MOSCOW — The chairman of the Ukrainian Parliament resigned Wednesday after refusing to sign a contentious bill that would allow local and regional governments to grant official status to Russian and other languages, while hundreds of opponents of the measure clashed violently with riot police officers in Kiev, the capital.Read the rest here.
The chairman, Volodymyr M. Lytvyn, said Parliament acted illegitimately in adopting the bill, and tendering his resignation temporarily blocks it from reaching President Viktor F. Yanukovich, who could sign it into law.
Lawmakers from Mr. Yanukovich’s Party of Regions, which holds the majority, pushed the bill through in such a surprise maneuver that Mr. Lytvyn was not even present for the vote.
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This story shows the other side of the confessional and linguistic divide in Ukraine. We're used to hearing of the poor West Ukrainians (mostly Greek Catholics and the autocephalists) being religiously oppressed by the Russophones (ethnic Russians and Russian-speaking Ukrainians). What we rarely hear about is the fact that, since the 1990's, the powerful West Ukrainian / "Orange" establishment has been busy trying to force Eastern and Southern Ukraine into becoming mere extensions of West Ukrainian religious, linguistic and cultural preferences.
This should be remembered whenever we read about the religious divisions in Ukraine and about the (to Western audiences, puzzling) strength of Russophile politics and tendencies in Ukraine.
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