On July 29, 2024, Russia and India will hold an international educational telebridge to commemorate the 225th anniversary of Aleksander Pushkin’s birth. Students from ten Indian states studying Russian as a foreign language will increase their knowledge through direct communication with experts in the fields of philology and linguocultural studies. The teleconference will be organised by the international outreach project “Modern Russian” of the TV BRICS international media network in cooperation with the Indian Association of Teachers of Russian Language and Literature and with the support of the Russian House in New Delhi.

“The Russian language is worth studying just for the sake of its richest fiction. In India, there is great interest in the language in which Dostoevsky, Tolstoy, Chekhov, Pushkin, Turgenev, and other great authors wrote. New departments of the Russian language are appearing in universities. There is still a high demand for specialists with knowledge of Russian in the state and academic spheres. Russian remains the language of international communication; it is not only one of the UN languages but also the language of communication with the CIS countries and a number of Slavic nations,” said Charanjit Singh, President of the Indian Association of Teachers of Russian Language and Literature.

The forthcoming teleconference will be the fourth, but this time the largest in terms of participation. More than 20 higher education institutions from the states of Delhi, Gujarat, Kerala, Bihar, Uttar Pradesh, Maharashtra, Telangana, West Bengal, Punjab, and Haryana have announced their intention to join the video meeting. These include the country’s largest institutions of higher learning: Jawaharlal Nehru University in New Delhi, Delhi University, English and Foreign Languages University in Hyderabad, Maharaja Sayajirao University of Baroda in Vadodara, and the University of Punjab in Chandigah.

The topic of the upcoming Russia-India teleconference is “Reading is the best teaching. Reflections on Happiness”. It will be hosted by Tamara Skok, Director of the Department of Innovative Linguistic Projects at TV BRICS, and Aleksandra Burman, Head of International Projects at TV BRICS. The moderators will work from a studio set up at the All-Russian State Library for Foreign Literature named after M.I. Rudomino, which co-organised the teleconference.

“Linguo-country studies teleconferences organised by the TV BRICS and the Modern Russian international project are the best means of popularising the Russian language and culture abroad. The great advantage of this format is that it involves close interaction not only during the teleconference but also at the stage of its preparation: we select materials for preliminary vocabulary work, create exclusive visual content, and at the same time we are in constant communication with our foreign colleagues, teachers of Russian as a foreign language, and together we form such an educational space in which postgraduates and students find it interesting and comfortable to master new knowledge. In order to make the audience more receptive and emotionally involved during the teleconference dedicated to Pushkin, we will use modern communication technologies and new formats of interaction. I would like to point out that the teleconferences are part of TV BRICS’ comprehensive and systematic work to promote the Russian language and culture and to create a positive image of Russia abroad: news, programmes, and documentaries are regularly posted on the resources of the network’s foreign media partners”

Tamara Skok

Director of the Department of Innovative Linguistic Projects at TV BRICS
During the teleconference, foreign participants will analyse such a universal human concept as happiness on the basis of Pushkin’s works, see video sketches of Pushkin’s places in Moscow, Moscow, and Pskov regions, and read poems by the world-famous poet in Russian.

“More than 70 students took part in the qualifying round of reading Aleksander Pushkin’s poems. For us, teachers, such preparation helped to recover some of the most beautiful lines of the great poet. The forthcoming live communication during the teleconference will be a great stimulus for students and will increase their interest not only in the Russian language but also in Russian literature and culture. I am sure that the teleconference will be a great success and other similar events will follow,” Charanjit Singh assured.

Previous Russia-India teleconferences were dedicated to international friendship, Russian hospitality, and Maslenitsa celebrations. In 2022, the TV BRICS lecture “Peculiarities and Identity of Russian Regions” for undergraduate, graduate, and postgraduate students of the Department of Russian Studies was held at Jawaharlal Nehru University in New Delhi in a face-to-face format. In 2023, TV BRICS was an information partner of the international volunteer programme of the Pushkin State Russian Language Institute, “Russian language ambassadors n the world,” which included an expedition to India.

The international information and awareness-raising project “Modern Russian” was created in 2007 to popularise the Russian language, improve the literacy level of the population, and provide linguistic assistance. It is implemented by TVBRICS. It has no analogues in Russia or abroad in terms of a set of practical philological activities. Information resources and consulting services for the project are used in more than 150 countries around the world. “Modern Russian” is the winner of the All-Russian contests of intellectual projects “Derzhava” and PR projects preserving and strengthening the position of the Russian language in the Russian Federation. It cooperates with the Pushkin Institute of the Russian Language and the Russkiy Mir Foundation.

Photo: TV BRICS