“Ukrainians' desire to protect our language and national identity against their violent erasure by Russia is not radical nationalism. It is part of our attempts to decolonise ourselves from Russian cultural hegemony imposed on us for centuries.
There's no marginalisation of Russian speakers in Ukraine. Instead, we are reclaiming our right to speak our ancestral language in a context that has thus far forced us to use Russian.Before the recent language laws, my needs as a Ukrainian speaker were constantly ignored.2/5
Growing up in Kyiv in a Ukrainian-speaking family, I became socialised to use Russian in public spaces to avoid being seen as a 'village girl'.My dad, who actually moved to Kyiv from a village in the 1990s, had to switch to Russian (which he barely knew) to be employable.3/5
Although Ukrainian was the official language of my school, my Ukrainian(!) History teacher only addressed us in Russian (and he wasn't the only one to do it). When he wasn't feeding us pro-Russian history narratives, he would use the class time to show us Russian TV shows.4/5
Some Russian speakers complain about laws reasserting the primacy of Ukrainian language. But they need to reflect on the privileges they've had until now, as well as their role in ostracising Ukrainian speakers in certain regions and contributing to the idea of russkiy mir.”
https://twitter.com/BohdanaKurylo/status/1691060271136055297