On June 6, the II International Scientific and Practical Conference dedicated to the Pushkin Day of Russia — the International Day of the Russian Language – was held at Kuban State University. Together with international students and postgraduates from KubSU, representatives from the Bishkek Humanities University named after K. Karasaev (Kyrgyzstan), Minsk State Linguistic University (Republic of Belarus), Tianjin Foreign Studies University (China), Qingdao City University (China), National and Kapodistrian University of Athens (Greece), and Nukus State Pedagogical Institute (Uzbekistan) participated in the conference.
The conference was organized by the Department of Russian as a Foreign Language of the Faculty of Russian Philology; its aim is to preserve, support, strengthen, and develop the Russian Language as a national heritage of the peoples of the Russian Federation; the Russian Language is considered as a means of international communication, and as an integral part of the cultural and spiritual heritage of world civilization.
The participants of the conference were greeted by the Dean of the Faculty of Russian Philology of KubSU, Evgeniya Zhirkova, the Rector of the Crimean Republican Institute of Postgraduate Pedagogical Education, Alexander Rudyakov, and the Head of the Department of Russian as a Foreign Language, Valery Abramov, and the Acting Director of the Departmentof International Affairs, Evgeniya Rotay. The conference was moderated by Olga Kuznetsova, Associate Professor at the Department of Russian as a Foreign Language.
The welcoming speeches emphasized the value, significance, and uniqueness of the Russian Language.
«In his famous speech dedicated to Pushkin, Fyodor Dostoevsky emphasized the national character of Pushkin’s work, «No other Russian writer, before or after him, has ever been so deeply and closely connected with his people as Pushkin,» noted Evgenia Zhirkova.
Alexander Rudyakov emphasized in his speech the special reverence for the Russian Language in Crimea in the current geopolitical situation in the world. Valery Abramov, a recipient of the Pushkin Medal, proudly mentioned that the award was particularly valuable to him, as it was presented at the Tsarskoye Selo Lyceum where a young Pushkin studied. The poems of the Great Russian poet were recited by the KubSU international students from China, Haiti, Sudan, Syria, Niger, Afghanistan, Abkhazia, and Ecuador, as well as from partner universities of KubSU, with profound emotion and special intonation.
It is mainly thanks to A. Pushkin, the Russian Language has become a truly great national and global language. The literary writings of the Great Russian poet are invaluable. The writings unite people of all ages, religions, and nationalities and have been translated into dozens of languages around the world.
Today, nearly 260 million people speak Russian. Russian is one of the six official languages of the United Nations. Perhaps, there is not a single country in the world on every continent where our great writers, philosophers, artists and scientists have not been read or are not known, who over the centuries have created the world fame of Russian literature and Russian culture with their brilliant works.
