The state status of republican languages in Russia does not depend on the relations of the Russian Federation with those countries where these languages are spoken and, in particular, are official, the senior analyst of Vestnik Kavkaza, Andrey Petrov, said in the National Question program on Vesti.FM, speaking about the issue of preserving the culture of the post-Soviet countries in Russia, often questioned by political opponents from the Baltic states and Ukraine.
First of all, the analyst recalled that Russia is a country of the most liberal language policy. “Not everyone knows that there are more than 30 state languages in Russia, and this includes the official languages of foreign countries. In 64 regions, there is only one such language - Russian, but in 21 regions - in the republics - indigenous languages also have the status of state languages. Perhaps this is due to our legislation, according to which the republics in the Federation have a special form of statehood of the Russian peoples: they live according to their own constitutions, which, as a result, allows them to establish their own state languages along with Russian, ” he said.
“For today's topic, Dagestan and Crimea are the most interesting regions. In most republics, the second state language is one — Mari in Mari El, Buryat in Buryatia, Ingush in Ingushetia, Chuvash in Chuvashia, and so on, in Mordovia and Kabardino-Balkaria there are two official languages, in Karachay-Cherkessia there are four, and in Dagestan, the Constitution establishes that the languages of all Dagestan peoples are state. De facto, we are talking only about 13 languages that have written form, including the official language of a foreign state - Azerbaijani, ” Andrey Petrov said, adding that the case of the Azerbaijani language is a good example of the Russian language policy.
"Azerbaijanis are the indigenous people of Dagestan, a third of the population of the well-known Derbent are Azerbaijanis. Azerbaijani was once the language of interethnic communication in the south of the region, therefore, when the Soviet Union collapsed and Azerbaijan turned out to be a foreign state for Russia, no discussions arose what to do with its language. Azerbaijani has become the Russian state language together with other languages of the peoples of Dagestan, because in Russia the language issue is resolved simply: people have the right to speak, write and read in their native language if they want, including in the schools, media and official documents. The Azerbaijani people declared independence, but the Dagestan Azeris did not cease to be Russians and have the same rights as other Russian peoples, ”the senior analyst explained.
The same policy was applied to Crimea when the republic became the part of Russia. “The Crimean constitution proclaimed Russian, Ukrainian, and Crimean-Tatar state languages, and when Crimea and Sevastopol became subjects of the Russian Federation, all that remained. Crimean-Tatar, in fact, first received the status of the state language, since unitary Ukraine has only one official language. The status of Ukrainian as the state language of Russia is not disputed by anyone, despite the complexity of the Russian-Ukrainian relations and the fact that for more than 20 years Ukrainian has been a foreign language. This status will not be changed in the future: Ukrainians are now one of the indigenous peoples of our country and have the right to speak, write and read in their native language, ” Andrey Petrov said.
He also noted that this right is enshrined in Article 26 of the 2nd chapter of the Russian Constitution: “Everyone has the right to use his native language and to a free choice of language of communication, education, upbringing and creativity.”
