Ukrainization

In 1923 the Bolsheviks announced the policy of indigenization, or korenizatsiia (“putting down roots”). As the name implies the Bolsheviks wanted to ‘put down roots’ (вкоренитись) in all Soviet republics.

The policy had three major tasks: 1) promotion of native languages in all spheres of life; 2) fostering of national cultures; 3) recruitment of the party and government cadres from the indigenous (local) populations to bind them to the Soviet regime. (The Bolsheviks did not want their party made up mainly of Jews and Russians look foreign in Soviet republics.) The Ukrainian version of this policy was called Ukrainization. By korenizatsiia the Bolsheviks attempted to disarm the forces of nationalism in Soviet republics. The new Communist regime tried to show that in contrast to Tsarist Russia it respected the cultures of the non-Russians in the USSR.

In Ukraine, this program started a decade of rapid cultural flourishing. Enrollments in Ukrainian-language schools and the publication of Ukrainian-language books increased dramatically. Government officials who could not speak Ukrainian were forced to attend language courses. A lot of various Ukrainian cultural organizations were established.

The results of Ukrainization were really impressive. Whereas in 1922 only 20% of government business was conducted in Ukrainian, by 1927 the figure rose to 70%. In 1923 only 35% of government employees and 23% of party members were Ukrainian. By 1926-27 the respective percentages rose to 54% and 52%. In 1929, over 80% of schools and 30% of universities offered instruction in Ukrainian only. By 1930, nearly 80% of all books published were in Ukrainian, and by 1931 nearly 90% of all newspapers were in Ukrainian.[2] Before the revolution, when Ukrainian schools and the press were practically nonexistent, Ukrainophiles could only have dreamt of such conditions.

The Communists widely used their achievements in cultural policy for domestic and international propaganda. It was effective. Many Ukrainian political emigrants decided to return to Ukraine (M. Hrushevskyi and others). Thousands of West Ukrainians also moved to Soviet Ukraine from Poland. Latter, in the 1930s, they were repressed.

The purpose of Ukrainization was to implant Soviet power. But there was a side effect of this policy. Ukrainians started to hear their previously persecuted national language in schools and in the workplace. Forbidden under the tsarist regime courses on Ukrainian history were now taught in schools and universities. A national revival began in Ukraine.

By the 1930s the Kremlin understood that korenizatisiia did not contribute to the unity of the state as it developed different national identities in the USSR. The growth of national consciousness in Soviet republics could lead in time to demands for economic and then political independence. The Soviet dictator Iosif Stalin decided to use the old experience of Tsarist Russia and strengthen his totalitarian empire through the promotion of a single culture. Such a culture was to be common to all Soviet nations. The only common culture was Russian. So, since the 1930s till the end of the 1980s the Soviet nations had been experiencing a favorable promotion of Russian culture at the expense of their own. Russification in all republics reached gigantic proportions. The study of national histories, languages, and literatures was severely limited. The communist government tried to create a new people – the “Soviet people”, and Russian culture was to serve as the basis for the development of this people. That explains why national cultures and languages in the Soviet Union had not been paid proper attention since the 1930s.

As a result of such a policy Ukraine gradually became heavily Russified and the level of national consciousness significantly dropped.

Дата добавления: 2015-07-11