Overview

This book explores language conflicts in Soviet successor states: Ukraine, the Russian North Caucasus, Georgia, and the Baltics. Current violent developments in these multiethnic countries with their shared legacies of Russian domination highlight the intertwining of language with conflict and war, reflecting confrontation and challenges to peace. It is shown how core values attached to language in identity formation and feelings of belonging or marginalization, along with attitudes to language use by the in-group in contrast to others, are easily subject to politicization. Forced migration, language erasure and shift, central in today’s post-Soviet conflicts, are also experienced by minorities in the Russian North Caucasus—such as the Circassians—based on their history of Russian colonization. The book will be of interest to readers in a wide range of fields, including sociolinguistics, language policy, and language contact, as well as identity politics, migration linguistics, state and nation building, area studies, post-Soviet and European studies, political science, international relations, and peace and conflict studies. 

Full Product Details

Author:   Karina Vamling ,  Nadiya Kiss ,  Bo Petersson ,  Liudmyla Pidkuimukha
Publisher:   Springer Nature Switzerland AG
Imprint:   Palgrave Macmillan
ISBN:  

9783032084187

ISBN 10:   3032084180
Pages:   332
Publication Date:   15 February 2026
Audience:   General/trade ,  General
Format:   Hardback
Publisher's Status:   Forthcoming
Availability:   Not yet available  
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Table of Contents

1 Karina Vamling, Bo Petersson and Nadiya Kiss: Introduction.- 2 Liudmyla Pidkuimukha: Weaponizing Language: How Russia Commits Linguicide on the Occupied Territories of Ukraine.- 3 Nadiya Kiss: Languages at war: Language shift, contested language diversity and ambivalent enmity in Ukraine.- 4 Svetlana L’nyavsky: “I am a Russian Ukrainian, but I will not learn Ukrainian just for you!” Language ideological debates, linguistic vigilantism, and Internally Displaced People at the time of war.- 5 Andrey Makarychev: Estonian Russophones: A Biopolitical Story.- 6 Lena Herceberga: Today’s ambivalence or someone’s future hopes: Critical analysis of the discourse of a “good” young Russian speaker in Latvia.- 7 Lidia Zhigunova: Russia’s War on Indigenous Languages: The Case of Circassian in theNorth Caucasus.- 8 Valeriya Minakova: “It all starts in the family”: Placing discourses on the role of families in Circassian language preservation into a historical-political context.- 9 Lars Funch Hansen: The marginalisation of Circassian language through local history teaching, with cases from Krasnodar Krai including the Black Sea coast.- 10 Mariam Manjgaladze: Issues of the Official Language Ecology in Contemporary Georgia.- 11 Tinatin Bolkvadze: How to assess the functioning of the Russian language in Georgia.- 12 Giorgi Alibegashvili and Maka Tetradze: Georgian on the Streets – as a Reflection of the functioning of the State language in Georgia.- 13 Karina Vamling, Bo Petersson and Nadiya Kiss: Conclusion.

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Author Information

Karina Vamling is a Professor emerita of Caucasus Studies at Malmö University, Sweden, specializing in Caucasian languages and linguistics, language policy, and ethnic minorities. She is a co-founder of the research center Russia, Ukraine and the Caucasus Regional Research (RUCARR). Nadiya Kiss is a Gerda Henkel Fellow at the Department of History of Science, University of Erfurt, Germany. Her research interests include sociolinguistics, migration linguistics, and higher education research.  Bo Petersson is Professor of Political Science at Malmö University, Sweden, where he heads the research center Russia, Ukraine and the Caucasus Regional Research (RUCARR). He specializes in Russian and post-Soviet politics, particularly legitimation of authoritarian political systems, and political myth. Liudmyla Pidkuimukha is a Postdoctoral Researcher in the Department of Slavic Languages and Literatures at  Justus Liebig University Giessen, Germany. Research interests include language ideology, language policy and language planning, and anthropological linguistics.

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