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Attitude toward Russian in Europe | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Specific Languages |  | |
| Chung Diglot Senior Member Joined 7147 days ago 4228 posts - 8259 votes  20 sounds Speaks: English*, French Studies: Polish, Slovak, Uzbek, Turkish, Korean, Finnish | Message 49 of 128 05 December 2011 at 10:30pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
That's interesting because I stayed with a transplanted Belorussian this year while travelling and she still felt that as a Belorussian she was distinct (her culture too) even though she held Russian to be her mother tongue. She also wished that she could speak Belorussian better since she didn't consider Russian to be (yet) something that associable to Belorussia and is line with Eastern Europe where the link between the nation-state and language is still relatively strong. As a bit of a joke but unscientific approach, I asked her if she felt more Belorussian or Russian when watching a hockey or soccer game between the Belorussian and Russian national teams. She answered that she'd seriously cheer on the Belorussian team. It reminds me of a variation of what I got during the first few days of my time with Fennoswedes. They spoke Swedish so much better than Finnish that they preferred to speak English with me rather than Finnish. However they told me that they identified themselves as Finns and that if I would want to learn Swedish and get Swedish immersion, I'd need to take the ferry to Sweden. Otherwise I'd come off as a bit patronizing to assume that they could be treated merely as Swedish expatriates on the grounds of their mother tongue - as if they weren't "real" Finns. I think that the discussion touches on what constitutes the associated culture of the target language. For some it's tied in a fairly neat package that conforms to national boundaries (e.g. Japanese in Japan) but for others it's not, and then it becomes a matter if there's an explicit or unspoken center for the associated culture. Russian seems more centralized in this regard than Arabic, English or Spanish to name a few; and there's nothing really wrong with it or adjusting to that. Perhaps in time Russian will diffuse to the point where places such as Latvia, Ukraine, Kazakhstan or some other successor state of the USSR would become an acknowledged part of the "Russosphere" not just in the minds of Russians and some Russophiles but also people outside those circles. Yet for now that's not the case. Another thing that sort of fits this model is that at least within American universities, the exchange programs usually correspond to a defined set of countries where the native language is tough to separate from the local culture or environment (however fuzzy that is to define). So it's quite common to be sent on an exchange program for German to a university in Germany, Austria or even (German) Switzerland. Ones for Russian are dominated by arrangements with universities in Russia (usually in Moscow or St. Petersburg but I note with slight amusement that Ohio State U offers an exchange program with a college in Tomsk. Not far from Novosibirsk which I had presented randomly in a previous post ;-)). It's no accident that universities on this side of the pond line up their Russian exchange programs this way even if one could land in a sea of Russian-speakers in some parts of Latvia, Estonia, Ukraine or Kazakhstan (and it's not as if the first three countries are that "exotic" for Americans). Edited by Chung on 05 December 2011 at 10:55pm 5 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| espejismo Diglot Senior Member Russian Federation Joined 5042 days ago 498 posts - 905 votes Speaks: Russian*, English Studies: Spanish, Greek, Azerbaijani | Message 50 of 128 05 December 2011 at 11:41pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
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Yes, it's difficult to get a Russian visa, but don't forget that all aspects of life in Russia, not just the bureaucracy, would be difficult for a foreigner from a well-developed Western society. This is especially true for Moscow. Even some Russians find the capital too difficult a place to live. Try looking at the Russian visa application process as a sort of a psychological vaccine you have to get before you visit this exotic country. :)
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| vonPeterhof Tetraglot Senior Member Russian FederationRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4763 days ago 715 posts - 1527 votes Speaks: Russian*, EnglishC2, Japanese, German Studies: Kazakh, Korean, Norwegian, Turkish | Message 52 of 128 06 December 2011 at 12:24am | IP Logged | ||||||||
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Okay, looks like I didn't choose my wording properly. I didn't intend to come across as a Russian neo-Imperialist who believes that we all should become one big country again. I am not implying that Russian culture has completely displaced the native cultures, only that those cultures became more Russified. To once again bring up the Irish, saying that Irish culture is a subset of English/British culture is offensive and inaccurate, but it is generally not disputed that the English language is an intrinsic part of the culture of modern Ireland and that there are certain cultural features that originally came from Britain. The same can be said of the cultures of places on the post-Soviet space where the majority, or a significant part of the population, has switched over to Russian.
I am not denying that Russia is the cultural heartland of the Russian language and that immersion in Russia would probably be the best option for someone who wants a deep understanding of "authentic" Russian culture (in which case jumping through all the immigration hoops would be a necessary procedure ;) ). However, not everyone has that goal. If you want to get plenty of conversational practise, interact with native Russian-speakers your age or get acquainted with the ways of doing business in post-Soviet countries (and the business cultures of at least Russia, Belarus, Ukraine and Kazakhstan are quite similar), then Minsk, Odessa, Sevastopol and Almaty would work just as fine as any Russian city (I still have doubts about Riga and Narva though, sorry Марк). The shared ordeal of being part of the same "prison of nations" for seventy years gave us many shared customs, experiences and memes, not to mention all the Soviet songs and films that we quote all the time. Russian pop-culture still reaches audiences in "the near abroad". My point is that Russia is not the only place "where the [Russian] language is really part of the territory's culture and political makeup" and that, depending on your goals in learning Russian, immersion in one of those other places may well be worth your while. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Chung Diglot Senior Member Joined 7147 days ago 4228 posts - 8259 votes 20 sounds Speaks: English*, French Studies: Polish, Slovak, Uzbek, Turkish, Korean, Finnish | Message 53 of 128 06 December 2011 at 12:27am | IP Logged | ||||||||
However this somewhat misses the point. Visa agents (by necessity) do much of the processing but the fact remains that it's a barrier for many people thinking of visiting Russia for the first time (excluding people with a burning desire to go - money and hassle usually isn't an object when you feel compelled). Moreover, those visa agents aren't volunteers, so even if the whole process takes only a couple weeks, I the prospective American traveller would still need to pay about $150 or $200 total on top of my airfare to get a chance at the visa after having got the requisite documentation and photos. I'd only go through that if I were dead set on going to the exlcusion of other places at that time. Why go through that hassle when I could just visit some other country without a tourist visa? Solfrid Cristin touched on this already when she posted that a Western or Northern European can go to most of the rest of Europe on a whim for the weekend. Basically you leave work on Friday afternoon, take passport, plane ticket and a bag or two, and you're somewhere else by Friday night. Come back Sunday night and roll into work Monday morning and you're not worse for the wear. She can't be so spontaneous with travelling to Russia. 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| espejismo Diglot Senior Member Russian Federation Joined 5042 days ago 498 posts - 905 votes Speaks: Russian*, English Studies: Spanish, Greek, Azerbaijani | Message 54 of 128 06 December 2011 at 12:48am | IP Logged | ||||||||
So basically it's not more difficult but more expensive, and a real hassle for people who don't really care about learning Russian. Serious language study involves more than just a whim. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Chung Diglot Senior Member Joined 7147 days ago 4228 posts - 8259 votes 20 sounds Speaks: English*, French Studies: Polish, Slovak, Uzbek, Turkish, Korean, Finnish | Message 55 of 128 06 December 2011 at 12:54am | IP Logged | ||||||||
Well, it's not unheard of even for me to do the exchange or immersion this way. A Polish friend did an exchange for a semester at Donetsk National University with the secondary goal of improving his Russian (which he certainly did). However he was more into the language practice aspect and he's had, shall we say, a fairly "western" orientation as he wrangled himself a job with the German government after graduation. Nevertheless, for many of us who want language immersion, there's also an expectation of some cultural immersion (get the "real thing") which explains why prefer to do it by travelling in the target language's "home turf" than content ourselves with hanging out with expatriate communities in our hometown or go to places where the target language still feels somehow "out of place" even if it's dominant. Maybe Russian will become an accepted part of Ukraine or Kazakhstan for outsiders but, with the example of Swedish in Finland (and even that surprised my friends when I told them about the place of Swedish in Finland), I'm not sure if many modern nation-states built on a dominant ethnicity can admit unreservedly the presence of a language that was introduced by relatively recent occupation, colonization, decree or immigration. Arabic, English, French, Spanish have gone far beyond being identifiable with "originating" ethnic group even though they were spread by occupation, colonization, decree or immigration (but further in the past). The same can't be said about Russian, hence why Russian is still associated with Russia and that immersion in Russia is preferred to the point where potential learners of Russian would ignore Russophone places outside Russia. Obstacles to travel to Russia aren't trivial for such potential learners. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Chung Diglot Senior Member Joined 7147 days ago 4228 posts - 8259 votes 20 sounds Speaks: English*, French Studies: Polish, Slovak, Uzbek, Turkish, Korean, Finnish | Message 56 of 128 06 December 2011 at 1:05am | IP Logged | ||||||||
I'm not so sure about that. It's not neccessarily difficult (especially if you merely feed the papers to the agency as Vagaglot states), but it's still an extra set of steps and an extra expense. Moreover you still would have to do some of the work before (i.e. get passport photos, line up at the bank for a money order, fill in the application) even if the agency makes up some official-sounding letter and itinerary that's up to snuff. Volte already mentioned her reluctance to go full steam ahead now with Russian because of this matter of visas. She's also hardly someone who isn't serious about language study. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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