Linguistic russification in the Russian Empire: peasants into Russians?

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to question the traditional view of tsarist language management as a conscious, consistent and long-lasting policy of linguistic russification and denationalization and to consider the actual policies, their context, and impact. Drawing on recent historiographies, I will show that the Russian administration had no unified language policy: its strategies varied significantly across time periods and geographic regions and were mediated by political, ethnic, religious, and class concerns. When russification policies were adopted, the key aim was to establish the dominance of Russian as a high language over Polish, German, and Tatar. At the same time, the authorities never created a comprehensive primary education system and, as a result, failed to spread Russian to the majority of non-Russian peasants. Ethnic elites adopted Russian as an additional language, yet this adoption did not increase their loyalty to the empire: the key outcome of russification policies was the mobilization of emerging national movements.Аннотация Главная задача данной статьи-поставить под вопрос традиционную трактовку имперской языковой политики как сознательной, последовательной, и долговременной политики языковой руссификации и денационализации и рас-смотреть имперские языковые законы и их конечный результат в историческом контексте. Опираясь на современные исторические исследования, я покажу, что имперская администрация не имела единого подхода к языковым вопросам: курс ее политики менялся в зависимости от исторического периода и географического положения региона и находился под влиянием политических, этнических, религиоз-ных, и социальных факторов. В ситуациях, где применялась политика руссификации, ее целью было установление доминации русского языка как языка культуры над польским, немецким, и татарским языками. В то же время, имперская администрация не смогла распространить начальное обучение на всей территории империи и, в результате, не смогла донести русский язык до большинства нерусских крестьян. Члены национальных элит выучили русский как дополнительный язык, но это не A. Pavlenko ( ) 332 A. Pavlenko усилило их лояльность по отношению к империи: главным результатом царской языковой политики была мобилизация национального народного движения.

The rise of a lingua franca: The case of Russian in Dagestan

“…The overall impact of Russian schooling was negligible, also because of the competition from Islam (cf. similar conclusions about Russian schools in some other parts of 19 th century Russia in Pavlenko, 2011). Schools were associated with Christianity and were rather unpopular among local people.…”

Integration Practices In Russian Politics In The Central Caucasus During Imperial Period

“…In other suburbs of the empire, the promotion of the Russian language through education sometimes faced considerable difficulties and resistance from the local population, whereas in the Central Caucasus, the situation was different. We note here that the researchers report the ambiguity of the government's language policy and doubt the established view on the processes of "russification" as a conscious, consistent and long-term policy of denationalization (Pavlenko, 2011).…”

Conflict, Exclusion and Dissent in the Linguistic Landscape

“…(Pavlenko, 2013, p. 262) Language use in Nagorno-Karabakh mainly revolves around the effects of Soviet language policies and, related to that, the commodification and increasing economic value of Russian. Similar to other peripheral regions of imperial Russia (Pavlenko, 2011b), promoting the spread of Russian at the expense of titular languages was not the main preoccupation of policy makers. When the Karabakh Khanate became a Russian protectorate following the Treaty of Kurakchay in 1805, the language situation reflected multilingualism in the Caucasus on a small scale.…”