Who Are We Without the Language of Our Ancestors?
Yes, indeed, who are we without the language of our ancestors?
A Lesson on Identity
I was reminded of the importance of language on a recent cruise to Alaska. The cruiseship had arranged for a cultural presentation by a Tlingit elder. She talked about her residential school years, when her native language and culture were condemned and suppressed. She addressed the problem of identity, of not being able to speak in the language of her ancestors. She didn’t know who she was. Today, she and others in her community are working hard to ensure their language will not die. They are teaching it to their young, preserving it for generations to come.
My Formative Years
I grew up in Winnipeg, in a land where the dominant language is English, but English isn’t the language my parents were raised in. Mom and Dad, both immigrants from Ukraine (1929 and 1912), worked long hours, so Baba (my grandmother) took care of me and she didn’t speak English. We spoke Ukrainian at home, and for that I’m thankful. As I grew older, my parents sent me to Ukrainian school after my regular school hours and to a camp (two summers in a row) in my teens. They made sure I knew the language, the folk songs, the crafts, the history, and the dances of Ukraine. It didn’t make me any less Canadian.
A Visit to Ukraine in 1988
In 1988, my mother took me, my husband, and our two daughters to Ukraine to see Kivertsi, the village she came from. At the time, Ukraine was called the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic, governed by a branch of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union led by Gorbachev and the Kremlin. When we stayed in Lutsk, relatives from a nearby village had to hand in their passports at the hotel desk to see us in our rooms. None of the relatives would speak freely for fear of the hotel room being bugged. And unsurprisingly, the village hadn’t changed. It still had its dirt roads and outhouses covering a hole in the ground. Such was life under the rule of the Soviet Union.
While in Soviet Ukraine, I was shocked to learn how much the Ukrainian language had been corrupted by the introduction of too many Russian words. I barely recognized the mother tongue I’d been taught as a child. There were three distinct incidents that underlined the difference between what I knew and what the language had become under Russian rule.
- In a jewellery shop in Lutsk, I was talking to my mother in Ukrainian when an elderly man approached and asked me how I had learned to speak Ukrainian. He noticed my western dress and knew I wasn’t from the area. I told him my baba had taught me in Canada. He began to cry. He was so thankful that the Ukrainian language hadn’t been lost. It may have been corrupted in Ukraine but it existed elsewhere in the Ukrainian diaspora.
- Our Russian guide arranged for us to see a Ukrainian film. I had done some acting in Canada and was anxious to see a Ukrainian film. She showed us a film called Lysenko, the story about Mykola Lysenko, the great Ukrainian composer. I watched the film and understood very little. I told her this was a Russian film, not a Ukrainian one, as the actors all spoke Russian.
- And then when we were in Lviv, Robert and I met a medical student in a café line-up. He told us there was going to be a demonstration by the intelligentsia (professionals, artists, writers, etc.) in Ivan Franko park to complain about the government’s decision to convert all Ukrainian documents into Russian. The question of who are we without the language of our ancestors was very much on the minds of the bright young people of Lviv.
Putin’s Argument for Invading Ukraine
One of Putin’s reasons for invading Ukraine has to do with language, but it’s not a legitimate one.
A little bit of history is essential here. After Stalin executed a man-made famine in the 1930s in Eastern Ukraine that killed millions of Ukrainians, now known as the Holodomor, Russians moved into those empty villages and farms and claimed that land as their own. As a result, there are many Russian speakers in Eastern Ukraine, specifically Donetsk and Luhansk.
Over the centuries, various Russian rulers closed down Ukrainian schools, suppressed the Ukrainian language, and made the Russian language the primary one in Ukraine.
To preserve the Ukrainian language before it was lost and corrupted any more, Ukraine’s present government mandated the use of the Ukrainian language in professional settings and in the media. It DID NOT outlaw the use of the Russian language in homes or social settings. Rather, it made the Ukrainian language the official one in the country. After all, the country is Ukraine, not Russia.
Today, Ukraine is battling Russia with a ferocity that has surprised the world. Its people battle because they fear living under the Russian thumb. They know from their history that living under Russian rule would mean a loss of their identity, the language of their ancestors. It would be an erosion of what it means to be Ukrainian.
A Literary Example
The opening chapter of Sunflowers Under Fire,, the first novel of Lukia’s Family Saga series begins in 1915, during WWI. In this historical and biographical fiction, Lukia raises her fears about their language with her husband, who’s volunteered to fight in the Tsar’s army.
“Frown all you like, but I promised the Tsar and Tsarina I’d help fight these devils.”
She spat. “The hell with the Tsar and Tsarina! You promised me first.”
“What are you saying?”
When we got married,” she said, arching her eyebrows, “the priest said we were one flesh, and now you want to tear us apart? We may have to leave at any moment. We’ll be forced to run.”
“If we win this battle, you won’t have to leave.”
“How do you know? Our army, biggest in the world they say, has been fighting for a year and where has it got us? Nowhere. From what I’ve heard, you’ll be lucky to be fed.” She shook her head.
He tightened his lips. “Stop shaking your head. You only make matters worse.”
“And what are you going to do, speak Russian?”
“The Tsar isn’t stopping us from speaking Ukrainian anymore.”
“Oh, he’s had a change of heart, has he?” She waved her fork at him. “It’s probably because he needs Ukrainians to do his dirty work. Well, I spit on the Tsar. We’re nothing to him.”
It’s that nothingness that Ukrainians felt under Russian rule that drives them to fight so hard today. Nobody wants to feel like nothing. The Tinglit, like other indigenous people, know that story too well.
It’s Not Just the Language for Putin
Because Putin was threatened by Ukraine’s interest in an alliance with Europe, rather than one with Russia, he invaded Ukraine, a sovereign and independent nation, on Feb. 24, 2022. He would love nothing more than another Russian empire. He was in a KGB building in East Berlin near the wall when it came down and has never accepted the break-up of the Soviet Republic.
Since then, Putin’s been dreaming of getting those lands back. In 2008, when NATO was considering opening its doors to Georgia (once part of the Soviet Union), Putin felt threatened. So he backed the Russian separatists in Georgia and started a war.
Similarly, Putin’s been chipping away at Ukraine. In 2014, when Ukraine became aggressive about wanting to join NATO, Putin annexed Crimea and started a civil war in Eastern Ukraine by backing the Russian separatists living there.
Be Wary of Russian Propaganda
Russia has pulled out all stops to bring Ukraine to its knees. Putin, being the leader of a country with vast resources, has deep pockets and has used that wealth to justify his invasion and propogate lies about the Ukrainian people. He’s done the same with Georgia.
I keep seeing twitter posts about his goal to de-Nazify Ukraine, as if Ukraine is crawling with Nazis. Again, Putin’s use of Nazi rhetoric is not new. The fact remains that 70% of Ukrainians overwhelmingly elected Zelenskyy, a Jewish president.
Our Rich Heritage
We need to preserve the language of our ancestors, whatever that may be. When we do, we are all richer for it. I love living in a multi-cultural and diverse society, like Canada. We may be different from one another because of our family’s origins, but we are the same when it comes to wanting respect for those differences.
Where would we be without the language of our ancestors?
Comments are appreciated.
