#chuvashia
Censored in Russian, anti-war activists turn to indigenous languages
When the artist Polina Osipova saw photos of civilian bodies strewn across the street in the Ukrainian village of Bucha, she found she had no Russian words left to describe the atrocity. Instead, she sat and wrote an anti-war message in her mother tongue: Chuvash.
“At the beginning of the war, I asked other Chuvash people: should we die for the insane ideas of people who have been destroying our own culture for centuries?” says Osipova. “It’s important to have anti-war slogans in indigenous languages, but any education on people’s culture and roots is anti-war in essence, because it’s a fight against imperialism.”
Ahn agrees. “People are surprised at what is happening in Ukraine now. This, unfortunately, does not surprise me at all, because since childhood I know how white Russians treat those who do not look like them, who speak a different language, who grew up in a different culture.”
For now, activists hope that the Russian government’s dismissive attitudes towards ethnic minorities will work in their favour as they try to avoid repression.
