President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine has signed two legal guidelines that strictly reinforce his nation’s nationwide id, banning Russian place names and making information of Ukrainian language and historical past a requirement for citizenship.
The strikes late Friday had been Ukraine’s newest steps to distance itself from a protracted legacy of Russian domination, an more and more emotional topic since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine started final 12 months.
Already, numerous streets throughout Ukraine have been renamed and statues of Russian figures like Catherine the Great have come toppling down. While such efforts to wash away outdated Russian names have been occurring for the reason that fall of the Soviet Union, they’ve picked up tempo for the reason that conflict started in February 2022. in a course of known as “de-Russification.”
A brand new legislation that Mr. Zelensky signed on Friday prohibits utilizing place names that “perpetuate, promote or symbolize the occupying state or its notable, memorable, historical and cultural places, cities, dates, events,” and “its figures who carried out military aggression against Ukraine.”
Vakhtang Kebuladze, a philosophy professor on the Taras Shevhchenko National University in Kyiv, mentioned it was about time. He, like many different Ukrainian intellectuals, helps the erasing of Russian names, even these of nice writers like Leo Tolstoy.
“It’s not about literature,” Mr. Kebuladze mentioned on Saturday. “It’s about the imperialistic presence of Russia in our streets and our cities.”
“We should read Tolstoy, we should investigate his literature. But why do we need to have a Leo Tolstoy Street in the center of Kyiv?” he added.
(In March, Kyiv modified Leo Tolstoy Street to Hetman Pavlo Skoropadskyi Street, after a Ukrainian chief from the early twentieth century.)
Mr. Kebuladze additionally welcomed the brand new citizenship legislation signed by Mr. Zelensky on Friday that requires information of Ukrainian language and historical past.
Many Ukrainian residents are native Russian audio system — together with Mr. Zelensky. An estimated one in each three Ukrainians speaks Russian at residence, in accordance with researchers, however a lot of them — outraged by the violence of Russia’s invasion — have been switching to Ukrainian as a present of defiance.
But Mr. Kebuladze, who speaks Ukrainian, Russian and Georgian, mentioned it was OK for folks to proceed to talk what they need at residence.
“It’s not about private language,” Mr. Kebuladze mentioned.
“We have only one state language, Ukrainian,” he added. “And if people want to become citizens, they should know this language. It’s part of our identity, our culture, our history.”
Source: www.nytimes.com