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Key Indicators Of Language Impact On Identity Formation In Belarus, Tony Brown

Russian Language Journal

In 1986, a group of 28 intellectuals from Belarus wrote the following brief letter to then-General Secretary Mikhail Gorbachev: “Language is the soul of a nation, the supreme manifestation of its cultural identity, the foundation of its true spiritual life. A nation lives and flourishes in history while its language lives. With the decline of the language, culture withers and atrophies, the nation ceases to exist as a historical organism” (Letters to Gorbachev, 1987).