{"id":39010,"date":"2026-11-06T14:01:50","date_gmt":"2026-11-06T13:01:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/adcmemorial.org\/?p=39010"},"modified":"2026-11-12T09:56:06","modified_gmt":"2026-11-12T08:56:06","slug":"survival-of-non-russian-languages-equal-support-and-equal-rights-needed","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/adcmemorial.org\/en\/news\/survival-of-non-russian-languages-equal-support-and-equal-rights-needed\/","title":{"rendered":"Survival of non-Russian languages: Equal Support and Equal Rights needed"},"content":{"rendered":"

National Unity Day on 4 November has, in this year of 2026 \u2013 declared the Year of Unity of the Peoples of Russia \u2013 been stretched out like an accordion: at the beginning of November, and every year from now on, there will be an entire International \u201cPeoples of Russia\u201d Week. Responsibility for organising it lies with the Office of the Russian Security Council and Roscongress<\/a>. On offer is a \u201cbusiness programme\u201d: three days of panel discussions on the \u201cdistinctive Russian civilisational model\u201d and its promotion around the world, plus a separate youth day, a film forum, an All-Russian Forum of National Unity and much more besides. The prevailing genre will apparently be \u2013 to borrow a line from Alexander Galich \u2013 \u201cmatins for peace at the House of Culture\u201d.<\/p>\n

The international dimension of the Week, in essence, has nothing to do with the peoples of Russia; it concerns countries \u201cthat share the relevant spiritual and moral values\u201d. Noteworthy here is the presence at the panel sessions of a landing party from the International Movement of Russophiles (IMR) \u2013 exposed in its day by The Insider<\/a> and caught out over its ties to the Russian Foreign Ministry, the security services and the notorious oligarch Konstantin Malofeev<\/a>. The IMR was placed under EU sanctions in December 2025, and investigative journalists predicted that it would meet \u201cthe same inglorious end as previous Kremlin puppet organisations\u201d. Yet the old beast is still breathing: 11 representatives of Balkan countries, as well as of African countries, India, Italy and Romania, are taking part in a session entitled \u201cRussophilia as a Reflection of the Russian Historical and Civilisational Model\u201d, and they crop up elsewhere in the programme too.<\/p>\n

Only one of the Week\u2019s declared aims has even an indirect bearing on the peoples of Russia (other than ethnic Russians): \u201cImplementing state ethnic policy and enhancing its effectiveness\u201d. It is worth recalling that the Russian Federation\u2019s ethnic policy has two aspects: forging a Russian civic nation and supporting the cultures of the country\u2019s various peoples. The latest versions of strategic documents on the subject show the second aspect shrivelling and the first swelling, along with a tendency to use the word and concept russkiy (Russian in the ethnic sense) where rossiyskiy (pertaining to Russia as a federative country) should be said.<\/p>\n

The same trick can be seen on the website of the Year of Unity of the Peoples of Russia. It has a section<\/a> on the \u201cValues of the Year\u201d, some of which are expressed in strikingly odd Russian: for example, \u201cUnity \u2013 it\u2019s about the common, not the different\u201d (in Russian: \u00ab\u0415\u0434\u0438\u043d\u0441\u0442\u0432\u043e \u2013 \u043f\u0440\u043e \u043e\u0431\u0449\u0435\u0435, \u0430 \u043d\u0435 \u0440\u0430\u0437\u043d\u043e\u0435\u00bb) or \u201cRussia \u2013 a family of families\u201d (\u00ab\u0420\u043e\u0441\u0441\u0438\u044f \u2013 \u0441\u0435\u043c\u044c\u044f \u0441\u0435\u043c\u0435\u0439\u00bb). To summarise briefly its explanation of what unites the different peoples who make up the country\u2019s population: we are drawn together by shared values, history, culture and heroes. The chief value is a strong family, and many families together make up \u201cour great power\u201d. \u201cThe Russian language and Russian culture unite all the country\u2019s inhabitants and form the basis of our identity.\u201d A \u201csingle cultural code\u201d \u201crests on the heritage of russkaya culture and absorbs the traditions of all the country\u2019s peoples\u201d, and so \u201ca distinctive rossiyskaya culture is born, which develops thanks to the Russian language as the language of interethnic communication\u201d. \u201cThe russkiy people became the core around which other ethnic groups united, while preserving their own identity and culture.\u201d<\/p>\n

Now keep your eye on the conjuror\u2019s hands: \u201cAthletes, scientists, warriors, cultural figures \u2013 all of them, regardless of ethnicity, bring glory to Russia. The word russkiy becomes an honorary title for them: a russkiy scientist, a russkiy champion, a russkiy hero.\u201d<\/em> Finally, there is the value of \u201cShared Identity\u201d: \u201cAll-Russian civic identity is the awareness of oneself as part of a single political nation, despite ethnic and cultural diversity. This unique experience took shape in our country historically: first as russkiy subjecthood, then as the Soviet community, and today as the rossiyskaya civic nation. To the whole world, we are russkiye.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

The same verbal shift can be seen in the description of a session of the International Week entitled \u201cThe Russian Model: A Culture of Managing Diversity, Best Practices\u201d. First comes a mention of \u201ctraditional Russian [rossiyskiye]<\/em> values\u201d; then the two words appear side by side as perfect synonyms \u2013 \u201cHow can the rossiyskaya (russkaya)<\/em> model of governance be made even more efficient and effective in today\u2019s rapidly changing world?\u201d \u2013 and by the end of the description only the word russkiy is left (\u201cShould the fundamentals of the russkaya<\/em> model of governance be taught at universities?\u201d).<\/p>\n

The russkiy bias is also evident in the Week\u2019s other aims, which include \u201ccomprehensive support for the Russian language\u201d; \u201cstrengthening international humanitarian cooperation, including through multilateral ties with Russian-speaking communities and regional diaspora associations abroad\u201d; and, for good measure, \u201cpromoting traditional values as the foundation for the harmonious development of the individual and society\u201d and \u201cprotecting historical memory and service to the Fatherland\u201d.<\/p>\n

The \u201cPeoples of Russia\u201d Week is billed as \u201ca key event for strengthening the unity of the multi-ethnic people of Russia and developing international humanitarian cooperation\u201d. The mantra of \u201cstrengthening unity\u201d runs through the entire programme, along with other endlessly repeated verbiage such as \u201cthe distinctive Russian civilisational model\u201d, \u201ca great sovereign state\u201d or the notorious \u201ccommon cultural code\u201d. Every time, one is tempted to add \u201cwhatever that means\u201d\u2026<\/p>\n

Yet however many times the incantations about national unity are repeated, and however many common \u201cvalues\u201d are invented that supposedly hold together Russia\u2019s fraying ethnopolitical landscape, they will not bring any more interethnic harmony. Let us not be fooled by fine-sounding declarations of support for the diversity of peoples and languages against a backdrop of real Russification, both political and linguistic, of xenophobia and racism, of the unchecked expansion of movements such as Russian Community and, of course, of the military aggression of the \u201cRussian world\u201d against Ukraine.<\/p>\n

One of the sessions of the International \u201cPeoples of Russia\u201d Week is entitled \u201cThe International Decade of Indigenous Languages in Russia and the World\u201d and raises questions that are far from idle: \u201cOur country can offer its own experience of combining Russian as the language of interethnic communication with systematic support for the languages of the country\u2019s peoples. Which interim results of the Decade\u2019s implementation in Russia can be considered successful? Which models of language preservation in education have proved their worth and become established practice?\u201d<\/p>\n

In September 2026, the interim results of the Decade were announced<\/a> by the Scientific Centre for the Preservation, Revival and Documentation of the Languages of Russia at the Institute of Linguistics of the Russian Academy of Sciences. The linguists counted 155 languages in use in Russia. Twenty-five languages are not at risk of disappearing, but 23 of them have a \u201cmetropole\u201d \u2013 in other words, they are state languages of other countries (Armenian, Bulgarian, Tajik and so on). So if these are subtracted from the total number of \u201csafe\u201d languages, only two remain that face no threat at all: Russian, of course, and \u2013 guess what \u2013 Russian Sign Language. All the other languages of the peoples living in the Russian Federation are vulnerable, including the \u201ctitular\u201d languages of the autonomous republics and regions, which would seem to have large numbers of speakers.<\/p>\n

\u201cPiecemeal measures are catastrophically insufficient to revitalise languages. Ideally, every language needs everything that has so far been created for Russian,\u201d the media quote the institute as recommending.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The Centre\u2019s database of language revitalisation practices contains a hotchpotch of information, from published textbooks (of Buryat, for example) to links to library catalogue cards or regional news items from various years reporting that courses in such-and-such a language have opened in such-and-such a district. It reads more like a collection of reminiscences about what once happened \u2013 and perhaps still happens \u2013 in the regions when it comes to learning and promoting native languages. And the patchy format of the database suggests that language revitalisation is not faring well.<\/p>\n

The most vulnerable are those languages that linguists have classified as moribund, or dying. Among them are Southern (Kolyma) Yukaghir, described as non-functioning, and Northern (Tundra) Yukaghir, \u201cwith intergenerational transmission broken throughout its entire range\u201d. The sorry state of the languages of the small-numbered Indigenous peoples and the need for decolonisation were recently discussed<\/a> by Yukaghir leader Vyacheslav Shadrin on the sidelines of an OSCE human rights conference in Warsaw:<\/p>\n

\u201c\u2026Cultural rights: what is needed is a move from decorative folklore to linguistic sovereignty. This must also mean linguistic decolonisation \u2013 switching the entire education system to a bilingual footing, creating fully fledged national schools where our languages are not just subjects of study but languages of instruction \u2013 and protecting our intellectual property. In my view, the main marker of successful decolonisation in the future will be a shift from the majority seeing our peoples as \u2018benefit recipients\u2019 or \u2018vulnerable sections of the population\u2019 to recognising us as fully fledged actors with historical rights to our lands, our culture and our political voice.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Vyacheslav Shadrin<\/a> is living in forced exile, as are other activists and defenders of Indigenous peoples\u2019 rights persecuted by the Russian authorities.<\/p>\n

Several entries in the database of the languages of the peoples of Russia are devoted to the village of Andryushkino in the Republic of Sakha (Yakutia), covering Sunday schools and other ways of learning Yukaghir. In April this year, the head of the village reported that 72 men from Andryushkino had gone to the war and 22 of them had been killed. Most of the dead were Yukaghirs, including the grandson of the Yukaghir writer Nikolai Kurilov. A local resident told<\/a> journalists:<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd what has it all come to? Who did we raise? We raised our children for death. They themselves complained that the language was disappearing. But how is it supposed to survive if its speakers are being killed?!\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

If defending the rights of Indigenous peoples is treated as extremist and terrorist activity, if activists of national movements and Indigenous communities are squeezed out into exile, and if the population of Indigenous peoples\u2019 traditional territories is drawn into a criminal war, there will soon be nothing left to revitalise.<\/p>\n

Olga ABRAMENKO is an expert at Anti-Discrimination Centre Memorial – Brussels. <\/em>
\nFirst published on the Radio Liberty blog (original in Russian<\/a>).<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

National Unity Day on 4 November has, in this year of 2026 \u2013 declared the Year of Unity of the Peoples of Russia \u2013 been stretched out like an accordion: at the beginning of November, and every year from now…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":39012,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[362,2],"tags":[213,215],"strategy_cases":[],"campaign":[],"archive":[],"filter-content":[],"regions":[515],"class_list":["post-39010","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-columns","category-news","tag-discrimination-en","tag-minorities-rights-en","regions-russia"],"acf":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t