Sir, – In 2008, when I taught in Trinity College Dublin, the Russian embassy canvassed hard for opening a Russkiy Mir Foundation centre there. Ostensibly modelled on the British Council, this scheme actually emulates China’s Confucius Institutes which, apart from typical language and culture teaching activities, spread propaganda.
Sensibly, Trinity rejected this offer, due to murky funding and the strange property ownership terms requested.
None other than Vladimir Putin initiated the Russkiy Mir Foundation in 2007. Its name is officially translated “Russian World”. But those with a command of Russian get the collocation’s other meaning, namely, “Russian Peace”, or Pax Rossica.
Now, with the Kremlin’s unprovoked full-scale war on peaceful Ukraine, it is clear that the Russian world envisaged is a Russian neo-empire, while “Russian peace” is war in line with Moscow’s Newspeak worthy of 1984. – Yours, etc,
Dr HABIL TOMASZ
KAMUSELLA, FRHistS
School of History,
University
of St Andrews,
Scotland.