Külügyi Szemle - A Teleki László Intézet Külpolitikai Tanulmányok Központja folyóirata - 2003 (2. évfolyam)
2003 / 3. szám - EURÓPA - Sáfi Csaba: A Few Words on the Federal Law on State policy of the Russian Federation with regard to Fellow Countrymen Abroad
A Few Words on the Federal Law on State Policy of the Russian Federation with regard to Fellow Countrymen Abroad (24 May 1999, Federal Law No. 99-FZ) Csaba Sáfi Antecedents A t the time of the adoption of the law, the first censuses held in the successor states of the former Soviet Union, as in independent states, were still to be held. Therefore, even the most "up-to-date" official data on the ethnic and linguistic composition of the population dated from as late as 1989. According to the figures of the last Soviet census, some 25 million Russians1 and even more Russian- speaking persons were living outside the borders of the Russian Soviet Federal Socialist Republic (RSFSR). Thus, several tens of millions of Russians and Russian- speakers found themselves outside the borders of the Russian Federation (hereafter: Russia or RF) as one of the results of the dissolution of the Soviet Union. (On the basis of estimates deriving from the data of the censuses taken since and other sources, such as the report of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation on the situation of the Russian language, the number of ethnic Russians living in the successor states has decreased to some 18,5-20 million persons by today. A positive phenomenon of this process is, however, the fact that immigration from the successor states has somewhat improved the unquestionably negative demographic tendency of Russia. The number of Russian-speakers is, naturally, still higher than that of the ethnic Russians. According to the census held in Ukraine in 2001, nearly 5.6 million Ukrainians declared themselves persons of Russian mother tongue and, similarly, there are far more Russian-speaking persons living in Kazakhstan than persons of Russian birth.) Therefore, Russian has become not only the most numerous national/ethnic minority in Europe but also the most widely spoken minority tongue. Flowever, in many cases it is not only unfortunate but also even inaccurate to use the 30 Külügyi Szemle
