The Pskov Land ( Russian : Псковская земля , romanized : Pskovskaya zemlya ) was a historical region in the north-west of medieval Russia centred around the city of Pskov . It was a vassal state of various Rus' states and had a measure of independence as Pskov Republic before being annexed by the Grand Duchy of Moscow . It had an important role in the trade and conflicts between Russia and its western neighbours.
98-414: Alexander Yaroslavich Nevsky ( Russian : Александр Ярославич Невский ; IPA: [ɐlʲɪˈksandr jɪrɐˈsɫavʲɪtɕ ˈnʲɛfskʲɪj] ; monastic name : Aleksiy ; 13 May 1221 – 14 November 1263) was Prince of Novgorod (1236–1240; 1241–1256; 1258–1259), Grand Prince of Kiev (1246–1263) and Grand Prince of Vladimir (1252–1263). Commonly regarded as a key figure in medieval Russian history, Alexander
196-649: A constitutional referendum on whether to adopt Russian as a second official language. According to the Central Election Commission, 74.8% voted against, 24.9% voted for and the voter turnout was 71.1%. Starting in 2019, instruction in Russian will be gradually discontinued in private colleges and universities in Latvia, and in general instruction in Latvian public high schools. On 29 September 2022, Saeima passed in
294-633: A lingua franca in Ukraine , Moldova , the Caucasus , Central Asia , and to a lesser extent in the Baltic states and Israel . Russian has over 258 million total speakers worldwide. It is the most spoken native language in Europe , the most spoken Slavic language , as well as the most geographically widespread language of Eurasia . It is the world's seventh-most spoken language by number of native speakers , and
392-510: A new education law which requires all schools to teach at least partially in Ukrainian, with provisions while allow indigenous languages and languages of national minorities to be used alongside the national language. The law faced criticism from officials in Russia and Hungary. The 2019 Law of Ukraine "On protecting the functioning of the Ukrainian language as the state language" gives priority to
490-424: A daughter of Bryacheslav Vasilkovich, Prince of Polotsk and Vitebsk , in 1239. Her name is not given in the chronicle. Genealogies name her as Paraskeviya or Alexandra (possibly birth and marital names respectively). They had five children: He married a second wife named Vasilisa or Vassa shortly before his death. They had one son. On 14 November 1263, while returning from Sarai on one of his frequent visits to
588-533: A formula with V standing for the nucleus (vowel) and C for each consonant, the maximal structure can be described as follows: (C)(C)(C)(C)V(C)(C)(C)(C) Pskov Land Pskov is situated on the southern shore of the Lake Peipus , to the east of Livonia , and to the west of Novgorod . In the 13th century, the Principality of Pskov was a narrow strip of land along the eastern Narva River and Peipus, bordered to
686-558: A hard or soft counterpart, and the distinction is a prominent feature of the language, which is usually shown in writing not by a change of the consonant but rather by changing the following vowel. Another important aspect is the reduction of unstressed vowels . Stress , which is often unpredictable, is not normally indicated orthographically , though an optional acute accent may be used to mark stress – such as to distinguish between homographic words (e.g. замо́к [ zamók , 'lock'] and за́мок [ zámok , 'castle']), or to indicate
784-479: A language that "belongs to the European cultural space". The financing of Russian-language content by the state will cease, which the concept says create a "unified information space". However, one inevitable consequence would be the closure of public media broadcasts in Russian on LTV and Latvian Radio, as well as the closure of LSM's Russian-language service. In Lithuania , Russian has no official or legal status, but
882-572: A lesser extent the languages to the south and the east: Uralic , Turkic , Persian , Arabic , and Hebrew . According to the Defense Language Institute in Monterey, California , Russian is classified as a level III language in terms of learning difficulty for native English speakers, requiring approximately 1,100 hours of immersion instruction to achieve intermediate fluency. Feudal divisions and conflicts created obstacles between
980-514: A military alliance with Riga. The Novgorod nobility believed that Yaroslav had merely used the pretext of attacking Riga to conquer Pskov. Yaroslav now asked Pskov to take part in the attack, but Pskov refused. Between 1236 and 1242, the Kievan Rus', except Novgorod, Pskov, Smolensk and Polotsk, was conquered by the Golden Horde . The Grand Duchy of Lithuania quickly expanded their influence on
1078-607: A minority language under the Framework Convention for the Protection of National Minorities . 30% of the population was fluent in Russian in 2006, and 2% used it as the main language with family, friends, or at work. In Azerbaijan , Russian has no official status, but is a lingua franca of the country. 26% of the population was fluent in Russian in 2006, and 5% used it as the main language with family, friends, or at work. In Georgia , Russian has no official status, but it
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#17330939869421176-516: A qualitatively new entity can be said to emerge—the general language of the working class... capitalism has the tendency of creating the general urban language of a given society. In 2010, there were 259.8 million speakers of Russian in the world: in Russia – 137.5 million, in the CIS and Baltic countries – 93.7 million, in Eastern Europe – 12.9 million, Western Europe – 7.3 million, Asia – 2.7 million, in
1274-567: Is 23 November. A second feast day was instituted on 30 August in commemoration of the placing of his relics in the Annunciation Church. He is also commemorated in common with other saints of Rostov and Yaroslavl on 23 May. In February 2024, it was announced that the memory of Saint Alexander Nevsky had been removed from the synaxarion used by the Orthodox Church of Ukraine . Some historians see Alexander's choice of subordination to
1372-527: Is Belarusian, among ethnic Belarusians this share is 28.5%; the highest share of those who speak Belarusian at home is among ethnic Poles — 46.0%. In Estonia , Russian is spoken by 29.6% of the population, according to a 2011 estimate from the World Factbook, and is officially considered a foreign language. School education in the Russian language is a very contentious point in Estonian politics, and in 2022,
1470-475: Is a co-official language per article 5 of the Constitution of Kyrgyzstan . The 2009 census states that 482,200 people speak Russian as a native language, or 8.99% of the population. Additionally, 1,854,700 residents of Kyrgyzstan aged 15 and above fluently speak Russian as a second language, or 49.6% of the population in the age group. In Tajikistan , Russian is the language of inter-ethnic communication under
1568-401: Is a high degree of mutual intelligibility between Russian, Belarusian and Ukrainian , and a moderate degree of it in all modern Slavic languages, at least at the conversational level. Russian is written using a Cyrillic alphabet. The Russian alphabet consists of 33 letters. The following table gives their forms, along with IPA values for each letter's typical sound: Older letters of
1666-593: Is a post-posed definite article -to , -ta , -te similar to that existing in Bulgarian and Macedonian. In the Southern Russian dialects , instances of unstressed /e/ and /a/ following palatalized consonants and preceding a stressed syllable are not reduced to [ɪ] (as occurs in the Moscow dialect), being instead pronounced [a] in such positions (e.g. несл и is pronounced [nʲaˈslʲi] , not [nʲɪsˈlʲi] ) – this
1764-485: Is being used less frequently by Russian-speaking typists in favor of the extension of Unicode character encoding , which fully incorporates the Russian alphabet. Free programs are available offering this Unicode extension, which allow users to type Russian characters, even on Western 'QWERTY' keyboards. The Russian language was first introduced to computing after the M-1 , and MESM models were produced in 1951. According to
1862-613: Is called yakanye ( яканье ). Consonants include a fricative /ɣ/ , a semivowel /w⁓u̯/ and /x⁓xv⁓xw/ , whereas the Standard and Northern dialects have the consonants /ɡ/ , /v/ , and final /l/ and /f/ , respectively. The morphology features a palatalized final /tʲ/ in 3rd person forms of verbs (this is unpalatalized in the Standard and Northern dialects). During the Proto-Slavic (Common Slavic) times all Slavs spoke one mutually intelligible language or group of dialects. There
1960-563: Is more spoken than English. Sizable Russian-speaking communities also exist in North America, especially in large urban centers of the US and Canada, such as New York City , Philadelphia , Boston , Los Angeles , Nashville , San Francisco , Seattle , Spokane , Toronto , Calgary , Baltimore , Miami , Portland , Chicago , Denver , and Cleveland . In a number of locations they issue their own newspapers, and live in ethnic enclaves (especially
2058-564: Is odd") – чу́дно ( chúdno – "this is marvellous"), молоде́ц ( molodéts – "well done!") – мо́лодец ( mólodets – "fine young man"), узна́ю ( uznáyu – "I shall learn it") – узнаю́ ( uznayú – "I recognize it"), отреза́ть ( otrezát – "to be cutting") – отре́зать ( otrézat – "to have cut"); to indicate the proper pronunciation of uncommon words, especially personal and family names, like афе́ра ( aféra , "scandal, affair"), гу́ру ( gúru , "guru"), Гарси́я ( García ), Оле́ша ( Olésha ), Фе́рми ( Fermi ), and to show which
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#17330939869422156-402: Is recognized as a minority language under the Framework Convention for the Protection of National Minorities . Russian is the language of 9% of the population according to the World Factbook. Ethnologue cites Russian as the country's de facto working language. In China , Russian has no official status, but it is spoken by the small Russian communities in the northeastern Heilongjiang and
2254-569: Is sometimes considered to have played a significant role in the formation of modern Russian. Also, Russian has notable lexical similarities with Bulgarian due to a common Church Slavonic influence on both languages, but because of later interaction in the 19th and 20th centuries, Bulgarian grammar differs markedly from Russian. Over the course of centuries, the vocabulary and literary style of Russian have also been influenced by Western and Central European languages such as Greek, Latin , Polish , Dutch , German, French, Italian, and English, and to
2352-576: Is spoken by 14.2% of the population according to an undated estimate from the World Factbook. In 2005, Russian was the most widely taught foreign language in Mongolia, and was compulsory in Year 7 onward as a second foreign language in 2006. Around 1.5 million Israelis spoke Russian as of 2017. The Israeli press and websites regularly publish material in Russian and there are Russian newspapers, television stations, schools, and social media outlets based in
2450-518: Is the stressed word in a sentence, for example Ты́ съел печенье? ( Tý syel pechenye? – "Was it you who ate the cookie?") – Ты съе́л печенье? ( Ty syél pechenye? – "Did you eat the cookie?) – Ты съел пече́нье? ( Ty syel pechénye? "Was it the cookie you ate?"). Stress marks are mandatory in lexical dictionaries and books for children or Russian learners. The Russian syllable structure can be quite complex, with both initial and final consonant clusters of up to four consecutive sounds. Using
2548-461: The 2011 Lithuanian census , Russian was the native language for 7.2% of the population. In Moldova , Russian was considered to be the language of interethnic communication under a Soviet-era law. On 21 January 2021, the Constitutional Court of Moldova declared the law unconstitutional and deprived Russian of the status of the language of interethnic communication. 50% of the population
2646-966: The Apollo–Soyuz mission, which first flew in 1975. In March 2013, Russian was found to be the second-most used language on websites after English. Russian was the language of 5.9% of all websites, slightly ahead of German and far behind English (54.7%). Russian was used not only on 89.8% of .ru sites, but also on 88.7% of sites with the former Soviet Union domain .su . Websites in former Soviet Union member states also used high levels of Russian: 79.0% in Ukraine, 86.9% in Belarus, 84.0% in Kazakhstan, 79.6% in Uzbekistan, 75.9% in Kyrgyzstan and 81.8% in Tajikistan. However, Russian
2744-631: The Balto-Slavic branch of the Indo-European language family . It is one of the four extant East Slavic languages, and is the native language of the Russians . It was the de facto and de jure official language of the former Soviet Union . Russian has remained an official language of the Russian Federation , Belarus , Kazakhstan , Kyrgyzstan , and Tajikistan , and is still commonly used as
2842-611: The Battle of the Neva . Hundreds of years later, in the 15th century, Alexander received the sobriquet Nevsky ("of the Neva"). In September 1240, troops of the Bishopric of Dorpat , the Livonian Order and the exiled pretender-prince Yaroslav Vladimirovich of Pskov [ ru ; be ] conducted the 1240 Izborsk and Pskov campaign , successfully overthrowing the pro-Suzdalian faction in
2940-413: The Constitution of Tajikistan and is permitted in official documentation. 28% of the population was fluent in Russian in 2006, and 7% used it as the main language with family, friends or at work. The World Factbook notes that Russian is widely used in government and business. In Turkmenistan , Russian lost its status as the official lingua franca in 1996. Among 12% of the population who grew up in
3038-534: The Golden Horde as an important reaffirmation of East Slavs' Orthodox orientation (which begun under Vladimir I of Kiev and his grandmother Olga ). Orlando Figes mentioned that "Nevsky's collaboration was no doubt motivated by his distrust of the West, which he regarded as a greater threat to Orthodox Russia than the Golden Horde (...) But Nevsky's realpolitik caused a problem for the chroniclers, particularly after he
Alexander Nevsky - Misplaced Pages Continue
3136-733: The Museum of the History of Religion and Atheism, before being returned to the Holy Trinity Cathedral in 1989. On 10 May 2023, the Hermitage Museum and Alexander Nevsky Lavra signed a contract for the transfer of the shrine to Holy Trinity Cathedral of the Alexander Nevsky Lavra for a period of 49 years. On 12 September 2023, Patriarch Kirill of Moscow placed the relics back into the silver sarcophagus. Alexander's principal feast day
3234-563: The People's Republic was declared on 16 September 1946. In 1938, Sergei Eisenstein made one of his most acclaimed films, Alexander Nevsky , about Alexander's victory over the Teutonic Knights. The soundtrack for the film was written by Sergei Prokofiev , who also reworked the score into a concert cantata . Today the film is renowned for its extraordinary battle on ice sequence, which has served as inspiration for countless other films. In
3332-526: The Pskov Land which had supported Aleksandr Yaroslavich. Shortly thereafter, either in late 1240 or early 1241, the Novgorodians rose up against Aleksandr and banished him to Pereslavl-Zalessky . That same winter, the 1240–1241 Votia campaign was conducted by the Bishopric of Ösel–Wiek , the Livonian Order , as well as Estonians ( Chud' ) with support from local Votian leaders. It is unclear whether Votia
3430-686: The Tales of the Life and Courage of the Pious and Great Prince Alexander found in the Second Pskovian Chronicle ( c. 1260–1280 ) comes one of the first known references to Alexander Yaroslavich: By the will of God, prince Alexander was born from the charitable, people-loving, and meek the Great Prince Yaroslav, and his mother was Theodosia. As it was told by the prophet Isaiah : 'Thus sayeth
3528-575: The Ukrainian language in more than 30 spheres of public life: in particular in public administration , media, education, science, culture, advertising, services . The law does not regulate private communication. A poll conducted in March 2022 by RATING in the territory controlled by Ukraine found that 83% of the respondents believe that Ukrainian should be the only state language of Ukraine. This opinion dominates in all macro-regions, age and language groups. On
3626-694: The United States Census , in 2007 Russian was the primary language spoken in the homes of over 850,000 individuals living in the United States. Russian is one of the official languages (or has similar status and interpretation must be provided into Russian) of the following: The Russian language is also one of two official languages aboard the International Space Station – NASA astronauts who serve alongside Russian cosmonauts usually take Russian language courses. This practice goes back to
3724-585: The 19th-century propeller frigate Alexander Nevsky and K-550 Alexander Nevsky , a nuclear powered ballistic missile submarine currently in service with the Russian Navy . On 24 September 2008, Alexander Nevsky was declared the main hero of Russia's history by popular vote, as reported by the Kommersant newspaper. In December 2008, he was voted the greatest Russian in the Name of Russia television poll. During
3822-523: The 2021 Moscow Victory Day Parade, a small historical segment of the parade featured Russian soldiers dressed in historical M1945 Red Army uniforms carrying out the Soviet combat banners which received the Order of Alexander Nevsky during the war. This segment coincided with the 800th anniversary since the birth of Alexander Nevsky in 1221. Russian language Russian is an East Slavic language belonging to
3920-508: The 20th century, Russian was a mandatory language taught in the schools of the members of the old Warsaw Pact and in other countries that used to be satellites of the USSR. According to the Eurobarometer 2005 survey, fluency in Russian remains fairly high (20–40%) in some countries, in particular former Warsaw Pact countries. In Armenia , Russian has no official status, but it is recognized as
4018-465: The Belarusian society the Russian language prevails, so according to the 2019 census 6,718,557 people (71.4% of the total population) stated that they speak Russian at home, for ethnic Belarusians this share is 61.4%, for Russians — 97.2%, for Ukrainians — 89.0%, for Poles — 52.4%, and for Jews — 96.6%; 2,447,764 people (26.0% of the total population) stated that the language they usually speak at home
Alexander Nevsky - Misplaced Pages Continue
4116-519: The Great and developed from the Moscow ( Middle or Central Russian ) dialect substratum under the influence of some of the previous century's Russian chancery language. Prior to the Bolshevik Revolution , the spoken form of the Russian language was that of the nobility and the urban bourgeoisie. Russian peasants, the great majority of the population, continued to speak in their own dialects. However,
4214-509: The Great , the relics were then removed from Vladimir on 11 August 1723 and transported to Shlisselburg , arriving there on 20 September. There they were kept until 1724, when they were brought to Saint Petersburg and installed in the Annunciation Church of the Alexander Nevsky Lavra on 30 August. In 1753, a silver shrine with sarcophagus for the relics, made with 90 pounds of silver, was donated by Empress Elizabeth of Russia . With
4312-553: The Grodno raid into Danish Estonia (1323). In response, in May 1323, knight Kesselhuth launched an 18-day siege of Pskov, while Pskov's request to Novgorod and Yuri Danilovich for aid were refused. The siege was ended after an army dispatch from Lithuania, after which peace was agreed. Alexander of Tver was forced to flee after a joint Muscovite–Tatar invasion in 1327, and found refuge in Pskov. He
4410-789: The Horde, Alexander died in the town of Gorodets -on-the- Volga . On 23 November 1263, he was buried in the church of the Monastery of the Nativity of the Holy Mother of God in Vladimir . From the Second Pskovian Chronicle : Returning from the Golden Horde, the Great Prince Alexander, reached the city of Nizhny Novgorod, and remained there for several days in good health, but when he reached
4508-578: The Institute of Russian Language of the Russian Academy of Sciences, an optional acute accent ( знак ударения ) may, and sometimes should, be used to mark stress . For example, it is used to distinguish between otherwise identical words, especially when context does not make it obvious: замо́к ( zamók – "lock") – за́мок ( zámok – "castle"), сто́ящий ( stóyashchy – "worthwhile") – стоя́щий ( stoyáshchy – "standing"), чудно́ ( chudnó – "this
4606-513: The Lord: I appoint the princes because they are sacred and I direct them.' ...He was taller than others and his voice reached the people as a trumpet, and his face was like the face of Joseph , whom the Egyptian Pharaoh placed as next to the king after him of Egypt. His power was a part of the power of Samson and God gave him the wisdom of Solomon ... this Prince Alexander: he used to defeat but
4704-515: The Middle East and North Africa – 1.3 million, Sub-Saharan Africa – 0.1 million, Latin America – 0.2 million, U.S., Canada , Australia, and New Zealand – 4.1 million speakers. Therefore, the Russian language is the seventh-largest in the world by the number of speakers , after English, Mandarin, Hindi -Urdu, Spanish, French, Arabic, and Portuguese. Russian is one of the six official languages of
4802-807: The Russian alphabet include ⟨ ѣ ⟩ , which merged to ⟨ е ⟩ ( /je/ or /ʲe/ ); ⟨ і ⟩ and ⟨ ѵ ⟩ , which both merged to ⟨ и ⟩ ( /i/ ); ⟨ ѳ ⟩ , which merged to ⟨ ф ⟩ ( /f/ ); ⟨ ѫ ⟩ , which merged to ⟨ у ⟩ ( /u/ ); ⟨ ѭ ⟩ , which merged to ⟨ ю ⟩ ( /ju/ or /ʲu/ ); and ⟨ ѧ ⟩ and ⟨ ѩ ⟩ , which later were graphically reshaped into ⟨ я ⟩ and merged phonetically to /ja/ or /ʲa/ . While these older letters have been abandoned at one time or another, they may be used in this and related articles. The yers ⟨ ъ ⟩ and ⟨ ь ⟩ originally indicated
4900-458: The Russian principalities before and especially during Mongol rule. This strengthened dialectal differences, and for a while, prevented the emergence of a standardized national language. The formation of the unified and centralized Russian state in the 15th and 16th centuries, and the gradual re-emergence of a common political, economic, and cultural space created the need for a common standard language. The initial impulse for standardization came from
4998-405: The Soviet era can speak Russian, other generations of citizens that do not have any knowledge of Russian. Primary and secondary education by Russian is almost non-existent. In Uzbekistan , Russian is the language of inter-ethnic communication. It has some official roles, being permitted in official documentation and is the lingua franca of the country and the language of the elite. Russian
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#17330939869425096-426: The Suzdalian land.' And the priests and deacons and monks, the poor and the wealthy, and all the people said: 'It is our end.' The veneration of Alexander began almost immediately after his burial, when he reportedly extended his hand for the prayer of absolution. According to Orthodox tradition, Alexander foresaw his death and before this took strict Orthodox Christian monastic vows, called Great Schema , and took
5194-442: The Swedes received papal authorization to launch a crusade , and in 1240, new campaigns began in the easternmost part of the Baltic region. According to the Novgorod First Chronicle written in the 14th century, more than a century after the events it records, the Swedish army landed at the confluence of the rivers Izhora and Neva , when Alexander and his small army suddenly attacked the Swedes on 15 July 1240 and defeated them at
5292-412: The Swedes, who had made another attempt to block the Baltic Sea from the Novgorodians in 1256. Upon the conquest of the Grand Principality of Vladimir by the Mongols in 1238, its reigning prince, Yuri II Vsevolodovich , was killed in the Battle of the Sit River ; his younger brother, Yaroslav II Vsevolodovich (Alexander's father), requested and received from the Mongol khan his permission to become
5390-403: The United Nations. Education in Russian is still a popular choice for both Russian as a second language (RSL) and native speakers in Russia, and in many former Soviet republics. Russian is still seen as an important language for children to learn in most of the former Soviet republics. In Belarus , Russian is a second state language alongside Belarusian per the Constitution of Belarus . 77% of
5488-403: The broader sense of expanding the use of Russian alongside or in favour of other languages. The current standard form of Russian is generally regarded as the modern Russian literary language ( современный русский литературный язык – "sovremenny russky literaturny yazyk"). It arose at the beginning of the 18th century with the modernization reforms of the Russian state under the rule of Peter
5586-443: The city of Gorodets he fell ill... Great Prince Alexander, who was always firm in his faith in God, gave up this worldly kingdom ... And then he gave up his soul to God and died in peace on 12 November [1263], on the day when the Holy Apostle Philip is remembered... At this burial Metropolitan Archbishop Cyril said, 'My children, you should know that the sun of the Suzdalian land has set. There will never be another prince like him in
5684-443: The completion of the Holy Trinity Cathedral of the Alexander Nevsky Lavra in 1790, the shrine and relics were transferred there at its consecration on 30 August, one of the saint's feast days. In May 1922, during the general confiscation of Russian Orthodox Church property , the sarcophagus was opened and the relics removed; and the elaborate silver shrine was transferred to the Hermitage Museum . The relics were put into storage at
5782-460: The country. There is an Israeli TV channel mainly broadcasting in Russian with Israel Plus . See also Russian language in Israel . Russian is also spoken as a second language by a small number of people in Afghanistan . In Vietnam , Russian has been added in the elementary curriculum along with Chinese and Japanese and were named as "first foreign languages" for Vietnamese students to learn, on equal footing with English. The Russian language
5880-439: The empress Catherine I introduced the Imperial Order of St. Alexander Nevsky as one of the highest decorations in the land. During World War II , on 29 July 1942, the Soviet authorities introduced an Order of Alexander Nevsky to revive the memory of Alexander's struggle with the Germans. There was also an earlier Bulgarian Order dedicated to Saint Alexander which was founded on 25 December 1881, which ceased to exist when
5978-496: The enemy in the Battle on the Ice , halting the eastward expansion of the Teutonic Order . Later Russian sources would elevate the importance of the battle and portray it as one of the great "Russian" victories of the Middle Ages. After the Livonian invasion, Nevsky continued to strengthen the Republic of Novgorod. He sent his envoys to Norway and, as a result, they signed a first peace treaty between Novgorod and Norway in 1251. Alexander led his army to Finland and successfully routed
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#17330939869426076-413: The factory and the industrial plant their local peasant dialects with their phonetics, grammar, and vocabulary, and the very process of recruiting workers from peasants and the mobility of the worker population generate another process: the liquidation of peasant inheritance by way of leveling the particulars of local dialects. On the ruins of peasant multilingual, in the context of developing heavy industry,
6174-402: The final reading amendments that state that all schools and kindergartens in the country are to transition to education in Latvian . From 2025, all children will be taught in Latvian only. On 28 September 2023, Latvian deputies approved The National Security Concept, according to which from 1 January 2026, all content created by Latvian public media (including LSM ) should be only in Latvian or
6272-505: The generation of immigrants who started arriving in the early 1960s). Only about 25% of them are ethnic Russians, however. Before the dissolution of the Soviet Union , the overwhelming majority of Russophones in Brighton Beach, Brooklyn in New York City were Russian-speaking Jews. Afterward, the influx from the countries of the former Soviet Union changed the statistics somewhat, with ethnic Russians and Ukrainians immigrating along with some more Russian Jews and Central Asians. According to
6370-480: The government bureaucracy for the lack of a reliable tool of communication in administrative, legal, and judicial affairs became an obvious practical problem. The earliest attempts at standardizing Russian were made based on the so-called Moscow official or chancery language, during the 15th to 17th centuries. Since then, the trend of language policy in Russia has been standardization in both the restricted sense of reducing dialectical barriers between ethnic Russians, and
6468-456: The initial conquest, saw Andrey exiled to Sweden and Alexander assuming the title of grand prince of Vladimir in 1252, the most senior of the princes at the time following the fall of Kiev. Alexander faithfully supported Mongol rule within his own domains. In 1259, he led an army to the city of Novgorod and forced it to pay tribute it had previously refused to the Golden Horde. According to the Novgorod First Chronicle , Alexander married first
6566-419: The khan in person, pay homage to them and receive their jarlig (patent) to be affirmed in their principalities. When Möngke became the new great khan in 1251, only two years after Guyuk's death, he demanded another appearance at Sarai on the Volga, but Andrey refused to go. Thanks to his friendship with Sartaq Khan , the subsequent invasion by the Mongols, their first venture into northeastern Rus' since
6664-434: The knights and halted their eastern advance. In 1316, Pskov troops took part in a Novgorod campaign against Tver. In the 1320s, the coalitions of the Teutonic knights and Novgorod, on one side, and of Lithuania, Pskov and their Livonian allies, on the other side, faced each other in the region. In 1322–23 Pskov campaigned as a Lithuanian dependency, probably first in the Lithuanian attack on Dorpat (March 1322), then in
6762-423: The name Alexey. In 1380, Alexander's remains were uncovered in response to a vision before the Battle of Kulikovo and found to be incorrupt . The relics were then placed in a shrine in the church. Alexander was canonized as a saint of the Russian Orthodox Church by Metropolitan Macarius in 1547. In 1695, a new wooden reliquary was made in Moscow, and the relics were placed in it in 1697. By order of Peter
6860-475: The new prince. As prince, he assigned Novgorod to his son Alexander. However, while traveling in 1245 to the Mongol capital Karakorum in Central Asia, Yaroslav died. When in 1248 Alexander and his older brother Andrey II Yaroslavich also traveled to Karakorum to attend upon the Great Khan, Andrey returned with the award of the title of grand prince of Vladimir and Alexander the nominal lordship of Kiev. The Rurikid princes of Rus' were obliged to appear before
6958-420: The northwestern Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region . Russian was also the main foreign language taught in school in China between 1949 and 1964. In Kazakhstan , Russian is not a state language, but according to article 7 of the Constitution of Kazakhstan its usage enjoys equal status to that of the Kazakh language in state and local administration. The 2009 census reported that 10,309,500 people, or 84.8% of
7056-515: The other hand, before the war, almost a quarter of Ukrainians were in favour of granting Russian the status of the state language, while after the beginning of Russia's invasion the support for the idea dropped to just 7%. In peacetime, the idea of raising the status of Russian was traditionally supported by residents of the south and east . But even in these regions, only a third of the respondents were in favour, and after Russia's full-scale invasion , their number dropped by almost half. According to
7154-455: The other three languages in the East Slavic branch. In many places in eastern and southern Ukraine and throughout Belarus, these languages are spoken interchangeably, and in certain areas traditional bilingualism resulted in language mixtures such as Surzhyk in eastern Ukraine and Trasianka in Belarus. An East Slavic Old Novgorod dialect , although it vanished during the 15th or 16th century,
7252-446: The parliament approved a bill to close up all Russian language schools and kindergartens by the school year. The transition to only Estonian language schools and kindergartens will start in the 2024-2025 school year. In Latvia , Russian is officially considered a foreign language. 55% of the population was fluent in Russian in 2006, and 26% used it as the main language with family, friends, or at work. On 18 February 2012, Latvia held
7350-453: The peasants' speech was never systematically studied, as it was generally regarded by philologists as simply a source of folklore and an object of curiosity. This was acknowledged by the noted Russian dialectologist Nikolai Karinsky , who toward the end of his life wrote: "Scholars of Russian dialects mostly studied phonetics and morphology. Some scholars and collectors compiled local dictionaries. We have almost no studies of lexical material or
7448-427: The picture, Nevsky used a number of Russian proverbs , tying Nevsky firmly to Russian tradition. The famous proverbial phrase (paraphrasing Matthew 26:52), "Whoever will come to us with a sword, from a sword will perish," is a phrase that is often attributed to Alexander Nevsky, though it was not in fact said by him; it comes from Eisenstein's film, where it was said by actor Nikolai Cherkasov . Alexander Nevsky's fame
7546-455: The population aged 15 and above, could read and write well in Russian, and understand the spoken language. In October 2023, Kazakhstan drafted a media law aimed at increasing the use of the Kazakh language over Russian, the law stipulates that the share of the state language on television and radio should increase from 50% to 70%, at a rate of 5% per year, starting in 2025. In Kyrgyzstan , Russian
7644-418: The population was fluent in Russian in 2006, and 67% used it as the main language with family, friends, or at work. According to the 2019 Belarusian census , out of 9,413,446 inhabitants of the country, 5,094,928 (54.1% of the total population) named Belarusian as their native language, with 61.2% of ethnic Belarusians and 54.5% of ethnic Poles declaring Belarusian as their native language. In everyday life in
7742-715: The princes of Novgorod and Pskov attacked Estonia and Latvia, while the Lithuanians had attacked Pskov in the meantime. A conflict ensued in the following years between Pskov and Letgallia . Pskov invaded Livonia in 1221. The Novgorod Chronicle mentions the campaign Yaroslav Vsevolodovich of Novgorod in 1228; Yaroslav led his army against Pskov, upon which the inhabitants sealed the city and refused to let Yaroslav in. There were rumours that Yaroslav now wanted to imprison Pskov's most notable men, but Yaroslav declared that he had good intentions, wanting to deliver gifts, and now assembled an army and to attack Riga. Now, Pskov entered
7840-475: The pronunciation of ultra-short or reduced /ŭ/ , /ĭ/ . Because of many technical restrictions in computing and also because of the unavailability of Cyrillic keyboards abroad, Russian is often transliterated using the Latin alphabet. For example, мороз ('frost') is transliterated moroz , and мышь ('mouse'), mysh or myš' . Once commonly used by the majority of those living outside Russia, transliteration
7938-466: The proper pronunciation of uncommon words or names. Russian is an East Slavic language of the wider Indo-European family . It is a descendant of Old East Slavic , a language used in Kievan Rus' , which was a loose conglomerate of East Slavic tribes from the late 9th to the mid-13th centuries. From the point of view of spoken language , its closest relatives are Ukrainian , Belarusian , and Rusyn ,
8036-491: The respondents), while according to the 2002 census – 142.6 million people (99.2% of the respondents). In Ukraine , Russian is a significant minority language. According to estimates from Demoskop Weekly, in 2004 there were 14,400,000 native speakers of Russian in the country, and 29 million active speakers. 65% of the population was fluent in Russian in 2006, and 38% used it as the main language with family, friends, or at work. On 5 September 2017, Ukraine's Parliament passed
8134-575: The south by the Velikaya River basin. The division between Livonia and Pskov was made up by an area of water bodies and poorly settled areas. The town of Pskov was founded in the late 9th century by the Rus'. Olga of Kiev , the wife of Igor of Kiev , was born in Pskov. In 1065–67, Vseslav attacked Pskov and Novgorod, then was captured by Iziaslav I of Kiev and his two brothers and imprisoned in Kiev. In 1218,
8232-622: The spring of 1241, he returned from exile and assembled an army. Alexander managed to retake Pskov and Koporye from the crusaders and drive out the invaders. He then continued into Estonian-German territory. The crusaders defeated a detachment of the Novgorodian army. As a result, Alexander set up a position at Lake Peipus . Alexander and his men then faced the Livonian heavy cavalry led by Hermann of Dorpat , brother of Albert of Buxhoeveden , where they met on 5 April 1242. Alexander's army then defeated
8330-675: The survey carried out by RATING in August 2023 in the territory controlled by Ukraine and among the refugees, almost 60% of the polled usually speak Ukrainian at home, about 30% – Ukrainian and Russian, only 9% – Russian. Since March 2022, the use of Russian in everyday life has been noticeably decreasing. For 82% of respondents, Ukrainian is their mother tongue, and for 16%, Russian is their mother tongue. IDPs and refugees living abroad are more likely to use both languages for communication or speak Russian. Nevertheless, more than 70% of IDPs and refugees consider Ukrainian to be their native language. In
8428-459: The syntax of Russian dialects." After 1917, Marxist linguists had no interest in the multiplicity of peasant dialects and regarded their language as a relic of the rapidly disappearing past that was not worthy of scholarly attention. Nakhimovsky quotes the Soviet academicians A.M Ivanov and L.P Yakubinsky, writing in 1930: The language of peasants has a motley diversity inherited from feudalism. On its way to becoming proletariat peasantry brings to
8526-770: The two. Others divide the language into three groupings, Northern , Central (or Middle), and Southern , with Moscow lying in the Central region. The Northern Russian dialects and those spoken along the Volga River typically pronounce unstressed /o/ clearly, a phenomenon called okanye ( оканье ). Besides the absence of vowel reduction, some dialects have high or diphthongal /e⁓i̯ɛ/ in place of Proto-Slavic * ě and /o⁓u̯ɔ/ in stressed closed syllables (as in Ukrainian) instead of Standard Russian /e/ and /o/ , respectively. Another Northern dialectal morphological feature
8624-506: The use of the language has some presence in certain areas. A large part of the population, especially the older generations, can speak Russian as a foreign language. However, English has replaced Russian as lingua franca in Lithuania and around 80% of young people speak English as their first foreign language. In contrast to the other two Baltic states, Lithuania has a relatively small Russian-speaking minority (5.0% as of 2008). According to
8722-488: The western Rus' lands in the second half of the 13th century, these Rus' principalities preserving a kind of autonomy, still under the direct rule of the various branches of the Rurikids. The Teutonic knights captured a fort southwest of Pskov, then occupied the city in 1240 and established rule to the west of Novgorod. After appeals from Novgorod, Grand Prince Yaroslav sent two brothers, Alexander and Andrey , who expelled
8820-739: The world's ninth-most spoken language by total number of speakers . Russian is one of two official languages aboard the International Space Station , one of the six official languages of the United Nations , as well as the fourth most widely used language on the Internet . Russian is written using the Russian alphabet of the Cyrillic script ; it distinguishes between consonant phonemes with palatal secondary articulation and those without—the so-called "soft" and "hard" sounds. Almost every consonant has
8918-585: Was a grandson of Vsevolod the Big Nest and rose to legendary status on account of his military victories over Swedish invaders, specifically the Battle of the Neva and the Battle on the Ice . He preserved separate statehood and Orthodoxy , agreeing to pay tribute to the powerful Golden Horde . Metropolitan Macarius of Moscow canonized Alexander Nevsky as a saint of the Russian Orthodox Church in 1547. From
9016-408: Was a tributary of Novgorod at this time, or not; but the allies likely only intended to acquire pagan lands and convert them to Catholicism, rather than attacking Novgorod, which was already Christianised. On the other hand, the 1240 Izborsk and Pskov campaign was "a purely political undertaking which had nothing to do with conversion of pagans." The Novgorodian authorities recalled Alexander, and in
9114-405: Was first introduced in North America when Russian explorers voyaged into Alaska and claimed it for Russia during the 18th century. Although most Russian colonists left after the United States bought the land in 1867, a handful stayed and preserved the Russian language in this region to this day, although only a few elderly speakers of this unique dialect are left. In Nikolaevsk, Alaska , Russian
9212-421: Was fluent in Russian in 2006, and 19% used it as the main language with family, friends, or at work. According to the 2014 Moldovan census , Russians accounted for 4.1% of Moldova's population, 9.4% of the population declared Russian as their native language, and 14.5% said they usually spoke Russian. According to the 2010 census in Russia , Russian language skills were indicated by 138 million people (99.4% of
9310-626: Was made a saint by the Russian Church in 1547, for in their terms he had colluded with the infidel." Some of Alexander's policies on the Western border were continued by his grandson-in-law, Daumantas of Pskov , who was also beatified in the 16th century. In the late 13th century, a chronicle was compiled called the Life of Alexander Nevsky (Житие Александра Невского), in which he is depicted as an ideal prince-soldier and defender of Russia. On 21 May 1725,
9408-694: Was never defeated... Born in Pereslavl-Zalessky , Alexander was the second son of Prince Yaroslav Vsevolodovich and Feodosia Igorevna of Ryazan. His maternal grandfather was Igor Glebovich, the second son of Gleb Rostislavich, the prince of Ryazan ( d. 1178 ). His maternal grandmother was Agrafena of Kiev, daughter of Rostislav I of Kiev . In 1236, Alexander was appointed by the Novgorodians to become their prince ( knyaz ), where he had already served as his father's governor in Novgorod. In 1237,
9506-742: Was spread wherever Imperial Russia had a strong influence; thus numerous cathedrals and churches were dedicated to him, including the Patriarchal Cathedral in Sofia , Bulgaria ; the Cathedral church in Tallinn , Estonia ; the Cathedral church in Łódź , Poland ; the Alexander Nevsky Cathedral in Ungheni , Moldova . There is a long tradition of Russian naval vessels bearing Nevsky's name, such as
9604-402: Was the sixth-most used language on the top 1,000 sites, behind English, Chinese, French, German, and Japanese. Despite leveling after 1900, especially in matters of vocabulary and phonetics, a number of dialects still exist in Russia. Some linguists divide the dialects of Russian into two primary regional groupings, "Northern" and "Southern", with Moscow lying on the zone of transition between
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