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State and legal languages of the Russian Empire of the 19th century. How foreign languages were taught in the Russian Empire of the 19th-20th centuries

State and legal languages of the Russian Empire of the 19th century. How foreign languages were taught in the Russian Empire of the 19th-20th centuries

20.09.2019

The preservation of the language, concern for its further development and enrichment is a guarantee of the preservation and development of Russian culture.

The position of the Russian language in the 18th century. M. V. Lomonosov played a special role in strengthening the spread of the Russian language during this period. He creates the first in Russian "Russian Grammar" and a set of grammatical rules.

Wishing to raise the prestige of the Russian language and make lectures understandable to most students, M. V. Lomonosov argued that Russian professors should also teach in Russian at the first Russian university. There were only two Russian professors: N.N. Popovsky and A.A. Barsov. N.N. Popovsky began to lecture in Russian. In fiction, official business documents, scientific treatises, the so-called Slavic-Russian language was widely used. It was the Russian language, which absorbed the culture of the Old Slavonic language. Therefore, the paramount task was to create a single national Russian language.

The concentration of national elements is planned due to the selection of the most common features of the South Russian North Russian dialects.

In the 18th century, there was an update, enrichment of the Russian language at the expense of Western European languages: Polish, French, Dutch, Italian, German. This was especially evident in the formation of the scientific language, its terminology: philosophical, scientific-political, legal, technical.

In 1771, the Free Russian Assembly was established in Moscow. Its members are professors, students, writers and poets. The main task of the society is to compile a dictionary of the Russian language. It sought to draw attention to the Russian language, to promote its dissemination and enrichment.

By the end of the 18th century, the preferred use of the Russian language in oral and written speech became a sign of patriotism, respect for one's nation, one's culture.

In the 19th century, throughout the century, disputes continue about what should be considered the basis of the Russian national language. N.M. Karamzin believed that the Russian language was too difficult to express thoughts and needed to be processed. The transformation of the language, according to Karamzinists, requires its release from the consequences of the Church Slavonic language. Focus should be on new European languages, especially French. The Russian language must be given lightness, made simple and understandable to a wide range of readers. On the other hand, the language needs to create new words, to expand the semantics of old words to designate concepts introduced into everyday life, mainly in secular society.

The Slavophiles, their inspirer A. S. Shishkov, considered Old Church Slavonic as the primitive language of all mankind and believed that it should become the basis of Russian literary speech. According to him, there are only stylistic differences between the Church Slavonic Russian languages.

The work of the great writers of the first half of the 19th century, Griboedov and Krylov, is indicative, they proved what inexhaustible possibilities live folk speech has, how original, original, rich the language of folklore is.

A. S. Pushkin is rightfully considered the creator of the modern Russian language. The reformist nature of Pushkin's work was written by his contemporaries: N.V. Gogol, V.G. Belinsky and I.S. Turgenev. A.S. Pushkin in his poetic work and in relation to language was guided by the principle of proportionality and conformity.

The 19th century is the silver age of Russian literature and the Russian language. At this time, there is an unprecedented flowering of Russian literature. The work of Gogol, Lermontov, Goncharov, Dostoevsky, L. Tolstoy, Saltykov-Shchedrin, Ostrovsky, Chekhov and others is gaining universal appreciation. Russian journalism reaches extraordinary heights: articles by Belinsky, Pisarev, Dobrolyubov, Chernyshevsky. The achievements of Russian scientists Dokuchaev, Mendeleev, Pirogov, Lobachevsky, Mozhaisky, Kovalevsky, Klyuchevsky, and others are receiving worldwide recognition. The development of literature, journalism, and science contributes to the further formation and enrichment of the Russian national language. Scientific and journalistic literature increases the stock of international terminology. Fiction serves as a basis for replenishing Russian phraseology and forming new words. One of the most important features of the literary language as the highest form of the national language is its normativity. Throughout the 19th century, the process of processing the national language was going on in order to create unified grammatical, lexical spelling, orthoepic norms. The richness and diversity of the vocabulary of the Russian language is reflected in dictionaries (historical, etymological, synonymous, foreign words) that appear in the 19th century. The largest event was the publication in 1863-1866. the four-volume "Explanatory Dictionary of the Living Great Russian Language" by V.I. Dahl. The dictionary was highly appreciated by contemporaries. Its author in 1863 received the Lomonosov Prize of the Russian Imperial Academy of Sciences and the title of honorary academician.

Modern so-called nation-states are formed for the most part in the 19th century, due to the rapid development of ground means of communication, primarily railway transport. Accordingly, the need arose for the unification of writing, as the most important means of communication for managing large territories.

]]> When the German language was created. Hochdeutsch ]]> . The written form of Standard German (Hochdeutsch) was created at the II Spelling Conference held in Berlin from 17 to 19 July 1901. The desire to create a single German language became especially clear after the creation of the German Empire in 1871. In 1876, at the initiative of the Prussian Minister of Culture Aldaberk Falk, the First Orthographic Conference was convened, at which "negotiations were held towards a greater agreement in spelling." However, it was not possible to agree on a single spelling of the Reich at that time.

]]> Lower German ]]> . Lower German ( Plattdeutsch or Niederdeutsch) the language is now common only in some areas of Northern Germany and northeastern Holland. It differs significantly from Hochdeutsch (the official language of Germany) and High German dialects. They are essentially different languages. But until now, Lower German shows great similarity with English and Dutch, which indicates the commonality of their origin.

By today, Lower German has lost its meaning. In the Middle Ages, it dominated the Baltic Sea region, where it served as the language of interethnic communication there. It was an important literary language. It, along with Latin, was used to draw up trade and legal documents. Theological books were written on it. There are several ancient translations of the Bible into this language.

]]> When the Dutch language was created ]]> . Linguistic diversity reigned in the medieval Netherlands. In every city, or even village spoke their own language. The dialects can be divided into five large groups: Flemish, Brabandish, Dutch, Limburian and Low Saxon. Attempts to standardize the language were made as early as the 16th century in Brabant. However, for various reasons, they were unsuccessful. Managed to create a single language in the 17th century. Subsequently, the proper Dutch and Belgian versions of the standard Dutch language diverged significantly. This happened because Belgium had no official Dutch status until the 20th century. The language of administration there was French.

]]> When Swedish was created ]]> . Until recently in the Kingdom of Sweden there was no official language. Only in 2008 In the same year, parliament passed a law giving the Swedish language official status. True, by that time the Swedish language had been the main language in the kingdom for quite some time. The Swedish language began to come to the fore in Sweden at the end of the 19th century. Previously, other languages dominated the country. So in the 18th century, French became the language of the upper classes. King Gustav III (1771-1792) was a true Francophile, and French was the main language spoken at his court. And in 1818, the French Marshal Bernadotte ascended the throne under the name Charles IV John. Before, in the 17th century, Low German was popular, which was the commercial language and the lingua franca of the Hanseatic trade union. The language of the Catholic Church was Latin. Scientists also wrote their works on it. In particular, Carl Linnaeus published his most famous works in Latin. Apparently, the Russian language also played an important role in medieval Sweden.

]]> When the Norwegian language was created ]]> . In the middle 19th century young self-taught linguist Ivar Aasen set about creating the Norwegian language proper. He traveled all over the country, compared local dialects, studied the Icelandic language. As a result, in 1848 he introduced a new written language - Landsmol("rural language"). The main feature of this language was that words from Danish and Low German were excluded from it, as far as possible. They are replaced by synonyms, supposedly inherited from "Old Norse". IN 1885 Landsmål was adopted as the official written language, along with the Norwegian version of Danish.

At the same time, Knud Knudsen proposed to bring the spelling of Norwegian-Danish closer to the popular pronunciation. For example, replace the letters "c" and "q" with "f". (Later, the letters "p", "t" and "k" were proposed to be replaced by "b", "d" and "g"). Thus was born a new written language, with the light hand of Bjornstjerne Bjornson, called "riksmol". In 1892, spelling reforms were officially enshrined in law.

]]> When the English language was created ]]> . In principle, English is not much different from most other Western European languages. In the sense that it is the same remake just like them. It should be said right away: until 1733, the official language of the English state was Latin. In the 17-18 centuries there was an intensive growth of vocabulary. Borrowed from many languages. Mostly from Latin. The creation of the English language was completed in 1755 the year Samuel Johnson published his Dictionary. The greatest contribution to the creation of the English language, having introduced more than three thousand new words into it, was made by W. Shakespeare.

]]> When the English language was created. Part 2 (Samuel Johnson Dictionary) ]]>

]]> When the Polish language was created ]]> . There is no evidence for the existence of the Polish language before the 16th century. Apart from a couple of books with prayers of dubious origin and even more dubiously dated. About this period in scientific circles they speak only as about the "period of the origins of the formation of the literary language." The Polish language suddenly appears in 16th century, exactly after the merger of Poland with the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. And then his "golden age" begins. And that Polish is indistinguishable from Russian the same time. It is believed that Latin was the state language in Poland, according to some sources, until the end of the so-called "Saxon period" - 1783, and, according to other sources, until 1795.

]]> First attempt at creating a Bulgarian language ]]> . “Since the mid-30s of the XIX century. Bulgarian society is seized by the idea of creating a single standardized literary language for the nation, developing a "common grammar for the whole of Bulgaria," which everyone should follow in their writings. This idea was first clearly formulated neophyte Rylsky in "Philological pre-notice" to his "Bulgarian Grammar" (1835), which contains the theoretical substantiation of the practical solutions proposed by the author to create the norms of the literary language of the new time.

"The well-known journey to the Transdanubian lands, undertaken in 1830-1831. Yu.I. Venelin, on the instructions of the Russian Academy, with the aim, in particular, of in-depth study of the Bulgarian language and the creation of its grammar, came at a time of serious shifts in the historical, cultural, literary and linguistic situation in Bulgaria, associated with the progressive development of social thought in the course of the Bulgarian Renaissance. ]]> E.I. Demin “On the first experience of codification of the Bulgarian literary language of the Renaissance. The concept of Yu.I. Venelina ]]> )

]]> The first Bulgarian awakeners ]]> . The first cry in the spirit of new European trends is also heard from the monastery cell - a cry for national awakening and enlightenment, for the protection of the native language, native way of life. It was a call Hieromonk Paisios, pro-abbot of Hilandar. “You don’t like Bulgarians, know your clans ї ıazik and ѹchi this in your own ıazik”, - he convinced in his "History of the Slavo-Bulgarian", completed by him in the Zograf Monastery in 1762. He intended it for those denigrators “who do not love their kind and ıazik”, as well as “to you, who are jealous of the nobility and listen for your kind ї ıazik napїsah yes you know”.

]]> When the Serbian language was created ]]> . Back in the beginning 19th century The official language in Serbia was Church Slavonic. Moreover, Russian his option. Literary in the 18th and first half of the 19th centuries was the so-called Slavic-Serbian language. Occasionally it is called Slovenian. Not to be confused with another Slovene language, now the official language of the Republic of Slovenia.

]]> About Romanians and the Romanian language. ]]> In the 19th century, the self-name, for the sake of prestige, was slightly corrected to "romyn" (român). So the "serfs" turned into "Romans". At the same time, writing was translated into the Latin alphabet. And in the second half of the 19th century, after the declaration of independence, when Romania and Moldova formed a single state, a major language reform was carried out. All Slavic, German, Turkish and other words have been replaced Italian. It would be more accurate to say that the Romanians completely torn for themselves the Italian language, which in Italy was just beginning to come into its own, with all its rules. As a result, now Romanians can understand Italians without an interpreter...

]]> When the Bashkir language was created ]]> . The modern literary Bashkir language arose after October Revolution, based on the concentration of Kuvakan and Yurmatian dialects. Prior to this, the Bashkirs used the Tatar literary language, in which Bashkir literature originally developed. The Bashkirs used the Arabic alphabet, from 1928-29 - Latin and from 1939 - Russian ... "

]]> When the Lithuanian language was created (Part 1) ]]> . For a long time, the Lithuanian language was considered insufficiently prestigious for written use. There was no single language. Linguistic differences were significant between regions. There were Aushtaitian and Samogitian dialects (or separate languages) and their numerous dialects. There were expectations that the Lithuanian language was about to die out on the territory of modern Lithuania. Many people used Polish and Belarusian in everyday life. At the beginning of the 19th century, the use of the Lithuanian language was largely limited to Lithuanian rural areas.

]]> When the Lithuanian language was created (Part 2) ]]>

]]> When the Lithuanian language was created. Part 3 (beginning) ]]>

]]> When the Lithuanian language was created. Part 3 (continued) ]]>

]]> When the Lithuanian language was created. Part 3 (end) ]]>

]]> When Turkish was created ]]> , ]]> How Turkish was created ]]> . Before 1839 years in the Ottoman Empire, the forerunner of modern Turkey, there was no official language. The Great Porte was a multinational and multilingual state. A mixture of Turkish folk dialects, Arabic and Persian, the so-called Ottoman language in 1839, during the period of transit (political reforms), was declared the state language. In 1851, the historian Ahmed Cevlet Pasha and the future Grand Vizier Mehmed Fuat Pasha published the first grammar of the Ottoman language.

Throughout the second half of the 19th and early 20th centuries, passions were in full swing in the Ottoman Empire about improving the language. (Let me remind you that from the middle of the 19th century, the official language of the empire was the Ottoman language, consisting of 70-80, and according to some estimates, all 90 percent, of borrowings from Arabic and Persian.) Disputes ended already in republican Turkey with a language reform 1928 year after which it was created, in fact, brand new turkish language.

]]> When was the Greek language created? ]]> There is a state in Europe Greece. It appeared on the political map in the first half of the 19th century, breaking away from the Ottoman Empire. Greece was created with the military assistance of Great Britain and France with the connivance of the Russian Emperor Nicholas I.

The separatist-minded Greek intelligentsia, based, as happens in such cases, abroad, had long dreamed of their own independent country. The basis of the new state, according to their plan, was to be the Orthodox faith and the Greek language. If everything seemed to be in order with faith, then the language had yet to be invented.

Believe it or not, no, but at the turn 18th-19th centuries the Greeks did not have their own single national language in which to write the Constitution and other laws, to conduct office work. The Turkish language, which was understood by all Greeks, did not seem solid to use for these purposes. Many common Greeks never knew Greek at all.

]]> How the Greek language was created (Part 1) ]]> . The dispute about how the language should be in an independent Greek state (then not yet created) first flared up at the end of the 18th century. At that time, complete chaos reigned in the language issue in Greece. There were many languages. They were divided into "folk colloquial", which differed from region to region, and into "archaic", that is, old. Moreover, which of the old languages \u200b\u200bis “Ancient Greek”, and which is “Middle Greek” (Byzantine), and which language comes from which, the Greeks themselves did not know then. This will tell them later. "father of Greek linguistics" Georgios Hatzidakis (1843-1941). All these languages existed at the same time. Cultivated in different circles and schools, and have not been "scientifically studied".

A compromise solution was proposed by Adamantios Korais, who created a new language, with the light hand of Nicephorus Theotokis, called "kafaverusa" (purified). Theotokis first mentioned the term in one of his works in 1796. The name became generally accepted from the middle of the 19th century. Modern linguists politically correct name "semi-artificial".

]]> How the Greek language was created (Part 2) ]]>

]]> How the Greek language was created (Part 3) ]]>

]]> How the Greek language was created. Part 4 (Adamantios Korais and Kafaverusa) ]]>

]]> How the Greek language was created. Part 5 (Hope for the Resurrection of Ancient Greek) ]]>

]]> How the Greek language was created. Part 6 (Drift to the archaic and the Olympic Games) ]]>

]]> When Hebrew was created. ]]> Itzhak Perlman Eliezer (real name - Ben-Yehuda) was born in the Russian Empire, on the territory of the modern Vitebsk region of Belarus. Ben-Yehuda's parents dreamed that he would become a rabbi and therefore helped him get a good education. Even in his youth, Eliezer was imbued with the ideas of Zionism and in 1881 he emigrated to Palestine. Here Ben Yehuda came to the conclusion that only Hebrew can revive and return it to its “historical homeland”. Influenced by his ideals, he decided to develop a new language that could replace Yiddish and other regional dialects as a means of everyday communication between Jews.

Simultaneously with the introduction Hebrew, there was a campaign to discredit the Yiddish language. Yiddish was declared "jargon" and "non-kosher". In 1913, one of the writers declared: "speaking Yiddish is even less kosher than eating pork." The peak of the confrontation between Hebrew and Yiddish was 1913, when the so-called "war of languages" broke out.

]]> When the Hungarian language was created ]]> . At the end 18th century the Hungarian intelligentsia suddenly awakened. Awakened by Georg Bessenei (Bessenyei György). In 1765, he was at the court of Empress Maria Theresa as part of the newly created detachment of Hungarian bodyguards. Here he became interested in reading the masterpieces of French literature. He unwittingly drew a parallel between Western and Hungarian culture. And experienced pain and shame. After all, the Hungarians did not have any national culture then. In fact, they did not have their own language. The aristocracy spoke and wrote in French and German. Middle class - in Latin. Latin was the official language in Hungary and in the Holy Roman Empire, of which it was a part. The Hungarian language was rarely used and mostly in the villages.

]]> The East is a dark matter or when the Azeri language was created ]]> . Can someone explain why 1956 years, the Azerbaijani language was not used in Azerbaijan in state institutions and was little known even to the Azerbaijanis themselves?

]]> The East is a dark matter or when the Hindi and Urdu languages were created ]]> . After the fall of the Mughal Empire in 1837 power passed to the British East Indies campaign. Along with English, the British proclaimed the official language "urdu". This is the same Persian language with a large number of borrowings from numerous local languages and dialects. Separation of "Urdu" (Horde) and "Hindi"(Indian) began in 1867.

When the British government, to please the Hindu communities, in some northwestern provinces (now the states of Uttar Pradesh and Bihar) changed the writing of the Urdu language from Persian to the local Devanagari. Hindus soon demanded that "Hindi" replace "Urdu" as the official nationwide.

In 1900, the British government issued a decree formally equalizing the rights of "Hindi" and "Urdu". After that, language disputes arose with renewed vigor. Languages began to diverge linguistically. Until that moment, they were essentially one language, differing only in writing. Hindus began to diligently clean out "Hindi" from Persian words, replacing them with their Sanskrit counterparts.

]]> A Brief History of Sanskrit ]]> . By 1773, the British had finally captured India, removing all competitors from the road. India received the official status of a colony, and the British prepared properly for this event - ten years later, in 1783, a grandiose discovery of the ancient and mysterious Indian culture took place, Sanskrit was discovered and all the main literary works of the Hindus were printed for the first time. All these pleasant discoveries were made by one person - the founder of modern philology Sir William Jones... And off we go, after the discovery of unknown Sanskrit, an avalanche of amazing discoveries began, masses of ancient texts were discovered that had been passed by Hindus from mouth to mouth for thousands of years and only among the elite - they were not known to anyone else either in India or those over in Europe. Worked in an office Jones a huge team of leading philologists and writers of England under the personal guidance of the Governor General, so they managed to translate a lot of amazing texts.

]]> About Sanskrit and its predecessor ]]> . What is now in use and is considered Sanskrit, in fact, was “brought” to Europe by the so-called Indologists only in the 19th century. But how did this so-called Sanskrit "travel" around Europe? Who opened it? Where? When? The search for answers to these questions in historical facts sheds light on this problem. First time February 2 1786 year, the founder and leader of the Society of Orientalists in Calcutta announced his discovery, speaking of himself as a discoverer.

]]> About Sanskrit and its predecessor (continued) ]]> . But what is interesting is that in the circles that employees of the East India Company, no one taught Sanskrit. At the same time, interest in this language was growing rapidly in Europe. Why so? The results of a psychosocial analysis of this problem would probably be explosive.

The 19th century produced many Sanskrit scholars. If only these people were interested in studying authentic Sanskrit. According to the documents, the new scientists grew like mushrooms after the rain. They were mostly Europeans. Mostly Germans, but the soil for their "growth" was in London and Paris. Why? Yes, because in the local museums there was an unsorted dump of ancient books and manuscripts. These new students of Sanskrit studied the language in a very peculiar way...

]]> About Sanskrit and its predecessor (end) ]]> . And in 1823 another "William Jones" appeared. It was Friedrich Maximilian Muller, originally from Dessau...

]]> When was the French language created? ]]> Work on the invention of a single French language began in the first half of 17th century. IN 1635 The French Academy was founded (not to be confused with the Paris Academy of Sciences). According to the official website of the academy www.academie-francaise.fr from the first days of its existence, a mission was entrusted to it, I quote: « create french language, give it rules, make it clean and understandable for everyone".

The French language was introduced into France by administrative measures, first under the influence of the Parisian royal family. After the French Revolution, a strong oppression of vernacular languages began. Their study was prohibited by law. Common French was seen as a key factor in the formation of a single French nation. The ban, and even then formally, was lifted only in 1982 the year when indigenous languages were allowed to be taught as electives in schools.

]]> The language of the troubadours and Albigensians. ]]> In the Middle Ages, people living in what is now France did not know French. The regions spoke their own languages. So, in the south, the language now called Occitan dominated. However, this is a rather late term. Introduced, apparently, in the 19th century by the Felibre literary group and its leader Frederick Mistralem who tried to revive the literary tradition of this language.

]]> When the Italian language was created ]]> . In general, no such Italy did not exist in the Middle Ages. There were many independent states on the Apennine Peninsula. The linguistic palette of the peninsula was very diverse. In fact, every city, and even a village, had its own language ... Most of the spoken languages originated from Latin. Latin itself was also widely used. She conducted office work in the offices of states, church services. In addition, some languages were of Germanic and Slavic origin. In some places, dialects of the Byzantine Empire were preserved.

]]> When Spanish was created ]]> . Spanish, also known as the Castilian language, was created during the reign of the King of Castile and Leon Alfonso X. Initially, the sphere of influence of the Castilian language was limited to the Kingdom of Castile and Leon, which occupied a small territory in the north of the Iberian Peninsula. Other Catholic kingdoms of the peninsula had their own languages: Galician-Portuguese, Aragonese, Catalan and others. The Basques spoke their ancient language. In most of the Iberian Peninsula, in the country of Al-Andalus, the Moors ruled. The Mozarabic language dominated here.

]]> Mozarabic ]]> . Mozarabic was the language spoken by Christians in the Muslim dominions in Spain during the Middle Ages. Basically, it was used by urban residents who adhered to Christianity. Although at the same time they perceived Arab customs and culture. Peasants more often converted to Islam. It seems that the Arabs also used it.

It is curious that the Spanish scientists began to call the "Mozarabic" language in the 19th century. The word comes from the Arabic mustarab, which means Arabized. Another, Arabic, name of the language - al-ajamiya(foreign, unfamiliar). The native speakers themselves called it ... Latin. Now Mozarabic belongs to the Romanesque group. Meanwhile, he was an explosive mixture of Arabic and Latin. About 40% of his vocabulary consisted of Arabic words, and 60% of Latin. Writing, unlike most other Romance languages, was based on the Arabic alphabet. Occasionally, Jewish graphics were also used.

]]> When the Khmer language was created ]]> . The "ancient" Khmer language was created at the beginning 20th century learned Buddhist monk Chuon Nath (Chuon Nath).

]]> ]]>

ing, and realistic elements of his vocabulary, without being artistic
justified in the same way as it takes place in creativity
Pushkin, are often perceived in poetry as prosaism. High-
about his poetry of three great contemporaries (Pushkin,
Gogol and Belinsky) each in its own way, they understand how she could
Via to appear not only to them!. Their estimates are different and
contradictory, and this inconsistency is not accidental: Vyazemsky
1 In a letter from Pushkin to Vyazemsky on May 22, 1826, we read: “Your
the verses to Imaginary Beauty (ah, sorry: Lucky) are too clever; A
poetry, God forgive me, must be stupid, ”- a characteristic that
ruyu mutatis mutandis can be attributed to much that came out of the pen
Vyazemsky. Pushkin spoke about other, early things of Vyazemsky,
which is undeniably commendable. Compare, for example, in a letter of 1820: “For the time being,
send us your poems, they are captivating and invigorating. First snow -
charm. Despondency is prettier."
Gogol in the article “What, finally, is the essence of Russian poetry and in
than its peculiarity ”(Choose, places from correspondence with friends, 1847) is characteristic
Vyazemsky's work pays several very expressive
lines: “In Prince Vyazemsky,” he writes, “the opposite of Yazykov:
how much the poverty of thoughts strikes in that, so much in this abundance of them. Poem
used by him as the first weapon that came across: no external
doing it, also no concentration and rounding of thought then, what-
to expose it to the reader as a jewel: he is not an artist and does not care
huffing about all this. His poems are improvisations ... It contains
elk abundance of unusual all qualities: visual, observant,
unexpectedness of conclusions, feeling, intelligence, wit, gaiety and even sadness;
each poem of his is the motley pharaoh of everything together. He is not a poet
vocation: fate, endowing him with all the gifts, gave him, as it were,
giving the talent of the poet in order to make something complete out of it ... But the absence
the effect of great and full labor is the illness of Prince Vyazemsky, and this
can be heard in his very poems. They show a noticeable absence of internal
harmonic agreement in parts, discord of words is heard: the word is not
combined with a word, a verse with a verse, near a strong and firm verse, like
who no poet has,
another is placed, nothing like him; then suddenly he pinches something
torn alive from the very heart, it will suddenly push away from itself with a sound,
almost alien to the heart, resounding completely out of step with the subject;
there is a lack of concentration in oneself, not a full life on one's own; heard
at the bottom of everything is something crushed and oppressed. Wed and below: “... this cha-
yellow, as if dragging along the ground, Vyazemsky's verse, sometimes imbued with
caustic, aching Russian sadness ....
In "Literary Dreams" (1834) Belinsky about the Vyazemsky
remarked: “Prince Vyazemsky, Russian Karl Nodier, wrote in verse and prose
about everything and everything ... Between his countless poems, many
are distinguished by the brilliance of genuine and original wit, others even strange
power; many are strained, as, for example, “No matter how!” etc. But, in general
say, Prince Vyazemsky belongs to the number of our wonderful
these and writers.
A different opinion, which has in mind only the weak sides of Vya-
zemsky, and, moreover, expressed in irritation, we find in his letter
Gogol from Salzbrunn (July 15, 1847): “You,” Belinsky wrote angrily, “
did it out of passion for the main idea of your book and inadvertently
and Vyazemsky ^ this prince in the aristocracy and a serf in literature, different
forked your thought and printed on your admirers (and therefore on me
more than anyone else) a private denunciation He did it, probably in gratitude to you
because you made him, a bad rhymer, into great poets,
zhetsya, as far as I remember, for his "sluggish, dragging along the ground verse."

Publications in the Traditions section

History of the Russian language in the 18th–19th centuries

In the novel by Leo Tolstoy "War and Peace" - more than 450 thousand words. Of these, almost 700 are German, and more than 15 thousand are French. So the writer conveyed the linguistic atmosphere of high society in Russia in the era of the Napoleonic Wars, when aristocrats practically did not use their native language in living rooms and at court. "Kultura.RF" tells how the Russian language was expelled from the salons and how it returned to the world.

Reforms of Peter I and the new Russian language

Peter Van Der Werf. Portrait of Peter I. 1697. State Hermitage Museum, St. Petersburg

Charles van Loo. Portrait of Elizabeth Petrovna. 1760. State Museum-Reserve "Peterhof", St. Petersburg

Leonid Miropolsky. Portrait of Mikhail Lomonosov. Copy of a portrait by Georg Prenner. 1787. Museum of Anthropology and Ethnography named after Peter the Great, St. Petersburg

Foreign languages in pre-Petrine Russia were not widely spoken even among educated Russians. Soviet philologist Lev Yakubinsky wrote: “Foreign language classes were viewed with suspicion, fearing that Catholic or Lutheran “heresy” would penetrate into the minds of Muscovites along with them.. Peter I himself was taught German from childhood, and as an adult, the tsar mastered Dutch, English and French. After the reforms at the beginning of the 18th century, foreigners poured into Russia, and noble children began to be sent to study in Europe. A huge number of borrowed words appeared in the Russian language, which denoted phenomena new to Russia: assembly, ammunition, globe, optics, varnish, fleet, ballast and others.

“Although before this, besides the Russian language, none of the Russian people knew how to read and write books, and, more, it’s a shame than it is revered for art, but now we see His Majesty himself speaking the German language, and several thousand subjects of his Russian people, male and female sex, skillful different European languages, like Latin, Greek, French, German, Italian, English and Dutch, and such treatment, moreover, that they can shamelessly be equal to all other European peoples.
Feofan Prokopovich

The future Empress Elizabeth Petrovna was taught French - not because it was fashionable (gallomania reached Russia only 50 years later), but because Peter expected to marry his daughter to a representative of the Bourbon dynasty. Otherwise, Elizabeth differed little from other titled ladies: it was believed that the ability to write and read was more than enough for them.

“The memoirist Ekaterina Elagina recalled her relatives, whose childhood fell on the first half of the 18th century: “Maria Grigorievna Bezobrazova ... was then well educated, because she knew how to read and write. Her sister Alexandra Grigorievna did not achieve this. She signed papers under the dictation of her serf clerk; he told her: “Write“ az ”- she wrote. - Write "people" - wrote "people", - she repeated, etc.
Vera Bokova, “To observe piety for the youth...” How noble children were instructed”

Until the 18th century, primers and grammars were compiled in the high, Church Slavonic dialect. On it, the children studied the Book of Hours and the hymnal after memorizing individual syllables. Separate from Church Slavonic, the Russian literary language began to develop after the reform of the alphabet, which approved the civil script. The first edition of the new alphabet was personally reviewed by Peter in 1710.

In the 1730s and 1740s, works on Russian philology were published in Latin and German, as was customary in academic circles. Mikhail Lomonosov wrote the Russian Grammar in Russian only in 1755. The first detailed textbooks of the literary Russian language were published in the 1820s by the writer and publicist Nikolai Grech.

The language of royal brides, churches, armies and servants

Fedor Rokotov. Portrait of Catherine II. 1763. State Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow

Jean-Laurent Monnier. Ceremonial portrait of Empress Elizabeth Alekseevna. 1805. State Russian Museum, St. Petersburg

Orest Kiprensky. Portrait of Alexander Pushkin. 1827. State Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow

Foreign brides of sovereigns learned the language of their new homeland without fail. Sophia Augusta Frederick of Anhalt-Zerbst, the future Empress Catherine II, showed great diligence in this matter. Describing her life as the bride of the heir to the throne, Peter Fedorovich, she recalled: “I have already been given three teachers: one, Simeon Theodorsky, to instruct me in the Orthodox faith; another, Vasily Adadurov, for the Russian language, and Lange, the choreographer, for the dances. In order to make faster progress in the Russian language, I got out of bed at night and, while everyone was sleeping, memorized the notebooks that Adadurov left me..

Count Fyodor Golovkin wrote about another born German - Elizaveta Alekseevna, wife of Alexander I: “She knows the language, religion, history and customs of Russia better than all Russian women”. The wife of Nicholas I, Alexandra Feodorovna, on the contrary, was embarrassed to speak Russian because of grammatical errors. Her teacher during her early years in Russia was the poet Vasily Zhukovsky. He discussed lofty subjects with his student and did not pay due attention to such prosaic topics as declension and conjugation.

However, the main language of living rooms at the beginning of the 19th century was French. Aristocratic women knew Russian only at the everyday level or did not speak their native language at all. Even a provincial young lady, as Tatiana Larina is described by Pushkin, “... I didn’t know Russian well / I didn’t read our magazines / And I expressed it with difficulty / In my native language”.

“Tatyana, of course, spoke everyday Russian speech, and also, having memorized prayers from childhood and attending church, she had a certain skill in understanding solemn church texts. She did not own a written style and could not freely express in writing those shades of feelings for which she found ready-made, well-established forms in French. A love letter required a more bookish style than spoken language ( "Until now, ladies' love / Not expressed in Russian"), and less bookish, more reduced than the language of church texts ( “To this day, our proud language / I’m not used to postal prose”).
Yuri Lotman, commentary on the novel by A.S. Pushkin "Eugene Onegin"

Boys in noble families were taught the Russian language purposefully, because they had to serve in the army and command commoners. But if English misses and French monsieurs were invited to teach European languages, then children often learned Russian from servants. As a result, in the speech of aristocrats, borrowed from courtyard people slipped every now and then "nadys" or "entot". This was not considered ignorance, much more society ridiculed mistakes in French.

The family of Sergei Pushkin, the father of Alexander Pushkin, was French-speaking. French educators were replaced in their house, and the younger Pushkins spoke Russian only with their nanny Arina Rodionovna and their grandmother from their mother's side, Maria Gannibal. Later, teachers of their native language, clerk Alexei Bogdanov and priest Alexander Belikov, were assigned to Alexander Pushkin. When he entered the Tsarskoye Selo Lyceum in 1811, 12-year-old Pushkin discovered knowledge "in Russian - very good". In the lyceum, children were taught in Russian - this was one of the basic principles of the educational institution.

From literature to high society

Peter Sokolov. Portrait of Nicholas I. 1820. All-Russian Museum of A.S. Pushkin, St. Petersburg

Ivan Kramskoy. Portrait of Alexander III. 1886. State Russian Museum, St. Petersburg

Ilya Galkin. Portrait of Empress Alexandra Feodorovna. 1895. State Museum-Reserve "Peterhof", St. Petersburg

By the 1820s, a situation had developed where it was almost indecent to speak Russian at court, especially in the presence of ladies. But the golden age of Russian literature began. In 1830, a costume ball was held in the Anichkov Palace, at which the maid of honor Ekaterina Tizenhausen read the poem "Cyclops", which Pushkin wrote especially for the celebration. It was one of three voiced that evening in Russian. The remaining 14 verses were read in French.

Sovereign Nicholas I acted as the protector of the native language. Under him, all office work (except for diplomatic correspondence) was again conducted in Russian, and foreigners entering the Russian service from now on had to pass an exam on knowledge of the language. Moreover, the emperor demanded that both men and women speak Russian at court.

“Most secular ladies, especially natives of St. Petersburg, do not know their native language; however, they learn a few Russian phrases and, in order not to disobey the emperor, pronounce them when he passes through those halls of the palace where they are currently performing their service; one of them always guards in order to give a signal in time, warning of the appearance of the emperor - conversations in French immediately fall silent, and the palace resounds with Russian phrases designed to appease the ear of the autocrat; the sovereign is proud of himself, seeing how long the power of his reforms extends, and his recalcitrant naughty subjects laugh, as soon as he leaves the door. I don’t know what struck me more in the spectacle of this enormous power - its strength or weakness!
Astolf de Custine, "Russia in 1839"

Alexander III also demanded to address himself in Russian, in French in his presence they spoke only with Empress Maria Feodorovna, a Danish by nationality, although she knew Russian quite well.

However, foreign bonnes and governesses were still invited to the children of aristocrats. At the end of the 19th century, English became the language of the highest aristocracy. Academician Dmitry Likhachev wrote about the Anglophilism of that time: “It was considered a special sophistication to speak French with an English accent”. English was the home language in the family of Nicholas II and Alexandra Feodorovna. Contemporaries noted the impeccable British pronunciation of the emperor and the noticeable foreign accent with which he spoke Russian.

And yet, at the beginning of the 20th century, the situation of 100 years ago, when a noblewoman could not understand the speech of the common people, was already unthinkable. The literary Russian language, which took shape in the 18th-19th centuries, was in demand in all spheres of life.

“I once asked Academician A.S. Orlova (Russian and Soviet literary critic. - Ed.) - in what social environment was the best, most correct and beautiful Russian language? Alexander Sergeevich thought, and not immediately, but already confidently answered: with the middle nobility, in their estates.
Dmitry Likhachev, "On Russian and Foreign"

- more than 450 thousand words. Of these, almost 700 are German, and more than 15 thousand are French. So the writer conveyed the linguistic atmosphere of high society in Russia in the era of the Napoleonic Wars, when aristocrats practically did not use their native language in living rooms and at court.

Foreign languages in pre-Petrine Russia were not widely spoken even among educated Russians. Soviet philologist Lev Yakubinsky wrote: “Foreign language classes were viewed with suspicion, fearing that Catholic or Lutheran “heresy” would penetrate into the minds of Muscovites along with them.. He himself was taught German from childhood, and as an adult, the tsar mastered Dutch, English and French. After the reforms at the beginning of the 18th century, foreigners poured into Russia, and noble children began to be sent to study in Europe. A huge number of borrowed words appeared in the Russian language, which denoted phenomena new to Russia: assembly, ammunition, globe, optics, varnish, fleet, ballast and others.

In the 1730s and 1740s, works on Russian philology were published in Latin and German, as was customary in academic circles. "Russian Grammar" in Russian was written only in 1755. The first detailed textbooks of the literary Russian language were published in the 1820s by the writer and publicist Nikolai Grech.

Count Fyodor Golovkin wrote about another born German - Elizaveta Alekseevna, wife of Alexander I: “She knows the language, religion, history and customs of Russia better than all Russian women”. Alexandra Feodorovna's wife, on the contrary, was embarrassed to speak Russian because of grammatical errors. Her teacher in the first years of her life in Russia was a poet. He discussed lofty subjects with his student and did not pay due attention to such prosaic topics as declension and conjugation.

The family of Sergei Pushkin, the father of Alexander Pushkin, was French-speaking. French educators were replaced in their house, and the younger Pushkins spoke Russian only with their nanny Arina Rodionovna and their grandmother from their mother's side, Maria Gannibal. Later, teachers of the native language were assigned to the school - deacon Alexei Bogdanov and priest Alexander Belikov. When he entered the Tsarskoye Selo Lyceum in 1811, 12-year-old Pushkin discovered knowledge "in Russian - very good". At the lyceum, children were taught in Russian - this was one of the basic principles of the educational institution.

He demanded to address himself in Russian and, in French, in his presence they spoke only with Empress Maria Feodorovna, a Danish by nationality, although she knew Russian quite well.

State and legal languages ​​of the Russian Empire of the 19th century. How foreign languages ​​were taught in the Russian Empire of the 19th-20th centuries

History of the Russian language in the 18th–19th centuries

Reforms of Peter I and the new Russian language

The language of royal brides, churches, armies and servants

From literature to high society

State and legal languages of the Russian Empire of the 19th century. How foreign languages were taught in the Russian Empire of the 19th-20th centuries