Literary critic: Let our officials learn Russian and not sit at high-level meetings with their mouths shut (video)
Literary critic Davit Gasparyan advises Armenians not to take seriously the latest statement of Permanent Delegate of the Russian Federation to UNESCO, Ambassador Eleonora Mitrofanova, who said that the Russian language must be given special legal status in post-Soviet states. “Taking such a thing seriously will mean we are not serious,” Davit Gasparyan said to reporters in Yerevan on Friday. He says there is not a high demand for the Russian language in Armenia. Besides, national minorities living in Armenia know the Armenian language quite well to be able to communicate effectively in the language. “These kinds of concerns must be suffocated and killed like a snake in its nest,” the literary critic stressed. At the same time, Mr. Gasparyan adds that Russian and English must be taught in our schools at the best possible level ‘so that our high-ranking officials will not go and sit at high-level meetings with their mouths shut like an animal.’ Ruben Babayan, Art Director of Yerevan State Puppet Theatre, added that culture can never be aggressive, especially the powerful Russian culture, because Tolstoy, Dostoevsky, Chekhov and Pushkin were not aggressive. “This is not a matter of language; this is a matter of expansion when a county is perceived as an area and its population as service staff. We know what we are serving – a military base, communications. Today we carry out a policy which serves the interests of other country,” Mr. Babayan added.
