@Sveta, but why the 1920s? As far as I know, the first official Belarusisation campaign took place in the 1920s — early 1930s, and even very, very anti-Soviet Belarusian historians admit that it was a short period of revival of the language, it's just hard to argue with, given so much evidence. As you can probably imagine, before the revolution there were not too many schools offering teaching through the medium of Belarusian (neither in the West — thanks to Poland, nor in the East — thanks to the Russian Empire), and such schools were established after 1923. Taraškievič's orthography was created only in 1918 and was adopted by schools in the 1920s. I believe you know some wonderful Belarusian writers of that time. Of course one can argue that Soviet Belarusisation was some sort of social bribe, so to speak, or that its main point was to oppose something to the Polish influence, but still, it's not like the language was thriving and then the Soviets came and banned it. It all began much, much earlier.

In 1920-30 Belarus was divided in half between Poland and the USSR. It was at this time that the Belarusian language was destroyed most of all. And then in the USSR there was no time to restore, the war, the country to raise. Very sad.

Kseniiya, your point of other subtle language oppression is interesting. There is a school of thought called subalternity under post-colonialism. It applies broadly to all classes of people in all parts of the world who are discriminated against or oppressed in one or more ways, but under linguistics it refers to the ethnic languages which are ignored, disfavored or even actively suppressed by the dominant powers, whether colonial or otherwise. In India you can see this in the prevalence of the language of the Brits as the definitive ticket to better livelihood and social position. The British colonials had such a policy, first set out by Thomas Macaulay. By the time they left, the thing had gathered enough momentum to be past the tipping point and be self sustaining.

But that apart, it can also be seen in the general neglect (willful or otherwise) of certain "subaltern" languages such as the many tribal languages across India. Most are not in immediate danger of extinction, mainly because even tiny percentages translate to several millions in a country of 1.37 billion. At the same time, nor do they serve any practical purpose in life except keeping certain traditions alive. They are certainly no help in terms of livelihood or social position, and the writing is on the wall: I see many people from such ethnic groups who can barely speak their native languages, particularly those who have migrated outside their native rural settings.

@Miriam, <em>During Soviet times, it was forbidden to speak Buryat at schools and now many children don’t speak Buryat anymore.</em>

What do you mean by forbidden, Miriam, and what do you mean by "Soviet times"? In case you're wondering, I'm definitely <em>not </em>saying that the language is thriving (as far as I know, only 50% of schoolchildren in Buryatia study the language at school, and most of them study it is a second language — <a href="https://egov-buryatia.ru/minobr/projects/gosudarstvennaya-programma-sokhranenie-i-razvitie-buryatskogo-yazyka-v-respublike-buryatiya/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">https://egov-buryatia.ru/minobr/projects/gosudarstvennaya-programma-sokhranenie-i-razvitie-buryatskogo-yazyka-v-respublike-buryatiya/</a>;), but I just wish people would understand that forbidding a language in schools was not (and is not) the only form of linguistic oppression: there are lots of more subtle and yet, unfortunately, very efficient policies. Making it an elective, non-important course, refusing to provide enough places at universities for future teachers of the language (and therefore creating a shortage of teachers in schools) can sometimes work even better than explicit prohibition.

@Adam, it was more complicated than that, even with Belarusian (there were periods of Belarusisation before and after the rise of Stalinism in the 1930s—1940s), but when it comes to Stalin's repressions, you are quite correct. And isn't it ironic that Stalin, being a Georgian himself, started his post-revolution career from the People's Commissariat for Nationalities, with his and Lenin's "Declaration of the Rights for the Peoples of Russia"...?

@Som, thanks very much for the links, all very interesting!