RUSSIFY− and RIDNA+: Three Centuries of Banning Ukrainian, and the Voices That Spoke It Back (First Edition)

Description

For three centuries, empires closed Ukrainian schools, banned Ukrainian books and claimed the language did not exist. Families kept it at the kitchen table. A twelve-week course on language policy and the people who kept ridna mova (рідна мова), “the mother tongue,” alive.

Full description

In 1863 the Russian Empire’s Valuev Circular claimed that a separate “Little Russian” language “did not, does not and cannot exist.” In 1876 the Ems decree banned Ukrainian books, and not one appeared in print in 1877. Since 2014 Russia has again pushed Ukrainian out of the classrooms of occupied towns.

This book reads three centuries of language policy: Sunday schools closed in 1862, Ukrainization ended in 1933, Russian compulsory from 1938, the parents’ “choice” of 1959, and occupied Crimea, where by the UN’s count pupils taught in Ukrainian fell from about 12,700 before 2014 to 197 in 2023. It reads surzhyk (суржик), “mixed speech,” as the result of policy and contact, and never shames a speaker or blames Ukrainians who speak Russian at home.

The plus word, ridna (рідна), means “our own, native.” It names what people kept: the language spoken at home, its defenders, the bilingual programmes of the Canadian Prairies, the language laws of 1989, 1996 and 2019, and everyone who chose Ukrainian since 2014 and 2022.

Its twelve weeks make one course term, each reading its story on three circles (personal, cultural, structural) and in four times, from before the empire to the future we choose. On River Street the Bondarenkos of No. 6, four generations of teachers, live across from neighbours who speak Russian at home. The families are fictional; every event is documented. We Remember keeps the teachers, scholars, writers and printers the filter took. For Every Age has four guides: a children’s story, Ten Words for the Cupboard, youth lessons, an evening for 27 October, the Day of Ukrainian Writing and Language, and a teachers’ guide.

It serves courses in social work, history, human rights, language education and Ukrainian and Canadian studies, and Saturday schools, libraries, community groups, families and readers of Ukrainian descent. Corrections and family stories are welcome at sasha@drokacademy.ca.

This is the first edition. Our goal is to find people with lived experience of what it describes, including Crimean Tatar and Lemko readers, survivors, their families and descendants, and their communities, and to review the book with them for accuracy. If you have lived this history, or you find something that is not accurate or something that is missing, please write to sasha@drokacademy.ca. The second edition will carry every correction, and the author is looking for co-authors who will shape it. A Ukrainian edition, ЗАБОРОНА− і РІДНА+ (Zaborona− i Ridna+), is planned. We will keep working toward it and are asking people to help with translation and review: write to sasha@drokacademy.ca.

Inside

• Twelve weeks, one for each class of a course term, in four parts: CARE, POWER, the minus word and the plus word
• River Street: one fictional family and the documented history behind every week
• Every week read on three circles (personal, cultural, structural) and in four times: before, what the empire brought, since 1991, the future we choose
• Three readings a week, discussion questions, a research task and key terms
• We Remember: who the filter took, with dated, sourced counts, and where the names are kept
• For Every Age: four guides, for children, youth, a community evening, and teachers and leaders

The author takes no income from this book. Proceeds after production costs support students. The author supports student caregivers and those who stand with Ukraine.

Teaching it? Instructors can request a free review copy, and every student in a course that adopts the book receives it free. Write to sasha@drokacademy.ca.

Author line

Dr. Oleksandr Kondrashov (Sasha) is the founder of DROKACADEMY, a healing and writing space in Kamloops, British Columbia, and a social work educator who currently teaches at Thompson Rivers University. Born in Lviv, Ukraine, and in Canada since 2004, he has taught over 7,000 students across five Canadian universities. DROKACADEMY’s motto guides this series: Love. Care. Share. He finished School No. 76 in Lviv, named after the poet Vasyl Stus, and has taught Ukrainian in diaspora classes in Canada.