Language Rights. the Application of International Regulations to the Russian National Language Policy

Ghent University Faculty of Arts and Philosophy

Master Dissertation

LANGUAGE RIGHTS. THE APPLICATION OF

INTERNATIONAL REGULATIONS TO THE

RUSSIAN NATIONAL LANGUAGE POLICY

GHENT UNIVERSITY

FACULTY OF ARTS AND PHILOSOPHY

Master of Advanced Studies in Linguistics Programme

COORDINATOR: Prof. Dr. Mieke Van Herrenweghe

Master Dissertation:

LANGUAGE RIGHTS. THE APPLICATION OF INTERNATIONAL REGULATIONS TO

THE RUSSIAN NATIONAL LANGUAGE POLICY

by Yulia Zelent

SUPERVISOR(S): Prof. Dr. Rudi Janssens, Prof. Stef Slembrouck

Academic Year 2014-2015

Acknowledgements

This master dissertation was inspired by the course of Language Policy and Language Education in Multilingual Societies at Free University of Brussels which introduced the insights and allowed to acquire a different perspective into the subject of language policy in multinational states. I wish to express my sincere appreciation to my supervisor Prof. Dr. Rudi Janssens, VUB – BRIO Department of Political Science, the lecturer of this course, for his valuable guidance, constructive criticism and comments on earlier versions of the paper that greatly improved it.

I am grateful to Prof. Stef Slembrouck for his kind agreement to act as a co-supervisor on behalf of Ghent University. I would also like to thank the coordinator of this interuniversity advanced master programme at Ghent University – Prof. Dr. Mieke Van Herrenweghe and Prof. Dr. Marleen Van Peteghem for sharing expertise and providing all necessary information and practical arrangements. I wish to thank my family for their endless love, support and positive outlook on life. My special thanks are also addressed to my lifetime friends – Lidiya Ustinova, Dina Sukhovey, Damla Bilen, Tanzina Tahereen and my partner Emre for their continuous encouragement and whole-hearted inspiration through my stay in Belgium. This study has turned around my vision of language as an instrument of communication in a multinational country. From now on, I can admit that it is a great advantage to be able to see language situation in the state with eyes of minority speakers. It relinquishes hope for real positive changes.

Yulia Zelent, May 2015

Table of Contents Preface …………………………………………………………………………………… 4 1. Introduction …………………………………………………………………………...6

2. Definitions and Theoretical Dimensions ……………………………………………... 8 2.1 Definitions ……………………………………………………………………. 8 2.2 Language Rights in the Context of Human Rights Approach ………………… 10

3. Russian Language Situation ……………………………………………………………13 3.1 General Principles of Language Legislation ……………………………………13 3.2 Terminological System of Russian Domestic Policy. Parallelism with the Terms of the ECRML …………………………………………………………………...14 3.3 Russian Language Legislation on the Federal Level …………………………...17

4. European Legal Framework …………………………………………………………...20 4.1 The Council of Europe in Brief ………………………………………………..20 4.2 The Framework Convention for the Protection of National Minorities ………..21 4.3 Application of the Framework Convention ……………………………………22 4.4 The European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages …………………...23 4.5 The European Charter and the Russian Federation ……………………………25

5. Analysis of the Russian Case within the European Framework ………………………..26 5.1 Language Rights and the Concept of Minority ………………………………...26 5.2 The Tuva Republic (South Siberia) …………………………………………….28 5.3 The Republic of Karelia ……………………………………………………….30 5.4 Link between the Context of Russian Legislation and the European Framework ……………………………………………………..31 5.5 European Charter in Russia as Subject to Ratification: Problems and Prospects ……………………………………………………….31 5.6 Case Studies in Terms of Ratification Promotion ……………………………...34

6. Conclusion …………………………………………………………………………….40 Appendix. Glossary of useful Terms …………………………………...... 42 Reference List ………………………………………………………………………... 45

Dedicated to my parents and brother

LANGUAGE RIGHTS. THE APPLICATION OF INTERNATIONAL REGULATIONS TO THE RUSSIAN NATIONAL LANGUAGE POLICY

1. Introduction

Language rights are an existential issue for the political and cultural survival of individuals and groups all over the world, ranging from large minorities like the 25-40 million Kurds in several countries in the Middle East to just 350 of Inari in Finland. In the age of globalisation and resulting multilingual society, along of expanding communication and networking, language rights become an increasingly important subject of research carried out by social theorists, international and constitutional lawyers, political scientists, sociolinguists and educationists.

In recent decade, there has been a growing interest to the application of linguistic (human) rights (hereinafter L(H)Rs) instruments, namely, the Framework Convention for the Protection of National Minorities (hereinafter the Framework Convention or the FCNM) and the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages (hereinafter the European Charter or the ECRML) to language policy in Russia. A considerable amount of literature (Sokolovskiy, 2010; Mustafina, 2011; Kozhemyakov, 2012; Tsgoev, 2012; Zamyatin, Pasanen & Saarikivi, 2012; Prina, 2014) has been published on the issue of introducing European minority language regulations in Russia.

In this respect, there have been questions raised about relevant considering the matter of language rights as a social cornerstone. This paper will review and discuss the implementation of the Framework Convention norms and ratification of the European Charter in the Russian Federation. In the context of adapting European framework into the Russian reality, the ratification which is a kind of a guarantee to adhere to an international treaty, turns out to be a pending obligation. Ratification process demands a considerable amount of time to adjust national legislation or to make some amendments in order to have the international treaty work within the state.

We will outline the possible argumentation of the issue indicated. Our research question lies in the analysis of measures taken within the ratification process of the European Charter in Russia.

We consider two European treaties as they create a cutting-edge framework for protection and promotion of minority languages. Both documents grant rights to minority groups and their languages. In this paper we propose to draw a more rigorous characterization of the contemporary situation in the Russian state in respect to effective collaboration with the European legal framework and willingness to ratify the ECRML. The present work cannot hope to do justice to all 85 federal subjects1 of Russia, therefore cannot offer up any such a unified proposal for ratification and so instead will concentrate on identifying some important general lines of inquiry that have emerged.

The methodology of our work implies analogical reasoning and comparison of national and international legislation using primary (the texts of ECRML and FCNM, a Proposed Ratification Instrument) and secondary (explanatory notes, reports, recommendations and commentaries) sources. The analysis of condition of certain languages has become a convenient practice to give relevant and significant examples of possible combining domestic and international language policy. The present paper has been divided into six parts. The first part provides relevant definitions and deals with theoretical dimensions of such key notions as „language policy‟, „linguistic rights‟, human rights approach and „minority‟. The second part gives a theoretical overview of the area of language rights. The third part draws upon the language situation in Russia providing some explanations of relevant terminology and key national language legislation (generally, the Constitution and some laws on the federal level). The fourth parts suggests introduction to the European legal framework. The fifth part considers the prospects and problems of implementation the European legal framework into the Russian context and observes respective case studies. The conclusion performs some personal reflections on the topic and gives a brief summary and critique of the findings. Finally, areas for further research are identified.

1 The federal subjects of Russia (or the subjects of the Russian Federation) are the constituent entities of Russia, its top-level political divisions in accordance with the Constitution. As of March, 18 2014, there are 85 federal subjects two of which (the Republic of the Crimea and the federal City of Sevastopol‟) were added recently and internationally are recognized as part of Ukraine.

2. Definitions and Theoretical Dimensions

2.1 Definitions Discussion of the issue of linguistic rights in terms of language legislation demands some theoretical clarifications from the field of language policy. In the European Centre for Minority Issues report No. 6, Grin defines language policy as follows, “Language policy is a systematic, rational, theory-based effort at the societal level to modify the linguistic environment with a view to increasing aggregate welfare. It is typically conducted by official bodies or their surrogates and aimed at part or all of the population living under their jurisdiction” (Grin, 2000, p. 7). Grin also outlines three core issues regarding a certain set of measures within particular language policy: a. effectiveness: estimation how effectively a particular set of measures can satisfy practical demands; b. cost-effectiveness: least costly set of measures which is able to reach the goals planned gets broader support; c. democracy in language policy processes: it becomes crucial not to turn an approach to policy decisions into “a purely technocratic exercise” (pp. 10-15).

Tollefson (2011) suggests that language policies can be considered as “guidelines or rules for language structure, use, and acquisition, established and implemented within nation-states or institutions…” (p. 357). The present definition is specified by two aspects. Firstly, these guidelines or rules may be reflected in such official documents as a constitution or they can be perceived without any public statement. Secondly, under the word „institutions‟ we understand schools, government departments as well as corporations, private companies and non- governmental organizations (hereinafter NGO(s)).

In the words of T. Tsgoev (2012), the Associate Professor of Theory of State & Law Department in the Institute of Administration (the city of Vladikavkaz), language policy is a set of measures taken by the state and the society which aims to deal with the tasks in the area of changing and preserving the distribution of languages, which exist in the society, by implementing new language norms and preserving present norms in use. Practical (or actual) language policy is ordered by general principles which constitute its foundation. These principles can be divided into principles and norms which go in accordance with international language policy and which are opposed to international language policy (pp. 16-17).

As one can notice the definitions listed above outline the state (“official bodies or their surrogates”) and the society as essential participants of language policy process. In addition, it is underlined that language policy features the risk to stay only declarative: “a purely technocratic exercise” (Grin, 2000, p. 8), “without a written statement” (Tollefson, 2011, p.357). In this regard, it is very important to stress on the issue of practical facet of language policy so as to make this notion less oppressive. A statement of goals and a programme/plan to achieve the objectives referring to the status, structure, or acquisition of languages is entailed by language planning (Tollefson, 2011). In other words, language planning results or should result in language policy. Language planning goes hand in hand with language policy where the former is a prerequisite for the latter in terms of systematicity, rationality and theoretical foundation.

Language policy activities bring the notion of LRs into play. Theoretical writing about LRs has been “meagre and rarely informed by general political theory” (Green, 1987, p. 640) until the last decade of the XX century. For example, Green (1987) talks about “The Puzzle of Language Rights” (p. 639) where he argues that LRs do not have any principal account for their justification. In the course of promoting recognition of the concept of LRs, Arzoz (2007) discusses erroneous common assimilation between LRs and HRs which results in a wrong image of relationships between law and politics.

In 1997, C. B. Paultson in her article “Language Policies and Language Rights” argued that there was a notable lack of definitions denoting the terms of „language rights‟, „linguistic rights‟ and „linguistic human rights‟ in the literature. These three terms were commonly used as synonyms. In addition, the differences in law from country to country resulted in “no generally accepted standard legal definition” (Paultson, 1997, p. 75). Vilfan (as cited in Paultson, 1997) described language rights as legal regulations of language use in public sphere as a part of arrangements concerning interethnic regulations in a state with a mixed ethnic structure. Among other areas of regulation dealing with language he also mentions schooling, religious life, the political representation of ethnic groups, the international protection of minority groups, the rights of members of non-dominant ethnic groups to use their language in administrative and judicial legal procedures. According to Vilfan, the objective of language rights for a non-dominant ethnic group is “the recognition of that group‟s existence”, which implies determination of the degree of status maintaining their advance and ethnic identity in terms of social mobility (Paultson, 1997, p. 75).

However, along with the development of the field, the academic works suggest a remarkable variety of efficient definitions. According to Arzoz (2007), who sticks to the idea that HRs constitute the part of legal revolution and modern political culture, “language rights are concerned with the rules that public institutions adopt with respect to language use in a variety of different domains. Constitutionally speaking, language rights refer to a particular language or small group of languages” (p. 4). At the same time it is still notable that “there is no universal understanding of language rights” (p.31). In this regard, a question why we need to protect certain languages may arise. Does the language have any genuine significance for culture and the people who speak this language? Or maybe it would be easier to assimilate all minority speakers so that to eliminate the problem of saving minority languages? It goes without saying that every language embraces the properties which define the way of thinking and perception in a certain direction. That is the reason why the speakers of different languages perceive the world in a different way and are sensitive to different kinds of information they receive. The language is part and parcel of any cultural legacy and contributes immensely to local differences of the world cultures. If 7000 languages of the world languages were removed by one big language, the variety of the world cultures would be lost as well as creative collective skills of the humanity (Zamyatin, Pasanen & Saarikivi, 2012, p 22).

For all that Shohamy (2006) outlines the flexibility of the language as an essential property:

In comparison to all kinds of biological features and categories, such as colour, blood, looks and gender, language has a major advantage: it is a free and open commodity that can be moulded, used and shaped in different ways and forms, according to what the user wants it to become. (p.

168)

Skutnabb-Kangas (2011) discusses the issue of language rights within the scope of linguistic endangerment, maintenance and protection of the speakers as well as the languages. Every right that people/collectives possess in relation to languages (their own or others) is known to be a language or linguistic right (Skutnabb-Kangas, 2007). Generally speaking, these two terms (language and linguistic) are equal and interchangeable. However, sometimes linguistic rights are considered on a larger scale than language rights. In this case, it refers to the rights related not only to the languages but also to the varieties within the „language‟ label (regional, gender, class) (Skutnabb-Kangas, 2011, p. 1).

2.2 Language Rights in the Context of Human Rights Approach Language rights tend to be closely related to human rights what brings the issue into an international legal framework due to the fact that many HRs are under protection of various treaties starting from the period after the World War I (treaties under the League of Nations) (Skutnabb-Kangas, 2007, 2011). However, not all language rights represent linguistic human rights. For example, it is practically impossible that in civil court cases a judge deals with the language of a person regardless of the amount of users of the language. Nowadays, one may be granted an LHR in criminal cases, particularly, the right to be informed of the charge against oneself in a language understandable for the person. Other court contexts rarely grant an LR respective to the country and language (Skutnabb-Kangas, 2007, p. 374). Thus LHRs are more demanding and less well-grounded in comparison to LRs.

The topic of LRs in the context of HRs approach has special appeal to many minority language activists, lawyers and scholars. Arzoz (2007) argues that a number of experts in minority language issues have been applying a human rights approach to language rights (R. Phillipson, M. Rannut, T. Skutnabb-Kangas, T. Ricento, R. E. Hamel). As of today, the leading proponents of LHRs are Skutnabb-Kangas and Phillipson who outlined the basic argument that linguistic rights represent the type of human rights covering a set of inalienable, universal norms for enjoyment of one‟s civil, political, economic, social and cultural rights (Paultson, 1997, p. 77).

As a result, the concept of linguistic human rights has been broadly popularized. The notion of linguistic human rights implies the combination of language rights and human rights and represents an extended language rights scheme for the benefit of every habitant of the planet (Arzoz, 2007). Skutnabb-Kangas (2007) suggests the following definition of LHRs:

… those (and only those) LRs, which, firstly, are necessary to satisfy people‟s basic needs

(including the need to live a dignified life), and which, secondly, therefore are so fundamental that no state (or individual or group) is supposed to violate them. (p. 374)

In all fairness, it should be mentioned that the field of LHRs started to take shape as a new multidisciplinary research area only in the early 1990s. Many books and articles which discuss LHRs have been published so far; nevertheless, this concept is not well defined yet. For instance, it cannot be ignored that the concept of LHRs contains a bulky stylistic tautology originating

11 from the attempt to provide a link between language and human rights within a human rights approach (Paultson, 1997). The field of LHRs is seen as a fast growing and thought-provoking new integrative area of research. As Skutnabb-Kangas (2008) says, Linguistic Human Rights might play a significant role in: . preventing linguistic genocide; . promoting integration and defending people against forced assimilation; . promoting maintenance of the world‟s linguistic diversity; . promoting conflict prevention; . promoting self-determination.

Linguistic human rights distinguish two categories of negative and positive rights. Negative rights or “the regime of linguistic tolerance” (Arzoz, 2005, p.5) prohibit discrimination and various forms of assimilation of speakers of minority languages on the basis of language. Positive rights or “the regime of linguistic promotion” provide the access to key public services, such as education, relationships with public authorities and media through the medium of minority language (Arzoz, 2007). Most LHRs are known to be negative rights. As a matter of fact, not all governments implement positive LHRs in practice. So we may probably argue that nowadays negative rights are still stronger than positive ones. However, only positive language rights are able to provide and support minority language education at the substantial level.

Comparing to the concept of LRs, the issue of LHRs is a „later‟, new multidisciplinary concept. Human rights approach so to say promotes language rights facilitating their legal support. In this regard, the main advantage of LHRs is their fundamentality (Skutnabb-Kangas‟ insight of fundamental LHRs (2007; 2008; 2011)). In other words, neither a state nor a group/individual is eligible for violating these rights. LHRs encourage minority language education being one of the essential functions of LHRs.

Another important categorization is individual and collective language rights. Individual rights refer, firstly, to the right to use one‟s mother tongue in different social domains. At the same time it should be taken into account that if, for instance, an individual applies to authorities, the reply would not necessarily be in the same language. Secondly, individual rights also may concern an official/national language (of the majority). And, finally, individuals have a right to get the access to the international language such as English through the educational system.

In its turn, there are some language-related collective rights of different groups. These group rights are usually reflected in some human rights instruments, for instance, the UN International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (Skutnabb-Kangass, 2007).

According to T. S. Orlin (2015), the link between the protection of minority languages and the protection of human rights is quite strong. He concludes that “denial of linguistic rights is a denial of human rights and that the consistent pattern of gross violation of linguistic rights for a people deserves international attention” (p.76). However, Arzoz (2007) points out certain questionable assumptions within LHR approach. First of all, this access is generally focused on LRs in education that makes the notion of LHRs less certain when used outside the context of educational rights. Secondly, the approach scarcely mentions the notion of limits, though it is known to be inherent in the concept of rights. Thirdly, danger of misrepresenting the real status and the importance of LRs in terms of human rights law, international law and constitutional law is also seen as one of the major shortcomings in LHR approach.

3. Russian Language Situation

3.1 General Principles of Language Legislation Turi (Paulston 1997, p.73) states that the main goal of all legislation concerning language is to deal with linguistic problems which originate from language conflicts and inequalities by legally establishing and determining the status and use of the languages under consideration. It should be noted that status of the language means its legal position in the social system which is declared and stated in the Constitution and other legislative acts and its social position defined by functional characteristics (Kozhemyakov & Sokolovskiy, 2012, p. 59). In fact, the field of language rights is about the legislation or absence of legislation which, in its turn, focuses on the rights and privileges of languages and their speakers. Before talking about certain laws let us dwell upon the fact that Russian legislation system is divided into three levels according to legal force. The legal hierarchy differentiates: I. the federal level (as the highest one) which includes international legal acts, federal and federal constitutional laws functioning within the whole territory of the country; II. the regional level covering regional acts and laws which are in force only within a respective subject of federation;

III. the local level of governance operating within the local community. V. Tishkov, the academician of RAS (Russian Academy of Sciences), points out the priorities of language policy at those three levels. Federal authorities are responsible for the following objectives: a). providing conditions for functioning of a state language as a factor of a civil community, its national integrity and safety; b). supporting linguistic variety as an element of cultural policy and civil rights. Regional authorities: a). also provide conditions for functioning of a state language as a factor of a civil community, its national integrity and safety; b). provide conditions for functioning of a “second”/”regional” state language as a factor of ethnic and cultural integrity, civil rights and preserving cultural diversity. Local authorities: a). support linguistic diversity originating from local communities and the majority population; b). create conditions for carrying out language policy of the state.

3.2 Terminological System of Russian Domestic Policy. Parallelism with the Terms of the ECRML In order to work out what every law under consideration is invoked to regulate, it is essential to provide some relevant definitions within the Russian context. The terminology of the Russian legislation includes the following notions concerning the language itself:  state language of the Russian Federation (according to the Russian Constitution (Art. 68), the Russian language possess a status of the national/state language within the whole territory of the country);  state language of the republics (according to the Russian Constitution (Art. 68), the republics are eligible to set their own state languages along with Russian);  literary language (a variation of the national Russian language with norms of pronunciation, spelling and grammar which are fixed in the textbooks and handbooks, was formed in the XVII century);  languages of the nations;  national/native languages of the nations of the Russian Federation;  languages of minorities and ethnic groups, which do not have their own national and territorial formations or living out its borders;  languages of the nations of Russia which do not have their own nationhood;  lingua franca;

 official language (ref. para. 3.3, p. 17);  dialect;  govor (smallest entity of dialect segmentation, used by the inhabitants of one settlement, sometimes several settlements which are homogenous in terms of the language);  narechie (the biggest entity of dialect segmentation of the language, a combination of govor groups which have common features);  other languages. In fact, Russian legislation does not define these notions by law. According to Tsgoev (2012), the problem of ratio of terminology can be solved in the process of law-making with the application of the terminology system of the European Charter (p.20).

The list of definitions above requires some further clarifications. In this respect, according to Fundamentals of State and Law, the republics are known to be federal subjects of Russia, in other words, the states as parts of the Russian Federation having full public authority (legislative, executive and judicial) beyond the range of competences of the federation. The status of the republic is defined by the Constitution of Russia and the constitution of the republic.

Russian legislation often employs such terms as „languages of the nations‟, „native languages of the nations of the Russian Federation‟, „languages of the nations of Russia which do not have their own nationhood‟. Under „nation‟ we should understand a community of people which was formed during a long period of time within certain territory. The nation has its own language and culture. Belonging of a person to a certain nation is called nationality.

Talking about nations, we cannot ignore the definition of indigenous people. So in political subordination, indigenous people represent a national minority that has been living on a certain territory before the foundation of a governmental structure. In its turn, this minority can be autochthonous which means the first known population of the territory (Zamyatin et al., 2012, p.93). In addition, it is important to explain the term „title nation‟ which is distinctive for Russia. The “Glossary of Sociolinguistic Terms” (2006) suggests that title nation is the nation whose ethnicon is used as a base for the name of a respective administrative territorial unit (a federal subject). The title nation is usually known to be a social majority in that territory (for instance, Karelians in the Republic of Karelia). Along with the title nation, the notion of a „title language‟ which came into

15 use in the 90s of the XX century is provided. It refers to the language of the title nation (so the Karelian language is a title language in the Republic of Karelia).

Further we pass on the issue of relative parallelism between the terminological system of the European Charter and terminology used in the Russian legislation. For the sake of apprehensibility of the laws which would be introduced later on in this chapter, we need to appeal to the terms of ECRML before actual introduction of the treaty (ref. Chapter 4.4 of this paper). Following the logic of the discussion, some notions can be explained only in correlation between the Russian and the European contexts. The European Charter, composed under the auspices of the Council of Europe represents one of the most advanced notions of international protection available in the world nowadays (Arzoz, 2007). In this respect, let us dwell upon the following relevant definitions of “regional or minority languages”, “territory in which the regional or minority language is used”, “non-territorial languages” which are provided in Article 1 of Part I of the ECRML (and which are not available in the Russian legal framework): “regional or minority languages” means languages that are: a. i traditionally used within a given territory of a State by nationals of that State who form a group numerically smaller than the rest of the State's population; and ii different from the official language(s) of that State; it does not include either dialects of the official language(s) of the State or the languages of migrants; b “territory in which the regional or minority language is used” means the geographical area in which the said language is the mode of expression of a number of people justifying the adoption of the various protective and promotional measures provided for in this Charter; c “non-territorial languages” means languages used by nationals of the State which differ from the language or languages used by the rest of the State's population but which, although traditionally used within the territory of the State, cannot be identified with a particular area thereof. Russian lawyers and government officials would need to become familiar with the difference between “regional languages” and “non-territorial languages” in the process of ratification. For example, the Charter‟s term “non-territorial languages” finds its reflection in the following respective Russian notions: “languages of ethnic groups that do not have their own national-state and national-territorial entities or live outside them” (Kozhemyakov & Sokolovskiy, 2012).

Concomitantly, terminological differences between the European Charter and the Russian legislation can be adjusted without significant difficulties. For example, according to the Charter‟s approach, Russian is one official language for the whole country, other languages are considered as regional or minority languages. In terms of the ECRML, exceptions would be dialects and the languages of migrants (Art. 1a). As a matter of fact, the Russian legislation does not provide definitions for „dialect of the language‟ and „languages of migrants‟ (Kozhemyakov & Sokolovskiy, 2012). Here the question who has the power to decide on the status of a language as a regional language in Russia may arise. Since Russia represents federal structure, the part of powers of authority is delegated to regions. In the context of asymmetric federation the republics have more power than other federal subjects (oblasti, for example). Republics use additional rights and powers of authority in comparison to other subjects of the federation. In this regard, the right to define their own state languages was used practically by all Russian republics in order to recognize the languages of titular nations and other ethnicities of republics as state languages. Namely, the Kabardino-Balkarian Republic, the Republic of Mordovia and the Mary-El Republic each has three state languages. Karachay-Cherkessia has five languages; Dagestan – 14 languages. The Republic of Karelia has become an exceptional example due to the fact that according to their republican constitution (NB every republic of Russia has its own republic Constitution along with the Constitution of the Russian Federation), Russian is the only state language. As a result, Karelia has only the law about support of Karelian, Vepsian and Finnish languages.

3.3 Russian Language Legislation on the Federal Level In this part of the paper we are going to review some elements of language legislation on the federal level. 1). Constitutional language legislation Under the present legislation, there are different legal regimes for different languages. The legal status of languages of the ethnicities in Russia is considered as the most common one. This status provides opposition between the languages of the ethnicities to foreign languages as well as the languages of immigrants. The Russian language is defined as the state language of the Russian Federation. At the same time some languages are given the status of the state language of a republic. In this regard, the term „state language‟ is used as a synonym to the term „official language‟. Some experts differentiate these notions, outlining symbolism of national unity and the instrumental function of the state language in political, social and cultural integration (Zamyatin et al., 2012).

The Constitution of 1993 attaches the right of everybody to use his/her native language (in the everyday life), choose freely the language of communication, education and creative work (Art. 26). Discrimination and propaganda of social, racial, national, religious or language dominance are prohibited (Art.29). According to Article 68:  all the ethnicities are guaranteed the right to keep their native language and create conditions for its learning and development;  the Russian language has the state language status within the whole territory of the country;  republics are given the right to adopt their own constitutions and set their own state languages. These languages can be used by governmental authorities and local organisations alongside with Russian. Other subordinate entities of the Federation do not possess this right. Republics can adopt laws about the use of titular languages at the establishments of the republics along with the Russian language. The advantages arising from the rights given to the republics vary from region to region. Though there is no explicit indication but Russian is still the only language which is de facto compulsive for all citizens of Russia. In practice, all the provisions concerning minority languages are declarative and do not find realization of constitutional guarantees. For instance, the republic of Tatarstan, where the Tartars make up more than a half of the population of the republic, Tartar is a compulsory subject at all schools (for the Russian students as well). Some schools have the Tartar language as a medium of instruction in all forms. The republic of Karelia demonstrates an opposite example. The Karelians make up only 7,4 % of the population of the republic. The Karelian language is taught only as an optional subject. Schools offer from 2 to 3 academic hours per week up to the 11th form /high school level (Prina, 2014, p.15). The commentary on the issue of language equality stated in the Constitution of the Russian Federation suggests the following comparison: the Charter‟s approach allows differences in language protection which contravenes the principle of language equality according to the Constitution of the Russian Federation. As we have noticed, the Constitution of Russia provides differentiation in the area of rights including language rights. Like in other constitutions, human rights are divided into individual and civil rights. This differentiation has objective reasoning, particularly, - necessity to support Russian as the language of intercultural communication within the territory of multicultural

Russian state and the right of republics to set their own state languages as the expression of their national identity. The authors of Russian Constitution implemented several levels of differentiation of constitutional rights of the citizens and non-citizens, the state language of Russia and state languages of republics and other languages as well as the languages of indigenous minorities. This pragmatic approach complies with the Charter‟s approach where priorities and realities of language policy are defined for every single state that has ratified the Charter (Kozhemyakov & Sokolovskiy, 2012). 2). Languages of the Nations in Russia Act (1991, revised in 1998) The basic content of the Act deals with regulating state language functioning in various public domains. This Act consolidates the equality of languages applying a general term „languages of the ethnicities in Russia‟. However, whereas certain languages have been granted the status of a state language of Russian Federation and a state language of a republic, other languages became unequal. The Act employs such term as „the language of indigenous and ethnic groups‟ to refer to languages of national minorities in a strict sense. All in all, many articles of this regulation tend to have declarative and permissive. Nevertheless, the Act is important as a foundation for republican language legislation that provides republics with the opportunities to adopt their own language laws, use rights of the federal act and implement certain requirements at a regional level. 3). Federal Law on State Language of the Russian Federation (2005) If Languages of the Ethnicities in Russia Act is seen as declarative, then Federal Law on State Language of the Russian Federation is more precise and defines clearly the status of Russian as a state language. This law complies with contemporary ethnopolitical environment. The present federal law defines domains where usage of Russian is compulsory. According to the law, obligation to use the state language of the Russian Federation does not infringe upon the rights to use state languages of republics and other languages of the ethnicities. However, the domains where Russian is compulsory are unreasonably wide which limits the usage of other languages. For instance, it is stated that local authorities operate in the Russian language. At the same time, the law sets that organisations of all forms of ownership as well as public organisations operate using the state language of the country. As we can see, the law limits usage of other languages in public domain. In addition, the law also interferes in private sector: organisations of all forms of ownership are obliged to use Russian in correspondence and advertising. All the establishments use only the

19 state language of Russia in communication with Russian citizens, foreign residents and persons without citizenship. The limitations mentioned above lead to juridical collision as they violate the right of citizens to appeal to public authorities and organisations in their native language stated by Languages of the Ethnicities in Russia Act (ref.2). 4). Education Act (1992, amended in 2007) The Russian Education Act provides the right of Russian citizens to get compulsory education in native language as well as the right of parents to choose freely medium of instruction for their children. Today, in theory, medium of instruction should be chosen by students, their parents and teachers. But this norm can be effective on the condition that civil society functions properly. In practice, these are school authorities who usually define in advance which medium of instruction to employ. In fact, the mechanism and criteria concerning the choice of medium of instruction are absent in Education Act. Moreover, since the Unified State Examination (in major subjects) is carried out only in Russian, schools are reluctant to choose any other medium of instruction different from the Russian language.

4. European Legal Framework

4.1 The Council of Europe in Brief Due to the fact that the Russian Federation is a member state of the Council of Europe and is committed to acting in accordance with its framework, it is necessary to introduce briefly the Council of Europe itself. The Council of Europe is a prominent human rights organization which facilitates co-operation in Europe by promoting human rights, democracy and the rule of law. It was established in 1949 by the Treaty of London. As of today, there are 47 member states, 28 of which are members of the European Union. Russia became the 39th member state on February, 28, 1996. The main objectives of the Council of Europe are promotion of human rights, democracy and the rule of law which build a foundation of a tolerant and civilized society. In addition, the organization aims to achieve democratic stability and support cultural identity and diversity through political, legislative and constitutional reform.

The Conventions are constituents of the Council of Europe. They represent legally binding agreements with which a member state is obliged to coordinate after it signed and ratified them.

Compliance with these conventions including the Framework Convention and the European Charter is monitored by a number of official bodies.

In general, it is admitted that the Council of Europe holds a unique place in the international political landscape (Directorate of Communication, Public Information Division, 2013).

4.2 The Framework Convention for the Protection of National Minorities The Framework Convention is a cutting edge treaty which aims to protect the rights of people belonging to national minorities. The word “framework” outlines the scope for States to adjust the provisions of the FCNM to their distinct country situation by means of national legislation and relevant governmental policies. In fact, it means that the Framework Convention doesn‟t work directly as it demands legal modifications in every State.

The Parties of the treaty initiate to promote equal rights of minority members in social, economic, political and cultural areas of life. Additionally, the Parties also uphold the conditions allowing minority members to preserve, express and develop their culture and identity.

The Framework Convention was accepted at the level of the Council of Europe in 1995 and came into force in 1998. Up to date, there are 39 out of 47 member states which ratified this document. Signing the Convention, a member State commits itself to non-discrimination; promotion of effective equality; freedom of assembly, association, expression, thought, conscience and religion; education in a minority language; transfrontier contacts and international co-operation; prohibition of forced assimilation. The State is also obliged to keep the right of a minority representative to receive and transfer the information in a minority language (access to and use of media). This right is an integral part of freedom of expression. Thus the document specifies the right to free speech that is fixed in European Human Rights Convention.

Language issues are the central objective of the Framework Convention. There are a number of linguistic freedoms covered by the provisions of the FCNM: the use of the minority language in private and in public as well as, under certain conditions, in communication with administration. It also encloses the use of personal names, display of private information and topographical names in the minority language.

However, the following significant disadvantage should be noted: the document does not give an opportunity to individuals to use the rights listed in the Convention. In particular, there is no mechanism of filing an individual complaint in case of violation of the Convention provisions by a country. The Advisory Committee of the FCNM monitors the implementation of regulations. Member States submit reports on the implementation of the FCNM on a regular basis. In addition, NGOs can submit their own alternative reports to the Committee. These reports are examined by the Advisory Committee, who has also developed the practice of carrying out country visits where meeting with government officials, parliamentarians, minority representatives, NGO‟s, Specialised Bodies and other relevant interlocutors are held.

After the analysis of the report, a country receives recommendations from the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe based on the opinion of the Advisory Committee. It is notable that these recommendations represent moral reasoning rather than a juridical judgement. Next step is adoption by the Committee of Ministers of a resolution containing conclusions and recommendations to the state on the implementation of FCNM. This resolution is made public upon its adoption. Governments are advised to regularly inform the Advisory Committee about the measures they have taken in response to the monitoring process so that to promote effective implementation.

4.3 Application of the Framework Convention The Russian Federation ratified the Framework Convention in 1998. In 2006, during the second report cycle the first alternative report of NGOs was composed. In this respect, the recommendations of the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe were more concrete (comparing to the first cycle). According to the recommendations of 2007, the Committee of Ministers pointed out the declension of the situation within minority languages in Russia. The main reason lies in insufficient government support in the domain of protection and development of minority cultures and decrease in financial support of minority‟s mass media. It was also outlined that in case of strict realization of the new law about the state language of Russia, the usage of minority languages may face complete disregard in official and educational contexts. In addition, the Committee drew attention to the fact that there was no detailed mechanism of realization of the right to get education in the language of minority and learn the minority language (Zamyatin et al., 2012).

In general, Russia was invoked to ensure that the measures on the protection of the Russian language do not create unjustified complexities to use minority languages. It was also recommended to provide better access to mass media resources by minority representatives. The committee advised to extend educational system in minority languages in public sector. Thus these recommendations should have been reflected in Russian legislation.

In its turn, the Russian authorities claimed that the opinion of the Committee of Ministers towards biased interpretation of the Russian legislation and law enforcement practice seemed to be quite negative (Prina, 2014, p. 21). Unfortunately, the report of 2010 demonstrates that legislation amendments hardly reflected the recommendations given. All in all, the third report was assessed as a quite poor document. (Zamyatin et al., 2012, pp. 82-84). Thus we can point out that the viewpoint of the Russian government does not comply with the viewpoint of the Council of Europe concerning the application of some international standards.

A recent publication of MGR (Minority Rights Group), an NGO working to provide the rights to ethnic, religious and language minorities and indigenous peoples around the world, highlights the following factors which affect the application of international mechanisms of FCNM to minority protection. First it is legal ambiguity and partial realization of the domestic legislation. For instance, some vague statements about human, minority and indigenous peoples‟ rights in domestic legislation complicate interpretation of minority rights and the assessment whether those rights are violated or not. Another negative factor is a limited coordination between the authorities participating in application of international standards. Namely, in case of the Framework Convention, the Ministry of regional development is responsible for its operation and reports. The Ministry gathers data from different regions to make reports about the results of monitoring. However, the research of MGR indicates that there is not any clear plan of processing the set of objectives to carry out state obligations of FCNM at regional and local levels. Thus functioning of authorities at different levels is not coordinated and cannot be turned into a general strategy (Prina, 2014). The Russian government reports the Council of Europe about the application of FCNM norms providing information about numerous programmes on minority and indigenous people protection as well as on encouragement of cultural and linguistic diversity but there is not a distinct analysis of practical influence of such programmes.

4.4 The European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages The European Charter is the first regional human rights instrument which focuses on language rights. It was adopted as a convention at the 478th session of the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe on June, 25th in 1992. The document was disclosed for signing in Strasbourg on November, 5th in 1992. It came into force in 1998. “States ratifying it can choose both for which languages they ratify it and which paragraphs they want to choose from a "menu" - a minimum number and some other conditions are specified (see chapter 7 of Skutnabb-Kangas 2000 for details on LHRs)” (Skutnabb-Kangas, 2004, p. 13).

Orlin (2015) defined the European Charter as “an attempt, consistent with the European experience, to further protect and promote the use of minority languages in private and public life”. Reflective of its aim and as outlined in the Preamble, language is not only historically significant for its culture, but is critical for the current aim of Europe to provide the norms of democracy and pluralism among its member states (p. 69).

The European Charter protects only the languages which are traditionally used by the citizens of participating states. In reality, it implies the fact that the languages under protection are recognized by the authorities in the first place. Thus languages of migrants are not included into the field of application. As it has been mentioned earlier, such terms as “regional languages” and “minority languages” are synonymous to the European Charter, though some countries (Poland and Germany, for example) differentiate these notions when apply this European Council document. The text of the ECMRL consists of the preamble and five parts. Part I “General provisions” contains five articles dealing with definitions, practical arrangements towards States‟ undertakings as well as some interpretations of existing regimes of language protection. Part II (Art.7) outlines objectives and principles of the European Charter. Part III (Art. 8-14) is a basic part of the treaty since it lists measures of promotion the use of regional or minority languages in public life. Part IV (Art. 15-17) regulates application of the treaty explaining control and follow-up mechanisms. The last part “Final provisions” consists of 6 articles which introduce the order of entry into force, procedure for signing and ratification and starting dates of the Charter validity.

According to Art.2 para. 2, each Party is proposed to choose minimum 35 undertakings from Part III with some requirements that limit the choice. Namely, the States should choose min. three undertakings out of the articles concerning education and cultural activities and facilities. It

24 is also necessary to take min. one undertaking from each article concerning juridical authorities, administrative authorities and public services, media and economic life. Thus it can be noted that the Charter “provides for a dynamic process” and “is not an end in itself” (Trifunovska, 2001, p.150 as cited in Orlin, 2015, p. 69). Monitoring mechanism over realization of the European Charter resembles the report system of the Framework Convention. Participants should send their periodical reports explaining their policies and the actions they have taken to fulfill the Charter to the Secretary General of the Council of Europe after a year after joining the European Charter and then once in three years. The Secretary General delegates the reports to the Expert Committee which examines these reports using alternative non-governmental sources of information. The Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe states recommendations on the application of the European Charter in a certain country basing on the report of the Expert Committee (Zamyatin et al., 2012).

Every two years the Secretary General of the Council of Europe introduces a detailed report on the application of the Charter in different states to the Parliamentary Assembly. It allows the members of Europe‟s parliaments to be informed about the application of the Charter, facilitates political pressure and encourages national governments to take appropriate measures.

As of today, there are 25 states which ratified the European Charter and 8 states which signed the Charter without the following ratification (Azerbaijan, France, Iceland, Italy, Macedonia, Malta, Moldova and Russia). In addition, there are also 14 member states of the Council of Europe that have not signed the European Charter (Albania, Andorra, Belgium, Bulgaria, Estonia, Georgia, Greece, Ireland, Latvia, Lithuania, Monaco, Portugal, San Marino and Turkey). It should be mentioned, however, that this convention is open to all countries.

4.5 The European Charter and the Russian Federation In February 1996, the Russian Federation entered the Council of Europe and took the obligation of ratifying the Charter by February, 28th, 1998. Russia joined the states, which signed the European Charter, on May, 10th in 2001 but has not ratified it. The Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) has reminded Russia in 2002 and 2005 resolutions that the state needs to carry out the obligations taken, in particular, to ratify the European Charter in the nearest time since the deadline expired in February 1997. In this regard, it should be mentioned that the obligations under the Council of Europe Membership serve as guidelines, in other words, are not mandatory (Sokolovskiy, 2010).

As of today, all the actions from the Russian side are indicative of having an assumption that ratification can be postponed indefinitely despite a juridical obligation of ratification. 5. Analysis of the Russian Case within the European Framework

5.1 Language Rights and the Concept of Minority It stands beyond shadow of a doubt that there have been many language rights for dominant language speakers for ages without actually calling them language rights. People who belong to a majority tend not to realize that they actually use their language rights every day at their work or receiving primary/secondary/higher education, as well as using public services or mass-media sources. All these facilities are provided by the government and the majority of the population takes them for granted. In contrast, minority language speakers tend to experience various problems concerning language rights. Rights have been formulated from pragmatic perspective, and mostly by lawyers (Skutnabb- Kangas, 2008). In this respect, one may claim that, as a counter to dominant languages, minority languages as well as their speakers need to be protected and supported by linguistic rights. Here the question arises concerning the meaning of a minority itself.

When talking about L(H)Rs, in most cases, the concept of „minority‟ becomes of paramount importance since there is always a concern about ethnic, religious or linguistic minorities. Skutnabb-Kangas (2007) admits the fact that there is no any legally accepted universal definition of minority. According to one of the explanations, which covers key features of the concept, minority is seen as “a group which is smaller in number than the rest of the population of a State, whose members have ethnic, religious or linguistic features different from those of the rest of the population, and are guided, if only implicitly, by the will to safeguard their culture, traditions, religion or language” (p. 377). A better understanding of the notion of minority can be achieved by distinguishing objective and subjective components of the concept (Henrard, 2001). The objective component refers to ethnic, religious and linguistic features that differ from those possessed by the rest of population, including a minority position numerically in comparison to the rest of the population. The subjective component encompasses collective wish of the minority to preserve and develop its own separate identity (Henrard, 2001).

So any group that falls under the definition above is seen as an ethnic/religious/linguistic minority. It is up to an individual to decide whether to belong to a minority or not and whether

26 to enjoy their own culture, religion and language in terms of collective rights of a certain minority. Talking about the relationship between minority and majority groups, it is usually characterized by one-sided bilingualism. One-sided bilingualism describes the situation when the minority speakers use a majority language (as well as a minority language), whereas the majority speakers does not know minority languages. In Russia, there are plenty of examples when a quantitative majority is a linguistic minority. In particular, Izhemskiy district (or “rayon” in Russian) in the north of the Komi Republic has 85% of Komi population and 10% of Russians. Komi language is accurately preserved in this area and the majority of ethnic Komi know it. Nonetheless, the language of Komi cannot be considered as the majority language in this region as it is mainly used at home, in communication with relatives and friends and other informal situations but official domains such as school, authorities and the media are dominated by Russian despite official bilingualism in the Komi Republic. Thus a person can live in Izhemskiy district not knowing Komi language but if one does not know Russian, it would cause a lot of inconveniences (Zamyatin et al., 2012). As of some constant properties of a minority itself, it is still unclear what number of individuals should be in a group in order to have language-related rights. Neither the ECRML, nor the FCNM defines a number, though a group size criterion is used in both documents. Instead of limiting the size, the following formulations are given: “in substantial numbers”, “pupils who so wish in a number considered sufficient”, “if the number of users of a regional or minority language justifies it” (Skutnabb-Kangas, 2007, pp. 377-378). As of today, group size evaluation is a pending issue. However, the European Charter contains a differentiation between “big” languages which are supposed to be under the consideration of Part III and “small” languages under Part II only (Explanatory note of the proposed declaration). In case of the Russian state, the domestic legislation (the Federal Law “On the Guarantees of the Rights of the Small-in-number Indigenous People of the Russian Federation”) defines “small-in- number” peoples as a group with less than 50.000 representatives. This figure is applicable in the Russian legislation in a certain context of indigenous people and not concerning regional or minority languages as such. Nevertheless, the definition above provides a threshold setting apart small-in-number and other peoples. “Thus, applying Part III to a language used by a people (national minority) to which at least 50.000 persons belong would reflect the differentiation between “small” and “big” peoples/languages existing in both Russian legislation and the ECRML” (Explanatory note of the proposed declaration, p.4).

Minority implies not only quantitative differences, but also the difference of a subordinate status relationship. There is the idea of contrasting privileged/dominant and non-privileged/non- dominant ethnic groups which in practice mean that language policy can support or violate human language rights. Let us consider two examples in two different republics of the Russian Federation. The situations in the Tuva Republic and the Republic of Karelia clearly demonstrate two opposite directions of the language policy in the regions: in one case the language of the region other than Russian is promoted, whereas in the second case language legislation is seen as oppressive towards non-dominant ethnic groups and their languages.

Coming back to indication of minority in European language regulations, the European Charter does not use the very concept of „minority‟ or „national minority‟ by contrast with the Framework Convention and the documents of OSCE (Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe). In addition, such terms as „regional languages‟ and „minority languages‟ are considered as equivalent; they build up a united concept of „regional or minority languages‟ which is used in the text of the Charter to refer to the basic object of protection. Significant notions in terms of the Charter which have a clear differentiation are „regional languages‟ (alternatively named in other countries as the languages of the minorities) and „non-territorial languages‟ (Sokolovskiy, 2010). The following subchapters demonstrate contrasting cases of treating regional or minority languages in two republics of the Russian Federation. The examples of Tuva Republic and the Republic of Karelia are particularly interesting as we can trace how language policy of different regions of the same state can represent opposite linguistic situations.

5.2 The Tuva Republic (South Siberia) According to the latest census of 2010, the overall population of Tuva is 307.930 people. Herebelow, we can see statistics concerning major (and some minor) nationalities inhabiting this territory and the figures (Social Demographic Portrait of Russia, 2012) showing most common languages in use.

Table 1. Numeric Portrait of Nationalities in Tuva Republic % OF OVERALL NATIONALITY NUMBER, PEOPLE POPULATION Tuvan 249,299 82

Russian 49,434 16,3 Khakas 877 0,3 Kyrgyz 628 0,2 Armenian 512 0,2 Ukrainian 493 0,2

As we can notice, the majority of population are Tuvans, Russians take the second place. So it seems reasonable to dwell upon these two nationalities and two languages accordingly.

One of the principal features of this federal subject of Russia is a high level of protection the Tuvan language as a mother tongue. For instance, 99.7% of Tuvan population consider Tuvan as their mother tongue. At the same time, there is Tuvan-Russian bilingual regime across the republic: more than a half of Tuvans are fluent in Russian. Tuvan is taught in municipal Russian- speaking schools and kindergartens.

Table 2. Correlation between Nationality and Mother Tongue NO. OF PEOPLE WHO TUVANS RUSSIANS NAME THEIR MOTHER (out of 249,299) (out of 49,434) TONGUE Tuvan 246,744 103 Russian 2,383 49,286

The table (figures are taken from Social Demographic Portrait of Russia, 2012) shows that there is a higher number of Tuvans whose mother tongue is Russian than Russians whose mother tongue is Tuvan. However, in general, there is an approximate accordance between the nationality and the relative mother tongue.

As of today, the situation regarding language competence among the overall population of Tuva is the following: 244,280 people speak Tuvan; 260,733 – Russian; 2,893 – Mongolian. Let us remark that the Mongolian language which was popular among Tuvans at the beginning of the XX century is gradually losing its importance. However, the inhabitants of the areas

29 bordering with Mongolia – the population of Erzinskiy and Ovuyrskiy districts still know and actively use Mongolian. According to the “Law about the Languages” of 1990 1, the state language of Tuva is Tuvan. At the same time, this law outlines that the knowledge of Russian meets core interests of the republic population and it is vital to develop both Tuvan-Russian and Russian-Tuvan bilingualism as well as multilingualism. Additionally, the Constitution of the Tuva Republic (1993) defines the status and functions of Tuvan and Russian within the territory of the republic as follows: the state language of the Tuva Republic is Tuvan. Russian acts as a common federal state language. Tuvan and Russian are equally used in all social domains regulated by legislation (Sokolovskiy, 2010). In this situation, we observe integration process focusing on “formation of a series of common features in an ethnically heterogeneous group” (Skutnabb-Kangas, 2007, p. 372).

5.3 The Republic of Karelia Since 1991 up to present, the republic has issued about 20 regulations (laws, resolutions, programs, concepts, etc.) which aim to facilitate the realization of cultural and language rights and interests of the local nations, namely, the Karelians (as well as the Vepsians and Finns). In 2004, the law “About government support of Karelian, Vepsian and Finnish languages in the Republic of Karelia” was issued (Klementiev, 2006).

However, in reality the language situation of Karelian is seen critical. If elderly population knows their mother tongue relatively well, the young generation practically does not know it. One can notice that within some families, parents would speak Karelian but their children respond only in Russian (Zaikov, 2005). The official status of the Karelian language in the Republic of Karelia is not admitted despite the insistence of Karelian citizens. This case demonstrates the process of assimilation which can be defined as “disappearance of distinctive features” and “adoption of traits belonging to another culture, which replace those of the former culture, accompanied by the subjective feeling of belonging to the second culture” (Skutnabb-Kangas, 2007, p. 372).

1 “The Law of the USSR about the Languages of the Nations” dated April, 24 1990 defines common principles of language policy in the USSR, guarantees free development and use of languages of the nations, sets legal regime of the language in the official domain, grants rights to the citizens to use the languages of the nations of the USSR. The Law does not consider informal areas of interpersonal communication. According to Art. 4, the republics are eligible to define the legal status of the language of the republic as well as grant them an official status (along with the Russian language).

As we can observe, the first example of Tuva Republic demonstrates how language policy is facilitated by granting language rights and consequent additive process of integration, whereas the second example of Karelia represents language policy as an ethnic policy oppressing minority groups and violating language rights which results in subtractive phenomenon of assimilation. In this respect, dominance or the lack of it depends on social structure, the distribution of social groups, the electoral system, traditions and prestige of the “historical nations” (Paultson, 1997, p. 77).

5.4 Link between the Contexts of Russian Legislation and the European Framework

Before looking into the challenges associated with the ratification process of the European Charter let us, first of all, define the notion of ratification. According to Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties of 1969 (Arts.2 (1) (b), 14 (1) and 16), ratification represents the international act whereby a country undertakes a commitment to follow a treaty. If a treaty is bilateral, ratification is carried out by exchanging the requisite instruments. If a treaty is multilateral, the depositary gathers the ratifications of all countries while keeping all parties informed about the situation. The institution of ratification grants states the relevant time-frame to get the required approval for the treaty on the domestic level and to introduce the basic legislation so as to give domestic effect to that treaty (UN Glossary of terms relating to Treaty actions).

In the Russian Federation, the president signs the instrument of treaty ratification. It is not separately outlined as a duty of the Parliament to ratify treaties but it is implied as long as the president has only the right to sign ratification instruments. In this respect, the Assembly passes a resolution by voting if it does not amend the Constitution. However, if the Constitution is due to change, it needs 2/3 of votes from both houses: State Duma (lower house) and Federal Council (upper house) that need to approve a treaty.

International treaties of the Russian Federation are known to be the part of its legal system. In case an international treaty of Russia imposes other norms than those guaranteed by law, then the international treaty rules are brought into play (Ratification Rules, p.42).

5.5 European Charter in Russia as Subject to Ratification: Problems and Prospects The process of ratification has dragged on for more than a decade. In comparison, there is some data concerning several countries which ratified the Charter and which have a high number of languages under its protection:

Table 3. Period of Ratification in Countries with Numerous Languages Protected STATE No. OF LANGUAGES RATIFICATION PROCESS, YEARS Ukraine 13 9 Poland 15 6 Bosnia and Herzegovina 15 5 Romania 20 13

These examples show us the relativity between the number of languages under protection and the period of time needed for the states for ratification. Since these countries have higher number of languages under protection comparing to other member states, it is not surprising that Russia delays ratification for more than 10 years. At the political arena of Russia there is a discussion over the issue of ratification. For instance, Kosachev (the chairman of the committee on international affairs) expresses doubts over the fact that ratification is necessary for Russia. In his opinion, the agreement to become a member State of the Charter was given by Russia on the eve of presidential elections of 1996, so to some extent, it was a “populist measure”. Moreover, qualification of foreign service experts was not at high level at that time (Strogal‟schikova, 2012). Another official Zhuravskiy (the former director of international relations department of the Ministry of regional development, the present deputy Minister of Culture in Russia) claimed that protection of the Charter could lead to the increase of separatism according to ethnic linguistic principle. He raised concern that implementation of the European Charter might become an instrument undermining ethno-political situation in Russia (Strogal‟schikova, 2012).

Analysing the statements above, it is difficult to conclude whether the opinion of some public officers reflects the general position of the authorities in the Russian government but it goes without saying that the prospects of ratification are vague.

Russian experts (A. Kozhemyakov, S. Sokolovskiy, K. Zamyatin, D. Mustafina) point out various reasons why Russia delays ratification. Firstly, there are some mismatches regarding terminology of the European Charter and state legislation. Nevertheless, the number of Russian and European experts agrees that Russian legislation generally achieves the minimal level of international standards of language protection, namely, the level of the European Charter.

Secondly, there is a direct dependence between a large number of resources necessary for maintaining the requirements of the European Charter and a high quantity of languages in this country. Minorities tend to face a lot of difficulties living in such a big multinational country with strong centralized power as Russia. Though there is not absolutely reliable statistics concerning language situation in Russia, according to different sources, it can be supposed that at least 15% of the population have different mother tongue. Officially, there are at least 160-180 ethnicities inhibiting Russia and 239 spoken languages. To compare, the latter is more than all the languages under the protection of the Charter in the European states which have ratified it. Thirdly, it is typical for Russia to have fears that regional separatism and nationalism would increase.

Finally, another issue touches upon financial recourses and actual executives of the European Charter requirements, given that concerns over finances play a minor role in the range with other problems. The lack of financing is seen, on the one hand, as a typical problem for the states ratifying the Charter. On the other hand, Russian context (asymmetric federal structure, the way of delegating authorities, the number of languages) turns this presumable excuse into a significant obstacle. It is stated that the main cost loading and managing language issues should be put on regional authorities. In Russia, the power of regional authorities is very limited. Nevertheless, some republic authorities have already started to support multilingualism financially within their territory. In contrast, the authorities of other regions are not willing to finance these efforts. Taking into account the conditions of centralized power in Russia, political will on the part of federal authorities is essential for taking a decision about the ratification of the European Charter. At the same time ethno-linguistic relationships in multinational Russia are the part of federative relationships and influence directly on the character of Russian federalism (Zamyatin et al., 2012).

In principle, neither the Framework Convention, nor the European Charter lay down the rights of concrete individuals. Instead of it these documents propose the states to choose certain measures for the protection and development of each language. It is also the state who defines whether those measures would be applied on the whole territory or only on the territory of the language spread. The guidelines of the European Charter are more complete, detailed, systematic and convenient for their application comparing to the ones of the Framework Conventions. In the European regional frame of international law at the level of the Council of Europe, these documents complement each other and provide together a higher level of minority protection (Zamyatin et al., 2012). It is notable that both the Framework Convention and the European Charter are

33 elaborate and complicated documents which demand cooperation of linguists and lawyers specializing on the language rights.

5.6 Case Studies in terms of Ratification Promotion The issue of joining the Russian Federation to the European Charter remains open. In terms of facilitating the process of ratification, the European Council and the European Commission appropriated 2 million 750 thousand euro for realization of a joint programme “Minorities in Russia: Developing Languages, Culture, Media and Civil Society” in collaboration with the Russian Ministry of regional development from 2009 to 2011. One of the main reasons of introducing that programme is the intention of the European framework to make Russia one of the member states of the Charter. It was planned to provide assistance to various authorities who were supposed to participate in ratification and carrying out the Charter as well as to increase the level of awareness about this convention in civil society. Among other objectives of the joint project are the following: • enhancing the legal framework for ethnic and national minorities according to the Council of Europe standards for better recognition of its integrity; • supporting the presence and contributing to a better expression of ethnic minorities in culture, education and media in selected regions of the Russian State according to the Council of Europe standards. Under the auspices of the programme, the organizations interested in preserving the languages carried out modeling of the Charter application in the following pilot regions: Altai region, the Republic of Dagestan and the Republic of Mordovia. Additionally, the part of research, public discussions and seminars were held in the Republic of Karelia and Krasnoyarsk region (Zamyatin & Pasanen, 2012, p. 98). Other objectives include: • Enhancing the legal framework for ethnic and national minorities in accordance with Council of Europe standards for better recognition of its integrity; • sustaining and contributing to a better expression of ethnic minorities in culture, education and media in selected regions of the Russian State in accordance with Council of Europe. As a result of the Programme, the experts appointed by the Council of Europe worked out a proposal for a draft instrument of ratification and published it.

Let us analyse some data concerning pilot regions (the Republic of Mordovia, the Republic of Dagestan and Altai region,) and review the findings regarding their model application of the Charter within the framework of the joint project.

The Republic of Mordovia The Republic of Mordovia, which is located in the centre of the eastern part of European Russia, features its titular nation – the Mordovians (or Mordva) which, in its turn, is divided into two groups: the speakers of Erzya language and the speakers of Moksha language. It is peculiar to notice that these two languages are mutually not understandable. Erzya and Moksha have the status of state language in the Republic of Mordovia. The table below demonstrates numerical ratio of different nationalities in the republic and in comparison to the whole population of the country as of 2012 Russian statistics (Social Demographic Portrait of Russia, 2012).

Table 4. Numeric Portrait of Nationalities in Mordovia Republic NATIONALITY THE REPUBLIC OF MORDOVIA RUSSIA Russians 831.602 111.000.000 Mordva 333.112 740.000 Mordva-Erzya 49.579 Mordva-Moksha 4.178 Tartars 43.392 Ukrainians 3.185 Others 8.176

Judging from the figures, Russians represent the majority population in Mordovia, whereas the Mordovians themselves equal to 40 % of the republic population, the Mordovian-Erzya are 6 % of the population and the Mordovians-Moksha – 0,5 % respectively. The third biggest nationality of the republic is the Tartar with a proportion of 5,2 %. It is worth mentioning that the common population of the Mordovians in other regions compile more than a half out of all the people with the Mordovian nationality in Russia. Thus there are three languages which are planned to be under protection of the Charter: Erzya, Moksha and Tatar (which is a state language in the Republic of Tatarstan) as a regional language in Mordovia. In the course of discussion, it was underlined that ratification could be a relevant start for a factual, not purely formal (as it is of today) status of state languages for Moksha and Erzya. Nowadays, pessimistic sentiments are dominated among Mordovian native speakers. If the

35 objectives of the project are fulfille, then Moksha and Erzya would be actively used in all social domains, extended in a school programme, transformed from the languages of symbolic significance to the languages of daily communication. The joint programme was also claimed to contribute to an efficient dialogue between the authorities and NGOs with some representatives of native speakers (Vikherkevich, 2012).

At this stage we can follow up the opposition between a symbolic and a matter-of-fact status of a republic state language as well as a kind of an unspoken disagreement between the authorities and minority language representatives. In other words, all the recommendations for regional or minority languages promotion and the existing language legislation supporting minority languages are left only on the paper and do not find their actual application in real life.

The Republic of Dagestan Dagestan which is located in the south-eastern part of Northern Caucasus is one of the most multilingual regions in the world. The table below (figures are taken from Social Demographic Portrait of Russia, 2012) reflects the population of the biggest national groups in the republic.

Table 5. Numeric Portrait of Nationalities in Dagestan Republic THE REPUBLIC OF NATIONALITY RUSSIA DAGESTAN Avars 850.011 910.000 Dargins 490.384 590.000 Kumyks 431.736 500.000 Lezgins 385.240 470.000 All population 2.891.819 142.860.000

As we can see the majority of these national groups live in Dagestan, where the Avars represent the biggest population of 29,4 % of all Dagistan residents. The Dargins compile 17 % of the republic population that makes them the second biggest nationality in that area. The Kumyks and the Lezgins are 14,9 % and 13,3 % respectively. Although the population of Dagestan is only 2 % of all the population of the country, the Republic of Dagestan is one of the most diverse representations of nationalities.

There are a lot of linguistic communities and some of those communities speak the languages used only in this region. Among the languages of the republic we should name Agul, Andi, Archin, Avar, Akhvakh, Bagvalal, Bezhita, Botlikh, Dargin (or Dargwa), Didoy, Godoberi, Hinukh, Hunzib, Kaitag, Karatin, Kumyk, Lak, Lezgin, Nogai, Rutul, Tabasaran, Tat, Tindi, Kvarshin, Tsakhur, Chamalal and some other languages of other regions of Caucasus: Azerbaijani and Chechen. The Constitution of Dagestan (1994) does not set any official language. At the same time it is announced that “all the languages of Dagestan” have the status of state languages. Due to quite a pragmatic tendency to limit state languages to those which have a standardized writing system, there are only Avar, Azerbaijani, Dargin, Kumyk, Lak, Lezgin, Nogai, Russian, Tabasaran, Tat and Chechen which comply with the official status. Republic authorities say that absence of a writing system in many languages of Dagestan creates a serious difficulty towards applying the official status. Summing up the results of Dagestan part of the project, Vikherkevich (2012) admitted the fact of unsuccessful modeling of the implementation of the Charter norms due to a number of reasons. First of all, experts could not make a research on the present situation with the languages in Dagestan because there were no any favourable conditions created. Secondly, safety reasons did not let the expert group stick to the initial programme. And last but not least, Dagestan was assessed as an outstanding case with a very high number of languages and complex language situations. Moreover, the status of the languages also became a controversial point during programme realisation. As a result, only a few languages (Avar, Dargin, Kumyk, Lezgin, Azerbaijani, Hinukh, Karatin and Tat) were discussed in the course of the project which did not influence on regional language policy.

The case study of modeling in the Republic of Dagestan gives evidence that not every region of Russia can be treated according to standard procedures even in pilot projects of modeling the Charter application. The number of minority languages as well as their status should be always taken into account.

Altai Territory Altai Territory which is located in the southern part of Western Siberia represents a different territorial administrative unit comparing to previous two regions due to the fact that it does not have any ethnic, national or language autonomy and its own “titular” ethnic group (cf. the Mordovians in the Republic of Mordovia). As a consequence, the official language of Altai

Territory is the state language of the Russian Federation, i. e. Russian. The majority of population is introduced by Russians, among the minorities are ethnic Germans and small groups representing practically all nationalities of the former USSR.

Table 6. Numeric Portrait of Nationalities in Altai Territory NATIONALITY ALTAI TERRITORY RUSSIA Russians 114.802 111.020.000 Altaians 68.814 Kazakhs 12.524 650.000 Germans 700 Overall population 202.736 142.860.000

According to the census of 2010, 56,6 % of the population in Altai Territory is represented by Russians. However, Altaians who compile 33,9 % of the population include the Kumandins, the indigenous people of southern Siberia.

German, Kazakh and Kumandin were chosen as the languages under consideration of the project. In the course of the project modelling the following statements were made: firstly, Kumandin turned out to be under extinction since the villages where this language is spoken are situated far from each other. In this respect, the necessity to standardise Kumandin and the emergency programme for language revival were underlined. Secondly, it was also outlined that the German language needs revival among Siberian Germans. Thirdly, there was an idea to update studying process of these languages at all levels. And finally, it was concluded that regional or minority languages of Altai Territory should be granted a special status so as to facilitate positive measures concerning language support (Vikherkevich, 2012).

As the matter stands, after completing the programme Russian authorities announced that its results demonstrated that the application of the European Charter didn‟t comply with an outstanding multilingual situation of the Russian state (Prina, 2014).

What is more, looking into this particular case and trying to analyse the outcomes of the programme and its influence on possible ratification, we learned that according to presidential decree No. 612 dated September, 8th 2014, the Ministry of regional development was abolished in order to improve the system of public administration. According to the official announcement of

38 the Russian PM Medvedev via Ria News, the fact of setting up new Ministries which deal with economic and social issues by territorial division (the Ministry for development of Russian Far East, the Ministry of Crimean affairs and the Ministry of North Caucasus affairs) resulted in removal of many competences of the former Ministry. In that respect, the further work of the Ministry of regional development was admitted as pointless. As a consequence, the functions concerning elaboration and realisation of state national policy and legal regulation in the domain of national minority protection and indigenous small peoples of the Russian Federation, realisation of ethnic cultural needs of the citizens who belong to various ethnic communities were delegated to the Ministry of Culture (as follows the text of Decree of the Ministry of regional development abolition). On the one hand, the fact of Ministry abolishment can be considered as optimisation of the structure of public administration. But on the other hand, in terms of our discussion, the Ministry of regional development was an official institution responsible for the joint project along with the Council of Europe. If at present moment, the Ministry does not exist anymore, it seems highly complicated to figure out the officials who have been delegated the responsibilities to deal with the ratification process which means that the issue of application of the ECRML is again placed on a shelf. To sum up, we need to face the truth that a complete analysis of the programme seems to be unfeasible mainly due to two reasons. Firstly, it was officially claimed by the Russian authorities that application of the European Charter is not effective in a present-day legislation of Russia. Secondly, the authorities which used to hold the official responsibility for the programme performance have been abolished which means that all the issues concerning the results of the programme nowadays are likely to have been disregarded, at least for an indefinite period of time. As far as the Council of Europe is concerned, there has not been taken any other considerable measures towards ratification so far. Every two years, the Secretary General of the Council of Europe introduces a report on the application of the Charter to the Parliamentary Assembly. In the latest report dated March, 3rd, 2014, talking about Russia, the Secretary General only briefly mentioned the fact of completion of the joint project “Minorities in Russia: Developing Languages, Culture, Media and Civil Society” and its consequent drafting of a ratification instrument.

6. Conclusion Fifteen years ago an expression “linguistic rights” simply did not exist in the Russian language. The issue of languages was purely an academic one. It was a subject of interest for linguists and teachers. Even nowadays a phrase “language rights” may cause some confusion in mass consciousness of Russians which can be explained by the fact that many respondents belong to the majority group and they do not face any difficulties concerning language use in their country. However, nobody assumed that the language would become practically the centre of political heat. The concept of language rights becomes more and more important among lawyers, minority language activists and researchers.

The present paper has provided a multifaceted overview of the application of two basic European documents concerning language rights to Russian language policy. In the course of work, our objective that the implementation of the Framework Convention and ratification of the European Charter do not find their realization in Russian language policy has been studied. Both documents are invoked to protect minorities as social groups and their languages. Today, one can hardly follow up significant progress as implementation of plans/programs advised by European authorities is often left on the paper and does not find its consistent realization. These statements are derived from the comparison of the regular reports and actual following the recommendations of the European Council. One of the common explanations is a high number of languages and ethnical minorities living on the territory of the country. Another sound reason is the lack of correspondence between national legislation and international norms.

However, the reasons of non-effective application of the European treaties lie much deeper. Social integrity seems to be essential in conditions of multicultural Russia. The attitude towards diversity as a potential threat of stability should be turned into perception of diversity as a form of social wealth failing which would possibly lead to marginalization and radicalization of the society. The analysis of practical measures taken in favour of ratification of the European Charter has shown us that Russia still lacks a well-developed civil society where the status of minority languages is supported by prestige of the Council of Europe. Despite the fact that a joint programme “Minorities in Russia: Developing Languages, Culture, Media and Civil Society” was finally admitted as non-efficient, today it is the only productive and demonstrative measure which was taken towards ratification. The project highlighted definite problems and formulated the possible solutions. Particularly, the programme encouraged a constructive dialogue between

Russian officials and minority representatives where the latter had an opportunity to describe language situation within their community in a face-to-face discussion. Further, the project highlighted the necessity of better information awareness among the population about regional or minority languages and at the same time became a promising advertising campaign of protecting and promoting minority language rights.

Minority language protection in Russia demands reliable measures to increase the level of awareness about the problems of minority languages. Linguistic diversity can be protected only through language policy which contributes to interethnic mutual understanding. It includes fair- minded informing about minorities and indigenous peoples, their way of life, languages and cultures by means of mass media and the system of education.

Giving a matter-of-fact characterization of the contemporary situation in Russia it can be concluded that the State pursues the policy directed on the aligning the differences as a way of solving the problems caused by diversity which contradicts with the ideas of European framework conventions. While the representatives of the power authorities discuss possibilities of separatist sentiments in case of the ECRML ratification, the general political line is more oriented to centralization. However, in our view, systematic application of necessary recommendations on the federal level should be followed by the introduction of amendments to regional legislation which would grant protection to more vulnerable languages and give exercisable rights to minority population. Therefore, it is undoubtedly a long-term project demanding not only active management on the part of authorities but also social activism.

The present paper does not offer an ultimate solution to the situation; it is able to contribute to our understanding of complexities in the process of applying international regulations. Albeit, while this work is a less than complete review of the issue, it does support the conclusion of the global and regional acceptance of the protection and promotion of minority language rights in the European framework. The findings discussed above are a fruitful area for further research, particularly, the state of affairs with regional language legislation in various federal subjects of Russia.

Appendix

Glossary of Useful Terms

Autochthonous minority the first known population of the territory. a national minority that has been living on a certain territory Indigenous people before the foundation of a governmental structure. the smallest entity of dialect segmentation used by the Govor inhabitants of one settlement or several settlements which are homogenous in terms of the language. a statement of goals and a programme/plan to achieve the Language planning objectives referring to the status, structure, or acquisition of

languages. a systematic, rational, theory-based effort at the societal level to modify the linguistic environment with a view to increasing Language policy aggregate welfare, typically conducted by official bodies or

their surrogates and aimed at part or all of the population living under their jurisdiction. the rules that public institutions adopt with respect to language Language/linguistic rights use in a variety of different domains. Language rights refer to a particular language or small group of languages. the combination of language rights and human rights Linguistic human rights representing an extended language rights scheme for the

benefit of every habitant of the planet. a variation of the national Russian language with norms of Literary language pronunciation, spelling and grammar which are fixed in the textbooks and handbooks, was formed in the XVII century. a group which is smaller in number than the rest of the population of a state, whose members have ethnic, religious or Minority linguistic features different from those of the rest of the population, and are guided, if only implicitly, by the will to safeguard their culture, traditions, religion or language. the biggest entity of dialect segmentation of the language, a Narechie combination of govor groups which have common features

Nation a community of people which was formed during a long period of time within certain territory and has its own

language and culture.

Nationality belonging of a person to a certain nation.

languages used by nationals of the state which differ from the Non-territorial languages language (or languages) used by the rest of the population but which, although traditionally used within the territory of the state, cannot be identified with a particular area thereof. the situation when the minority speakers use a majority One-sided bilingualism language (as well as a minority language), whereas the majority speakers does not know minority languages. the international act whereby a country undertakes a Ratification commitment to follow a treaty. languages that are traditionally used within a given territory of a state by nationals of that state who form a group numerically Regional or minority languages smaller than the rest of the population and are different from the official language(s) of that state. It does not include either dialects of the official language(s) of the state or the languages of migrants. federal subjects of Russia or the states as parts of the Russian Federation having full public authority (legislative, executive The republics of Russia and judicial) beyond the range of competences of the federation. legal position of the language in the social system which is Status of the language declared and stated in the Constitution and other legislative

acts and its social position defined by functional characteristics the republics are eligible to set their own state languages along State language of the republics with Russian, according to the Russian Constitution (Art. 68). the Russian language possess a status of the national/state State language of the Russian Federation language within the whole territory of the country, according

to the Russian Constitution (Art. 68). Territory in which the regional the geographical area in which the said language is the mode or minority language is used of expression of a number of people justifying the adoption of

the various protective and promotional measures provided for in the European Charter the nation whose ethnicon is used as a base for the name of a Title nation respective administrative territorial unit (a federal subject). For instance, Tatars in the Republic of Tatarstan. the language of the title nation; the term came into use in the Title language 90s of the XX century. For instance, the Tatar language is a title language in the Republic of Tatarstan.

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Ghent University Faculty of Arts and Philosophy

Master Dissertation

Language Rights. The Application of International Regulations to the Russian National Language Policy

by Yulia Zelent

Academic Year 2014-2015