MINELRES: Fwd: EurasiaNet: Azerbaijan: Debate over Status of Russian Language

[MINELRES moderator]

Original sender: LGI Research <LGIResearch@osi.hu> 


EURASIA INSIGHT: A EurasiaNet Partner Post from RFE/RL
<http://www.rferl.org/> 
September 23, 2003 

AZERBAIJAN: MOSCOW SEEKS OFFICIAL
STATUS FOR RUSSIAN LANGUAGE, BUT WILL BAKU AGREE?

Jean-Christophe Peuch

Government officials in Moscow say that, after years of decline due to
the large emigration of ethnic Slavs following the breakup of the Soviet
Union, the Russian language is making a comeback throughout the CIS. 

Russian is a state language in Belarus and Kyrgyzstan, while in
Kazakhstan it is considered an official language. The distinction is
largely symbolic. In most former Soviet republics, however, Russian is
considered a foreign language and taught as such in schools and
universities. 

Citing discrimination, ethnic Russians in CIS countries have long
initiated campaigns to put Russian on an equal footing with state
languages. After years of covert support, Moscow is now openly backing
their efforts. 

On 10 June, the State Duma -- the lower chamber of Russia's legislature
-- debated a law that would pave the way to making Russian an official
language in 12 of the 15 former Soviet republics, provided the CIS
Interparliamentary Assembly endorses it. 

The Moscow-based "Gazeta" newspaper reported that the proposed bill
would allow CIS residents the right to file official documents using
either Russian or the national language of their home country. 

The Duma hearings followed the appointment of Eleanora Mitrofanova, a
former Russian lawmaker from the far-right Liberal Democratic Party of
Russia, as a first deputy foreign minister in charge of the 30 million
or so Russians living abroad. 

On 8 August, Russia's daily "Moskovskii Komsomolets" quoted Mitrofanova
as saying she would work toward the goal of seeing Russian recognized as
an official language in all CIS states. 

Nair Aliyev is the first deputy editor in chief of "Ekho," one of
Azerbaijan's main Russian-language newspapers. He tells RFE/RL that
Moscow has been sounding out Baku on possibly upgrading the status of
the Russian language. 

"As far as I know, the issue of the Russian language is not on the
official agenda [of Azerbaijan]," he said. "To be precise, the Russian
side has initiated discussions. Mitrofanova once said discussions were
going on with a number of CIS countries, including Azerbaijan. [Our
newspaper] reacted to her remarks, and we tried to get more details
about [these discussions]. We then learned from diplomatic sources that
both sides were in consultation, although, officially, our Foreign
Ministry maintains there have been no talks on that issue. Yet, informal
contacts have taken place and will continue to take place in the future.
Obviously, this is not a problem one can solve in a day, a week, or even
a year." 


While denying any intentions of discriminating against his country's
large Russian-speaking minority, Azerbaijani Foreign Minister Vilayat
Quliyev said on 26 August that granting Russian the status of state
language is "out of the question." 

Azerbaijan's 1995 constitution cites Azeri as the country's only
official language. It also says the state undertakes to guarantee the
free use and development of any other language in use among the
country's 8 million people. 

Elmira Agahuseynova heads the chair of Russian language at Azerbaijan's
Technical University. Although Azeri has been the state’s official
language for many years, she says many ethnic Azerbaijanis still
experience difficulties with their mother tongue. 

"In general, the older generations speak Russian, [which used to be] the
state language all across the Soviet Union," she said. "It's been 10
years since Azeri has become the official language of independent
Azerbaijan. Still, many people are experiencing problems with that
language, first and foremost because we [recently] changed the alphabet
to switch to the Latin script." 

In August 2001, Azerbaijan officially re-adopted the Latin script to
replace the Cyrillic alphabet, which had been in use since the late
1930s. 

The decision was designed to officially sever Azerbaijan's umbilical
cord with Russia and to help it move closer to Europe and, most
importantly, Turkey, whose predominant language shares common roots with
Azeri. But the move sparked public controversy, with many people
complaining that elder Azerbaijanis would be unable to adapt to the
Latin script. 

One Baku university professor, who asked not to be named, tells our
correspondent the switch to a new alphabet has also had unpleasant
consequences in the high-school system. She says that, in many
scientific domains, most available reference books are written in
Russian and have yet to be translated into Azeri. 

As for Western literature, she adds, most students do not have access to
it, partly for want of money, partly for practical reasons. She says
some Azeri translations are available but they are of poor quality. In
addition, the translation process from foreign languages has been slowed
because of problems assimilating the Latin alphabet. 

Unless the Azerbaijani government urgently allocates funds to help
translate Western textbooks into Azeri, Russian will remain the
reference language in higher scientific or technical education courses
-- if only because few university professors can read English or any
other Western language. 

Agahuseynova of Azerbaijan's Technical University adds: "If one day we
get access to scientific or medical literature in English, that would
create enormous problems -- really enormous -- because we would need to
have a perfect command of the language to read these books. All of us
understand Russian, use Russian, and hear Russian from television
screens. But English, we have to learn it all by ourselves." 

In addition to an estimated 142,000 Russians, ethnic minorities in
Azerbaijan include tens of thousands of Lezgins, Avars, Kurds, Talyshs,
Tats, Belarusians, and Ukrainians for whom Russian is a lingua franca. 

There are no official statistics on the use of Russian in Azerbaijan.
But experts generally believe that between 50 and 70 percent of citizens
are familiar with the language, although not all of them use it on a
daily basis. 

Many factors contribute to keeping the Russian language alive in
Azerbaijan -- free access to Russian schools, retransmission of Russia's
main public television channels, broadcasting of Russian-language
programs on national media, and a relatively large number of
Russian-language newspapers with significant circulations by local
standards. 

Journalist Aliyev says Azerbaijan's poor economic standards also play a
significant role in keeping Russian afloat. 

"There is another factor that sustains the [widespread] use of Russian,"
Aliyev said. "It is the large number of Azerbaijanis who go to Russia to
earn money. For these people, it is indispensable to know Russian. The
last census conducted in Russia showed that there were some 2.16 million
Azerbaijanis there in 2002. That does not necessarily include ethnic
Azerbaijanis who are Russian citizens, because all people who were then
in Russia had to answer questionnaires. These are the official figures.
The actual figures are probably much higher. Therefore, one can
reasonably say that between one-quarter and one-third of [Azerbaijanis]
actively use Russian, if only because of these people who periodically
go abroad to earn their living." 

Russian is no longer considered the vehicle for social promotion it used
to be under the Czarist and Soviet regimes and is now competing with
English and Turkish. 

According to Azerbaijani Education Minister Misir Mardanov, 355 students
graduated this year from schools operated by Cag Ogretim Islemetleri, a
privately owned Turkish network of religious schools that is expanding
throughout the Caucasus and Central Asia. 

English is rapidly
gaining ground among youth, mainly due to the large Western business
community that Azerbaijan's second oil boom has lured to Baku since
independence. 

Yet, experts believe there is still a long way to go before English
supplants Russian, if only because few in Azerbaijan can afford to hire
private tutors to offset the weaknesses in the state-controlled
education system. "Ekho" first deputy editor in chief Aliyev says: 

"With the development of oil projects, English, of course, is rapidly
spreading, and Russian is being progressively sidelined. But this is a
relative phenomenon. For a significant part of the population, Russian
will remain important for many years. In the business area, of course,
Russian is progressively losing ground to English. I wouldn’t even say
that it is losing ground. Rather, English is developing [in parallel].
But Russian remains close to the majority of Azerbaijani citizens." 

While approving of the Azerbaijani government's refusal to grant
Russian official status, Agahuseynova says the language issue should
remain depoliticized. 

"Russian does have a function in Azerbaijan. It is a language that is
being used and spoken by many people, whereas English is being used
mostly by Westerners who come here to work," she says, adding: "Whatever
changes take place at the state level, a language should remain what it
is - an instrument that gives access to communication and information."


---------------------------------------
Addresses for the Multiethnic Group
List Moderator: kovacsp@osi.hu
Subscribe: multiethnic-subscribe@yahoogroups.com
Unsubscribe:  multiethnic-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com
Discussion page: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/multiethnic
Multiethnic Project: http://lgi.osi.hu/ethnic/