For the Love of Language

HERE'S JANE KATARIA IN CONVERSATION WITH NIKOLAI GORDIYCHUK, WHO IS CURRENTLY A RESEARCHER AT THE UNIVERSITY OF HAMBURG (GERMANY). NIKOLAI IS A TRANSLATOR OF CLASSICAL TAMIL LITERATURE INTO RUSSIAN, INCLUDING SUCH WORKS AS NĀLATIYĀR AND KALINKATTUPPARANI, AS WELL AS FRAGMENTS OF TĒVĀRAM, TIRUVĀCAKAM, TIRUMANTIRAM AND SELECTED WORKS OF TAMIL CITTAR.

When did you first come to know about the Tamil language? Most people outside India have never heard about it, let alone seeking to learn it.

When I was at school, we had an absolutely fantastic Latin teacher. At that moment, I knew nothing about Tamil, but the mere idea that some people devote their entire lives to the study of ancient poetry struck me very deeply. I was lucky to enjoy reading and interpreting ancient literature early on, and to appreciate and love it without feeling bored. It seemed amazing to me. However, my dream was to engage in something similar to Classical philology, but in a less explored area.

Besides, I had a bright impression of India since my mother travelled there when I was a small child and brought me some nice presents such as a small statue of Lord Ganesha and some sweets. So, when I was a teenager, my plan was to enter the College of Asian and African Studies at the Moscow State University, to learn Sanskrit and Hinduism, and then to study Classical Sanskrit poetry. This was quite a rare dream for a teenager, but I was a typical lotus eater, without much practical concern for how I would earn money in the future.

However, there was no Sanskrit department at Moscow University. If you want to be trained as an Indologist, you must learn one of the modern Indian languages, usually Hindi, Urdu, Bengali, or Tamil, and then take Sanskrit as an optional course. In the year of my admission, it was Tamil. That was the great luck for me because the course was taught by a prominent Russian scholar, professor and PhD Alexander Dubiansky (1941-2020). Meeting him was a life-changing experience for me. So, I have been studying Tamil since I was 16 years old, when I entered Moscow State University in 1999.