Features of Language Policy in Soviet Ukraine: Socio-communicational Aspect (1960s–1980s)

Abstract

The purpose of the article is to examine the controversial aspects of language policy in Soviet Ukraine in the 1960s-1980s through the prism of the socio-communicational approach. The research methodology is based on the use of general scientific and special methods of cognition, in particular, periodisation, historical and comparative, typological, statistical methods, as well as a combination of the principles of scientific objectivity and systematicity. Scientific novelty. The article clarifies the features and content of the stages of language policy in the 1960s-1980s in Soviet Ukraine. Separately, on the basis of archival documents, it has been shown that in the second half of the 1980s, under the influence of the processes of “perestroika” and the speeches of the Ukrainian public, the national language policy in the republic changed towards the spread of the use of the Ukrainian language in social communication space, which led to the adoption of the Law “On Languages in the Ukrainian SSR” in 1989. Conclusions. The article shows that the language policy in the Ukrainian SSR in the 1960s-1980s was somewhat ambiguous, which was determined by the ideological line of the CPSU Central Committee. Thus, in the 1960s, there was a departure from the despotic policy of the Stalinist period and a decade of Khrushchev's thaw. During the 1970s and first half of the 1980s, anti-Ukrainian measures based on Russification were launched with renewed vigour. Russian became the language of everyday communication for the majority of the urban population, with the exception of the western regions. From the second half of the 1980s, during the unfolding of the policy of “perestroika” and active public protests against the background of glasnost, certain democratisation and economic reform, the use of the Ukrainian language in state institutions became widespread. In 1989, the Law “On Languages in the Ukrainian SSR” was adopted and remained in force until 2012. Further research is needed into the factors of the spread of the Russian language in different regions of the Ukrainian SSR, as well as the motivation of the population to perceive this process.

Key words: Ukrainian language; language policy; Russification; Ukrainian SSR; Soviet power.