Struggling with words and worlds after February 24: Ukrainian and Belarusian students in Poland

This study reports on an online survey conducted among Ukrainian and Belarusian students of English at Maria Curie-Skłodowska University (UMCS) in Lublin, Poland. The aim of the survey was to inquire into the students’ linguistic awareness, their linguistic identity, as well as their own and other people’s linguistic behaviour after February 24, 2022. The date of the Russian full-scale invasion of Ukraine functions as a caesura, not only in the political or military sense, but also as something that exerted enormous influence on the Ukrainian language specifically, and generally on the use of language by the people affected. Therefore, for the survey results to be properly understood, a broader context must be drawn: this includes the influence of the full-scale invasion on the Ukrainian people as language speakers, as well as on the linguistic situation in Belarus, especially after the falsfied presidential elections of 2020. Against this backdrop, the survey has provided information on how Belarusian and Ukrainian students feel about their native languages, how the war has changed their own and other people’s attitudes to those languages, as well as what role in this configuration is played by Polish (the language of the country they are living in) and English (the language of their education and often professional careers). After providing a qualitative analysis of the survey results, the article proposes conclusions relating to the possible incorporation of Ukrainian and Belarusian elements in the English Studies classroom at UMCS.