Laada Bilaniuk is a professor of linguistic anthropology in the Department, and an expert on language, identity and politics in Ukraine and throughout the post-Soviet world. The following is the transcript of a discussion held with Professor Steven Goodreau, designed to provide our readers with insights and food for thought about the current crisis.
SG: First, can you tell us a bit about your own personal connections to Ukraine, and how that shaped the kind of scholarship you chose to focus on?
LB: My parents and grandparents immigrated from Ukraine to the US after WWII. I was raised with Ukrainian culture and language at home, and I learned English once I started going to school. I also lived in Soviet Ukraine for half a year (in 1976, when I was 7) when my parents went there on an exchange. I graduated from college in 1990, right when the Soviet Union was falling apart. Each of the 15 Soviet republics had declared its own language as its official state language right before declaring independence, so language politics were key in the break-up of the USSR. Probably due to my own multilingual and multicultural upbringing, I was fascinated by the ways that linguistic and cultural differences shaped people’s lives. The USSR had been mostly off-limits to Western anthropologists, and so it was a region barely represented in the scholarship of the field. I had studied Russian in college, so along with my native Ukrainian, I had the necessary language skills to go conduct field research in Ukraine. I was interested to find out how people navigated Ukrainian-Russian bilingualism, and how the new official status of Ukrainian affected their language use and identity. Russian had been the language of prestige and power while Ukrainian had been politically suppressed and had connotations of being a “peasant language.” I wanted to understand how independence and the changed language status were experienced and enacted in everyday life. I started going to Ukraine for research in 1991, and have returned regularly every few years, so I have seen the country undergo drastic transformations.
SG: As you see Americans trying to make sense of the conflict in Ukraine, what are some thing you think it would be helpful for them to understand?
LB: The conflict actually goes back centuries, as Ukrainian language and identity were suppressed under tsarist Russia, and continued to be treated as second-rate or politically suspect in Soviet times. Many Americans used to equate “Soviet” and “Russian,” but it is important to recognize that the Soviet Union consisted of 15 republics, and these republics included ethnic and linguistic diversity. While in the 1920s there was a lot of idealism about embracing diversity and support for non-Russian minorities, with Stalin in the 1930s came a crackdown and intense push for Russification to ensure centralized control. This push for the supremacy of Russian meant that Soviet era policies continued some of the colonialist practices of the tsarist era. The lack of actual equality between different languages and ethnicities contributed to dissatisfaction with the Soviet system, and its eventual break-up.
The current war waged by Russia on Ukraine is an intensification of the Russian invasion begun in 2014. That year, after the Euromaidan revolution resulted in the flight of the corrupt president, Ukraine was reeling from the turmoil and setting up elections for a new president. In that time of disarray and weakness, Russian forces invaded Crimea. At first Russia denied these were Russian soldiers, as they wore no insignia. Only after the takeover was complete did Russia acknowledge its actions. Russians also tried to take over cities in Ukraine’s east and south, and ultimately fomented a separatist movement that led to war in the Donbas region. This was a major breaking point in Ukrainian-Russian relations. Russia’s actions were seen as a stab in the back, a betrayal. Ukraine had given up its nuclear arsenal (which had been the third largest in the world), with agreements from Russia and other countries that its sovereignty and borders would be respected. During the eight years of war in the Donbas, Russia denied involvement, despite evidence. Now Russia is more openly waging a brutal onslaught, still denying the destruction its forces have inflicted on civilian structures and the growing evidence of brutality against civilians. The rhetoric coming from President Putin and Russian news media is sounding a lot like a plan for genocide, stating that Ukraine should not exist and that the idea of Ukrainianness needs to be wiped out.
SG: You're a linguistic anthropologist – how do you see language, and the politics around language, playing a role in this conflict?
LB: In some ways language matters very much in this war, but in other ways it does not matter. Most people in Ukraine are bilingual to some degree, and so can understand either language. It is very common for people to carry on conversations in two languages, Ukrainian and Russian, with each person speaking whatever they prefer at the moment, even if they could switch. Many people do not pay attention to language choice, and are so accustomed to switching between languages that they might not remember which language they were speaking a moment ago. Also, language and ethnic background do not determine people’s political views. Many native Russian-speaking Ukrainian citizens have been fighting in the Donbas war, and continue to fight against the invading Russian forces. So, in those ways it can be said that language does not matter.
However, in other ways language matters a lot. The Russian government has used language issues to justify the invasion. They see the requirement to learn Ukrainian in schools or to use it in public positions as an infringement on the prior dominant role of Russian. War has politicized language, eroding the possible neutrality of bilingualism. Russian rhetoric on protecting Russian-speakers has made many Ukrainians choose to speak more Ukrainian, “so that Putin does not come save us.” Speaking Ukrainian is a way that anyone can contribute to upholding their country. While many people continue to use Russian in their personal lives, surveys have shown that most do not want Russian to have official status, as they recognize that Ukrainian as the state language is an important component of Ukraine’s sovereignty. Also, the education system now prioritizes learning English and other languages of the EU for purposes of international communication, and learning Russian is no longer required as it used to be.
SG: You've been interviewed for a number of news outlets since the conflict began – please tell us about some of the more interesting ones, and what some of the main themes are that folks are turning to you for.
LB: Since I specialize in linguistic anthropology, I’ve been asked to explain language issues. I spoke to The LA Times for an article on how the war has spurred a wave of interest in learning Ukrainian, which is a way that people can symbolically support the country and counter the Russian government rhetoric that Ukraine and its language should not exist. For The Wall Street Journal, I helped explain the reasons for the new transliteration standards for naming Ukraine’s capital. Most Americans have been used to the name “Kiev,” but a few years ago “Kyiv” became the accepted English spelling. The reasons behind this are that Kiev (pronounced Key-yev) represents the city’s name in Russian, while Kyiv (pronounced Kih-yeev) is a closer representation of the city’s Ukrainian name.
SG: You teach a class called "Anthropology of the Post-Soviet States", and you were in the middle of teaching it when the invasion started. What was that like?
LB: The Russian invasion of Ukraine began on February 24. The first days of news of war, of bombings all over Ukraine, were very stressful and put me on edge. I was able to access a lot of on-the-ground news through various social media and news outlets, in Ukrainian and Russian. Friends and acquaintances posted about what they were experiencing on Facebook, and channels on Telegram featured first-hand videos and accounts, along with reports from Ukrainian officials. It has been heartbreaking to see that areas where I have lived or visited are now destroyed by bombs. I actually found it helped me a great deal to be able to share what I was learning and discuss it with my students. My students also shared other sources of information. In the course of our class they had learned about the background of what was happening, how cultural and linguistic diversity was managed in the Soviet era and after the fall of the USSR, so they were equipped to understand the events at a deeper level. That said, the horrific scope of destruction and atrocities that we keep learning about push understanding to its limits. Then we have to shift away from the question of “why” to the question of “what can we do to help?” I have learned that from Ukrainians in their advice to one another. If the best you can do is to take care of yourself, then do that. If you can help neighbors, do it. If you are capable of joining the army or territorial defense, great. Everyone can do something, and doing something positive wards off despair.
SG: I know this probably a hard question, but given all your knowledge on the culture and politics of the region, do you have any predictions for what the future holds for Ukraine, Russia, and their neighbors?
LB: Many Ukrainians feel like they have no choice but to fight against the Russian invasion, even if they have to fight till the end. They are defending their land, their homes, their families. They have become too used to freedom of speech and democracy, so the prospect of submitting to an autocratic repressive system under Russian control is not a viable option. The rhetoric from the Russian officials and media is making it increasingly clear that they cannot abide the existence of Ukraine and Ukrainianness. In an Orwellian move, Russian rhetoric labels anything or anyone Ukrainian as “Nazi” to justify their destruction. Russia might end up being successful in taking over some Ukrainian land, but they will have to eliminate most of the people on that land to do so, either by killing or deportation. They are in the process of doing just that in the city of Mariupol, and now in the Donbas. Whether or not Ukraine will manage to fend off the Russian invasion will depend on access to more weaponry from partner countries. The Ukrainian military has already shown that they are highly motivated and effective even against larger forces. But no amount of motivation can fend off bombs raining down from an enemy that has no qualms about eliminating civilians. Will Russia invade other neighboring countries? Ukraine could very well be a test case. When Russian invaded and annexed Crimea, the response from the West was weak. If Russia gets away with taking over more of Ukraine, and European countries eventually ease up on sanctions and continue importing Russian petroleum products, then this would signal that it is okay to keep doing what it is doing—rebuilding a bygone empire, in which the ruler defines what is true.