Editing Ukrainian language (section)

====Gorbachev and perebudova====
[[File:Map12 b.png|thumb|Fluency in Ukrainian (purple column) and Russian (blue column) in 1989 and 2001]]
The management of dissent by the local [[Communist Party (Bolshevik) of Ukraine|Ukrainian Communist Party]] was more fierce and thorough than in other parts of the Soviet Union. As a result, at the start of the [[Mikhail Gorbachev]] reforms [[Perestroika|perebudova]] and [[Glasnost|hlasnist’]] (Ukrainian for ''perestroika'' and ''glasnost''), Ukraine under Shcherbytsky was slower to liberalize than Russia itself.{{cn|date=June 2024}}

Although Ukrainian still remained the native language for the majority in the nation on the eve of Ukrainian independence, a significant share of ethnic Ukrainians were russified. In [[Donetsk]] there were no Ukrainian language schools and in Kyiv only a quarter of children went to Ukrainian language schools.<ref>[https://archive.org/details/eternalrussiayel00stee/page/216 <!-- quote=1804. --> Eternal Russia:Yeltsin, Gorbachev, and the Mirage of Democracy] by [[Jonathan Steele (journalist)|Jonathan Steele]], [[Harvard University Press]], 1988, {{ISBN|978-0-674-26837-1}} (page 218)</ref>

The Russian language was the dominant vehicle, not just of government function, but of the media, commerce, and modernity itself. This was substantially less the case for western Ukraine, which escaped the [[Holodomor|artificial famine]], [[Great Purge]], and most of [[Stalinism]]. And this region became the center of a hearty, if only partial, renaissance of the Ukrainian language during independence.{{cn|date=June 2024}}