CONTEXT

Comprehensive background information
  • BACKGROUND UKRAINE

    In the 1990s, Ukraine inherited from the Ukrainian SSR a book distribution system, but it was almost destroyed because the role of the humanitarian policy in the security of the state was underestimated and because the authorities trusted market mechanisms too much. It resulted in a crisis of the Ukrainian book printing industry, a decrease of the culture of reading, a fall of the educational level of the population, and a fall of the prestige of intellectual work. All these conduced to the success of the Russian humanitarian expansion against Ukraine, and even the authorities’ steps aimed at introducing privileges for those who publish Ukrainian books did not help much ...

  • BACKGROUND BELARUS

    The situation concerning the freedom of speech and self-expression in Belarus must be considered through the prism of the problems facing the Belarusian language. After all, for Belarus, the question of preserving, developing, and expanding the Belarusian language – the language of the titular nation of the country – is not of a linguistic character, but has to do with the Weltanschauung (world outlook). According to analysts, Belarus was the most Sovietized republic in the USSR and, accordingly, it experienced Russification processes more than the other republics. During the Soviet period, such conditions were created in cities, which compelled inhabitants of the country to speak Russian, and only the rural population spoke Belarusian and had schools with instruction in the Belarusian language. The Soviet ideology aspired to create the unified universal Soviet people on the basis of Russian culture; therefore, all displays of other national cultures were limited by rigid frameworks that linguistic groups had no right to go around. However, even under such conditions, the Belarusian language as a means of creative self-expression did survive ...