Think of how many languages, including Russian, fall outside that list. However, I believe this list is fairly typical. Those scholars whom we Americans glamorize now because they knew a minimum of five languages fled Western were linguistic products of their respective upbringings and educational systems. It seems to me that one of the simplest ways to exclude others from discussion is to scold them about their philology. I am not so sure that Bakhtin would have felt vainglory over his mastery over so many languages.
Philology can be a key that either opens or closes.
If we rigidly insist on it as a standard, it then becomes a weapon, and we will exclude many voices that can make valid contributions to our discussion. Dear List, I'm glad some of the things I've said have generated a response. These are matters I have wondered about for a good while. First, I stand corrected on a number of points by Tatiana Teslenko. I bow to greater knowledge because I have only spent a total of about three weeks in the actual Soviet Union, not more than two days of which in Moscow, ditto Leningrad.