Ukraine War Related--With Background Material
Several times in past posts I’ve included maps that illustrate Ukraine’s ethno-linguistic makeup and, especially, how those realities have been consistently reflected in Ukraine’s elections. Here I’ll try to illustrate some of the complexities of the situation.
First, a map—Languages spoken at home in Ukraine, 2009 polling
To put some context to this strictly geographical picture:
According to the 2001 census, Ukrainian is spoken by about 67.5% of the population of Ukraine as their native language. The next most popular languages spoken in Ukraine is Russian with about 29.6% native speakers. Russian is also spoken as a second language by most Ukrainian speakers.
Ukrainian is most popular in central and western Ukraine. In central Ukraine, both Ukrainian and Russian are equally spoken in the cities but in western Ukraine, Ukrainian is the dominant language used by the urban population. In the rural communities of these regions, Ukrainian is the most spoken language. In Kiev, Russian speakers outnumber the Ukrainian speakers. In the southern and eastern parts of Ukraine, Russian is the most popular language in the cities while Ukrainian remains dominant in the rural areas.
What transpires from this is that, outside Crimea and Donbas, Russian is dominant in urban settings as a home language in the south and east of the country. That means that Russian is dominant as a home language in several of the largest and most important cities, including Kharkiw, Dnipro, and Odessa. The urban populations in those areas greatly outnumber the rural populations.
However, this doesn’t give a full picture of how integrated into Ukrainian life the Russian language actually is. From Languages of Ukraine—and keep in mind the efforts of the ultra nationalists to ban Russian as an official language:
Language and daily life
In an 11–23 December 2015 study by the Razumkov Centre taken in all regions of Ukraine other than Russian-annexed Crimea, and separatist controlled Donetsk, and Luhansk, a majority considered Ukrainian their native language (60%), followed by Russian (15%), while 22% used both languages equally. Two percent had another native language. For the preferred language of work, an equal amount chose either Ukrainian or Russian (37%) and 21% communicated bilingually. The study polled 10,071 individuals and held a 1% margin of error.
Note that—even excluding the two most dominantly Russian speaking regions—only 60% of Ukrainians in this study considered Ukrainian to be their native language. Even so, the language preference in the work place was evenly divided. Which means that a large percentage of those who claimed Ukrainian as their native language nevertheless preferred to use Russian in the work place.
In the earlier polling, before the separation of dominantly Russian speaking Crimea and Donbas, preference for Russian was as high as an absolute majority of those polled: 52%.
Past polling
In an October 2009 poll by FOM-Ukraine of 1,000 respondents, 52% stated they use Russian as their "Language of communication"; while 41% of the respondents state they use Ukrainian and 8% stated they use a mixture of both.
Why would this be? The answer seems to be that even among native Ukrainian speakers the “standard of knowledge” of Russian is higher than for Ukrainian—Russian simply remains the language of the internet and of higher education for many Ukrainians, and therefore of the work place as well. The difference isn’t huge, but it speaks to the complexity of language use:
A March 2010 poll by Research & Branding Group showed that 65% considered Ukrainian as their native language and 33% Russian. This poll also showed the standard of knowledge of the Russian language (free conversational language, writing and reading) in current Ukraine is higher (76%) than the standard of knowledge of the Ukrainian language (69%). More respondents preferred to speak Ukrainian (46%) than Russian (38%) with 16% preferring to speak both in equal manner.
How important has this been for Ukrainians in past years, before the US decided to use Ukraine in a proxy war against Russia? It seems that, except for a quite small minority, this simply really wasn’t an issue:
A poll held November 2009 revealed that 54.7% of the population of Ukraine believed the language issue in Ukraine was irrelevant, that each person could speak the language they preferred and that a lot more important problems existed in the country; 14.7% of those polled stated that the language issue was an urgent problem that could not be postponed and that calls for immediate resolution; another 28.3% believed that, while the language issue needed to be resolved, this could be postponed.
An August 2011 poll by Razumkov Centre showed that 53.3% of the respondents use the Ukrainian language in everyday life, while 44.5% use Russian.
Now another map, which should provide a clue as to the location of that 14.7% of Ukraine’s population, for whom the language issue was “an urgent problem” that couldn’t wait. I believe that this map can be used as a proxy to measure the degree of Ukrainian national consciousness in opposition to Russia, and thus it probably accurately assesses the regions in which the language issue is felt to be “urgent”.
Note that areas opposed to remaining in a federation with Russia are quite dramatically isolated in southwest of Ukraine. Generally, Ukrainians were overwhelmingly in favor of federation with Russia, but in the southwest—in the three oblasts of Lviv, Ternopil, and Ivano-Frankivsk—the population was just as overwhelmingly opposed to such a federation.
This area corresponds to a distinct cultural region, known formerly as eastern Galicia:
For many centuries Galicia was part of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, and until the end of World War II—with its attendant ethnic cleansing/genocide—Ukrainians were a largely rural population, while the cities were dominantly Polish and Jewish (cf. Lviv, for example). Ukrainians in this region were, and still are, dominantly Uniate Catholics (Greek Catholics)—meaning that they’re in union with Rome, rather than with any of the several Orthodox churches (including those in union with the Moscow patriarchate). Cf. Religion in Ukraine.
Statistically speaking, Greek Catholics are almost invisible outside Galicia which, along with a distinctive dialect and distinctive history, sets Galicia off from the rest of Ukraine. Small wonder, then, that all these differences are also reflected in politics. More darkly, Galicia was the area that was a recruiting ground for German Nazis and was the stronghold of the original Ukrainian Insurgent Army and its modern Neo-Nazi offspring—you can see Zelenskiy wearing its distinctive insignia on his olive drab tee-shirt:
This is the region that has been a strong recruiting ground for the ultra nationalist and neo-Nazi Azov Battalion that has become the backbone of the Ukrainian Army. This is also the region in which the CIA and other NATO services have located their training camps—including the one that was recently rocketed by the Russians. This background may also explain why the Azov Battalion has been so willing to use civilians in the heavily Russia cities of eastern Ukraine as human shields, and to bombard civilian areas indiscriminately and even to speak of ethnic cleansing of Russians. Those civilians are simply not their people.
How many Americans do you think have the slightest idea of all this, and of the irresponsibility of the US getting involved? The inhumanity of the war there is on the US. Here’s an actual inhabitant of the region trying to educate a typical outsider:
Finally, link only, here is an assessment by a professional war watcher (Bill Roggio) who, for whatever reasons, is in sympathy with the Zelenskiy regime. It’s dated March 2, but I believe it reflects a realistic POV:
Thanks for this masterful explanation of the complex ethno-linguistic background to this war!
Here’s another good summary of Russia’s military approach, this one from from a former CIA guy named Larry Johnson.
https://sonar21.com/putting-russias-ukraine-invasion-in-context/