The Ethnicities Of Ukraine Are United
By Leo Krasnozhon
The current crisis in Ukraine is allegedly the ethno-linguistic conflict between Russians and Ukrainians, especially in Crimea. Ukraine seems to be divided between Russian-speaking Ukrainians and Ukrainian-speaking Ukrainians. This kind of talk only benefits Putin’s geopolitical stake in Ukraine. Unfortunately, Western mass media feeds Putin’s propaganda unintentionally. The truth is quite simple. Many Ukrainians are bilingual. Moreover, both Russian-speaking Ukrainian and Ukrainian-speaking Ukrainian are still Ukrainians, citizens of Ukraine. The people of Ukraine also speak Polish, Romanian, Magyar (Hungarian), Bulgarian, Turkish, and so on.
The media has repeatedly shown this map by dividing Ukraine into South-East Russian speakers and North-West Ukrainian speakers. The source of this map is the 2001 census. It is important to remember that, when the census was conducted, every Ukrainian was asked to identify his “mother tongue.” Around 68% of Ukrainians answered “Ukrainian” and about 30% of Ukrainians answered “Russian.” By the way, Ukrainians who identified themselves as ethnic Russians constituted only 17% of the population. At that time, 90% of the population were older than nine years of age and thus were born and raised in the Soviet Ukraine where Russian was the primary language. Ukraine only gained its independence in 1991. At the time of the census, only a kid who was nine years old or younger could have grown up in independent Ukraine where the primary language was switched from Russian to Ukrainian. It is no wonder that almost one-third of Ukrainians consider Russian their mother tongue. The census failed to ask if the individuals spoke other languages.
The Language Map, 2001 (Source: CNN)
No comments:
Post a Comment