The Failure of the Language Policy in Belarus
Date
2017
Authors
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Biden School of Public Policy and Administration
Abstract
The Republic of Belarus, which used to be part of the Soviet Union, became
an independent state in August of 1991. It was expected that Belarus would follow
the same path on the way of its independent nation building as the other former
Soviet republics, i.e. it would promote its national identity and the use of the national
language in the public and private spheres of life. The tentative attempt of the
nationalist-inclined part of the Belarusian intelligentsia to introduce a new language
policy that stipulated for a gradual switch to Belarusian as the sole state language first
seemed quite successful. The referendum of 1995, however, reintroduced the
Russian language as the second state language, which in practice meant squeezing
Belarusian out of the public sphere, and going back to Belarus being a predominantly
Russian-speaking country.
Based on the available scholarship, official and historical documents, and
other secondary data, the essay argues that the new language policy failed because
Belarusians had not formed into a nation by the beginning of the 20th century. With
the Russian language being the medium of urban dwellers’ communication and a
means of upward social mobility since the times of the tsarist empire, the value of
being fluent in Belarusian still remains questionable for the majority of the Belarusian
population.
Description
Keywords
Language Policy, Nation Building, National Identity, National Language
Citation
New Visions of Public Affairs 2017, Vol. 9, pp. 59-74.