Ethnic revival of national and cultural communities during the period of state independence of Ukraine: linguistic aspect

Abstract

The article examines the process of revival of national minorities during the period of Ukraine’s independence and describes the ethnic composition of the country’s population. Attention is focused on such manifestation of national-cultural revival as creation and activity of national-cultural unions. The linguistic situation in the national-cultural community environment is considered. It was noticed that information exchange occurs due to intercultural communication as well as mutual enrichment and development of the region ethnocultures.

According to results of the last population census 37,5 million of Ukrainians (77,8%) and 10,9 million of representatives of about 130 other nationalities (22,2%) lived in Ukraine in 2001. Russians are the biggest national community of the country. Their amount is about 8,3 million people or 17,3% of the whole population of Ukraine. There are different nationalities living in Ukraine and shaping it’s linguistic and cultural diversity. Language is one of the most important features of every nationality or ethnic community, the center of mentality and the way of preserving cultural and historacal experience. Ukrainian language is the only state language in the country. The constitution and laws of Ukraine guarantee development and free usage of other ethnic groups’ languages. Belarusians, Moldovans, Crimean Tatars, Bulgarians, Hungarians, Romanians, Poles and Jews are the biggest ethnic communities in Ukraine (after Russians). Today education is provided in the state language as well as in Bulgarian, Crimean Tatar, Moldovan, Polish, Russian, Romanian, Slovac and Hungarian.

The dynamics of increasing of national-cultural unions’ activity are observed. Today about 2 thousand of them funcrion at the all-Ukrainian, region and local levels.