De-Russification

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Derussification is the policy of the Governments and the efforts of NGOs in the post-Soviet countries directed to overcome the consequencies of the Russification.

[edit] Derussification of Ukraine since 1991

Since 1991, independent Ukraine has made Ukrainian the only official state language and implemented government policies to broaden the use of Ukrainian language. The educational system in Ukraine has been transformed over the first decade of independence from a system that was overwhelmingly Russian into partly Ukrainian. The government has also mandated a progressively increased role for Ukrainian in the media and commerce. In some cases, the abrupt changing of the language of instruction in institutions of secondary and higher education, led to the charges of assimilation, raised mostly by the Russian-speaking population. However, the transition lacked most of the controversies that surrounded the derussification in several of the other former Soviet Republics.

In two presidential elections (1994 and 2004), the adoption of Russian as an official language was an election promise by one of the main candidates (Leonid Kuchma in 1994, Viktor Yanukovych in 2004). This promise contributed to Kuchma's win by bringing him the support of the eastern and southern regions, but in fact it could not be kept: the President is not authorized to change the country's Constitution that stipulated Ukrainian as the sole official language.