'Total Dictation' in North East England - 13 April 2019

Total Dictation (TD), or Тотальный диктант (Total’nyi diktant) in Russian, is an annual initiative, usually held in mid-April, aimed at those who want to test their proficiency in the Russian language. The project started in 2004 in Novosibirsk, Russia, as a small-scale initiative for local philologists and students, but has since then grown into an international activity. In 2019, TD took place in 76 countries, involving over 200,000 participants worldwide.

The initial idea behind TD was quite straightforward: everyone interested in testing their command of the most intricate spelling or punctuation rules in the Russian language would be asked to write down a text dictated to them as a group on a specific date at a designated venue. Each year, the text is prepared specifically for the occasion by a prominent contemporary Russian-speaking writer (in 2019 this was Pavel Basinskii) and often provides the author’s reflections on a matter related to the Russian language, culture or identity.

Over the years, this core activity has been complemented by side-projects: for example, the so-called TruD test, designed for foreign learners of Russian (or those ‘who are not yet ready to sit the TD’, as organisers put it); or, for instance, the so-called ‘Friday Russian classes' – a series of preparatory sessions designed to revise, discuss or drill the most cumbersome issues of Russian grammar in the run up to the main event.

The TD project in the North East of England has its own history. Thanks to the enthusiastic contribution of Svetlana Leonenko, a volunteering coordinator based in Newcastle, it has been running here for five consecutive years. This year, with the support from the OWRI Cross-Language Dynamics project, an additional venue was organised at Durham University, joining the main site in Newcastle. This was the second time that TD has been organised in Durham (the first time was in 2016, under the auspices of the local Russian World Centre); however, it was the first attempt at a coordinated ‘multi-sited’ TD in the wider region.

The event took place on Saturday, 13 April 2019 and the ‘dictator’ at the Durham venue was Olga Zabotkina, Assistant Teaching Fellow in Russian at the School of Modern Languages and Cultures, Durham University. Here she shares her impressions of the TD project in general and of this year’s Durham’s participation in it, in particular:

'My family likes TD. We have done it at home a few times in the past. This year I was asked to help out with the TD that was to run in Durham, and was happy to assist in any way necessary. I ended up being the one dictating, which I enjoyed a lot. The text for this year’s dictation was interesting. It was not terribly difficult, but it was still quite challenging. There were some prompts in the presentation, which helped. The participants were very motivated, and it was clear that they love the Russian language; they were eager to do their best. I think they felt excited. The atmosphere was festive, with balloons and nice small souvenirs. I felt honoured to be part of this celebration of the Russian language.'

Svetlana Leonenko, the main organiser of the TD in the North East of England (including the TruD variant for non-native speakers and the ‘Friday preparatory classes’), reminisces about her extensive experience of running TD activities in the region and shares her opinion on the rewards and challenges of being the main motivator and mobiliser of the TD project in the area:

'It was over five years ago that I first heard about TD, and I thought then that it could be a nice project for all kinds of Russian-speaking people in our region. Young and old, with children and without, from Russia or not – you just need to know Russian! After running TD in the region for a few years now, I would say the agenda of it seems quite different from the one in Russia. Here it’s not so much about raising your grammar skills, but more about meeting like-minded people, in some sense. Perhaps, because of that, the aim of TD for countries abroad should be tuned slightly differently to the one that is done in Russia itself.

At the moment, those who have never tried TD think it’s very serious, nerdy and boring. And that is the wider public opinion of TD, I'm afraid. But in truth, we always have great fun on the day of TD, including during our preliminary courses! Just come along, join in and try for yourselves.

At our Newcastle site this year we have had a good mixture of participants – people from preliminary courses run by us, people who attended TD in Newcastle in previous years, and curious newcomers. But all of them came with a smile and a positive attitude. Seeing those smiling faces made my own anxious organisation worries go away and I enjoyed the moment. I like connecting people and I like the Russian language – those are good enough reasons for me to keep organising TD in the region.

We also run the TruD test for those who study Russian as a foreign language. Usually we have bilinguals, students who study Russian at school and professionals who work with Russia coming to sit this test. This year, however, we had quite a few native Russian speakers deciding to take TruD instead of TD because of its very high level of difficulty. They still wanted to be part of the project and I would always encourage that!'