Belorusskii iazyk: Sotsioligvisticheskie ocherki by Nina B. Mechkovskaia (review)

Abstract

REVIEWS 3 I 7 Mechkovskaia, Nina B. Belorusskii iazyk:Sotsiol(gvisticheskie ocherki. Specimena Philologiae Slavicae, I38. Otto Sagner, Munich, 2003. vi + I56 pp. Tables. Notes. Bibliography.Index. ?20.00 (paperback). THE question of language is central to the whole debate about Belarusian identitywhich came to the surfacewith the break-upof the Soviet Union, and which since then has seen a variety of peripeteias. The ruthlesslysuppressed demonstrations which are now a regular occurrence in the main Belarusian cities are the most openly passionate expressions of concerns about not only democracy but also language. Passionis not characteristicof Nina Mechkovskaia 's approach to the various social and political aspects of the language situation of the past decade. Indeed, she acts as an observer rather than impassioned commentator, and the effect of her scholarly,well documented and closely reasoned writingis all the more striking.This is an importantand necessarybook at the present time. ProfessorMechkovskaia,the leading Belarusiansociolinguistof today, and author of many books on general and social linguistics (a list of her monographs, including a major study of language and religion [i998] is on the backcover of this book)has assembleda seriesof long scholarlyarticleson some of the central issuesin the ongoing debates about the nature and status of language in the Belarusian republic. The scope of these studies is broad, ranging from historical issues tcipresent-day political shenanigans:from the choice of alphabetsby nineteenth-centuryBelarusianwritersto thebreakdown in 2002 of discussions between the presidents of Belarus and Russia on the question ofjoint sovereignty.The very subjectsof many of the topicsdiscussed here are bound to arouse passions, and the author'seminently scholarlytone is allied to a lively narrative style which brings out very clearly the many issues, both absurd and genuinely debatable, which are ever present in the minds of Belarus's beleaguered intelligentsia. Professor Mechkovskaia has consciously decided not to attemptto update her articles,but theyread aswell as they did when firstwritten,presentinga kindof living history. There are seven articles, beginning with 'The status and function of the Russian language in the last Soviet language laws' (I 992), a dispassionate review of Soviet attempts to regulate the use of language in various contexts, from education to official documents and advertisements and posters. A postscript (2003) on the false optimism of the time, ends with a note that, following a referendum in 1995, Belarus, alone of the ex-Soviet republics except Kyrgystan,gave Russian equal statuswith the national language. The second article,'The languagesituationin Belarus:The ethicalcollisions of bilingualism' (I994) begins with the second Belarusian renaissance of I989-9I (the first had been in I906-I8). After a historical excursus on the literary language of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, the nineteenth century, and the short-livedBelarusianizationprogramme in the 1920S,she expresses doubt as to whether the subsequent Party-drivenRussificiationwhich began in the early I930S can ever be halted. Who, she asks, is to blame for the denationalization of the Belarusianpeople? A majorfactor has been Russian chauvinism towardsboth Ukraine and Belarus,epitomized in recent years by Solzhenitsyn (p. 29), although the relative closeness of Ukrainian and 3I8 SEER, 82, 2, 2004 Belarusian to Russian is, of course, recognized as placing them at a disadvantagecompared to the other languages of the Russian/Soviet empire. Extensivestatisticaltablesareusedto establishthe contemporaryethnolinguistic situation in Belarus,followed by consideration of the particularnature of the ethnolinguistic self-awarenessof Belarusians,of the mutual interaction of the Belarusian and Russian languages, the nature of bilingualismin general, and the differentwaysit can be used:ironically,neutrally,in cliches,to explain Belarusianwordsby usingRussian equivalents,and to add specifictones. This articleends with an assessmentof what the authorcalls 'nationalromanticism and linguisticpractice'(p. 43), includingwhat VasilBykaui in I99 I memorably termed 'the agony of the nationallanguage' (p. 44). The next article is essentially historical in nature: 'Why does one people need two alphabets?(Cyrillicand Latin scriptin the clashesof the Belarusian renaissance)' (i 998); the main, predictable, conclusion is that it greatly weakened the firstBelarusianrenaissance. The fourth, very extensive article, is devoted to the national renaissancein Belarusand Ukraine, discussingthe similarand differingsocial and linguisticfactors,with the help of a thorough review of the historical background and statistical tables. Like the other articlesin the collection, thisworkis notable not only for its eruditionbut also for its...