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Wednesday, April 29, 2009

Russia to Ukraine: No Demand for Ukrainian Schools Among 2.9M Ukrainians Living in Russia

In the excerpts below, Andrey Nesterenko, a Russian Foreign Affairs Ministry representative, explains the absence of Ukrainian-language schools in Russia:

It can probably be explained by the similarity of Eastern Slavic languages and cultures, by a common history (Kyivan Rus, the Moscow state, the Russian Empire, the USSR) and by the same Orthodox Christian faith.

Due to the causes mentioned, there are no schools in the Russian Federation where the entire curriculum is taught in the Ukrainian language.

Russian Federation citizens of the Ukrainian ethnicity and Russians with Ukrainian citizenship are in different ethnocultural situations.

Attempts at comparing their positions by merely counting, for instance, the number of Russian schools in Ukraine and Ukrainian schools in Russia are illegitimate.


Illegitimate? Really?

So the 2.9 million “Russian Federation citizens of the Ukrainian
ethnicity eagerly assimilate and simply don’t want to preserve their language and culture. By contrast, not only do the 8.3 million “Russians with Ukrainian citizenship” want to preserve their mother tongue, but many of them also want to never ever learn Ukrainian.

Why? Could it be that Russia’s big brotherly attitude toward Ukraine aims at perpetuating the centuries-long Russian superiority/Ukrainian inferiority complex?

Bottom line,

The policy Russia offers to Ukrainians living in Russia: melting pot
The policy Russia demands for Russians living in Ukraine: multiculturalism

Well, multicountryism would be more accurate.

Sources:
http://www.pravda.com.ua/news/2009/4/29/94016.htm

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