Russification of Ukraine: Difference between revisions - Wikipedia

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{{Short description|System of measures, actions and legislations}}

{{Distinguish|Derussification in Ukraine}}

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{{one source|date=June 2022|reason=Way too much reliance on Plokhy alone.}}

|[[File:Валуєвський captionциркуляр. Valuev = Circular.jpg|thumb|The [[Valuev Circular|Valuev Circular (1863)]], issued by the minister of internal affairs of the Russian Empire, stating that the Ukrainian language "never existed, doesn't exist, and cannot exist."]]▼

{{Infobox civilian attack

| title = Russification of Ukraine

The '''[[Russification]] of [[Ukraine]]''' ({{lang-uk|зросійщення України|}}; {{lang-ru|русификация Украины|translit=}}) was a system of measures, actions and legislations undertaken by the [[Russian Empire|Imperial Russian]] and later [[Soviet Union|Soviet]] authorities to strengthen Russian national, political and linguistic positions in Ukraine.<ref name=":1">{{Cite book |last=Seton-Watson |first=Hugh |title=The Russian empire 1801-1917 |date=1967 |publisher=Clarendon Press |isbn= |series=Oxford history of modern Europe |location=Oxford |pages=485-492}}</ref>▼

| location = {{flagcountry|Ukraine}}

* Territories with a significant Ukrainian minority or majority

** [[Kuban]]

** [[Starodub|Starodubshchyna]]

** [[Ukrainians in Siberia|Siberia]]

| date = [[Pereiaslav Agreement|1654]]–[[Dissolution of the Soviet Union|1991]]<br />Main phase: [[Little Russia Governorate (1764–1781)|1764]]–[[Holodomor|1933]]<ref>{{cite web|title=https://constitution.garant.ru/history/act1600-1918/2005/}}</ref>

| partof = [[Russification]]

| image = Валуєвський циркуляр. Valuev Circular.jpg

| image_size =

| image_upright =

| alt =

▲| caption = The [[Valuev Circular|Valuev Circular (1863)]], issued by the minister of internal affairs of the Russian Empire, stating that the Ukrainian language "never existed, doesn't exist, and cannot exist"

| map =

| map_size =

| map_alt =

| map_caption =

| coordinates =

| time =

| timezone =

| target = [[Ukrainians]]

* [[Ukrainian language]]

* [[Ukrainian culture]]

| type = [[Language death|Linguicide]], [[genocide]], [[ethnic cleansing]], [[deportation]]

| weapons =

| fatalities = Min. 12 million Ukrainians<ref>{{cite web|title=https://umoloda.kyiv.ua/number/0/2006/179422}}</ref>

* Armed conflicts

** [[Muscovite–Ukrainian War (1658–1659)|Russo–Ukrainian War (1658–1659)]]

** Russo–Ukrainian War (1660–1663)

** [[Muscovite–Ukrainian War (1674–1676)|Russo–Ukrainian War (1674–1676)]]

** [[Ukrainian–Soviet War|Soviet–Ukrainian War (1917–1921)]]

** [[Anti-Soviet resistance by the Ukrainian Insurgent Army|Soviet–UPA War (1944–1960)]]

** [[Russo-Ukrainian War|Russo–Ukrainian War (since 2014)]]

* Ethnic cleansing

** [[Sack of Baturyn|Sack of Baturyn (1708)]]

** [[Soviet war crimes]]

*** [[Holodomor|Holodomor (1932–1933)]]

*** [[Gulag]]

| injuries =

| victims =

| perpetrators = * {{flag|Tsardom of Russia}}

* {{flag|Russian Empire}}

* {{flag|Soviet Union}}

** {{flagicon image|NKVD_Emblem_(Gradient).svg}} [[NKVD]]

* {{flag|Russian Federation}}

| assailants =

| numparts =

| dfens =

| motive = Strengthening of Russian national, political and linguistic positions in Ukraine

| inquiry =

| coroner =

| accused =

| convicted =

| verdict =

| convictions =

| charges =

| litigation =

| website =

| module =

| susperps =

}}

▲The '''[[Russification]] of [[Ukraine]]''' ({{lang-uk|зросійщення України|}}; {{lang-ru|русификация Украины|translit=}}) was a system of measures, actions and legislations undertaken by the [[Russian Empire|Imperial Russian]] and later [[Soviet Union|Soviet]] authorities to strengthen Russian national, political and linguistic positions in Ukraine.<ref name=":1">{{Cite book |last=Seton-Watson |first=Hugh |title=The Russian empire 1801-1917 |date=1967 |publisher=Clarendon Press |isbn= |series=Oxford history of modern Europe |location=Oxford |pages=485-492}}</ref>

== Russian Empire ==

=== Peter I ===

In 1720 [[Tsar]] [[Peter I of Russia]] issued a decree in which he ordered the expurgation of all "[[Little Russia]]n" (Ukrainian) linguistic elements in theological literature printed in Little Russian typographical establishments.<ref name="ReferenceA">Бандурка О. М. 350 років мого життя. Харків, 2001 р. "Его Императорскому Величеству известно учинилось, что в Киевской и Черниговской типографиях книги печатают несогласно с великороссийскими, но со многою противностью к Восточной Церкви...вновь книг никаких, кроме церковных крещенных изданий, не печатать. А церковныя старыя книги, для совершенного согласия с великороссийскими, с такими же церковными книгами справливать прежде печати с теми великоросскими дабы никакой разны и особаго наречия в оных не было...

</ref>

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In the fall of 1762, a few months after Catherine's coronation, a scribe in [[Hlukhiv]], the capital of the Hetmanate, named Semen Divovych, produced the poem "A Conversation between Great Russia and Little Russia"<blockquote>"Great Russia:<p>Do you know with whom you are speaking, or have you forgotten?

I am Russia, after all: do you ignore me?"</p>Little Russia:<poem>

I know that you are Russia; that is my name as well.

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In 1764, Catherine summoned Razumovsky to St. Petersburg and removed him as hetman, compensating him later with the position of Field Marshal. More importantly, she abolished the office of hetman altogether. This was the third and final liquidation of the Cossack office, with the first being done by Peter I and [[Anna Ioannovna]]. It took Catherine another decade to completely abolish all institutions of the Hetmenate and its regiments.<ref name=":0" />

[[File:Catherine II Depicted during the Performance against the Russification of Ukraine.jpg|thumb|Reinactment of the instruction of Catherine II to Alexander Vyazemsky on 9 November 2015, the [[Day of Ukrainian Literature and Language]], near the [[Administration of the President of Ukraine]]. A woman with a "stitched mouth" is holding the text of the instruction.]]

In February 1764, a few months before the liquidation of the office of Hetmenate, Catherine wrote to the prosecutor[[Prosecutor general of the Senate,Russian deEmpire|Prosecutor facto chiefGeneral]] of Catherine'sthe political[[Governing police,Senate|Senate]] Prince [[Alexander Vyazemsky]]:<ref>{{Cite web |url=http://www.runivers.ru/bookreader/book482339/#page/386/mode/1up |title=Сборник русского исторического общества. — 1871. — Выпуск 7. — С. 348. |access-date=2017-10-12 |archive-date=2022-05-22 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220522093734/https://runivers.ru/bookreader/book482339/#page/386/mode/1up |url-status=live }}</ref> <blockquote>"[[Little Russia]], [[Livonia]], and Finland are provinces governed by confirmed privileges, and it would be improper to violate them by abolishing all at once. To call them foreign and deal with them on that basis is more than erroneous-it would be sheer stupidity. These provinces, as well as [[Smolensk Province|Smolensk]], should be Russified as gently as possible so that they cease looking to the forest like wolves. When the Hetmans are gone from Little Russia, every effort should be made to eradicate from memory the period and the hetmans, let alone promote anyone to that office."</blockquote>Catherine first turned the Hetmenate into the province of Little Russia and then divided into the vice-regencies of KyivKiev, Chernihiv and [[Novhorod-Siverskyi]]. According to historian [[Serhii Plokhy]], "the abolition of the Hetmenate and the gradual elimination of its institution and military structure ended the notion of partnership and equality between Great and Little Russia imagined by generations of Ukrainian intellectuals."<ref name=":0"/>

Once incorporated fully into the empire the provinces of the former Hetmenate were dwarfed by the Russian state, and the officer class of the Cossack polity was integrated (though with difficulty) and forced to serve the interests of the all-Russian nation, though they retained their attachment to their traditional homeland.

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On the occasion of the Second Partition, Catherine ordered a medal struck depicting the double-headed eagle from the Russian imperial coat of arms holding in its clutches two maps. One had the territories attached to Russia in the First Partition, the other the territories attached in the [[Second Partition of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth|Second Partition]] of 1793 with an inscription at the top: "I restore what had been torn away."<ref name=":0"/>

The motives for the territory chosen by Catherine in the First Partition were strategic, yet the next two cited historical rather than strategic rationale. Catherine based her understanding of the territories she had the right to claim on her study of Rus history. Writing for the future emperor of Russia in her "Notes on Russian History," Catherine covers [[Kievan Rus'|Kyivan Rus]], though her historical claims often clashed with the claims of other European monarchs at the time. The view of Poles as a hostile nation and Ukrainians as a fraternal one became dominant in Russian discourse after Suvorov's capture of Warsaw in November 1794 under Catherine. In December 1792, once Catherine had decided in favour of the Second Partition, she wrote that her goals were, "to deliver the lands and towns that once belonged to Russia, established and inhabited by our kinsmen and professing the same faith as ours, from the corruption and oppression with which they are threatened."

Ironically, though Catherine had annexed Lithuania, it was neither Slavic nor ever a part of KyivanKievan Rus. Likewise, in the lands annexed to the Russian Empire after the Second Partition, only 300,000 were Orthodox while more than 2 million were [[Ruthenian Uniate Church|Uniate]]s, while the lands attached in the Third Partition had almost no Orthodox believers.

In April 1794, Catherine decided to fix the situation by launching an official campaign to convert Uniates to Orthodoxy. Catherine's decree addressed to the governor general of the newly annexed territories was far more conspicuous and blunt than the pastoral letter issued on her behalf, as she wrote about "the most suitable eradication of the Uniate faith."<ref name=":0"/>

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The prize was awarded to Nikolai Ustrialov, who in December 1836 presented the first volume of a four volume work that would later be distributed as a standard textbook to all education districts throughout the empire. The book revived notions established during the reign of Catherine by Nikolai Karamzin of the re-unification of Rus and a statist approach to Russian history that had been challenged under liberal Alexander I.<ref name=":0"/>

As well as history, Russian language and culture were also used as tools in the government's new policy to Russify the western provinces. Russian was replaced as the language of instruction rather than Polish, and educational districts and universities that had help popularise Polish culture and language under the leadership of then minister of education Ukrainian [[Petro Zavadovsky]] and his Polish colleagues [[Jerzy Czartoryski]] and [[Seweryn Potocki]] were closed. In November 1833, Nicholas I approved Sergei Uvarov's proposal to open a new university in the city of KyivKiev, which Pushkin feared might fall into Polish hands as visitors heard more Polish spoken on the streets than Russian or Ukrainian. In the KyivKiev provinces there were 43,000 Polish nobles and only 1,000 Russian ones.

On July 15, 1834, the new university was opened by Nicholas I himself. Count Uvarov dubbed the university a "mental fortress" that was intended "to smooth over, as much as possible, the sharp characteristics whereby Polish youth is distinguished from the Russian, and particularly to suppress the idea of separate nationality among them, to bring them closer and closer to Russian ideas and customs, to imbue them with the common spirit of the Russian people."<ref name=":0"/>

In 1832–1833, the amateur archaeologist Kondratii Lokhvitsky conducted excavations of KyivKiev's [[Golden Gate, Kiev|Golden Gate]]. The excavation was visited by Emperor Nicholas I himself, who gave Lokhvitsky an award and funded his works. The excavations were intended to illustrate the supposed "Russian" history of the city that was predominantly Polish; as historian Serhii Plokhy writes, "Its Russification was literally proceeding from below as ancient ruins, accurately or inaccurately dated to princely times, emerged from beneath the surface."

==== Uniate Church subsumed into the Russian Orthodox Church ====

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Historians claim that Orlov either deliberately or accidentally underestimated the threat presented by the brotherhood by reporting to the tsar that "the political evil per se, fortunately, had not managed to develop to the extent suggested by the preliminary reports." The "political evil" that Orlov was referring to was contained in the Books of the Genesis of the Ukrainian People that envisioned the creation of a Slavic confederation based on the principle of popular representation with no for the tsar. The books' characterised the Ukrainians as distinct from both Russians and Poles and saw them as destined to lead the future Slavic federation as, unlike the Russians who were dominated by an autocratic tsar and the Poles who had an overbearing caste of noble landowners, the Ukrainians were a nation that cherished its democratic Cossack traditions.<ref name=":0"/>

Orlov recommended punishing the "Ukrainophiles"-a term that he invented to refer to the core members of the Brotherhood—though imprisonment, internal exile and forced military service. Though the authorities did not believe Shevchenko was a member of the society, they were deeply disturbed by his verses that extolled Ukraine and attacked the emperor for exploiting his homeland. Orlov was also concerned about the impact of Shevchenko's glorification of Ukraine's Cossack traditions: "Along with favourite poems, ideas may have been sown and subsequently have taken root in Little Russia about the supposedly happy times of the hetmans, the felicity of restoring those times, and Ukraine's capacity to exist as a separate state."<ref name=":0"/>

The authorities publicised the existence of the [[Brotherhood of Saints Cyril and Methodius]] as well as the punishment meted out to its members. [[Mykola Kostomarov|Kostomarov]], the key figure, was imprisoned in the [[Peter and Paul Fortress]] in St. Petersburg and exiled in the town of Saratov. Others received sentences of one to three years and internal exile from Ukraine in Russia.<ref name=":0"/>

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During the early years of Alexander in the late 1850s, Metropolitan Iosif Semashko, who had managed to bring most of the Uniates in the empire under the jurisdiction of Russian Orthodoxy, noticed a new threat to the imperial regime-the khlopomany. The khlopomany were young Polish noblemen who renounced their Catholic Faith and embraced the Orthodox faith as well as the identity of Ukrainians such as Wlodzimierz Antonowicz who changed his name to Volodymyr Antonovych. Semashko was able to suppress the movement by politicising the movement.<ref name=":0"/>

In 1859, Sylvestry Gogotsky, a professor at KyivKiev University and key leader of the pan-Russian movement, put forward a formula to prevent the spread of the Ukrainian movement: a) We should immediately take measures to educate the people on both sides of the Dnieper; b) From now on we should support the idea of the unite of the three Russian tribes; without that unity, we shall perish very quickly; c) the Russian literary language should be the same for all in primers. Faith and language should be binding elements"<ref name=":0"/>

==== Valuev Circular ====

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==== Ukrainians in the Duma ====

After [[Bloody Sunday (1905)|Bloody Sunday of 1905]] and the revolutionary upheaval that followed, Nicholas II issued an edict stating that his subjects could now freely chosechoose their religion and more importantly leave the Russian Orthodox Church if they wished without any political repercussions. In response between 100,000 and 150,000 Ukrainians reverted to Uniatism in the Kholm region. Regional officials and Orthodox clergy who had devoted their lives to teaching these people they were both Orthodox and Russian felt betrayed, including the Orthodox bishop of Kholm Evlogii (Georgievsky), who wrote in a letter to the Holy Synod: "The very credit of our priests has been undermined. For thirty years they repeated to the people that the Kholm Podliashie country will always be Orthodox and Russian, and now the people see, on the contrary, the complete, wilful takeover of the enemies of the Orthodox Russian cause in that country". The general proctor of the Holy Synod was Konstantin Pobedonostsev who was one on the architects of the policy of Russification in the western provinces.<ref name=":0"/>

In the 1906 elections to the First Duma, the Ukrainian provinces of the empire elected sixty two deputies, with forty four of them joining the Ukrainian parliamentary club that aimed to promote the Ukrainian political and cultural agenda in the capital. Russian nationalist [[Mikhail Menshikov]] was infuriated by the example set by the Ukrainians, he wrote "the Belarusians, took, are following the khokhly in speaking of a 'circle' of their own in the State Duma. There are Belarusian separatists as well, you see. It's enough to make a cat laugh". Unlike the Ukrainians and Polish, the Belarusians were unable to form a club or circle.<ref name=":0"/>

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Right Bank Ukraine in particular became the Union's main base of operations, with its largest branch in the Ukrainian region of [[Volhynia]] centred on the Pochaiv Monastery. What accounted for the impressive number of Union members in the western provinces was that, as in [[Volhynia]], local chapters were led and coordinated by priests who enlisted their parishioners through coercion in the Union. A local police report described it: "The members are local Orthodox parishioners, as well as semiliterate and even illiterate people in the villages, who show no initiative themselves. The heads of the Union's local branches install patriotic feelings in the population by conversing with the peasants and preaching to them in order to strengthen Russia's foundations".<ref name=":0"/>

The Union was not only able to accrue so many members through the transition of religious loyalty into loyalty for the empire and the coercive adoption of an all-Russian identity onto the Ukrainian peasantry but was also rooted in the economic demands of the region. In [[Volhynia]] and [[Podolia]] the average landholding was 9 acres whilst in Southern Ukraine it was 40 acres. The union's propagandists were there to point to hethe main "culprits" of the peasants troubles: Polish landowners and Jewish middlemen whom they sold their produce to. The locals felt that the Union would promote their economic interests and thus sacrificed their identity.<ref name=":0"/>

==== Ukrainian movement during Nicholas II's reign ====

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[[Pavel Miliukov]], the head of the Constitutional Democratic Party, disagreed with his party comrade [[Petr Struve]] who believed that the clampdown on the Ukrainian movement in Galicia was the end of the movement, suggesting that he educate himself by reading the literature of the movement. [[Pavel Miliukov]] did not believe that the Ukrainian cooperate movement could be climate by military occupation. He drafted and presented a resolution to the Central Committee of his party demanding "an end to the anti-state system of Russifying occupied territory, the reestablishment of closed national institutions, and strict observance of the personal and property rights of the population".<ref name=":0"/>

Ukrainian nationalists in the Russian Empire were unable to help their compatriots in Galicia and Bukovina, as they too were on the defence doing their best to prove their loyalty to the empire. Long before the war had yet to begin, the Russian nationalists in KyivKiev and other cities of the Empire, warned about the possibility of Ukraine leaving Russia and joining Austria-Hungary. With the start of the war, the authorities acting on the concerns and paranoia of the Russian nationalist camp closed down Ukrainian language publications such as the KyivKiev-based newspaper Rada, harassed Ukrainian organisations and activists and branded them "Mazepists".<ref name=":0"/>

[[Mykhailo Hrushevsky]] was arrested upon his arrival to KyivKiev in November 1914 by the Russian police on charges of pro-Austrian sympathies. The "proof" of his alleged guilty had been supposedly found in his luggage, which included a Ukrainian brochure entitled "How the Tsar Deceives the People". Yet this was mere formality, the order for his arrests had been issued soon after the Russian seizure of Lviv where photos of Hrushevshy together with Ukrainian activists had been found. Police officials considered Hrushvesky to be the leader of the Galician "Mazepsits" and planned his exile to Siberia, however, with the intervention of Russian liberal intelligentsia he was exiled to the town of Simbirsk.<ref name=":0"/>

[[Nicholas II]] had visited Galicia in 1905, which was filmed by a Russian crew and became a subject of paintings and postcards as a symbolic high point in the long campaign of Muscovite Tsars beginning with Ivan III and Russian nationalities to gather the lands of the former KyivanKievan Rus and construct a big Russian nation. However the hopes of the Russian "unifiers" were crushed more quickly than they had been fulfilled, barely a month after the tsars triumphal entrance to Lviv, the Austrians reentered. In the summer of 1915, the Russian nationalists in the Duma joined forces with the Constitutional Democrats in the "Union of Cotber 17" that dandled a government responsible to the people.<ref name=":0"/>

=== Revolutionary Era and Ukrainian War of Independence ===

In reaction to the Bolshevik seizure of power on 7 November 1917 (NS), after already declaring autonomy, the Ukrainian People's Republic declared full independence, claiming the provinces of central Ukraine as well as the traditionally Ukrainian settled territories of Kharkiv, Odesa and the Donets River Basin, more importantly, however, the Central Rada refused to cooperate with the new government in Petrograd. Whilst Lenin had seen the Rada as a potential ally in his assault on the Provisional Government and had gone out of his way to recognise the Ukrainian nation as distinct in June 1917, his position drastically changed after the Bolshevik seizure of power. The Bolsheviks in KyivKiev tried to repeat the same formula they had used in Petrograd to seize control, trying to gain a majority in the Congress of Soviets, yet they found themselves in the minority in KyivKiev. The Bolsheviks moved to Kharkiv, an industrial centre closer to the border with Russia and declared the creation of the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic. The Central Rada refused to recognise or acknowledge the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic which it perceived as a "Bolshevik clone".<ref name=":0"/>

In the "Manifesto to the Ukrainian People with an Ultimatum to the Central Rada", drafted by Lenin, Trotsky and Stalin, the Bolshevik leaders made the paradoxical statement simultaneously recognising the right of the Ukrainian people to self-determination and denying it in the name of the revolution. Lacking strength in Ukraine, Lenin sent Russian military units to KyivKiev led by the former security chief of the Provisional Government, Mikhail Muraviev. In January 1918, Muraviev's troops began their advance on Kyiv and in early February seized the capital of the Ukrainian People's Republic after firing 15,000 artillery units on the city. Muraviev's gunners targeted the house of Mikhailo Hrushevsky, bombarding it and setting it afire, causing the death of his family.<ref name=":0"/>

After seizing the city, Muraviev's troops shot people on the streets of KyivKiev for using the Ukrainian language, which Muraviev's troops considering evidence of nationalist counterrevolution. In February 1918, Volodymyr Zatonsky was arrested on the streets of KyivKiev for speaking and corresponding in Ukrainian, but was saved from execution by a paper signed by Lenin found in his pocket.<ref name=":0"/>

After his entrance into KyivKiev, Muraviev demanded 5 million rubles to apply his army and ordered his troops "mercilessly to destroy all officers and cadets, haidamakas, monarchists, and enemies of the revolution in KyivKiev". Close to 5,000 people suspected of allegiance to the old Regime or the Central Rada were executed during this time.<ref name=":0"/>

In January 1919, the White Army formed in the Don region began its advance on Ukraine led by General [[Anton Denikin]]. Denikin was a strong proponent of an indivisible Russia who hated the Bolsheviks and who considered the Ukrainian movement a threat, whether based in Ukraine or in his own periphery, in the Kuban, originally settled by Ukrainian Cossacks who now wished to unite with Ukraine. In the summer of 1918, Denikin sent his troops to the Kuban region to prevent a possible seizure of power by the Bolsheviks or Skoropadsky regime, and in the fall of 1918 Denikin dissolved the pro-Ukrainian Kuban Cossack Rada that had been initiating plans to unite with Ukraine and executed its pro-Ukrainian leaders.<ref name=":0"/>

When Denikin captured KyivKiev in August 1919, staunch Russian nationalist Vasilli Shulgin was given the opportunity to apply his solution to the Ukrainian question onto the rest of Ukraine. Shulgin was the principal drafter of Denikin's appeal "To the Inhabitants of Little Russia" publicised on the eve of Denikin's entrance into KyivKiev. The appeal proclaimed that Russian was the language of state institutions and the educational system. This official policy formulated by Shulgin and Denikin was a major blow for the Ukrainian cultural movement after its positive treatment by the Central Rada and the Skoropadsky regime. In KyivKiev and other cities under its control, Denikin's army busied themselves by closing Ukrainian language newspapers, schools and institutions. All Ukrainian language signs were replaced with Russian language ones and owners of the buildings who resisted the changes were threatened.<ref name=":0"/>

As Ukrainian complaints about their treatment and the violation of their civil liberties and cultural rights reached the west, who backed Denikin and his anti-Bolshevik campaign, the Western powers tried to restrain the "anti-Ukrainian zeal of Volunteer Army Commanders".<ref name=":0"/>

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{{see also|Ukrainization#Early 1930s (reversal of Ukrainization policies)|Executed Renaissance}}

After World War One [[Ukrainian culture]] was revived due to the Bolshevik policy of [[Korenization]] ("indigenisation"). While it was meant to bolster the power of the Party in local cadres, the policy was at odds with the concept of a Soviet people with a shared Russian heritage. Under Stalin, "korenization" took second stage to the idea of a united Soviet Union, where competing national cultures were no longer tolerated, and the Russian language increasingly became the only official language of Soviet socialism.<ref name="CalicNeutatz2011">{{cite book|author1=Marie-Janine Calic|author2=Dietmar Neutatz|author3=Julia Obertreis|title=The Crisis of Socialist Modernity: The Soviet Union and Yugoslavia in the 1970s|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=iPkEFdSDqqEC&pg=PA163|year=2011|publisher=Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht|isbn=978-3-525-31042-7|pages=163–4}}</ref>

The times of restructuring of farming and the introduction of industrialization brought about a wide campaign against "nationalist deviation," which in Ukraine translated into the end of "korenization" policy and an assault on the political and cultural elite. The first wave of purges between 1929 and 1934 targeted the revolutionary generation of the party that in Ukraine included many supporters of [[Ukrainization]]. Soviet authorities specifically targeted the commissar of education in Ukraine, [[Mykola Skrypnyk]], for promoting Ukrainian language reforms that were seen as dangerous and counterrevolutionary; Skrypnyk committed suicide in 1933. [[Great Purge|The next 1936–1938 wave of political purges]] eliminated much of the new political generation that replaced those who perished in the first wave. The purges nearly halved the membership of the Ukrainian communist party, and purged Ukrainian political leadership was largely replaced by the cadres sent from [[Russian SFSR|Russia]] that was also largely "rotated" by Stalin's purges.<ref name="Magocsi2010">{{cite book|author=Paul Robert Magocsi|title=History of Ukraine - 2nd, Revised Edition: The Land and Its Peoples|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Z0mKRsElYNkC&pg=PT567|date=18 June 2010|publisher=University of Toronto Press|isbn=978-1-4426-9879-6|pages=496–7}}</ref>

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== Modern-day Ukraine ==

===Late 20th century and early 21st century ===

===Post-independence ===

[[File:Russians Ukraine 2001.PNG|thumb|Ethnic Russians by region (Census 2001)]]

[[File:2004 Ukrainian presidential election, second round rerun.svg|thumb|2004 Ukrainian presidental elections]]

[[File:2014 pro-Russian unrest in UkraineRuslangsup2001.pngPNG|thumb|2014Inhabitants with pro-Russian unrestas mother tongue by region in(Census Ukraine2001)]]

In post-Soviet Ukraine, Ukrainian remains the only official language in the country; however, in 2012, President [[ViktorVictor YanukovychYanukovitch]] introduced a bill recognizing "regional languages", according to which, in particular, Russian could be used officially in the predominantly Russian-speaking areas of Ukraine, in schools, courts, and government institutions. While the bill was supported by Ukrainians in the eastern and southern [[Administrative divisions of Ukraine|regions]], the legislation triggered protests in [[Kyiv]], where representatives from opposition parties argued that it would further divide the Ukrainian-speaking and Russian-speaking parts of the country and make Russian a ''de facto'' official language there.<ref name=guardian-elder>{{cite news|last=Elder|first=Miriam|title=Ukrainians protest against Russian language law|url=https://www.theguardian.com/world/2012/jul/04/ukrainians-protest-russian-language-law|access-date=11 November 2013|newspaper=The Guardian|date=4 July 2012}}</ref> On 28 February 2018, the [[Constitutional Court of Ukraine]] ruled this legislation unconstitutional.<ref name ="cKSU10ZZ117">[https://www.ukrinform.net/rubric-polytics/2412584-constitutional-court-declares-unconstitutional-language-law-of-kivalovkolesnichenko.html Constitutional Court declares unconstitutional language law of Kivalov-Kolesnichenko], [[Ukrinform]] (28 February 2018)</ref>

Television and other media have tried to cater to speakers of both languages.<ref>{{cite news| url=http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/4472069.stm | work=BBC News | title=Ukraine divided over language row | date=April 22, 2005 | access-date=May 23, 2010}}</ref>

===EuromaidanRusso-Ukrainian onwardsWar===

{{See alsobroader|Euromaidan|Russo-Ukrainian War}}

After the 2014 [[Annexation of Crimea by the Russian Federation|Russian annexation of Crimea]] and establishment of unrecognized [[War in Donbas (2014–2022)|Russian-supported militants]] in eastern Ukraine, Russification was imposed on people in [[Russian-occupied territories of Ukraine|Russian-occupied territories]].<ref>{{Cite web|date=2019-09-15|title=Rights Group: Ukrainian Language Near Banished In Donbas Schools|url=https://www.rferl.org/a/ukrainian-language-donbas-schools/30165052.html|access-date=2021-12-17|website=RadioFreeEurope/RadioLiberty|language=en}}</ref> Tensions between the two nations skyrocketed between 2021 and 2022, when the [[Russian Armed Forces]] initiated [[Prelude to the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine|a large military build-up]] along its border with Ukraine. On 21 February 2022, Russia [[Address concerning the events in Ukraine|recognized]] the [[Donetsk People's Republic]] and the [[Luhansk People's Republic]], the two self-proclaimed breakaway states in Ukraine's [[Donbas]] region, controlled by pro-Russian separatists. Then on 24 February 2022, Russia [[Russian invasion of Ukraine|unleashed a full-scale invasion]] against Ukraine.

During the full-scale invasion, as many as 300,000 Ukrainian children are believed to have been [[Child abductions in the 2022Russo-Ukrainian Russian invasion of UkraineWar|abducted and forcibly resettled in remote regions of Russia]] and adopted into Russian families in order to become Russified.<ref>{{cite magazine | url=https://newrepublic.com/article/169344/ukraine-invasion-russia-kidnapped-war | title=Victory over Russia is the Only Way to Rescue the Kidnapped Ukrainians | magazine=The New Republic | date=7 December 2022 | last1=Klain | first1=Doug | last2=Kirsch | first2=Adam | last3=Kirsch | first3=Adam | last4=Johnston | first4=David Cay | last5=Johnston | first5=David Cay | last6=Shephard | first6=Alex | last7=Shephard | first7=Alex | last8=Thakker | first8=Prem | last9=Thakker | first9=Prem | last10=Linkins | first10=Jason | last11=Linkins | first11=Jason | last12=Strauss | first12=Daniel | last13=Strauss | first13=Daniel | last14=Shephard | first14=Alex | last15=Shephard | first15=Alex }}</ref><ref>{{cite news | url=https://www.lemonde.fr/en/opinion/article/2022/08/05/deporting-ukrainian-children-and-russifying-them-is-jeopardizing-the-future-of-ukraine_5992568_23.html | title='Deporting Ukrainian children and "Russifying" them is jeopardizing the future of Ukraine' | newspaper=Le Monde.fr | date=5 August 2022 }}</ref> On the occupied territories, Russia has been pursuing "relentless Russification policy" by enforcing expulsion, deportations and repressions towards residents who refused to accept Russian passport, and denial of pensions and healthcare services to these residents.<ref>{{Cite web |date=2024-03-11 |title=UK Ministry of Defence Intelligence Update |url=https://twitter.com/DefenceHQ/status/1767115760466313671}}</ref> While Russian authorities spend significant resources on "reeducation" of children forcibly deported from Ukraine through a network of newly created FTs RPSP agencies (Federal Center for the Development of Teenage Socialization Programs), Russian security services at the same time perceive them as a potential threat, an untrusted and potentially disloyal element who "might start to resist". Additional resources have been assigned to surveillance and monitoring of youth on the occupied territories, assigning individuals with an "opposition score" and "destructiveness score".<ref>{{Cite web |title=‘They could start to resist’ How the Russian authorities are working to indoctrinate and digitally surveil deported Ukrainian children |url=https://meduza.io/en/feature/2024/03/11/they-could-start-to-resist |access-date=2024-03-11 |website=Meduza |language=en}}</ref>

== See also ==

* [[Derussification in Ukraine]]

* ''[[Internationalism or Russification?]]''

* [[Russians in Ukraine]]

* [[Geographical distribution of Russian speakers#Ukraine|Russophone Ukrainians]]

* [[History of Ukraine]]

* [[Chronology of Ukrainian language suppression]]

* [[Ruscism|RussianRussification fascismof Belarus]]

* [[RussianRussification imperialismof Finland]]

* [[Russian irredentism|Russian irrendetism]]

* [[Law of Ukraine "On protecting the functioning of the Ukrainian language as the State language"]]

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[[Category:Russification]]

[[Category:Anti-Ukrainian sentiment]]

[[Category:Language policy in Ukraine]]