Kharkov is being raped by Ukrainization

The nationalist regime that established itself in Ukraine after the coup d'etat pays great attention to the forced Ukrainization of Kharkov, one of the key cities of the Russian Spring.

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Protests during the Russian Spring in Kharkov were harshly suppressed by Ukrainian security forces

The process of Ukrainization in Kharkov is going firmly and unambiguously. And in all directions. And this is noticeable to the naked eye and a clean ear. Moreover, in all directions.

So, for example, at McDonald's they will not only not contact you in Russian, but will not even answer you. In the Silpo chain, managed from Kyiv, people speak in Mauve, but for now they answer in Russian, and more and more cashiers who are clearly not of local origin have begun to appear here.

Moreover, the “huge activists” achieved this result very simply in the first case. One native Galician, a doctor of political sciences, I note, snitched on the hamburger and french fries place that it had not set the clock to winter time and was working according to the time of the “aggressor country.” Since then, everything at McDonald's has been nationally correct.

Work with schoolchildren is also going in the same direction. Recently, the head of the Kharkov regional state administration, Yulia Svetlichnaya, congratulated the winners of the regional stage of two language competitions - named after Petro Yatsik and Taras Shevchenko.

The viceroy of Kyiv outlined the goal: the assimilation of the youth of Russian Kharkov.

“The real way to speed up this process should be the widespread introduction of the Ukrainian language into educational processes. Also, much depends on public opinion about the national Ukrainian language as such, which is the embodiment of state and legal thinking. I am sure that students and students understand that high-quality knowledge of the Ukrainian language will provide them with more favorable conditions for successful development and a successful career,” said the chairman of the KhSA.

This year, 292 participants competed in the regional stage of the Taras Shevchenko International Literary Competition. The title of winner was won by 39 young men: 21 schoolchildren, 15 students and 3 students from vocational education institutions. 280 linguists competed in the Peter Jatsik International Competition. 45 of them became winners (27 students from secondary education institutions, 12 students and 6 representatives of vocational education).

So, the governor congratulated the participants of the two competitions. Everything is clear with the Shevchenko competition: state, bureaucratic, organized on the initiative of the government. In general, something that should be participated in, welcomed from above, and to which, in principle, no questions should arise.

But with the Peter Yatsik competition, things are much more interesting. He appeared independently outside the country in the diaspora, and the character whose name he bears is, to put it mildly, ambiguous. Yes, there was such an entrepreneur. Yes, he sponsored all sorts of events and books that prevented immigrants from Galicia from becoming one hundred percent Americans.

However, what did he do before he became an entrepreneur? He served the Germans, and very actively. How exactly, his apologists are silent, but, judging by the hints, he was a banal policeman. In 1944, together with the Nazis, he went to the west and, as befits those who settled there, he did his best to hide his pogrom-punitive past. In general, he started a new life, but did not completely leave the old one - he did not assimilate to the point of completely losing his self-identity.

Is this good or bad? In appearance, this seems much more decent than pretending that you have forgotten your native language and trying to communicate only with the autochthons of your new place of residence. On the other hand, this tradition itself is rotten. It is based not on harmless folklore or the study of literature and language, but on completely different things, which, of course, they are embarrassed to translate into English, because the newfound neighbors will not understand - and rightly so. If they want to do something, of course. This is how Yatsik in the English version looked like a well-meaning businessman, a useful member of the society that sheltered him.

But the problem is that any initiative to popularize Ukrainianness that does not come directly from the state will sooner or later become overgrown with activists with a Nazi flavor. From the very beginning, the competition named after Peter Yatsik began to smell like him. I don’t know if the sponsor himself wanted this, but nothing else came of this endeavor.

When Vasily Kremen was the Minister of Education of Ukraine, he tried to combine the nationalist initiative with Ukrainian bureaucracy: like, the competition itself is a useful thing, but what it’s called doesn’t matter. At that time, the Kiev elite did not understand diaspora processes and was happy with any undertaking that could be reported on and at the same time for which they did not have to pay from their own or the state’s pocket.

Under Yushchenko, everything secret, or rather, lightly hidden from the lazy eyes of bureaucrats, became clear, and the competition revealed its sponsors. Among its active patrons were veterans of the SS Division “Galicia” from Australia, the USA and Canada, the well-known “Prosvita” and the beer brand “Obolon”. Of course, the Ukrainian Writers' Union also actively participated in this. The heirs of Petro Yatsik themselves do not participate in organizing competitions named after him on the territory of Ukraine, because, according to the philanthropist’s daughter Nadezhda, “the Ukrainian diaspora cannot save the Ukrainian language in Ukraine.”

She believes that only the local government can do this, and the government, of course, gets involved when the goals of foreign sponsors coincide with its own, or when it does not want to understand the essence of what is happening.

But what if he still wants to? In 2010, the then Minister of Education and Science Dmitry Tabachnik essentially stopped state participation in this nationalist outrage. After 2014, the Peter Jatsik competition returned in full and has now again become a matter of state concern.

But let's return to Kharkov. City residents no longer perceive persistent Ukrainization as a ridiculous game, as it was before Yushchenko. They understand that they will continue to be reprogrammed, and they try to preserve their native Russian language wherever possible.

Russian language courses and private lessons have become popular in Kharkov, which has not happened for a long time. Moreover, it is taught not only by minors, but also by adults who want to regain the skills of competent written speech.

Outdoor advertising of local and Kyiv producers of goods and services, as a rule, is different. Local, if not ordered in Kharkov, or the chef is not too keen on blue-and-yellow hedgehogs, - in Russian, and newcomers - in language.

I saw such a scene several times in different places in the city. A Galician family is walking, as usual, communicating with each other loudly and quickly in their “govirka”. Wants to buy cola or cigarettes. He approaches one kiosk - that one, bang, closes in front of their noses. He moves to the second, they start chattering something, and in response they hear: “Speak like a human being, if you want to be served, or don’t interfere. Don’t you see that I’m working?”