Photo: Total Dictation official website/vk.com
The statement of Estonian Justice Minister Urmas Reinsalu, that the Total Dictation action is political and threatens Estonian society, evokes nothing but surprise, considers project leader Olga Rebkovets. She recalled that the idea of dictation emerged among students and was supported by the public in Russia and abroad.
As Russkiy Mir reported, Tallinn was chosen as a capital of Total Dictation 2019, but Estonian Minister criticized this news. Urmas Reinsalu urged not to hold Total Dictation in Tallinn, Postimees reports. “This event does not come from philological, but from political motives, and in this form it carries an ideological symbolic value that does not meet the interests of Estonia. It would be reasonable to refuse to hold this action in Tallinn,” Reinsalu posted on Facebook.
The politician called on fellow citizens to shift education to Estonian language as soon as possible in order to resist the “soft power” of Russia more successfully. According to the Estonian minister, the main initiator and sponsor of the action is Russkiy Mir Foundation, which, in his opinion, “acts in the interests of the policy of Russia that stirs up discord,” Sputnik news agency reports.
Read about the goals and main objectives of Russkiy Mir Foundation.
Meanwhile, the head of Total Dictation project Olga Rebkovets recalled in her interview for Sputnik that Total Dictation Foundation is a public organization, and Russkiy Mir Foundation refers to the action indirectly, allocating grants periodically only. Co-financing of the online course on Russian language orthography and punctuation, and Total Dictation annual conference, where organizers and philology experts discuss scientific and organizational issues, are the examples of such collaboration.
“This interaction is always productive and it is possible as long as the main principles of the action remain immutable. They are voluntary participation in events, their non-political nature, unbiased choice of authors and dictating persons,” Olga Rebkovets noted. She also recalled that the goal of Total Dictation is to "promote writing and literacy in Russian, and this is our public mission, not a state order."
Member of the Board of Russian School of Estonia organization Alisa Blintsova supported Olga Rebkovets. “This event is right, it maintains an interest in Russian culture and a general cultural level,” she said. “It is strange that such simple things as spelling and grammar of Russian language leads Reinsalu to fear for the Republic of Estonia.”
Estonian social media users did not remain indifferent to Ministers’s statement. Public figure Raivo Raidam called Reinsalu’s words stupid and suitable only for election campaigne. “As a person interested in Russian language and culture, I went to Tondiraba Tallinn hall to observe this phenomenon. I counted the participants; there were definitely more than two thousand people. Famous Russian actors were reading the text of the dictation. I did not notice anything political,” he wrote.
As Russkiy Mir reported, Tallinn is leading by the number of participants during the last few years. Last year the 2000 people took part in the action not only in Tallinn but also in Maardu, Valga, Tartu and Narva.
The Pushkin Institute works in Tallinn, in which Russkiy Mir Foundation established the Russian Center.
Russkiy Mir
