Over centuries, writing and calligraphy in Russia were closely connected to the spiritual and cultural formation of our predecessors, helped strengthen the national self-actualization, testified to spiritual doing. Studying Ancient Russian writing, we do not only make recourse to cultural origins but also grasp the ideal ideas of the world harmony which is embodied in it. Calligraphy textbooks of the 13th/14th centuries showed the variety of options of writing of letters, which reflected the complexity of the world order, which cannot be said about temporary written aids for children. Just as each cell of our body contains the program of its development, each Letter includes a contracted information program that is closely connected to our language, script, culture and spiritual traditions of the nation. According to Architect I. P. Shmeliov, tradition is a temple to the Memory, from which the energy of inspiration, creative work and development is drawn. So far as the nation respects and preserves its traditions, it is able to withstand all tests and endure all hardships.

Ancient Russian letter and calligraphy quickly responded to different changes in life – political, economic, cultural and religious. They felt the influence of the West and the East, while preserving and developing their originality and uniqueness. Despite the general Slavic spirit, there were a lot of calligraphic sfchools in Russia; large monasteries had scriptoriums where many monks perfected their mastery in godly writing. Let’s remember the school of the Kiev/Pechera Laura and Nestor the Chronicler as its representative, Serge of Radonezh and the school of Novgorod Archbishop Makary, the school of Ivan the Terrible and the Trinity Serge Laura, the Zaporozhie and Kiev/Mogilyany school.

The spirit of a nation is comprised in the Word and the Letter, so they saved and hided the most precious things, manuscripts and books, in the times of misery and danger. The libraries of Yaroslav the Wise and Ivan the Terrible have not been found so far. During the history of Russia, most of invaluable monuments of the Ancient Russian writing were destroyed, and the writing itself, like in no other country, was subjected to reforms and innovations. Shifting from stick writing in writing the Uncial to writing with feathers in writing the Half-Uncial and Shorthand did not impair the graphic of letter but, on the contrary, expanded the masters’ options and enriched the writing culture. At the same time, giving up metallic pen and introduction of the ball pen in 1968 not only destroyed the remnants of traditions and the culture of writing, which collapsed after 1917, but also lead the modern society to total dysgraphia. In the early 1970’s, Paul Lukhtein, a well-known Estonian master and teacher, warned that the ball pen would bring great misfortunes to the entire society. At present, schoolchildren write improperly, hold their pens as they like; as a result, the young generation became word-bound not only in their speech but also in writing. Both the Letter and the writing initially contained a great educational power, and the writing methods were perfected for centuries.

In the Orient, calligraphy was equated to martial arts by its significance in strengthening the spirit and as a way of improvement.

As early as in the first century B.C., the Chinese recommended using calligraphy as a preparatory stage in training for further practicing of art, crafts and sciences. Nowadays, plenty of modern politicians and businessmen in the East and the West practice calligraphy – not only because it is prestigious but also because it is very useful. Try to regularly spend 20-30 minutes to calligraphic exercise, and you will see for yourself they do not waste their time.

Physiologists and methodists of the 19th century noted that calligraphy and writing provide a firm basis to sensory organs, develop and strengthen the volitional impulse. They believed that ‘calligraphy is a medicine and exercises for the brain and the spirit of the human being’.

Using calligraphy, the sense of line, plastics, form, facture and space is fostered and the rhythm is awakened. Calligraphy helps understand the nature of intonation in details. Practicing calligraphy requires a lot of internal efforts, but their fruit are invaluable for upbringing such qualities, of which many teachers have long forgotten – diligence, orderliness, patience, attention, reserve. Thanks to regular studies using calligraphic pen and brush, one overcomes the sloth of soul, becomes more alert, capable of concentrating and thinking logically and consistently, which, in turn, helps develop the creative thinking and imagination.

Yet it is these qualities that pupils and students are lacking. In the opinion of V.F. Bazarny, M.D., the ball pen enslaves not only arm muscles of a pupil but also inhibits and restricts thinking, depresses the creative process. It is not surprising that the training level of school graduates degrades year by year, and it is increasingly more difficult to find the people capable of creative work.

It is common knowledge that investigations and search for methods of training high-technology specialists, which were held to many years, suggested that calligraphy that develops a wide range of mental and physical attributes of pupils is the most efficient tool for this purpose.

During school years, calligraphy directly or indirectly interacts with other subjects. This helps establish stable inter-subject links. A calligraphy teacher influences the pupil just as a gardener influences a young seeding, cultivating and shaping the crown of its properties. Thanks to the calligraphy skills, pupils start to feel responsible for their conduct. Thus writing awakens a moral principle in a human being.

After 1917, the calligraphy system fell in hands of the officials who, like careless and short-sighted farmers, colonize our educational soil with foreign hybrids, ignoring domestic traditions. As a result – loss of a historic and spiritual support, misunderstanding of the true sense and significance of calligraphy for the shaping and revelation of the personality. The pursuit of the speed of writing and simplified graphic of letters have lead to disappearance of originality of handwriting, its beauty and hence - fine differentiation of pupil’s personality. It is important not only to write beautifully but, using this process, to learn to rouse oneself. To accelerate writing, it is necessary to improve and introduce shorthand, thus separating the beauty and the speed of writing as two subjects. Just as the soul becomes mild and light from a kind word, it is filled with joy and harmony from a beautiful letter.

Whereas the (literary, poetic) Word contains its creative laboratory, the same approach to its writing, i.e. to calligraphy, is of the same importance. At present, they try to replace this laboratory with the computer keyboard. In fact, it is fraught with deep and irreparable consequences, in particular, deformation of the physical and spiritual health of children, which is already noted by physiologists of Europe, Japan and China. Writing comprises the Letter creation act, and a rhythmic neural/impulse process (during writing) develops fine motor coordination of finders, which is directly connected with the shaping of image thinking in a child.

The Letter is just the external clothes of the Word. Just as the human soul is awakened through the Word, everything is important in a written letter – the melody of line, the pen pressing and the stroke length.

A written Letter is a vessel filled with certain content: the purer and the better the content of the vessel is the deeper the finest strings of a human soul are touched. From our birth to the last breath, a written Letter accompanies us. It is almost always in our field of vision. As an eyewinker, it may disturb, by irritating and causing inconvenience by its ugly forms and, on the contrary, reverberate as a pleasant melody, as a prayer filling our soul with grace.

It is difficult to imagine any field of Russian conventional art without an inscription. It organically intertwined with architecture, the interiors of cathedrals and houses as mosaics, paintings, stone and wood carving. Ligature writing encircled bells, crockery, church utensils and décor; it was used in sowing shrouds, jewelry, icon painting. Letters were not only organically connected with an object – they filled it with its sense and, while inspiring, pleased the heart and the eye with their richness. After the Peter I reforms, it was only Old Believers who faithfully preserved the Russian writing culture till today. Destruction by Peter I of the foci of monastery culture was the culmination of the 17th century events. They did not spare either educational programs or methodic work of teachers and Methodists of the best educational institutions of Russia. These portfolios of written culture were preserved in Estonia and Lithuania only.

Paul Lukhten’s more than 40-year professorial experience of teaching calligraphy in Tallinn suggested that practicing hand-made font and calligraphy promote not only the understanding of graphic composition but also form a basis for decorative and applied arts and the upbringing the artistic taste. Calligraphy, as a bridge, has traditionally connected the field of art and the field of science. It’s time to restore this destroyed bridge now.

Relying on the experience of its teacher, P. Lukhtein, I managed to develop the methods of accelerated training of school graduates for entering artistic high schools. Using special exercises, internal hidden reserves were discovered in weak students, which promoted their more active creative training.

Reduction in the number of training courses in font and calligraphy in secondary schools virtually destroy the experience and portfolios of creative teachers, by tightening the collar of unsubstantiated State Standards. Educational officials ignore the experience of professional schools and specialists from Estonia, Lithuania, Belarus, Ukraine, Russia. The ancient motto: “We teach for life, not for school” can be restated: “we teach for the Uniform National Exam, for the State Standard”. There are no high school training specialists in this field of the especially refined art of font and calligraphy. Consequently, in this situation, it is just impossible to train such specialists, because ‘it is not envisaged in the State Standard”. But numerous evidence and written responses of those who were able to touch this refined source of beauty testify to the other thing. For instance, in a St. Petersburg-based school where calligraphy is a basic and corrective subject (attention, guys in the Education Ministry), children call the calligraphy letters ‘domestic joy’. In fact, the true beauty of our Letter is disclosed on the condition that, when we take a letter and try to repeat the wonderful form of the Ancient Russian Letter attentively and without rush, then the letters will sound in your soul.

Arrangers of this project give the unique opportunity to everybody to touch the hand-made Letter and, possibly, you will feel the desire to take a pen and a brush and create your own letter. Hopefully, this project will not leave children or adults indifferent.

Petr Chobitko,
member of the Russian Union of Artists,
teacher of St. Petersburg Artistic and Industrial Academy.