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"The question “What do you think about Russians?” seems outdated" – Interview with Evgenia Rostova

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"The question “What do you think about Russians?” seems outdated" – Interview with Evgenia Rostova

24.12.2009

Recently, a team of authors from the Pushkin State Russian Language Institute and their counterparts from several Italian universities prepared a textbook on reading and conversation development for Italian students of the humanities. The textbook is called “Russia Italy: A Dialogue of Cultures” and was created with financial support from the Russkiy Mir Foundation. The manuscript of the book is already finished and is now being prepared for publication. The description of the textbook states that the dialogue of cultures is presented as “a process and the result of the emergence of texts of one culture with reference to texts of the other culture. We spoke about the book itself, and the fact that Italians and Russians know about each other's culture, with Evgenia Rostova, the project’s director and a leading researcher at the Pushkin State Russian Language Institute.

– Ms. Rostova, as far as I understand, this is neither the first nor last such textbook to be published. For which countries do such textbooks already exist, and which ones have books in the works?

– This is already the second textbook. The first one was “Russia-Hungary.” Beginning in January, we will be working with our counterparts at the Humboldt University in Berlin to produce a similar textbook for Germany, but unlike the books for Hungary and Italy, this one will be more oriented toward educators. We also have plans to create a textbook like this with our Austrian counterparts. We began this project back in 1994, but the Hungarian edition went unpublished for a long time due to lack of funds.

– Are all the textbooks written according to the same principle?

– Methodological solutions differ in each of them, but the main principle – a dialogue of texts – is present in all of them. There is an invariant that can be interpreted depending on local conditions and the requirements of the country for which the textbook is written.

– Where was the textbook tested?

– The team of authors, along with staff from our institute – Miloslavsky and myself – includes two more Russians – Nistratov in Venice and Nikolaev in Rome. There are two Italians – Bonciani and Romanoli – who are former graduate students of ours working at universities in Florence and Forli. Our textbook was tested in all of these institutes.

– How is teaching conducted?

– Our course was not designed for people wishing to study the Russian language as a system. This is more of a teaching aide rather than a traditional textbook, although all materials are divided by level of complexity according to the European classification system. Our guide is a collection of lessons designed for Italian students whose knowledge of Russian varies quite a lot, so we plan to write additional guidelines for teachers who are teaching the “Practical Conversation” course. In these classes teachers have traditionally used a variety of texts on different themes to get students to “speak.” We hope that they will find the material offered in our book to be useful and interesting.

The best way to explain how a lesson is prepared is by example. The chapter from the second part of the textbook called “These strange Russians ... These strange Italians ...” includes a variety of texts, the first of which is by Dmitry Likhachev, who writes about the Russian national character. The chapter is from his article “We Cannot Walk Away from Ourselves.” In this chapter, the student is presented with Russian proverbs and given the task of finding similar ones in Italian. Then there are excerpts from Berdyaev's book on the western soul and from a book by our contemporary at Moscow State University, Professor Svetlana G. Ter-Minasova, which is called “Language and Intercultural Communication.” Then there is Tyutchev’s poem “One cannot understand Russia by reason” in both Russian and Italian. Each of these texts is accompanied by questions and exercises.

– Naturally it’s best to talk about the book using concrete examples. There are quite a few lessons in the textbook. The names of some of these lessons speak for themselves, for example, “Russians in Italy and Italians in Russia.” Some of them are quite mysterious, for example. What is the lesson called “The Tower of Babel” devoted to?

– This lesson contains excerpts from the works of Italian and Russian philosophers and linguists that are devoted to the view of this famous biblical story as a problem involving the need to find a common language. Do we need this or not? Is a variety of languages a good thing or does it prevent people from communicating? Is it necessary to invent an artificial language to facilitate communication? The lesson is built around this discussion, and a corresponding set of texts and assignments is offered.

– Work on the textbook in one way or another assumed immersion in the subject of how those of both cultures imagine one another. What do the Italians know about Russia, and, conversely, what aspects of Italian life and culture have attracted the attention of Russian writers and philosophers?

– Unfortunately, quite a few Italian students don’t know much about Russia. The only comforting thing here is that they don’t know much about their own culture either. In using our textbook, therefore, I hope that students will learn quite a few new things. Judging from reviews by instructors, the situation is similar in Hungary, where our textbook is already being used. At the heart of the course is the idea of a dialogue of cultures, and in reality it turns out to be a dialogue with a dialogue, meaning that students gain a lot of knowledge about their own culture.

What the Italians know and what keeps their interest is, of course, Pushkin and Gogol. By the way, it was only recently that Gogol's unfinished story “Rome” was published in Italy. A few years ago in the alley of poets on one of the villas in Rome a monument was dedicated to him. There are plaques dedicated to the writer everywhere. It is unlikely that all this is a coincidence, which means that people there really do remember the writer. They also know Tolstoy. Most recently, in 2007, a miniseries based on “War and Peace” was shown on television.

Italians also know our artists who have worked there, especially Ivanov and Briullov. From Russian music they know Tchaikovsky, Stravinsky and Prokofiev. To this day they remember Diaghilev's “Russian Seasons,” which was also performed in Italy. Naturally, they are familiar with our futurists from the early 20th century.

If we speak about the “Italian theme” in Russian art, then there are many stories. Our textbook, for example, has a chapter entitled “Italian Petersburg.” It is clear that many buildings in St. Petersburg and the Moscow Kremlin cathedrals were built by Italians. Our textbook also has a chapter called “Russian Poets and Writers on Italy” and “The Italian Accent in Russian Art,” both of which contain quite a bit of material.

– As far as I know, textbooks in Europe need to conform to certain standards of tolerance and political correctness. In your work preparing the textbook, did you encounter any difficulty choosing texts to fit this criterion? Were there any that you had to exclude for these reasons?

– When we made text selections or wrote our own, we naturally tried to be correct in this sense. Of course we tried to select texts that would not offend the cultural sensibilities of Italians. I still find it unfortunate that we didn’t devote a lesson to the Second World War. We could have written one, for example, on Fyodor Poletaev. This would have been the topic of the war, resistance to fascism and a comrade-in-arms. You would think there’d be nothing bad here. On the other hand, we remember Mussolini and how in the early years of the war Italy and Nazi Germany were in a coalition. So that’s why we decided not to include this lesson.

Even writing a lesson about Garibaldi turned out to be not so simple. It seems that the events took place so long ago that there wouldn’t be any doubts about including the topic. This name is well known in Russia, as he had Russian supporters. You would think that this topic would work well, but people’s attitudes in Italy are quite ambiguous when it comes to his actions. There are quite a few centrifugal forces at work here, and a lot of people don’t really consider the country to be entirely unified. We spoke with our Italian colleagues about popular, everyday views on Garibaldi. It turns out that quite a few people aren’t exactly wild about his actions.

We had other types of difficulties as well. For example, the Italians don’t have national folktales that could be compared with ours. They have few folktales in general – authored stories are more dominant. The ones they do have are popular only in certain regions and could be unknown in others. So, selecting figures that correspond to Russian folk characters was far from easy.

– How much do stereotypical impressions of Russians weigh down upon Italians?

– I'm afraid of being subjective and would like to avoid generalizations. I personally have always been treated quite well, and no stereotypes have hindered communication. I have this observation, which applies to a variety of people. People have become more mobile, and our students have changed. They have friends in different countries and have perfectly normal human relationships with people from different countries. They are free of those stereotypes that have pressured older generations. For them, personal relationships are more important than nationality, so the questions “What do you think about Italians?” or "What do you think about Russians?” seem outdated.

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