Odessa's attitude toward the Ukrainian language has changed over the past 10 years

On September 11, a meeting titled “One Language 2.0” was held in Odesa to mark the 10th anniversary of the Ukrainian conversation club. Participants discussed changes in the city’s language environment and their own experiences transitioning to Ukrainian.

The meeting took place at the M. S. Hrushevsky Library in Odesa. A photojournalist from Intent attended the event.

The Ukrainian conversation club at the library began about ten years ago, following the creation of the sociocultural activities department. One of its main initiatives was the “Ukrainian-Speaking Odesa” project.

The club was created as a place where anyone interested could regularly communicate in Ukrainian, practice the language, and gradually overcome the fear of speaking it in everyday life.

<picture></picture>PHOTO: Intent

During the meeting, participants discussed how attitudes toward the Ukrainian language in Odesa have changed over the past ten years. They also discussed its presence in public spaces, the language choices of city residents, and the changes taking place in society.

Yaroslava Vitko-Prysyazhnyuk —representative of the Commissioner for the Protection of the State Language for 2022–2025 and a member of the Odesa Regional Council—joined the conversation.

“Today we’ve gathered to talk about something timeless—to talk about language. And why now? Because almost 10 years ago, after the Hrushevsky Library’s Department of Sociocultural Activities began operating, we launched the ‘Odesa Ukraine: Ukrainian-Speaking’ project,” she said.

According to her, before the meeting, she reviewed archival photographs and documents, as well as sociological data and legislation pertaining to the language situation at that time.

<picture></picture>Yaroslava Vitko-Prysyazhnyuk. PHOTO: Intent

“And, to be honest, I took stock of the situation for myself and realized that a great deal has been accomplished. Because what we had just 10 years ago—and 10 years is not a long time to bring about a change in worldview or any fundamental sociological changes—is very little,” she noted.

During this time, as Vitko-Prysyazhnyuk emphasized, attitudes toward the Ukrainian language in Odesa and Ukraine as a whole have changed significantly.

“We can say that we’ve fundamentally turned the situation around, because we’ve completely changed attitudes toward the Ukrainian language in Odesa and Ukraine as a whole. And we have at least begun—though some might even say we’ve shattered—the stereotype that there’s no place for the Ukrainian language in Odesa. There is a place,” she said.

Among the meeting participants was Viktoria Nahulyak, who has been attending the club since its very first day.

“I understood Ukrainian because I’d studied it all along, but speaking it—well, that was another story. Two words, three words,” Nagulyak explained.

According to her, she has continued to attend the club and read Ukrainian books for ten years.

“I read everything in Ukrainian, one after another. Take the last book I read by Bagryanova, *Sadyga Tsimansky*—I can’t sleep, I can’t eat, I can’t do anything,” she shared.

Ірина Глухова