Мовна політика Рейхскомісаріату Україна

Abstract

The article deals with some issues of language policy in the Reichskommissariat of Ukraine (1941-1944) in the context of competition between different concepts of the Third Reich leadership in relation to the occupied eastern territories. In this regard, along with the problem of attitude of the new authorities to the Ukrainian language, the issue of introduction of Latin script in Ukraine and teaching German to the local population is raised. The language policy implemented in the Reichskommissariat for the first time is the result of an internal struggle between the main forces of the occupation administration: the Ministry of the Eastern Occupied Territories, the Reichskommissariat Ukraine, the Wehrmacht (in its area of responsibility in Ukraine) and branches of the industrial and transport structures of the Reich working in Ukraine. The legislative basis of the language policy in Ukraine was never officially approved until the end of the occupation, so the main source of information about the language regulation was the letter of the Ministry for the Occupied Eastern Territories dated January 13, 1942 about the foundations of the language policy, which in its basic provisions supported the trend towards gradual Ukrainianization of the population (excluding Ukrainian Germans). The most noticeable correction of the language policy took place in the sphere of teaching German to the local population. The needs of the military industry forced economic structures to lobby for the elimination of the ban on teaching German to Ukrainians, which in turn was reinforced by the general policy line of the Ministry for the Eastern occupied territories to involve the Ukrainian people in the fight against Bolshevism.