In stateless Ukraine, the language issue has always been inseparable from politics. The past over thirty years — a crucial period in the formation of modern Ukrainian statehood — have been no exception, spanning the struggle for the official status of the Ukrainian language on the eve of the USSR’s collapse and continuing to the present day.

This book traces Ukraine’s difficult and often contentious path in language policy: from the adoption of the Law “On Languages in the Ukrainian SSR,” which established Ukrainian as the sole state language, to the enactment of the first dedicated law on the Ukrainian language — “On Ensuring the Functioning of the Ukrainian Language as the State Language.” The author argues convincingly that the struggle for the Ukrainian language is inseparable from the struggle for full national independence, and represents ongoing resistance to Russian imperial policy in its historical forms.

Length: 464 pages. Hardcover.