Putin instructed to counter “excessive use of foreign vocabulary”

President Vladimir Putin made changes to the foundations of the state cultural policy from 2014. Decree of the President with amendments published today, 25 January. One of the tasks of the country’s cultural policy was to counter the “excessive use of foreign vocabulary”.

Protect and support the Russian language as the state language, ensure compliance with the norms of the modern Russian language, including through the prevention of obscene language, as well as counteract the excessive use of foreign vocabulary, says today’s decree.

Fundamentals of state cultural policy were approved in 2014. “The state cultural policy is based on the civil liberties and rights, duties and responsibilities of citizens and the state, fixed in the Constitution of the Russian Federation,”— said in the document. It emphasized that the country’s cultural policy is constantly changing, responding to new challenges, as well as depending on the adjustment of the external and internal situation in Russia.

At the end of 2022, the State Duma accepted in the first reading, a draft law aimed at reducing the presence in the Russian language of foreign words that have analogues. The document also proposes a ban on writing English words in Cyrillic.

Maria Fedotova