Does the process of merging one people with another take place peacefully or militarily, in the phase of ethnic conflict, only in a violent way or only in the form of peaceful cooperation? ethnic assimilation.

One of the main and most effective ways increase in the number of Russians in Ukraine, along with their natural and mechanical increase, was an intensive ethnic assimilation (Russification) Ukrainian and other peoples. This process acquired especially active development during the Soviet period, it was a direct consequence of national policy party and state leadership of the USSR.
By ethnic assimilation, scientists understand the merger with one or another, as a rule, more developed culturally or numerically predominant in a given territory, an ethnic community of individual ethnic groups that find themselves in its environment. In other words, ethnic assimilation leads to the complete loss of one's own ethnic characteristics and the transformation of assimilated into representatives of another ethnic group.
There are two types of ethnic assimilation - natural and forced (artificial). Natural assimilation must be seen as the result of the integration of certain groups of ethnic minorities, especially immigrants who settled permanently in another ethnic environment. Natural assimilation occurs with direct contact between ethnically various groups population and is due to the natural necessity of their common economic and cultural coexistence, as well as interethnic (exogamous) marriages.
Natural assimilation was more inherent for those ethnic minorities who did not have compact areas of settlement, as well as for a few migrants who were scattered in an international environment and did not have the opportunity to establish permanent ties with their historical homeland. In addition, natural assimilation is a fairly gradual and lengthy process of losing certain ethnic characteristics. And even single migrants are fully assimilated only in the second or third generation. That is, the children and grandchildren of first-generation migrants are subjected to complete and irreversible assimilation.
So, natural assimilation occurs where the indigenous majority gradually absorbs the entered minority. Ukrainians are autochthonous in their own ethnic lands, and besides, they were not a minority, but just the absolute majority among the total population. In terms of the development of their culture, including their language, they were not inferior to the Russians, so their ethnic assimilation (Russification) in Ukraine cannot be considered natural. Therefore, the mass Russification of Ukrainian on their own ethnic lands is not a kind of natural, but artificial, inherently violent assimilation.
By definition, V.I. Kozlova, “forced assimilation is typical for countries where nationalities are unequal, and is a system of measures by the government and local authorities in the school system and other areas public life aimed at artificially accelerating the process of assimilation by suppressing or oppressing the language and culture of ethnic minorities, putting pressure on their self-consciousness. The forced Russification of Ukrainian was a long-term ethnic process and was a direct result of the policies pursued by both the tsarist and Soviet governments.
Back in the 20th pp. the Bolshevik Party viewed tsarist Russia as a "prison of peoples" and condemned the tsarist policy of Russification, at least in words. The resolution of the Tenth Congress of the RCP (b) in 1921 emphasized that the policy of the tsarist government towards the non-Russian peoples was aimed at “killing among them the beginnings of any statehood, cripple their culture, restrict their language, keep them in ignorance and ultimately As a result, if possible, protect them.”
On the day of "Ukrainization" of the 20s pp. it was believed that the artificial, forced Russification of Ukrainian would be finished and the process of gradual de-Russianization would begin. “The revolution is the end of the Russification policy (Russification policy. — B.C.) of tsarism, and now, through the correct national policy of the Party and Soviet power, we are witnessing the reverse process — the daily and systematic Ukrainization of the proletariat.” But after the conscious and accelerated curtailment of "Ukrainization" from the beginning of the 30s, the forced Russification of Ukrainian not only resumed again, but also significantly intensified.
From the beginning of the 30s pp. in Soviet scientific literature, the very term "assimilation" began to be used rather limitedly. As the Soviet demographer V.I. Kozlov: "Many authors, when analyzing ethnic processes in the USSR, avoid using the term" assimilation ", so they identify it with a violent assimilation policy" 84 Asam, the term "Russification", in the then sounding "Russification", generally disappeared from the works of Soviet scientists. This was primarily due to the fact that the consequences of the Soviet policy of "Russification" were much larger in scope than the results of the corresponding policy of the autocracy.
And in order to avoid analogy in assessing the policies of the tsarist and Soviet governments, the Russification of non-Russian peoples in the USSR was justified by "objective conditions." In particular, the same Soviet researcher of ethnic processes V.I. Kozlov pointed out: “In the Soviet Union, where equality of all peoples has been achieved and conditions have been created for the development of national languages ​​and cultures without hindrance, assimilation processes have lost their former contradictions. They are due to objective reasons and are the result of a friendly common economic, political, cultural life of representatives of different peoples “... Such a statement by V.I. Kozlov was inherently categorical and did not correspond to the real state of affairs, since there was never an equal status of the Ukrainian and Russian languages ​​in the Ukrainian SSR, with the exception of the “Ukrainization” of the 20s pp. The language of one of the ethnic minorities in Ukraine (Russians) occupied a dominant position, had state status, and the Ukrainian language actually ended up in the position of the language of an ethnic minority.
Russification of Ukrainian, like other non-Russian peoples, not only during the existence of the USSR, but also during the time of the Russian Empire, in Soviet scientific and propaganda literature of the 60-80s pp. more often it was either simply hushed up, or sometimes even justified. Only in separate ethno-demographic studies of the Soviet era was the forced ethnic assimilation of non-Russian peoples in the Russian Empire recognized. “The national policy of tsarism in relation to the majority of non-Russian, or rather non-Great Russian peoples, consisted in suppressing their language and national culture, in attempts to forcibly Russify them,” the Soviet scientist V.I. Kozlov. In the official documents of the CPSU in the 60-80s, as well as in Soviet propaganda, the term "forced Russification (Russification)" was not used at all.
Despite the rather long-term policy of Russification of Ukrainians, which led to the widespread processes of artificial linguistic and ethnic assimilation among them, despite this, the vast majority of Ukrainians managed to maintain their national identity. “Historical experience shows that enslaved peoples do not assimilate while they live in their native land,” pointed out A. Bochkovsky, an outstanding Ukrainian researcher of the theory and history of the nation. In addition, in his opinion, "one cannot speak of the assimilation of peoples as a whole, but only of its individual layers, groups or units."
For this reason, Ukrainian ethnic assimilation must be viewed as a process that was generally directed by the tsarist and Soviet governments to the entire Ukrainian nation, but ultimately embraced only a part of it. One can speak about the mass distribution of this ethnic phenomenon only in relation to the Soviet times, as the statistical materials of the 1959, 1970, 1979, 1989 censuses convincingly testify.
An authoritative and quite fair assessment of this complex historical phenomenon belongs to the historian of Ukrainian abroad I. Lysiak-Rudnitsky: populace preserve in a state of national passivity and amorphousness. Russia's communist leaders are obviously looking forward to this historic experience and they are convinced that they will be able to solve the vulnerable "Ukrainian question" with a modernized version of this tried and tested political strategy."
Therefore, when during the existence of the Russian Empire the Ukrainian nobility were assimilated: the nobles and the clergy, part of the Ukrainian philistines, the vast majority of Ukrainians were peasants and continued to use their native language, linguistic and ethnic assimilation touched them a little. The Ukrainian village remained almost entirely Russian-speaking, because the peasants were monolingual, not bilingual. The Russian language remained completely alien to them, at best they only understood it, but they could not and did not want to communicate freely with them.
A completely different situation developed in Soviet time, with the development of the process of urbanization, especially in the post-war years, Ukrainian cities continued to be centers of Russification. Despite the fact that the Russians were not the majority, but a minority among the entire urban population, it was not they who assimilated, but the Ukrainians. This was mainly due to the high social status Russian language, its dominance in all areas of public life, and, accordingly, the humiliation of the Ukrainian language, objectively contributed to the formation of a national inferiority complex. Among a significant part, the Ukrainian Russian language has become a symbol of the "advanced language", and Ukrainian has been reduced to a symbol of a backward village.
Linguistic and ethnic assimilation, as well as its consequences, must be considered from two sides. On the one hand, as the pressure of the ruling state, and on the other, as a reaction - the resistance of the nation, which they are trying to assimilate. That is, on the one hand, according to the definition of A. Bochkovsky: "assimilation is a consequence of the economic and cultural pressure of the ruling people." This pressure was aimed at limiting the free development of the nation and completely transforming it or a part of it into another nation.
As the Czech researcher F. Galatsky noted, “the right of peoples is really a matter of nature, not a single people on earth has the right to demand that a neighbor sacrifice himself for his benefit, not a single neighbor is obliged to renounce or sacrifice himself for the good of a neighbor. Nature does not know any ruling peoples, or peoples - farm laborers. However, Russian state, both tsarist and Soviet, demanded that the Ukrainian and other non-Russian peoples sacrifice themselves, abandon their own ethnic characteristics, from their own national languages ​​in favor of Russian, and this is not an exaggeration, because it is confirmed by statistical materials.
On the other hand, assimilation must be considered in the context of what is happening in the environment of an ethnic group that is in danger of being absorbed by another nation.
And Lysyak-Rudnitsky rightly pointed out that “by the methods of genocide one can physically exterminate some people or nation, but one cannot assimilate it. Therefore, assimilation is not what the conqueror does, but what happens in the collective consciousness of the conquered. Various reactions are possible to the fact of conquest, enslavement, from an increase in resistance to the rejection of one's own identity and merging with the conqueror. So, if the conquered people chooses the alternative of assimilation, then this is their own decision. From the perspective of history, it does not matter that this choice was completely non-voluntary or "compulsory-voluntary".
For this reason, the manifestation defensive reaction the Ukrainian nation should be considered the Ukrainian National Democratic Revolution of 1917-1921 pp., the armed struggle of the UPA in the 40-50s pp., the dissident movement and the defense of the Ukrainian language by the intelligentsia in the 60-80s pp. XX century. In the historical past, social phenomena of this level include the “Great Uprising” led by Hetman Bogdan Khmelnytsky, directed against the Polonization of Ukrainian in the Commonwealth, the struggle of the Cossack foremen of the time of the Hetmanate with Russian tsarism in order to preserve Ukrainian autonomy and counter Russification.
Another inherently reaction to assimilation was the conscious or unconscious loss by the nation, more precisely by its intellectual elite or most of it, of the forces in the struggle to preserve its national identity, disbelief in one's own strengths in defending national interests, loss of faith in the prospect of independent development of their nation.
According to the definition of I. Lysyak-Rudnitsky, in order “for a nation to die, it is not necessary at all for the physical death of that ethnic mass, it creates its foothills. It is enough that the will to be a separate political subject faded away in the collective. The conquest of Chuzhinnitsa does not by itself mean the death of the nation, but it can lead to this. One possibility: extermination of all intellectual elite nation. Another possibility: the voluntary capitulation of this creative stratum, its acceptance of some new alien national-state ideology. In this case, we can talk about the "suicide" of the nation. Finally, any weakening of that “conscious tension” that creates the very essence of the existence of a nation inevitably entails its decline.
In the history of Ukraine there were several tragic cases the decline of the national elite, with its mass capitulation to foreign national-state ideologies and foreign states, is not enough for the Ukrainian truly catastrophic consequences. It first happened in XVI-XVII centuries when the Ukrainian gentry, in order to preserve their class privileges, massively renounced their own language, culture, Orthodox Church, that is, Polonized and Catholicized.
The second time the Ukrainian elite (Cossack elders and clergy) capitulated to the Russian Empire at the end of the 18th - beginning of the 19th century. Having achieved recognition of her class privileges, she gradually lost her national characteristics, primarily her native language, grew up, that is, she actually turned into Russians in terms of national self-consciousness of Ukrainian ethnic origin.
The third, most massive ethnic assimilation of the Ukrainian, especially the urban population, took place during the Soviet era. The capitulation of a significant part of the Ukrainian intelligentsia to the Soviet regime was also due to the threat of repression or even physical destruction. In the 30th pp. a significant part of the Ukrainian intelligentsia ended up in prisons and concentration camps, others were forced to adapt to communist ideology, to refuse to defend the national interests of the Ukrainian nation.
That is, the Russification policy pursued by the tsarist and Soviet regimes must be viewed as an attempt, and to a large extent quite successful, to destroy Ukrainians as a nation, to stimulate its unnatural “suicide”, “voluntary-compulsory” rejection of national identity, its own roots. .
Thus, historical experience convincingly shows that Ukrainian ethnic assimilation both within Poland (the Commonwealth) and within the Russian Empire (USSR) allowed the Ukrainian elite not only to physically survive, but also to maintain a high social status, merging with the elite of foreign states. leaving his nation to fend for himself. That is, in this case, it is necessary to ascertain its conscious surrender to foreign states, which led to the betrayal of Ukrainian national interests.
The question of the relationship between the influence of external factors on ethnic assimilation - socio-economic and political means of pressure from a foreign state and internal factors - active opposition to this pressure from a nation doomed to the loss of its native language, its own national identity is quite complex and ambiguous.
It is known for sure that despite the active implementation of the Russification policy, the Baltic nations (Lithuanians, Latvians and Estonians) showed greater resistance against it and managed to maintain a higher level of national identity than Ukrainians. Although it should be noted that the level of Ukrainian national identity, as well as the level of preservation of their own national language, in certain regions of Ukraine has been and remains very different.
The Russification policy left a deeper imprint on Ukrainian society in the eastern and southern regions, especially in the cities. The weakness of opposition to the Ukrainian policy of ethnic assimilation by foreign states had deep historical foundations. This phenomenon can be analyzed and explained, but not justified, much less condemned.
I. Lysyak-Rudnitsky pointed out the decisive influence of internal factors on the processes of ethnic assimilation: “If the enemy was destined to be the winner, and we were defeated, then this happened to a large extent due to the fact that this enemy discovered both in the past and in the modern shows extraordinary skill in finding weak spots in our structure - and hitting them with full force. The chain that Ukraine harnessed to the imperial chariot is forged from the links of our weaknesses and mistakes. Therefore, we cannot afford to turn a blind eye to these weaknesses and mistakes, throwing off responsibility for our national tragedy solely on external forces and adverse circumstances. The freedom of the individual and the nation is affirmed in a conscious, creative confrontation with objective circumstances, and not in capitulation to them."

So, if among Russians bilinguals made up only 4.3%, then among Ukrainians - 75.1%.
Statistical materials indicate that bilingualism (bilingualism) was hallmark for Ukrainian and other non-Russian peoples, but not for ethnic Russians. They remained monolingual, although a significant part of them were concentrated outside the Russian ethnic territory. That is, the census statistics convincingly show that the smallest "internationalists" in the USSR were just Russians.
According to the fair conclusion of V.M. Danilenko, “the stay of Russians in Ukraine has never been any problem for them. They always remained “first among equals”, felt themselves to be the bearers of a lofty historical mission. Due to their dominant position, they did not have a sense of a foreign environment. They were generally characterized by poor adaptation to the language and culture of the national majority. And in reality, it was not needed: national-Russian bilingualism (as a transitional stage to Russian monolingualism), the prestige of “Russian” education, advantages in all areas of the Russian language removed the problem of knowing Ukrainian. Interestingly, the majority of Russians living in Ukraine considered the USSR their homeland, while among the Ukrainians, the majority called Ukraine their homeland.”
Unlike the USSR, in Switzerland, which was a confederation not only in name, "bilingual people, even in big cities not so many, and even they consider it expedient to use their native language. A Swiss who moves to a foreign-speaking canton finds it difficult even to find a highly qualified job if he is not fluent in the local language. In monolingual cantons, relations with administrative and even judicial authorities are also based on the local language, so that a foreign-speaking migrant needs to look for an interpreter.” Russians who resettled in Ukraine, or in other national republics, did not show much interest in learning Ukrainian or other national languages, because they did not feel the need for it, in most large cities the Russian language reigned in all spheres of public life. In one republic of the USSR, Russians did not consider themselves an ethnic minority and in fact were in a dominant position.
The well-known Ukrainian linguist V. Chaplenko pointed out that only enslaved peoples can be bilingual, dominating peoples - NEVER. He proved this on the example of the former Austro-Hungarian Empire, where only the Czech, Polish, Ukrainian and other Slavic nations were bilingual, especially in the cities, while the Austrians and Hungarians remained monolingual. In independent Poland in the interwar period, the Poles were no longer bilingual, such a fate was only in Ukrainians and Belarusians.
That is, Ukrainian bilingualism in the USSR was due to the fact that they were actually in the position of an ethnic minority on their own land. Russians, although numerically a minority in Ukraine, were in the position of a dominant majority.
The revival of Ukrainian statehood in 1991 radically changed the situation, the Russians lost their former status and now they face the prospect of becoming bilingual, one of the ethnic minorities, which they have always been in fact. This process of obtaining the status of an ethnic minority is psychologically difficult for a significant part of Russians and Russified representatives of other peoples. Hence the rejection of the Ukrainian language, mass manifestations of Ukrainophobia, nostalgia for the times of the USSR
The next stage after the introduction of bilingualism is a complete and irreversible transition to the recognition of relatives not their own, but someone else's speech. Own national speech turns into someone else's, secondary. As the scientist V.I. Kozlov, “the recognition of the language of another nationality as one’s native language indicates that a person has lost his National language or knows her very poorly and does not associate her nationality with her.
Intensive linguistic assimilation is naturally characteristic of ethnic minorities, not indigenous peoples. The Soviet national policy led to a massive linguistic Russification of Ukrainian in their ethnic territory, especially in the 60-80s pp. That is, Ukrainians were artificially placed in the position of an ethnic minority, numerically not being one. So, in particular, during 1959-1989pp. the number of Ukrainians in Ukraine, who recognized Russian as their native language, increased from 2 million 076 thousand people to 4 million 578 thousand people, that is, more than doubled, or by 120.59%. During the same time, the proportion of Russian speakers of all Ukrainians grew from 6.45% in 1959 to 12.24% in 1989. More statistical aspects of linguistic Russification of Ukrainian are discussed in the next section.
When a person loses his native language and constantly uses a foreign language, as in his native language, then knowledge of the mother's language ceases to be extremely necessary for her. The nature of such a phenomenon, the so-called “werewolves”, was revealed by the linguist V. Chaplenko: “When an enslaved people loses their language and assimilates even the one thrown over by force, they begin to “love” this latter as their own, because this is their only way of thinking and social exchange. The indifference and hostility of the so-called "werewolves" to the language of their parents is also known, but basically it is not so much a moral moment (treason to one's people) that weighs here, but the technical difficulty of replacing a mastered, foreign language with a lost, forgotten native one. And the moral factor in this linguistic situation plays an important role, as is proved by the first years of the existence of the modern independent Ukrainian state.
Psychological rejection, unwillingness, and even open and rather skillfully hidden opposition to the return of the state status of the Ukrainian language in the conditions of independent Ukraine are characteristic not only at the everyday level among ethnic Russians and people of Ukrainian ethnic origin, but Russians by their native language and national self-consciousness. This is connected not only with the continuation of the dominance of stereotypes of the past among the Ukrainian public. In the east and south of Ukraine, among a significant part of the highly educated population, employees, intelligentsia, especially technical, there is a steady and fully conscious disregard for the Ukrainian language, not only due to the technical difficulties of learning it, but, above all, as a result of the subjective decrease in its status in society, it seems artificially traditional and objective historical phenomenon.
The social value of the language and its role in public life is formed not only by the objective conditions of its existence, but also by subjective politics. state structures, these conditions create or actively influence them. Therefore, the most important, even the main role in accelerating or deliberately slowing down linguistic as well as ethnic assimilation is played by the social “prestige” or social “inferiority” of a particular language in society. That is, in fact, the social status of the language is determined by the national, including the language policy of the state, pursues its own specific goal and pursues this policy in its own national interests.
The Soviet national policy consisted not only in the artificial stimulation of migrations, with the aim of quickly "mixing peoples" in order to create a single "Soviet people", but also in the increased linguistic Russification of non-Russian nations, Ukrainian in particular, in active planting in propaganda and in all spheres of public life of the "advantages" of the Russian language as a language of interethnic communication.
The displacement of the Ukrainian language from all spheres of public consumption and the actual transformation of the Russian language into the state language in Ukraine was accompanied by incessant and aggressive propaganda of ideas about the "friendship of peoples". However, the falsity of the Soviet national policy was felt by everyone who was not indifferent to the tragic fate of their people and their language, especially the Ukrainian intelligentsia. With pain in his heart, with despair, O. Dovzhenko wrote in his Diary: “As a matter of fact, Ukrainian writers have already come into conflict with the entire existing state of affairs in the state. They have only the formal letter of the Constitution on their side. But, the Central Committee of the Party of Ukraine and the government speaks and publishes its officialdom only in Russian, and teaching in universities and ten-year cities is also conducted in Russian. Thus, either the whole cultural process must be transferred from top to bottom into the Ukrainian language, or be consistent and end Ukrainian literature, and not put writers in a terrible, unenviable, embarrassment, which has no analogue, perhaps, in the whole world, among one people, respecting himself and the government, respects his people."
Therefore, among a significant part of the Ukrainian, including highly educated, the Russian language received a high social status, and lost its native language. But such an assessment of the language was purely subjective. According to the definition of the Ukrainian linguist V. Chaplenko, “the speech of the ruling people is an authoritative language”, “better”, “correct”, “lordly”, but the speech of the enslaved people is characterized by antonyms corresponding to these epithets. From the point of view of scientific linguistics, all these are relative concepts, since the moral superiority of the language is mainly created by extralinguistic factors - political, ecclesiastical, etc., but for the consciousness of the practical use of the language, these are absolute estimates. And this law, the law of the social evaluation of language, acts with great force, as a phenomenon of the psychological cosmos, this evaluation seeps into the masses of the enslaved people, pushes them towards assimilation. Therefore, the decline in the social status of the Ukrainian language did not occur spontaneously, but was a direct result of the purposeful language policy of the Soviet regime.
Linguists distinguish between two types of language policy: offensive (aggressive) and defensive (defensive). When a language policy is directed towards ousting another language from use, even within one's own ethnic territory, such a policy is offensive, aggressive or imperialistic. It was precisely this policy that the tsarist government pursued, when it did not even officially recognize the existence of the Ukrainian language as a separate language, but considered it a dialect of Russian, or the Soviet government, in fact, turning Russian into the state language in Ukraine instead of Ukrainian.
Defense language policy is the protection of the native language from aggressive external pressure. Such a position, even under the conditions of the Soviet regime, which pursued a policy of Russification, was occupied by the best representatives of the Ukrainian intelligentsia, writers, linguists, teachers of higher education and teachers honest to their people and to their conscience.
It is also necessary to consider the language policy as a protective one, which the young Ukrainian state should pursue, but does not actually implement, in order to implement Article 10 of the Constitution of Ukraine on granting the Ukrainian language the status of a state language and overcoming the consequences of a long policy of Russification of Ukrainians. In its essence, this policy should be aimed at the gradual but consistent de-Russianization of Ukraine and the restoration of historical justice - the return of the natural right of Ukrainian speech to be state in the Ukrainian state.
Scientific linguistics distinguishes language policy according to the forms of its implementation. This policy can be externally linguistic and internally linguistic. External linguistic language policy finds its manifestation when the measures of government structures are aimed at changing the external economic linguistic position of the language, its cultural and social functions. An offensive, aggressive language policy tries to select or limit these functions, or even eliminate the language from use, while a defensive, defensive one, on the contrary, aims to restore lost positions.
The Ukrainian linguist G. Smal-Stotsky assessed the outwardly linguistic policy of tsarist Russia in the following way: “We can assert that initially the union of Ukraine with Russia, right up to the World War, means that for more than 250 years the Ukrainian language lost the opportunity to develop freely, that it lost something right to own land by the state language, the language of literature, schools, churches, etc., it has become the subject of continuous persecution."
During the Soviet regime, although there was no formal ban, unfavorable conditions were created for the full, normal, as in all independent states, functioning of the native language, for the free development of Ukrainian national identity. Conditions were artificially created when the natural manifestation of national feelings, love for the native language served as a pretext for accusations of "Ukrainian bourgeois nationalism."
Almost all Ukrainian writers were accused of “nationalism”, who were not indifferent to love for their mother tongue, for their native land, for their people, for their history, for national traditions. Yuri Yanovsky did not avoid such accusations either, “even before his death he began to write” in Russian, “obviously out of disgust for accusations of nationalism, out of disgust for undeniable fools, evil haiduks and careerists,” wrote the second about the fate of his colleague. A. Dovzhenko sh. Volodymyr Sosyura, Maksim Rylsky, and Oleksandr Dovzhenko himself were also accused of “Ukrainian bourgeois nationalism” for defending their native language and protecting Ukrainian culture.
During the existence of the Russian Empire and the USSR, there was even an intervention in internal structure Ukrainian language, in its vocabulary, in phonetics - these were direct manifestations of an aggressive internal linguistic policy. So, in particular, Ukrainian phonetic spelling was banned in Tsarist Russia. In addition, the tsarist censorship did not allow in the circular since 1881 "in the Little Russian dialect of new words, again invented and taken from the Polish and German languages."
Direct intervention in the development of the Ukrainian language continued during the Soviet era. In 1933, a “reform” of Ukrainian spelling was carried out, as, by the way, Belarusian, in order to eliminate barriers between the Ukrainian and Russian languages, which led not only to changes in phonetic norms, but to the loss of a significant part of the original vocabulary. “Already even letters and sounds that are not in the Russian language are becoming counter-revolutionary, nationalistic,” this is how the outstanding Ukrainian linguist R. Smal-Stotsky assessed this “reform”.
When Ukrainian linguists sought to clean the Ukrainian literary language from grammatical Russianisms, this was a manifestation of a defensive, protective intra-linguistic language policy, fair in nature. For example, Soviet political censorship banned the publication of V. Matvienko's article "For the high culture of the native language" in the magazine "Fatherland" No. 10 for 1958. This article was declared “politically hostile” because its author, assessing the situation of the Ukrainian language, stated that among the means that harm the Ukrainian language, there was an unconditional and unnecessary massive introduction of Russianism into it - lexical and even grammatical. The author was accused of "Ukrainian bourgeois nationalism" for demanding "strong condemnation of those petty-bourgeois elements who ignore their native language."
Even more disturbing was the fact that the article gave high marks to foreign Ukrainians who continued to cherish their native language. “The high sense of national self-consciousness that Ukrainians kept abroad causes surprise and approval.” Thus, political censorship suppressed even minor attempts by the Ukrainian intelligentsia to stand up for the Ukrainian language against Russification.
The protection of the native language was a natural and conscious manifestation of speech-forming activity, which could be successfully carried out in the conditions of the existence of a single linguistic society, because only it fully ensures the linguistic unity of the ethnos. For the free development of the Ukrainian language, both in the Russian Empire and in the USSR, historical conditions were not entirely favorable, or rather, quite negative. This was due to the division of the territory of Ukraine between neighboring states: the Russian and Austro-Hungarian empires before the First World War, and in the interwar period between the USSR, Poland, Romania and Czechoslovakia.
interstate borders separating Ukrainian lands, negatively influenced the formation of the linguistic unity of Ukrainians. In addition, foreign authorities quite deliberately and purposefully hampered the development of the Ukrainian language, especially among the urban population. As a result, not Ukrainian speech prevailed in the cities of Ukraine, but foreigners, in particular, during their stay in the Russian Empire and the USSR - Russian. The social split of Ukrainians into Russian-speaking urban and Ukrainian-speaking rural population was the main and insurmountable obstacle to the linguistic unity of Ukrainian society.
This situation led to the fact that a significant part of the Ukrainian elite was outside the Ukrainian-speaking environment. By the way, this situation continues to persist in the eastern and southern regions even in the conditions of the existence of an independent Ukrainian state.
Only the absence of significant dialectical differences contributed to the development of a single Ukrainian language, even in the absence. Therefore, the revival of an independent Ukrainian state will objectively contribute to the gradual completion of the formation of a single Ukrainian language environment, the modern single Ukrainian political nation and the transformation of the Ukrainian language into the language of interethnic communication, despite the rather significant and generally unfavorable consequences of Russification of a significant part of Ukrainian, primarily among urban population.
By definition of linguists, language policy can be both positive and negative.

For this reason, the Ukrainian nation found itself in very unfavorable historical conditions, when Ukrainians not only could not implement a language policy in their own interests, but also became a hostage of someone else's language policy aimed at the interests of other states: the Russian Empire and the USSR, the Austro-Hungarian Empire , Poland, Romania, Czechoslovakia, Hungary.
But Ukrainians suffered the greatest losses from the language policy of Russia (the Russian Empire and the USSR). The policy of these state formations imperial type objectively had positive character from the point of view of imperial interests, because it contributed to the linguistic assimilation of non-Russian peoples, the expansion of Russian ethnic territory by absorbing foreign ethnic lands, including Ukrainian ones. On the other hand, this imperial policy of Russia, from the point of view of the national interests of Ukrainians, had a negative character for it, since it destroyed the Ukrainian-speaking environment, rosyshchili it.
The government of tsarist Russia openly forbade the Ukrainian language in public consumption (the Valuev Circular and the Emsky Decree), not allowing it into the education system, and not only in higher education, but even in school, as well as in the state apparatus, legal proceedings, science, the church, and so on. similar. Such an aggressive, offensive language policy of the Russian state was negative only for the Ukrainian language and Ukrainians in general.
For the empire itself, and by and large for the ethnic Russians themselves and the Russian language, this policy was objectively positive, as it ensured the expansion of language use and the expansion of the territory of their settlement. For this reason, the official declaration in the Russian Empire of the Ukrainian language as a territorial dialect, the “Little Russian dialect” of the Russian language, was a positive development for ethnic Russians, because it automatically increased the number of speakers of this language, due to the forced linguistic assimilation of Ukrainian. Belarusians found themselves in the same position.
Such a language policy should also be considered in the context of the competitiveness of the Ukrainian and Russian languages ​​on the territory of Ukraine. The ban on the Ukrainian language was intended for the empire, at best, to eliminate a competitor, at worst, to weaken it and reduce its competitiveness in the Ukrainian language environment. At the same time, it should be especially noted that the competition between the two languages ​​was imposed by the government language policy exclusively in the Ukrainian ethnic environment. Among ethnic Russians in Ukraine, both during its stay in the Russian Empire and later in the USSR, such competition was out of the question.
The Soviet language policy in Ukraine pursued the same goal, but, unlike the Russian Empire, it openly carried out Russification, this policy was quite skillfully disguised and therefore achieved much greater success along this path. As a result of the implementation of the Soviet policy of Russification, thousands of Ukrainians in their native land underwent linguistic assimilation, became Russified, treated the lost native language with disdain, considered it backward, "collective farm", unable to compete with the advanced, "urban" in Russian.
And one more important remark. Historical experience, and not only Ukrainian-Russian interethnic relations, convincingly testifies that there was not and does not exist, and there cannot be parity in language policy. One language always wins and the other always loses. The main thing is that historical justice should be restored in relation to the Ukrainian language, it is possible only if it receives not formally, but a real state status in independent Ukraine.
A concrete manifestation of competitiveness is the phenomenon of bilingualism (bilingualism). Bilingualism, as a natural phenomenon, is predominantly a characteristic feature of ethnic minorities. Assessing the degree of spread of bilingualism among ethnic Ukrainians in Soviet times, it should be noted that they were in the position of an ethnic minority. It is impossible to recognize such a phenomenon as natural, because an indigenous people cannot be an ethnic minority in their historical homeland, moreover, without being smaller in number. According to the fair conclusion of the linguist L.T. Masenko, “massive bilingualism of Ukrainian is a consequence long process linguistic and cultural assimilation, a temporary bridge over which the population moved from Ukrainian to Russian monolingualism.
Such linguistic processes could only take place in the absence of Ukrainian national statehood, when the status of the state language was undeservedly assumed by the Russian language, as a result of the artificial transformation of the Ukrainian language into the language of an ethnic minority. This is convincingly evidenced by the statistical data of the censuses of 1959, 1970, 1979, 1989 pp., analyzed by the author in the next section.
Unlike ethnic Ukrainian, in the Russian ethnic environment in Ukraine, the Russian language absolutely dominated. The Russians actually did not experience linguistic assimilation in the form of Ukrainization, which contrasted sharply with the widespread processes of linguistic assimilation (Russification) in the Ukrainian ethnic environment.
The revival of the independence of the Ukrainian state in 1991, for the first time in the last three hundred years, opened up a real opportunity to pursue its own language policy without any interference from other states and restrictions on the development of the Ukrainian language. In the conditions of independent Ukraine, there is also competition between the Ukrainian and Russian languages. But this competition is naturally possible only in the linguistic environment of the Russian ethnic minority, in the Ukrainian ethnic space such competition is not needed. Because, objectively, in the linguistic environment of an indigenous nation that has its own national state, such competition simply cannot exist. That is, it is not the indigenous nation, the Ukrainians, that should become bilingual in Ukraine, but the Russian ethnic minority.
Changes in the social role of the Ukrainian and Russian languages ​​in modern Ukraine and the acquisition of the status of the state language by the Ukrainian language objectively lead to a significant reduction in the functions and scope of the Russian language - the language of one of the ethnic minorities, although the largest among other minorities in terms of numbers.
The process of entering the state status in the Ukrainian language for Ukrainians is certainly a positive policy and, moreover, is a long-awaited restoration of historical justice. On the other hand, for a part of ethnic Russians and Russified Ukrainians who are politically engaged and anti-Ukrainian chauvinists, such a policy can be perceived as negative. But there is nothing terrible in this, because the stereotypes of the past will sooner or later be overcome in the minds of these individuals.
The Russian language unfairly had a state status in the RSFSR, objectively lost it in the conditions of the restoration of Ukraine's independence. Such drastic changes, of course, could be considered as unconditionally negative only from the point of view of the indigenous nation, but not of the ethnic minority. But Russians in Ukraine were, are and will be an ethnic minority, and, accordingly, their language was, is and will be only the language of an ethnic minority. The Russian language in Ukraine cannot function instead of Ukrainian, it must be next to it and serve once the Russian ethnic minority, and not the Ukrainian majority.
From the point of view of an ethnic minority, this is an objective, natural process. Therefore, those Russians who have managed to overcome imperial stereotypes and recognize themselves as representatives of an ethnic minority perceive the formation of the state status of the Ukrainian language with complete understanding. Those who continue to regret the former dominant status of the Russian language openly or covertly oppose these objective historical processes of the loss by it of the functions of the state language that are unusual for it on Ukrainian territory. But Ukraine is Ukraine, and Russia is Russia. Therefore, it is natural and quite fair that the state language in Russia is and should be Russian, and in Ukraine - Ukrainian, and not any other. Because Ukraine is not a “friend” of the Russian state, so that the state language is foreign to it.
It is also necessary to dwell on such a very important and very effective way of changing the language and ethnic structure population of Ukraine as interethnic - exogamous marriages. Assessing this influence, the author recognizes the right of every person to free choice spouses, enshrined in Article 51 of the Constitution of Ukraine: "Marriage is based on the voluntary consent of a woman and a man."
IN Soviet literature, especially of a propaganda nature, attention was paid to only one side of the problem - to inter-ethnic (exogamous) marriages, while the extremely important role of mono-ethnic (endogamous) marriages in the reproduction of each nation was hushed up. Exogamous marriages were supposed to serve as a vivid example of the manifestation of "friendship of peoples" and the unity of the "Soviet people", and not a form of linguistic and ethnic assimilation of one nation by another, which they have always been in reality. Unfortunately, this problem has not found its study in modern Ukrainian scientific literature.
Analyzing this complex phenomenon, it is necessary to pay attention to the fact that for each nation, mainly ethnically homogeneous, endogamous marriages are inherent, which ensure the constancy of the ethnos and broad prospects for its development, since they are based on reproducing it by transferring the native language, culture and culture to the new generation. national traditions. “In order to preserve ethnic traditions, endogamy is necessary, because the endogamous family transmits to the child a worked out stereotype of behavior, and the exogamous family transmits to him two stereotypes that mutually exclude each other,” pointed out the well-known Russian expert on this scientific problem L.M. Gumilev.
It should be noted that basically endogamous marriages are characteristic of each indigenous majority, and exogamous marriages - for an ethnic minority, especially if there are no areas of compact residence in the latter. The stabilizing role of endogamy in the process of reproduction of an ethnos was also recognized by the well-known Soviet ethnologist, academician Yu.V. Bromley.
That is, endogamy acts as a stabilizing factor not only for the growth of the number of each nation, but also for its very existence and development. On the contrary, exogamy leads to significant changes, the result of which is completely opposite for the indigenous nation and ethnic minorities. Exogamous marriages are "beneficial" for the indigenous majority, because they contribute to its numerical growth, and are very dangerous for the ethnic minority, because they cause a decrease in its number through ethnic assimilation. “In the presence of endogamy as an ethnic barrier, the processes of assimilation were slower and less intense, but for an ethnic group it is not at all the same: it will last three hundred years, or a thousand,” L.N. Gumilyov..
The significance of endogamy as predominantly marriages in one's own ethnic environment to preserve the stability, solidity of the ethnos, its traditional culture and national identity is recognized by modern Russian scientists. “The endogamy of a stable ethnos is 95-97%, shattered by interethnic hats - 81-82%. 10-15% of marriages that violate the endogamy of an ethnic group cannot be dangerous for its stability. An endogamy level below 85% is indicative of its destruction by interracial marriages." So, endogamous marriages must be recognized as an important natural barrier to the preservation of an ethnic group, as the main obstacle to the development of ethnic processes in the direction of linguistic and ethnic assimilation.
As for interethnic marriages, they do not directly affect changes in the number of individual nations, but only lead to the linguistic assimilation of one of the spouses. Changes in the number of a particular ethnic group are affected by children born in such marriages. Interethnic marriages actually destroy the ethnic life, as a rule, of one of the marriage partners and lead to the dominance of one of the two languages ​​in the family.
In ethnically mixed spouses, most often one of the family members is forced to communicate not in their native language, but in a foreign language. Children in such families find themselves in an unstable linguistic and ethnic situation and perceive the language and national culture of only one of the parents, the language that prevailed in their family and had a higher social status. Such processes must be recognized as a natural ethnic phenomenon only if it was the language of the indigenous majority, and not of the ethnic minority. When the minority language prevails in the family, then it would be wrong to consider such a situation as natural.
As for Ukrainian-Russian interethnic marriages, during the Soviet period, the vast majority of children choose Russian nationality and Russian language, and not Ukrainian, and not only in Russia, which would be quite natural, but also in Ukraine, which cannot be considered a natural phenomenon. This was caused primarily by the artificially high social status of the Russian language and the deliberate humiliation of the role of the Ukrainian language, which was a direct consequence of the long-term policy of Russification of Ukraine. The Russian language was dominant not only in the Russian ethnic lands proper, but also far beyond their borders. The same situation developed, for example, in Belarus, where already the second generation in Belarusian-Russian families chose Russian nationality, that is, they became Russians in their national self-consciousness and the language of Belarusian ethnic origin.
This situation is explained by the fact that although Russians were in the minority among the total population in most of the Union republics, the Russian language dominated in the USSR. Its status was much higher than any other language in all the union and autonomous republics without exception, and the USSR itself, in its essence, was in fact nothing more than a Russian state.
In the same territories where there was no Russian state power, the Russians assimilated quite quickly, and precisely due to the spread of interethnic marriages among them. A prime example influence of exogamy on the accelerated assimilation of the Russian ethnic minority may be the fate of migrants from Russia after civil war. Since these migrants were dominated by men, inter-ethnic marriages became widespread.
This was also facilitated by the fact that Russians in exile did not have regions of compact residence, in addition, they were concentrated mainly in cities. Exogamous marriages led to the fact that quite a large Russian ethnic minority, already in the second and third generations, underwent active linguistic assimilation. For comparison, Ukrainians in Canada, who had densely populated areas, turned out to be more resistant to linguistic and ethnic assimilation, therefore, they retained predominantly endogamous marriages.
Thus, starting from the second generation, representatives of ethnic minorities are naturally excluded from the reproduction process in interethnic families. One and the same person cannot simultaneously belong to two ethnic groups, naturally, she must make a choice in favor of one of them. “Descendants from mixed marriages either return to one of the initial types (parental or maternal), or die out, because adaptation in a particular environment is carried out by several generations, it is a tradition, a mixture of two traditions creates the impossibility of adaptation,” L.M. . Gumilev.
Due to the wide spread of interethnic marriages, especially in Soviet times, non-professional assessments of their actions, and even political speculations on this topic, have appeared in scientific, and more so in journalistic literature, that do not withstand scientific criticism. In particular, the idea is being promoted that many Ukrainian and Russian women or Ukrainian women and Russians are married, and therefore “fraternal peoples” cannot live a separate state life. Such speculations were especially actively voiced by representatives of the Russian political and cultural elite, primarily those of them who were partly of Ukrainian ethnic origin. A. Solzhenitsyn and Mikhail Gorbachev, whose mothers were Ukrainians, actively opposed Ukraine's independence. But both the writer and the politician are Russian in language and national self-consciousness, there is nothing Ukrainian in them, except for ethnic origin, and then only partially.
The number of Ukrainian-Russian inter-ethnic marriages and the chronological framework of their distribution have been quite deliberately exaggerated and, unfortunately, continue to be exaggerated. Back in the first half of the 20th century, exogamy among Ukrainians and Russians was quite rare. This is also confirmed by statistical data. So, in 1926, only 4% of Ukrainian entered into interethnic marriages.
Field studies even in ethnically mixed territories, in the former Ukrainian ethnic lands, carried out by the Russian ethnographer L.N. Chizhikov on the territory of the Belgorod and Voronezh region recorded this: “The old-timers of the village testified that such marriages were quite rare. This was largely due to everyday differences, manifested most clearly in the language and traditional clothing. Therefore, the groom or bride was mainly chosen in their village, but in the event that they could not find a bride in their village, the Ukrainians went to woo Ukrainian village, if it were not far away, and the Russians - to the villages where the Russians lived. Therefore, it is impossible to talk about the mass nature of Ukrainian-Russian interethnic marriages, that is, a high level of exogamy among Ukrainians in the recent past. The author does not idealize patriarchal traditions and, moreover, does not call for their return, but only states real historical facts.

to the host society. Secondly, assimilation is understood as a state of similarity in behavior patterns, attitudes, values ​​among immigrants and representatives of the host society, nation.

A common term used in Europe.

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What is a society? I mean, it's a smoothly functioning whole, with different parts matching each other for it to work? Or is it a tangle of rival groups grabbing each other by the throat and fighting for control of the others? Or maybe it's, you know, a bunch of people just trying to survive. The fact is that there is no single answer to the question of what the real nature of society is. But all three of the models I just described (society as a well-oiled machine, as a group of competing interests, and as a bunch of people just interacting with each other) are all worth considering. Because each of them offers its own view of the social world and each of them is crucial to understanding the practice of sociology, with stories that can be traced back to the founder of the discipline. So let's talk about paradigms. Crash Course Sociology #2 Major Sociological Paradigms A paradigm is not some high-tech parachute. And this is not the second name of twenty cents. In fact, a paradigm is essentially a model of how you think about things, it is a set of concepts and theories that define your point of view on a particular topic, whether it be Russian literature, public art, or the laws of physics. And in sociology, theoretical paradigms are key. These paradigms are the underlying assumptions sociologists make about social world they guide their thoughts and research. And at first it may seem rather biased, as if you are going to study society with certain prejudices. But you need the assumptions that these paradigms provide because raw facts don't interpret themselves. Examples of raw facts: "the unemployment rate last year was 5%", "Vasya's height is 1 meter 80 centimeters", or "today a group of people with posters blocked the highway." By calling them raw, I mean that these facts simply describe empirical reality. And they are not interpreted in advance. Is 5% an acceptable unemployment rate? Or should we try to lower it? Is a person 180 centimeters tall? Are the protesters who blocked the highway disturbing public order or are they fighting for their own interests? The answer to the last question: of course, both. But it is important to understand that in order to choose an answer, you must first make certain assumptions about the social world. It is also important to understand that these two different answers will be useful in different situations, to answer Various types questions. For example, if you are trying to understand how and why a society can hold together, then looking at protests as signs of tension or decay can be more helpful. But if you're trying to understand why people protest, then trying to understand how they pursue their interests may be better. So, all this may seem unscientific: physics does not need "interpretation". Mathematics does not need multiple "points of view." But really, you need to. All scientific disciplines make assumptions about the world, and all scientific disciplines use different points of view depending on the questions they ask. Physics can understand a bouncing ball as an almost infinite number of fundamental particles, each with its own wave function, all of which will be held together by various forces on the quantum scale. Or she might understand it as just the nth number of grams of rubber moving through space. The point of view you take will drastically change the type of questions you want to ask. All sciences ask different types of questions and start from different premises to answer them. And raw facts always need some point of view to be useful. So, if we want to talk about different issues and points of view in sociology, it would be good to start with what we talked about in the last episode - the fact that sociology looks at society at all levels, on all scales, from huge to tiny. In other words, sociology is concerned with both the macro and micro levels. Focusing on the macro level means looking at the big. When sociologists ask questions at this level, they are looking at the vast, large-scale structures that shape society. A macro question, for example, is "What caused the transition from feudalism to capitalism?" Or “How does race affect education?” Orientation to the micro level, of course, involves looking at the small. Such questions are more narrowly related to interaction between people, for example: “Do doctors speak differently to patients different races? or “How do members of a particular group build a group identity?” So, it is worth noting that these orientations are not completely separated from each other. Because, once again, big and small are always connected. Asking how doctors talk to patients of different races is a micro-question, but it also helps us understand the macro-level picture of racial disparity in health care. Likewise, the question of how a group constructs its identity may have macro effects, as it may help explain how large social structures are reproduced and maintained. Now that we understand a little more about the different scales sociology works with, we can turn to its main theoretical paradigms, which are three: There is structural functionalism, conflict theory, and symbolic interactionism. Let's start with structural functionalism, which was created by the French sociologist Émile Durkheim. Durkheim envisioned society as a kind of organism, with different parts all working together to keep it alive and well. Of course, things can go wrong. But this was always represented by Durkheim as a malfunction, a disease, or a deviation from the normal functioning of things. Thus, the structural functionalist point of view makes the same basic assumption: Society is seen as a complex system whose parts work together to promote stability and social order. And these different "parts" of society are social structures, relatively stable models of social behavior. For example, Durkheim showed an extreme interest in religion, as well as in the division of labor, and also in how tasks are divided in society. And these structures are seen as performing certain social functions. For example, the family in most societies performs the function of socializing children - teaching them to live in this society. And social functions are of two types: explicit and latent functions. Explicit features are intended or apparent consequences of a particular structure, while latent features are unintended or unrecognized. For example, we often think that schools are designed to give children knowledge - that is their clear function. But schools can also help socialize children. They may (and have historically) had the additional goal of creating workers who obey their bosses and meet deadlines. This is a latent function. So, along with functions, we also have social dysfunction, which is any social structure that disrupts the smooth running of society. For example, technological development is a powerful stimulus for improving the economy, which is a useful feature. But it is also a destabilizing force. New machines can put people out of work. Someday soon we will see the social dysfunction of thousands of truckers who will be displaced by self-driving trucks. And this brings us to one of the problems of structural functionalism. Because he views society as fundamentally functional and stable, he can be very bad at dealing with change. He can be bad when you try to explain well why change is happening, and he can also interpret bad things in society as having positive functions that therefore don't need to be changed. To take an extreme example, from a structural functionalist point of view, poverty, while detrimental to people, can be thought of as functionally beneficial to society because it ensures that there will always be people who want to work. Thus, this view may view any attempt to reduce poverty as potentially damaging to society. In such cases, however, it is better to turn to conflict theories. Unlike structural functionalism, conflict theories suggest that society is made up of different groups that compete for scarce resources—for power, money, land, food, or status. This view sees change as fundamental to society, constantly driven by these conflicts. The first theory of conflict in sociology was the theory of class struggle put forward by Karl Marx. This theory assumes that society has different classes based on their relationship to the means of production - to things like factories and raw materials. Under capitalism, the two classes were the capitalists, or bourgeoisie, who own the means of production, and the workers, or proletariat, who had to sell their labor in order to survive. Marx saw this conflict between classes as the central conflict in society and the source of social inequality in power and wealth. But there are other conflict theories that draw attention to other groups. For example, the theory of racial conflict was first formulated through the lens of sociology by W. I. B. Du Bois, another of the founders of sociology. She understands social inequality as the result of conflict between different racial and ethnic groups. Meanwhile, the theory of gender conflict draws attention to the social inequality of women and men. The points of view of all three types of conflict theory are of key importance for American history and are still important today. But the paradigms we've looked at so far are essentially macro-approaches: structural functionalism looks at how large structures fit together, while conflict theory looks at how society identifies sources of inequality and conflict. But there is also symbolic interactionism, and it is built to address micro-issues. Symbolic interactionism first emerged most prominently in the work of the German sociologist Max Weber and in his emphasis on "verstehen" or "understanding." Weber believed that sociology should pay attention to individual social situations and the meaning people give to them. So, symbolic interactionism, because it focuses more on the micro level, understands society as a product of everyday social interactions. In particular, this sociological school is interested in understanding the shared reality that people create through their interactions. It may sound strange to say that reality is created, but remember the idea of ​​raw facts versus interpretation. I'm waving my hand left and right - that's a fact, but it means that I'm only saying "hello" to you because we agreed to give it such importance. Therefore, there is no Capital Truth for symbolic interactionism. On the contrary, he looks at the world we create when we give meaning to interaction and objects. A handshake is a greeting only because we agree that it is. A dog can be a friend or a food, depending on what meaning we have given it. It is obvious that these three different paradigms provide completely different ways to look at the social world. But this is because they all comprehend it in different parts. Each of them gives us its own prism through which we can see our social life, just like science sometimes needs a microscope and sometimes a telescope. All these prisms are important and even necessary for the study of sociological questions. Today we discussed what theoretical paradigms are and talked in more detail about the difference between macro / micro levels. We then looked at the three main paradigms in sociology and learned a little about their advantages and disadvantages. Next week we will begin to explore how these paradigms can be used to conduct real sociological research. Crash Course Sociology filmed at Dr. Cheryl Kinney's studio in Missoula, Montana, with the help of all these lovely people. Our animation team is Thought Cafe and Crash Course is made on Adobe Creative Cloud. If you want to keep Crash Course free for everyone, forever, you can support the release on Patreon, a crowdfunding platform that allows you to support content you love. Speaking of Patreon, we'd like to thank all of our patrons in general, and we'd like to give a special thanks to our Director of Education, David Sichowski. Thanks for your support!

Cultural influence

A locality (state or ethnicity) can quite spontaneously adopt a different culture because of its political significance or perceived superiority. One of the earliest cases is the gradual adoption of the Latin language and culture by the majority of the enslaved peoples.

Cultural assimilation can happen by accident or by force. One culture may spontaneously adapt another culture, or a culture that is older and richer may forcibly merge weaker cultures. The term "assimilation" is very often used in relation to immigrants and various ethnic groups who settled in the new land. A new culture and new approaches to the origin of culture are obtained as a result of contact and communication. cultural change It's not just a one-way process. Assimilation suggests that relatively weak cultures should be merged into one single culture. This process occurs through direct contact and adaptation between cultures. The current definition of assimilation is usually used when referring to immigrants, but as far as multiculturalism is concerned, cultural assimilation can take place throughout the world without being limited to specific areas. For example, knowledge of languages ​​gives people the opportunity to study and work internationally, without being limited to one single cultural group. People from different countries contribute to diversity and the formation of a "global culture", which means that culture combines elements different cultures. "Global culture" can be seen as part of the assimilation that causes the formation of cultures from different areas, influencing each other.

Assimilation of immigrants

Assimilation of immigrants in the United States of America

The assimilation of immigrants is a complex process in which immigrants are not only fully integrated into a new country, but may also completely lose their identity and cultural heritage. Sociologists rely on four main benchmarks for assessing the assimilation of immigrants: socioeconomic status, geographical distribution, well-acquired second language, mixed marriages. . William A.W. Clarke defines immigrant assimilation as "a way of understanding the social dynamics of American society, and that this process often occurs quite spontaneously and unintentionally in the interaction of large and small groups."

Between 1880 and 1920, the US received approximately 24 million immigrants. This increase in immigration can be attributed to many historical changes. Later, during the Cold War from 1960 to 1980 and the collapse of the Soviet Union in the late 1990s, more than 1.8 million Jews emigrated from the former Soviet Union. The main countries of immigration were: Israel (about 1.1 million), the United States (over 400,000), Germany (about 130,000), and Canada (about 30,000). The beginning of the 20th century was also marked by an era of mass immigration. Sociologists are once again trying to assess the impact that immigration has on society and the impact that this process has on the immigrants themselves.

It is worth noting that some scientists believe that assimilation and acculturation are synonymous. This is not entirely true. According to the point of view of most sociologists, assimilation is "the process of interpreting and merging" one group or person with others. This fusion may include memories, behaviors, and feelings. By sharing their experiences and stories, they merge into a common cultural life. During assimilation, one people completely loses its language and culture upon contact with another, more dominant one, which does not occur during acculturation.

Theoretical models of immigrant assimilation

According to the first classical model, immigrants and locals become more and more similar to each other in the process of interaction. This theory considers immigrants who, over time, more quickly adapted to the norms, values, behavior and character of another group. This theory also suggests that immigrants and their descendants who have lived in a new environment for a longer period of time become more like a group than those who have lived for a short amount of time. The second theory, which is a model of racial or ethnic inferiority, argues that the chances of immigrants to assimilate are almost impossible. An example of this model is discrimination and institutional barriers to employment and other opportunities. To circumvent these barriers, some immigrant groups have formed ethnic enclaves. A third, segmented model of assimilation suggests that structural barriers such as poor urban schools, cut off access to jobs and other opportunities, often severe for the most vulnerable members of immigrant groups, can lead to stagnation and decline in mobility, even if the children of other immigrants follow the classical straight-line assimilation in completely different ways.

Main indicators of immigrant assimilation

The researchers determine that the assimilation that exists among immigrants can be measured by four main criteria. These basic aspects, formulated in the USA for the study of European immigration, are still the starting points for understanding the assimilation of immigrants. These aspects are: socioeconomic status, geographic concentration of the population, second language proficiency and intermarriage.

Changing an immigrant's name and acquiring a house as a form of assimilation

While changing the names of immigrants is not one of the 4 measurable criteria for assimilation outlined by sociologists, it nonetheless represents a clear rejection of the old. Thus, immigrants quickly understand the structure of the new society. Simplicity and comfort in communication have become another factor in the rejection of the former names. The names of many immigrants from other countries are difficult to pronounce, so changing the name to a new one will be another step towards speedy assimilation with the local population.

Buying your own home can also be seen as a step towards assimilation. William A.W. Clark explores this step in his book Immigrants and the American Dream Remarking the Middle Class. Clark understands that the process of assimilation is much more than just buying a house. But he argues that "home ownership" is one of the stages of assimilation. By purchasing a house, a person becomes a part of society and the neighborhood in which he lives, as well as part of daily activities.

Modifications for estimating immigrant assimilation

American studies of 19th-century immigrant assimilation concluded that immigrants to the United States struggled to catch up with the native population in terms of knowledge, education, work experience, and income. But 20th-century research suggests that immigrants eventually caught up with them. To date, scientists are investigating the factors that led to erroneous results. First, immigrants who arrived at a young age should be treated differently from those who arrived as adults. Secondly, the specifics of making a profit should be closer to the form of age-related income. Researchers point out that profit opportunities should also be considered already in terms of indicators set in the 20th century, and not in the 19th from the point of view of traditional development paths.

Naturalization of immigrants

Assimilation examples

Ethnographic

• armenization
• Bulgarization
• Latvianization
• Japaneseization

religious

• Buddification (Lamaization)

Phenomena that are result social group assimilation

Constant and frequent.

A group of different languages, cultures and identities as a result of contact with a larger and more dominant community.

The first studies of assimilation date back to the end of the 19th century (L. Gumplovich). The scope of the concept of assimilation and its relationship with similar concepts has repeatedly changed in the history of assimilation studies. Different sides assimilation processes were expressed in terms of: acculturation, linguistic assimilation (transition to another language), structural assimilation (rapprochement of employment structures), miscegenation (mixed marriages), etc. Unlike acculturation, assimilation was understood as a unidirectional process, implying a change in the value system and referential in assimilating individuals or groups, as well as the willingness on the part of the dominant group to accept new members. The American sociologist M. Gordon singled out several components of assimilation: an increase in the number of mixed marriages, the replacement of the cultural models of the subordinate group by models of the dominant group, the incorporation of members of the subordinate group into the institutional structures of the dominant group and a corresponding change in its social identity, etc. He came to the conclusion that it is only necessary to speak about the degree of assimilation, since cases of complete assimilation are rare.

There are also natural and forced assimilation. The latter is a consequence of the policy of the dominant group or state aimed at suppressing the cultures and languages ​​of ethnic minorities (the so-called ethnocide and linguicide). In ethno-national theories of the state, natural assimilation was considered "progressive", creating conditions for stability and accelerated development (V. I. Lenin, American President V. Wilson). However, even in the case of natural assimilation, the seeming voluntary abandonment of language and culture is due to real inequalities between groups.

Since the end of the 20th century, instead of the term "assimilation", the terms integration, adaptation, incorporation, cultural syncretism, cultural hybridization, etc. have been more often used to refer to the processes of social rapprochement. The understanding of assimilation as a set of multi-qualitative and multidirectional processes that occur unevenly in different spheres has prevailed. various aspects which (social, demographic, political, psychological, ethnic, and so on) are considered as independent objects of study. The concept of “dominant culture” is also being reassessed, with emphasis on the plurality of centers of reference (the so-called segmented forms of assimilation). An important role is also played by the change of political orientations in a number of classical immigration countries (USA, Canada, Australia, etc.) from assimilationist and integrationist attitudes to multiculturalism, which occurred as a result of the activities of anti-assimilationist movements in these countries.

Lit.: Gumplowicz L. Der Rassenkampf. Innsbruck, 1883; Cultural assimilation of immigrants. L., 1950; Berry B. Race relations: the interaction of ethnic and racial groups. Boston, 1951; The cultural integration of immigrants. R., 1959; Gordon M. Assimilation in american life. N.Y., 1964; Kozlov V. I. Dynamics of the number of peoples. M., 1969; Glazer N., Moynihan D. Beyound the melting pot: the Negroes, Puerto Ricans, Jews, Italians, and Irish of New York City. 2nd ed. Camb., 1970; Eisenstadt S. N. The absorption of immigrants. Westport, 1975; Modern ethnic processes in the USSR. 2nd ed. M., 1977; Ethnic processes in the modern world. M., 1987; Rumbaut R. G. Assimilation and its discontents: between rhetoric and reality // International Migration Review. 1997 Vol. 31. No. 4; Zhou M. Segmented assimilation: Issues, controversies, anil recent research on the new second generation // Ibid.

S. V. Sokolovsky.

The formation of complex substances in the body from simpler ones coming from external environment. IN broad sense words synonymous with anabolism. At the same time, they often talk about A. of a particular compound, implying the ways of its transformation, assimilation in the body, in the cell. Microbiology. Glossary of terms

ethnic assimilation- the process of assimilation by representatives various nationalities language, culture, customs, traditions of the ethnic environment in which they live.

As a result, they lose their language, cultural characteristics, traditions and change in self-consciousness of their national (ethnic) affiliation. On this basis, both on a global scale and within a particular region or state, there is an increase in the number of people of one (assimilating) nationality and a decrease in the number of people of another (assimilating) nationality.

Ethnic assimilation is promoted by the strengthening of interstate and interregional migration, the expansion of interethnic communication, the growth of interethnic marriages, families, etc. Assimilation processes can cover both ethnic minority groups of the same country (for example, the assimilation of the Welsh by the English, the Bretons by the French, the Jews, Poles, Greeks by the Russians etc.), as well as immigrants who settled for permanent residence (for example, the assimilation of Italians, Spaniards, Armenians who moved to France, the United States and other countries). Depending on the ways and means of assimilation, natural and forced assimilation are distinguished.

natural assimilation- the result of direct contact of ethnically diverse groups, due to the needs of strengthening their common social, economic and cultural life. Natural assimilation, which has been going on for many centuries, both in the world as a whole and in individual countries and regions, reflects the natural integration processes of social development. Occurring freely and voluntarily, it does not, as a rule, cause interethnic conflicts.

Forced assimilation is a purposeful system of measures by authorities in all spheres of public life aimed at artificially imposing and pushing the process of ethnic assimilation by suppressing or restricting the language and culture of ethnic minorities, putting pressure on their ethnic identity, etc. In modern history, this type of assimilation is carried out in Turkey in relation to the Kurds, in Latvia and Estonia in relation to the Russians. World historical experience convincingly testifies to the stubborn resistance to forced ethnic assimilation, even on the part of small ethnic groups.

The problem of ethnic contacts is extremely important for multinational Russia, on whose territory more than 150 ethnic groups and ethnic groups live. The ethnic picture of Russia is extremely heterogeneous. Thus, the number of several indigenous ethnic groups (Tatars, Chuvashs, Bashkirs, Mordvins) exceeds 1 million people each, and the number of all twenty-six peoples of the North, Siberia and Far East is no more than 180 thousand. In Russia, there are more than 30 ethnic groups belonging to peoples who do not have their own statehood in the world (Gypsies, Assyrians, Uighurs, Kurds, etc.). Only in six out of 21 republics the titular population exceeds 50% of the population of this republic (Chuvashia, Kabardino-Balkaria, Tuva, North Ossetia, Chechnya, Ingushetia). In general, in all republics taken together, the indigenous ethnic group makes up only 32% of the population, and in autonomous regions- 10.5%. At the same time, the state-forming ethnic group - Russians - makes up more than 80% of the country's population.

It should also be noted that the problem of interethnic contacts is complicated by the arrival of millions of refugees and internally displaced persons in Russia. In addition, in search of work, as well as with other (more unseemly) purposes, from 10 to 15 million citizens of the states of near and far abroad come to the Russian Federation and temporarily or permanently reside.

Control questions and tasks

1. What is the role and importance of interethnic relations in society?
2. What levels can be identified in the structure of interethnic relations?
3. What is the specificity of interethnic, interethnic relations?
4. What factors influence interethnic relations?
5. Describe modern interethnic relations in Russian Federation,
6. Name the countries and regions where, in your opinion, interethnic relations are characterized as tense, conflict.
7. What types of ethnic contacts exist?
8. What options for the results of ethnic processes can be identified?
9. Recall your personal contacts with people of other nationalities and try to determine their results.
10. Analyze the results of interethnic contacts in recent years in Russia.

Literature

1. Arutyunov S.A. Peoples and cultures: development and interaction. - M., 1989.
2. State, law and interethnic relations in the countries of Western democracy. - M., 1993.
3. Guboglo M.N. National processes in the USSR. - M., 1991.
4. Orlova E.A. Introduction to social and cultural anthropology. - M., 1994.
5. Sikevich Z.V. Sociology and psychology of national relations. - SPB., 1999.
6. Tishkov V.A. Essays on the theory and politics of ethnicity in the Russian Federation. - M., 1997.
7. Ethnic processes in the modern world. - M., 1987.
8. Ethnic stereotypes of behavior. - L., 1985.
9. Ethnoses and ethnic processes. - M., 1995.