Ideas of the Russian world for the world

11:21 05.11.2017 • Andrey Davydenko , International Affairs
Nizhny Novgorod – Moscow 
Over 500 delegates from 73 countries came to the XI Assembly of the Russian world just before the Day of national unity this year. It was held in Nizhny Novgorod, the industrial, scientific and cultural center of the Volga region, a city that played a special role in the Russia’s becoming a country we know.
The dispute in the main subject of the Assembly, “Ideas of the Russian world for the world”, reaffirmed the opening speech of President Putin about the fact that “the centuries-old experience of our ancestors and their firm and time-tested traditions of mutual trust and solidarity can and must make a strong contribution in solving of the key civilization and humanitarian problems of the modern world”, that the “greater” Russian world has something to share and something to offer to the global world, both in the sphere of intercultural, inter-religious, inter-ethnic relations, as well as in the educational and humanitarian sphere and in creation of the global agenda in conditions of a multicenter geopolitical reality being currently built.
The scientific and cultural specialists, historians, journalists, Russian language teachers from different parts of the world — “all those who value Russia, who keep a moral link to it, wants to participate in implementation of educational and information projects”, they exchanged their views on key problems of cultural and historic legacy of Russia preserving and further unification of the Russian World, they touched up a number of issues related to the role of the Russian language as an integral element of the Russian and World culture, as well as isos of deep humanistic ideas and moral traditions.
During the assembly there was a number of a round tables, such as “Russian language in poly-ethnical educational environment”, “Russian World and Pushkin”, “Inter-religious dialogue in Russia: experience and prospects”, “Media space in the context of a cultural dialogue”.
There was a number of representatives from Latvia and Mexico, Great Britain and Israel, China and Canada who spoke about the universal meaning all of the moral and historical legacy of the Russian national culture, proving the words all of the Russian patriarch Cyril in his opening speech to the assembly, about the fact that the “ideas created in the civilization space of the Russian World based on the spiritual and moral principles, having a universal meaning” are still actual.
В выступлениях многих участников Ассамблеи неоднократно звучала мысль о том, что глобальная конкуренция в современном мире приобретает в том числе культурно-цивилизационное измерение, что наряду с новыми возможностями возникают и новые вызовы, нередко ставящие под угрозу культурную самобытность стран и народов.
Here many participants in the assembly expressed an idea that the global competition in the modern world is getting a cultural and civilisational dimension causing the new opportunities to appear, as well as new challenges often threatening the cultural uniqueness of the countries and peoples.
As a result, the media space as a product and result of the two environments, the cultural and the social one, is a very important controller. The development of the world’s social and cultural space is only possible if different ethnical and art cultures are widespread enough in the media sphere. This is what the universal UNESCO Universal Declaration on Cultural Diversity calls to, seeing that preserving ethical cultures is one of the most important conditions of the human kind survival.
The participants in the Assembly also said that the Russian model of the inter-cultural, inter-ethnical and inter-religious relations that was tested by time, is showing its sustainability and effect. It needs a more active and wide spreading. Everybody understands it's actual state in the world. This is not about multiculturalism, not just the fact that many representatives of different cultural worlds alien to each other that have to be neighbors caused Europe to doubt its ideas of tolerance, but cultural pluralism based on cooperation, Mutual influence and mutual enrichness. Reality is a ready-made content for active promotion in the global information field.
The participants of the Assembly also noted that at the time when not only Russia but also the Russian World experience great informational pressure, the role of cultural diplomacy is growing as an integral part of the “soft force”. Today it cannot be separated from the innovational approach and is in line with the digital diplomacy as it increases the audio and visual presence in the internet, social networks, messengers, rich media.
The discussions also included an idea that despite the technological breakthrough in the media sphere (such as Big Data, robo journalists, messengers becoming “new social networks” and the global space for over 2 billion people), the interest for the profession of a journalist is not becoming weaker. The technologies are embraced fast by everyone and their value is becoming weaker. At the same time, the precious thing is offering a number of ideas that is close to the deep needs of the audience and its insights, automatic algorithms can't do that, here the intuition, taste, a feeling of measure are needed. The highest growth potential here is in developing cultural and humanitarian, educational and enlightening projects, such as “Russian School abroad” that is increasing quotas to admit foreign students in the Russian higher educational institutions up to 30,000 per year considering budget funded positions for the Russian students too.
During the discussions in the field of the Assembly, they raised the issue that the new mass media make us talk about the journalistics of today as a personal moral and ethical choice, a personal civil responsibility.
Here, as we already mentioned above, should the internal voice rise that the Russian orthodox tradition considers to be a voice of conscience, the universal trait of all the human beings, that is ours since birth and not just built by someone who imagined the so-called “true universal values” and can adjust these values at any time in order to get them closer to political, ideological or financial interests. We cannot move further without a moral consensus. This considers both politics, and journalistics, as in the world dispute of the cultures and ethnicities relations the mass media, both traditional and network are often platforms of not just knowledge but fights.
The participants in the XI Assembly of the Russian World raised their voice to continue efforts to move the positive global dialogue in order to develop into civilisational dialogue. The Russian World is preserving and developing traditions of its history and culture and is open to such a dialogue as it carefully treats the cultures of other peoples.

 

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