Karelian linguists worship the grave of an Armenian scientist

Our colleague Valery Markelova did this. She has just returned from this country, already dreaming of a new journey.

In the meantime, I want to tell you about a man who literally created the cultural code of an entire nation.

This is about Mesrop Mashtots.

In the history of Armenia, he played, perhaps, the same role as the Solun brothers Cyril and Methodius played for the Slavs.

IV-V century. Armenia is at a crossroads. Christianity has already been accepted, but prayer and reading of Scripture are in Greek and Syriac.

There is a language, but there is a script.

And then there is a monk, a scientist, a linguist who creates the Armenian alphabet. And that is what the Armenians still use, almost unchanged.

Mashtots didn't act alone. He studied different writing systems, consulted with specialists, and sought a balance between the phonetics of the language and the convenience of writing it.

The result was 36 letters (later added two more), each of which clearly conveys the sound.

The alphabet is so successful that it is called one of the most logical in the world.

But Mashtotz doesn't stop there. With the new alphabet, it launches a massive cultural revolution.

Lomonosov translates the Bible, opens schools, teaches people to read and write. In fact, it gives people the opportunity to speak about themselves in their own language, preserve history, develop science and literature.

When we learned that near Yerevan, in the village of Oshakan, there is a monument to the Armenian alphabet, we could not avoid going there.

A philologist will be the last person in me to die or drink.

Each letter is a separate art object made of red tuff, almost the height of a person.

No story on the stones is repeated.

The place for an unusual monument was not chosen by chance.

It is in Oshakan that the creator of the Armenian alphabet is buried. His grave is located right under the altar of the Church of St. Mesrop.

And every September, first-graders from all over Armenia come here to take a solemn oath and see their first letter of the alphabet for the first time.

We have come to worship the grave of the holy linguist.