This month, the Modern and Medieval Languages and Linguistics Faculty Library and the UL received their copies of the 2023 book Mova-mech : i︠a︡k hovoryla radi︠a︡nsʹka imperii︠a︡ [Language-sword : how the Soviet empire spoke] by I︠E︡vhenii︠a︡ Kuzni︠e︡t︠s︡ova.  The book had been requested by the Language Teaching Officer in Ukrainian at the Faculty, and the libraries had agreed to buy a copy each.

The 374-page book contains 87 short chapters covering the history and various aspects of Soviet language policy and its effect, including on Ukraine and Ukrainian.  The book’s table of contents can currently be seen as snapshots on the publisher’s page for the title.  Here are the Library of Congress subject headings we used in the catalogue record, linked to take you straight to an advanced search in iDiscover for each heading.  Note that the last two are headings which are not subdivided geographically, hence looking very general but still useful to have in the record.

Leafing through Mova-mech‘s chapter-by-chapter lists of bibliographical references at the end of the book, I noticed certain titles which we have got in Cambridge appeared time and again.

• Language and power in the creation of the USSR, 1917-1953 / by Michael G. Smith. (1998, reprint 2012)
• 150 i︠a︡zykov i politika, 1917-1997 : sot︠s︡iolingvisticheskie problemy SSSR i postsovetskogo prostranstva / V.M. Alpatov. (1997)
• Politics and the theory of language in the USSR, 1917-1938 : the birth of sociological linguistics / edited by Craig Brandist and Katya Chown. (editions from 2010s)
• Mova radi︠a︡nsʹkoho totalitaryzmu / Larysa Masenko. (2017)

We’ve got several titles on the issue of language and identity in Ukraine by Masenko:

• Surz︠h︡yk : miz︠h︡ movoi︠u︡ i i︠a︡zykom (2011)
• Konflikt mov ta identychnosteĭ u postradi︠a︡nsʹkiĭ Ukraïni (2020)
• Ukraïnsʹka mova u XX storichchi : istorii︠a︡ linhvot︠s︡ydu : dokumenty i materialy (as editor, 2005)

It’s always a very gratifying feeling when we can satisfy book requests, and hopefully the copies in MMLL and the UL will see good use by researchers and students alike.

Mel Bach