Great, Powerful, Truthful, and Free

In May, a few days before the 100th day of Russia’s war against Ukraine, film and theater director Kirill Serebrennikov wrote a long post on his Telegram Channel about his overwhelming feeling of guilt and shame. He wrote about the heinous murder of a woman in Bucha: …пришли люди из моей страны — те, кто говорит со мной на одном языке, и убили её (…people came from my country — people who speak the same language as I do — and they killed her).

He didn’t write that the murderers had the same passport, or had the same upbringing, or looked like him, or dressed like him, or had sung the same songs and read the same books in childhood. For him, the pain was acute because the people who committed these terrible crimes spoke the same language as he does.

Russians have a very particular relationship with their language. Russian speakers write paeans to their language; English-speakers write jokes. Perhaps the most quoted saying about English is attributed to George Bernard Shaw: “England and America are two countries separated by the same language.” But it might be outdone by this commentary from Canadian novelist Douglas Coupland: “English is flexible: you can jam it into a Cuisinart for an hour, remove it, and meaning will still emerge.”

Compare those quips with the most famous Russian saying, declaimed whenever someone uses a particularly felicitous phrase, or comes up with a good pun, or pens a lovely rhyme: Великий, могучий русский язык! (The great and powerful Russian language!)

That “great and powerful” is just one small quote from a larger work called Русский язык, Стихотворение в прозе (The Russian Language, a prose poem) by the writer Ivan Turgenev.

Turgenev begins: Во дни сомнений, во дни тягостных раздумий о судьбах моей родины (In days of doubt, in days of troubled reflection on the fortunes of my homeland)… ты один мне поддержка и опора, о великий, могучий, правдивый и свободный русский язык! (…you alone are my support, my staff, O great, powerful, truthful and free Russian language!).

Today people rarely quote the last two epithets – правдивый and свободный. But they were important characteristics for Turgenev, who was writing from exile in Europe:  Не будь тебя — как не впасть в отчаяние при виде всего, что совершается дома? (Without you, we would surely fall into despair over all that is happening at home!)

And then he ends with a glorious Russian multiple negative that conveys an intensely positive sentiment: Но нельзя верить, чтобы такой язык не был дан великому народу! (Such a language could only be bestowed upon a great nation — it cannot be otherwise! — literally “But it’s impossible to believe that such a language wasn’t bestowed on a great nation.”) 

That sort of construction does make you think that Russian is a truly great and powerful language. And Turgenev’s point is clear: to a great people a great language is given. 

Over the centuries, many other Russian writers and thinkers have heaped praise — and dozens of adjectives — on their native tongue. The literary critic Vissarion Belinsky wrote: Что русский язык — один из богатейших языков в мире, в этом нет никакого сомнения (There is absolutely no doubt that the Russian language is one of the richest in the world). Konstantin Paustovsky agreed: Нет таких звуков, красок, образов и мыслей — сложных и простых, — для которых не нашлось бы в нашем языке точного выражения (There are no sounds, colors, images or thoughts — complex or simple — that cannot be precisely expressed in our language).

Another writer, Alexander Kuprin, agreed, but clarified that the beauty and versatility of the language require the hand of a master. Here the language has human characteristics: Русский язык в умелых руках и опытных устах красив, певуч, выразителен, гибок, послушен, ловок и вместителен (From the pen of masters and the lips of the skillful, the Russian language is beautiful, musical, expressive, flexible, obedient, nimble and capacious).

In the twentieth century, writer Alexei Tolstoy described Russian as being almost magically versatile with a bottomless font of beauty and range of emotions. But he doesn’t think the language was bestowed; it was forged by speakers and writers. Тысячелетия создавал народ это гибкое, пышное, неисчерпаемо богатое, умное поэтическое… орудие своей социальной жизни, своей мысли, своих чувств, своих надежд, своего гнева, своего великого будущего… (Over thousands of years the people have created this flexible, sumptuous, inexhaustibly rich, smart and poetic… tool of our social life, our thoughts, our feelings, our hopes, our fury, our great future…)

The philosopher Nikolai Berdyaev disagreed with Tolstoy; he believed the language was given to Russians to use: Нам дан во владение самый богатый, меткий, могучий и поистине волшебный русский язык. (We have been given possession of the richest, most exact, powerful, and truly magical Russian language!)

Of course, there have been different opinions over the years. Writing in the early Soviet period, Maxim Gorky did not praise the language’s magical beauty and versatility. He made it sound like a fortress with not enough windows: Наша речь преимущественно афористична, отличается своей сжатостью, крепостью (Our speech is largely aphoristic; it is renowned for being laconic and sturdy).

And Anton Chekhov loathed bureaucratese: Но какая гадость чиновничий язык! Исходя из того положения… с одной стороны… с другой же стороны – и всё это без всякой надобности. “Тем не менее и по мере того” чиновники сочинили. Я читаю и отплёвываюсь.  (Bureaucratic language is such rubbish! ‘Following from the provision… on the one hand… on the other’ — there’s no need for any of it! ‘Nevertheless and as far as’… I read and spit with disgust!)

Naturally, with a language as rich as Russian, foreignisms have always been perceived as linguistic blasphemy. The writer Nikolai Leskov was an early objector: Я не считаю хорошим и пригодным иностранные слова, если только их можно заменить чисто русскими или более обруселыми. Надо беречь наш богатый и прекрасный язык от порчи. (I do not consider foreign words to be good and appropriate if they can be replaced with purely Russian or more Russified words. We must protect our rich and marvelous language from corruption.)

Belinsky didn’t like borrowed words either: Употреблять иностранное слово, когда есть равносильное ему русское слово, — значит оскорблять и здравый смысл, и здравый вкус. (Using a foreign word when there is a Russian equivalent is an insult to common sense and good taste.)

Even Vladimir Lenin was ready to declare war on those nasty borrowings. Русский язык мы портим (We are spoiling the Russian language), he wrote. Не пора ли нам объявить войну употреблению иностранных слов без надобности? (Isn’t it time we declared war on the needless use of foreign words without need?)

However, some foreigners — not the ones who deviously insert their unnecessary words into pure Russian — sing praises, too. In the mid-nineteenth century, the French writer Prosper Mérimée was quoted as saying that the Russian language was “созданный для поэзии, он необычайно богат и примечателен главным образом тонкостью оттенков” (created for poetry; it’s extraordinarily rich and remarkable for its subtle shades of meaning).

Political philosopher Friedrich Engels was more to the point, at least as quoted in Russian translation: Как красив русский язык! Все преимущества немецкого без его ужасной грубости (Oh, the Russian language is so beautiful! It has all the strengths of German without its awful coarseness).

The structures that underpin all this praise are the ties that bind together language, people, and history. Язык — это история народа. Язык — это путь цивилизации и культуры (Language is the history of the people. Language is the path of civilization and culture), Alexander Kuprin wrote.

Novelist Mikhail Sholokhov wrote: Величайшее богатство народа – его язык! Тысячелетиями накапливаются и вечно живут в слове несметные сокровища человеческой мысли и опыта (The great richness of the people is their language! For thousands of years the myriad treasures of human thought and experience have been preserved and will live forever).

For Konstantin Paustovsky the connection comes with commitment: Русский язык открывается до конца в своих поистине волшебных свойствах и богатстве лишь тому, кто кровно любит и знает “до косточки” свой народ и чувствует сокровенную прелесть нашей земли (The Russian language fully reveals itself in all its truly magical qualities and richness only to those who deeply love their people, know them “down to the bone” and sense the sacred magnificence of our land).

And for the poet Anna Akhmatova, the connection comes with a duty. Writing from Tashkent, where she was evacuated during the Siege of Leningrad in 1942, Akhmatova vowed to save what she could from the invading army: …мы сохраним тебя, русская речь…. от плена спасём/Навеки! (We will save you, our Russian tongue… we’ll keep you safe from captivity/Forever!)

Tragically, with the concept of the Русский мир (Russian World), some Russians’ love for the Russian language crossed the line from patriotic appreciation to aggressive imposition. It will be many decades if not centuries before the world will again wish to celebrate великий, могучий, правдивый и свободный русский язык.