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Marina Smirnova: I Did Not Think A Reading Contest Could Be Popular

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Marina Smirnova: I Did Not Think A Reading Contest Could Be Popular

25.06.2015

The winners of the Living Classic young readers contest performed on Moscow’s Red Square. This year two and a half million children of Russian and abroad took part in this initiative. Marina Smirnova, the philologist who established the contest, spoke to Russkiy Mir about why it has become so popular. 

– More than 2.5 million children and adolescents from 85 regions of Russia and more than 50 countries are participating in the Living Classic project. It’s hard to believe.

– Yes, 85 regions of Russia are taking part, and there is no region where fewer than 250 schools are participating. There are regions where practically all schools are taking part. People prepare for this contest practically a year in advance, that’s how the tradition has developed, so everyone knows that the contest will take place and select their material in advance. And right now we are increasing the age limits. Usually 6th graders participated but this year both students of the 6th and 7th grades are participating. The children had complained that they would have no second chance. Not they are talking about including 8th graders.

– Why was only the 6th grade initially chosen? 

– At this age people start to read seriously on their own. That is, they start to perceive reading as a way to spend their leisure time. Up to this age they don’t read a lot themselves, as mothers generally do the reading.

– Usually contests are for reading verses. Why is your contest focused on stories? 

– So that children would read. Anyone can read a poem, but that doesn’t make someone a reader, because the text is too short. With prose you have to spend a little time. An in order to select an excerpt you need to read the whole book. And if a child is serious about selecting his text, it’s likely that he’ll read more than one book.

– How did it come about that this contest where children read stories has become so popular? 

–  Here there is the freedom of choice. We offer them the opportunity to read their favorite books, what the children truly like. This is the freedom of self-expression. And children of this age like to perform.

– How did the regional rounds go this year? 

– The contest is first held at schools. This contest is particularly important for small towns and villages. Once we received an angry letter in which the residents of some town wrote that the Living Classic competition was held but the residents of the town were not informed, meaning that they were unable to attend the performance. And this is interesting for them. Many schools and libraries hold their contests for children, and then the children started performing their pieces at other libraries or at local celebrations.

Following the contest at the school level there is a district-level round and then a regional round in the capital of the region. The children come from different municipalities. This year I was in the Murmansk region working on another project and I visited number of different towns and discovered that this project is well known. The parents say that this contest is different from others in that we strive to remain part of the children’s lives, to maintain communication with them, incite them to participate in various initiatives and perform on television. For example, today and tomorrow winners from various years are performing on Red Square. All the children who could have come – the winners from 2012, 2013, 2014 and 2015. German Rudov, who has become a YouTube star, has come, as have Madina Varaeva, Lev Skripko, Mikhail Isakov and Ekaterina Krytsina.

– Has the contest changed your life? What did you do prior to this? 

– I am a philologists and literary historian. I taught a little, but since the Living Classic foundation was established all of my projects have been related to reading. We are involved in international book fairs, festivals devoted to writers. For several years we held the Petersburg Text festival in St. Petersburg devoted to the culture of that city. We hold conferences on literature. All the projects are related to literature.

– Have you noticed any changes since the Living Classic contest started? Are children reading more? 

– I notice that children are reading a wide variety of different texts. The first year there were a lot of classic texts – they read Ostrovsky, Chekhov, Zoshchenko, Tefi, Grin… The selection of texts was limited. Over the years of the contest the selection of texts has changed greatly, the scope of children’s reading has changed. I understand that this happened thanks to this project, because the children see who did not win and with what texts, which texts were read the most. They try to find something original, and so it turns out that they are reading new texts to each other, and thus the perspective of our new readers is expanded.

Olga Ogareva
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