Why Don't North Caucasian Authorities Defend Their Languages As Fiercely As Tatarstan?

Over the past year or so, Moscow has systematically sought to weaken the status of ethnic minority languages in Russia. Since Russian President Vladimir Putin's proclamation in July 2017 that "making a person learn a language that is not native for him is just as unacceptable as reducing the level and time of teaching Russian," the number of mandated hours for national minority language education in Russia's regional classrooms has fallen sharply. While Tatarstan's authorities sharply rejected Moscow's removal of the Tatar language as a compulsory subject of study, North Caucasus authorities have supported such initiatives, despite open opposition from civil society. Amina Suleymanova asks two leading experts, Amil Sarkarov of RIA Derbent and Ruslan Aisin of Poistine, why this is.

Sarkarov and Aisin provide insightful commentary on the discrepancy. According to the former, the status of the Tatar language is particularly threatened due to the presence of many ethnic Russians in the region, while there is no such risk of the language falling out of use in monoethnic Chechnya. Aisin agrees with this, while emphasizing that the latest moves by Moscow are just part of an ongoing effort to dismantle the federal system established in the 1990s and impose full central control, which necessitates diluting regional languages. Sarkarov further believes that Moscow's attempts to suppress regional languages are already resulting in a backlash that will only worsen and divide Russian society, further alienating ethnic minority republics. Aisin also states that there is a very large and well-organized segment of society opposed to these measures, from academics to grassroots movements.

This article does a good job of highlighting an issue that many in the North Caucasus see as crucial. When I last visited Ingushetia, language preservation was one of the top questions my friends there were seeking to address. Unfortunately but predictably, Russian authorities simply do not care.