ОН, ОНА, ОНО and ОНИ, or Categories "gender" and "plurality" of the nouns

June 12 - Russia, happy holiday!

"Great and powerful" Russian language and Alexander Pushkin

The popularity of the Russian language is growing every day. People of all generations and all nationalities are increasingly showing interest to the Russian language.

Today we want to talk about the Day of Russian language - June 6. This holiday has appeared not so long ago - since 2011. And since 1997 this day was celebrated Pushkin's Day - the birthday of the famous Russian poet and writer, who in fact created the modern literary Russian language.

Some facts about the Russian language

Russian language is one of the East Slavic languages, in the sixth place in the world's distribution and the state language of Russia.

• about 260 million people speak Russian, including 137.5 million people from Russia;
• one of the UN working languages ​​(together with English, French, Spanish, Chinese and Arabic);
• state and official language not only in Russia, but also in Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Abkhazia, Moldova, Romania;
• in space they speak Russian (!) and all astronauts must know the Russian language;
• on the second place on the Internet;
• one of the most difficult languages for learning ​​(not even every Russian competently speak Russian);
• "great and powerful", as well as "truthful and free" these words wrote Ivan Turgenev (Russian writer of the 18th century) about Russian language.

Until the 18th century, in the Russian Empire, the Russian language was spoken mostly by poor people, peasants and merchants, noblemen and rich people sought to speak French. But Pushkin wrote his works exclusively in Russian and tried to use foreign words less. Perhaps, that's why Alexander Sergeevich is considered to be the founder of the modern literary Russian language. ;)

Some words about Alexander Sergeevich Pushkin (1799 - 1837)

There are many books, articles, stories and memories about famous writer. We tried to collect the most interesting facts from the writer's life.

• wrote poems, novels, stories, plays and fairy tales (more than 800 works in 37 years of life!);
• was born in Moscow, but he named St. Petersburg as his native and beloved city;

By the way, in St. Petersburg there is an interesting museum-apartment Pushkin on the Moika, 12 - the last apartment of the writer, where he died after a duel with Georges Dantes. And also near the Northern capital there is a small town Pushkin (the old name Tsarskoe Selo), which is the Great Catherine Palace and the Lyceum (the school-university where the writer studied).

• he knew and spoke many languages ​​- French, Greek, Latin, German;
• loved gambling and dueling - in total Pushkin participated in 27 duels and basically he himself called out rivals;

The last duel took place on January 27 at the Black River in St. Petersburg. Georges Dantes fired first and dealt a death blow. After the injury, Pushkin lost consciousness briefly, but still made his shot and also wounded the opponent. Pushkin lived 2 days.
"Pushkin: The Last Duel" (2006, directed by Natalia Bondarchuk) is a Russian film about the last days of the writer's life. A fascinating story with a political version of the duel.

• Pushkin met Natalia Goncharova in 1828, a Moscow beauty and his future wife, when she was 16 years old.

In 5 months after the acquaintance the writer asked her parents about marriage, but was refused. And after 2 years Natalia's family agreed for a marriage. Pushkin and his wife lived in Moscow for only 3 months (in a house on Stary Arbat Street) and left for Tsarskoe Selo, since the writer had difficulties with his mother-in-law.
Pushkin and Natalya had 4 children (2 boys and 2 girls) - Maria, Alexander, Gregory and Natalia . Today the last direct descendant (on the male line) of the writer - Alexander Pushkin - lives in Belgium.

Some more facts about Alexander Pushkin ↙

Pictures from pixabay.com, yandex.ru.

👉 Russian