Posted on 09/12/2019 4:30:08 AM PDT by Cronos
IZHEVSK, Russia -- A 79-year-old man who lit himself on fire protesting against Russia's language policies in the capital of the Volga region of Udmurtia has died.
Media reports quoted medical personnel of a hospital in the city of Izhevsk as saying that the man was pronounced dead hours after hospitalization on September 10.
The man, named Albert Razin, was holding two signs reading "If my language dies tomorrow, then I'm ready to die today" and "Do I have a Fatherland?"
He was said to be in critical condition, with burns to nearly 100 percent of his body.
The Investigative Committee has launched an investigation, while the Udmurt State Council postponed its session following the incident, reports said.
The Udmurt State Council postponed its session following the incident, reports said.
Razin, a doctor in philosophy and an Udmurt activist, was among a group of local experts who had signed an open letter calling on the Udmurt parliament not to support the bill on the teaching of "native languages" in schools that has angered representatives of many of the country's ethnic minorities.
The bill, approved by Russias lower house of parliament, the State Duma, last year, canceled the mandatory teaching of indigenous languages in Russia's so-called ethnic regions and republics, where there is a relatively high proportion of non-Russian ethnic groups.
Responding to complaints from ethnic Russians living in these regions, President Vladimir Putin said in 2017 that children should not be compelled to study languages that are not their mother tongues.
The bill is considered in Russia's so-called ethnic regions, including Udmurtia, as an existential threat.
The Udmurt language is of the Uralic stem, which also includes Finno-Ugric languages. The number of people who speak the language has decreased from 463,000 in 2002 to 324,000 in 2010.
There are some 560,000 ethnic Udmurts living in Russia's Volga region, Kazakhstan, and Estonia. The Udmurt community represents some 560,000 people living mostly in the Volga region, Kazakhstan, and Estonia.
They are NOT Indo-European i.e. the colloqual 'aryan' -
How do you say...”Yuri made such a cheery fire” in Russian?
LOL! OK.
Amazing how one can wade through Russian when converted to English/Latin alphabet.
Izhevsk, home of the Ishevsk arsenal and producer of the mosin-Nagant and all AK variants. Current home of the Kalashnikov concern.
CC
I just have ONE question... to the guy that lit himself up...
Was Blue Oyster Cult’s “I’m Burning For You” playing in the background????
I needs ta knows...
In the first place, we should insist that if the immigrant who comes here in good faith becomes an American and assimilates himself to us, he shall be treated on an exact equality with everyone else, for it is an outrage to discriminate against any such man because of creed, or birthplace, or origin. But this is predicated upon the persons becoming in every facet an American, and nothing but an American There can be no divided allegiance here. Any man who says he is an American, but something else also, isnt an American at all. We have room for but one flag, the American flag We have room for but one language here, and that is the English language and we have room for but one sole loyalty and that is a loyalty to the American people.
Theodore Roosevelt 1907
I don’t think it the same.
The people of Udmurtia have lived there for millenia - before Russian had even evolved out of Ruskie.
I don’t speak or read Russian, but I know another Slavic language and Russian is easier. It’s also a soft language.
Compared to English it is in a way easier because how you write is how you speak it.
I dont see too many Mohican speaks around here.
Guess he’s got no more to say about it
Andrew Dice Clay stated it a little more succinctly.
A beautiful ancient people. The Udmurts simply need to be left alone.
Russia seeks to assimilate them.
This really burns some people up!
They didn’t call the USSR the prison of nations for nothing. These nationality issues are all over Russia. When Moscow took a special status away from the Tatarstan region a few year ago there was a big hubbub, too.
True.
That’ll show ‘em. /s
his last words were probably, hey what are you all laughing about, I burn you next.
Nice find ! There’s a number of linguistic disputes that go on unreported in Russia. When I first saw this I thought is was about the Volga Deutch. There’s still a piece of Finland which the Tzar seized where these folks live,
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