Russification
- This article is about the political term. For localization of computers and software, see Russification (computers).
Russification is an adoption of the Russian language or some other Russian attribute (whether voluntarily or not) by non-Russian communities. In a narrow sense, Russification is used to denote the influence of the Russian language on Slavic, Baltic and other languages, spoken in areas currently or formerly controlled by Russia. In a historical sense, the term refers to both official and unofficial policies of Imperial Russia and the Soviet Union with respect to their national constituents and to national minorities in Russia, aimed at Russian domination.
The major areas of Russification are Politics and Culture. In politics, an element of Russification is assigning Russian nationals to leading administrative positions in national institutions. In culture, Russification primarily amounts to domination of the Russian language in official business and strong influence of Russian language on the national ones. The shifts in Demographics in favour of Russian population are sometimes considered as a form of Russification as well.
History
One of the examples of Russification was replacement of the Polish language by Russian in areas of Poland-Lithuania after the Partitions of Poland. In particular, after the January Uprising of 1863, in 1864 Polish together with Belarusian and Lithuanian was banned in public places; in the 1880s Polish was banned in schools and offices of the Congress Kingdom.A similar development was in Lithuania: its Governor General Mikhail Muravyov instituted a complete ban on the Latin alphabet/Gothic alphabet and Lithuanian printed matter and as well ban of public speaking in Lithuanian. Mikhail Muravyov was reported as saying Citation needed about Belarusian and Lithuanian lands: "What Russian bayonet didn't accomplish, the Russian school will" ("что не доделал русский штык—доделает русская школа.") This ban was resisted by Knygnešiai, Lithuanian book smugglers. It was lifted only in 1904. Lithuanian and Polish schools were closed; teachers from other parts of Russia, who did not speak these languages, were moved in to teach. The campaign of promoting Russian Orthodox faith over Catholic one (by closing down Catholic monasteries, officially banning the building of new churches and giving some of the old ones to Russian Orthodox church, banning Catholic schools and estabilishing state schools with teaching of Orthodox religion instead, requiring Catholic priests to preach only officially approved sermons, in case of marriage of a Catholic and Orthodox person requiring Catholic to change his/her religion, requiring Catholic nobles to pay 10% of profits additional tax, limiting the ammount of land a Catholic peasant could own, etc.) is also usually viewed as part of russification campaign. As well, after the uprising many manors and great chunks of land were confiscated from those nobles of Polish and Lithuanian descent, who were accused of helping the uprising; later these properties were given or sold to Russian nobles. In a similar way some villages (ones, where there were many supporters of the uprising) were repopulated by ethnic Russians. Most of these actions as well were stopped due to Russo-Japanese War.
Still another example is Ems Ukaz of 1876, banning the Ukrainian language.
In November 1914 the Finnish press published the Russian secret program for a complete Russification of Finland.
After the 1917 revolution, the intellectuals of several Central Asian countries and Tatarstan established new standards for the local languages. In many cases they substituted the Arabic alphabet with adapted versions of the Latin alphabet, usually inspired by the Turkish alphabet. During the rule of Stalin, these alphabets were replaced by adaptations of the Cyrillic alphabet. This also happened when Bessarabia (most of which became Moldavian SSR) was taken from Romania during the Second World War. The Moldovan language introduced then by the Soviet authorities was actually Romanian language but written with a version of the Cyrillic alphabet derived from the Russian alphabet. Several of these countries have changed to a Latin alphabet since the breakup of the Soviet Union.
Karelia, Chechnya and Tatarstan republics of Russia also tried to switch their alphabets to Latin, but the Latin alphabet was officially banned for Russia's official languages. This position was officially explained by two reasons: a) switching needs finances, but they are limited; b) it is difficult to make adult people accept the changes. Sometimes this move has been viewed Citation needed as remnants of policy of russification.
In the Soviet Union, publications in technical and scientific journals were mostly in Russian; this led to underdevelopment of modern technical and scientific terminology in national languages, further degrading their status. While formally all languages were equal, in almost all Soviet republics the Russian/local bilingualism was "asymmetric," as in India: the Titular nation learned Russian, whereas immigrant Russians generally did not learn the local language.
Present times
Some opposition forces allege Citation needed that russification policies continue in other ex-Soviet territories, mainly in Belarus under Lukashenka's government and in the unrecognized de facto independent republics of Transnistria in Moldova and Abkhazia and South Ossetia in Georgia. Some international NGOs argue Citation needed that russification policies are occurring in republics inside the Russian Federation like Mari El, but Putin's administration have been denying these accusations, and retorted by charging that the NGOs are attempting to destabilize the Volga Republics, as they had, according to the opinion of Russians, done to Chechnya in the past.Russian is the language of higher education, trade and business in all regions of Russia. In a few former Soviet republics, many people prefer to speak Russian with their own children, believing that this will provide them a happier future. In Kazakhstan, Belarus and Kyrghyzstan Russian has been declared an official language (in Kazakhstan its official status is "Language of interethnic communication"). In Ukraine this issue was one of the issues in the 2004 presidential election: Yanukovich supported making Russian a state language while Yushchenko opposed it. The current government is unwilling to make Russian a state language.