KKUkraine’s turbulent history, with its recurring Russian interventions, is also reflected in its language. Ukrainian linguist Olena Synchak is investigating how this is expressed in the use of feminine terms. She is supported by means of a highly competitive MSCA4Ukraine Postdoctoral Fellowship awarded by the European Commission. In our interview, she talks about the changes in her language – and how these are also reflected in touching stories told by Ukrainian women.
How does Ukrainian deal with gender-inclusive language? Do you talk about female teachers and male teachers, or do you just mention teachers, meaning female teachers as well as their male colleagues?
There are regional differences here. My background is in western Ukraine, where there was less Russian influence than in other parts of the country. For me, using the feminine form alongside the masculine form has always been natural. But when I speak to people in central or eastern Ukraine, they tend to have a different perception of feminine terms and masculine generics overall. In my research, I would like to examine: What is the reason for this difference? What influence do multicultural contexts have, which are stronger in the west, and what influence does Soviet language policy have?
What is your approach?
I am currently conducting interviews mainly with older women in two cities. One city is L’viv in western Ukraine, near where I grew up and where I also studied. L’viv is a city that has been shaped by the influence of many different cultures: As Lemberg, it was part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, with large Polish, Jewish and Ukrainian communities living side by side, as they still do today. Simultaneously, I am also conducting research in Munich. Before and during the Second World War, many Ukrainians from western Ukraine moved to Munich. They established a strong community there – including churches, Saturday schools and even Ukrainian Free University – and supported one another. These people have preserved the pre-Soviet Ukrainian language, which they brought with them to Munich 80 years ago, more vigorously than anywhere else. After World War II, most Ukrainian refugees in Munich were women whose husbands had died on the frontlines or had been persecuted under Soviet rule. They managed to establish women’s organizations in Munich to support Ukrainian refugees. I’m currently researching the archives of these organizations from the 1940s and 1950s, and I’m absolutely amazed by both their activism and the language they used. During Soviet times, the Ukrainian language in Ukraine underwent heavy influence from the Russian standard, so these documents preserve valuable traces of pre-Soviet Ukrainian.
How remote is the Russian language from Ukrainian?
Ukrainian and Russian language standards originated in very different ways. Broadly speaking, we can say that Ukrainian evolved historically from the spoken language, while Russian is rooted more in the written language. There are studies that show that Ukrainian is closer to Belarusian, Polish, Slovak and Czech than to Russian. I feel that Ukrainian could have developed quite differently if there had been less ideological intervention during Soviet times.
How has Ukraine generally dealt with the influence of the Russian language in the past and how does it deal with it now?
During the Soviet era, severe repression was imposed on the Ukrainian language. For example, there were long lists of words that were banned. Public authorities and the media received these lists with instructions to refrain from using the words. After Ukraine gained independence in 1991, a movement emerged to restore words that had been banned during the Soviet era. However, there is still no clear evidence that feminine terms were among those banned. This is something I’m trying to uncover in my research. Today, we are witnessing a powerful movement towards de-russification and decolonisation: for example, we are changing the names of squares and streets. In a sense, this is also a symbolic way of defending Ukraine’s own understanding of its history, language, and culture.
How are the feminine forms affected by this?
We are currently experiencing a surge in interest in gender-inclusive language in Ukraine. Mostly, the media and human rights sector use both masculine and feminine forms. Our president frequently acknowledges both women and men, including female and male soldiers. The use of the feminine form is also evident in the name of our national holiday — the Day of Defenders of Ukraine, which explicitly includes both genders. This also represents a reality: there are increasingly more women on the front line.
Is there also criticism?
Yes, of course, some say that the use of these feminine forms goes against the logic of the Ukrainian language. However, in my research I have come across evidence that shows that the feminine aspect of our language is not new, but has a long tradition that was merely interrupted.
How is the feminine form made visible in Ukrainian? With a suffix, as is often the case in German?
Yes, we also use suffixes. However, we do not have one suffix as in German, but instead we have about twenty of them. For both speakers and writers of Ukrainian, it is not always straightforward to decide which form to use. Particularly when new terms emerge, it is a matter of negotiation. When it comes to job titles, there has been ongoing debate about whether changing the noun could lead to female doctors, for example, being perceived as less professional than their male counterparts. So, we are having a lot of discussion around this issue.
How can you create clarity in this respect?
I have always seen myself as an applied linguist. I really enjoy the opportunity to put fascinating theory into practice in real life and see how solutions work. When I encountered gender studies during my academic career, I incorporated much of my knowledge into my rhetoric and academic writing courses. And then I realised: I’m constantly being asked how to create the feminine form in specific cases. People wrote to me via all kinds of channels. Then I thought to myself: I’m not a dictionary. (laughs) But I should make one. So, I created an electronic dictionary with around 2,000 terms, the first dictionary of feminine terms in Ukrainian, published in 2022 on the r2u.org.ua platform.
When you interview people, you also get to hear many stories. What do you learn from these stories?
The lives of these people are closely linked to their language. Political and ideological influences are reflected in the way these people speak. In Munich, for example, we can see the changes that have taken place over generations, where German has also had an effect on their language. I am also impressed by how the Ukrainian community in Munich – then and now – is organised and supports one another strongly. And how they’ve managed to preserve their language for 80 years in the diaspora, passing it on to their children and grandchildren.
In L’viv, I was particularly struck by conversations with people whose families had been deported to Siberia during the Stalin’s rule because of their pro-Ukrainian stance. It was not uncommon for families to be torn apart in exile, with children taken away from their mothers and raised in a Russian-speaking environment. . We still see similar practices today. When Stalin died, these children returned to Ukraine, where they had a tough time because they spoke Russian. At the same time, as children of so-called “enemies of the people,” they were not allowed to join the Young Pioneers. Today, they speak perfect Ukrainian, but they still sprinkle their speech with Russian words or idioms. These cases show how brutal Stalin’s repressive policies were toward Ukrainians with pro-Ukrainian views, as children from such families frequently were forced to adopt the Russian language. The speech of those who experienced this in childhood still carries traces of that linguistic trauma even in old age.
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Zur Person
Olena Synchak is an MSCA4Ukraine Postdoctoral Fellow (Marie Skłodowska Curie Actions for Ukraine, EU Horizon Europe) at the Department of Slavic Studies at the University of Klagenfurt, working on the project ‘L’viv and Munich in the 20th Century: Ukrainian Feminisation Practices in Multilingual Contexts with a Focus on Language Change’. Her mentor is Ursula Doleschal. The project runs from July 2025 to June 2027. MSCA4Ukraine was funded by the Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions, it is the European Commission’s dedicated scheme to support displaced researchers from Ukraine, enabling them to continue their work safely in Europe. In 2024, there were 500 applications from all fields of science for 50 available places. Olena Synchak studied linguistics, cultural studies and gender studies in L’viv, where she also completed her doctorate. In addition to her research work in Klagenfurt, she teaches Ukrainian academic writing as an associate professor at the Ukrainian Catholic University in L’viv.
Der Beitrag The feminine terms in the Ukrainian language: Olena Synchak searches for historical and political clues in MSCA4Ukraine project erschien zuerst auf University of Klagenfurt.