Staunton, October 19 – One of the most memorable passages of Solzhenitsyn’s “One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich” is when one GULAG inmate explains to another that Moscow has decided what time it is — regardless of where the sun is located in the sky — prompting the latter to speculate that the […]
Staunton, April 3 — Despite Alexander Lukashenko’s tilt away from Moscow and even his own use of his country’s national language on occasion, the situation of the Belarusian language is dire and is likely going to deteriorate further because of the failure of Minsk to live up to its own laws, according to the Frantsishak […]
Staunton, March 31 — “At the stroke of midnight” today, Denis Krivosheyev, Amnesty International’s deputy director for Europe and Central Asia, says, “all but one Crimean Tatar language media outlets, which have come under a sustained assault since the Russian annexation, will fall silent.” Despite the efforts all of them have made to register, the […]
Staunton, January 19 – Over the past year, Ukrainians have torn down more than 500 memorials to Vladimir Lenin, actions that reflect their revulsion at the Soviet past but ones that have had the unintended consequence of transforming Lenin into a conservative figure for many Russians and making the destruction of Lenin statues in their […]
Staunton, October 1 – Anatoly Makarov, the head of the Russian foreign ministry department for work with compatriots, says Moscow is doing everything it can to make “our multi-million strong diaspora a reliable partner of Russia, from which we have the read to expect deep internal moral support and understanding of our foreign policy initiatives.” […]
Staunton, July 6 – In a declaration that may play to the current nationalist upsurge among Russians and appears to enjoy the backing of Vladimir Putin but seriously threatens their country’s future in two ways, Russia’s minister of culture says that non-Russians should study Russian more and Russians should study foreign languages less. Speaking to […]
Staunton, July 2 – Russia’s many languages are constantly in kaleidoscopic motion, with some gaining, others losing, and still others transformed. During the past week alone, some Duma deputies tried to ban Russians’ use of foreign words, German enthusiasts sought to reverse the demise of their language in Russia, and Karelian scholars moved to overcome […]
Staunton, June 23 – In Donetsk and Luhansk, Vladimir Putin has been carrying out “the biggest information special operation” in modern times and has managed to convince many there and elsewhere of a variety of things that did not exist but may appear for a brief time as a result of his efforts in this […]
Staunton, May 5 – Because Russian is the Russian Federation’s state language, because educational examinations are given only in Russian, and because Russian is the most widely used language in that country, many non-Russian parents want their children to study in Russian rather than in their native language. At the same time, many non-Russians are […]
Staunton, April 23 – Not only have the number of people in the former non-Russian republics identifying as ethnic Russians fallen dramatically since 1991, but the number who speak Russian or who study it in school has fallen precipitously as well, a trend that means Vladimir Putin is reaching out to an ever-smaller group and […]
