In 1863 the Valuev Circular restricted the use of the Ukrainian language in the Russian Empire. In the 150 years since, Ukrainian has followed a tortuous path, reflecting or anticipating tsarist, Soviet, and post-Soviet history. This volume documents that path through studies that tell of the language’s emergence in southern Rus´, its shifting fortunes in the Russian Empire and Soviet Union, and its variable status after 1991. The Ukrainian-Russian relationship and the Moscow-based political power promoting the latter loom large. Nonetheless, Ukrainian can usefully serve as a prism for assessing 150 years of imperial disintegration and reformation, and worldwide state and nation building—a period in which languages have been created, promoted, and repressed, or have come to coexist in multilingual nations. Case studies of Gaelic, Finnish, Yiddish, the Baltic group, and of language policy in Canada, India, and the former Yugoslavia illuminate similarities and differences in a dialogue construed broadly in chronological, comparative, international, and transnational terms. The result is an interdisciplinary study that is essential for understanding language, history, and politics in Ukraine and in the postimperial world.

Contributors:
Dominique Arel, Bohdan Azhniuk, Simone A. Bellezza, Laada Bilaniuk, François Charbonneau, Tony Crowley, Andrii Danylenko, Martin Ehala, Jan Fellerer, Michael S. Flier, Zvi Gitelman, Andrea Graziosi, Robert D. Greenberg, Tomasz Kamusella, Volodymyr Kulyk, Jussi Kurunmäki, Ilkka Liikanen, Michael A. Moser, Anita Peti-Stantić, Johannes Remy, Patrick Sériot, Yurii Shapoval, Michael G. Smith, Hennadii Yefimenko.

See the table of contents.

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