INTRODUCTION

In March of 2001 a draft law entitled “On the Russian language” was first introduced to the Duma of the Russian Federation. The law was controversial in several respects. The draft proposed banning the use of “derogatory, and obscene words and expressions” in the public forum, including any form of mass media. A prohibition against the use of foreign lexicon if commonly accepted Russian equivalents exist was also in the draft. The law declared Russian to be the “state” language of federal government. The law was passed by the Duma in February of 2003 and was renamed to “On the state language of the Russian Federation.” The Federation Council subsequently rejected it, sending it back to the Duma for revision. During the process of revision the ban on obscene and offensive language was replaced with an article forbidding the use of “non-normative” language. The final revision of the draft law was completed after the last round of national elections in October of 2004. Scheduled to be discussed later that month, it has not yet been debated. The fate of this law is uncertain at present.
The draft bill merits close scrutiny even if it never comes to a vote. It is the first major piece of legislation dealing with language planning to appear at the federal level in recent years. Analysis of the evolution of the bill and comparison of various redactions, as I will establish, provide insight into current trends in language policy at the federal level. The public debate engendered by the legislation provided a forum for popular opinion about the current status of Russian and broader language planning issues, and thereby affords insight into the role of language in the formation of national identity.
This article begins by introducing the issue of language policy and official languages and their status and function within the larger framework of language planning. An overview of the development of language policies in the Russian Federation since 1989 argues that “On the state language of the Russian Federation” is best understood as a reaction to legislation adopted at both the federal and republic level since the breakup of the Soviet Union. Russian was first declared the “official” (ofitsial’nyi) language of the USSR in 1990. The Constitution of the Russian Federation adopted in 1993 granted former autonomous republics the right to establish state languages (gosudarstvennye iazyki) at the republic level. Since 1990 all twenty-one republics have adopted some form of legislation designating a state language or languages. The new legislation was drafted in 2001 in response to potential conflicts between language policies at the republic level and the federal level. Analysis of the content of the draft law in the second half of the article shows that the most recent versions of the law echo the general political trend of centralization currently observed at the federal level. The evolution of language policy within the Russian Federation since 1989 has swung away from a legal recognition of bilingualism in the private and public spheres towards a more restrictive application of the notion of promotion-oriented policies (defined below).

DEFINITIONS

Three Russian terms are commonly used in discussions of language policy: titul’nyi iazyk, “titular language,” ofitsial’nyi iazyk, “official language”^[1] and gosudarstvenyi iazyk, “state language.” The term “official language” has been widely used worldwide in language legislation granting languages legal status, but it has rarely been used in Russian language legislation.^[2] The designation “national language” is also used in language policy documents outside of Russia, although it appears less frequently than the designation “official language.” The term natsional’nyi iazyk or “national language” rarely appears in discussions of language policy in Russia. Titul’nyi iazyk, “titular language,” refers to the language spoken by the ethnolinguistic group sharing the name of the republic. The term most frequently used in federal Russian language policy is gosudarstvennyi iazyk, “state language.”^[3] Twenty of the twenty-one republics in the Russian Federation have granted languages (in most cases the titular language(s) in addition to Russian) status as “state languages.”^[4] One of the architects of language laws drafted after the breakup of the Soviet Union, V. P. Neroznak, cites UNESCO definitions in his discussions of current language policies in the Russian Federation (henceforth RF).^[5] He defines an “official language” as one that is used for “state management, legislation, and court procedures,” whereas a state language “realizes the integrating, consolidating function in the political, social-economic, and cultural spheres within one state and serves as one of the symbols of the state”.^[6] Neroznak’s definitions provide some clue about the possible motivations for the use of the term “state language” in earlier pieces of Russian legislation. Nevertheless, these key terms used in language legislation in the RF have never been legally defined. The legislation under discussion in this article was drafted, in part, in an attempt to establish a legal definition of the state language (gosudarstvennyi iazyk) at the federal level.

LANGUAGE POLICIES AND LANGUAGE PLANNING: THE LARGER PICTURE

Language policy can be divided into three subsets: language practices; language planning, efforts to modify or manage language practices; and language ideology or beliefs about language use.^[7] Sociolinguist Robert Cooper defines language planning as “deliberate efforts to influence the behavior of others with respect to the acquisition, structure, or functional allocation of their language codes”.^[8] Cooper’s tripartite subdivision of language planning includes: status planning, selection of language norms; corpus planning, codification of language forms; and acquisition planning, policies about the teaching and learning of language. Language is a core component of ethnic and cultural identity. Language policies can affect the identity of communities and they can influence patterns of political participation.^[9]
Granting a language legal status as an official or national language comes under the general rubric of status planning. In the modern global arena the practice of granting languages some kind of official status is quite common. Approximately 100 of the world’s constitutions grant one or more languages special status as “national” or “official” languages.^[10]Yet only 4% of the world’s languages have any official status^[11] and very few countries in the world are monolingual. Declaring an official language is, as May observes, “a deliberate, political act”^[12] since it can polarize a multilingual society into winners and losers. Supporters of a single official language typically claim that use of a single legally recognized language in official spheres is more efficient, that it unifies citizens of a multilingual and multiethnic society, and that it promotes identity with a larger national, interethnic community. As Patten and Kimlicka note: “linguistic homogenization has been one of the central mechanisms that states have used to inculcate a common civic identity in diverse societies”.^[13]Opponents of national languages argue that the consequence of such designations is that proficiency in the official language becomes a precondition for services (health, education, employment, etc.).^[14] Thus the debate about official languages within multilingual states has been characterized as a conflict of the principles of efficiency and fairness.^[15] Opponents claim that language policies that recognize a single official language are unfair since they discriminate against linguistic minorities, while policies that give all languages official recognition are criticized as impractical and inefficient. Linguistic minorities often seek official recognition of their language in hopes that political or legal status will boost efforts to resist and counteract pressures of language shift, thus supporting the continued vitality of minority languages, and in hopes that it will facilitate minority access to economic and political power. Granting more than one language official status should, in theory, accord all speakers of official languages equal rights.^[16] Equal status in practice, however, may not be an achievable goal. Minority languages lacking a codified written language or that do not have a well-developed literary tradition may not have the lexical or stylistic resources to be used across a full spectrum of functional spheres.^[17]
The issue of official languages in a multilingual state can be framed by the larger problem of minority language policies and rights. Patten and Kymlicka’s paradigm^[18] of policy options highlights some of the difficult choices language policy makers must make when balancing minority versus majority rights. The classification of language policy introduced by Patten and Kymlicka juxtaposes choices between tolerance-oriented rights and promotion-oriented rights; norm-and-accommodation rights and granting languages official status; and between rights based on territory and those based on the personality principle. Tolerance-oriented rights guarantee the individual right to language choice in the private sphere. Promotion-oriented rights permit the use of minority languages in the public sphere such as in administration, the courts, and in the education system. Within this framework different groups may be granted different types of rights. For example, immigrants may be accorded tolerance-oriented rights but not promotion-oriented rights. According to Patten and Kymlicka’s classification of language policy,^[19] the norm-and-accommodation approach typically recognizes the use of the majority, or dominant language, within the public sphere. Accommodations are made for those who lack proficiency in the majority language to provide them with sufficient resources (such as interpreters) to function in the public sphere. Patten and Kymlicka juxtapose the norm-and-accommodation approach and the policy of granting certain languages official status. The designation of language rights may also be based on territory. In Belgium, for example, language rights vary according to territory, so that the multilingual state is divided into unilingual areas. Language policies based on the personality principle, such as in Canada, accord all citizens the right to language choice no matter where they happen to be.
The analysis of language policies in the Russian Federation since 1989, including the draft law presented below, shows a fundamental change in the way federal lawmakers approach language rights. Policies have shifted away from legally recognized multilingualism to a more restrictive interpretation of promotion-oriented rights. The draft law “On the state language of the Russian Federation” grants promotion-oriented rights to speakers of the majority language, Russian, while minority languages speakers are granted primarily tolerance-oriented rights.

LANGUAGE PLANNING IN THE RUSSIAN FEDERATION 1989–1999

In the late eighties and early nineties nationalist independence movements in the Soviet republics initially rallied around the language issue. In January of 1989 Estonia became the first republic to pass a language law, declaring Estonian as the “official” language of Estonia. Latvia, Lithuania and Byelorussia quickly followed.^[20] By May of 1990 all of the Soviet republics except for the Russian SFSR had passed language laws. Thus the language issue in general, and language laws in particular, were the initial salvo in the “bloodless revolution”^[21] that led to the breakup of the Soviet Union. The movement to secure official status for titular languages subsequently spread to autonomous republics within the Russian Federation, although in a less radical form.
The Russian language was not granted any privileged legal status during the Soviet period until October of 1990 when the legislation “On the languages of the peoples of the USSR” was passed. The law was the first official document to legally recognize and guarantee the language rights of linguistic minorities in the USSR.^[22] It was passed only after language laws had been passed in eleven Soviet republics.^[23] Thus the 1990 law “On the languages of the peoples of the USSR” can be viewed as the central government’s belated response to deal with widespread mobilization and, in some cases, radicalization of ethnolinguistic minorities.^[24] The law established Russian language as the “official” language of the USSR (Article 4). However, the law failed to provide a legal definition of the term “official language.” The law also gave union and autonomous republics the right to do what most of the union republics had already done: grant the titular languages legal status as state languages. This initial version of the law (it was revised in 1991 and in 1998) pledged a state guarantee of “linguistic sovereignty.”^[25] The law established a legal basis for a territorial distribution of language rights within official spheres, guaranteeing citizens the right to communicate with the government in their native language and giving local courts the right to conduct business in the language of spoken by the majority of the population (Article 10). The law pledged government support of minority languages (Article 5) and it guaranteed freedom of language choice in education (Article 6).
After the breakup of the USSR in 1991, the law was expanded and renamed to reflect the new political reality: “On the languages of the peoples of the Russian Federated Socialist Republic.”^[26] Article 3 was amended to declare Russian as the “state” language of the RF. The new version of the law retained articles granting republics the right to declare titular languages as state languages, it retained all of the provisions guaranteeing basic language rights, and articles were rephrased and expanded to allow for the use of other “state” languages in addition to Russian in government at the local and republic level (Articles 14-19). For example, articles 12 and 13 specify that laws can be printed in the titular languages of the republics as well as in Russian. Article 13 also states that election materials may be printed in titular languages as well as Russian. Thus, the law provided, at least in theory, the legal basis for multilingualism within the Russian Federation.^[27] Although this updated version of the law outlines some of the spheres of use of the state language of the RF, it did not provide a legal definition of the term “state language.”
The next piece of federal legislation containing provisions affecting national language policy, the Constitution of the RF, was passed in 1993. Article 68 (par. 1) of the Constitution reiterates the status of Russian as the “state” language of the federation. The Constitution also includes provisions protecting language rights, including individual freedom of language choice. Article 26 states: “Everyone has the right to use his native language, and to the freedom of language choice in communication, education, and in creative work.” The Constitution (Article 68) also guarantees for all peoples the right to the “preservation of one’s native language and for the creation of conditions for its study and development.”
The former autonomous republics, granted the right to establish titular languages as state languages, began to pass language laws beginning in 1990 with Chuvashia and Tyva, republics in which titular ethnic groups constitute the majority of the population. Language laws in the former autonomous republics, although in some cases initially inspired by the reforms in the union republics, significantly recognize both Russian and the titular language as the state languages.^[28]
Regional language laws were motivated, in part, by a move to strengthen and widen the base of local languages, retaking ground lost after decades of Russification and language shift. For the period of 1970-1989, for example, the number of Buriats, Komis, Maris, Tatar, Udmurts, Chuvash and Yakuts who did not know their mother tongue doubled.^[29] In the 1960s Yakut was used in 94.3% of Yakut families in Yakutia. Current data suggests that the younger generation in Sakha (Yakutia) is exhibiting preliminary signs of shift to Russian; the present rate of Yakut-Russian bilingualism is three times higher among Yakut youth (up to fifteen years of age) than any other age group in Sakha.^[30]
The republic language laws vary in substance, scope, and form, reflecting the extraordinary ethnic and linguistic diversity within the RF.^[31]The language law of Tyva, for example, passed in 1990, attempts to map out parallel spheres of function for Tyvan and Russian in the official sphere, giving a legal basis for bilingualism.^[32] Some republics, such as Mari El and Mordovia, name three state languages (Russian and two local languages). Dagestan also embraces multilingualism, designating all languages spoken within Dagestan as state languages (seventeen plus Russian). In Karelia, the only republic not to grant the titular language status as a state language (it has the status of a “regional” language), the republican government discussed making Karelian the state language even though less than ten percent of the local population identified themselves as Karelian in the 1989 census.^[33] Most republic language policies are codified both in the republic Constitutions and in specific language laws dealing with language policy.^[34] For some republics language policy is presented only in republic constitutions.^[35] Despite the variety of forms, republic language laws all contain articles pledging government support for and preservation of titular and minority languages. In some cases, such statements are accompanied by general statements about the importance of language as a manifestation of culture. For example the preamble of the law “On the languages of the peoples of the Republic of Adygei,” adopted in 1994, states that the “preservation and development of the nation is first and foremost linked to the preservation and function of its language. The preservation and development of one’s native languages is the duty and obligation of every citizen.” Similarly, the preamble of the law “On languages” adopted in Altai in 1993 states that the state languages of Altai (Russian and Altai) are an important “spiritual tradition of the people” and the preamble of Buriat language law (O iazykakh narodov Buriatii, 1992) states that language is the “spiritual basis of the existence of any nation.” In addition to provisions pledging government support for titular and minority languages, the republic language laws typically recognize individual right to language choice, including the right to language choice in education. Like the RF law “On the languages of the peoples of the Russian Federation,” most republic language laws contain provisions legally sanctioning bi- or multilingualism within official spheres, guaranteeing the use of all of the republic “state” languages in specific spheres: in laws, in the courts, in government documents, in elections, road signs, mass media, and education.
In summary, in the decade beginning just before the breakup of the Soviet Union (1989-1999) language rights became a pivotal issue. With the formation of the RF, a patchwork of language laws was passed. While all of the laws contained provisions pledging support of titular and minority languages and guaranteeing freedom of language choice, none of the laws defined the term “state language” in legal terms. While the law “On the languages of the peoples of the USSR” laid a legal framework for multilingualism, the revision of the law in 1991 designated Russian as the “state” language of the RF without defining the term. At the same time, republic laws typically granted more than one language status as “state” languages, yet they, too, failed to provide a legal definition of state language. This is the context that provided the backdrop for the emergence of language legislation in the new millennium.

“ON THE STATE LANGUAGE OF THE RUSSIAN FEDERATION”

In 1995 President Yeltsin formed the “Council on Russian Language” made up of prominent politicians and academics. The stated goal of the Council was to strengthen the Russian language, thereby fostering a “spiritual rebirth and renewal of Russian.” The mandate of the council was to develop government policy supporting the Russian language on three levels: (1) Russian language as the state language, with the aim of developing language policies designed to encourage the “development and support of the Russian language as the national language of the Russian people” since “the Russian language is the foundation of the Russian people’s artistic and spiritual culture”; (2) Russian as a world language; and (3) Russian in education and in mass media. It was from this council, reconstituted by Putin in 2000, that drafts of the new language law, “On the Russian language” emerged.^[36]
The law was revised several times between 2000 and February of 2003, when it was renamed as “On the state language of the Russian Federation” and passed in the Duma. The primary goal of the law (see also the bulleted list below), according to the members of the Duma committee that drafted it, was to fill prominent gaps in the federal language policy (presented above) and provide a solid legal definition of Russian as the state language, establishing its spheres of use.^[37] A comparison of the first draft, accepted in 2001, with the third draft that passed the Duma in 2003 and its subsequent revisions in 2004, reveals a marked shift in the thrust of the law from reiterating promotion-oriented rights of minority ethnolingual groups and the legal recognition of multilingualism established in “On the languages of the peoples of the Russian Federation,” to a more focused interpretation of promotion-oriented rights.^[38]The first version of the law contained twenty-three articles while the third draft of the law, considerably shorter than the first draft, consisted of only seven articles. The preamble in the 2001 draft presented a list of seven goals that the law was designed to achieve including:

· to strengthen the consolidating role of the Russian languages as the state language of the RF... fostering the preservation of unity within the multiethnic Russian State.
· to guarantee the use of Russian as a means of interethnic communication.
· to strengthen the legal basis for the use of the Russian language as the state language of the RF within the domain of the federal organs of state and the organs of state power within the RF, including local government.
· to establish a basic requirement for those in responsible positions in government in the RF vis-а-vis the use, development, improvement and distribution of Russian language as the state language of the RF.
· to delimit the spheres of use of Russian as the state language of the RF both within the federal organs of state and in the organs of state within the administrative units of the RF.

The potential conflict between the federal language legislation establishing Russian as the state language and the republic laws is raised in the last point. These seven points are condensed into a single paragraph in the preamble of the third version of the law, stating the aim simply: “to guarantee the use of the state language of the Russian Federation throughout the territory of the RF.”
References to language laws at the republic level and to languages other than Russian are notably less frequent in the more recent versions of the law. For example, article 2 of the 2001 version of the law, which reiterated the provision originally contained in “On the languages of the peoples of the RSFSR” granting republics the right to establish their own state languages, is omitted from the 2003 version of the law. Article 2 in the 2003 draft states that language law is based in part on the Constitution and on the law “On the languages of the peoples,” but the existence of state languages other than Russian at the republic level is hardly mentioned, with the exception of provisions that allow for the use of the state languages of the republics in mass media. Rather, the role of the state language as a unifying force in the multilingual state of the RF is stressed. Article 1 (par. 5) of the 2003 draft, providing a definition of the function of the state language, makes a reference to the multicultural makeup of the RF, proclaiming that “the protection and support of the Russian language as the state language of the Russian Federation fosters the augmentation and mutual enrichment of the spiritual culture of the peoples of the Russian Federation.” In contrast, the 2001 version of the law draft (Article 2) states that it is illegal to restrict the use of Russian as the state language or the “other languages of the peoples of Russia.”
The core of the 2003 version of the law is contained in Article 3, listing the functions of the state language of the RF. This article specifies that the state language is to be used in federal organs of state (including local governance), elections, courts, international laws, interaction between various branches of government, road signs, official documents, and in mass media. The equivalent provisions in the 2001 draft of the law (Articles 10 and 11) similarly define three spheres of use for the state languages: within the federal organs of state and in its administrative units (including republics), in elections, and in the courts. In contrast with the later draft, each provision outlining the function of the state languages in the 2001 version states that, in addition to Russian, the state languages of the republics may also be used in official spheres. Thus a systematic effort to recognize the existence of state languages at the republic level and to grant speakers of these languages promotion-oriented rights was reversed in the later drafts of the law.^[39]In the 2003 version of the law, promotion-oriented rights are restricted to the state language of the Russian Federation, Russian.
The most contentious sections of the law raise the issue of language norms and the protection and promotion of language standards. The primary goal of the law, according to Kaadyr Bicheldei, one of its authors and most outspoken proponents in the Duma, is to provide a legal mechanism for “protecting” Russian as the state language.^[40] The preamble of the 2003 version of the law states that the purpose of the law is to “guarantee the rights of citizens of the RF to the use of the state language and to the protection and development of “language culture.” Bicheldei argued that by providing legal norms for spheres of use, the law would increase “the respect of the Russian people themselves for their own Russian language.”^[41]
These views are a more radical expression of a generally accepted opinion that Russian has lost ground. The number of learners dropped radically worldwide after the breakup of the Soviet Union. According to S. I. Shvetsova,^[42] in 1982-1983 there were 23 million students of Russian in 101 countries; by the 1990s this number was reduced to 10-12 million. As a result, Russian is perceived to have lost its status as one of the more important languages of the world. In the press, academics, journalists, and activists point to globalization as another cause of the perceived language crisis. The popular perception is that English proliferates and dominates in the globalization process while Russian loses ground.^[43] Language laws in the Baltic republics designed to expand the functional sphere of the titular language and to encourage monolingualism have also had a psychological impact, contributing to the perception that Russian has lost status. Language policies in the former Soviet republics designed to encourage language shift among the Russian speaking population, such as the measures in Latvia requiring government workers to have proficiency certification in Latvian and a multi-year plan to switch schools over to Latvian as the language of instruction, have produced negative reactions in the Russian press. The controversy over language policy has not been limited to the former Soviet republics. In March of 1999 a law was passed in the Republic of Tatarstan establishing the Latin alphabet as the basis of the Tatar language. In November of 2002 the Duma of the RF passed an amendment to the law “On the languages of the peoples of the Russian Federation” stating that the alphabets of the Russian Federation’s state languages must be based on the Cyrillic alphabet.^[44]
Along with loss of prestige, there has been a great deal of recent press about the “degradation” of Russian.^[45] The changes that have occurred in Russian have been well documented in a number of recent linguistic studies.^[46]Prominent among these changes is stylistic mixing or “stylistic chaos,” particularly in the mass media, with lower style language and jargon appearing in spheres that during the Communist era were restricted to standard language. Changes in the language reflect the cataclysmic social and political upheaval since the breakup of the Soviet Union. The public perception of these changes as reflected in the press and academic journals have focused on two spheres: the large influx of English lexicon into Russian and the loosening of language standards or norms. The authors of the “On the state language of the Russian Federation” hoped that by defining and strengthening Russian’s legal status as the state language, delineating its spheres of use, the law would enhance the prestige of the Russian language within the RF and throughout the world. The law included controversial provisions designed to support Russian and to protect it from the flood of English loan words and from slipping standards.
The encroachment of English is addressed in two provisions in the law pertaining to language use in public signs and advertisements and to the use of obscene, sub-standard, and foreign lexicon. The 2001 version of the law (Article 16, par. 1-3) states that if any languages other than the state language of the RF or the state languages of the republics are used in signs and advertisements, they must be translated into Russian. The 2003 version of the bill contains a reworking of the provision about use of language in signs and advertisements, but the requirement to provide translations of foreign lexicon effectively remains in place (Article 3). These provisions were modeled after the 1994 French law “On the Use of French,” or Toubon’s law, as it was known popularly, named after its initiator Jacques Toubon. Members of the Federal Council on Russian Language traveled to Paris in October of 2001 for a joint seminar with the Committee on International Francophonie about language politics. The Toubon Act declares French language to be the basis of French cultural tradition and, like the Russian law, it attempted to clarify the functional spheres (government, education, workplace, commerce, leisure, etc.) where the use of French is mandatory. It established a system of sanctions in the form of fines to protect French from the encroachment of Americanisms. The law features detailed regulations for language use in advertising, requiring French translation of foreign lexical items. The aim of the law was to raise the status of French not just by labeling it as the official language of state but by imposing its use in specific domains (Ager 1999, 135). These are identical to the stated goals of the Russian law “On the state language of the Russian Federation.”
The Russian legislation “On the state language of the Russian Federation” goes significantly farther than the Toubon Act in its regulation of language use in the public sphere. The law contains controversial provisions regulating the use of obscenity and non-normative lexicon. Article 1, paragraph 6 of the 2003 draft bans “the use of sub-standard lexicon, obscenity, swear words, and expressions” in the public sphere. It also bans the use of foreign words in the public sphere when there exist generally accepted Russian equivalents. Bicheldei, in a public interview on the radio station Echo Moskvy in 2002, explained that the motivation for these measures was slipping standards. “The first point is that the Russian must be defended, not from us, but from our overly lax use of it as a means of communication. In what way? Today we all know about the fact that there are three styles of the Russian language: high, middle, and low. Usually it is assumed that the middle style is used to communicate in the official sphere... As it has turned out, the high style has, in principle, passed out of popular use. In the mass media and in official speeches very often the lower style is used. That is, a stylistic lowering of Russian can be observed in society”.^[47]
The issue of slipping standards raises the question of norms. By whom and by what means are the boundaries between the substandard and the standard, vulgar and acceptable language to be defined? The 2001 version of the law contained a vaguely worded provision (Article 19, par. 5) that could have allowed the establishment of a governmental body with the purpose of regulating language. But the article did not provide specifics about what form the regulating body would take. In the 2003 draft, the issue of norms is addressed only in the first article (par. 3): “The establishment of norms for the use of contemporary Russian in its capacity as the state language of the Russian Federation, rules of orthography and spelling are determined by the government of the Russian Federation.” How the use of specific types of language use or lexicon would be regulated is not addressed in the law. Unlike the Toubon Act, “On the state language of the Russian Federation” does not contain any measures concerned with enforcement.
The 2003 draft version of the law was passed by the Duma on February 3, 2003. On February 12th the Federation Council rejected the draft and recommended that it be revised. Opponents of the bill criticized provisions that required use of Russian in the courts as well as in regional municipalities. Critics were also skeptical about the articles banning the use of foreign lexicon. One senator remarked that the bill itself contained as many as sixteen foreign loan words (Parlamentskaia khronika, Sovet Federatsii, 103 zasedanii). In November of 2003 the committee charged with revising the bill proposed two major changes. The ban on obscene and offensive language was replaced with an article forbidding the use of “non-normative” language. In an effort to ease concern about the potential legal conflict between federal language policy and language laws in the republics, a paragraph was added stating that the “obligatory use of the state language of the Russian Federation should not be interpreted as a denial or denigration of the right to use state languages of the republics” (Article 1, par. 7). Despite the addition of paragraph 7, the body of the law outlines a narrowed interpretation of promotion-oriented rights, requiring the use of Russian in courts and in regional government.
While the fate of the bill is uncertain, the debate surrounding it provides evidence of the role that language plays in the perception of national identity. Supporters of the bill commonly refer to the Russian language as one of the central pillars of Russian culture, the spiritual foundation of the Russian people.^[48]Another popular argument used in favor of the bill is the historical role of Russian as a factor unifying a multiethnic and multilingual state. A thread appearing in public discussions of the bill, expressed even by some opponents, is the notion that the Russian language is in need of protection and preservation. The themes of the defense of the language, of the need to protect the language from corrupting, foreign influences and from negative forces from within, such as the proliferation of sub-standard and obscene lexicon, raise the issue of language purity. As Thomas observes,^[49] the drive for purism in language has two main thrusts: an opposition to foreign influences on the native language and a striving to retain the language in an unchanged traditional form – a nostalgia for past forms. Mary Douglas, in her analysis of concepts of pollution and taboo, argues that “the distinction between clean and dirty rises out of a basic human need to make sense of the chaos around us.”^[50]The notion of pure and not pure is a way of categorizing or ordering the world; what is impure is other and it is rejected. The drive for linguistic purity can be understood as a reaction to “change and ambiguity” and as a way of “creating order out of chaos”.^[51]Thus, the push for language purity is reflective of an identity crisis in post-Soviet space.^[52]The dissolution of the Soviet Union and the chimera of Soviet national unity have given rise to insecurity, not about what it means to be Russian (russkii), but about what it means to be rossiiskii, that is, what it means to be part of a multiethnic, multilingual federation. The draft bill “On the state language of the Russian Federation” and the controversy surrounding it underscore the importance of language as an anchor of the imagined community. The impetus for the bill came from the legal confusion about the status of Russian as the state language of the RF and the state languages of the republics. Nevertheless, the discussion of the bill and some of the bill’s more radical provisions are permeated by strains of Russian ethnic nationalism, perhaps symptomatic of an on-going national identity crisis.
“On the state language of the Russian Federation” signals a major shift in the orientation of language policy at the federal level. Previous federal language laws featured measures granting promotion-oriented rights to language minorities. Drafted in the wake of ethnic unrest and mobilization, “On the languages of the peoples of the USSR” sought to appease language nationalism in the union republics by recognizing minority language rights. Significantly, revisions of this law, produced in 1991 and 1998, retained measures granting promotion-oriented rights to minority language groups. The agenda for the Federal Council on the Russian Language, responsible for drafting future national language policy, began to turn the focus away from minority language rights to Russian as the state language as early as 1995. These efforts culminated in the draft law “On the state language of the Russian Federation.” Any attempt to reinvigorate Russian’s status as the state language is bound to be problematic since most republic language laws recognize more than one state language, and they typically allow use of two or more languages in many of the same official spheres of use that are covered in the federal draft law. The most controversial provisions of the law, directed at “protecting” the Russian language, are aimed at bolstering the prestige of the language. The law and the debate surrounding it point to public insecurity about the status of the Russian language and its role in a multilingual state.