Russian language in post–soviet Russia

Abstract

Russian language is not static, just like any other human language. In response to social events and past political happenings, Russian  language has undergone several changes in its grammar, morpho-phonology, stylistics and social usage. In view of this, this paper  compares two eras (the Soviet era and the post-Soviet era) and tries to relate the events in those two eras to the changes in Russian  language. In variance from similar researches on this subject-matter, the paper adopts a multi-disciplinary approach by focusing on the  history and politics of Russia language usage and change in post-soviet era. After an in-depth analysis, the paper finds out that Russian language in post-Soviet Russia is still evolving and changing in response to 1991 Soviet collapse, the hegemonic influence of Western  culture after the end of the bipolar world, and the effects of globalisation (or Americanisation). The paper concludes that the linguistic  changes in PostSoviet Russian can be seen in two folds: de-Sovietisation of the Russian language and the Westernisation of Russian  language. A comparison of the two shows that westernisation has effected more changes in Russian language than de-sovietisation.