The status of Ukrainian as the sole state language of Ukraine has been challenged by various post-Soviet political forces since it was established in 1989 and enshrined in the Constitution in 1996. Since President Viktor Yanukovych came to power in February 2010, the President and the Party of Regions have put forward several initiatives to promote the Russian language at the expense of Ukrainian as well as the minority languages of Ukraine. Paradoxically, their most important instrument has been the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. However, the Russian language in Ukraine does not meet the criteria of a regional or minority language according to the Charter nor do those politicians who struggle for the "rights of the native Russian language" in the name of Russkiy mir represent the democratic values upon which the Charter is built, as perfectly reflected by the history of the unconstitutional language law of 2012.
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Preface Introduction 1. Loyalty toward the small large language2. The European Charter of Regional or Minority Languages in Ukraine3. Viktor Yanukovych and the Ukrainian language4. The Russian World and the "compatriots"5. The hawk in Ukrainian language policy: Vadym Kolesnichenko6. Dmytro Tabachnyk and the Ukrainian language in the educational sphere7. Olena Bondarenko and the Ukrainian language in the electronic media8. The draft law of 7 September 20109. Anticipating the law: Serhiy Kivalov, the Constitutional Court, and the Ukrainian language in the courts of law10. Vadym Kolesnichenko's and Serhiy Kivalov's draft law "On Principles of the State Language Policy"11. Summary and outlookBibliography
