Russian

[osprey_archer]

From today in Russian class: “Not even the rain has such small feet.”

It’s a quote, or rather misquote, from poem e. e. cummings wrote which was inspired by a Russian expression. It’s odd and enchanting and I love it; it’s for these things that I’m studying Russian.

The big question this year, even in Russian class, has been why are you studying Russian?—because there isn’t an easy reason, like the high percentage of Spanish speakers in the US or the strategic importance of China or the generally accepted awesomeness of French and Japanese.

I don’t have a good answer. I’m studying Russian mostly—no, more or less entirely—for aesthetic reasons; and not aesthetic reasons as in “I love Tolstoy and Chekov,” but aesthetic reasons like I love onion domed churches and pysanky eggs; I love fairy tales that revolve around swans and bears and houses that walk on chicken legs; I love pictures of Russia and the Russian skies.

In the Americas, especially on the plains, the sky goes on forever; we have the biggest sky of anywhere but Australia and the sea. But the Russian sky is deeper and bluer than anywhere else, like you could reach out and touch it.

Even I think this is a flaky reason to study a language.

Comments

[exuberantself.livejournal.com]

Even I think this is a flaky reason to study a language.

It's not nearly as disturbing a reason if you're aware of it.

Gotta love translations, though. Have you ever read Umberto Eco?

[osprey-archer.livejournal.com]

Ah, but if I wasn't aware of it, I might have invented something more socially acceptable.

I haven't read Umberto Eco. I'm afraid that aside from things I've read for class, the number of non-English works I've read is appallingly small.

[ochre54.livejournal.com]

Hey, have you seen these colour photos of 1890's Russia (http://www.prokudin-gorsky.ru/)? (I'm actually using one as a desktop wallpaper right now.) To explain in more detail:

"There was a Russian inventor who in late 1890s actually invented a method of color photography. He did 3 B&W shots from the same point - one through a red filter, one through a green and one through a blue (this was long long before computer monitors as you understand). It took some time to change filters, so only static objects could be shot. To recreate the color photo he made a projector which projected all three images at the same time though their respective filters. The effect as you can imagine was magnificent. The Tsar Nicolay II granted a large sum to him for the equipment and to travel Russia and make a lot of color shots (some believe several thousands). Upon revolution the man decided to leave the country and took the photos with him. However some photos vere confistated - these included Tsar's family photos except very few and photos that were considered secret, some were lost or damaged. I don't yet know the whole story, but at the moment these photos are in US Library of Congress and are available for free downloading. A group of Russians desided that those B&W photos could be easily converted to full color with simple operations in Adobe Photoshop. And they did (and still do). So at link below you can see full colored photos of Tsar's Russia with towns, nature, people, machines and so on. A friend of mine described his experience of them as a cultural shock. The name of the inventor is Sergey Mikhailovich Prokudin-Gorsky."

[osprey-archer.livejournal.com]

Those are really lovely pictures. It's wonderful how early color photographs or technicolor movies seem to be hyperreal: their colors are brighter and deeper than color in the real world.

[anait.livejournal.com]

I like your flaky reasons and your quote. If we had to come up with logical explanations for everything that we found aesthetically pleasing, it wouldn't be nearly as much fun.

[longlegs21.livejournal.com]

It is hard to answer this question. As you might imagine, it also gets more annoying every time someone asks you. So the 100th person to ask, "Why Russian?" may be in danger of getting a disproportionately brusque/impatient/flippant answer. Eep!

(My reasons for studying Russian seem just as silly to me as yours do to you, by the way. So yours don't surprise me at all and, in fact, seem about as valid as they come! Also, I totally agree!)

[osprey-archer.livejournal.com]

It's really hard to come up with "valid" reasons for a lot of things I do, probably because society defines valid as likely to earn money and/or acclaim, which is annoying.

What are your reasons for studying Russian?

[longlegs21.livejournal.com]

It's kind of sick how our society revolves around money.

My reasons? Well, my dad studied Russian in school for a little while, and I wanted to be like my dad! Then he bought me a computer program for learning Russian, which I pounced on but never got beyond the alphabet and the "Это мой друг. Это моя подруга." level stuff. At that time I was also discovering and enjoying Dostoevsky and Tolstoy. Then I went to college. I wanted to take Spanish my first semester, but I would have had to start back at level 1, which I did not want to do (for some stupid reason--it would have been a relatively easy class that reinforced and refreshed my Spanish from high school--all positives, right? Oh, pride!). So I decided, "I'll show them! I'll just take Russian instead!" Which I had wanted to do anyway, but had lacked the courage to sign up for this notoriously difficult language. So, yeah. Those are my reasons. I still haven't figured out how to describe them concisely, or as anything other than haphazard, half-baked, and vain. :-)