Does the process of merging one people with another occur peacefully or militarily, in a phase of ethnic conflict, only by force or only in the form of peaceful cooperation? Ethnic assimilation.
Assimilation of peoples in Russia: the Tatars will save the country from the collapse of the federation and internal conflicts. A question that will make concerned fellow citizens think seriously.
Russia is a multinational federal state consisting of districts and republics. Each region has its own ethnic groups, so the government gives them the right to choose their own local government, adopt laws and even separate constitutions. This is a certain compromise, and preserves for some period peaceful coexistence within the borders of a single state.
However, support for other ethnic groups in Russia is very weak. People in the regions live poorly, the official language in Russia is in fact only Russian, therefore, as a result of internal migration and weak state support for ethnic cultures, there is a strong assimilation of other nationalities, the consequences of which can be very sad.
The decline in the number of individual ethnic groups in Russia can be seen from the forecast graphs. In addition, there are real examples of the consequences of assimilation - in Belarus, for example, the last university in Belarusian language, and in a number of Russian regions local schools are being liquidated and education in local languages is being abandoned. This is often done by the parents themselves, since the child, after finishing school in Khanty or Chuvash, experiences difficulties with his future life. He is deprived of prospects - there is no work in his native region, and he cannot go to the capital, since he does not speak Russian well enough.
The degeneration of ethnic groups will invariably lead to the growth of nationalism in the regions and even the threat of separatism. This is a natural struggle for the survival of one’s people - the path to maximum independence. Naturally, this has very negative prospects for the country as a whole.
In order to maintain its borders in the future, Russia has three options - either abandon the federal structure and introduce a strict unified management controlled by the special services. This will naturally cause a negative reaction from the world community.
The second way is intensive support for autonomies and nationalities, but this will require enormous resources. In fact, today there is only enough money for Chechnya alone.
The third way is to maintain the status of a multinational state by creating controlled artificial assimilation with the help of a third ethnic group.
Tatars will save the federation
The Tatars are the best choice for artificial assimilation in Russia. This is the second largest people in the country. This is an intelligent and hard-working people, its representatives have very few radicals, the Tatars have been getting along well with Russians and other ethnic groups for centuries, they live in Altai, Khakassia, Siberia, Moscow, and generally throughout Russia.
Artificial assimilation will involve increased subsidies to multinational families with the participation of Tatars. For example, providing them with housing, double maternity capital, free education for children, and so on. Naturally, payments will be “officially” made by the regional authorities of the Republic of Tatarstan, ostensibly in support of fellow countrymen, so as not to provoke the growth of intolerance.
Chuvash, Evenki, Chukchi, Khanty and Mansi will begin to migrate to Tatarstan to marry Tatars. This will relieve Moscow and large cities from internal migration. Naturally, some internal migrants will leave with the Tatars for their regions. Creating the necessary motivation for this is not a problem.
The second point is the unification of regions. We can start with the consolidation of Tatarstan, Bashkortostan and the Orenburg region with Dagestan. Crimea is leased to Kazakhstan, in exchange Russia receives part of the territory and a direct road to the North Caucasus.
The third reform is language. The Tatar language becomes the state language, document circulation throughout the country is conducted in Russian and Tatar. Russia will also set a good example for Ukraine, which has been leaning toward federation and bilingualism for many years.
The strategic union of the Tatars with other peoples will make it possible to solve all future problems in one fell swoop. national issues. Each family will have a Tatar, which will put them on the same level as Russians (Putin himself said that everyone has a Tatar in their family).
Not a single international human rights organization will be able to undermine Russia after such a reform.
Therefore, this idea is quite good for long-term forecasting of the assimilation of peoples in the Russian Federation, although it requires detailed study.
One of the main and most effective ways to increase the number of Russians in Ukraine, along with their natural and mechanical increase, was intensive ethnic assimilation (Russification) of Ukrainian and other peoples. This process acquired especially active development during the Soviet period, which was a direct consequence of the national policy of the party and state leadership of the USSR.
By ethnic assimilation, scientists understand the merger with one or another, as a rule, more culturally developed or numerically predominant ethnic community in a given territory, of individual ethnic groups that find themselves in its midst. In other words, ethnic assimilation leads to the complete loss of one’s own ethnic characteristics and the transformation of those assimilated into representatives of another ethnic group.
There are two types of ethnic assimilation - natural and forced (artificial). Natural assimilation must be viewed as the result of the integration of individual ethnic minority groups, especially immigrants who have settled permanently in another ethnic environment. Natural assimilation occurs through direct contact of ethnically different population groups and is due to the natural need for their common economic and cultural coexistence, as well as interethnic (exogamous) marriages.
Natural assimilation was more typical for those ethnic minorities that did not have compact settlement areas, as well as for the few migrants who were scattered in an international environment and did not have the opportunity to establish permanent connections with their historical homeland. In addition, natural assimilation is a fairly gradual and long-term process of loss of individual ethnic characteristics. And even single migrants become fully assimilated only in the second or third generation. That is, the children and grandchildren of first-generation migrants are subject to complete and irreversible assimilation.
So, natural assimilation occurs where the indigenous majority gradually absorbs the invading minority. Ukrainians are autochthons on their ethnic lands, and besides, they were not a minority, but just an absolute majority among the total population. In terms of the development of their culture, including their language, they were not inferior to the Russians, therefore their ethnic assimilation (Russification) in Ukraine cannot be considered natural. Therefore, the mass Russification of Ukrainian on their own ethnic lands is not a type of natural, but artificial, inherently violent assimilation.
According to the definition of V.I. Kozlova, “forced assimilation is typical for countries where nationalities have unequal rights, and is a system of government measures and local authorities in the school education system and other areas public life", aimed at artificially accelerating the process of assimilation by suppressing or oppressing the language and culture of ethnic minorities, putting pressure on their self-awareness." The forced Russification of Ukrainians was a long-term ethnic process and was a direct result of policies pursued by both the Tsarist and Soviet governments.
Back in the 20s pp. The Bolshevik Party viewed Tsarist Russia as a “prison of nations” and condemned the Tsarist policy of Russification, at least in words. The resolution of the 10th Congress of the RCP (b) in 1921 emphasized that the policy of the tsarist government towards non-Russian peoples was aimed at “killing among them the beginnings of any statehood, crippling their culture, restricting their language, keeping them in ignorance and ultimately As a result, if possible, protect them."
On the day of “Ukrainization” of the 20s pp. it was believed that the artificial, forced Russification of Ukrainian would be ended and the process of gradual de-Russification would begin. “The revolution is the end of the Russification policy (policy of Russification - B.C.) of tsarism and now, through the correct national policy of the party and the Soviet government, we are witnessing the reverse process - the daily and systematic Ukrainization of the proletariat.” But after the conscious and accelerated curtailment of “Ukrainization” from the beginning of the 30s, the forced Russification of Ukrainian not only resumed, but also intensified significantly.
Since the early 30s pp. In Soviet scientific literature, the term “assimilation” itself began to be used quite limitedly. As the Soviet demographer V.I. admitted. Kozlov: “Many authors, when analyzing ethnic processes in the USSR, avoid using the term “assimilation”, so they identify it with a forced assimilation policy.” 84 The very term “Russification,” as it was then called “Russification,” completely disappeared from the works of Soviet scientists. This was primarily due to the fact that the consequences of the Soviet policy of “Russification” were much greater in scale than the results of the corresponding policy of the autocracy.
And in order to prevent analogies in assessing the policies of the Tsarist and Soviet governments, the Russification of non-Russian peoples in the USSR was justified by “objective conditions.” In particular, the same Soviet researcher of ethnic processes V.I. Kozlov pointed out: “in the Soviet Union, where equality of all peoples has been achieved and conditions have been created for the unhindered development of national languages and cultures, assimilation processes have lost their former contradictions. They are caused by objective reasons and are the result of the friendly common economic, political, cultural life of representatives different nations“... Such a statement by V.I. Kozlov was essentially categorical and did not correspond to the real state of affairs, since there had never been equality in the position of the Ukrainian and Russian languages in the Ukrainian SSR, with the exception of the “Ukrainization” of the 20s pp. The language of one of the ethnic minorities in Ukraine (Russians) occupied a dominant position and had state status, and the Ukrainian language actually found itself in the position of an ethnic minority language.
Russification of Ukrainian, like other non-Russian peoples, not only during the existence of the USSR, but also during the Russian Empire, in Soviet scientific and propaganda literature of the 60-80s pp. more often it was simply kept silent, or sometimes even justified. Only in individual ethnodemographic studies of Soviet times was the forced ethnic assimilation of non-Russian peoples in the Russian Empire recognized. “The national policy of tsarism in relation to the majority of non-Russian, or rather non-Russian, peoples was the suppression of their language and national culture, attempts at their forced Russification,” Soviet scientist V.I. was forced to admit. Kozlov. In official documents of the CPSU in the 60-80s, as well as in Soviet propaganda, the term “forced Russification (Russification)” was not used at all.
Despite the rather long-term policy of Ukrainian Russification, which led to the widespread processes of artificial linguistic and ethnic assimilation among them, despite this, the absolute majority of Ukrainians managed to preserve their national identity. “Historical experience shows that enslaved peoples do not assimilate while they live in their native land,” pointed out the outstanding Ukrainian researcher of the theory and history of the nation A. Bochkovsky. In addition, in his opinion, “one cannot talk about the assimilation of peoples as a whole, but only of its individual layers, groups or units.”
For this reason, Ukrainian ethnic assimilation must be viewed as a process that was generally directed by the Tsarist and Soviet governments to the entire Ukrainian nation, but ultimately affected only part of it. The mass spread of this ethnic phenomenon can only be discussed in relation to Soviet times, as statistical materials from the censuses of 1959, 1970, 1979, 1989 convincingly demonstrate.
An authoritative and completely fair assessment of this complex historical phenomenon belongs to the historian of the Ukrainian diaspora I. Lysyak-Rudnitsky: “The tsarist regime was very fortunate to state and culturally assimilate the leading strata of the population of Ukraine, and preserve the masses in a state of national passivity and amorphousness. Russia's communist leaders obviously rely on this historical experience and they are convinced that they will be able to solve the vulnerable "Ukrainian question" with the help of a modernized version of this proven political strategy."
Therefore, when during the existence of the Russian Empire the Ukrainian nobility assimilated: nobles and clergy, part of the Ukrainian bourgeoisie, the absolute majority of Ukrainians were peasants and continued to use their native language, linguistic and ethnic assimilation affected them little. The Ukrainian village remained almost entirely Russian-speaking, because the peasants were monolingual, not bilingual. The Russian language remained completely foreign to them; at best, they only understood it, but they could not and did not want to communicate freely.
A completely different situation arose in Soviet times, with the development of the urbanization process, especially in the post-war years, Ukrainian cities continued to remain centers of Russification. Despite the fact that Russians were not the majority, but a minority among the entire urban population, it was not they who assimilated, but the Ukrainians. This was mainly due to the high social status of the Russian language, its dominance in all areas of public life, and, accordingly, the humiliation Ukrainian language, objectively contributed to the formation of a national inferiority complex. Among a significant portion of Ukrainians, Russian became a symbol of the “advanced language,” while Ukrainian was reduced to a symbol of a backward village.
Linguistic and ethnic assimilation, as well as its consequences, must be considered from two sides. On the one hand, as pressure from the dominant state, and on the other, as a reaction - resistance to the nation that they are trying to assimilate. That is, on the one hand, according to A. Bochkovsky’s definition: “assimilation is a consequence of the economic and cultural pressure of the dominant people.” This pressure was intended to limit the free development of the nation and completely transform it or part of it into another nation.
As the Czech researcher F. Galatsky noted, “the law of nations is truly a matter of nature, not a single people on earth has the right to demand that a neighbor sacrifice himself for its benefit, not a single neighbor is obliged to renounce or sacrifice himself for the benefit of a neighbor. Nature does not know any dominant peoples, or peoples - farm laborers." However, the Russian state, both Tsarist and Soviet, demanded that Ukrainian and other non-Russian peoples sacrifice themselves, abandon their own ethnic characteristics, their own national languages in favor of Russian, and this is not an exaggeration, because it is confirmed by statistical materials.
On the other hand, assimilation must be considered in the context of what is happening among an ethnic group that is facing the threat of absorption by another nation.
And Lysyak-Rudnitsky rightly pointed out that “using genocide methods you can physically exterminate a people or a nation, but you cannot assimilate it. Therefore, assimilation is not something that the conqueror does, but something that happens in the collective consciousness of the conquered. Various reactions are possible to the fact of conquest and enslavement, from increasing resistance to abandoning one’s own identity and merging with the conqueror. So, if a conquered people chooses an alternative to assimilation, then this is their own decision. From the perspective of history, it does not matter that this choice was completely non-voluntary or “forced-voluntary”.
For this reason, the Ukrainian National Democratic Revolution of 1917-1921, the armed struggle of the UPA in the 40-50s, the dissident movement and the defense of the Ukrainian language by the intelligentsia in the 60-80s should be considered a manifestation of the defensive reaction of the Ukrainian nation. XX century. In the historical past, social phenomena of this level include the “Great Uprising” led by Hetman Bohdan Khmelnytsky, directed against the Polonization of Ukrainians in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, the struggle of the Cossack elders of the Hetmanate against Russian tsarism in order to preserve Ukrainian autonomy and counteract Russification.
Another inherently different reaction to assimilation was the conscious or unconscious loss by the nation, or rather its intellectual elite or most of it, of strength in the struggle to preserve its national identity, lack of faith in its strength in defending national interests, loss of faith in the prospect of independent development of its nation.
According to the definition of I. Lysyak-Rudnitsky, in order “for a nation to die, there is no need at all for the physical death of the ethnic massif that creates its foothills. It is enough for the will to be a separate political subject to fade away in the collective. Foreign conquest does not by itself mean the death of the nation, but it can lead to this. One possibility: extermination of all intellectual elite nation. Another possibility: the voluntary surrender of this creative layer, its acceptance of some new alien national-state ideology. In this case, we can talk about the “suicide” of the nation. Finally, any weakening of that “conscious tension” that creates the very essence of a nation’s existence inevitably entails its decline.”
In the history of Ukraine there have been several tragic cases of the decline of the national elite, with its mass capitulation to foreign national-state ideologies and foreign states, with few truly catastrophic consequences for the Ukrainian one. This first happened in XVI-XVII centuries, when the Ukrainian gentry, in order to preserve their class privileges, massively abandoned their own language, culture, Orthodox Church, that is, it became Polonized and Catholicized.
For the second time, the Ukrainian elite (Cossack elders and clergy) capitulated to the Russian Empire in late XVIII — early XIX century. Having achieved recognition of class privileges, she gradually lost her national characteristics, primarily her native language, became Russian, that is, actually turned into Russians according to the national identity of the Ukrainian ethnic origin.
The third, most massive ethnic assimilation of Ukrainians, especially the urban population, took place during Soviet times. The capitulation of a significant part of the Ukrainian intelligentsia to the Soviet regime was also due to the threat of repression or even physical destruction. In the 30s pp. a significant part of the Ukrainian intelligentsia ended up in prisons and concentration camps, others were forced to adapt to communist ideology and refuse to defend the national interests of the Ukrainian nation.
That is, the policy of Russification pursued by the Tsarist and Soviet regimes must be viewed as an attempt, and to a large extent quite successful, to destroy Ukraine as a nation, to stimulate its unnatural “suicide”, “voluntary-forced” renunciation of national identity, its own roots .
Thus, historical experience convincingly demonstrates that Ukrainian ethnic assimilation both within Poland (the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth) and within the Russian Empire (USSR) allowed the Ukrainian elite not only to physically survive, but also to maintain a high social status, merging with the elite of foreign states , leaving his nation to the mercy of fate. That is, in this case it is necessary to state its conscious capitulation to foreign states, which led to a betrayal of Ukrainian national interests.
The question of the balance of influence external factors on ethnic assimilation - socio-economic and political means of pressure from a foreign state and internal factors - active counteraction to this pressure from a nation doomed to lose its native language, its own national identity is quite complex and ambiguous.
It is known for sure that despite the active implementation of the policy of Russification, the Baltic nations (Lithuanians, Latvians and Estonians) showed great resistance against it and managed to maintain more high level national identity than Ukrainians. Although it should be noted that the level of Ukrainian national self-awareness, as well as the level of preservation of one’s own national language, in certain regions of Ukraine was and remains very different.
The policy of Russification left a deeper mark on Ukrainian society in the eastern and southern regions, especially in the cities. The weakness of foreign states' opposition to the Ukrainian policy of ethnic assimilation had deep historical foundations. This phenomenon can be analyzed and explained, but not justified, much less condemned.
I. Lysyak-Rudnitsky pointed out the decisive influence of internal factors on the processes of ethnic assimilation: “If the enemy was destined to be the winner, and we were defeated, then this happened to a large extent due to the fact that this enemy discovered both in the past and in the modern shows extreme skill in finding weak spots in our structure - and hitting them with full force. The chain that Ukraine harnesses to the imperial chariot is forged from the links of our weaknesses and mistakes. Therefore, we cannot afford to turn a blind eye to these weaknesses and mistakes, shifting responsibility for our national tragedy solely to external forces and unfavorable circumstances. Freedom of the individual and the nation is affirmed in conscious, creative confrontation with objective circumstances, and not in capitulation to them."
So, if among Russians only 4.3% were bilingual, then among Ukrainians it was 75.1%.
Statistical materials indicate that bilingualism (bilingualism) was a characteristic feature for Ukrainian and other non-Russian peoples, but not for ethnic Russians. They remained monolingual, although a significant part of them were concentrated outside the Russian ethnic territory. That is, census statistics convincingly indicate that the least “internationalists” in the USSR were precisely the Russians.
According to the fair conclusion of V.M. Danilenko, “the stay of Russians in Ukraine has never been a problem for them. They always remained “first among equals” and felt like bearers of a high historical mission. Due to their dominant position, they had no sense of a foreign environment. They were generally characterized by poor adaptation to the language and culture of the national majority. And in reality, it was not needed: national-Russian bilingualism (as a transitional stage to Russian monolingualism), the prestige of “Russian” education, advantages in all areas of the Russian language removed the problem of knowing Ukrainian. It’s interesting that the majority of Russians living in Ukraine considered the USSR their homeland, while among Ukrainians the majority called Ukraine their homeland.”
Unlike the USSR, in Switzerland, which was a confederation not only in name, “bilingual people, even in big cities not so many, and even those consider it advisable to use their native language. It is difficult for a Swiss who moves to a foreign-speaking canton to even find a highly qualified job if he does not speak the local language fluently. In monolingual cantons, relations with administrative and even judicial authorities are also based on the local language, so a foreign-language migrant needs to look for a translator." Russians who moved to Ukraine or other national republics, did not show much interest in learning Ukrainian or other national languages, because they did not feel the need for it; in most large cities, the Russian language reigned in all spheres of public life. In one republic of the USSR, Russians did not consider themselves an ethnic minority and were actually in a dominant position.
The famous Ukrainian linguist V. Chaplenko pointed out that only enslaved peoples can be bilingual, the dominant ones - NEVER. He proved this in the example of the former Austro-Hungarian Empire, where only Czech, Polish, Ukrainian and other Slavic nations were bilingual, especially in cities, while Austrians and Hungarians remained monolingual. In independent Poland during the interwar period, the Poles were no longer bilingual; such a fate existed only in Ukrainian and Belarusians.
That is, the bilingualism of Ukrainians within the USSR was due to the fact that they actually found themselves in the position of an ethnic minority on their own land. The Russians, although they remained a numerical minority in Ukraine, were in the position of a dominant majority.
The revival of Ukrainian statehood in 1991 radically changed the situation, the Russians lost their former status and now face the prospect of becoming bilingual, one of the ethnic minorities, which in fact they always were. This process of obtaining the status of an ethnic minority is psychologically difficult for a significant part of Russians and Russified representatives of other nations. Hence the rejection of the Ukrainian language, mass manifestations of Ukrainophobia, nostalgia for the times of the USSR
The next stage after the entry of bilingualism is a complete and irreversible transition to the recognition of native speech, not one’s own, but someone else’s. One’s own national speech turns into someone else’s, secondary one. As noted by scientist V.I. Kozlov, “recognizing a language of another nationality as one’s native language indicates that a person has lost his national language or knows it very poorly and does not associate his nationality with it.”
Intensive linguistic assimilation is naturally characteristic of ethnic minorities, not indigenous peoples. Soviet nationality policy led to massive linguistic Russification of Ukrainian on its ethnic territory, especially in the 60-80s pp. That is, Ukrainians were artificially placed in the position of an ethnic minority, without being numerically one. So, in particular, during 1959-1989pp. the number of Ukrainians in Ukraine who recognized Russian as their native language increased from 2 million 076 thousand people to 4 million 578 thousand people, that is, more than doubling, or by 120.59%. During the same time, the share of Russian-speaking all Ukrainians increased from 6.45% in 1959 to 12.24% in 1989. The statistical aspects of the linguistic Russification of Ukrainian are discussed in more detail in the next section.
When a person loses her native language and constantly uses a foreign language as if it were her native language, then knowledge of her mother’s language ceases to be extremely necessary for her. The nature of such a phenomenon, the so-called “werewolves,” was revealed by linguist V. Chaplenko: “When an enslaved people loses its language and even assimilates it by force, then it begins to “love” this latter as if it were its own, because this is its only way of thinking and social exchange. The indifference and hostility of the so-called “werewolves” to the language of their parents is also known, but basically what weighs here is not so much the moral moment (betrayal of one’s people), as the technical difficulty of replacing a mastered, foreign language with a lost, forgotten native one.” And the moral factor in this linguistic situation does not play last role, as evidenced by the first years of the existence of the modern independent Ukrainian state.
Psychological rejection, reluctance, or even open rather skillfully hidden opposition to return state status The Ukrainian language in the conditions of independent Ukraine is characteristic not only at the everyday level among ethnic Russians and people of Ukrainian ethnic origin, but also among Russians in their native language and national identity. This is due not only to the continued dominance of stereotypes of the past among the Ukrainian public. In the east and south of Ukraine, among a significant part of the highly educated population, office workers, intelligentsia, especially technical ones, there is a persistent and completely conscious ignorance of the Ukrainian language, not only due to the technical difficulties of studying it, but, above all, as a result of a subjective decline in its status in society, it seems artificial traditional and objective historical phenomenon.
The social value of a language and its role in public life is formed not only by the objective conditions of its existence, but also by the subjective policies of state structures; these conditions create or actively influence them. Therefore, the most important, even the main role in accelerating or deliberately inhibiting linguistic as well as ethnic assimilation is played by the social “prestige” or social “inferiority” of a particular language in society. That is, in fact, the social status of a language is determined by the national, including the language policy of the state, pursues its own specific goal and pursues this policy in its own national interests.
Soviet national policy consisted not only of artificially stimulating migrations, with the goal of quickly “mixing peoples” in order to create a single “Soviet people”, but also in the enhanced linguistic Russification of non-Russian nations, Ukrainian in particular, in the active inculcation in propaganda and in all spheres of public life of the “advantages” of the Russian language as a language of interethnic communication.
The displacement of the Ukrainian language from all spheres of public consumption and the actual transformation of Russian into the state language in Ukraine was accompanied by incessant and aggressive propaganda of ideas about “friendship of peoples.” However, everyone felt the falsity of Soviet national policy and was not indifferent to tragic fate their people and their language, first of all the Ukrainian intelligentsia. With pain in his heart, with despair, A. Dovzhenko wrote in his “Diary”: “As a matter of fact, Ukrainian writers have already come into conflict with the entire existing state of affairs in the state. They only have the formal letter of the Constitution on their side. But, the Central Committee of the Party of Ukraine and the government speaks and publishes its officialdom only in Russian, and teaching in universities and ten-year cities is also conducted in Russian. Thus, either the entire cultural process needs to move from top to bottom into the Ukrainian language, or be consistent and finish Ukrainian literature, and not put writers in a terrible, unenviable predicament, which has no parallel, perhaps, in the whole world, among one people, Respecting himself and the government, respects his people."
Therefore, among a significant part of the Ukrainian population, including the highly educated, the Russian language received a high social status, while their native language lost it. But such an assessment of language was purely subjective. According to the definition of the Ukrainian linguist V. Chaplenko, “the speech of the dominant people is an authoritative language,” better, “correct,” “lordly,” while the speech of the enslaved people is characterized by antonyms corresponding to these epithets. From the point of view of scientific linguistics, all these are relative concepts, since the moral superiority of a language is created mainly by extra-linguistic factors - political, church, etc., but for the consciousness of the practical use of language these are absolute assessments. And this law - the law of social evaluation of language - operates with enormous power“As a phenomenon of the psychological cosmos, this assessment seeps into the masses of the enslaved people, pushing them towards assimilation.” Therefore, the decline in the social status of the Ukrainian language did not occur spontaneously, but was a direct result of the targeted language policy of the Soviet regime.
Linguists distinguish two types of language policy: offensive (aggressive) and defensive (protective). When a language policy is aimed at ousting another language from use, even on its own ethnic territory, such a policy is offensive, aggressive or imperialistic. This was precisely the policy pursued by the tsarist government, when it did not even officially recognize the existence of the Ukrainian language as a separate language, but considered it a dialect of Russian, or the Soviet government, which actually turned Russian into the state language in Ukraine instead of Ukrainian.
Defensive language policy is the protection of the native language from aggressive external pressure. This position, even under the conditions of the Soviet regime, which pursued a policy of Russification, was occupied by the best representatives of the Ukrainian intelligentsia, writers, linguists, higher school teachers and teachers, who were honest before their people and before their conscience.
The language policy that should be pursued, but is not actually being implemented, by the young Ukrainian state in order to implement Article 10 of the Constitution of Ukraine on granting the Ukrainian language the status of a state language and overcoming the consequences of the long-term policy of Russification of Ukrainians must also be considered as a protective one. At its core, this policy should be aimed at the gradual but consistent de-growth of Ukraine and the restoration of historical justice - the return of the natural right of Ukrainian speech to be official in the Ukrainian state.
Scientific linguistics distinguishes language policy according to the forms of its implementation. This policy can be externally linguistic and internally linguistic in nature. Externally, linguistic language policy finds its manifestation when measures taken by government structures are aimed at changing the foreign economic and linguistic position of the language, its cultural and social functions. An offensive, aggressive language policy tries to take away these functions or limit, or even eliminate the language from use, while a defensive, defensive policy, on the contrary, aims to restore lost positions.
Ukrainian linguist G. Smal-Stotsky assessed the external linguistic policy of tsarist Russia in the following way: “We can say that it was characteristic of the initial connection between Ukraine and Russia, right up to the World War - which means that for more than 250 years - the Ukrainian language lost the opportunity to develop freely, that it lost that right to own land state language, the language of literature, school, church, etc., it became the subject of continuous persecution."
During the Soviet regime, although there was no formal ban, unfavorable conditions were created for the full, normal, as in all independent states, functioning of the native language, for the free development of Ukrainian national identity. Conditions were artificially created when the natural manifestation of national feelings, love for the native language served as a reason for accusations of “Ukrainian bourgeois nationalism.”
Almost all Ukrainian writers were accused of “nationalism”, who were not indifferent to their love for their mother’s language, for their native land, for their people, for their history, for national traditions. Yuri Yanovsky did not avoid such accusations, “even before his death he began to write” in Russian, “obviously out of disgust for accusations of nationalism, with disgust for undeniable fools, evil haiduks and careerists,” this is how the second one wrote about the fate of his colleague A. Dovzhenko sh. Vladimir Sosyura, Maxim Rylsky and Alexander Dovzhenko himself were also accused of “Ukrainian bourgeois nationalism” for defending their native language and defending Ukrainian culture.
During the existence of the Russian Empire and the USSR, there was even interference in internal structure Ukrainian language, in its vocabulary, in phonetics - these were direct manifestations of an aggressive internal linguistic policy. Thus, in particular, Ukrainian phonetic spelling was banned in Tsarist Russia. In addition, the tsarist censorship did not allow in the circular since 1881 “new words, again invented and taken from the languages of Polish and German,” into the Little Russian dialect.
Direct interference in the development of the Ukrainian language continued during Soviet times. In 1933, a “reform” of Ukrainian spelling was carried out, as, by the way, of Belarusian, with the aim of eliminating barriers between the Ukrainian and Russian languages, which led not only to changes in phonetic norms, but to the loss of a significant part of the original vocabulary. “Even letters and sounds that do not exist in the Russian language are becoming counter-revolutionary, nationalistic,” is how the outstanding Ukrainian linguist R. Smal-Stotsky assessed this “reform.”
When Ukrainian linguists sought to cleanse Ukrainian literary language from grammatical Russianisms - it was a manifestation of a defensive, protective intra-linguistic language policy, fair in nature. For example, Soviet political censorship prohibited the publication of V. Matvienko’s article “For the high culture of the native language” in the magazine “Otchizna” No. 10 for 1958. This article was declared “politically hostile” because its author, assessing the situation of the Ukrainian language, stated that among the means that harm the Ukrainian language was the unconditional and unnecessary mass introduction of Russian words into it - lexical and even grammatical. The author was accused of “Ukrainian bourgeois nationalism” for demanding “a decisive condemnation of those petty-bourgeois elements who ignore their native language.”
What worried the censorship even more was that the article gave high praise to foreign Ukrainians who continued to cherish their native language. “It is surprising and approving that the high sense of national identity that Ukrainians maintained abroad.” Thus, political censorship suppressed even minor attempts by the Ukrainian intelligentsia to defend the Ukrainian language against Russification.
The defense of the native language was a natural and conscious manifestation of speech-forming activity, which could be successfully carried out in the conditions of the existence of a single linguistic society, because only it fully ensures the linguistic unity of the ethnos. For the free development of the Ukrainian language, both in the Russian Empire and in the USSR, historical conditions were not entirely favorable, or rather, quite negative. This was due to the division of the territory of Ukraine between neighboring states: the Russian and Austro-Hungarian empires before the First World War, and in the interwar period between the USSR, Poland, Romania and Czechoslovakia.
The interstate borders that separated Ukrainian lands had a negative impact on the formation of the linguistic unity of Ukrainians. In addition, foreign authorities quite consciously and purposefully hampered the development of the Ukrainian language, especially among the urban population. As a result, in the cities of Ukraine, it was not Ukrainian speech that prevailed, but foreign speech, in particular during its stay as part of the Russian Empire and the USSR - Russian. Social schism Ukrainian influence on the Russian-speaking urban and Ukrainian-speaking rural population constituted the main and insurmountable obstacle to the linguistic unity of Ukrainian society.
This situation led to the fact that a significant part of the Ukrainian elite found itself outside the Ukrainian-speaking environment. By the way, this situation continues to persist in the eastern and southern regions even in the conditions of the existence of an independent Ukrainian state.
Only the absence of significant dialectical differences contributed to the development of a single Ukrainian language, even in conditions of absence. Therefore, the revival of an independent Ukrainian state will objectively contribute to the gradual completion of the formation of a unified Ukrainian language environment, a modern unified Ukrainian political nation and the transformation of the Ukrainian language into a language of interethnic communication, despite the rather significant and generally unfavorable consequences of the Russification of a significant part of Ukrainian, especially among urban population.
According to linguists, language policy can be both positive and negative.
For this reason, the Ukrainian nation found itself in very unfavorable historical conditions, when Ukraine not only could not implement language policy in its own interests, but also became hostage to someone else’s language policy, aimed in the interests of other states: the Russian Empire and the USSR, the Austro-Hungarian Empire , Poland, Romania, Czechoslovakia, Hungary.
But Ukrainians suffered the greatest losses from the language policy of Russia (the Russian Empire and the USSR). The policy of these state entities imperial type objectively had positive character from the point of view of imperial interests, because it contributed to the linguistic assimilation of non-Russian peoples, the expansion of Russian ethnic territory through the absorption of foreign ethnic lands, including Ukrainian ones. On the other hand, this imperial policy of Russia, from the point of view of the national interests of Ukrainians, was negative for him, since it destroyed the Ukrainian-speaking environment and Russianized him.
The government of Tsarist Russia openly prohibited the Ukrainian language in public consumption (Valuevsky circular and Emsky decree), not allowing it into the education system, and not only in higher education, but even in school, as well as in the state apparatus, legal proceedings, science, church, etc. similar. Such an aggressive, offensive language policy of the Russian state was negative only for the Ukrainian language and Ukrainians in general.
For the empire itself and, by and large, for the ethnic Russians themselves and the Russian language, this policy was objectively positive, since it ensured the expansion of linguistic use and the expansion of the territory of their settlement. For this reason, the official declaration in the Russian Empire of the Ukrainian language as a territorial dialect, the “Little Russian dialect” of the Russian language, was a positive phenomenon for ethnic Russians, because it automatically increased the number of speakers of this language, due to the forced linguistic assimilation of Ukrainian. Belarusians found themselves in the same situation.
Such a language policy must also be considered in the context of the competition between the Ukrainian and Russian languages on the territory of Ukraine. The ban on the Ukrainian language was aimed at the empire at best to eliminate the competitor, at worst - to weaken it and reduce the level of its competitiveness in the Ukrainian language environment. At the same time, it should be especially noted that competition between the two languages was imposed by government language policy exclusively in the Ukrainian ethnic environment. Among ethnic Russians in Ukraine, both during its stay as part of the Russian Empire and later in the USSR, such competition was out of the question.
Soviet language policy in Ukraine pursued the same goal, but, unlike the Russian Empire, it openly carried out Russification; this policy was quite skillfully disguised and therefore achieved significant results along the way. great success. As a result of the implementation of the Soviet policy of Russification, thousands of Ukrainians in their native land were subjected to linguistic assimilation, became Russified, treated with disdain the lost native language, considered it backward, “collective farm”, unable to compete with the advanced, “urban” Russian language.
And one more important note. Historical experience, and not only of Ukrainian-Russian interethnic relations, convincingly testifies that parity in language policy did not exist and does not exist, and cannot exist. One language always wins, and the other is sure to lose. The main thing is that historical justice be restored in relation to the Ukrainian language, only if it receives not formal, but real state status in independent Ukraine.
A concrete manifestation of competitiveness is the phenomenon of bilingualism (bilingualism). Bilingualism, as a natural phenomenon, is predominantly a characteristic feature of ethnic minorities. Assessing the extent of the spread of bilingualism among ethnic Ukrainians in Soviet times, it should be noted that they found themselves in the position of an ethnic minority. It is impossible to recognize such a phenomenon as natural, because the indigenous people cannot be an ethnic minority in their historical homeland, moreover, without being smaller in number. According to the fair conclusion of linguist L.T. Masenko, “massive Ukrainian bilingualism is a consequence of a long process of linguistic and cultural assimilation, a temporary transitional bridge along which the population moved from Ukrainian to Russian monolingualism.”
Such linguistic processes could only occur in the absence of Ukrainian national statehood, when the status of the state language was undeservedly taken over by the Russian language, as a result of the artificial transformation of the Ukrainian language into actually the language of an ethnic minority. This is convincingly evidenced by statistical data from the censuses of 1959, 1970, 1979, 1989 pp., analyzed by the author in the next section.
In contrast to the ethnic Ukrainian, the Russian ethnic environment in Ukraine was absolutely dominated by the Russian language. Russians actually did not experience linguistic assimilation in the form of Ukrainization, which contrasted sharply with the widespread processes of linguistic assimilation (Russification) in the Ukrainian ethnic environment.
The revival of the independence of the Ukrainian state in 1991, for the first time in the last three hundred years, opened up a real opportunity to pursue its own language policy without any interference from other states and restrictions in the development of the Ukrainian language. In the conditions of independent Ukraine, there is also competition between the Ukrainian and Russian languages. But this competition is naturally possible only in the linguistic environment of the Russian ethnic minority; in the Ukrainian ethnic space such competition is not needed. Because, objectively, in the linguistic environment of an indigenous nation that has its own national state, such competition simply cannot exist. That is, it is not the indigenous nation, the Ukrainians, who should become bilingual in Ukraine, but the Russian ethnic minority.
Changes in the social role of the Ukrainian and Russian languages in modern Ukraine and the acquisition of state status by the Ukrainian language objectively leads to a significant reduction in the functions and scope of application of the Russian language - the language of one of the ethnic minorities, although the largest among other minorities in number.
The process of gaining state status in the Ukrainian language for Ukraine is certainly a positive policy and, moreover, is a long-awaited restoration of historical justice. On the other hand, for some ethnic Russians and Russified Ukrainians, who are politically engaged and chauvinistically opposed to Ukrainians, such a policy may be perceived as negative. But there is nothing to worry about, because the stereotypes of the past will sooner or later be overcome in the minds of these individuals.
The Russian language unfairly had state status in the RSFSR; it objectively lost it in the context of the restoration of Ukraine's independence. Such drastic changes, of course, could only be seen as unconditionally negative from the point of view of the indigenous nation, but not from the point of view of the ethnic minority. But Russians in Ukraine were, are and will be an ethnic minority, and, accordingly, their language was, is and will be only the language of an ethnic minority. The Russian language in Ukraine cannot function instead of Ukrainian, it must be next to it and serve the Russian ethnic minority, and not the Ukrainian majority.
From the point of view of an ethnic minority, this is an objective, natural process. Therefore, those Russians who have managed to overcome imperial stereotypes and recognize themselves as representatives of an ethnic minority perceive the development of the state status of the Ukrainian language with full understanding. Those who continue to regret the former dominant status of the Russian language openly or covertly oppose these objective historical processes of its loss of unusual functions of the state language on Ukrainian territory. But Ukraine is Ukraine, and Russia is Russia. Therefore, it is natural and quite fair that the state language in Russia is and should be Russian, and in Ukraine it is Ukrainian, and not any other. Therefore, Ukraine is not a “friend” of the Russian state, so that a foreign language can be used as a state language.
It is also necessary to dwell on this very important and very effective way changes in language and ethnic structure population of Ukraine, as interethnic - exogamous marriages. Assessing this influence, the author recognizes the right of every person to freely choose a spouse, enshrined in Article 51 of the Constitution of Ukraine: “Marriage is based on the voluntary consent of a woman and a man.”
In Soviet literature, especially of a propaganda nature, attention was paid to only one side of the problem - to interethnic (exogamous) marriages, while the extremely important role of monoethnic (endogamous) marriages in the reproduction of each nation was hushed up. Exogamous marriages were supposed to serve as a shining example of the manifestation of “friendship of peoples” and unity “ Soviet people”, and not a form of linguistic and ethnic assimilation of one nation by another, which in fact they always were. Unfortunately, this problem has not found its research in modern Ukrainian scientific literature.
Analyzing this complex phenomenon, it is necessary to pay attention to the fact that each nation is characterized mainly by ethnically homogeneous, endogamous marriages, which ensure the constancy of the ethnic group and broad prospects for its development, since they are based on its reproduction by transmitting the native language, culture and national traditions. "To preserve ethnic traditions endogamy is necessary, because an endogamous family passes on a well-developed stereotype of behavior to the child, and an exogamous family passes on two stereotypes that are mutually exclusive,” pointed out a well-known Russian expert on this scientific problem L.M. Gumilev.
It should be noted that, in general, endogamous marriages are characteristic of each indigenous majority, and exogamous marriages are characteristic of an ethnic minority, especially in the absence of compact areas of residence in the latter. The stabilizing role of endogamy in the process of reproduction of an ethnic group was also recognized by the famous Soviet ethnologist, academician Yu.V. Bromley.
That is, endogamy acts as a stabilizing factor not only for the growth of the numbers of each nation, but also for its very existence and development. On the contrary, exogamy leads to significant changes, the result being completely opposite for the indigenous nation and ethnic minorities. Exogamous marriages are “beneficial” for the indigenous majority, because they contribute to their numerical growth, and are very dangerous for the ethnic minority, because they cause a decrease in their number through ethnic assimilation. “In the presence of endogamy as an ethnic barrier, the processes of assimilation were slower and less intense, but for an ethnos it is not at all the same: it will last three hundred years, or a thousand,” pointed out L.H. Gumilev..
The meaning of endogamy as primarily marriage in one’s own ethnic environment to preserve the stability, monolithic nature of the ethnic group, its traditional culture and national identity is also recognized by modern Russian scientists. “The endogamy of a stable ethnic group is 95-97%, that of those shaken by interethnic whores is 81-82%. 10-15% of marriages that violate the endogamy of an ethnic group cannot be dangerous for its stability. The level of endogamy below 85% indicates its destruction by interethnic marriages." So, endogamous marriages must be recognized as an important natural barrier to the preservation of an ethnic group, as the main obstacle to the development of ethnic processes in the direction of linguistic and ethnic assimilation.
As for interethnic marriages, they themselves do not directly affect changes in the number of individual nations, but only lead to the linguistic assimilation of one of the spouses. Changes in the population of a particular ethnic group are influenced by children born in such marriages. Interethnic marriages actually destroy the ethnic life, as a rule, of one of the marriage partners and lead to the dominance of one of the two languages in the family.
In ethnically mixed spouses, most often one of the family members is forced to communicate not in their native language, but in a foreign language. Children in such families find themselves in an unstable linguistic and ethnic situation and perceive the language and national culture of only one of the parents, the language that prevailed in their family and had a higher social status. Such processes must be recognized as a natural ethnic phenomenon only in the case when it was the language of the indigenous majority, and not of an ethnic minority. When a minority language predominates in a family, it would be wrong to consider such a situation natural.
As for Ukrainian-Russian interethnic marriages, during the Soviet period the vast majority of children chose Russian nationality and the Russian language rather than Ukrainian, and not only on the territory of Russia, which would be quite natural, but also in Ukraine, which cannot be considered a natural phenomenon. This was caused primarily by the artificially inflated social status of the Russian language and the deliberate humiliation of the role of the Ukrainian language, which was a direct consequence of the long-term policy of Russification of Ukraine. The Russian language was dominant not only in Russian ethnic lands itself, but also far beyond their borders. The same situation arose, for example, in Belarus, where already the second generation in Belarusian-Russian families chose Russian nationality, that is, they became Russian in their national identity and language of Belarusian ethnic origin.
This situation is explained by the fact that although Russians were in the minority among the total population in most of the union republics, the Russian language dominated in the USSR. Its status was significantly higher than any other language in all union and autonomous republics without exception, and the USSR itself, in its essence, was in fact nothing more than a Russian state.
In the same territories where there was no Russian state power, Russians assimilated quite quickly, and precisely thanks to the spread of interethnic marriages among them. A striking example the influence of exogamy on the accelerated assimilation of the Russian ethnic minority may be due to the fate of migrants from Russia after civil war. Since men predominated among these migrants, interethnic marriages became widespread.
This was also facilitated by the fact that Russians in emigration did not have densely populated areas and, moreover, were concentrated primarily in cities. Exogamous marriages led to the fact that the fairly large Russian ethnic minority, already in the second and third generations, underwent active linguistic assimilation. For comparison, Ukrainians in Canada, who had areas of compact residence, turned out to be more resistant to linguistic and ethnic assimilation, and therefore maintained predominantly endogamous marriages.
Thus, starting from the second generation, representatives of ethnic minorities are naturally excluded from the reproduction process in interethnic families. The same person cannot simultaneously belong to two ethnic groups; naturally, she must make a choice in favor of one of them. “Descendants from mixed marriages either return to one of the initial types (parental or maternal), or die out, because adaptation in a particular environment is carried out by several generations, it is a tradition, a mixture of two traditions creates the impossibility of adaptation,” determined L.M. . Gumilev.
Due to the widespread prevalence of interethnic marriages, especially in Soviet times, in scientific, and more in journalistic literature unprofessional assessments of their actions have appeared, and even political speculation on this topic does not stand up scientific criticism. In particular, the idea is being circulated that many Ukrainian and Russian women or Ukrainian and Russian women are married, and therefore the “brotherly peoples” cannot live a separate state life. Such speculations were especially actively voiced by representatives of the Russian political and cultural elite, primarily those of them who were partly of Ukrainian ethnic origin. At one time, A. Solzhenitsyn and Mikhail Gorbachev, whose mothers were Ukrainians, actively opposed Ukraine’s independence. But both the writer and the politician are Russian in language and national identity; there is nothing Ukrainian in them except their ethnic origin, and even then only partially.
The number of Ukrainian-Russian interethnic marriages and the chronological scope of their distribution were quite deliberately exaggerated and, unfortunately, continue to be exaggerated. Even in the first half of the 20th century, exogamy among Ukrainians and Russians was a rather rare phenomenon. This is confirmed by statistical data. Thus, in 1926, only 4% of Ukrainians entered into interethnic marriages.
Field research even in ethnically mixed territories, on former Ukrainian ethnic lands, conducted by the Russian ethnographer L.N. Chizhikov on the territory of Belgorod and Voronezh regions recorded this: “The old-timers of the village testified that such marriages took place quite rarely. This was largely due to differences in everyday life, most clearly manifested in language and traditional clothing. Therefore, the bride or groom was predominantly chosen in their village, but if they could not find a bride in their village, the Ukrainians went to woo a Ukrainian village, no matter how far it was, and the Russians went to the villages where Russians lived.” Therefore, it is impossible to talk about the widespread nature of Ukrainian-Russian interethnic marriages, that is, the high level of exogamy among Ukrainians in the recent past. The author does not idealize patriarchal traditions, much less call for their return, but only states real historical facts.
Ethnic assimilation
(from lat. assimilation - assimilation, imitation, similarity) - a type of unifying ethnic processes, the merging of one people with another, associated with the loss of one of them of its language, culture, national identity (see), as a result of which a certain (very often radical) transformation of nationality occurs -psychological characteristics.
A.e. preceded by linguistic and cultural assimilation, or acculturation (see), which are especially characteristic of ethnic minorities, in particular immigrants. A.e. is caused by numerical or socio-cultural inequality of ethnic groups in situations where this inequality is caused or strengthened by government measures (displacement of an ethnic group from its ancestral territory, repressions against its representatives, etc.). In this case, it becomes violent.
According to the American sociologist R. Park, A. e. goes through the following phases: contact, competition, adaptation and assimilation itself. The term A.e. is especially common. used to characterize the process (and its result) of rapprochement and subsequent merging of previously independent ethnic groups. Wherein general concept A.e. very diverse processes are covered. This is also the rapprochement of two (or more) peoples, during which a new community is born with a new culture, which is a product of interaction and mutual enrichment of cultures, its constituent components. This new culture may include elements transferred almost unchanged from the cultural arsenal of the peoples who created the new community, as well as elements born during A.E. This is the gradual infusion of one ethnic group into another with the loss by the first of its special ethnic face, its self-name and its acceptance characteristic features and the names of the people into which it joins.
In any case, as is commonly believed in Lately, A.e. is never one-sided, i.e., even with obvious differences in the position of the assimilating and assimilated people, certain, albeit unequal, peoples retain their own language. This is the experience of creating the Belgian nation.
A.e. may occur naturally. In this case, it is a consequence of objective processes of economic and political rapprochement of territories (individual regions and entire states) and peoples, which gave a powerful impetus to their cultural rapprochement. (The rapprochement of cultures of peoples is the core of assimilation processes.) These processes began to develop especially rapidly against the background of the growing internationalization of the world economy. Naturally leaks A.e. and when groups of immigrants in their new homeland join the indigenous population, gradually dissolving into it. This process is significantly accelerated by interethnic marriages.
A.e. It can also be of a coercive, violent nature. In this case, it represents a specific direction of national policy aimed at the destruction of a particular ethnic group as an independent unit in a non-physical way. Such actions are often camouflaged with noble slogans, for example, “to introduce backward people to the benefits of modern civilization.” Violent A.e. is carried out primarily by striking a blow at national culture (and its specific bearers - the creative intelligentsia), including through narrowing the scope of application of the national language, followed by its complete withdrawal from circulation, and the eradication of national traditions.
Ethnopsychological Dictionary. - M.: MPSI. V.G. Krysko. 1999.
See what “ethnic assimilation” is in other dictionaries:
ETHNIC ASSIMILATION- (from Lat. assimiliation likeness, imitation, similarity) a type of unifying ethnic processes, the merging of one people with another, associated with the loss of one of their language, culture, national identity (see), as a result of which... ... Encyclopedic Dictionary of Psychology and Pedagogy
Assimilation (sociology)- Assimilation (lat. assimilatio assimilation) in sociology and ethnography, the loss of one part of society (or an entire ethnic group) of its own distinctive features and a replacement borrowed from another part (another ethnic group). In general, this is an ethnocultural... ... Wikipedia
Assimilation- (from the Latin assimilatio, likening, merging, assimilation). In a broad sense, assimilation refers to the process by which two or more groups that previously differed in internal organization value orientations, culture, create a new... ... Migration: glossary of basic terms
assimilation- (from Latin assimilatio imitation, assimilation, similarity) ethnic, partial or complete loss of culture in favor of another, usually dominant culture, including a change in ethnic identity (see Ethnic self-awareness).... ... Encyclopedia "Peoples and Religions of the World"
Assimilation- According to the area of action in which A. occurs, linguistic, cultural and ethnic A. are distinguished: linguistic A. the assimilation of a foreign language and recognition of it as a native one; ethnic A. perception of another culture by an ethnos, change of ethnic and cultural... Dictionary of sociolinguistic terms
assimilation- 1. (lat. assimilatio assimilation, identification) 1) Merger of one people with another through the assimilation of its language, customs, etc.; 2) likening one sound to another: wedding from svatba (from svat). 2. Sociol.: Change of one linguocultural... ... Dictionary of linguistic terms T.V. Foal- the process of bringing together ethnic groups or subethnic groups and their further unification into a larger ethnic group. or supra-ethnic. community. I.e. has 2 varieties: intra-ethnic and inter-ethnic. Intra-ethnic. integration (often called consolidation) means... ...
Ethnic intolerance- (from Latin intolerantia intolerance, intolerance) 1) the property of ethnicity. community or its individual representative, characterized by rejection or denial of culture, traditions, values, behavioral and communication models, lifestyles, etc. Psychology of communication. encyclopedic Dictionary
the process of mutual cultural penetration through which individuals and groups come to a common culture shared by all participants in the process (the merger of one people with another through the assimilation of their language, customs, etc.).
Excellent definition
Incomplete definition ↓
Assimilation
According to the area of action in which A. occurs, linguistic, cultural and ethnic A. is distinguished:
Linguistic A. - mastering a foreign language and recognizing it as a native one;
Ethnic A. - the perception by an ethnos of another culture, a change in ethnic and cultural identity and merging with another ethnos; can be considered as a type of national policy aimed at erasing ethnic and cultural differences and the formation of a monoethnic community. For example, A. ethnic minorities, including immigrants (the same as naturalization): Italians, Russians and representatives of other ethnic groups who moved to the United States; A. indigenous small peoples large people(Russian Karelians, French - Bretons, etc.);
Cultural A. is the same as acculturation. According to the way these processes occur, A. can be natural and forced:
Natural A. - occurs through acculturation, adaptation to the conditions of a foreign language and foreign cultural environment, interethnic marriages (the same as naturalization);
Violent A. - occurs through forcible restriction or ban on the use of an ethnic language. Implemented by local authorities in the field of school education and other areas of public life; aimed at accelerating the assimilation process. The term “assimilation” is more often used in the sense of “forced” and carries a negative assessment (“assimilationist language policy”). For a neutral or positive assessment of the phenomenon, preference is given to the terms “naturalization” and “integration”.
Against. meaning: segregation
See also: Acculturation, Naturalization, Language Policy
There is a distinction between natural and forced A. Natural A. arises through direct contact of ethnically heterogeneous groups and is due to their common social, economic and cultural life, the spread of ethnically mixed marriages, etc.; such A. has a progressive character under any political system; all the more natural and progressive was its development considered in a socialist society, with the ever-expanding free communication of equal peoples. However, nationalists and adherents of the ethnic paradigm (see) consider this phenomenon undesirable. In the USSR, the processes of natural agriculture covered the main stream. groups of nationalities living outside their republics and national regions in strong territorial mixing with other ethnic groups, especially in cities where such mixing exists in apartment buildings, in kindergartens and schools, production teams, etc.; sometimes A. led to a decrease in the absolute number of individual ethnic groups, noted by population censuses (for example, Mordvins, Karelians, Jews, etc.). Violent A., characteristic of countries where nationalities are unequal, is a system of measures taken by the government or local authorities in the region school education and other spheres of public life, aimed at artificially accelerating the process of A. by suppressing or constraining the language and culture of ethnic minorities, putting pressure on their self-awareness, etc. In this respect, the policy of violent agro is the opposite of the policy of segregation (see), but also contradicts the democratic principles of social development. In some cases, it is quite difficult to establish a clear line between natural and forced violence (for example, in the “overseas” departments of France). An important stage of ethnic A. is cultural A. or acculturation (see) and linguistic A., i.e. a complete transition to another language, which becomes or is considered “native”. Typically, cultural or cultural-everyday A. begins with the so-called stage of adaptation earlier than linguistic A., but is completely completed later (see also Marginality). In the USSR, the most powerful factor of ethnicity was mixed marriages. A necessary stage for A. immigrants is their acceptance of citizenship of the country of settlement or so-called naturalization
REFERENCES: Kozlov V.I. Dynamics of the number of peoples. M., 1969. Modern ethnic processes in the USSR. M., 1977.
Ethnic processes in modern world. M., 1987.
Betts R.F. Assimilation and association in French colonial theory 1890-1914, N.Y., 1961.
Cultural assimilation of immigrant, UNESCO, L., 1950.
The cultural integration of immigrants, UNESCO, Paris, 1954.
Excellent definition
Incomplete definition ↓
Ethnic assimilation can be fully classified as an ethnotransformation process, since it is a process of complete or partial absorption by one ethnic group of another, usually weaker, by a stronger one. In practice, this process is expressed in the assimilation by a weak ethnic group of the language, culture, customs, and traditions of a stronger ethnic group, as a result of which there is a change in the self-awareness of the weak ethnic group and the loss of its ethnic background. Most often this happens through conquest, subsequent mixed marriages and the deliberate “dissolution” of the subordinate ethnic group by the dominant ethnic group. During this process one ethnic community gradually adapts to the customs, values, way of life, and often to the language of the dominant ethnic group. The result of assimilation is the loss of original ethnic properties, a change in ethnic identity and self-awareness of people.
Here's an example. Indians and the politics of internationalism. In 1871, Congress passed a law depriving Indian tribes of the right to be considered independent nations, relations with which were regulated on a treaty basis. Their new status was defined as wards of the United States, in respect of whom Congress had the right to make any laws regulating their lives and property. This status finally freed the hands of the federal government to pursue an extremely cruel course towards the Indians, called the policy of paternalism. The main goal of this policy was the "civilization of the wild Indians", i.e. in "the final and irrevocable solution of the Indian question through the rapid inclusion of indigenous people in the economic and political life state." In other words, the essence of paternalism was the forced integration of Indians into the socio-economic structure of the United States, the "adjustment" of their traditional culture to the dominant Euro-American standard. The creation of the reservation was only the initial step towards introducing the indigenous population to the "benefits" of American civilization Having completed the Indian Wars, the federal government began to eliminate the vestiges of independence of its wards by destroying the traditional form of their social organization - the tribe.In order to bring this institution under administrative control, Congress in 1885 passed a law that abolished one of the most important components of tribal autonomy - administration of justice on the reservation territory.
Assimilation can be carried out in different ways: direct, direct and equal inclusion of individuals into society, which entails formal equality in legal, political, economic and other social institutions, regardless of racial, cultural, linguistic or religious differences (universalist incorporation); the inclusion of individuals into society on an unequal basis, resulting in the emergence of a subordinate, non-dominant community that may outnumber dominant groups, but formally be a minority (differential incorporation). In this case, the following are possible:
- · one-sided assimilation, when the minority culture is completely replaced by the dominant culture under the pressure of external circumstances;
- Complete assimilation is a very rare phenomenon.
Processes of ethnic assimilation began to develop mainly with the formation of an early class society, as tribal ties decomposed and were replaced by territorial-neighborhood and state-political ones. The processes of ethnic assimilation have intensified somewhat in early middle ages; they undoubtedly played a prominent role in the disappearance from the historical arena of many ethnic formations, such as the Alans, Huns, Visigoths, etc., which, after military defeats or for other reasons, fell into pieces, and these parts were absorbed by the surrounding peoples. Many Germanic peoples (or groups of tribes) who moved to the Apennine Peninsula, such as the Lombards, ceased to exist, dissolving among the Italian population. The processes of assimilation unfolded very widely in the late feudal and especially in the capitalist era, when many peoples were already sufficiently formed ethnically, and the people within them acquired a clear national identity. Some researchers, in particular M. Herskowitz, believe that assimilation presupposes an unequal position between the group that transmits the culture and the group that perceives it. Paying attention to the psychological aspects of assimilation, some researchers directly emphasize that assimilation should be understood not as a crude introduction of language or material culture, but mainly as a change in the self-awareness of the assimilated, on the one hand, and the consciousness of those around him, on the other.
In the process of ethnic assimilation, it is customary to distinguish two types: complete and partial. The essence of the first is that an ethnic group living in a foreign ethnic environment, due to various historical circumstances, completely abandons its culture and strives to assimilate the values of a foreign culture as a whole necessary for life. This process proceeds more efficiently if there is “good will” of the contacting parties.
Partial assimilation consists in the fact that an individual or ethnic group sacrifices its culture in favor of a foreign cultural environment only partially, abandoning any one of the spheres of its life activity. For example, at work, representatives of the corresponding ethnic group are guided by the norms and requirements of an alien environment, and in the family and at leisure - by the norms of their traditional ethnoculture. Thus, emigrants most often assimilate, dividing their lives into two halves.
In addition, ethnology distinguishes between natural and forced assimilation. Natural assimilation occurs through direct contact between ethnically heterogeneous groups and is determined by the needs of strengthening their common social, economic and cultural life. Forced assimilation is a system of government measures operating in all spheres of public life and aimed at accelerating the assimilation process by suppressing the language and culture of national minorities. Naturally, the more numerous a particular ethnic group is and the richer its culture, the more difficult it is to forcibly assimilate.
There is usually a greater or lesser degree of transformation of the minority culture under the influence of the dominant culture. In this case, the norms and values of culture, language, behavior are replaced, as a result of which the representatives of the assimilated group change cultural identity. The number of mixed marriages is growing, members of the minority are included in all social structures society.
Let's give an example. "Indian Rebellion: Pontiac's formidable Rebellion, which showed the power of the united actions of the Indians, forced the mother country to abandon confrontation with the indigenous population of the colonies. On October 7, 1763, a proclamation by King George 3 was issued, regulating relations with the Indians in the British possessions in America. In the document, with On the one hand, the feudal sovereignty of royal power over these territories was confirmed, and on the other, the Indians were “guaranteed the lands west of the Allegheny and the river. Mississippi", where whites "under threat of punishment and royal disfavor" were prohibited from acquiring property and creating settlements without special permission."
One of the central concepts associated with the study interethnic communication, in foreign literature is the concept acculturation. Acculturation is understood as a process during which a group of people with the same cultural base, entering into prolonged and direct contact with a group that is culturally different from it, changes its original cultural model, i.e. undergoes cultural assimilation. And in some cases, the term “acculturation” is replaced by a narrower concept, for example, the concepts of “Europeanization”, “Westernization” and “modernization” - the spread of elements in developing countries European culture, forms of farming, government system etc.
