For the first time after the Maidan, the problem of Ukrainian identity came to the top of the most acute political discussions. Who will sign the law adopted by Rada - the loser of Poroshenko or the winning Zelensky?

The discussion, which unfolded in society around the law voted in the Rada “On ensuring the functioning of the Ukrainian language as a state”, added fire to disputes that they had not yet subsided after the presidential campaign. The points of disagreement have been known for many years. Politics usually pressed them to mobilize their own electorate.

Those who are “for” the law call the document historical and, among other arguments, bring slaughter: in the hybrid aggression of Russia against Ukraine, the role of the Ukrainian language is akin to weapons to protect the independence of the country and its sovereignty. A fresh example is Putin's “passport decree” and preparation for its introduction in the occupied part of Donbass. “First, grandmothers shout that they are afraid of violent Ukrainization, then they send Grads to the aid of grandmothers ... Do you want a sequel in other regions until it comes to Kyiv?” - Rhetoric questions sound.

The range of supporters of the law is quite heterogeneous: from nationalists to the Democrats. Many bilinguals made a decision to say goodbye to the Russians after the Maidan, at the beginning of the war. As a rule, they are now standing in the most radical positions and require such actions from the rest. No wonder the current President Petro Poroshenko made the slogan of his election company the Triad Army. Mova. Vira ".

Those who are against, say: the document contradicts the constitution, that is, allows discrimination on a linguistic feature, displaces the Russian -speaking ones, figuratively speaking, from living rooms in the kitchen. The words of Mikola Knyazhitsky, the head of the parliamentary committee on culture and spirituality are presented as a material evidence, whose role in the promotion of the Ukrainian -centric perception of the world is really great: "The law does not limit the use of any language in the private sphere."

The heterogeneity of protest forces is even more noticeable and dramatic. On one side were the townsfolk, who heard that someone was going to fine for Russian speech on the street, and those who greeted the Maidan as a symbol of European choice and freedom, including civil freedoms, were going to be finished somewhere. Immediately the ideological heirs of the Party of Regions, the remnants of Soviet hateers of Ukrainian statehood and, for example, part of writers, publishers for whom the Russian is a working instrument, even though Ukrainian in everyday life they own perfectly: language quotas will destroy their business.

More than two thousand amendments were made to the draft law in two months. He was supported by 278 deputies - more than necessary for effective voting. From the square under the building, the servants of the people inspired a rally of patriotic forces.

People cried with happiness and chanted "Dyaku!" But soon the text disappeared from the official website of the parliament.

Deputy Head of the Opposition Bloc faction, ex-candidate for president, Alexander Vilkul, took advantage of his right and registered a decision to cancel the law. Now, at least before the start of the next session week, until the deputies decide the fate of the decision, neither the speaker Andrei Parubiy, nor the current head of state Petro Poroshenko will be able to sign the language on the language. Another ex-candidate for the president, Yuri Boyko from the Opposition Platform-for Life, went in parallel: prepared an submission to the Constitutional Court to appeal the document there if the Vilkul did not succeed.

The alternative plans of former candidates, including Poroshenko, are associated with the approaching inauguration of the elected president. So far, Zelensky expresses indignation that the Central Election Commission is slow with the official announcement of the election results, you can quickly complete the begun, showing him the language (Ukrainian), or finally, to finally speak out on the topic and lose some of the parts of the Elector. The post of Zelensky on Facebook: “After my entry of office, I will make a thorough analysis of this law to make sure that all the constitutional rights and interests of citizens of Ukraine are observed in it,” did not suit any of the ex-competing.

What does the law say

Now, on the merits of the main provisions of the document - taking into account the amendments made by the Rada, in an arbitrary retelling, with comments.

The law says : every citizen of Ukraine is obliged to own the state language. Ukrainian is the only state language in Ukraine. The law does not apply to the sphere of private communication and the departure of religious rites. Attempts to introduce official multilingualism contrary to the constitutional procedure will be considered as provocations of the country's linguistic split, interethnic confrontation and enmity aimed at a violent change or overthrow of the constitutional system. The state provides all citizens with the opportunity to learn Ukrainian.

In practice,

Only people who are in conflict with the very fact of the existence of Ukraine can “boast” the complete ignorance of Ukrainian, and they will cooperate.

Another thing is the level of knowledge. The fashion for the language of freedom was born back in 2004, on the orange Maidan, the second wind opened during the "Revolution of dignity". A significant part of the student youth of the imperative “is obliged to own” does not understand at all - but how else? In the initial version of the document, prison punishments were provided for attempts to give official status to any other of the languages, read-Russian. The norm did not get into the final option. The norm on fines and imprisonment for public humiliation of the state language or its intentional distortion in official documents and texts was also taken.

The law says : the delivery of the test for citizens of the Ukrainian language and obtaining a certificate is a free procedure. Certificates correspond to six levels, from A1 (initial) to C2 (free ownership).

In the field of higher and secondary education, there is no alternative to Ukrainian, but it remains for primary school and kindergarten.

The indigenous peoples (in the text of the law, the Crimean Tatars are mentioned as an example) is guaranteed the right to teach native languages. The use of Ukrainian is mandatory for the president, prime minister, deputies of all levels, judges, notaries, army officers, university employees, medical workers, etc. Deputies of the Rada are the only representatives of the authorities who do not have to take exams for knowledge of the Ukrainian language. In Ukrainian, all protocol events in the authorities in the center and in the center and in the field, all cultural-mass actions should go. In the field of service with clients, they should communicate in Ukrainian and bring in line with the law the price tags and lists of services.

Will the notorious Russian -speaking grandmother, who has been living in Ukraine, can explain with a doctor who fulfills the requirements of the law for a hundred years?

Will she realize in the store, which lies with the inscription "Kovbas"? If the Russian propaganda media do not begin to enter the grandmother - yes.

But the official violators will have to be more difficult. The initiator of the bill Mikola Knyazhitsky told the Ukrainian publication “The Babel” about fines:

• 5100 - 6800 hryvnias (approximately 12,490 - 16,650 rubles at the rate) for the lack of information about goods and services in Ukrainian,

• 3 400 - 6,800 hryvnias (approximately 8,320 - 16,650 rubles at the rate) for violation of the law during meetings, working communication and documentation in state bodies,

• 3 400 - 5 100 hryvnias (approximately 8320 - 12,490 rubles at the rate) for violations in the field of science, public ads and sites,

• 6 800 - 8500 hryvnias (approximately 16,650 - 20,800 rubles at the rate) for violations in print media.

The law says : 90% of television broadcasters should go in the state language. The norm will enter into force after 5 years, now the quota is 75%. Only 10% of the replicas in films shot in Ukraine is allowed to contain a foreign language or surgic. Going out in Ukrainian is a mandatory requirement for 100% of print media. If the publication has a foreign version, then its circulation should be equal to Ukrainian. The requirement does not apply to media, published exclusively in the languages ​​of indigenous peoples - for example, Crimean Tatar, as well as in English or other official languages ​​of the EU. (Now the majority of newspapers and magazines in Ukraine are published in a “foreign version”, that is, in Russian, without dubbing. The English publication in the country is one - “Kyivpost”.)

The norm will not act immediately. A transition period is provided: 30 months for national publications and 5 years for regional. 100% of sites, mobile applications and pages in social networks of authorities, enterprises and firms registered in the country, as well as all Internet media are required to have a Ukrainian-language version-it is loaded automatically.

The deputies did not support the idea of ​​“uniform inspectors”, designed to follow the implementation of the law.

But the position of the authorized person from the government to protect the state language is provided (to check state officials and write out fines, a bulky procedure) and the creation of a special commission from doctors of philological sciences. The commissions will deal with the approval of language standards, spelling and improving training programs.

Behind brackets

Those who are sure that adopted by Rada, but not yet “put into operation” the law will seriously harm civil society, quote professors Roman Korlyuk , head of the department named after M. Grushevsky at the Harvard Institute of Ukraine (USA). Living legend, an 86-year-old researcher of the history of Central and Eastern Europe, whose numerous works, in particular, were published in the Kiev Publishing House of the I Liter, expresses judgments for which they would glue the shortcut “Sopara”. Capital historians notice that the fragment below belongs to the beginning of the Independence Age, and pan Shprlyuk has long come off reality in his American dreams of the "modern nation of Ukrainians":

“... December 1 (1991, at the All -Ukrainian referendum - O. M.) millions of people who consider the Russian language voted for independence. Based on this, citizens for whom Ukrainian - native receive certain political and moral obligations to them. If we divide the population into “main” and “national minorities”, then we will soon face the prospect of territorial and ethnic collapse of Ukraine ...

... The people of Ukraine are essentially bilingual, Russian - a natural language for millions of people living in Ukraine ...

... If the Ukrainian state wants to conquer and save the loyalty of its Russian -speaking citizens, it must tie them to Ukraine. Let the best Russian theaters, universities, and schools be in Ukraine.

... The easiest way to destroy Ukraine is to begin the Ukrainization of non -shafts. The most dangerous for independent Ukraine are language fanatics.

... The Ukrainian language should sound in the Crimea, in the Donbass, in Odessa, but its natural distribution there is a process, which requires a change in generations. If you want to have a five -year Ukrainization plan, you will destroy Ukraine.

... to discard the idea that the Ukrainian is learned by how much he speaks the Ukrainian language. Now the Ukrainian must be evaluated by how good he is a citizen of Ukraine.

... There is no need to think about Ukrainians and non -shafts from an ethnic point of view, it is better to appreciate that public treaty of all citizens of Ukraine, signed on December 1, 1991 at a referendum and has become an act of creating a Ukrainian political nation. ”

Professor Skorluk, although in the minority, is not alone. “The Maidan has very much changed the language situation in Ukraine. Today, the Language issue is occupied by the last place in the list of important problems, ”said Yaroslav Gritsak , professor of the Ukrainian Catholic University in Lviv, in an interview with Radio Liberty in 2016 in an interview with Radio Liberty. “Who was on the Maidan, remembers - half of the people in the barricades said in Russian. The same was observed in the war, for example, during the battles for the Donetsk airport, where both sides spoke exclusively in Russian. The only difference is that on the Ukrainian side the Russian was more literary. It suddenly lost its meaning, everyone understood that it was not about the language, not about identity, but about values. ”

Yaroslav Gritsak said that recently researchers have been observing the formation of the so -called “ third model of Ukraine ”, Ukraine of the Center, not only geographical, but also political

When Kyiv speaks the same language as Donetsk, and votes like Lviv.

(I will take the courage to develop a message: the sensation of the presidential election-2019 could be foreseen if politicians were interested in science, and not just ratings.) In addition, according to Gritsak, now a certain part of the country's population has a noticeable desire to talk in Ukrainian. Even if they don’t know how, they still want to. At the same time, there is a significant group of people who consider themselves Ukrainian patriots and protect their right to be Russian -speaking. And this is also very important.

“I see that Ukrainian -speaking people become a model of a nation,” the professor concludes. “I see a very big future in this model.” The fact that the process should be well push at the legislative level, fines, and the state should bear the language issue from the last place in the list of citizens' priorities to the first, there is not a word ...

Among journalists with names and reputation , Andrei Kulikov , the head of the Board of Gromadsky Radio, occupies a similar position. Recently, in an interview with the “new” ethnic Russian Kulikov, who, even at the Union, made a personal conscious choice in favor of the Ukrainian, expressed the idea that Ukraine has no need to abandon its “Ukrainian Russian language”, since it is part of a nationwide culture, and not the marker of “one’s alien”.

In the deputy corps in unison Kulikov, the “Euro -optimist” Mustafa Nayyem spoke: “... What is the hell of humanitarian serfdom? Russian, including ours. And this is not about the second state, which, in my opinion, should be English; It is about in Russian that not only the Termerian state communicated in hostage to Russia ( in the occupied part of Donbass, O. M. ). ” Damnes and thanks, Nayem received approximately equally. And the next day he voted in support of the law on Ukrainian, along with the national democratic majority of Rada.

Of the current observations. Experts who are responsible for estimates and forecasts avoid coming, they took a pause for thought. For example, Oleg Razhalchuk , sociopsychologist, consultant of the National Institute for Strategic Research, replied to the proposal of “New”:

- The spiritual state of citizens is such that, outside the legal, political or generally contextual, content part of the law, everyone will seek out in it only confirmation of their worldview and the reproach of everyone else. This could be the page of the Bible or a clean sheet - overheating after the election campaign reached such a level that the reason is most important. The good news is that a part of society, which was overheated by politics, no matter what “orientation”, it is, is representative only in its own eyes. If hysteria is not stimulated manually, then by the fall, perhaps rational thinking will return.

- But in the fall, parliamentary elections are waiting for Ukraine, and alas, hysteria, alas, continue to stimulate. Poroshenko will sign the law to the inauguration of Zelensky, what do you think?

- I believe that they are now determining how it is as profitable to use the current situation. You can leave the signing of the successor, and let him fool himself with his head with the compliance of the EU standards, our legislation and his voters. Anyway, for his voter, Pyotr Alekseevich is the father of this law, like the rest of the good. Signed is also a father, but already in the law. And let the enemies try to crush this consolidated spirituality!

... But the law that has not yet entered into force works miracles. The elected President Vladimir Zelensky has already “renamed” his official Facebook page on Volodimir Zelensky.