IWPR's Caucasus Reporting Service, No.82: Russian language in Armenia
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IWPR's Caucasus Reporting Service, No.82: Russian language in Armenia
WELCOME TO IWPR'S CAUCASUS REPORTING SERVICE, NO. 82, May 16, 2001
..................
ARMENIA'S CULTURAL WATERSHED
The once-hated Russian language is making a comeback in post-Soviet
Armenia
By Susanna Petrosian in Yerevan
Moves to promote the Armenian language and marginalise Russian have
met with a mixture of suspicion and regret in the former Soviet
republic.
Members of the local intelligentsia argue that, without a knowledge of
Russian or other foreign languages, the next generation of Armenians
will find themselves cut off from the outside world.
And plans to sideline Russian TV and radio programmes have caused
widespread indignation amongst the population at large.
The question of Russian-language media came to the fore at the end of
last year when the Armenian parliament adopted its TV and Radio Bill.
The new legislation significantly reduces the air-time allowed to
Russian and other foreign language broadcasts.
According to the law, Armenian-language programmes must make up 25 per
cent of all broadcasts in 2001 with the proportion rising to 55 per
cent by 2004.
Grigor Amalian, chairman of Armenia's National TV and Radio
Commission, argues that the law is aimed at supporting and developing
the local broadcast industry.
However, producers say that the move will have a disastrous effect on
the private sector which lacks the funds to translate and dub foreign
programmes.
On the whole, the Russian TV channels are hugely popular in Armenia
and the news that ORT would be coming off the air from January 2001
sparked a wave of national outrage.
President Robert Kocharian's press office was subsequently forced to
release a statement insisting that the decision was prompted by
financial problems rather than political agendas.
The Radio and TV Law is the culmination of a government policy which
was first initiated in the early 1990s.
In the wake of independence, there was a strong reaction against
Russian language and culture which many believed had been imposed on
Armenia by the Kremlin as a means of exerting political pressure.
Activists from the nationalist Mashtots movement even dismantled busts
of the Russian writers Pushkin and Chekhov which stood outside the
schools named after them.
The busts were only replaced after members of the Yerevan
intelligentsia intervened.
Most Armenian intellectuals believe that a Russian education not only
gives children access to a wealth of academic literature, it also
offers them a better start in life.
Levon Galstian, head of the State Inspectorate on Languages, comments,
"We have arrived at a psychological and social watershed which has
created many problems including the disintegration of social unity."
Today, existing legislation states that Armenian should be the
official language of both the education system and the government
bureaucracy.
But some experts claim that this approach has led to a wave of radical
thinking which in turn has forced dozens of highly qualified
specialists to leave both teaching and the civil service.
One analyst commented, "This education policy has inflicted serious
damage on the study of foreign languages - and especially Russian."
Certainly, the closure of Russian schools across Armenia has prompted
a mass exodus of ethnic Russians from the former Soviet republic. Of
the 80-90,000 Russians living in Armenia prior to 1993, only 15-16,000
have remained.
Yuri Yakovenko, vice-president of the Rossia association, commented,
"The Russians and other minority groups simply saw no prospects for
continuing their children's education [in Armenia]."
Other ethnic minorities have also found the Law on Language to be an
insurmountable obstacle. For example, the tens of thousands of Azeri
refugees in Armenia are effectively barred from working in any
state-run organisation.
However, the policy of extremes ushered in by independence has tailed
off and, in recent years, there has been a backlash against the
language legislation.
There are currently 15 schools in Armenia where classes are held in
Russian as well as four all-Russian schools. In March 2000, the
president's office set up a coordinating committee to review the
question of education in foreign languages.
One of the greatest problems that faces the education system is the
lack of Armenian-language text-books and study aids - around 90 per
cent of available books are in Russian.
While the country lacks funds to translate the texts, young Armenians
who have grown up with only a sketchy knowledge of Russian are
effectively unable to access this vast informational resource.
Nuridjan Manukian, a spokesman for the Ministry of Science and
Education, said, "In many state institutions, they recognise that the
teaching of Russian and other foreign languages is essential for our
country. It is therefore imperative to raise the level of study
programmes, to publish new text-books and even to open special schools
which offer an in-depth study of Russian and other languages."
According to Manukian, 26 schools are already offering "an in-depth
study of Russian" whilst plans are afoot to create similar programmes
in other schools.
Some experts have even proposed giving Russian the status of a second
state language - a suggestion dismissed by the rector of Yerevan State
Linguistic University, Suren Zolian, who said, "This is absurd from a
legal and political point of view".
Meanwhile, private initiatives are leading the way. A branch of the
American University opened in Yerevan five years ago and the Slavic
University established a local campus in 1998. The summer of 2000 saw
the launch of the French University where students can study several
foreign languages at the same time.
However, despite widespread acknowledgment that foreign languages are
the key to self-advancement, in Armenia's harsh economic climate a
good education remains the privilege of a small minority.
Susanna Petrosian works for the Noyan Tapan news agency in Yerevan
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The Institute for War & Peace Reporting (IWPR) is a London-based
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Copyright (c) IWPR 2001
IWPR'S CAUCASUS REPORTING SERVICE, NO. 82
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