Romance

The word romance takes us to the Middle Ages in Spain. In those days, in addition to the everyday ordinary language, there was another – Latin. Scientists wrote books on it, church prayers were performed. We studied it in our pre-revolutionary gymnasiums. Latin was recognized as the official language of the Catholic Church. Although this language was widely spoken, it was not widely available. Latin was known only to literate people, and there were incredibly few of them at that time. And then, along with church writings in Latin, songs and poems of the people’s warehouse, which were performed in the Romanesque (Spanish) language, began to appear. Hence the name “romance”. From Spain, romances quickly spread throughout Europe, and at the end of the 18th century appeared in Russia. Of course, here they did not sound in Spanish, but the name stuck. Continue reading →