Conversion of Schools to the Metropole's Language

After the return of the Chechens from exile the coloniser switched all the schools of the republic to Russian from the first grade, reduced the Chechen language to a few lessons a week and in the schools of Grozny did not teach it at all. The law of the RSFSR of 16 April 1959 declared that "instruction at school is conducted in the pupils' native language" and left the choice of language to parents, but after the return from exile the coloniser opened no schools with Chechen as the language of instruction, so there was nothing to choose from^[1]. Sociolinguist Musa Ovkhadov writes: "After the restoration of the autonomy of Chechen-Ingushetia Russian became the language of instruction in the schools of the republic from grade 1"; "In the schools of the capital of the republic, the city of Grozny, until the end of the 1980s the Chechen language was not taught (in 1989 121 thousand Chechens lived in Grozny out of its population of 400 thousand)"^[2]. Educationalist Isita Muskhanova writes: "teaching in all the schools of Chechen-Ingushetia was conducted in Russian from the first to the last year of study, while the study of the native language and native literature was allotted only a few hours a week"; the republican newspapers of the first half of the 1960s wrote that to return to the national school "would mean taking a step backwards"^[3]. Philologist Zulay Khamidova, who spent nine years fighting for Chechen lessons in city schools, recalls: "In kindergartens the language of upbringing was Russian, and if a child knew only the native language, he was punished and required to speak only Russian"; after her efforts the Chechen and Ingush languages were introduced in city schools "as a subject, 1 hour a week, whereas 5 hours a week were allotted to Russian"^[4]. By Musa Ovkhadov's count, the entire school course of Chechen language and literature from grade 1 to grade 10 in the 1970s-1980s amounted to 1,497 hours, on average 3.5 hours a week^[2]. The result is visible in the official statistics of the USSR: in the Chechen and Ingush languages 154 books and pamphlets were published in 1940, 49 in 1970, 37 in 1980 and 39 in 1985^[2]; the republic's television in the 1980s broadcast in Chechen for 20-25 minutes a day^[5]. The Chechens did not give up their language: according to the census of 1989, 938,765 of the 956,879 Chechens named Chechen as their native language^[6].