RUSSIAN IN CONTEMPORARY WORLD: SITUATION AND PERSPECTIVES

DOI: 10.24411/2470-1262-2020-10074

Abstract: The world function of Russian at the Soviet time had three aspects, which can be designated as «language of Lenin», «language of Gagarin» and «language of Dostoevsky». The situation changed abruptly after the victory of the USA in the “cold war». The world role of English increased still more and the world role of Russian decreased. I do not know a contemporary Russian thinker whose ideas are popular in the world. Nowadays I know no such figure in the humanities and the scientific success of Russia is not so impressive as earlier. Some contemporary Russian writers are known in the world but I do not think that somebody outside Russia can study Russian for reading their works in original. The chances of “the same country as others” are less that the chances of a large country and especially of a superpower. However, there are two groups of countries where this role of Russian (as its world role) partly preserves. The first group includes the countries where the Soviet experience can be perceived positively: China, Vietnam, and Laos. The second group includes the countries with the traditional perception of Russia and Russian as «windows to world», the example is Mongolia. Pragmatic reasons and psychological habits can preserve the use of Russian. The role of Russian as the regional language of culture is preserved now but it is decreasing everywhere except Belorussia. If Russia wants to preserve its world role it must show principally new achievements and not the copies of achievements of the other countries and not the great achievements of the past.

Keywords: Russian, world language, regional language of culture, language of contacts,
language of minorities, pragmatic reasons, psychological habits, linguistic policy

Information about the author: Vladimir M. Alpatov (Moscow, Russia) – Doctor of Letters, Professor, Member of the Russian Academy of Sciences. Institute of Linguistic of the Russian Academy of Sciences. 1, Bol’schoy Kislovskyi Pereulok, Moscow, 125009. E-mail: v-alpatov@ivran.ru Published scientific works– 501 (general linguistics, sociolinguistics, Japan studies, history of sciences).

For citation: Alpatov Vladimir M.(2020).
Russian in Contemporary World: Situation and
Perspectives. Cross-Cultural Studies: Education and Science
Vol.5, Issue 2 (2020), pp. 40-45 (in USA)