War of memes: why Z-war won't end with peace

Kamil Galeev @kamilkazani

Consider how linguistic map of France changed with the propagation of mass schooling. Non-French speaking zone (dark grey) which covered most of the country in 1830s contracted to few isolated areas by 1950. Memes included into the curriculum skyrocket, excluded ones - die out pic.twitter.com/56fk37wKha

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Kamil Galeev @kamilkazani

Vernacular bifurcation explains the phenomenon of a national genius, especially the national poet. Did you notice that so many literary cultures are centred around the Great National Poet? Why? "Great" here means "impactful". And "impactful" means - the model for standardisation pic.twitter.com/euzGYVsfoi

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Kamil Galeev @kamilkazani

Great Poet = the Poet of National Curriculum. Curriculum homogenises the cultural space and creates the monoculture. Curriculum completes the Vernacular Bifurcation. Therefore, which poet is included into the curriculum and which is not is the matter of huge political importance pic.twitter.com/XFDrKzYVLJ

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Kamil Galeev @kamilkazani

Now let's talk of Eastern Europe. We've just discussed that the premodern word was divided into a number of global communities of signs centred around a certain sacred language, like Quranic Arabic. In Western Europe it was Latin. In Eastern Europe it was the Old Church Slavonic pic.twitter.com/FxBHaPZU86

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Kamil Galeev @kamilkazani

Old Church Slavonic was a South Slavic language, probably of Bulgarian origin, that became the language of sacred books and church services all over Eastern Europe, including modern Bulgaria, Romania, Moldova, Ukraine, Belarus and Russia thus creating a specific sacred community pic.twitter.com/En5Pljbj2V

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Kamil Galeev @kamilkazani

Sacred community is built around an unintelligible esoteric language. Indeed even though the sacred community of the Old Church Slavonic included speakers of Slavic, Romance and may be other spoken vernaculars, it was different enough from those vernaculars to be ununderstandable pic.twitter.com/jeTbIM1fyY

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Kamil Galeev @kamilkazani

That's especially clear in case of Romance speakers. Paradoxically it may sound, Orthodox Romanians used a Slavic sacred language they couldn't understand. It was the Protestant Reformation that gave the impetus to the development of literary Romanian pic.twitter.com/NPGXcBvqHa

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Kamil Galeev @kamilkazani

Romanians weren't Protestant. But their Hungarian overlords in Transylvania were. Thus they forced Romanian priesthood to switch liturgy from the Slavic sacred language to a Romance spoken vernacular. Cultural interactions are way more complicated than many tend to think pic.twitter.com/iNrmr3XZvq

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Kamil Galeev @kamilkazani

In Romance Orthodox lands spoken vernaculars were most distant from the sacred language. However, even in Eastern Slavic Orthodox area distance between Old Church Slavonic and vernaculars was large enough to make this South Slavic sacred language unintelligible for the masses pic.twitter.com/aCEnuyDyTb

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Kamil Galeev @kamilkazani

Existence of an Eastern European sacred community built on the Old Church Slavonic (like the Western European щту was built on Latin) sheds the light on the meaning of the word "Russian" ("русский") in medieval Russia. It doesn't refer to the ethnicity. It refers to the religion pic.twitter.com/6Y4oDSWXzL

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Kamil Galeev @kamilkazani

Equating premodern sacred communities to modern national communities is a major fallacy. That's wrong, even if they bear the same or a similar name. In modern Russia the word Russian refers to a nation. In medieval Russia - to the sacred community operating across ethnic lines

Kamil Galeev @kamilkazani

Regions which we now consider really "Russian" such as Tver or Ryazan are mixed with those we now perceive as clearly foreign. That's for example a map of Lithuanian Russian towns, stretching from Kaunas almost to Moscow across all ethnic and linguistic lines pic.twitter.com/gmx8Y3C2LU

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Kamil Galeev @kamilkazani

What is even more interesting, the lists of Russian towns *start* with Bulgarian Russian towns, Wallachian Russian towns being second in order. Eastern Slavic towns are listed later. That probably implies that it was Bulgaria that was the birthplace of "Russian" sacred community pic.twitter.com/MBcIoOzAOs

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Kamil Galeev @kamilkazani

Meanwhile Moscow and what is now Central Russia, the birthplace of Muscovy, is listed there as Zalesye (="behind the forest"). Which apparently implies that Muscovy was considered a newly colonised territory in the forests of the north and not the centre of the "Russian" world pic.twitter.com/4EZnR7hS6h

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Kamil Galeev @kamilkazani

What do we see here? Both the great map of the Russian towns and the maps of particular Russian regions ignore ethnicity. Russian land includes Romance speaking regions. Lithuanian region of the Russian land includes both Baltic and Eastern Slavic speakers. Nobody cares pic.twitter.com/Qn4D7ahegB

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Kamil Galeev @kamilkazani

The map of Russian towns is *not* an ethnic map or a map of spoken tongues. It's the map of the Old Church Slavonic sacred community which was then called "Russian". Your origin, your spoken language don't matter: using Old Church Slavonic for the liturgy, makes you "Russian" pic.twitter.com/x3Ggf8cbrB

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Kamil Galeev @kamilkazani

And ofc what is now Russia was not considered the centre of the Russian sacred community. The list implies it was probably Bulgaria. Bulgarian towns opens the list of the Russian towns. Which makes total sense if this sacred language originated there pic.twitter.com/LL7FKS04Cw

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Kamil Galeev @kamilkazani

Some imbeciles say that the fact that Ukraine or Belarus are called "Russian" in medieval texts means they are part of Russian nation. That's simply false. Medieval "Russian" sacred community is equated with modern Russian sacred state. That's an ahistorical fallacy pic.twitter.com/ncKYS9AwWl

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Kamil Galeev @kamilkazani

When Westerners equate medieval sacred community with a modern nation state, that's ignorance. But when Russians do it, it's a political statement. What once used to be the sacred community of the Old Church Slavonic must be now transformed to the unitary Russian nation state pic.twitter.com/Jup6ea1vNb

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Kamil Galeev @kamilkazani

Transforming sacred community into the unitary nation state is harder than one could think. Why? Because in a sacred community the sacred language coexists with tons of spoken vernaculars. Sacred community is a phenomenon of the diverse premodern world. But a nation state is not

Kamil Galeev @kamilkazani

A unitary nation state doesn't tolerate diversity. It will choose one vernacular and impose it all over its territory, extirpating any competing ones. That is the major factor of vernacular bifurcation which is completed through the mass schooling according to a uniform standard

Kamil Galeev @kamilkazani

That explains significance of Pushkin for the modern Russia. Since Russia incorporated what is now Ukraine and Belarus under Catherine II, Russian government always fought for homogenising all East Slavic territories after the Russian standard, politics, culture and language-wise

Kamil Galeev @kamilkazani

Russia strived to impose the same language all over Russia, Ukraine and Belarus. And yet, the question was - what should we impose as the standard? Pushkin is so prominent because he created this standard. His literary legacy gave a model which the state could propagate pic.twitter.com/L8NboHOBUo

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Kamil Galeev @kamilkazani

Pushkin created the modern Russian language in a sense that he created that version of Russian language that would be later imposed by the authority of the state. That's why he became the most impactful Russian author and modern Russians can hardly read pre-Pushkin literature pic.twitter.com/TVOXwVhvql

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Kamil Galeev @kamilkazani

Before Pushkin Russia didn't have a single literary standard. There were many styles, some influenced more by Western European languages, some by other Slavic ones, some - by the Old Church Slavonic. There were wide debates on which tongues should serve as the model for Russian pic.twitter.com/I0eJHTkYEM

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