“Mission is impossible without language”

 

Author: VK

 

This year, Russia and other Slavic countries celebrate the 1150th anniversary of Slavic Writing and Culture. The origins of this holiday are connected with the names of Saints Cyril and Methodius - educators and creators of the Slavic alphabet. Day of Slavic Writing is the only Russian holiday that the state and public organizations carry out together with the ROC.

 

As Vyacheslav Nikonov, the chairman of the State Duma Committee on Education, Doctor of Historical Sciences, told VK, “wherever there are centers of "Russian World", and they are found in most of the CIS countries, they do not exist only in Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan, everywhere there are events held in the framework of the Days of Slavic Writing and the Days of Russian language. This may include very different kinds of festivals: university, student, school, arts festivals and competitions. This is a huge number of events that take place throughout the region. This is our current work, this year the focus is more on Cyril and Methodius, on the common roots of the Slavic alphabet. And of course, on the Russian language as something that was born as a result of this selfless activity of the Saints”.

 

Recalling our history, Nikonov said that “it was the beginning of our education. Because, in fact, the first educational institutions, the first schools in Russia were formed on the basis of monasteries, churches, and essentially throughout the first centuries of the state’s existence education was exclusively church based, and was based on the knowledge that we have received thanks to Cyril and Methodius from our neighbors. Since the 11th century a system of primary education developed widely in Russia, as proven by numerous archaeological finds. In the 11th century quite diverse educational literature arrived in Russia from Serbia, Bulgaria, Constantinople and Mount Athos in the Slavic language. It formed a significant part of the first libraries in Russia. It is no coincidence that the process of primary education is often called "book learning", and these books come through Cyril and Methodius from the lands which maintained relations with Byzantium. And that is what lies at the heart of our culture”.

 

Telling about the importance of the Day of Slavic Writing in an interview to VK, Sergey Karpov, Dean of the History Department, Moscow State University, full member of  the Russian Academy of Sciences, said that “such activities are important because hey simply explain many things. And it is necessary, for example, to be able to explain, explain and demonstrate why it is important, what is the significance of it all”.

 

Answering the question about the state of the Russian language in the CIS, Karpov said that “a lot depends on the policy pursued by a State regarding the Russian language and the Russian diaspora. In those countries where it is supported, the language lives; where it is neglected, the language is marginalized. But now, the general trend is to equate the Russian language with other languages, with English, for example. Maybe it is not very reasonable, since the Russian language is a language of international communication, which has already developed in our space, and can be a competitive advantage we should not lose. We need to do more to demonstrate that in fact the orientation vector anyway, it would somehow be linked to Russia, and the degree of integration will increase, and with increasing integration the demand for the Russian language will grow as well. And of course, people who now neglect the study of the Russian language and do not pay proper attention to this are very short-sighted. Moscow University understands the importance of Russian as a language of international communication as well. This is why we open new campuses. And one of the campuses, which is open in Baku, for example, carries out this mission, the mission of education of the inhabitants of Azerbaijan in the spirit of high culture, where the Russian language is very significant”.

 

According to Sergey Karpov, “when we talk about the great mission of Cyril and Methodius, we need to understand that they acted in a very difficult situation, controversial and, at the same time, victorious. Controversial - because at the time the Byzantine Empire was populated by a very large number of representatives of the Slavic peoples and nationalities - "sklavini" - were formed on the territory of the Byzantine Empire. It was a long process of integration, integration into a great universal empire. The other thing that was very difficult is that it was a time when the iconoclastic controversy has just ended, the controversy that divided the whole Christian world into supporters and opponents of the veneration of icons. And the first Slavic teachers participated in this struggle, in this controversy…

 

And at the same time a huge synthesis of Christian knowledge was created. This synthesis of Christian knowledge was made by St. John of Damascus. All this happened about the same time, this is a preamble to what will happen. And then, when the first teachers Cyril and Methodius sent a mission to preach, they had a great and varied experience: and philology and literature, because they were highly educated, and in diplomacy and politics, because Constantine was a prominent Byzantine diplomat. Just recall his Khazar mission, remember his visit to the Crimea, and his later missions, including the Moravian one, it was all due to Byzantine diplomacy. And when we talk about whether Byzantine missionary work existed and how strong it was, Byzantine missionary work was fundamentally different from Western European, it was universalist, imperial in nature, the empire set the task of the mission. And a mission is impossible without language. The mission must take place through  language, through its knowledge and learning. It is extremely important to keep in mind that this was really a great deed, intellectual, diplomatic and political. Because actually the treasure of the great culture that goes from ancient Greece to Rome and Byzantium, this treasure of great culture became the property of the Slavic world, has come into our flesh and blood, into our consciousness. Without this it is impossible to develop intellectually”.

 

Karpov reminded that it was an encyclopaedic age: “What was the greatness and majesty of the Byzantine Empire and of Cyril and Methodius’s deed? The fact that they were able to assemble into a single treasury disparate facts and disparate literary works, to unite them and make them public. Exactly this encyclopaedic nature, which was carried by Byzantine civilization, gave the opportunity for the next breakthrough, a breakthrough which was based on empiricism, on expert knowledge. But without this, the breakthrough would not have been possible. And this is also a great deed of Cyril and Methodius”.