If Russian democracy ends where Ukraine begins, as a popular saying goes, then Ukrainian democracy ends when the conversation about language begins. The “language issue” can make anyone hate each other and lead to additional friction in society.
Ukraine’s new “Law on Guaranteeing the Functioning of the Ukrainian Language as a State Language” emerged out of Draft Law 5670-D, one of four language laws registered in the Ukrainian parliament. All of these bills were drawn up in response to the declaration of the 2012 “Kivalov-Kolesnichenko Law” (also known as the “Law on the Basis of State Policy”) as unconstitutional. This law, drawn up under the Viktor Yanukovych regime, was developed to extend the rights of regional languages in Ukraine, but Ukraine’s opposition criticised it as part of a “Russification” drive.
Immediately after the victory of EuroMaidan in 2014, parliamentary deputies tried to revoke the “Kivalov-Kolesnichenko Law”, on 23 February. But acting president Oleksandr Turchynov decided not to sign off on parliament’s decision. The very attempt to revoke the law outraged people of very different political views. Two days after, members of the Lviv intelligentsia came out in defence of the Russian language. Parliament’s decision was interpreted as an attack on the rights of Russian-speaking Ukrainians, and became yet another trigger for pro-Russian separatism in the east of the country.
