Oleksandr Potebnia in the Contexts of Ukrainianness and Sociolinguistics

Abstract

The article is dedicated to illuminating the key themes and most compelling generalizations of the outstanding philosopher of language and dignified bearer of Ukrainian identity of the second half of the 19th century, Oleksandr Potebnia, who, being Ukrainian in spirit and worldview, «could not organically support the natural development of Ukrainian forces – and composed all his works and lectures in a foreign, Russian language,» with the exception of a poetic translation into his native tongue of Homer’s Odyssey. The study argues that language, nationality, nationalism, and denationalization are the defining themes in Professor Potebnia’s understanding of the sociolinguistic reality of the Ukrainian nation of his time, since it is precisely «in language that the entire life of a people is reflected» – language constitutes «the fruit of a thousand years of historical progress and a series of upheavals.» Thus, this inspired lover of wisdom emerges as a singular theorist of Ukrainian linguistic nationalism, despite his decades-long forced practice of writing in Russian. The fundamental postulates of this vigorous nationalism are as follows: 1) the historicity and symbolic nature of the native language, and the unity of its external and internal factors of development; 2) the distinctiveness and independence of the Ukrainian language from other languages, primarily Russian; 3) the functioning of the linguistic sphere in its outward manifestation through the dichotomous framework of «one’s own – foreign,» «conscious – unconscious,» where the consciousness of the general population «is crowned by the national language,» and therefore «without knowledge of the language, all Ukrainian aspirations are built on sand»; 4) the idea of nationhood, rooted in Ukrainian mentality and attributively present in language as «the surest sign by which we recognize a people, and at the same time the sole, irreplaceable, and indisputable condition of its existence»; 5) the dire problem of the denationalization of the Ukrainian world, which, in the thinker’s view, encompasses the defects of national self-awareness, the presence of «entire crowds of apostates» and a «foreign-born school,» an «unconscious fear of the hollowing out of consciousness» and opportunism, «the impoverishment of diverse worldviews and the destruction of psychological and ethnocultural experience,» the «baseness of motives» and the «spiritual serfdom of fathers» who raise children who are «semi-idiots,» and ultimately, the Ukrainians’ incapacity for nation-building. «And now,» this brilliant philosopher and poet of l a n g u a g e concludes, «things have come to the point where the very existence of Ukrainian nationhood has been placed under a question mark…»