Under whose dictation?

2024 Author: Seth Attwood | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 15:55

Statement of the Union of Writers of Russia about Dina Rubina and "Total Dictation"

The Union of Writers of the Russian Federation, having carefully discussed all opinions on the so-called "Total Dictation", held for the fourth time in Russia without any agreement with the Union of Writers of Russia, believes that the Ulyanovsk Governor Sergei Morozov is absolutely right, replacing the text of the Israeli writer Dina Rubina, the text of the writer Vasily Peskov about the life and work of the local Ulyanovsk artist Plastov. The same text was written in the second largest city in the region - Dimitrovgrad.

The reason was that the writer Dina Rubina, according to Morozov, actively uses profanity in her works. And this does not correspond to the concept of "Total dictation". There were no swear words in the dictation itself. But having made the author of the dictation a swearing writer, having introduced him to a number of Russian classics, we propagandize his swearing work primarily among children and adolescents.

“The action“Total dictation first of all stands for the purity of the Russian language, for the enhancement of the culture of writing”. Therefore, the Ulyanovsk governor proposed to replace the text. “We will write a dictation. But let it be a text about our fellow countryman - Arkady Aleksandrovich Plastov,”the governor said. - “Language is the soul of the people. Each of his words and expressions contains the unique strength, deepest feelings and age-old wisdom of our ancestors. And not to protect this property is a real crime."

As a result, the participants in the dictation, who had gathered in the palace of culture (including officials of the regional government), were read the text of the writer Vasily Peskov about the life and work of Plastov.

We, Russian writers, can only be proud of the act of the Ulyanovsk governor.

As Svetlana Openysheva, deputy governor of the Ulyanovsk region said:

“We reacted to the replacement quite well. I will not say that Vasily Peskov's text was easy. And I don't understand why not really take the text that is closer to people, to the heart. The one that was dictated to us is one of those. When I wrote that Plastov, being in Venice, took out wormwood from a box and smelled it, I could smell this wormwood. This is really a man from the earth, his own. Governor S. Morozov later said that he “did not care at all” if the test results in the Ulyanovsk region were not taken into account. He also said that the regional authorities decided to annually hold a similar dictation in the region on Pushkin's birthday.

In response to the governor, threats began at the federal level. "YOU WILL PAY FOR IT !!!", Egor Zaikin, Development Manager of the Total Dictation project, wrote on Twitter. And what reckoning awaits the governor, all the Ulyanovsk schoolchildren and officials who wrote the dictation? Will the manager hire Israeli bandits?

“I treat obscenities like a writer,” Dina Rubina told KP correspondents the day before. “If taboo vocabulary is needed in context, if a character needs it, then the page needs it. These are the words of the Russian language, this is a certain layer. And there's nothing you can do about it. If it is oversaturated, then it is bad for the page too. But if this is an emotionally strong word, if it is an emotional blow that helps to emphasize certain character traits? Sometimes they say to me: "Well, why are you just like Guberman", or "And also a woman …".

Dina Ilyinichna even gave examples of where one cannot do without a strong word: “Imagine a boatswain who ordered to clean up the deck. The deck is not torn off. What does he say to the team?"

Firstly, the Israeli writer is not a boatswain, and she cannot be responsible for all our boatswains. Russia has excellent maritime prose, from Novikov-Priboy and Sergeev-Tsensky to Valentin Pikul. And none of them swore in prose. Secondly, our officials are incomprehensible, who proposed an amateur of taboo vocabulary as the author of the dictation. Is it really incomprehensible that lovers of obscene words are not suitable as authors of "total dictations"? Let their books come out on their own in "adult prose", the same Chuck Palahniuk or Eduard Limonov. Let Dina Rubina talk in obscene (as she says - taboo) vocabulary with her children, if she has any. Thirdly, the country where the writer is staying is also surprising. It's not about nationality. But, we do not think that quite respected highly talented Russian Tatar and Bashkir, Yakut and Karelian writers with a light heart would take up the text of the Russian "total dictation" in the country where the greatest native speakers of the Russian language still live and work, such as Valentin Rasputin, Viktor Likhonosov, Vladimir Lichutin, Peter Krasnov, Alexey Ivanov and others. We think that even such a unique and inimitable Russian writer of world renown as Anatoly Kim, being a Korean by nationality, would be careful not to take on “total dictation”. We are sure that our deeply respected and talented Russian-speaking Kazakh writers, such as Olzhas Suleimenov or Rollan Seisenbaev, Kirghiz Chingiz Aitmatov, Moldavian Ion Druce, Georgian Guram Panjikidze, would never undertake "total dictation" in the presence of Lichutin or Rasputin.

And why should a writer who was born in Central Asia, spent her childhood there, and then moved to her historical homeland Israel, to the country of Valentin Rasputin and Viktor Likhonosov, Vladimir Lichutin and Vladimir Kostrov? Not a single day lived in the very root of Russia. Where does it get the deep roots of the Russian language? It is unlikely that she would have been admitted to dictation in Hebrew in her native Israel, despite the fact that she passed this language in the exam, accepting citizenship.

Amicably all the press and our democratic community have attacked the poor Ulyanovsk governor. And we say - well done! Hold on!

It would be great if a week of the Russian language passed on the eve of the dictation. The media would broadcast programs, speeches (interesting, vivid) of famous Russian writers, poems and prose about the Russian language of writers and poets who live or lived in each specific region would be read, meetings with the population of members of the Writers' Union would be intensified … Such an event as “Total dictation” should stir up all settlements, otherwise, why should it be carried out then? And the text should be one that worries all Russians. It can be the same for the region if one Russian writer was not “found” on the scale of Russia. It can be dictated by radio, local TV for those who cannot leave the house. And then give the text on the screen for self-test. Time and content should be consistent. Announce an hour of silence in the city. This should be an event!

Russia would have had more of such Sergeev Morozovs!