OPINION: Russians Hear Polish Language in Kursk Region Once Again – Or Do They?

“They are Poles, Polish mercenaries - we were told by a soldier who told us to leave our village,” say two Russian women living in the Kursk region in a popular YouTube video posted by the OSW Center for Eastern Studies:

Were they really Poles? Of course not. Russian propaganda has accustomed its people to accept baseless accusations that Russia is fighting against the collective West, and that Polish and English are the main languages heard on the front lines.

However, this isn't the only reason why these two mentioned women claim that Polish citizens are behind this spectacular operation on Russian territory.

The problem lies in Russians not understanding their neighbors’ languages which with at times their response to hearing it taking on a caricature-like form. Many Russians who don’t understand what’s being said in Ukrainian often assume it's Polish when they hear it.

In turn, because Ukrainian’s speaking Russian have a different accent and pronunciation from standard Russian, they think the person is speaking Ukrainian. This is likely why Russians so frequently “hear” the Polish language on the front line.

This perception starkly contrasts with the long-standing Russian propaganda line that frames both Ukrainians and Belarusians as part of the “Russian family.” While 80 years of Sovietization and Russification Russia indeed had significant cultural influence on both of these countries, the differences between the three nations are still substantial.

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The fact that the vast majority of Belarusians and many Ukrainians also speak Russian doesn't change this reality. Russian simply became the widely used language because of history. A similar analogy can be drawn elsewhere. Not everyone who speaks English natively is British – Americans and Canadians are not.

The Ukrainian language, like Belarusian, shares more in common with West Slavic languages, particularly Polish and Slovak, aside from the alphabet. A Polish speaker who doesn't know Ukrainian can understand the general meaning of a clearly spoken Ukrainian sentence, while a Russian might not.

The linguistic similarities and differences with Russian are symbolically highlighted by the sign at the Ukrainian-Belarusian border that heads this article. It displays four words: "red," "step," "betrayal," and "neighbor," in Ukrainian, Polish, Belarusian, and Russian. In the first three languages, these words sound very similar, but in Russian, they sound completely different. The only exception is the word "neighbor," which, for obvious reasons, has been replaced with "enemy" under the Russian flag.

Russian myths

Ukraine was part of the Soviet Union, Russian influence was strong, and both languages are written in Cyrillic, though in different versions. This, along with years of Russian propaganda, has led some in the Western public to believe that the war we are witnessing is indeed a “family quarrel.”

At the same time, Ukrainian culture was developed by the presence of many national and ethnic minorities in the country, and the rich heritage of the multi-ethnic Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, whose significant influence on the Ukrainian, Polish, Lithuanian, Belarusian, and other nations, is often overlooked.

Ukrainian institutions, such as the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine and the Potebnia Institute of Linguistics, in their studies of the Ukrainian language, have concluded that Ukrainian is closer to Belarusian than to Russian.

Lexically, it is also closer to the aforementioned West Slavic languages, particularly Polish. One could say that it's not only language that connects the nations of Central and Eastern Europe, but also culture, history and values. This connection is especially evident now, during Ukraine's heroic defense against Russian aggression.

The words of the Russian women speaking in the Kursk region about the supposed presence of Poles clearly exposes the falsehood of the Russian narrative. It also highlights the arrogance and ignorance of the Russians, who have come to believe in their own myth about the so-called “Russkiy Mir” family.

The views expressed in this opinion article are the author’s and not necessarily those of Kyiv Post.