the history of Russian - Ukrainian relations
Nykolai Bilaniuk
>From: rwo...@bcsaic.UUCP (Rick Wojcik)
>Subject: Re: the history of Russian - Ukrainian relations
>Summary: Ukrainian is closely related to Byelorussian and Russian not Slovak
>Date: 18 Dec 91 00:03:55 GMT
(I) Introduction
I suppose I shouldn't blame Mr Wojcik for trusting conventional wisdom
more than his own experience, but that is precisely the challenge I am
addressing to historians: ignore convention, and make up your own minds
based on the facts not the textbooks. I acknowledge that conventional
wisdom places Ukrainian language and culture as being closer to Russian
that to Slovak and Polish. In my original post, I offered an explanation
why Russians historically encouraged such a view. Yet, I know from
extensive personal experience that the Ukrainian language is closer to
Slovak and Polish. Unlike Mr Wojcik, I am willing to trust my own
observations.
(II) History of the Influences of Polish and Russian languages on Ukrainian
Mr Wojcik writes:
>In fact, Polish and Slovak are Western Slavic languages, whereas Ukrainian,
>Byelorussian, and Russian are Eastern Slavic languages. At the point in
>history that Nick is talking about, it is doubtful that Russians and
>Ukrainians would have perceived themselves as speaking different languages.
>Different dialects of the same language, maybe. Polish and Slovak would
>probably have seemed more remote, if not already unintelligible.
Again, conventional wisdom - made up by Russians and Western "experts"
(who typically know Russian, but almost never know Ukrainian) - does make
such a linguistic classification into West and East. Does it make sense?
Let's compare the "Ukrainian nationalist" and the "Rossiyan nationalist"
views of history.
Likely Trends in the Evolution of Ukrainian w.r.t. Polish and Russian
historical period of rule: probable trend:
pre-Rus (< 900 CE) differentiation due to complete
tribal isolation
Rus 900-1240 Russian-Ukrainian approach due to
cultural exchange
Mongol & Lithuania 1240-1569 differentiation due to isolation
from either Slavic language
Poland 1569-1648(Central & East) Polish-Ukrainian approach due to
1569-1780,1918-1939(West) Polish settlement in Ukraine
Russia 1654-1990(Central & East) strong Russian-Ukrainian approach
1939-1990(West) due to large-scale Russian settlement
in Ukraine, Russian prohibitions
against the use of Ukrainian, and
specific efforts to supplant Ukrainian
with Russian
A couple of notes:
- In general, one would expect that more recent events would, if anything,
have a more pronounced remanent effect than earlier ones
- Various Eastern and Western Ukrainian dialects are easily distinguishable
but also completely mutually intellegible, so apparently the slightly
different history of the Western areas (longer under Poland than the
East) has not had a strong effect on the language.
The problem then is to evaluate the overall effect of the millenium's
history on the language. Most of Ukraine was under Polish rule for about
a century, and under Russian rule for at least three centures, including
the most recent three which should have strongly influenced the language.
Overall the obvious conclusion is that Ukrainian has, if anything, *grown
much closer to Russian than to Polish*.
Now, Mr Wojcik's Russian nationalist theory of Ukrainian history claims
that during this past millenium, (or at least at its beginning):
>it is doubtful that Russians and
>Ukrainians would have perceived themselves as speaking different languages.
My theory of Ukrainian history, articulated in my first article, claims
that while Ukrainians did have much in common with the future Russians,
it was no more than they did with Slovaks and Poles.
(III) The Present Mutual Intellegibility of the Three Languages
consider these admissions from Mr Wojcik:
(1)
>I have heard that Slovaks can
>understand Ukrainian and Russian pretty well (although not vice versa),
(2)
>For me, the g->h correspondence makes Ukrainian hard to understand.
(3)
>When I visited the Ukraine many years ago, I spoke Russian with ethnic
>Russians, but I found it extremely difficult to get past their dialect.
And a few data points from me:
I am a native speaker of Ukrainian (although, I should point out, I
am not really an ethnic Ukrainian). Besides Ukrainian, I have studied
a bit of Russian but no other Slavic language. All the other languages
I know are either Germanic or Romance Indo-European languages.
(1)
I understand Slovak near perfectly. So does my Polish-born wife, who
has never studied Slovak but learned Ukrainian as a young adult. We
seldom hear the Slovak language, so we have not acclimatized to it.
Slovaks understand my Ukrainian too. In general, Ukrainians can
converse freely with Slovaks. Slovaks who have not studied any
other Slavic langauge understand Polish and Ukrainian better than
they do Czech, Sorbian/Lusatian, or Kashubian, the other "Western"
Slavic languages.
(2)
Ukrainians in Western Ukraine, who have never studied Polish, can
and do watch Polish TV and listen to Polish radio, and understand
it without too much trouble. I can understand it much more easily
than Russian, despite lack of formal training and only comparable
exposure, but not as well as Slovak. I know, I've done plenty of
sitting at TV sets in Lviv watching Lublin shows.
(3)
I have difficulties understanding any spoken Russian, whether it be
the dialect of Russians in Ukraine, Russians of Southern Russia,
Russians of Northern Russia, or Western school-Russian. That despite
considerable exposure. That is not to say that I don't understand
anything. Far from it, and I would have understood some even without
any schooling. However, in relative terms Russian presents much
greater obstacles than Polish or Slovak. I have never actually
heard Belarusyn, but I can read it more easily than Russian.
A few comments about Mr Wojcik's data: The notion that Slovaks can
understand Ukrainian but NOT vice versa is difficult to believe.
Nevertheless, by his own admission Slovaks can understand Ukrainian,
but he, who knows Russian, cannot easily understand a *Ukrainian
influenced dialect of Russian* - let alone Ukrainian itself.
Mr Wojcik's observations alone are enough to suggest that something
is wrong with the language classification scheme that he and Western
academia espouse. At the very least, Slovak should be reclassified
as an "East Slavic" language! But while we are at it, why try to
fit a circle into a square hole? Why not question all the premises,
and arrive at a sensible system?
(IV) The History, Reprise
We can now take empirical evidence about the current state of these
languages, and project the effects of the last millenium backwards to
get some idea of the validity of these theories.
The evidence about historical trends suggests that Ukrainian has
approached Russian more than Polish or Slovak in recent centuries.
The evidence about the present suggests that Ukrainian is no closer
to Russian than it is to Polish and Slovak.
If the historical trend is applied backwards, it seems likely that
a millenium ago Ukrainian had, in relative terms, *even more in
common with Polish and Slovak vs Russian than it does today*.
Of course, this runs counter to the Russian nationalist version
of history, which has been accepted as conventional wisdom.
All the evidence, past and present, mine and Mr Wojcik's, also runs
counter to his statement that at his unspecified point back in history,
to proto-Ukrainian speakers
>Polish and Slovak would
>probably have seemed more remote, if not already unintelligible.
(V) Concluding Comments
I stand by my earlier conclusion:
>The grammatically closest modern language to Ukrainian is Slovak,
>followed in turn by Polish, Belarussian, and Russian. In the 20th
>century, Ukrainian has adopted many words from Russian, but the
>vocabularies are still very distinct. The languages are not very
>mutually intelligible (unlike, eg Slovak and Ukrainian). Of course, all
>Ukrainians in Ukraine understand and speak Russian (Ukrainian, had,
>after all, been all but illegal for over a century) but Ukrainian is
>making a rapid comeback.
As for Mr Wojcik's retort:
>Sorry, Nick, but much of the above paragraph is utter nonsense. Slovak isn't
>even in the same branch of Slavic as Ukrainian....
To each his own. You can come up with any arbitrary classification scheme
you like, and if it serves your needs, so be it and there is no reason for
us to argue the point; but that isn't going to change the fact that Slovak
and Ukrainian are closer than Ukrainian and Russian.
Nick