Мовна політика в Україні і перспективи євроінтеграції

The paper discusses the current state and the prospects of language planning and language policy in Ukraine from the perspective of their conformity with the European language ideologies, sociolinguistic principles and practical approaches. Since late 20th century language policy in Ukraine has been determined by the battle of two antagonistic language ideologies: 1) advocating the spread of Ukrainian into public spheres from which it was ousted or denied access to by the centuries of imperial domination and 2) conservation of colonial legacy accompanied by appeals to western-type liberal values of human rights and individual freedom. Under the pretext of implementing the principles of the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages pro-Russian political forces tried to impede the spread of Ukrainian into public life and to conserve the language situation caused by Russian assimilation policy. As a result, the reputation of the Charter in Ukraine was seriously damaged. Sociological surveys show that Ukrainian speakers prevail among those striving for the country's membership in the EU and NATO, while those rejecting the prospects of the country's Euro-Atlantic integration are mostly Russophones. Since the start of the full-scale military aggression of Russia against Ukraine the number of Ukrainian citizens shifting from Russian to Ukrainian in their daily intercourse is ever growing. Symbolically they distance themselves from the ideology of the so called Russian World and join the ranks of the supporters of either Ukrainian monolingualism or of bilingualism with the sufficient knowledge of the state language. There are indications that the feasibility of implementation of the Charter towards Russian and some other languages in Ukraine could be questioned. Yet taking into account that the Charter recognizes that protection of regional or minority languages should not be to the detriment of the official language or threaten territorial integrity of the country, there is no sound reason for its denunciation.