Russian-Language Education in Ukraine: History and Present Situation

Abstract

Every language as a means of communication, as well as study, has its own “habitat” and scale of use, which change with time. Russian is no exception. This article, based on an analysis of censuses and the data of statistical compendiums of the Russian Empire, the Soviet Union, the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic, and the Ukrainian Republic, discusses the fate of the Russian language in Ukraine, which has been very dramatic in the 20th and 21st centuries. The author traces the history down to the period of Kievan Rus’ and the existence of the Old Russian language, considers the period of the spread of Russian within the territory of Ukraine starting from the mid-17th century, and covers in detail the main trends in the use of the Russian language in Ukraine’s educational system in the prerevolutionary, Soviet, and post-Soviet periods. The alternation of periods when Russian dominated and periods when its use was limited is noted. In the last half a century, this fact was manifested in maximal strengthening of the positions of the Russian language by the mid-1980s and the growing difficulties in its functioning and its accelerating removal from the curricula of schools and vocational establishments of high and higher education of Ukraine in the 21st century.