Language Policy in
the Soviet Union
Chapter 2: An Overview of Soviet
Language Policy
The Early Soviet Years
• In 1917 between 70% and 100% of
population of various republics was
illiterate
• Vast numbers of different languages and
cultures precluded simply sending out
teachers
• First was necessary to target which
languages would be developed
The Early Soviet Years, cont’d.
• Lenin claimed to believe that all minorities
should be treated equally, but that nationalism is
incompatible with Marxism
• Lenin’s goal is unification of all people via
assimilation, not diversity
• But nationalism was useful when it could be
used to advance the proletarian cause, if people
would support the revolution because they
believed they would have the right to selfdetermination, they were led down that path…
The Early Soviet Years, cont’d.
• The right of every ethnic group to use their own
language was a founding principle, as seen in
Article 121 of 1936 Constitution
• Early Bolsheviks were mostly Jewish urban elite,
and had a hard time communicating beyond
their group, even speakers of Russian dialects
could not comprehend them
• And then there were all the other languages,
spoken mostly by even less educated peoples
The Early Soviet Years, cont’d.
• As a result, Bolsheviks needed a language
to communicate with the people, but did
not want to cede power to them
• Overtly inclusive language policies were
used to Russify native languages, by
imposing Russian orthography, lexicon,
grammatical patterns
The Early Soviet Years, cont’d.
• Due to political infighting, Narkomnats
(People’s Comissariat of the Nationalities)
failed to secure education in native
languages, instead Narkompros (PC for
Enlightenment) created educational
programs that promoted the domination of
Russian
Constructing Nationalities
• Soviet state undertook to classify citizens by
nationality, and this often entailed constructing
nationalities, since many people identified
themselves according to language or religion
(the criteria of tsarist censuses), not ethnic group
• Ethnographers in European Russia focused on
language, but those in Central Asia focused on
physical characteristics (while Central Asians
were themselves focused on religion)
Constructing Nationalities, cont’d.
• In 1927 ethnographers suggested 172
nationalities, but Soviet state wanted a
shorter list of “major” nationalities
• The idea was to gradually integrate them
into a larger Soviet nationality
• Problem with selecting a term:
natsional’nost’ implied some
consciousness of culture and history, but
narodnost’ did not
The Nationalities Question
• In 1930s Soviet government developed a
theory of nationalities to include a class
component with an explicit hierarchical
organization
• Claimed a unidirectional development from
more primitive, backward, to an official
nationality with its own territory, language,
culture, and economy
The Nationalities Question, cont’d.
• Natsia (nation), natsional’nost’ (nationality,
developed group), narodnost’ (ethnic group,
underdeveloped group), narod (folk, ethnic
group): a nation is a group of people linked to a
governmental nation, with a designated territory
• Every nation is a nationality, but not every
nationality is a nation
• Every nation and nationality could be an ethnic
group, but not every ethnic group is a nationality
or nation
National in Form,
Socialist in Content
• Lenin viewed nationalities as being on the
path toward the development of the Soviet
state, and for him the content of the
message was more important than the
form (language)
• This would be accomplished by
“convergence and fusion of peoples” – the
ethnic groups would just naturally
coalesce to form a single Sovietskii narod
Stalin and the Nation State
• From 1927 to 1953, Stalin defined Soviet policy:
– “A nation is a historically evolved, stable community of
people, based upon the common possession of four
principal attributes, namely: a common language, a
common territory, a common economic life, and a
common psychological make-up manifesting itself in
common specific features of national culture”
– A nation need not have its own separate national
state
Stalin & the Nation State,
cont’d.
• Stalin defined a nation as
– A stable community of people with
– Common territory
– Common language
– Common economic life
– Common psychological make-up
• This definition decided who could (or could
not) be a nation in the USSR
Nativization (korenizaciia)
• Education in indigenous languages
– Practical goal was to educate indigenous
peoples and get them into the workforce
– Political goal was to reconcile them with
Soviet rule
– This went well in Georgia & Armenia, slowly in
Central Asia & Siberia
Nativization (korenizaciia),
cont’d.
• Problems:
– Lack of trained teachers and materials -those who were sent to Leningrad for training
didn’t return
– Low education levels, many educated people
were bourgeoisie
– Some languages were unwritten, and
teachers gave up and taught in Russian
Nativization (korenizaciia),
cont’d.
• Nativization abandoned in late 1920s,
Russian promoted as best means to
Soviet society
• Stalin shifts focus from national
autonomies to centralized gov’t. &
economy in 1930s, labels nationalism
“dangerous”
Nativization (korenizaciia),
cont’d.
• Outcomes:
– Essential link between language and ethnicity,
language as main criterion for nationhood
– Officially recognized language provided
recognition as an ethnic group
– In order to be officially recognized, a language
had to be written, which led to the creation of
dozens of literary languages into which Soviet
political information was translated
The Literacy Campaign
(Likbez: likvidaciia bezgramotnosti)
• At time of Revolution
only 19 languages had a
written form
• Lack of clear linguistic
boundaries
• Basic research to
identify and codify
languages was a priority
The Literacy Campaign
(Likbez: likvidaciia bezgramotnosti)
• ABCD Hierarchy developed by Party in 1920s to
rank nationalities (all defined by language, other
factors are size, orthography, territory):
– A: Small bilingual nationalities lacking written
language, territorially scattered -> All education in
Russian
– B: Small & medium monolingual nationalities lacking
written form, territorially compact -> Primary
education and propaganda in native language,
secondary & higher education in Russian
The Literacy Campaign
(Likbez: likvidaciia bezgramotnosti)
– C: Medium & large monolingual nationalities
with written form in compact territory -> All
education in native language, but Russian
compulsory from 3rd grade on
– D: Developed nations with written form -> All
education in native language, but Russian
compulsory from 3rd grade on
– Literacy went from 24% in 1897 to 51% in
1926 to 81% in 1939 to 99.7% in 1979
Standardization
• Sometimes the various dialects of a
language were incomprehensible, so even
when a “native” language program was
developed, the “natives” had to learn what
was essentially a foreign language
• In 1932, 80 of 127 Eastern nationalities of
USSR had acquired written languages, in
1936, 90 out of 102 Soviet nationalities
had a written language
Alphabets and Orthography
• Orthographies of languages (7 options)
–
–
–
–
1) no written form at all
2) written form in Cyrillic
3) tradition of using Latin script (Moldavian and German)
4) tradition of using Arabic script (Turkic, Tajiki, and some NakhDagestani and North Caucasian), viewed as uniting those
peoples with Islam and non-USSR peoples
– 5) Mongolian script (Buriat & Kalmyk), viewed as uniting them
with Buddhism and non-USSR peoples; see
http://www.omniglot.com/writing/buryat.htm
– 6) Unique orthographies (Georgian
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georgian_script , Armenian
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Armenian_alphabet )
– 7) Chinese (Chinese immigrants)
Alphabets and Orthography, cont’d.
• 1920s – many languages (except Georgian &
Armenian) were switched to Cyrillic, or had new
Cyrillic orthographies invented for them
• Arabic-script languages were converted to Latin,
completed by 1928-9
• Early 1930s drive toward Latin-scripts affected
nearly all languages (there was even a proposal
to convert Russian, to distance it from tsarist
past) and especially small languages in Siberia,
but by late 1930s, shifted back to Cyrillic; several
languages shifted back and forth…
Alphabets and Orthography, cont’d.
• 1940 All languages had to use Cyrillic (few
exceptions: Armenian, Georgian, Baltic
states, Karelian, Yiddish)
• Implementation of Cyrillic letters was often
clumsy, ignoring the phonemes in the
languages
Language Policy under Stalin
1930-1950
• Stalin ended nativization in 1934 and
made Russian compulsory for all in 1938,
at the same time as all languages were
being converted to Cyrillic
• This added up to Russification
• By 1950s all loanwords (often technical
terminology) were written in original
Russian form in all languages
Marrist doctrine
• Nikolai Marr (1865-1934) most
influential Soviet “linguist”
• Inspired by Marx, class
struggle, dialectical
materialism
• Social change takes place
through conflict, and happens
in sudden leaps (not
gradually)
• So does language change
Marrist doctrine
• Knew Georgian, but was not a trained
linguist
• Posited genetic relationships that are not
supported by linguistic research, for
example common ancestor for Caucasian
and Semitic (refuted by Meillet and others)
• Very popular until renounced by Stalin in
1950
• Russification further intensified afterward
Language policy after WWII
• Mid 1950s – major shift in language policy, new
focus on Russian as THE language of the USSR
• Khrushchev – Soviet people united by both
politics and language
• Relative importance of languages – smaller
languages could not be developed
• 1958-9 Еducation reforms: instruction of Russian
increased at expense of other languages,
Russian becomes compulsory everywhere
Brezhnev and the
1970s
• Russification further accelerated; goal is
establishment of Sovetskii narod with “a
common language”
• 1936 Constitution had guaranteed a right
to instruction in native language, but in
1977 this was re-worded as an
opportunity or possibility of access
• Russian comes to dominate local
administration also
Language and Education
• Overall trend was from using native language as
language of instruction to using Russian as
language of instruction
• 1938 – Russian became compulsory for all
children, but still there were problems with
qualified teachers and centralized textbooks
even for Russian
• The changing of indigenous orthographies from
Latin to Cyrillic only exacerbated problems with
teaching materials
• Supply of teachers and materials further
deteriorated during WWII
The Press
• The government also had to
control/censor all of the newspapers and
publications in all of the languages.
• Republics usually had two newspapers,
one in titular language and one in Russian,
and both derived their articles from
nationwide newspapers
Perestroika
• 1985 Gorbachev: all young Soviet
citizens had some Russian
training, as had the majority of
others
• Massive language shift toward
Russian (feared in some regions,
eg. Armenia)
• Gorbachev focused on economic
and political issues and did not
change language policy
Perestroika, cont’d.
• In years leading up to break-up of USSR, there
was a break-up of language policy:
– 1987 use of Moldovan expanded and converted to
Romanian spelling
– 1989 Estonian promoted to state language in
Estonian SSR, and same happened in Latvia and
Lithuania, and then in all Republics except RSFSR
and Transcausasian Republics (which had done this
in 1978)
– 1990 Central Soviet government declared Russian to
be THE state language of USSR