Introduction
Russian language is the principal state and cultural language of Russia. Together with Ukrainian and Belarusian, the Russian language makes up the eastern branch of the Slavic family of languages. Russian is the primary language of the overwhelming majority of people in Russia and is also used as a second language in other former republics of the Soviet Union. Russian was also taught extensively in those countries lying within the Soviet sphere of influence, especially in eastern Europe, in the second half of the 20th century.
Russian has been strongly influenced by Old Church Slavonic and—since the 18th-century westernizing policies of Tsar Peter I the Great—by the languages of western Europe, from which it has borrowed many words. The 19th-century poet Aleksandr Pushkin had a very great influence on the subsequent development of the language. His writings, by combining the colloquial and Church Slavonic styles, put an end to the considerable controversy that had developed as to which style of the language was best for literary uses.