How Did It All Begin? “Linguistic Colonization” in Ukraine

How Did It All Begin? On the History of the “Linguistic Colonization” of Russian-Ruled Ukraine

Andriy Danylenko, a Professor of Linguistics at Pace University in New York, will give a lecture – on 23 March 2026 – on the vagaries of linguistic “colonization” of Russian-ruled Ukraine from the mid-17th century to 1914. Sponsored by the EDDA Research Center and the Ukrainian Project at the University of Iceland, the event will start at 12:00 and take place in Auðarsalur in Veröld – House of Vigdís at the University of Iceland.

In his lecture, Danylenko will discuss  the major stages in the implementation of the Russia’s colonial policies, starting with the first bans on book printing in Church Slavonic of the Ukrainian recension via decrees and edicts issued by Peter I together with the Holy Synod to the punitive measures taken by the tsarist regime against new literary Ukrainian in the second half of the 19th century. Three “Ukrainian languages” (Church Slavonic of the Ukrainian recension, Ruthenian and new literary Ukrainian) were consecutively exposed to various forms of colonial management by the tsarist administration. The argument will be made that Russia’s rulers had special reasons for treating Ukraine more severely than other non-Russian colonial territories, resulting in a constant, consistent, and long-lasting policy aimed at the linguistic “colonization” in  Ukraine.

Andriy Danylenko is Professor of Russian and Slavic Linguistics in the Department of Modern Languages and Cultures at Pace University, New York, and a Distinguished Professor at the National University of “Kyiv-Mohyla Academy” in Kyiv. He holds a Ph.D. in Comparative-Historical, Typological and Contrastive Linguistics from the Moscow Peoples’ Friendship University. He is the author and editor of dozens of books on Slavic linguistics and philology as well as many studies on a wide array of topics ranging from Indo-European and Semitic Studies to areal typology and Ukrainian linguistics. He is General Editor of the series, Studies in Slavic, Baltic, and Eastern European Languages and Cultures (Bloomsbury). Prof. Danylenko is a 2026 Fulbright scholar based at the University of Warsaw.

The event will be held in English and is open to everyone.