Russification
27-09-2024
Russification was a deliberate policy of the Russian Empire, and later the USSR, aimed at supplanting national cultures in favor of Russian culture and language. The Russian language became compulsory in schools, which led to the marginalization of national languages in the Soviet republics.
Due to the consistent implementation of Russification policy by the Soviet government, Russian became the dominant language in a number of regions in eastern and southern Ukraine. The same was true in large cities, where Ukrainian was actively pushed out to become perceived as the “language of villagers.”