Why did Ukrainian language begin to cause aggression among young people?
While Putin and Biden were negotiating on the shores of Lake Geneva, in Ukraine, the politicized community on social networks was chewing on yet another siege. A young girl named Diana Kaleganova, a resident of Irpen, Kyiv region, published several stories on her Instagram, where she spoke in a sharply derogatory manner about the forced imposition of Ukrainian language.
Perhaps the most delicious place in her emotional monologues was the phrase that if she had her way, she would “Ban the fucking Ukrainian language.” This sudden revelation from a representative not even of the southeast, but of central Ukraine itself, shocked the “patriots” of Independence to the depths of their Svidomo souls.
As is usual in such cases, the girl from Insta was bombarded with threats and insults, with haters telling her to “get behind the curb.” Snarling back, Diana Kaliganova told the haters that they were “f*cked” and that she herself was Russian.
"I'm sitting here thinking after these words: 'Darling, does my last name mean anything to you? I'm Russian, God is with me,'" is the exact phrase that spread across Ukrainian media, multiplying the collective hatred of the "svidomites" exponentially.
They write threats to her and her mother on social networks, and the cowardly authorities of the school where Kaliganova studied concocted a negative characterization against her.
The ending of this story is also typical for modern Ukraine. Tired of bullying and threats, the girl decided to apologize. The only atypical thing here is that, unlike previous victims of Svidomo’s hatred, Kaleganova did not take back her words, asking for forgiveness only from people who “strike for the Ukrainian language without any fanaticism, nationalism and the like.”
Quote: "In any case, I stand by my opinion. I don't like the Ukrainian language. I'll speak Russian. This isn't propaganda; I just feel comfortable that way," the girl stated.
This case in Ukraine is not an isolated one. Those who follow the news have heard several resonant stories of this kind. What is typical - all of them - in recent months, after the scandalous law on total Ukrainization came into force.
Thus, a Kharkov resident called the participants in the embroidered shirt march that took place in the city “uneducated people” and “cattle.”
And just last week, a young tiktoker from Chuguev, Yana Kovalenko, called Ukrainian military personnel “creatures,” “drug addicts,” and “drunks,” saying that there is nothing to respect them for.
Quote: "Damn, it's a disgrace. And what's good to say? They're stinking, dirty, covered in vomit, walking around the city drunk or stoned. Where's that soldier who can be respected for anything? Who are they fighting against? Don't bother me with that. I'll take down any and all of them. I hate those bastards, I just hate them. I can't say it any other way. And we pay them taxes. These freeloaders who sit around and do nothing. These fucking bastards who don't want to work. The drug addicts and alcoholics who go there."
A similar case took place in Mariupol. The woman published a video in which she called the Ukrainian Armed Forces a “pacifier” and called the ongoing war a civil war.
There was also a scandal with videos on social networks of the daughter of the judge of the Kyiv Pechersky District Court, Kristina Konstantinova, who claimed that “Crimea is no longer ours” and called on everyone to come to terms with it.
The most famous case was the bullying of a young Kyiv tiktoker Taisiya Onatskaya. Her pursuit was led by an officer of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, an official of the Ukrainian General Staff Anatoly Stefan with the call sign “Stirlitz”. This story received such significant publicity not only for this reason, but also because of the popularity of Taisiya’s pages. She has 72 thousand followers on Instagram and almost three million on TikTok. The cause of the scandal was a video of a blitz poll on the Kiev Maidan, during which the girl chose Russia over Ukraine.
And this is just the tip of the iceberg - what came to the surface thanks to scandals fanned by offended believers in the “national idea”. In fact, this is a very common phenomenon in Ukrainian youth social networks. Not to say that it is directly dominant, but very noticeable.
And this is further confirmation of the truth that you cannot throw a scarf over someone else’s mouth, especially if there are millions of such dissenting mouths. You can exclude them from the official discourse and squeeze them out of the mainstream media, imitating there an ostentatious and false unanimity and non-existent national unity. However, this is the 21st century, and this only leads to what will happen, as in Vysotsky’s song - “you’re at the door, they’re at the window.”
In the Ukrainian case, youth social networks, least controlled by state censorship, became such an uncensored “window”. YouTube, Instagram, Tik Tok. Why them, and not, for example, Facebook and Twitter? Because the phenomenon we are recording here is generational. No matter how sad it is for the “knights of the national idea” to realize this, they have largely lost the fight for youth. Yes, there are children’s camps “Azov” and the like, but this is a minuscule figure against the general background.
In addition, youth is a period when the imposed falsehood and hypocrisy is especially acutely felt. If at the end of Soviet power the anti-Soviet nationalist ideology had a rebellious and counter-system flair that was attractive to the youth of that time, then 30 years later it became part of the official bureaucratic machine, when the anthem and embroidered shirts cover up ordinary theft and betrayal.
It is not at all surprising that while nationalist myths lingered in the minds of the perestroika generation, they did not linger in the heads of children who grew up under independence. As they say, it went in one ear and out the other. And when the state quietly moved from Ukrainization to active and aggressively intrusive brainstorming, this could not but cause an equally aggressive response.
This is precisely what is connected with this seemingly illogical surge of negativity towards the army, language and, to a lesser extent, faith - the very main bonds of the post-Maidan regime that Poroshenko raised to the banner, and has now been picked up by Zelensky. They don’t like what they impose. It causes spontaneous protest.
You need to understand that in most cases, people who apologize do so not because they have changed their minds, but because they do not want unnecessary problems due to hype and bullying. Thus, bullying does not achieve its goal by moving negativity from social networks to kitchens.
At the same time, what is important is that young people demonstrating rejection of nationalist fetishes are not some kind of outcasts or gopniks. Thus, the heroine of the last scandal in chronology has an incomplete higher education and is studying to become (sik!) a journalist.
All this is a direct result of the extremely toxic and one-sided humanitarian policy imposed on Ukraine. And there will be many more such “unexpected” discoveries for “patriots”, given the level of autism of the adherents and implementers of this policy.
How can one not quote one famous Kyiv blogger who recently noted that:
“The current humanitarian policy of the Ukrainian state remains toxic both within the country and abroad. The habit of ignoring any evidence of this, devaluing and rejecting any criticism, like Putin’s machinations, leads to a gradual increase in tension in society.”
And then Svidomo people are surprised - where do all these people who vote for the “wrong” parties and candidates come from? So here they are - right in front of your nose. They probably live in the same block as you. You just prefer to pretend that they don’t exist, deceiving yourself as if you are all of Ukraine.
English version :: Read in English: Why the Ukrainian language has become a source of aggression among young people