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Attitude toward Russian in Europe | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Specific Languages |  | |
| Merv Bilingual Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 5264 days ago 414 posts - 749 votes  Speaks: English*, Serbo-Croatian* Studies: Spanish, French | Message 73 of 128 07 December 2011 at 4:05pm | IP Logged | ||
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It's a pretty simple answer, Mark.
Entrenched centuries-old anti-Russian bigotry, originating from Catholic views on post-schism Byzantine culture and Orthodox Christianity, with a good infusion of realpolitik perspective from Western powers that Russia is in fact the major geopolitical obstacle to unfettered Western ambitions in Asia, as well as a potential goldmine of resources that many would like to get their hands on. Add to that several centuries of failed Western attempts to manipulate or ruin Russia (Teutonic Knight crusades, Poland-Lithuania/false Dmitry's, Sweden, Napoleon, Crimean War, German-imported Lenin to set off the Russian revolution, European/American occupiers immediately after the revolution, Hitler's Barbarossa (along with banal racial theories about Slavs/Russians), and "privatization" under Yeltsin). Add to that some objectively menacing things about Russia (e.g. Soviet Communism, Tsarist absolutism), and you will understand the ill-will prevalent in Western political circles. This ill-will trickles down into all pores of society so for most Westerners Russia is always dark, miserable, violent, drunk, nasty, wrong, etc., etc., etc....even when it's artistic, and literate, and musical, and mathematical, Russia is still "exotic" at best. They'll never change. My advice is to not care and move on. Edited by Merv on 07 December 2011 at 4:15pm 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Solfrid Cristin Heptaglot Winner TAC 2011 & 2012 Senior Member Norway Joined 5325 days ago 4143 posts - 8864 votes Speaks: Norwegian*, Spanish, Swedish, French, English, German, Italian Studies: Russian | Message 74 of 128 07 December 2011 at 4:49pm | IP Logged | ||
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@ Merv: And thank you for your contribution to world peace.
8 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Volte Tetraglot Senior Member Switzerland Joined 6430 days ago 4474 posts - 6726 votes Speaks: English*, Esperanto, German, Italian Studies: French, Finnish, Mandarin, Japanese | Message 75 of 128 07 December 2011 at 7:46pm | IP Logged | ||
Perhaps we move in different circles. I know plenty of people who love Russia and/or elements of its culture, in every walk of life, and plenty more who are as indifferent to it as they are to most other foreign countries. Quite a few of the most accomplished polyglots on this forum have studied Russian, and speak positively about it, including Professor Argüelles and the forum admin. Frankly, I hear more German- and Chinese- bashing than Russian-bashing these days. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| nway Senior Member United States youtube.com/user/Vic Joined 5406 days ago 574 posts - 1707 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish, Mandarin, Japanese, Korean | Message 76 of 128 08 December 2011 at 4:14am | IP Logged | ||
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@ Merv:
Methinks you may be overvaluing the "Western" factor. These are various countries' views of Russia's influence in 2010, from the BBC Global Views survey: 
Thus, the countries ranked by net approval are as such: 
Notice how Canada, Australia, and the UK actually rank in the upper middle, while Italy and the USA are not significantly different from Indonesia and Pakistan, and even Germany, France, and Spain are more pro-Russian than Turkey. And if you consider Brazil and Chile to be part of the West (and they typically identify themselves as such), then some Western countries are some of the most pro-Russian in the world. 6 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| tanya b Senior Member United States Joined 4769 days ago 159 posts - 518 votes Speaks: Russian | Message 77 of 128 08 December 2011 at 7:31am | IP Logged | ||
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I could have just easily asked the question "Why don't more southern Europeans study Arabic?", Arabic being the predominant language spoken just to their south, and possibly surpassing Russian in "importance", but very few Spaniards, Italians or Greeks are regarded as "world citizens" and no one expects them to take an interest in it and it's doubtful that there are quality Arabic learning materials in their native languages.
In a sense, Arabic is to Southern Europe what Russian is to Northern Europe, but is much more accessible to the internationally-minded Germans and Scandinavians than Arabic is to southern Europeans. Russian is also much easier for Europeans to learn than Arabic, Arabic being the Mount Everest of languages, with it's "backward" script, mutually unintelligible dialects, and abbreviated "alien" sound. Northern Europe, juxtapositioned between East and West, with its superior educational system, has apparently neglected to offer Russian, at least as an elective, in its government-run schools. It's not a major problem, but it is a bit puzzling. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Bjorn Diglot Senior Member Norway Joined 4859 days ago 244 posts - 286 votes Speaks: Norwegian*, English Studies: German, French | Message 78 of 128 08 December 2011 at 1:26pm | IP Logged | ||
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In Norway there are two upper secondary schools offering Russian language.
The last year to be taken in Murmansk. Not bad for a small country like Norway Link 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Oleg Triglot Groupie Russian FederationRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5820 days ago 57 posts - 95 votes Speaks: Russian*, Polish, English Studies: Spanish, French, Italian | Message 80 of 128 12 December 2011 at 11:16pm | IP Logged | ||
I've always been astounded by the number of people from all over the world that I met who were learning Russian. And I asked myself 'why?' and tried to encourage them. And here you have it: 'why they don't?'. I guess now I know what 'facepalm' means. And I have a question to you, Tania: do you speak Norwegian? Edited by Oleg on 12 December 2011 at 11:19pm 4 persons have voted this message useful |
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