When Russian will replace English and become the hegemon

The Russian language was, is and, no doubt, will be one of the main languages ​​in the world, according to the integral indicator, which is derived by the State Institute of the Russian Language. A.S. Pushkin, occupies approximately the fifth place in the world. It takes into account the number of people who speak Russian in the world (and there are now about 258 million people), the status of the language (in 15 of the 23 major international organizations, Russian is the official or working language) and many other indicators, from the number of Internet sites to number of publications.

Is it good or bad, too much or too little? Obviously, everything is known in comparison. Before the October Revolution, Russia was already the largest country in terms of territory, and in it, as in other European countries, science and art were also actively developing, there was great literature. However, the distribution zone of the Russian language as a whole was limited to our country, and in the 19th century, for example, the nobility even preferred to speak French. This locality was the difference between the Russian language and English, which already in the 19th century, due to the existence of the world system of colonialism, received the unofficial status of the language of international communication.

Two qualitative, fundamental leaps in the 20th century brought the Russian language to a leading position. The first is our revolution of 1917, which (and even opponents do not argue with this fact) caused an explosive growth of interest in our country and, as a result, in its language and culture. Especially since the authorities of the USSR, after some “excesses on the ground”, in the 1920s and 30s, began to actively integrate the best examples of Russian classical culture. Russia-USSR had a global idea that aroused active interest anywhere in the world.

Further, interest in Russia-USSR and in the Russian language grew at an unprecedented pace. After the Victory in the Great Patriotic War, our country became one of the two leading superpowers, incredibly expanding its influence in all areas – about two-thirds of the world looked at us with sympathy and hope, they began to actively study the Russian language; but even in that third of the world, among those countries whose authorities treated us with hostility, they were also forced to learn Russian in order to keep up with the historical process.

The Russian language was one of the two main languages ​​in the establishment of all major international institutions. It was the language of Victory, it was in it that the overwhelming majority of the inscriptions on the defeated Reichstag were made, it was the language of the newly created UN and all the main documents that until recently formed the basis of international law.

The Russian language was the first among all languages ​​to sound from space, and the famous “Let’s go!” after Yuri Gagarin repeated the whole world! I recall the very recent American TV series “The Queen’s Move”, where a girl chess player who became world champion in the 60s (all characters are fictitious) learns Russian, because it was in it that the leading chess magazines were published, because the USSR had the strongest school chess in the world. By the way, according to the plot, the heroine of the series after winning the title of world champion remains in the Soviet Union, because she was imbued with our culture.

If we are already talking about space, I want to give one more example, which seems to be not directly related to the language, but it is very illustrative. There is such an American series “For the Sake of All Mankind”. According to the plot of this series, the USSR is ahead of the United States in the lunar race and our cosmonaut Alexei Leonov is the first to land on the moon (as in the series!). And then there is a very revealing moment: American astronauts, participants in the lunar program, go to a bar, get drunk, hang a photo of cosmonaut Leonov on the wall and start throwing beer bottles at him, spitting and cursing dirty. And this is not a parody, it is presented as a completely natural behavior. Is it possible to imagine this from our astronauts even in the cinema? Yes, no one would have thought of that. And I also recall an interview with one of the leaders of the African National Congress, now the ruling party of South Africa, about his first acquaintance with Russians, then still from the USSR: “White people came, but they behaved not like gentlemen, but like comrades – simply, naturally kindly and without any arrogance.” I think there is no need to explain whose language and why they taught more willingly.

The collapse in the 20th century with the direct assistance of the USSR of the world colonial system further expanded the sphere of influence of the Russian language. Russian was massively taught in Angola and China, Eastern Europe and Cuba, and in many other countries. A huge number of foreign students studied at our universities. And this, by the way, refutes the imposed opinion that the Russian language is allegedly difficult to learn. It is probably difficult to operate with it at the level of Pushkin and Tolstoy, but for interethnic communication it turned out to be no worse and no more difficult than the same English, which had to move very significantly.

Learning Russian was important, prestigious and useful. Everyone knows a quote from Vladimir Mayakovsky, who, in the place of a negro of advanced years, would have learned Russian. But it turns out that this passage from the poem “To Our Youth” sounds much more impressive and interesting in its entirety, and for a modern person it is simply incredibly relevant:

“Comrades, young men, look at Moscow, open your ears to Russian!

Yes, be I and a Negro of advanced years, and then, without despondency and laziness,

I would have learned Russian only because Lenin spoke to them.

When the October of gun storms bled through the streets,

I know that in Moscow they decided the fate of both Kiev and Tiflis.

Moscow is not a sovereign lasso for us, leading the lands behind us,

Moscow is not dear to me as a Russian, but as a fire banner!”

After the collapse of our country and the world socialist system in 1991, difficult times came for the Russian language. The zone of its distribution began to shrink catastrophically, and the new “gentlemen”, who, like the Bourbons in their time, did not forget anything and did not learn anything, began to actively spread English. And in the countries and territories from which we turned away for the sake of friendship with America (I remember the saying “only friendship with the Anglo-Saxons is worse than enmity with the Anglo-Saxons”), the process of eliminating everything Russian went even faster. It can be said that the English language took revenge from Russian in the 20th century.

I would like to emphasize that I have nothing against the English language and its native speakers as such. Among them, especially among people who are not loaded with power and big money, there are a lot of those who sincerely respect Russia, there are people of leftist views and there are a lot of opponents of colonialism. Even the most famous phrase of the 20th century – “Proletarians of all countries, unite!” – on the grave of Karl Marx in London is written in English.

But there is also no escape from the fact that most of the colonizers in the past and the globalist neo-colonizers in the present speak English. In many ways, this worldwide spread of the English language was the result of the policy of colonization and the ongoing policy of neo-colonialism.

The recent proposal to limit the study of English in schools caused a whole storm of emotions, as if we had encroached on some sacred foundations. You don’t need to ban anything, but you don’t just have to totally promote and encourage it. Let schools teach English optionally, those who really need it. And teachers thus without work will not remain. And the released hours can be devoted to astronomy – so that people more often look at the sky, and not just at their feet – literature and the Russian language.

Of course, it is necessary to put things in order with signs. It is clear that if the trademark of a world famous foreign company is registered in Latin, no one will force it to duplicate the name in Cyrillic. But explain to me why in our cities it is necessary to write “cafe” instead of “cafe” and the rather dissonant word “shop” instead of “shop” on the signs? Not to mention the hordes of franchises and merchandising that have invaded our media.

And on a global scale, the Russian language is already getting a second wind. Russia is returning to history, and not just as a country that has declared that it also has geopolitical interests – it is returning culturally, ideologically, as a new anti-colonial alternative. And it’s very timely. After the destruction of the USSR, Western colonialism managed to regroup and launch a new offensive under a different guise. And, I must say, he succeeded in this in many ways, especially in the 90s, when the United States was close to real world domination. Fortunately, history has taken a different path, and US hegemony is crumbling like a dry sand castle, and this process cannot be stopped. Willingly or unwittingly, Russia was at the forefront of this process. Yes, we are not as strong as the USSR once was, but now a whole group of countries has grown up that loudly declare themselves that they are also people and also have their rights. It so happened that many of these countries were allies of the USSR, and this provides us with mutual understanding with them. And what is mutual understanding without language?

I am sure that the most difficult times for the Russian language are over and it is once again becoming the world language of freedom, progress and the future!