Ukraine from the language-learner’s perspective

This may just be the most dangerous blog post I’ve ever written. –Not that it’s dangerous in the same way Akhmatova’s or Mandelstam’s poetry in the Stalinist era was dangerous. It’s just that usually I talk about very benign topics to which no one has any emotional reactions (except maybe when I talk about dill), and Ukraine is… tricky.

First, on the whole, from the perspective of an American in Russia:

No one is telling me the truth. Russian, British, and American news sources are all reporting vastly different things, and rather than sweating over which one is the least biased, I’ve landed on the decision that they’ve all got their own agendas, and the fact is that I cannot fully believe any of them. Why? Because all of them claim, “Ukraine wants x,” or, “The Ukrainian people want y.” But who is Ukraine, anyway? This isn’t 1984; people all have their own opinions. Any article that claims to represent the feelings of the whole country is just kidding itself, and I don’t need to bother myself trying to figure out if it’s true.

That’s interesting. That’s journalism. That’s politics. What I’m really interested in is the connection between the situation in Ukraine and language, specifically the Russian language.

Prepositions

The Russian language has two prepositions roughly equivalent to the English “to,” namely, в and на.

В is used for enclosed spaces… it’s the preposition used to refer to stores, churches, pretty much all buildings. It’s also used for countries, because while the whole country is not under some kind of ceiling, there are specific boundaries/borders which define the space.

На is used for open spaces… it is used when talking about going to the market, to the beach, etc. And interestingly enough, it is also used when talking about Ukraine.

I asked one of my professors about this in class at the beginning of the semester. Why do people refer to Ukraine using на? Isn’t it kind of weird, politically, now that Ukraine is its own sovereign entity, with borders just like any other country?

She explained to me that Украина (Ukraine) is pretty much straight from the Russian у края (by the edge). The word “край” (edge) always takes на, because an edge is not an enclosed space. Therefore, it is proper to say на in reference to Ukraine. It is not a political question, but a linguistic one.

This consideration does elucidate an idea about Ukraine inherent to the Russian language: it is more an edge than it is an enclosed territory. And every time a Russian talks about Ukraine, that is blatantly obvious.

Cultural Identity

On a less technical note, something I’ve realized since being here is how much of the Russian culture is tied up in its language. From Pushkin to Lenin, all that is considered genuinely Russian was delivered in that very language: the French speech and literature of the Imperial Court is considered to be separate from what is truly Russia, just because it was French.

Even for Americans, it’s hard to think of something being written or spoken in French and being representative of Russia, and much more of something being written or spoken in Russian-the-language and not being representative of Russia-the-country. For example, Nabokov was not actually particularly Russian. He left the country at the age of 17, and all of his writing was done elsewhere. Still, we consider him Russian, just because he wrote in that language.

Lest you protest that it is the same for other languages, think: what other great empires have connected their language so closely to the source country? When literature is written in English in India or South Africa, that literature is not considered British. When literature is written in French in North Africa or Canada, it is not tied to France-the-country. When literature was written in Latin anywhere in the ancient world, it did not mark itself forever as Italian.

Russian is different. You couldn’t have Russia-the-country without the Russian-the-language. And the argument goes, you can’t have the language without the country.

That’s one of the reasons this Ukraine/Crimea situation is so difficult for Russians. If they speak Russian, especially since they’re right next-door, they must be (inherently, essentially) Russian. After all, 20 years ago the border between Russia and Ukraine didn’t really mean anything. The gift of Crimea to Ukraine in the 50s definitely didn’t mean anything. By reabsorbing the Russian-speaking parts of Ukraine, Russia would only be offering integrity to those people whose life’s blood and cultural thought is Russian.

My conclusion? The Ukraine question goes deeper than economics. It’s intriguing to see it happening from this side of the line, to talk to people from Russia and Ukraine about what’s going on… specifically, to talk about it in Russian. I wonder if the conversations would go any differently in English?