Paul
Goble
Staunton, May 9 – Russia has lost “the
first round of the information war” by allowing the West to call “Rossiya” “Russia,”
according to Dmitry Sandakov who argues that other countries are using this
incorrect name to deliver a subliminal message that Russians are aggressive and
represent “a constant threat to the peaceful life of Europeans and Americans.
In an article on the Belarusian
portal Obrazovaniye, the social scientist and his colleaguer V.Yu. Laman insist
that “the official name of the country is Rossiya,” and that allowing the West
to call it “Russia” is “the greatest diversion against Rossiya” (obrazovanie.by/sandakov/russia-diversija-protiv-rossii.html).
Western countries use the name “Russia”
for “Rossiya,” a misuse that corresponds to the Russian “раша,” and they write the word “русский” as “Russian” and
pronounce it like “рашн.” “There are no logical explanations” for
this violation of good sense except anti-Russian politics.
“Some people,”
Sandakov continues, claim “to see here an analogy with the word Rus, but the word
‘Rus’ was never the official name of the state at any point in the visible
historical past.” In fact, he argues,
the West wants to associate the word and reality of Russia with the word “rush”
and all its connotations, including aggressive ones.
“This complex of
associated meanings at the conscious and unconscious level form a corresponding
general attitude toward Russians,” one that is “suspicious” and “hostile,” the
Belarusian writer continues. “Every
Russian (that is ‘rashn’) for an English speaker is thus a priori and from the very beginning
presented as an aggressor and source of danger.”
In this way, Sandakov
says, “one of the goals of a military information operation – to give one’s
opponent the image of aggressor is successfully achieved without any effort and
expense.”
It is unknown exactly
which English speaker came up with this idea first, he says, adding that “we
only know” that it was far from always the case the English speakers used “Russia”
as the name of the country. At the
Stockholm Olympic Games in 1912, for instance, the team from Rossiya was led
into the stadium under a placard reading “Rossia.”
“Rossia,” he argues, is closely related to the
word rose which has many positive connotations, something that those who
promoted the use of “Russia” clearly did not want anyone to pick up on. But the
situation is even worse as other languages, including Hebrew, do the same
thing.
But this “linguistic
diversion” against Rossia has had even greater success than its authors
probably thought possible: in recent times, “the word раша [Russia]”
is being actively imported into Russia itself, with Rossians now talking about “Our
Russia.”
“It is surprising,”
Sandakov says, “that among the highest Rossian bureaucrats there is no one who ready
to devote attention to this egregious phenomenon and shame.” Many of them have
fallen into the trap of using the word “Russia” without thinking about the
implications for their country and its people.
Among the possible
reactions to this article, two stand out: On the one hand, it is an example of
the extreme paranoia of some Russian speakers. But on the other and given that
it author is a Belarusian scholar, it may have a subliminal message of its own,
one that among other things explicitly rejects any link between the current
country and Rus.
It will be interesting
to see how Moscow as well as Minsk react.
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