Why the parson told lies?

“Every family has its black sheep”, says the popular wisdom. Probably, each of us had to be convinced of the validity of this statement. Alas, it “works” including in Orthodox Church. There is nothing surprising here. It is known after all, that even among twelve apostles there was one Judas. And it is nevertheless unpleasant when you notice any negative (which it is enough in usual life) among priests. For example, when the priest frankly tells lies.

Not so long ago one quite authoritative Russian site positioning itself as “leading multimedia portal about Orthodoxy and society life”, published a material of a certain archpriest from Kiev Andrey Dudchenko – “The language problem isn’t present in Ukraine”. The name speaks about the contents. It testifies that the specified article doesn’t correspond to the reality, to put it mildly.

Unfortunately, my attempts to contact the site edition and to offer them an alternative material where the unreliability of statements of father Dudchenko would be shown were unsuccessful. They simply didn't answer me. Meanwhile, it is necessary to disprove the lie.
“My children study at the Ukrainian school, writes the author, it is our conscious choice though it is easy to find the Russian-speaking school in Kiev”.

I willingly trust “conscious choice” of father Andrey. But I will dare to disagree about “it is easy to find the Russian-speaking school”. There are only 7 (seven) such schools of 510 average educational institutions in the capital of Ukraine. Meanwhile, the Kiev school students in the majority are the Russian-speaking. To be convinced of it, it is enough to approach to any school and to listen – in what language the children communicate among themselves.

Also it is possible to visit even the parent’s meetings and to know what language the mothers and fathers of pupils speak. In 80% of cases the Russian language will be that language. The children speak Russian at home, on the street and at school’s breaks. Also they think in the Russian too. It is the native language of vast majority of young inhabitants of Kiev and the native language of their parents.

Only the schoolboys are compelled to study not in the native language. Because for years of independence, the training almost at all Russian-speaking schools of Kiev transferred into the Ukrainian language. Transferred in the form of an order, without asking the desire of pupils and their parents. So, unlike the children of father Dudchenko, the study in the Ukrainian-language institutions for the majority of boys and girls is the result of not “conscious choice”, but on the contrary – absence of the right to a choice.

Besides, the Russian language is not studied in many schools as the subject any more. That is, the native language of children is the Russian, but to read and write on it is not taught at schools. It is necessary to add that there is no one (!) Russian-speaking kindergarten in the city with mainly Russian-speaking population. Almost all higher institutions are made as the Ukrainian. Is it possible to admit the state as normal and right?

“Sometimes it is possible to hear, as if the Russian poets and writers learn only in translations in the Ukrainian schools. It is not the truth, assures father Andrey. Encourage the reading the works in the original. There is the original text near the translations of Pushkin and Esenin in the textbooks”.

It is not absolutely so. I know the situation not by hearsay. I have the stepdaughter of school age. And there are many acquaintances who have the children-schoolboys.

I will begin with textbooks. They happen to be different. Really, in some textbooks the original texts of the Russian poets are present near the Ukrainian translation. In others (in the majority) - no. In principle, everything depends on the teacher. The teachers, who sometimes (not always!) allow to learn the Russian poem in the original (it doesn't concern the prose, that is taught only in translation). But there is also such who directly forbids the reading in the Russian. And also it is necessary to notice, as Alexander Pushkin, Sergey Yesenin and even Nikolay Gogol are studying now in Ukraine in a course of “foreign literature”. Gogol appeared “foreigner” in the homeland because of language which used in creativity and life. Is it not absurdity?

“They never duplicate the Russian movies, simply do the Ukrainian subtitles”, declares the author.

Yes, the movies of the Russian production don't duplicate yet though the Minister of Culture in Tymoshenko’s government Vasyl Vovkun stated also such intention. But demonstration of the foreign-language movies duplicated in the Russian is forbidden officially at movie theaters. It would be possible to hope that with the adoption of the new “language” law a ban will be abolished. However the present Minister of Culture of Ukraine Mikhail Kulinyak still insists: the duplication of movies has to be carried out only on state (that is the Ukrainian) language. It is as for movie theaters.

And on TV channels the Ukrainization of the Russian series went full speed during Victor Yushchenko's presidency. The situation was marasmic: the known Russian actors broadcast from a TV screen by others voice, but in the Ukrainian. Really the priest Dudchenko didn't notice something?

“Never there were the nationalists in power in our country”, read further. And how then to call the same Vasyl Vovkun, Mykola Zhulinsky, Ivan Drach, Zinovy Kulik, Ivan Zayats, Yury Kostenko, Gennady Udovenko, Anatoly Pogribny, Boris Tarasyuk, Maxim Strikha and many many others?

I list only the persons holding the high posts in the government and only of those whom I remembered at once. And how to call the president Victor Yushchenko? And other Ukrainian presidents – Leonid Kravchuk, Leonid Kuchma, partly the present, made and carry out the policy which, using old terminology is possible to call nationalist.

“Never in nearly 20 years of the life in Kiev I hadn't to face the Russian discrimination”, tells the father Dudchenko. Well, so it means he was very lucky. But I faced. I personally had to observe how the people, who have come to reception in regional public administration, were afraid to address to officials in the Russian and expressed in broken Ukrainian, all the time, however, getting off on the native. And as the same officials who were just talking among themselves in the Russian, at emergence of the foreign person in the office amicably passed to the Ukrainian because the administration forbade them to speak Russian.

I personally heard the instruction given to employees of one of the largest Kiev higher education institutions: “If the interlocutor doesn't understand the Ukrainian, pass to English, but by no means to Russian!”.

And I know how the teacher was fired from this University, highly qualified specialist, solely because of age it was hard for him to learn and read lectures in the Ukrainian.

I personally know the case when the teacher put the bad marks to pupils just because they dared to learn Pushkin's “On seashore far a green oak towers...” in the original, but not in the Ukrainian translation. (By the way, this happened in the school, situated in the residential area “Teremki”, the very place where the temple of father Andrey is located).

And so on. I think, many of the residents of Kiev will be able to add this list on the basis of their own experience. The oppression of the Russian language in Kiev and in Ukraine in general is not a myth, as thinks father Dudchenko, but sad reality.

And evidence of this can be found even in his article. The parson assures that “there is no the language problem in Ukraine” that the language issue does not worry the people, that this question was debated only by the politicians, who eager “to raise the rating and collect the votes of the voters” before the elections. But if there are speculations on the issue, so there is a problem itself. If it is possible to earn the political capital on the language issue, to raise the rating, to collect the votes of the electorate, then the question is relevant itself. Now we must proceed from this, speaking about the position of the Russian language in Ukraine.

And the last. The archpriest Andrey Dudchenko serves in the Church, where the liturgy is not in Church Slavonic, but in the Ukrainian language. It seems that he is even proud of it. If I'm not mistaken, this is the only Kiev Orthodox Church, where the Ukrainization process went so far. Gone, in spite of the fact that, in the opinion of the Church, the language of the Church Slavonic suitable for worship is much more than the spoken languages.

In our Ukrainian situation, this language is also a symbol of the unity of the Orthodox people of Ukraine and Russia. To abandon this language seek those who do not accept this unity, who seek to break the Russian Orthodox world on the part, oppose the Ukrainians (Little Russians) to the Great Russians. If the father Dudchenko puts the purpose before himself, then, may be, is the answer to the question in the headline?