Episode 4: Language in the South Caucasus: Coding the Nation Before, During, and After Soviet Rule

00:00:39:

00:01:53: The Soviet Union formed in some cases forcibly, out of fifteen republics each rich in its own languages minorities and cultures.

00:02:15: On one hand the soviet goal was to spread socialist ideology socialist legality language, the witch-language Russian, Azerbaijani, Armenian, Georgian

00:02:35: or other Union republic.

00:02:38: Not everyone spoke all of them.

00:02:41: Russia was widely used in the russian empire but education wasn't accessible to everybody especially

00:02:55: due to the lingering effects of feudalism even after the official abolition of serfdom in eighteen sixty one.

00:03:10: tell me what was this situation in Azerbaijan?

00:03:14: In the nineteen twenties?

00:03:16: Before directly moving into the particular context, I would start from the early

00:03:26: Soviet approach to the nationality policy.

00:03:34: Maybe it will give an introduction for our audience?

00:03:41: So the early soviet approach with a policy was as you all know often referred to as Karinizatia.

00:03:53: This

00:03:53: policy aimed at winning loyalty of non-Russian populations by supporting their languages cultures and local elites And Terry Martin rightfully explains these policies with three different premises.

00:04:08: The Marxist premise, the modernization premise and the colonial premise.

00:04:12: very briefly about this premises in line with Marx's premise the Bolsheviks believed that granting forms of nationhood would forge national alliance for statehood.

00:04:26: This in return will lead to natural emergence class division proletarian and peasant support for their socialist

00:04:37: agenda, so they had this kind of dialectical thinking.

00:04:41: Then there was a modernization premise which was the Bolshevik conclusion that national consciousness is an unavoidable historic phase.

00:04:51: So therefore it needed to be a face-of-national consciousness in order.

00:04:56: It asserted

00:04:58: that non-Russian nationalism was primarily

00:05:03: a response to czarist oppression and historically justifiable distrust of the great Russians.

00:05:12: Therefore, Non Russian Nationalism should be supported in order to gain their trust.

00:05:18: So based on these three premises The foundation of Soviet nationalities policy was laid In all of the union republics including the Republic of Azerbaijan SSR And that was how the national languages such as Armenian, Azerbaijani, Georgian and Ukrainian, Belarusian, Kazakh, Uzbek and others were promoted.

00:05:40: The national cultures and elites were supported more into the Azerbaijani context.

00:05:46: For instance, Azerbaijanis itself had its own constitution for the first time in nineteen twenty-one and Azerbaijany language was getting used is a language of bureaucracy already from early nineteen twenties the language of school instruction, and media.

00:06:04: Different measures of modernization were getting applied to national languages.

00:06:09: There was a policy of Latinization that was applied to Muslim Nationalities including Azerbaijanis.

00:06:15: So all these were meant to increase literacy and modernize society.

00:06:20: so there is indeed

00:06:21: such support

00:06:22: for native languages.

00:06:25: However by late nineteen thirties this policy started to change slightly which goes into the studying period of how coincides policies have been changed during this study.

00:06:40: But I may talk about it maybe later, what do you think give work in the early nineteen twenties in the Soviet-Armenian community?

00:06:52: Yeah thank You Kamran for his very wonderful excursion

00:06:56: through.

00:06:56: Thanks

00:06:57: for providing this context about the premises, as you know very well described them.

00:07:02: I'm thinking that in the Armenian and Georgian Azerbaijani cases

00:07:07: there are naturally similarities due to the shared common history both pre-Soviet, in the Turkish times an early Soviet later on we'll talk also but later soviet and post-soviet time.

00:07:18: But theres also

00:07:20: peculiarities

00:07:21: locally.

00:07:22: So not to be

00:07:23: too much repetitive of what you've already said, and drawn this framework in the Armenian context again.

00:07:30: That is true that by the moment of the Sovietization Russian language was prominently present in the region already And Armenia wasn't an exception.

00:07:41: Russian was a language of bureaucracy

00:07:43: for decades For almost a century

00:07:45: since the nineteenth

00:07:46: century when the entire region was incorporated into the Russian Empire.

00:07:52: Yes, there was a

00:07:52: very short period of independent statehood.

00:07:55: Again all three republics went through similar processes between roughly nineteen eighteen and nineteen twenty-twenty one A period in which early attempts at establishing sovereign

00:08:07: national education legislative systems

00:08:10: etc.

00:08:11: were undertaken In all three cases as far I know but at least the Armenian language is used by the First Republic.

00:08:19: But still,

00:08:20: Russian was

00:08:21: very much present even in that time.

00:08:23: And it's understandable given the decades of experience of living within the Russian Empire.

00:08:30: Now after early years of Sovietization

00:08:32: let us not forget that three republics didn't exist

00:08:35: for too long until they were incorporated into this trans-Caucasian federation which lasted about fifteen or so a period

00:08:46: in which the three republics made a federation, so essentially

00:08:51: one state entity.

00:08:53: Which was an interesting structure itself.

00:08:55: and

00:08:56: again what would be the lingua franca for Armenian insurgents

00:09:00: and Azerbaijanis to communicate between each

00:09:02: other but also with Moscow?

00:09:07: I think i should do what historians are doing most of the time when they're asked about nineteen twenties and they go century before to start from there.

00:09:16: In Georgian context, language has always carried political weight especially in relation to Russian.

00:09:23: A key moment came in eighteen seventy-nine when leading Georgian intellectuals founded a society for spreading literacy among Georgians.

00:09:32: Their goal was to spark a cultural revival among peasantry and under Russian imperial rule.

00:09:39: And this is very interesting time because the railway was founded at that time in Georgia, in eighteen sixty-five and started operating in eighteen seventy two which helped Georgians meet each other and exercise Georgian language.

00:09:54: so... This how they start communicating Georgian Language.

00:09:58: The society that I mentioned operated until nineteen twenty-seven, led by figures like Ilija Gavdavadze, Dimitri Epiani, Mariam Jombak or Orbeliani and others.

00:10:09: This society established a national education network.

00:10:13: it rent schools libraries bookshops and teacher training programs And supported Georgian language publications.

00:10:21: By the early twentieth century its had opened dozens of schools and cultural institutions across the country.

00:10:29: When the first Democratic Republic of Georgia was established in nineteen eighteen, leaders like Nojordania, Menshevik and the republic's prime minister, First Prime Minister recognized a power language shaping national identity.

00:10:45: under his leadership Georgian was declared The official language and institutions like Tbilisi State University was founded as a Georgian-language center of higher education.

00:10:56: It was in the year nineteen eighteen.

00:10:59: The Republic's education policy focused on Georgianizing curriculum, promoting native language instruction And distancing country from Russian imperial rule.

00:11:10: This wasn't just cultural but it also became political.

00:11:14: Language became tool for asserting sovereignty fostering civic unity and connecting Georgian to the different parts of the world.

00:11:22: In short, The Literacy Movement in the late nineteenth century empowered the intellectual class And led the first republic and their commitment to Georgian language education became a cornerstone for modern nation building.

00:11:38: But when I think about this process i always have this question that how many people actually could read and write that time because it's always hard to get these numbers in statistics about even the Russian Empire who did this bureaucracy, also Georgia.

00:12:02: Because it was really hard.

00:12:06: as Georg mentioned the republics were short-lived then they didn't have enough time to describe what is happening.

00:12:35: at the same time It's also in Terry Martin book, from a person able to read and write.

00:12:47: Armenians discovered this topic.

00:12:51: I looked at the concept of The First Republic Of Georgia.

00:12:59: it is interesting.

00:13:00: i have this paper here...it says that okay official language of georgia is a Georgian language.

00:13:13: but it also says That the national minorities if they don't speak Georgian Language They can use their mother tongue even when they speak like In public institutions.

00:13:31: so surprising to me.

00:13:37: that's policy in the concept.

00:13:45: of course I don't

00:14:22: have enough if how it was in real life and there

00:14:36: must be some newspapers or some archival materials about that.

00:14:44: The fact itself, that in legal papers he was written this way tells me a lot.

00:14:57: How do you have any ideas?

00:14:58: How did these constitutions usually get accepted?

00:15:03: In at

00:15:04: least

00:15:05: two

00:15:05: instances, in nineteen thirties and nineteen seventies.

00:15:08: First

00:15:08: you have a constitution of the USSR And then

00:15:11: republics follow up roughly next year Though I think the so-called Stalin

00:15:16: Constitution is drafted and adopted in nineteen thirty six.

00:15:22: The framework

00:15:23: there does not list

00:15:24: specific languages But it has principles for mother tongue use, etc.

00:15:31: being either supported or allowed, et cetera.

00:15:33: Now it can be a little bit more specific about the Armenian case.

00:15:40: The first Armenian-Soviet constitution was from the nineteen twenties but then the second

00:15:45: one this again let's call it Stalin era Constitution

00:15:48: was adopted in March, nineteen thirty seven and here

00:15:51: there are a few explicit references to language use and I have just written them out to have them here today.

00:15:59: A couple of the articles,

00:16:01: interestingly

00:16:01: one article that states that the official

00:16:04: language of the Armenian Soviet Socialist Republic is Armenian.

00:16:08: it's only number one hundred ninety nine.

00:16:10: but before then there are a couple other articles talking about languages again.

00:16:14: for example Article thirty-nine.

00:16:15: i think its about the supreme

00:16:17: soviet functions etc.

00:16:19: And there is a reference

00:16:20: in one of the points that, you know, the Supreme Soviet decreased.

00:16:24: The laws of the Armenian SSR...

00:16:26: ...the decisions

00:16:27: of

00:16:28: the Cabinet of Ministers

00:16:30: etc.,

00:16:30: are to

00:16:31: be published in Armenian and Russian and in Azerbaijani.

00:16:34: Another article, this Eighty-six says that judicial procedures in the Armenian Soviet Republic should be carried out in Armenian language but in areas or regions

00:16:45: with a Russian

00:16:46: and Azerbaijani

00:16:47: majority, the use of Russian and Azerbaijani is also allowed.

00:16:52: The person

00:16:52: can be using the services

00:16:54: as an interpreter.

00:16:56: There are references

00:16:57: to Armenian, Russian,

00:16:58: and Azerbaijanis no other languages.

00:17:01: But at the same time

00:17:03: the constitution

00:17:03: assumes that the use mother tongue in other cases not being very specific

00:17:09: it's also allowed.

00:17:11: It's interesting that we're talking about the national languages and it would be really nice to know in which language all those people from the republics were communicating, as you mentioned at the beginning of the world.

00:17:30: Since we are talking about constitutions... ...it will be interesting to mention that a new constitution was established by the Soviet Union is making announcement that they are entering new era of socialism or the communism.

00:17:45: And then, Union republics had to adopt their constitutions also to the Soviet one.

00:17:51: so in Georgian context in nineteen seventy-eight it was an interesting time because all these amendments sparked a protest among Georgian youth.

00:18:01: It was April fourteen.

00:18:02: several dozen students

00:18:04: school children and professors

00:18:05: gathered at university courtyard to protest this new amendment, the Article Seventy-Five.

00:18:12: And later they were joined by a stream of students from also other university students.

00:18:18: They demanded that they wanted to keep their older article seventy five constitution because it stated that only state language in Georgia is Georgian language and majority demonstrations headed into parliament building government house at that time, and their demand was to preserve the status of Georgian language.

00:18:44: And this

00:18:45: student's unrest was triggered by these new drafts of the constitution which said that Georgian languages no longer mentioned as only state-language.

00:18:55: instead it proposed a Russian

00:18:57: and other languages be freely used in all institutions quote, on the basis of equal rights.

00:19:05: And I'm looking at both constitutions like first draft and second

00:19:09: one which was adopted later that this is a really very minor difference between phrasing these legal statuses in Georgian language.

00:19:23: but attention to article got that time.

00:19:27: it's interesting because how people understood especially

00:19:32: students of Russification from the center, Moscow and Russia.

00:19:38: And this was a translation of how people would tell each other what is happening.

00:19:45: because for me to be honest it's really hard to understand that twenty year old students reading all these constitutions are getting into details about the protest.

00:19:55: most of them were philologists.

00:20:00: I'm not questioning

00:20:02: their ability to read the article, but what i am wondering here is that reading this article in a very legal way... ...is an interesting frame for the protest.

00:20:14: I don't know why maybe i'm questioning it too much?

00:20:16: But another point is students' protests were dominated by philologists and people from humanitarian fields makes me think that they really

00:20:25: understood why this was important in Georgian context.

00:20:29: because as I mentioned at the beginning of the twentieth century, late nineteenth century it is very important to develop a language and spread it among Georgians.

00:20:40: This is one basic pillar of national identity so to say the language and preserving it even its legal status.

00:20:52: And later, how the protest ended.

00:20:56: is that's what Georgian students demanded at that time.

00:21:00: I think I'd rather another played a big role in this.

00:21:03: protests

00:21:04: than old article stayed into constitution as it was before and student celebrated their victory.

00:21:12: so they thought there demand was fulfilled.

00:21:19: then had his victory.

00:21:23: Yes,

00:21:23: exactly.

00:21:24: And moreover this process is in Georgia and Armenia in nineteen seventies for not just similar but also simultaneous.

00:21:31: April fourteen

00:21:32: is

00:21:33: the date For both cases as far as I know

00:21:36: what.

00:21:36: you can correct me Katie?

00:21:37: Yeah i think it's.

00:21:38: april fourteen is now sort of a national holiday in georgia.

00:21:41: Mother tongue day yes yeah.

00:21:44: So

00:21:45: in armenia It's not the case But still april

00:21:47: nineteen seventy eight Socialist Republic

00:21:51: was also a crucial moment because

00:21:54: there they have also managed to make sure

00:21:57: that article seventy-two

00:21:59: mentions

00:22:00: explicitly, the official language of the Armenian SSR is Armenian language.

00:22:05: No other official languages are listed.

00:22:07: again it does and in other clauses.

00:22:10: actually this very same

00:22:11: articles does further explain Russian can be used for public officials

00:22:18: cultural institutions, education etc.

00:22:19: in these kind of institutions Russian and other languages can also be used.

00:22:26: interestingly

00:22:27: as I mentioned

00:22:27: the nineteen thirties Russian and Azerbaijani were mentioned in nineteen seventies.

00:22:31: Azerbaijan

00:22:32: is missing already so it's Armenia has an official

00:22:35: language russian as a language which was mention at least then others.

00:22:41: But

00:22:41: between nineteen thirties and nineteen seventies, this is several decades of history developments

00:22:46: which

00:22:46: I think are also

00:22:48: interesting to briefly talk about because as opposed the very early periods.

00:22:53: The first decade

00:22:54: after the twentieth

00:22:55: century Russian language yes we did mention that it was the lingua franca there was a language of bureaucracy etc.

00:23:02: but for the wider public an educational system still didn't have

00:23:07: dominant role as it gained later.

00:23:10: It started

00:23:10: with the end of the nineteen thirties when, uh...with a decree from central government in Moscow that instruction on Russian language was made mandatory all over Soviet

00:23:20: Union and second-language addition to local native language And has been so throughout the entire Soviet time even fast

00:23:29: forward in post-Soviet

00:23:31: times at least some republics we can talk about.

00:23:34: So by nineteen seventies,

00:23:36: at least in

00:23:36: the Armenian case I could tell that besides a very

00:23:39: formal things

00:23:40: like constitutions and articles of whatever is written there In practice.

00:23:45: The importance of Russian

00:23:46: language has been growing.

00:23:47: Now you can say in a sense

00:23:50: yes this.

00:23:50: nineteen seventy eight Processes were kind of victory to defend the status of the Armenian language But at the same time

00:23:59: By then

00:23:59: they had reached a point where Russia was largely

00:24:04: viewed as the language of progress, language of science, language upward mobility and many families

00:24:13: would actually send

00:24:14: their children to schools in which Russian was main language instruction.

00:24:19: And there has been

00:24:20: resistance

00:24:21: not only by dissidents but also

00:24:23: public intellectuals well positioned

00:24:27: within

00:24:27: Soviet

00:24:29: elite system.

00:24:31: Was this the case also in Armenian case or did they have different outcome?

00:24:43: Yes, exactly.

00:24:44: The word Russification precisely was very often used.

00:24:49: That's what I meant by saying that the processes of Armenia and Georgia are very similar

00:24:54: to that since as well Yes there

00:24:55: is fear.

00:24:56: Interestingly

00:24:57: no other

00:24:58: constitution

00:24:59: before had actually

00:25:00: mentioned Russian language as an official language And even in nineteen seventies As far as i remember

00:25:06: now it was not supposed

00:25:08: to declare Russian an official language.

00:25:10: It was just supposed

00:25:11: remove the mention of Armenian as a official language, so blur it out and

00:25:19: make sure that Armenian is

00:25:21: stated there Not

00:25:23: making sure that russian is not mentioned.

00:25:25: This is interesting because I don't have any records.

00:25:31: This is the beginning of a new era.

00:25:34: The corona virus has spread all over the world, but now it's spreading everywhere in the world.

00:25:47: I am very happy to see that there are more people living

00:26:42: here

00:26:52: than

00:26:55: before.

00:27:00: Orta Tsova Yegoh Yerozakberi, Birniza Kutek, Södil Mec

00:27:04: Mkhvaz Igeleir,

00:27:06: Kharch Karogubrat Bakhoch Azgeri.

00:27:10: He recalls

00:27:27: that in the nineteen seventies he was once at a meeting with his other Soviet colleagues.

00:27:54: In Moscow, the Soviet Health Minister kind of reprimands

00:28:02: the army and Georgian colleagues health ministers again for The fact education

00:28:09: in medical

00:28:09: institutions in these two republic is largely carried out in our military respectively And he says

00:28:17: that very practical reasons

00:28:19: because

00:28:20: the military needs highly educated professionals.

00:28:24: The Soviet army faces these issues with Armenian and Georgian graduates of medical institutions, which according to his opinion didn't have sufficient knowledge of Russian.

00:28:34: And he suggests that this problem somehow is resolved.

00:28:37: the Armenian minister according

00:28:38: to its own account of course objects

00:28:41: to it's and says that this matter

00:28:43: not really related to healthcare issue but a political

00:28:47: matter.

00:28:48: so

00:28:48: I will pass the word to the bureau in Yerevan to which the Soviet Russian minister says that, you know about the bureau.

00:28:55: there is also a Politburo kind of trying to exert

00:28:59: a little bit of power and what I found interesting

00:29:02: is

00:29:02: that the Georgian colleague

00:29:04: Mr.

00:29:05: Lejava.

00:29:06: he tells his Armenian

00:29:07: colleague kind of quietly do not just

00:29:10: argue with him when we go back to Yerevan

00:29:13: and Tbilisi We are going Just to

00:29:18: give an idea about the context.

00:29:20: Of course, this is a much later account.

00:29:23: There may

00:29:23: be a tendency

00:29:24: of these former Communist officials To also not just use

00:29:29: the word whitewash but to reinterpret their role as well.

00:29:33: But I do have

00:29:34: this general

00:29:34: sense that as i was trying say earlier That besides

00:29:38: dissidents beside protesting students and intellectuals there were also

00:29:43: degree of resistance or agency by the local

00:29:46: communist nomenclature, both in Georgia and Armenia.

00:29:52: to the decrease of number of schools in Azerbaijan from year-to-year.

00:30:09: and he even compared the status of Azerbaijani on the streets of Baku, today's status of Russian and Ukrainian in Nazi

00:30:36: occupied Kherson during Second World War.

00:30:40: And as it seems in Nazi

00:30:41: Occupied Kherson During the second world war not only German was used Russian was getting used.

00:30:52: So there were two languages being used during Nazi times, and Uzbashia is trying to show in this letter that in Soviet Union, in Baku streets everything was

00:31:09: in Russian Azerbaijani one was not getting used.

00:31:16: I'm trying to bring example of.

00:31:20: such letters are getting sent to the Moscow To Show That There Needs-To-Be Upgrade Of The Azerbaijani Language Especially In Baku.

00:31:39: because Baku And The rural areas they were such disparity because Baku was heavily Russian-speaking city, it's international outlook.

00:31:50: The majority of the people wouldn't

00:31:52: be at that time in nineteen fifties Azerbaijanis would be Russians and Armenians.

00:32:05: And then coming for instance Yerevan in Tbilisi you'd have two languages Russian and Georgian and Russian and Armenian street signs but in Baku only Russian language.

00:32:23: And that was another point of division and the struggle with Moscow, that Azerbaijani language needed to be upgraded at a level it has certain respect.

00:32:34: It's interesting this discussion we have about Armenian-Azerbaijanian-Georgian languages... ...and also in relation to Russian language.

00:32:43: But what about minority languages?

00:32:46: To give personal perspective on this discussion I speak also one of the languages that belongs to cartwellian family of languages and this is migralian.

00:32:56: but we also have in georgia apras language which according to the georgian constitution in aprasia, the autonomous republic of aprasia has two official languages, georgen and apras.

00:33:08: But other languages though i haven't order migralians swan, armenian, azerbaijani, greek even like those languages

00:33:17: did not have very much institutional support.

00:33:20: So it's like spoken languages, mostly domestic languages so to say but without any institutional state support or at least official support.

00:33:31: One very funny example from my personal experience is that when war happened in Abkhazia In nineteen ninety-four we came to Tbilisi and We used to speak Georgian and Magralion At home.

00:33:48: And once When me and My brother are playing in the years I just saw My Brother said something in my brilliant language.

00:34:01: Our friends from the year it's at that, oh those guys are speaking English and we did not even know what was the English language but were just surprised then continued to play.

00:34:21: But later on I asked my parents could you please explain?

00:34:27: What is happening here because people don't understand us?

00:34:39: Yeah this was mostly domestically-speaking languages one.

00:34:49: However, despite all of this complexity

00:34:53: the term nutsmen were actually used broadly to describe not only minorities within the Indian republics but also

00:35:04: titular nationalities themselves as well.

00:35:07: So for Moscow Armenian Georgian Azerbaijani would be minority languages is equal.

00:35:14: So that was the term Nazmin used.

00:35:17: And, for instance there is Lesgi language Talush avar tat tsakhur kurdish languages.

00:35:25: These were the non-titler languages in Azerbaijan as equal to Georgian and Armenian languages as well because they are Georgian or Armenian minorities.

00:35:39: so

00:35:40: these languages received very much support

00:35:43: from the policy of

00:35:45: colonization in nineteen twenties and thirties.

00:35:49: but starting from nineteen thirties,

00:35:51: especially in the case of Azerbaijan I can say that some those people on this list became a target by the Soviets.

00:36:02: We Hoover these people particularly Talish Kurdish and the Tuts.

00:36:08: they lost their access today to state support because they were regarded as an unreliable group part were regarded as groups who had external loyalties and that's why state support was increased.

00:36:27: When it comes to Awar and Lizgi languages, they also experienced certain difficulty but the supports for these languages continued And equally Georgian and Armenian languages in Azerbaijan and Cissar have relatively stable access through all the privileges.

00:36:44: So, you can see that there is this complexity where in the nineteen twenties all of languages were regarded as minority languages.

00:36:55: In the nineteen thirties already titular languages weren't necessarily regarded as such but they were used only for non-titular groups during these Soviet republics and even some of those minority groups started losing their access to the state support.

00:37:18: And of course, this was heavily supported by the Baku leadership because Baku wanted to have Azerbaijani identity playing a role for all the groups and in the long term maybe assimilate those groups into the Azerbaijanians and trying to keep their language functioning not only in quotidian terms but also as a language of instruction, as a folk lore.

00:37:55: But they face difficulties from the Baku so Moscow and Baku play it hand-in-hand.

00:38:01: In that sense Cameron?

00:38:05: Not sure.

00:38:05: I think i would need to somehow double check or read further about what you mean by Georgian or Azerbaijani being called Minority Languages or Natsmen at Zanada Mishestva in the early period of the twenties and thirties.

00:38:21: Because, as I mentioned this Transcocasian Federation again when we named a date for the

00:38:26: establishment of the Soviet Union it doesn't mean that things happened immediately.

00:38:31: It was a process

00:38:32: And it lasted...I would say This

00:38:35: is probably a bit bold

00:38:37: to say but all the way until almost the eve of World War II At least on

00:38:41: these parts.

00:38:42: Soviet Union in the South

00:38:43: Caucasus.

00:38:44: The Trans-Caucasian Federation,

00:38:46: yes it wasn't of course an independent sovereign whatever confederation.

00:38:50: It

00:38:50: was heavily influenced or dominated by Moscow.

00:38:53: But at the same time let's put that language

00:38:55: aside there were other processes

00:38:57: like currency That is used customs rules.

00:39:01: I mean it was not a

00:39:02: unitary state with direct instructions

00:39:05: coming from Moscow

00:39:06: Or direct designations.

00:39:08: if you know who is minority and who has majority.

00:39:11: In a sense, I would dare to

00:39:13: say that the South

00:39:15: Caucasus Republics did have a degree of their own understanding of agency.

00:39:22: And

00:39:22: this will also

00:39:23: apply to languages.

00:39:24: again for both Armenian and Georgian cases For sure they were also quite explicitly

00:39:29: singled out as

00:39:30: official languages.

00:39:32: Then

00:39:32: there are other people who use LSA

00:39:36: or maybe minorities

00:39:40: areas inhabited

00:39:41: by people who do not speak Armenian, this kind of formulation.

00:39:45: My point about minorities.

00:39:47: so yes

00:39:48: Soviet and especially post-Soviet Armenia is very often called a very homogenous ethnically or linguistically homogeneous

00:39:57: state in society almost an unique case etc.

00:40:02: but I think it's not completely true.

00:40:08: In soviet Armenia, besides the Armenian majority I have already mentioned Russians and Azerbaijanis.

00:40:14: But there has been also smaller numbers of other people for whom the mother tongue would be different.

00:40:20: This could be Kurdish

00:40:22: or in case of Yazidi

00:40:24: There will be a number Greek Assyrian And even smaller numbers Jewish and Ukrainian For example.

00:40:32: populations Now, in the case for example of Assyrian and Yazidi slash Kurdish education.

00:40:39: to best-of my knowledge throughout the Soviet period their access to schooling in their mother tongue has not always been stable.

00:40:46: So there have been sporadic

00:40:49: you know periods

00:40:50: more or less accessibility through education in mother tongue.

00:40:55: There are also media outlets such as limited amounts radio, airtime in the various languages using the Republic papers

00:41:07: periodicals some literature

00:41:10: of course.

00:41:11: this is a very well-known fact that there used to be a lot of literature publishing translation international but also intra Soviet

00:41:21: Union translations into Armenian of our Azerbaijani poetry and vice versa.

00:41:25: so I

00:41:27: think in the early

00:41:28: decades.

00:41:29: But

00:41:30: since we have already talked about

00:41:35: the nineteen seventies,

00:41:36: I get a sense

00:41:37: that perhaps side effects of this policy has

00:41:42: been the creation

00:41:43: of these

00:41:43: proto-nation states In all three cases which by

00:41:47: nineteen seventys

00:41:48: and nineties and eighties Perhaps they didn't

00:41:50: know They did not believe their future was completely independent

00:41:54: but they had already acted like nation state Which had to

00:41:58: defend

00:41:59: them with vocabulary would call the titular nation or titular language yes,

00:42:05: which would resist the Russification also.

00:42:08: Yes But we should also

00:42:10: increasingly

00:42:11: limit to use of minority languages and this is I think something

00:42:16: Which it's worth mentioning as

00:42:18: a prequel

00:42:20: To what happens later closer?

00:42:22: in our region is that they have kind of a challenge, on the one hand.

00:42:28: In order to start this at least informally than nation building something.

00:42:36: within the Soviet Union still The languages local languages or dominant languages are used homogenized as society but at the same time minority languages are seen for this period of time because there is no clear policy towards the minority languages, at least in Georgian case.

00:43:02: In late eighties even minority languages were seen as a threat or something to Georgia nation state process whatever.

00:43:12: they did not use these words but what you described.

00:43:15: I agree with this vision.

00:43:17: how it seems today from today's perspective that minority languages where They would probably deal after when they regain independence from the Soviet Union, but it was not incorporated in this nation-building process largely speaking.

00:43:36: Which is an interesting case and I think scholarly question comes up here that Is It Possible Based on This Experience?

00:43:46: is the question, why it's not possible to incorporate minority languages under this legal framework and then follow or implement these in practice.

00:44:03: This would be one of my questions.

00:44:06: Now I just

00:44:07: want briefly summarize what we were talking about When i was listening for discussion at beginning.

00:44:16: We have Russian language as a lingua franca in broader sense in region South Caucasus Local, I mean dominant languages in our respective states According to the Constitution but also in real life like they have their own lives.

00:44:33: Now we have minority language But also some sub-languages.

00:44:39: not all so part of them are also.

00:44:42: They're non-dominant language subgroups happening in a Soviet Union who talk about Culture and like everyday life.

00:44:58: movies were so popular At least what I know in our region, Soviet, Georgian, Armenian and Azerbaijan directors were quite active on this field.

00:45:10: In which language did you watch movies as a child?

00:45:14: As a Cuban carton star!

00:45:16: people to change their language if they changed it at all.

00:45:21: But yeah, the question is that what was your main language study you used for cartoons and movies?

00:45:43: Well in our cases

00:45:45: we can both generalize and

00:45:48: then also individualize.

00:45:49: each one of us had there own particular biographic traits but generally

00:45:53: yes have caught a few years

00:45:57: of Soviet period, which I don't remember.

00:46:05: But yes i grew up mostly watching films in Russian

00:46:09: originally russian or films dubbed into russian

00:46:12: and also films in Armenian from the soviet times as well cartoons more-or less same story with exception

00:46:20: many of the cartons.

00:46:22: there is actually no language used

00:46:23: but we tend to

00:46:25: think that.

00:46:26: But before coming to this again and sorry for taking us back a little bit, I think

00:46:34: the two topics together it's

00:46:37: just

00:46:37: growing trend of importance in Russian language.

00:46:42: And i think for number various reasons including also media cinema you didn't have that much proliferation of TV etc.

00:46:53: under late Soviet

00:46:54: period learning the minority language by a minority representative, in a sense.

00:47:03: And this also

00:47:03: I think often happens.

00:47:05: other context as well not just the Soviet Union.

00:47:08: at end of day

00:47:09: it leads

00:47:09: to dead-end.

00:47:10: so when you are given right for doing education your mother tongue primary school or maybe even first three years high

00:47:18: school

00:47:19: then

00:47:20: postgraduate

00:47:20: studies,

00:47:23: university studies.

00:47:24: Higher education and this is something that we did not mention at all but I think higher education

00:47:31: was then conducted either in the local titular

00:47:35: language or in Russian.

00:47:38: This has

00:47:39: also been a reason

00:47:41: for some of the migrations locally

00:47:44: move from the Soviet

00:47:45: Republic to Soviet Armenia after graduating high school, because later on some of them would choose studying going to universities in Baku

00:47:58: or Tbilisi but some will come to Yerevan and study in Armenia.

00:48:07: But generally

00:48:08: as I said

00:48:09: both for minorities and local populations of Georgians, Nazarbayans

00:48:14: and Armenians at least obtaining education in Russian meant opening up many more opportunities for yourself

00:48:23: or your child, etc.

00:48:24: and by the

00:48:25: end of this Soviet period these societies were either bilingual in a sense

00:48:32: you would use Armenian in private life and cultural affairs including

00:48:38: in your cinemas but they used Russian

00:48:42: and needed Russian whatever military,

00:48:45: etc.,

00:48:47: career and republic.

00:48:49: And I think that lasted

00:48:50: by inertia throughout at least

00:48:53: the first decade after collapse of Soviet Union our childhood, because it was accessible and free in Russian.

00:50:07: That's why we watched it!

00:50:09: And also as I remember my impression is that... It was just it!

00:50:16: Dub movies?

00:50:18: Russian movies?

00:50:19: Jordan

00:50:19: movies?!

00:50:20: Those were the languages which i understood but they are still accessible.

00:50:24: even during the first years of having internet at home I remember it was free to download all the Russian movies that were dubbed into russian and we watched them because this is a way of watching movies for free without extra money.

00:50:44: Also, the TV channels... Because i remembered all of them!

00:50:48: The Russian TV stations which are free-to-access and easy access.

00:50:54: you didn't

00:50:55: need like these to set up anything which was something that I used to listen, but then suddenly things have changed with the internet.

00:51:11: The excess of higher education and also sources.

00:51:18: That's why we switched to English.

00:51:22: And remember who were discussing this on the other day?

00:51:27: Language right now in the region in South Caucasus Which one is the lingua franca or do you have it at all?

00:51:38: Thanks Katie, we talked about it.

00:51:44: And yeah its not only

00:51:45: for this podcast but in our daily lives

00:51:48: and communication with the Justimino project as well The three of

00:51:52: us use English when communicating with each other right?

00:51:56: At the same time

00:51:56: does that mean South Caucasus' new lingua franca is english?

00:52:00: I don't know if i have doubts on that.

00:52:03: But what im observing If you agree or not?

00:52:05: yes people, you know.

00:52:07: maybe for academia or perhaps civic activists.

00:52:16: For parts of the younger generation not all I think it's increasingly English.

00:52:23: For many others It is still Russian.

00:52:25: I hate to be ages but i think its both for older generations.

00:52:29: Still some use Maybe

00:52:31: bad russian.

00:52:32: But russian

00:52:33: seems like a language that is easier to access as you can't even describe today.

00:52:39: But the general picture, and this may sound a bit anecdotal or speculative is that I have a sense.

00:52:47: throughout the twentieth century as we several

00:52:49: times mentioned The region

00:52:51: did have

00:52:51: a lingua franca.

00:52:52: A very obvious

00:52:53: one Russian.

00:52:55: but nowadays We seem to be gradually forgetting russian And not yet learning

00:53:01: english Which leads to armenian Georgians and Azerbaijanis In essence

00:53:08: losing a

00:53:08: common language of interaction.

00:53:14: Yeah, they agree.

00:53:19: This is really interesting development.

00:53:33: For instance when I go to Tbilisi as a person in the nineties my Russian may be a bit rusty.

00:53:49: i do understand.

00:53:50: russian Is also losing its ground.

00:53:52: for instance some of the taxi drivers might not Be able to speak proper russian and They don't speak english either.

00:54:07: so we are left Without being able.

00:54:12: So

00:54:12: it kind of agreed with giborg's assessment that We are losing our lingua franca in the origin where originally English was supposed to replace Russian in the past thirty years, but we still don't see it coming today.

00:54:44: Maybe its gonna take a century for this to happen... But at least not now.

00:54:52: The process is on wine and let's see how it will turn out!

00:54:59: We are left without any proper lingua franca that everyone of all three nations can communicate with.

00:55:09: I don't have an immediate answer to this question and let's leave it as open questions here.

00:55:24: That brings us to the end of our podcast.

00:55:28: together with my colleagues, Katie Sartanian.

00:55:37: We have explored a role in Russian language as well as titular languages from both legal and quotidian perspective in Soviet Armenia.

00:55:55: Of course it is like seventy years of cover.

00:56:03: Finally we concluded this post-soviet era.

00:56:09: So for today's episode, thank you so much for tuning in.

00:56:18: If you enjoyed the discussion...