Development of the State Language Policy Concept has started in Russia. Russian Literature Association chaired by Patriarch Kirill is coordinating this work. Key workgroups were chaired by lecturers of the Saint Petersburg State University (SPSU), which is not a surprise, as there is a National Research Center for State Language Problems at the University.
Experts, who are involved in designing the Concept, compare this project with the Russian language reforms, introduced by Catherine the Great. The main purpose of the Concept is to define the mechanisms of independent evaluation of Russian language and literature textbooks and dictionaries, support of reading, teaching Russian as a foreign language and principles of designing libraries.
Group on independent evaluation of language and literature textbooks and dictionaries was chaired by the head of the Center of Russian Language and Slavistics of the Russian Academy of Science (RAS), chairman of supervisory committee of the Russian Association of Russian Language and Literature Teachers (RARLLT) and SPSU’s Vice-Rector Sergei Bogdanov.
According to him, great attention has been paid to support of the Russian language during the recent years, but there is still no precise state language policy concept. In this sense, the main purpose of all the workgroups is to develop such a “nationwide consensus”.
What comes to language and literature textbooks, here the question is about developing the rules of their use in the educational system. Here, it is important not to repeat the mistakes we made a few years ago.
— In 2009, a decree of the Ministry of Education and Science was released, which set four dictionaries as a source of the modern normative Russian language. They were quite good, but the choice was absolutely accidental. More importantly, all of them were printed at the same publishing house. Certainly, society was quite alarmed about that. We have to avoid these things this time, - told Sergei Bogdanov.
Russianists are going to learn something from historians. Sergei Bogdanov provided an example of a unified history textbook, which was done by the Russian History Association.
— Something like that should be done for the Russian language, too. Now, teachers of the Russian language in higher education institutions use over 70 different textbooks. The majority of teachers is interested to have only one or several basic ranges, - pointed out Sergei Bogdanov.
Bogdanov is sure, that there is no need to create new organizations to do this. Even now, there are Russian language councils at the Government of Russia, under the President, there is an inter-departmental commission on the Russian language, and the problem is actively discussed at the Ministry of Education and Science, Academy of Science, which is also conducting a textbooks examination.
— It is important not to create new organisations, but to come to some kind of a consensus, that people with different points of view brought us, but that we could still make a joint decision, - he said.
Sergei Bogdanov compared this situation with the one at the end of 18th century, when the need to determine the norms of the current Russian language was urgent, too. Dignitaries of Catherine the Great did meet the challenge then.
Head of workgroup on coordinating and examining initiatives in the sphere of school philological education, SPSU professor Elena Kazakova mentioned that developer’s collective is only being formed now. But the principle for forming all the groups is common – it is possibly wide representation: higher educational institutions, schools, different regions.
— Our group was created to become a forum for discussing hundreds of different initiatives in the field of further development of state language and literature standards. Literature is now the mostly debated topic, - told Elena Kazakova. – Debates are so hot, that it was decided to develop criteria of evaluating different suggestions at first, and only after that – to evaluate the suggestions themselves. Our group is to develop these criteria, first of all. We are to show the results in autumn, at the latest.
— We should save classics, but also include modern writers, we should save the golden literature canon, but preserve children’s interest to reading, - says Elena Kazakova. – We also have to understand, what is the golden literature canon in 21st century? It is really hard to reconcile supporters and opponents of “Master and Margarita”, those who believe that our children must read Shakespeare and those who think our children must only read Russian literature.
Elena Kazakova also pointed out that when a list of 100 books on Russian history, culture and literature was compiled by order of the President, almost 6 thousand works were claimed to be included in the list; every single one of them was suggested by some professional association.
Leader of Workgroup on developing interest to reading Tatiana Galaktionova told that at first, they will have to analyze the already existing experience of developing reading in Russia, in particular – preliminary results of the National Program for Reading Support, which has been implemented from 2007 and is planned up to 2020.
— Some people now read more, some – less, told Tatiana Galaktionova. – Anyway, the essential advantage of the program is that it became the turning point for the public relation to reading. During soviet times, we were sure we were the country, which reads the most. After that, for a long time we did not take reading as a problem sphere, although there were problems, indeed. And this problem has recorded a reading crisis, which does exist.
Experts find that one of the ways to form interest in reading is social advertisement, reading propaganda, including the one on the state level in order to make image of reading positive, to make it prestigious, useful and pleasant.
