Re: Ukrainians and Russians in Romania
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From: MINELRES moderator <[email protected]>
Date: Wed, 16 Dec 1998 08:43:42 +0200 (EET)
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Subject: Re: Ukrainians and Russians in Romania
From: MINELRES moderator <[email protected]>
Original sender: Michael Shafir <[email protected]>
Re: Ukrainians and Russians in Romania
Dear Farimah Daftary:
Thank you for your message re: Ukrainians and Russians in Romania.
Like yourselves, I am not aware of any serious reports on
infringements of these minorities' rights in Romania. In the last
couple of months, the Romanian nationalist media and politicians
inclined to stirr up nationalist feelings whenever they can, have been
engaged in a process attempting to discredit the basic treaty between
Ukraine and Romania, in particular inasmuch as the treaty's provisions
on minority rights are concerned, claiming that the Ukrainian side is
not respecting its obligations. In fact, they resent Romania's
renounciation of any territorial claims on Ukraine, seeing the
Bucovina (Bukovina) as having illegitimately been sacrificed. And they
are looking for any means to discredit the treaty as a whole. This
effort triggered a counter-response from the Ukrainian side,
condensly described in the following item, published in "Newsline" on
9 September 1998:
ROMANIA REJECTS UKRAINIAN CRITICISM. The Romanian government on 9
September rejected recent accusations by the Ukrainian government that
Bucharest has canceled subventions to "Vilne Slovo," the only
newspaper in Ukrainian published in Romania. Government spokesman
Razvan Popescu said the government does not subsidize any newspapers
but grants aid to the Ukrainian National Union (UNU), the newspaper's
publisher, via its Department for National Minorities. He said that
the Ukrainian government's accusations are due to a
"misunderstanding," adding that Kyiv must direct its queries to the
UNU, which bears "sole responsibility" for the difficulties
encountered by "Vilne Slovo." Popescu also said he is confident that
both Ukraine and Romania will "scrupulously respect" the provisions of
the basic treaty concluded last year. MS
I am not inclined to attribute much importance to this rather
artificial incident. The facts are quite complicated, however, insofar
as the respect of the treaty's provisions by the Ukrainians is
concerned. Kyiv claims (and this is true) that the non-implementation
of the provisions concerning the right of minorities to teaching in
mother tongue is not due to any anti-Romanian policies but to
financial problems facing the entire Ukrainian education system, and I
am basically inclined to accept this. But on top of it, the problem is
also complicated by the fact that Bucharest wants to see all the
Romanians living in Ukraine as 100% Romanians, while a good part of
that population considers itself to be Moldovan! The two languages, as
you undoubtedly are aware of, are identical, yet Moldova pursues
policies of forging a separate Moldovan identity. Within this
framework, it is ready to make use of the divisions existing in the
Romanian/Moldovan community in Ukraine. One group from among the many
in this community even went as far as to demand that teaching of
"Moldovan" in Ukrainian schols be conducted using books written in the
Cyrilic alphabet, which is no longer the official alphabet even in
Moldova proper. The following items published in "Newsline" this year
can give you a somewhat condensed, but nonetheless accurate picture of
what is going on:
26 August 1998
ROMANIAN-UKRAINIAN TENSIONS IN OFFING. Foreign Minister Andrei Plesu
on 26 August told the Senate's Foreign Relations Committee that the
teaching of Romanian in minority schools in Ukraine is to be replaced
by the teaching of the "Moldovan language." He said textbooks printed
in Romanian are to be replaced by ones using the Cyrillic alphabet in
response to a proposal made by the chairman of the Association of
Ukrainian Romanians. Plesu said he has asked Romania's Department for
Minorities to present counter-proposals, which will then be handed to
the joint Romanian-Ukrainian Commission on Minority Problems. The same
day, the opposition Party of Social Democracy in Romania protested
the Ukrainian decision, saying it is a "continuation of the
de-nationalization policies pursued by the former Soviet authorities."
MS
9 September 1998
UKRAINE DENIES BANNING ROMANIAN LANGUAGE IN ODESSA REGION. The
Ukrainian Foreign Ministry has rejected claims voiced recently in
Romanian press that the Ukrainian authorities have banned the use of
Romanian (called Moldovan in Ukraine) in schools in Odessa Oblast,
dpa reported on 8 September. According to the ministry, there has been
no change in the status of Romanian schools or in language policies in
Ukraine since 1991. The ministry says that the Romanian claims are
"absolutely groundless" and can be attributed to a "political and
propaganda campaign" launched against Ukraine in the Romanian press.
JM
I am only providing this cross-border information to illustrate how a
rather non-existent issue can be inflated. The Romanians, while
denying the right of their own Hungarian minority to university-level
teaching in mother tongue, would like to use the model of their own
basic treaty with Hungary to enforce the setting up of a so-called
"multicultural" university in Cherivitsi (Cernauti), and the
Ukrainians are hardly likely to oblige. In a nutshell: no, this is no
REAL problem, but count on lunatics on both sides to create one. And I
am unaware of complaints from members of the Russian minority.
--
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