LAST NATIVE-LANGUAGE LYCEUM CLOSES IN MINSK.

Students of the Humanistic Lyceum and their parents staged pickets in downtown Minsk yesterday to protest against the school’s imminent liquidation. This lyceum is the last middle school that provides a complete education in the Belarusan language in the capital of Belarus. The authorities are now enforcing an earlier decision to merge the lyceum with a Russian-language one. The parents and students distributed a leaflet describing the measure as one of “ethnic discrimination and an attack on the national language.” (Russian agencies, Monitor interviews, July 16 and 17).

The measure forms part of the Lukashenka regime’s policy of linguistic re-russification, reversing the modest gains achieved by the native language and culture after 1991. This policy has recently been accompanied by an official revival of pan-Slavic rhetoric. Now as in the past, one of the functions of such rhetoric is to disguise the reality of russification promoted from above.

COMPROMISE EMERGING IN UKRAINIAN COAL STRIKE.