Language policy in Ukraine

Language policy in Ukraine is based on its Constitution, international treaties and on domestic legislation. According to article 10 of the Constitution, Ukrainian is the official language of Ukraine, and the state shall ensure the comprehensive development and functioning of the Ukrainian language in all spheres of social life throughout the entire territory of the country. Other languages spoken in Ukraine are granted constitutional protection, and Russian is recognized as the language of a national minority.

The 2012 law granted regional language status to Russian and other minority languages. It allowed the use of minority languages in courts, schools and other government institutions in areas of Ukraine where the national minorities exceed 10% of the population. The 2012 law was supported by the governing Party of regions and opposed by the opposition parties, who argued that the law undermined the role of the Ukrainian language, violated Article 10 of the Constitution, and was adopted with an irregular procedure. Immediately after the 2014 Ukrainian revolution, on 23 February 2014, the Ukrainian Parliament voted to repeal the law. This decision was vetoed by the acting President Turchynov." In October 2014, the Constitutional Court started reviewing the constitutionality of the 2012 law and declared it unconstitutional on 28 February 2018.

In April 2019, the Ukrainian parliament voted a new law, the law "On supporting the functioning of the Ukrainian language as the State language". The law made the use of Ukrainian compulsory (totally or within quotas) in more than 30 spheres of public life, including public administration, electoral process, education, science, culture, media, economic and social life, health and care institutions, and activities of political parties. The law did not regulate private communication. Some exemptions were provided for the official languages of the European Union and for minority languages, with the exclusion of Russian, Belarusian and Yiddish. European Commission for Democracy through Law (Venice Commission)
Ukraine - Opinion on the Law on Supporting the Functioning of the Ukrainian Language as the State Language
adopted by the Venice Commission at its 121st Plenary Session (Venice, 6–7 December 2019), CDL-AD(2019)032. The Venice Commission and Human Rights Watch expressed concern about the 2019 law's failure to protect the language rights of Ukrainian minorities.

Following the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine, on 19 June the Ukrainian parliament passed two laws which placed restrictions on Russian books and music. The new laws ban Russian citizens from printing books unless they take Ukrainian citizenship, prohibit the import of books printed in Russia, Belarus and the occupied Ukrainian territories, and prohibit the reproduction in the media and public transport of music performed or created by post-1991 Russian citizens, unless the musicians are included in a "white list" of artists who have publicly condemned Russian aggression against Ukraine.

Overview

Since the fall of the Soviet Union and the independence of Ukraine, the Russian language has dwindled. In 2001 it remained one of the two most used languages for business, legal proceedings, science, artistry, and many other spheres of everyday life. According to the 2001 census, 67.5% of the citizens of Ukraine regarded Ukrainian as their native language, with Russian being considered the native language for another 29.6%. Various other languages constituted the remaining 2.9%.

Soviet era

During the Soviet era, the status of Ukrainian was legally codified in 1922, when Ukrainian and Russian were declared to be of "national significance" and schools were allowed to use them both in teaching; they were never adopted as official languages of Soviet Ukraine but had formally equal status as "generally used languages". In practice, however, Ukrainian was mainly a rural language and had lower prestige than Russian, which was the language of the educated urban society. After an initial phase of official commitment to Ukrainization in the 1920s and early 1930s, the Soviet era was marked by an increasing trend toward Russification. In 1938 the study of Russian was made obligatory and in 1958 the study of the mother-tongue was made optional. From 1959 to 1989, on average 60-70% of the population spoke Ukrainian and 20% spoke Russian; Yiddish was also widely spoken by the decreasing Jewish population (from 14% in 1959 to 3.9% in 1989).

1989 Law of the Languages

On 28 October 1989, the Supreme Soviet of the Ukrainian SSR adopted the "Law of Languages". The Ukrainian language was declared the only official language, while the other languages spoken in Ukraine were guaranteed constitutional protection. The government was obliged to create the conditions required for the development and use of Ukrainian language as well as languages of other ethnic groups, including Russian. Usage of other languages, along with Ukrainian, was allowed in local institutions located in places of residence of the majority of citizens of the corresponding ethnicities. clarification_needed''.html" ;"title="Wikipedia:Please clarify">clarification needed''">Wikipedia:Please clarify">clarification needed''/sup> Citizens were guaranteed the right to use their native or any other languages and were entitled to address various institutions and organisations in Ukrainian, in Russian, or in another language of their work, or in a language acceptable to the parties. Following the Ukrainian independence and the dissolution of the Soviet Union, the law, with some minor amendments, remained in force in the independent Ukrainian state.

Ukrainian Constitution

The Constitution of Ukraine, adopted by the Verkhovna Rada on 28 June 1996, states at article 10: "The state language of Ukraine is the Ukrainian language. The State ensures the comprehensive development and functioning of the Ukrainian language in all spheres of social life throughout the entire territory of Ukraine. In Ukraine, the free development, use and protection of Russian, and other languages of national minorities of Ukraine, is guaranteed".

2012 Law on the Principles of the State Language Policy

On 7 February 2012 members of the Verkhovna Rada Serhii Kivalov and Vadym Kolesnychenko (both from the Party of Regions) entered a bill (commonly called "Kolesnychenko-Kivalov language bill"), that would have given the status of regional language to Russian and other minority languages. It allowed the use of minority languages in courts, schools and other government institutions in areas of Ukraine where the national minorities exceed 10% of the population.

Supporters of the 2012 bill argued it would have made life easier for Russian-speaking Ukrainians. Opponents feared that the adoption of Russian as a minority language could have spread rapidly, challenging Ukrainian and causing splits between eastern and western Ukraine. In practice Russian at the time was already used widely in official establishments in Ukraine.

In May 2012 Vadym Kolesnychenko, one of the authors of the 2012 language law, claimed that the law was supported by several higher education bodies, scientists and NGOs. On 9 February 2013, Russian President Vladimir Putin awarded him and another author of the language law, Serhiy Kivalov, with the Medal of Pushkin for their "great contribution to the preservation and promotion of the Russian language and culture abroad".

Some say that the bill contradicts the Constitution of Ukraine, violates the Budget Code, and aims to annihilate the Ukrainian language. It suffered a criticism in the conclusions of state authorities and their departments: the Main Scientific-Expert Bureau of the Ukrainian Parliament (23 May 2012), the Parliamentary Committee on Culture and Spirituality (September 23, 2011), the Parliamentary Committee on Budget (3 November 2011), Ministry of Finance (9 September 2011), the Ministry of Justice (27 September 2011). The bill also failed to obtain the support of the specialized institutions of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine: the Linguistics Institute, the Institute of the Ukrainian Language, the Institute of political and ethno-national researches, the Shevchenko Institute of Literature, the Institute of State and Law, the Ukrainian linguistic-informational Fund, the Philology Institute of Kyiv University, and the Academy of Sciences of the High School of Ukraine.

Opinion adopted by the Venice Commission

In December 2011, the Venice Commission of the Council of Europe issued an opinion on the draft law questioning whether the parallel use of Ukrainian and Russian was in compliance with article 10 of the Constitution: "the question remains whether ..there are sufficient guarantees, in the current Draft Law, for the consolidation of the Ukrainian language as the sole State language, and of the role it has to play in the Ukrainian multilinguistic society".

''Ukrayinska Pravda'' reported that the Venice Commission did not find in the draft law enough guarantees for the protection of the Ukrainian language, and that the Commission had come to the conclusion that the proposed law was just "another tool of the election campaign" for the Party of Regions. Kolesnichenko, one of the authors of the law, claimed that the Opinion was "generally supportive", but the opponents noted that it contained strong criticism about the failure to protect the role of Ukrainian as the State language.

Fight in parliament

Prior to 24 May 2012, there were rumors that a revision of the legislation on languages would take place in parliament (the Verkhovna Rada) and that the Secretary of National Security and Defense would attend the session. Some 1,000 protesters gathered just outside the Verkhovna Rada building setting up another tent city. State law enforcement warned the protesters not to establish a tent city.

At the evening session, the parliamentary opposition in the Verkhovna Rada (Yulia Tymoshenko Bloc and Our Ukraine-People's Self-Defense Bloc) blocked the main tribune in parliament as some representatives from the Party of Regions surrounded the presidium. The speaker was forced to announce a break in the session. After the break, Member of Parliament Vyacheslav Kyrylenko read a statement of the united opposition not to conduct any hearings regarding language issues. After the law draft #10154 "On the state language of Ukraine" was not adopted onto the daily agenda, Kyrylenko withdrew his draft #9059 "Prohibition of narrowing the sphere of use of Ukrainian language" from a revision, while Kolesnichenko gave a presentation on his draft #9073. The head of the Committee On Issues of Culture and Spirituality Volodymyr Yavorivsky disclosed the decision of the committee to reject the bill #9073 as it was the decision of the committee's majority. He pointed to the fact that the law draft in fact will introduce a bilingual situation in number of regions. However, after a review, the bill was supported by the parliamentary majority which showed its support in adopting two state languages: Ukrainian and Russian. The parliamentary minority and the deputy group "Reforms for the Future" stayed in opposition to the bill. Parliament speaker Volodymyr Lytvyn was forced to hastily close the session as further discussion descended into another fight leaving some members of parliament injured.

The Party of Regions released a statement to the press where it accused the opposition of impeding the enactment of a bill that protects some constitutional rights of millions of citizens of Ukraine. PoR leader in parliament Yefremov promised to revisit the issue once everything is stable.

Implementation

The bill was eventually adopted by the Verkhovna Rada on second reading on 3 July 2012; it was supported by the Party of Regions, the Communist Party of Ukraine and the Lytvyn Bloc, while it was strongly opposed by the Yulia Tymoshenko Bloc and the Our Ukraine-People's Self-Defence Bloc. The bill was to come into force only after it was signed by Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych and the Chairman of Parliament. But the Chairman of Parliament Volodymyr Lytvyn tendered his resignation on 4 July 2012. However, the Verkhovna Rada twice held votes of confidence in the speaker, and did not accept his resignation. On 31 July, Lytvyn signed the law. The bill was signed by President Yanukovych on 8 August 2012. The law came into force on 10 August 2012.

Since then, various Ukrainian cities and regions have declared Russian a regional language in their jurisdictions, these being the municipalities of Odessa, Kharkiv