Despite making the unforgivable mistake of forgetting to post my text to go with the picture in the last post, it still received more attention than all the other recent, more grammar-related posts. After all, even though we'd all really like to speak better Russian, it is no secret any more that it is this country's literature and writers that make our hearts beat a little bit faster. And after reading through your comments on the death of Александр Исаевич Солженицын [Aleksandr Isaevich Solzhenitsyn] I realized that we all have a personal relationship with this writer, our own point of view on him, a love affair of sorts with his works. I remember when I first started reading «Один день Ивана Денисовича» [“One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich”] in February 2005, just after arriving in Omsk, and the family that I lived with caught a glimpse of it. The mother's first reaction was to ask me: «Почему ты читаешь эту книгу? Это очень грустная книга.» [“Why are you reading this book? It is a very sad book.”] I tried to explain to her that it was interesting to me, that I wanted to know about the past and that I had heard many things about the book, as well as about its author. My words didn't make any difference to her, as she seemed to have made her mind up about him a long time ago about him – he was not her cup of tea (today [070808] Moscow Times published an interesting piece that throws some light upon how Russians themselves look at Solzhenitsyn: "Solzhenitsyn's Troubled Prophetic Mission"). As for me, Solzhenitsyn holds a special place in my heart not so much for what he wrote, but for what he meant to my grandmother. She owned all of his books in Swedish, and when she passed away last year I was left with his entire production in translation. I made a promise to myself to read them all in time, but for now he is of importance to me mostly because he was my grandmother's favorite writer.

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A while back I posted an entry with the title ‘The Russian Emotion: Sickness’ , but it seems that I left one way of expressing feeling under the weather unmentioned back then. One early morning last fall a Russian friend told me: «Ты выглядишь неважно.» That didn’t make much sense at all to me at first, since I thought she had just said to me: “You look unimportant”. Well, perhaps I wasn’t wearing a smart suit and it could be that I went too easy on the mascara that morning, but does that make a person look unimportant? I was, to say the least, puzzled, this leading to silence on my part and caused her to further develop our conversation on her own with a follow-up question: «Не заболела ли ты?» [You’re not sick, are you?] That was when I had myself a little aha-moment and answered: «Нет, не думаю, хотя горло немножко болит» [No, I don’t think so, even though my throat hurts a little]. What turned out to be the beginning of a cold was also the beginning of understanding the second meaning of the adverb «неважно» - unwell; not very well.

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Russia is an enormous country. It is inhabited by millions of different people. Its history is colorful [to say the least], the culture exceptional and vivid, it is a country that has given many great artists, writers, thinkers, scientists [the list could go on and on] to the world, but never mind all that now, дорогие мои [my dear ones], because the time has come to narrow everything, all of that, down to one. One person to become «Имя России» [Name of Russia]. Or at least that’s the plan according to Russia’s Number One State TV-channel, appropriately named «(Телеканал) Россия», something they proclaim with a flashy banner on the main site going: «Исторический выбор 2008» [Historic Election 2008], and no, I suppose they’re not talking about picking Medvedev for president back in March. That was only about politics, but this election is more than politics – this is about picking one single person from all of Russian history to represent it, to give it a face, and yes, a name. Apparently, those red ‘cheburashkas’ («Чебурашка») that are going to be the symbol of Russia in Beijing during the Olympics next month are not enough. Obviously, this country feels the need for a mascot that’s a little less cuddly, and this might have been the reason for the vote that started out with 500 nominees, but was narrowed down to the 50 most voted for after June 12th. And yes, you can vote too, all you need to do is click here and pick your own favorite. And if you click on «рейтинги» you’ll find the top twelve, which, unless they fall out of favor that is, will go to the third round on September 1st. And who’s number one, if not Stalin? Well, I’m all for a less hug-able and snuggle-worthy Name of Russia (despite having a little soft ‘cheburashka’ dangling from my bag), but a… dictator?

Continue reading "Имя России [‘Name of Russia’]: Who’s Your Pick?" »