This is a comprehensive ethnographic study of an immensely complex language situation in the post-Soviet Ukraine. Bilaniuk discusses subtle matters, such as language ideologies, the struggle over status, compromise strategies, and highly stigmatized mixed varieties called surzhik, in a manner that makes the book accessible to nonspecialists in the field of sociolinguistics.

The book comprises six chapters, an epilogue on the languages of the Orange Revolution, and an appendix that is a short comparison of Russian and Ukrainian. It is essential that the languages in question, Russian and Ukrainian, are closely related and that the similarity facilitates compromise forms belonging to neither monolingual variety and increases the possibilities for linguistic creativity and negotiation. To make it even more complex, there are also regional varieties of Ukrainian, a version of Russian spoken in Ukraine, and a wide range of lects that may be tentatively called Ukrainian-accented Russian and Russian-accented Ukrainian.

The first chapter, “Language paradoxes and ideologies of correction,” deals with the sociolinguistic history of Ukraine and with attempts to undo the harm done by Soviet language policy. The second chapter, “Lives of language,” presents a fascinating analysis of four linguistic biographies that exemplify language awareness and language choices by an individual. The third chapter, “Language at the threshold,” is dedicated to the history of standardization of Ukrainian and various periods of Russification. Bilaniuk demonstrates that various language policies were not limited to status planning, but, especially during the Soviet era, also expanded into corpus planning by making changes in orthography, introducing Russian-like derivation, and substituting original Ukrainian forms. Ukrainian became associated with the rural setting as opposed to urban, cultivated, “educated” Russian. As a result, the post-Soviet period witnesses a partial reversal of the previous language shift. Bilaniuk shows that the choice of language depends on a person's mood, skills, and context (99–100). The acquisition of Ukrainian is sometimes hindered by purist attitudes and stigmatization of “impure” varieties that, however, are inevitably in use by Russophones as an intermediate stage. Chapter 4, “Surzhik: A history of linguistic transgressions,” reveals that behind a single language label there are several varieties with somewhat different structural characteristics. Here Bilaniuk shows that what is considered by speakers as one variety cannot be taken at a face value. Chapter 5, “Correction, criticism, and the struggle over status,” describes attempts to discard Surzhik as a “non-authentic,” “non-standard,” and “impure” variety. Yet it has found a niche as a comical register on stage, as in the extremely popular Verka Serduchka TV show, where the main protagonist speaks Surzhik. Chapter 6, “Concealing tensions and mediating pluralisms,” describes the dynamics of language laws, practices of non-reciprocal bilingualism (with a different degree of mixing), and possibilities of advertising where English enters the picture.

The study demonstrates that linguistic identities and behaviors are constantly changing, and that “normality” is never static (193). It is an excellent introduction into the sociolinguistics of Ukraine and into the complexities of post-Soviet language situations in general.