How the population of Little Russia rejected the foreign and artificial "Ukrainian language"
"Mova" was a new language created on the basis of the South Russian dialect with a large number of Polish, German and simply invented (artificial) words. Therefore, Russians in Little Russia, of course, did not want to study a completely unnecessary and alien language, although it was called “native language”.
Ukrainian parties
Masonic lodges created in Russia and Little Russia (How the anti-Russian project "Ukraine-Rus" was created), were secret organizations, they could not spread their views among the profane (not initiated into the brotherhood of "freemasons"). Therefore, numerous political parties are being created.
In 1904–1905 the first Ukrainian parties are created: the Ukrainian Democratic Party and the Ukrainian Radical Party. They demanded the elimination of the autocracy, the establishment of a parliamentary republic, a federal structure according to the ethnic-territorial system and the autonomy of Ukraine. The Ukrainian People's Rada was to become the legislative body of the Ukrainian autonomy. On the eve of the Duma elections in December 1905, two Ukrainian parties merged into the Ukrainian Democratic Radical Party (UDRP). Its leaders were B. Grinchenko, S. Efremov, M. Levitsky and M. Grushevsky. The key task of the UDRP was to transform Russia into a "parliamentary state", into a "federation of equal autonomous national-territorial units", with the division of power between the national and local parliaments and the idea of the supremacy of local sovereignty.
Thus, in general, the programs of the Ukrainian liberal democrats, nationalists, as well as their Russian "brothers" (often they were members of the same Masonic lodges), were a repetition of the structure of the "advanced" Western powers. Russian and Ukrainian liberals and Westerners dreamed of a "nice" Holland or France. Rebuild and modernize Russia according to the Western matrix. Destroy autocracy, centralism, create a democratic parliamentary republic, a federation of "equal peoples." In fact, as the catastrophe of 1917–1920 showed, everything led to bloody turmoil and intervention by Western and Eastern “partners” who wanted to rob Russia, divide it into a bunch of “banana republics” and bantustans.
It is interesting that initially almost all future Ukrainian nationalists were socialists. The UDRP believed that socialism would be the basis for future transformations. In the first two State Dumas, the Ukrainian parliamentary group first joined the Cadets, then the Trudoviks. In 1907–1908 the party self-liquidated, serving as the basis for the Association of Ukrainian Progressives.
Also in 1905, the Ukrainian Social Democratic Labor Party arose on the basis of the Revolutionary Ukrainian Party. USDRP was headed by D. Antonovich, V. Vinnichenko, S. Petlyura, A. Zhuk and I. Grinchenko. USDRP proved historical Ukraine's right to independence, enshrined in the Pereyaslav Council of 1654, its program combined socialist, democratic and nationalist demands. The basis was already traditional: the republican-parliamentary system in Russia, the freedom and equality of nations, Ukrainian autonomy with self-government and the Sejm (Rada).
It is worth noting that at that time the Ukrainian parties were the lot of an insignificant part of the intelligentsia - literally hundreds, several thousand people. Its basis: petty officials, teachers, doctors, students, etc. These parties stewed in their own juice and had no influence on the people in Little Russia. The bulk of the intelligentsia supported the all-Russian parties - the monarchist, the Cadets, the Octobrists, and various socialists. Ordinary people did not perceive at all the fantasy of an independent “Ukraine” and the alleged existence of an “ancient Ukrainian people and language”.
"Ridna Mova"
In the same period, with the support and funding of the Austrian authorities in Little Russia, the process of spreading the “ridnaya mova” began. In the cities of Little Russia, "Ukrainian-language" newspapers and publishing houses are founded. There is a flow of relevant literature. Propagandists of the “Ukrainian idea” appear in towns and villages. Interestingly, the Russian opposition - liberals and social democrats - actively supported this process, since they believed that it was directed only against the "tsarist regime", and not Russia in general. And for the Russian special services, this was another failure - the “fifth column”, with the support of Western “partners”, was preparing the future collapse of the Russian Empire right in front of their eyes.
"Mova" itself was a new language created on the basis of the South Russian dialect (Ukrainian language is a dialect of the Russian language) with a large number of Polish, German and simply made-up (artificial) words. "Ukromova", with the support of the Austrian authorities, could still somehow exist in Galicia, where Rusyns-Russians lived for a long time next to the Poles and Germans under their control and understood Polish and German words. In Russian Ukraine-Little Russia, things were different. The people didn't need an artificial chimera. They looked at “Ridna Mova” as gibberish. The Russian Little Russians could not read the newspapers and books printed on it. Therefore, the language, if it had not been constantly supported and implemented since 1917 at the state level, would simply have died naturally.
The Ukrainophiles themselves recognized the complete failure of this attempt to Ukrainize Little Russia.
It was about "ukromov":
However, the Russians in Little Russia, of course, did not want to “study” a completely unnecessary and alien language, although they were called their native “mova”, of course. Therefore, periodicals in the language of language practically had no readers. For example, according to the same Syry, obviously overestimated, even Ridny Krai, one of the most widespread Ukrainian-language newspapers, had only about 200 subscribers (mainly from among the Ukrainophiles-Ukrainizers themselves).
For comparison: at the same time, Russian newspapers hostile to the Ukrainian movement in Little Russia, such as Kievskaya Mysl, Kievlyanin, Yuzhny Krai and others, had tens of thousands of subscribers. And such cheap Russian magazines as "Rodina" and "Niva" were published in millions of copies and had hundreds of thousands of subscribers in the "Ukraine".
Russian Little Russians preferred to speak and read in Russian, their native language, and not in "movie" - incomprehensible and alien. "Ukromova" was so alien to the Little Russians that even the activists of the Ukrainian movement declared that they did not understand such a language, and asked Hrushevsky to send dictionaries along with newspapers and books.
The failure of the first attempt to Ukrainization "from below"
Despite the complete rejection of the people, Grushevsky and other Ukrainizers continued to work actively to create a new literary language, completely independent of Russian, trying to innovate through newspapers, magazines and books.
The offensive against the Russian language was so active and unceremonious that even the classic of Ukrainian literature, the writer Ivan Nechuy-Levytsky, was indignant. Nechuy was for "mova", but he was against haste in this matter, since people simply cannot digest a large number of innovations. The writer was also outraged by the artificial introduction into circulation of a large number of Polish and new invented words, which were used to replace folk words. For example, instead of the word “hold”, the Ukrainianizers introduced the word “trimati”, instead of “wait” - “chekati”, “offered” - “poked out”, “brightly” - brightly, “around” - “navkolo”, “resentment” - “image”, “textbook” was replaced by “pidruchnik”, “student” - by “student”, etc. At the heart of all the replacements was the desire to make the new literary language as far from Russian as possible. True, at the same time, "ukromova" moved away from the traditional Little Russian dialects.
In 1905, the tsarist government lifted all restrictions on the use of "ukromov". However, the entire population of Little Russia still rejected the alien, artificial pseudo-Ukrainian language and the "history" of Pan Grushevsky. The project "Ukraine", if it were not for the catastrophe of 1917, in the natural course of events, had no chance of success at all.
Thus, the new language created in Austrian Galicia, based on Russian, Polish and German, with an abundance of new words, was incomprehensible and alien to the inhabitants of Little Russia. Russian remained the common, main language in Little Russia-Ukraine throughout the XNUMXth century. In the city they spoke Russian interspersed with words from the Little Russian dialects, in the village - on several Little Russian (South Russian) dialects, which were closer to the general Russian than to the Galician remake. Pan Grushevsky's plans failed.
Only when the Ukrainizers were able to seize power and began to introduce “mova” everywhere, at the same time expelling the Russian language from the press, institutions, higher and secondary schools, did the situation change somewhat.
- Alexander Samsonov
- https://ru.wikipedia.org/
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