Tip:
Highlight text to annotate it
X
Interview with Andrei Epifantsev
Good afternoon, Andrei Alexandrovich. This is Alexander Taburchany from "Vestnik Kavkaza".
I would like to ask you, a specialist in such matters, what has been happening to the Russian language
in the former Soviet republics of the South Caucasus since the collapse of the Soviet Union.
Andrei Epifantsev, historian, author, specialist on the Caucasus
It should be admitted that the area of the Russian language in the Caucasus region is shrinking
and this is connected with the geopolitical processes taking place in the region.
On the one hand, we certainly do live on the base of the Soviet Union and even the Russian Empire,
that gave an opportunity to generations of Caucasus people to be brought up in the traditions of the Russian language.
On the other hand, in the last 20 years new protagonists have appeared in the region - such as the USA, the European Union,
Turkey and Iran, and they are now making their policy toward the Caucasus more active.
Certainly all this is affecting the prevalence of the Russian language.
Now we are facing such a problem that if elder people do speak Russian rather well or even very well,
the younger generation is getting worse and worse at Russian and is not willing to learn it.
Probably in Armenia the situation is a bit different, but in Georgia it’s common everywhere and in Azerbaijan it’s almost the same.
You see, I’ve noticed several times that in the plane when young men from Azerbaijan are given an immigration form to enter Russia,
they are unable to fill it in since they don’t know Russian properly, so they have to ask somebody to help them. -0.782 3.16 Even 20 years ago such a situation was impossible.
Simply impossible. On the one hand these are the present day realities, on the other hand this is a great error by our country
– the Russian government has no serious linguistic policy.
And the worst thing of all is that all of this will reap a result not now, but in 10, 20 or 30 years. We are losing our space.
There is such a belief that the worst strike is not one by miners or cleaners,
which is evident since the streets are covered with dirt, but one by teachers,
because its results are evident after several years. Today’s situation resembles a teachers’ strike.
Andrei Alexandrovich, it’s quite clear, what the purpose of the Russian linguistic policy in the Caucasus is,
- but what’s the aim of the policy of the leaders of these countries who make the sector of the Russian language so narrow, thus undermining economic links with Russia?
From a certain point of view, you are right, but one should understand that it’s not Russia that is the major interest of these countries.
Look at present day Georgia. It’s absolutely an American project. Everything is now different there.
If some 30 years ago Shevardnadze used to say that for Georgia the sun rises in the North, now it’s an absolutely Americanized country,
where people speak English and celebrate American holidays.
So here the situation is opposite.
They get money, it’s well-known that Georgia lives off subsidies.
Kakha Bendukidze writes in "Kommersant" about 1 billion dollars in subsidies.
And these subsidies come from the West. To speak with the western partners one doesn’t need Russian, but English.
You know, in Russian texbooks printed in Georgia you may find lexical mistakes. In textbooks!
In Azerbaijan the situation is a bit different, there the emphasis is put on Pan-Turkism and relations with Turkey, "two countries - one people".
So there the native language is developed since the Turkish and Azerbaijani languages are almost the same.
However, the Russian language is, certainly, still spoken because of trade, the diaspora and so one.
Still when you speak with students from Azerbaijan you see that they have some problems with the Russian language,
and one should bear in mind that these are students, the most educated and promising part of the society.
The situation in Armenia seems much better,
but a recently proposed bill about schools teaching foreign languages was severely opposed by the society for people prefer to develop their native language.
It’s natural for any government to support its native language,
but a part of these schools would’ve been Russian, so it feels like Armenia rejected Russian language,
something that actually is not correct, for Armenia has a more balanced policy.