THE WAY UKRAINIANS LEARNT THE CZECH LANGUAGE IN CZECHOSLOVAKIA OR UKRAINIAN INTERWAR IMMIGRATION IN THE NEW LINGUISTIC FIELD (1918-1939)

Abstract

The phenomenon of cross-linguistic homonymy is the result of closely related languages’ interaction, confusing the same or similar sounding words which have different meanings in different languages. The Ukrainian immigrant community in the interwar Czechoslovakia is no exception. The life of the people of Ukrainian origin in the interwar Czechoslovakia can be conditionally divided into four periods. The first one dates back to 1918-1921 when the detachments of Ukrainian Galicia Army entered the territory of the First Czechoslovak Republic: “Hirska Brygada”, “Stary Tabir”, “Hlyboka”, “Krukenychy”. This first period for the people of Ukrainian origin in the interwar First Czechoslovak Republic is characterized by the lack of interest in learning the Czech language in general as far as most of the campers, who had conversational fluency in German and Polish, were waiting for settling the status of Eastern Galicia, the fate of the Western Ukrainian People’s Republic and solving the conflict in Cieszyn Silesia. The second period dates back to 1921-1925 when the majority of antibolshevik immigration arrived in the interwar First Czechoslovak Republic. Especially this period is characterized by the active learning of the Czech language. The immigrants had two ways of mastering the language. The official way was acquiring the high education in the Czech and Ukrainian educational establishments. However, the most widespread way was the unofficial one, when the language was learnt in the shops, restaurants, bars or other working places where unskilled manual labour was required (for example, at Tomash Batia’s shoe factory, different plants and enterprises); right in the streets after all within different communication situations. The third period in the life of the people of Ukrainian origin on the territory of the interwar First Czechoslovak Republic took place in 1925-1929 and was called “povorontnytstvo”. During this period there was no way of speaking about mastering the Czech language and using cross-linguistic homonyms. In the 1930s due to the world economic crisis and shutting down the access to the Czechoslovak labour market for the people of Ukrainian origin the issue of learning the Czech language was not raised at all. The majority of the people of Ukrainian origin who stayed in Prague and its suburbs or moved to Transcarpathia had already mastered the Czech language by that time. Thus, on the one hand the provocative similarity created a number of obstacles, misunderstandings, it caused tragic and sometimes comic situations. On the other hand, it spiced up the everyday lives of the people of Ukrainian origin.