{"id":185359,"date":"2022-06-09T20:09:07","date_gmt":"2022-06-09T17:09:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/uacrisis.org\/?p=185359"},"modified":"2022-06-09T20:09:48","modified_gmt":"2022-06-09T17:09:48","slug":"ukraine-in-flames-91","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/uacrisis.org\/en\/ukraine-in-flames-91","title":{"rendered":"How Russia weaponized language in linguicide and disinformation. Part 2"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Russia\u2019s language policy is a manipulative tool of an empire: it is using cultural intimidation and symbolic bribery to control its neighbors\u2019 identity and disrupt political life.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Russia presents the Russian language as a lingua franca – the language of civilization and high culture. To make it work, Russia monumentalises its poets and writers in every post-Soviet city, aggressively sells Russian cultural products to unsuspecting Russian-speaking consumers, pushes Russian literature into national high school curriculums and gaslights national cultures into using Russian to be \u201cbetter recognised.\u201d Russia watches every legislative step concerning language use that Ukraine, Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, Kazakhstan, or any other state in Russia\u2019s view, make – and condemns every decision against equal use of Russian and a state\u2019s national language.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Watch part 1: How Russia weaponized language in linguicide and disinformation<\/a><\/h4>\n\n\n\n

Simultaneously, Russia manipulates the concept of a minority language to claim the right to represent Russian-speaking people and thus intervene in its neighboring states\u2019 education, history and culture. The war in Ukraine was motivated by the mythical \u201coppression\u201d of the Russian-speaking population in Ukraine, even though Ukraine actually had enough schools for multiple language minorities that lived here. Ukraine\u2019s steady progress to support the Ukrainian language and limit the Russian influence in the Ukrainian education is proclaimed to be a Nazi move by the Russian government.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Russia\u2019s priority to enforce Russian language in Ukraine is evident in the occupied South. The occupiers have banned the official use of Ukrainian language in public service and education in Kherson and Mariupol. Non-compilers risk losing freedom in filtration camps or being banned from humanitarian aid. It did not take long before Russian occupation administrations checked Ukrainian libraries for \u201cextremist\u201d books and destroyed the ones with Ukrainian literature, history and language. Road signs and street plates were changed from Ukrainian to Russian, an expensive and unnecessary decision in terms of modern urban management, if not for colonization of Ukraine.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Speakers:<\/p>\n\n\n\n