STATE LANGUAGE AS A FACTOR OF CONSOLIDATION OF THE UKRAINIAN NATION (to the anniversary of the adoption of the Law of Ukraine «On Ensuring the Functioning Ukrainian as the state language»)

Abstract

At the current stage, the relevance of the topic is obvious, since the strengthening of the role of the state language is due to the complex processes of the armed struggle against the Russian aggressor, the struggle for the independence of the Ukrainian state. Language is not only a means of communication, but also the main factor of nation consolidation, as it ensures the unity, free and cultural development of the national community, stands guard over the preservation of national identity, spiritual and mental development, and therefore acts as a powerful means of strengthening national consciousness. In the state-building process, language, along with internal unifying factors, also performs an external function, which consists in distinguishing the state from other countries, in establishing the nation and the state among the multilingual community. The formation of the Ukrainian political nation requires solving the fundamental issues of the linguistic sphere, so that such a nation is based on the principles of Ukrainian national statehood. when Ukraine gained independence, the establishment of the Ukrainian language in society as the state language, as one of the main nation-building and state-building factors, became an extremely important and urgent problem, and its solution should be one of the priority tasks of the state. The modernization of Ukrainian society based on the national system of ideological coordinates is unthinkable without a state language policy, the priority of which should be the development of the Ukrainian language as a consolidating spiritual force of Ukrainian society. The Ukrainian language should provide all spheres of vital activities of the state body, it should be used by the intellectual and political strata of Ukraine. The war for sovereignty became a catalyst for a powerful wave of national, political, cultural, and civilizational self-determination for the Ukrainian people. Predominant functioning of the state language in all areas of modern Ukrainian society is a necessary condition for the preservation and strengthening of the Ukrainian state, the establishment of the Ukrainian political nation. Key words: language functions, state language, consolidation function of the state language, level of mastery of the state language, language policy.