Ukraine’s easy, misunderstood Babel

By Timothy Snyder

What talk show in Kyiv says about the the everyday dynamics of a bilingual nation caught up in conflict with Russia.

The other day I took part in a Ukrainian talk show called “Freedom of Speech.” The format is an unusual one: Six local experts with credentials in the social sciences or in journalism sit three to a table, four special guests sit two to a table, two more surprise special guests arrive during the show and stand and perorate, and then of course there’s the host, a serious journalist called Andrei Kulikov. As one of 13 participants, I had the impression that I was watching television rather than making it, a feeling confirmed by the studio wall covered by a giant video screen with attractive graphics.
Among other things it posts the main question to be discussed; this time, “Can Russia’s information war become a third world war?” Guests sometimes talk about the main question, and sometimes about other things entirely. The program lasts anywhere between two and four hours, and runs late at night. Ukrainians love political talk shows, and millions watch this one on week nights.
Sitting and listening to my 12 fellow participants, I was struck by the diversity and linguistic practices of the political class. The first surprise guest was Volodymyr Hroisman, the speaker of the Ukrainian Parliament, who is Jewish. He spoke Ukrainian. The second surprise guest was Mikheil Saakashvili, the governor of Ukraine’s Odessa region, who is Georgian. He spoke Russian, entertainingly. Two of the four special guests were Americans; one of them spoke Russian and the other Ukrainian. The Ukrainian guests spoke Russian to the Russian-speaking participants, reflecting the etiquette in the larger society. When speaking to one another, Ukrainians chose various combinations. Usually Ukrainians spoke Ukrainian to one another, but a couple of the local experts posed questions in Russian. One of the special guests, a Ukrainian who used to head the secret services, answered some questions in Russian and some in Ukrainian, and kept citing Polish public figures, including, intriguingly, the film director Krzysztof Zanussi. The host switched back and forth fluidly, preserving the exact same poised persona in each language. The studio audience, Ukrainians from Kyiv, enjoyed the program, and paid no attention to its bilingualism. Theirs is a bilingual city and this is their daily life.
Before and during the show the viewing audience was allowed to vote the major question: 82% of respondents believed that Russia’s information war could lead to a third world war. Early last year, Russia invaded Ukraine’s south and southeast on the pretext of protecting the right of Ukrainian citizens to express themselves in the Russian language, so of course the Ukrainian perspective on this question is a special one. Ukrainians could not help but notice how many people in the West took (and sometimes still take) the Russian propaganda position seriously. Even in a case where rights had been in question, war was of course not the answer. For Russia to invade Ukraine to protect the right of Ukrainian citizens to express themselves in the Russian language makes no more sense that Germany invading Switzerland to protect the rights of its German speakers, or France invading Belgium to protect the rights of its French speakers.

After Russia invaded, occupied, and annexed Ukraine’s Crimean Peninsula, the television station that served the local Crimean Tatar population was closed.

In fact, it makes even less sense, because the main country where the right to free expression in the Russian language is under threat is actually Russia itself. This is something that also comes clear from the Ukrainian media landscape. A rival Ukrainian talk show, also popular, was conducted entirely in Russian. The host, Yevgeny Kiselyov, is a prize-winning Russian political journalist in political exile from Russia. After Russia invaded, occupied, and annexed Ukraine’s Crimean Peninsula, the television station that served the local Crimean Tatar population was closed. It will reopen soon, broadcasting in the Russian language, in Kyiv.
A leading Russian political satirist, Viktor Shenderovich, found that his most recent book had been pulled from the shelves in Russia. He hit upon the solution that other Russians have also found: He published the book in Kyiv, in the Russian language. When the distinguished Russian historian Andrei Zubov spoke his mind about Russia’s war he lost his job — and was promptly offered one in Kyiv. Not a few Russian intellectuals, depressed by the Orwellian state of Russian public discourse, have come to see Ukrainian cities as the hope for the future of Russian culture. In this light, the Russian invasion of Ukraine to protect freedom of speech in the Russian language is perhaps better compared to America invading Canada to save the welfare state or North Korea invading South Korea to protect capitalism.
The grotesquerie remains politically relevant as Europeans discuss the future of Ukraine. Russia’s leaders maintain that they have the right to dictate a constitutional structure to Ukraine that would allow Russia permanent control over the parts of the southeast that it now occupies while giving these districts the power to block any major initiative in Ukrainian foreign and domestic policy. The rationale that is given for this kind of radical federalization is that the Ukrainian government prevents people from expressing themselves in the Russian language. Europeans who know neither language and remain far removed from the conflict are sometimes inclined to accept this argument. They should not. If Europeans allow Russia to take control of the Ukrainian state, they will be setting a precedent for the invasion of one European country by another as a legitimate way to achieve political goals, and undermine basic structure of European political life as a whole .
Leaving the studio of “Freedom of Speech,” berating myself under my breath for my bountiful linguistic mistakes, I thought for a moment about our own harsh talk show culture. In discussions of the war in Ukraine, or of any contentious issue, extreme positions define the debates, rather than plain facts. Ukrainian bilingualism is not only a state of affairs, it is also a sort of automatic courtesy. When prominent people on television, or citizens in daily life, make efforts to speak the language that is easier for the other person, this is seen as matter of basic good manners. This everyday gentility perhaps tells us something about the character of the bilingual Ukrainian political nation that escapes our own familiar categories, which we sometimes noisily impose without really listening.