By Vestnik Kavkaza
On September 8th the world marks International Literacy Day. It was established by the International Conference of Education Ministers for Illiteracy Elimination, which took place in Tehran in 1965. Meanwhile, today it has been found out that Rospotrebnadzor has increased the minimum grade in the USE of foreign languages from 20 to 22; but the minimum Russian language grade for entering a university remains the same – 36. According to the head of the Rospotrebnadzor, Sergey Kravtsov, the number of foreign languages used for passing the exam includes Italian and Chinese.
However, Moscow hopes to build a favorable atmosphere in foreign countries by spreading the Russian language as an instrument of soft power to return lost geopolitical positions.
Mikhail Lermontov, the first deputy chairman of the Commission for Culture of the Russian Public Chamber, says that the current task is to “return the importance of the Russian language, which was implied by our civilization. Russian is the most significant element of the cultural code that united the whole civilization. This is the only means of identity of a person who is thought to belong to the Russian civilization.”
Lermontov notes that “by the end of September the project Foundations of the State Cultural Policy will be discussed. The document (the President promised to sign it in December) will become a declaration of culture, a declaration of ethics, a declaration of the Russian language.”
According to Lermontov, “the corruption of the Russian language in the last 20 years directly or indirectly led to a corruption of the moral and spiritual nature of a person. Scientists say that a person engenders his spiritual nature only through reading. Only through reading can one become a spiritually educated person, reading texts by our great writers and poets. These texts contain the main treasure of our civilization – the cultural codes. They cannot be presented as formulas. This is a complex of human abilities to integrate into the culture of our civilization.”
From this point of view, Lermontov believes the biggest role is played by the state: “The level of necessity of integration into the cultural sphere, which is built by state mechanisms, of the system of education and upbringing, determines the level of becoming a person by a human being… We remember how our political authorities have recently declared that the state education system should prepare effective managers and qualified consumers. When a state prepares such people, it immediately loses a personal component in a human being, it doesn’t let the next generation influence itself, using the whole variety of skills which are given to a human being by God, speaking in Christian terms. I believe the topic is very important, the state is doing its best, and the project Foundations of the State Cultural Policy and the Law on Public Control are developed. Now it is up to us.”
