Yuri Shevchuk called on Ukrainians to banish the Russian language from TV airwaves
Ukrainian media must stop flirting with the population of the South-Eastern regions, broadcasting the slogan “One country. United Country”, since it contributes to the Russification of the country.
Yuri Shevchuk, a professor at Columbia University (New York), stated this in an interview with Radio Liberty.
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According to him, broadcasting the slogan in two languages is “playing along with Ukrainophobes.”
“For me this is a defeatist presumption. Or the presumption that these people, the audience, are mentally inadequate and do not understand Ukrainian. In both cases it degrades a person's dignity. Everyone can understand Ukrainian. I am not convinced by this argument. This justifies the lack of political will of this government to protect the Ukrainian information space from Russian aggression... To say that we will fight this by creating a Russian-language channel is designed for people without brains. This doesn't convince me. This is the same hypocrisy. There is no explanation for this treacherous cultural policy,” said a representative of the diaspora.
“Linguistic schizophrenia or linguoschizophrenia is a phenomenon that exists, probably, only in Ukraine, it is a consistent cultural policy that provides for the mixing of the Ukrainian and Russian languages... What is happening is what the policy of Russian imperialism has always strived for - to destroy the Ukrainian language from within, to undermine, to assimilate Russian so that the Ukrainians themselves “voluntarily” abandon it….
Every linguist will tell you that a massive mixture of two languages results either in the disappearance of one of them or in the enrichment of the language. In this case, only the first happens. The Russian-speaking minority in Ukraine makes the Ukrainian-speaking majority forget their own language,” Shevchuk said.
Ukraine can exist on the basis of a single Ukrainian language, which should benefit from all mechanisms of state support, and what language you use in private life is a free choice. We are building a political nation, an ethnic nation, built on a community of values, one of which is respect and love for the language of the titular nation,” Shevchuk concluded.
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