Philosophically Speaking: Annals of the International Philosophy Grou Philosophical-Annals-I-2016 | Page 55

Derrida, Kabbalah, Talmud and the Post-Modernism Politics
became a protectorate of the Russian Empire. Control of Poland was central to Catherine the
Great's diplomatic and military strategies. 158
The Russification was implemented in Finland, 159 but in Lithuania, the Governor General,
Mikhail Muravyov, prohibited the public use of spoken Polish and Lithuan ian and closed
Polish and Lithuanian schools; teachers from other parts of Russia who did not speak these
languages were moved in to teach pupils. Muravyov also banned the use of Latin and Gothic
scripts in publishing. He was reported saying, What the Russian bayonet didn't accomplish,
the Russian school will, (что не додѣлалъ русскій штыкъ – додѣлаетъ русская школа).
This ban, which was only lifted in 1904, was disregarded by the Knygnešiai, the Lithuanian
book smugglers, who brought Lithuanian publications printed in the Latin alphabet, the
historic orthography of the Lithuanian language, from Lithuania Minor, a part of East Prussia,
and from the United States into the Lithuanian-speaking areas of Imperial Russia. 160 The same
policy was implemented by the Soviets. 161 Today the conflict between Russia, the west and
Ukraine, is not just Russian Imperialism, but the Russification is a form of cultural
assimilation process during which non-Russian communities, voluntarily or not, give up their
culture and language in favour of the Russian cultural identity. Historical 1720 Tsar Peter I of
Russia issued a decree in which he ordered the expurgation of all Ukrainian linguistic
elements in theological literature printed in Ukrainian typographical establishments. 162 Later
Empress Catherine II of Russia issued a secret order to Count Aleksandr Alekseyevich
Vyazemsky (the Prosecutor General of the Russian Empire from 1764 to 1792) in which she
158
Russia's Rise as a European Power, 1650–1750, Jeremy Black, History Today, Vol. 36 Issue: 8, August 1986
Alenius, Kari. "Russification in Estonia and Finland Before 1917,"Faravid, 2004, Vol. 28, pp 181–194
160
Kevin O'Connor, The History of the Baltic States, Greenwood Press pp-58
161
Vernon V. Aspaturian, 1968. The Non-Russian Peoples," in Allen Kassof, Ed., Prospects for Soviet Society
(New York: Praeger): 143–198. Aspaturian also distinguished both Russianization and Russification from
Sovietization, the process of spreading Soviet institutions and the Soviet socialist restructuring of social and
economic relations in accordance with the ruling Communist Party's vision
162
Бандурка О. М. 350 років мого життя. Харків, 2001
159
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