If the ideas were Russian, no-one would have the right to obstruct them. As a result, despite the efforts of Alexander to make all in his empire Great Russians, Russia looked to the German model — or, more precisely, the Prussian model, for it was Prussia that dominated Germany. It was arranged for Russian civil servants to go to Berlin to be trained in the German methods within their civil service. The end result would be a modern Russian civil service that could be used to further expand the power of the tsar.
The process of sending men to Germany to be trained continued right up to and ended because of World War One. Clearly, the system could not continue when both were on opposite sides of the war! They were particularly concerned that Russia had so many national minorities.
They viewed them as a threat to the internal security of Russia — especially areas such as the Baltic coast and Transcaucasia. The Church also supported Russification in that the policy called on Poles to convert to the Orthodox Church from Catholicism and for Muslims in Central Asia to do the same. All Russians under the same church would have done a great deal to expand the power of the Holy Synod, a body that was created to give its support to an expansion in the power of the tsar.
Supporters of Russification did not try to intellectualise the belief. They believed that it was for the greater good of all of Russia — and that was enough. The victims of Russification were those who were of non-Russian nationality but lived within the empire.
Any weakening of their culture had to lead to resentment. As there were no constitutional means by which they could voice their anger, the Poles, Lithuanians, Ukrainians etc turned to revolutionary action. Those in power had two ways of dealing with those who were deemed to be enemies of Russification. First they had outright repression. With an improving police force and a civil service that was being modernised, this could prove to be effective. These people could be used to advance the cause of Russification — playing the race card was not just a C20th phenomenon!
If things were going well, the Great Russian people got the credit; if things went wrong, the blame went on the disloyal national minorities who were anti-Russian. The government encouraged groups to form that openly displayed their loyalty to the tsar. Russification efforts after the Second World War , particularly in newly annexed Western Ukraine , gave rise at the beginning of the s to a dissident movement among Ukrainian intellectuals and some workers.
They demanded that Ukrainian be introduced as the language of instruction in higher education and special secondary schools and in preschool education and as the language of administration in public institutions, enterprises, communications, and trade.
They wanted the Academy of Sciences, the universities , and state publishers to issue more publications in Ukrainian. The government responded with repressions and increasing Russification pressures. Soviet efforts at Russifying the non-Russian nationalities were based on a Soviet theory of the merging of nations. The theory tacitly assumed that the one Soviet nation being formed was Russian in language and culture. Shortly after Nikita Khrushchev came to power, he adopted an insidious plan to force the non-Russian languages out of elementary schools and secondary education.
In April a new law was passed by the Supreme Soviet of the Ukrainian SSR giving parents the right to decide which schools, Russian-language or native-language, their children would attend. Given the state-bestowed advantages enjoyed by Russian-speakers in higher education , political and economic institutions, and cultural life, this seemingly democratic law was designed to make the non-Russian nationalities the agents of their own Russification.
The Tashkent Conference of was devoted to ways of improving the teaching of Russian to non-Russian children. The Ukrainian Ministry of Education developed a plan in for upgrading Russian-language instruction in Ukraine. By only 16 percent of the schools in the national and oblast capitals were Ukrainian, 12 percent were mixed predominantly Russian , and 72 percent were Russian. Apart from pedagogical schools, vocational-technical schools and specialized secondary schools were almost completely Russified by the s.
This was true of higher education as well. All the polytechnical, medical, industrial, commercial, agricultural, and economic institutes, except for a few in the western oblasts, taught only in Russian.
In only In 10 years the number of higher education textbooks in Ukrainian fell from titles to 38 , while those in Russian rose from to All candidate and doctoral dissertations submitted in the Academy of Sciences were written in Russian. The scientific literature published in Ukraine indicated strong discrimination in favor of Russian. Of scientific titles published in Ukraine in , By Russian titles constituted The production of Ukrainian books and booklets in general fell from 4, titles in to 2, in , while the number of Russian titles remained unchanged at slightly above 4, The number of Ukrainian journals increased from 51 in to 63 in and fell to 50 in , while the number of Russian journals published in Ukraine rose steadily from 26 to 41 to Moreover, most of the Ukrainian journals were devoted to literature and art.
According to some estimates the Ukrainian-language holdings of public libraries in Ukraine accounted for only 10 to 20 percent of the total holdings.
Discrimination in favor of Russian culture was evident also in other fields; the number of museums in Ukraine, for example, fell from in to in , while in Russia the number rose from to The most frequent and available radio and TV programs in Ukraine were Russian, either produced in Ukraine or broadcasted from Russia.
Buttressing the efforts at Russification was a widespread attitude that the Soviet people could gain access to world culture and science only through Russian. It greatly affected the Poles, Lithuanians and the Ukranians. It was introduced after the assassination of Alexander II in and was the source of much resentment. Russian was the official language and all others were suppressed. Poles were banned from speaking or learning their language in many places.
Russian Orthodoxy was promoted and Catholic monasteries were closed.
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