have some things in common. It’s a small world.
June 1st, 2007 at 2:56 pm
Blair:
“The history of korenizatsiia and the backlash against it is very intersting - unlike this comment of mine.”
I disagree.
I took a little vacation in Karelia last year, and found it fascinating. BTW, I wonder what would have been its fate in 1991 if it were still an SSR at the time? Just how viable would it have been as an independent country?
Do you live in Kiev now? I love that city.
Randy:
“They weren’t the people running the USSR, were they?”
In many cases, yes they were. Principally, of course, in their home republics; but there were plenty of prominent non-Russian communists at all-Union level.
By the way, I’m impressed with the level of discourse on this thread - far higher than you usually get in blogs….
June 1st, 2007 at 3:26 pm
PH,
To my mind, the K-FSSR couldn’t have made it as an independent country. It was largely created, as the KTK, as a place d’armes, in hopes of a Red victory in Finland. Once that hope went down the tubes, and “Finlandization” took over, it was downgraded. That said - who knows? The FInns would have certainly helped.
I do now live in Kyiv. Apart from the extreme “a**holity” of the political class here, it’s a lovely place.
June 1st, 2007 at 3:39 pm
There continues to be definitive commentary on what the “Holodomor” was in Ukraine during the 19 thirties.
It’s not what some have suggested in the recent comments made at this thread. Refer to this Action Ukraine Report feature, which includes commentary and matericed by Quick Takes:
http://action-ukraine-report.blogspot.com/2007/02/aur811-feb-4-anti-sovietchik-no-1-1932.html
MANY Georgian Communists and anti-Communists alike have had Russocentric leanings. That point doesn’t negate what I said. As for the not so Russia friendly of Georgians: do many of them iompress as being noble defenders of democracy?
During the Soviet period, there were instances when the Russian language and culture were suppressed.
June 1st, 2007 at 3:43 pm
As per my last post, should read as: commentary and material..
June 2nd, 2007 at 12:48 pm
For those who can follow Russian — always impressed how clearly Putin and his crew talk Russian.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DFYfOfowEHk
June 6th, 2007 at 7:54 am
Blair,
send me an e-mail, I think we have something in common (and apologies to Randy for the confusion)
khlynov@gmail.com