There Is a Language - There Is a People, - There Is a People - There Is a Culture! Ukraine on the Path of Revival!

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Тарас Бурмистров

MOVA! — The Ukrainian Language

“Pilots shelling Donbass communicate in Russian (and their Russian is much purer than that of their victims). Liquidation squads fighting against the militia speak Russian. On Ukrainian forums, 95% of posts are in Russian.”

And what else are they supposed to speak?? Ukrainian? It’s impossible to communicate in it in extreme situations! It is suitable for discussing (and mutual understanding of) an extremely limited set of topics, mainly of a domestic nature. As soon as anything more complex and ‘intellectual’, abstract comes up — you have to switch to Russian or English, or some other decent language, otherwise you simply won’t understand anything.

I speak both languages almost equally well. When I read in Ukrainian, I don’t have to make any effort; I simply don’t notice that it’s not Russian (with the above caveat). My conversational practice has suffered in recent years for obvious reasons, but that’s not so important.

My sensitive ear of an amateur philologist clearly notes and records when people speaking Ukrainian in my presence switch to Russian or insert Russian words. This is always connected with a change of topic. Simple things can be discussed in Ukrainian, but the slightest bit more complex ones cannot.

Historically, this is connected with the choice of the Ukrainian people. Ukraine and Russia were not united by Bogdan Khmelnitsky or the Pereyaslav Rada. That was a one-time political decision, nothing more.

But then a whole series of major Ukrainian cultural figures made their choice — to speak, write, and preach (in the case of priests) in Russian. Yesterday I was leafing through a volume of Skovoroda (Kyiv, 1972): his letters to relatives are in Ukrainian, all his creative work is in Russian. This story (the exodus from one language to another) took place over a century and a half, from Feofan Prokopovich (by the way, an excellent writer) to Gogol.

At the beginning of the 18th century, Russian and Ukrainian were at approximately the same level of development. In the 17th, Ukrainian perhaps even surpassed Russian — it was richer, more flexible, more developed, and capable of conveying more complex thoughts than Russian.

Then Russia came into close contact with Europe. The language became insufficient. Do you think Russian nobles so persistently spoke German (until about 1740) and then French (right up to Kisa Vorobyaninov) just because of fashion or something else equally superficial and accidental?

Not at all. Simply — again — the language wasn’t sufficient. When almost all the Russian nobility gathered on the Smolensk road in 1812, they naturally communicated with each other in French. They knew Russian perfectly well — but here the matter was serious, they needed to quickly discuss important things and UNDERSTAND each other. While on the bivouac (again, ahem) by the campfire, they could have some fun and talk in Russian. But also — not get too carried away.

The colossal efforts of Batyushkov, Pushkin, Vyazemsky, Lermontov, Gogol finally blew up the Russian language so that it became similar to a human one. Our astonishing achievements in the 20th century, moreover in areas far from verbal creativity — in music, mathematics, physics, technology — are conditioned solely by this and can be traced directly back to Pushkin, Batyushkov, and Kireyevsky. Speaking such a language, one can already philosophize and think through dizzying mathematical constructions.

This was done in the 19th century, but intensive work was already underway in the 18th. Moreover, Ukrainians did more here than Russians. Whether because they were more talented (who knows), or because, being closer to Europe, they earlier unleashed their language and thinking, or because they mentally recast their magnificent rhetorical devices and techniques from one lexical base onto another — this is a good ‘turbo’ button for the brain.

Take a look at Academician Vinogradov’s fundamental work on the history of the Russian language — even the table of contents makes it clear. The entire 18th century is the history of powerful Ukrainian influence. I recall that Sumarokov complained about the dominance of some khokhols in Russian literature, that a real Russian writer (like Alexander Petrovich himself) simply couldn’t raise his head.

The Russian language — as we know it and use it now — was made by Ukrainians. That is their merit. It took 150 years.

SIMULTANEOUSLY, the actual Ukrainian branch withered and died out. Just as quickly as Russian developed, approaching the level of world languages.

Simply, no one worked on it. Everyone fled from there (even those who didn’t physically move, like Skovoroda).

Once again: this was a HISTORICAL CHOICE OF THE UKRAINIAN PEOPLE. To make ONE good language — and on a Great-Russian lexical base.

I’ll back this up with a quotation. The cultural figures of that time understood everything that was happening to them (as well as their own decisions) clearly and precisely, and they expressed their thoughts in an equally unambiguous way. Here is Gogol’s declaration:

“We must write in Russian. We must strive to support and strengthen one, sovereign language for all kindred tribes. The dominant for Russians, Czechs, Ukrainians, and Serbs should be a single sacred thing — the language of Pushkin, just as the Gospel is for all Christians, Catholics, Lutherans, and Herrnhutters.”

These were great people. Not because they made exactly this decision (they could have made another). But because they had the strength for the whole CREATION OF A LANGUAGE.

WHAT are these pygmies in embroidered shirts, sitting in the radas and making noise on the Maidan, counting on now? That they will break the will of Gogol and Skovoroda? Fill the next three pages mentally with the words ‘ha-ha’.

The decision was made THEN. It was a free choice of Ukrainian cultural figures, and if anyone thinks that they can, with a single kick, overturn three-century linguistic trends — their place is in a madhouse.

What do we have in the end? The Ukrainian language has fallen not even to the state of the 17th century, but even earlier. In principle, it can be used — but your thinking will be forcibly kept at the same level, 400 years ago. Your head will bump against a very, very low glass ceiling.

Try, for fun, writing posts and comments for a month or so in the Russian language of the time of Ivan the Terrible’s correspondence with Kurbsky. If this tour de force succeeds, you will distinctly feel your brains flattening.

But that’s still all right. One can conduct an even more dubious experiment and raise children in such a linguistically isolated environment (artificially separated from the surrounding world). People lived in the 16th century, after all — so we’ll make these children the same way.

And then they turn 20 and end up in a war. In a clash with a unit that speaks normal, modern Russian.

In half an hour, nothing will be left of these test‑tube children from a language experiment but shreds. No matter what (supposed) military genius and physical training they might have. Language is the basis of everything.

The Ukrainian language was destroyed many centuries before we were born. Theoretically, now one could make a language out of this amorphous mass — the Israelis managed it, after all.

But one must work a bit differently. Not the way they are working in Kyiv and Lviv now.

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