The author reflects on the fate of the most popular dictionary in Russia, written by the lexicographer, ethnographer and folklorist V. I. Dahl, analyzing the principles of building this “encyclopedia of Russian folk life of the first half of the 19th century” (V. V. Vinogradov). Contemporaries critically evaluated the dictionary, finding the word family method of organizing the material inconvenient, looking for factual errors and being outraged by the use of original Russian words instead of borrowings, sometimes constructed by Dahl himself. Admitting some drawbacks, it is necessary to emphasize that the organization of the material is not accidental and is caused by a polemic with the normative and dialect (regional) dictionaries that were published at that time, in which the word was presented in isolation from its realization in language and speech. The key word in the characterization of the language for Dahl was the word alive, and it is precisely on the representation of the living connections of words in the language that the principles of dictionary compilation “work”: word family method of presentation, a visual demonstration of the paradigmatic and syntagmatic connections of the word within the framework of one dictionary entry, combination of the vocabulary of all forms of the existence of the national language in the dictionary. Modern lexicographers, as a rule, avoid implementing these principles, focusing on the creation of reference dictionaries, in which words are presented in alphabetical order, supplemented with a scientific definition and identification of grammatical and stylistic markers. It is only examples illustrating the meanings of the words that have supplemented the content of the modern dictionary entry in comparison with the dictionaries of the 19th century. There are practically no followers of Dahl in lexicography. Mentioned as steps on the way to follow Dahl is Solzhenitsyn’s “Russian Dictionary of the Language Extension” and the Sictionary of dialects of Russian first settlers of Siberia near Lake Baikal by G. V. Afanasyeva-Medvedeva, in which illustrative examples successfully solve the problem of demonstrating the life of the word in speech and the language system. Meanwhile, a return to the principles of a talented lexicographer can be very productive. © 2021 Authors. All rights reserved.

В статье впервые рассматривается скрытый сюжет в романе А. С. Пушкина "Капитанская дочка", связанный с именем немецкого фельдмаршала Х. А. Миниха.

The Soviet literary pantheon of foreign writers widely read and popular in the USSR was made up as a result of conscious focused efforts and purposeful work of Soviet literary institutions. The case study of Theodore Dreiser (who was criticized as a “petty- bourgeois individualist” in the 1920s but gained a reputation of the greatest twentieth- century American classic and the best friend of the Soviet Union by the early 1930s) allows the researchers to uncover and analyze the mechanism of emergence of such a phenomenon as “a Soviet foreign classic”. The study carried out in the spirit of historico- literary and source- based approach involves in-depth exploration of Dreiser’s Soviet translations and publishing strategy that culminated in the twelve- volume collected works published in 1950–1955, as well as detailed examination of literary criticism in periodicals and books that reflected Dreiser’s growing reputation – obviously a response to the changing political agenda and ideological shifts. The paper is based on published materials and unpublished documents from the Russian archives, inclu- ding Dreiser’s correspondence with Soviet literary institutions, periodicals, editors, critics; the authors also use feedback from readers organized and gathered by Goslitizdat – reviews and comments made by “ordinary people” on Dreiser’s views and beliefs, his novels, plots, characters and style. Special attention is paid to the principles of selection of Dreiser’s works by editors and publishers who presented Dreiser to the Soviet readers in the “correct” perspective. The authors look at the phenomenon of Dreiser’s Soviet texts – publications in Soviet press unknown to American audience and adaptations of Dreiser’s works for stage and filming, made by Soviet dramatists and their role in the formation of the Soviet canon of Dreiser. Diving into this material helps to reconstruct the me- thods applied by agents of the Soviet “literary field” to create and convey a specific Soviet image of Dreiser, quite different from his image and reputation at home.

The scope of research in the article includes author’s vocabulary, or the vocabulary of the language of O. E. Mandelstam (based on the book of poems “Stone”). The research object is an author’s vocabulary entry as a system that has a structure and its own units. The basic research method is the method of poetic ideography as a kind of literary ideography and a type of general ideography in lexicographical perspective. The units under study are heterogeneous and diverse: these are units of a quantum and metafunctional nature. The former include units of prosody, lexical and conceptual units; the latter comprise units of a poetological and prosodic nature, as well as conceptual formations. The study reveals and characterizes typological features of the author’s vocabulary (of the language of O. Mandelstam), and introduces new features: poetological, prosodic, and interpretative. In general, the investigation is carried out within the framework of lexicography, ideography, textual studies, text linguistics, text hermeneutics, and text decoding (interpretation). The article establishes the operational order of description of poem units (the arrangement of the material in the author’s vocabulary is text-related), which corresponds to the set of systemic areas of the poetic text analyzed in the vocabulary entry: textual, poetological, prosodic, lexico-semantic, denotative, ideographic, and interpretative (based on the analysis of the system of functional-semantic field of vocabulary in a particular poem as the title unit of a vocabulary entry) spheres. The results of poetic-ideographical analysis correlate with the specific features of the poetic worldview of O. Mandelstam. The study suggests, illustrates, and analyzes a model and structure of a vocabulary entry of O. Mandelstam’s language. The degree of subjectivity/objectivity of the content of the interpretation sphere of a vocabulary entry is also determined. Furthermore, the authors conceptualize the nature, character, and structure of the interpretative sphere of a vocabulary entry. They analyze O. Mandelstam’s poem “Silentium”. The vocabulary entry contains eight structural elements. The logic of description and analysis of the units of the poetic text (by stanzas) is as follows: the title unit of the vocabulary entry – the poem → poetological information → prosodic information → semantic-denotative-ideographic information → interpretative sphere of the vocabulary entry. Interpretation of textual, general lexicographic, and ideographic information is performed with reference to the identification and analysis of paradigmatic (causative) series of conceptual formations implemented in the text word by word, line by line, and stanza by stanza (the units of interpretative analysis – vocabulary, phrase, utterance, complex syntactic construction and complex syntactic unity). Interpretation of conceptual formations is carried out taking into account the polysemy of the vocabulary. The interpretative sphere is the result of functioning of such a feature of the text as interpretability, or poliinterpretability, and also an outcome or generalized conclusion of the poetic and lexicographic study of O. Mandelstam’s poems. © 2021 Authors. All rights reserved.

В статье рассматривается топос двойничества в художественной литературе.

In Russian literature, alongside the mythologization of book / literature / library, an idea is developed of the escape from book. The work of symbolist poets holds an important place amid the literary interpretations of this idea. The present text aims to uncover the conceptualisation of book / literature / library in the artistic concept of symbolism by following the course of thematology and conceptology, as well as using the instrumentarium of semantic analysis of poetic text. The observations show that in poems by V. Bryusov and Al. Blok the value of “real” life is opposed to book / literature / library. With this artistic concept the poets elaborate the ideas of sentimentalism (embodied in Goethe’s Werther), the romantic skepsis as to the fruits of civilization, the ideas of Pushkin, Goncharov, Dostoevsky, and Chekhov about the negative aspects of “literary man”. The negation of library in symbolist poets is also motivated by an apology of revolution, which in their body of work incorporates the specifically Russian idea of the Scythian element in Russian culture, coming to annihilate the old European culture. This draws the conclusion that the idea of “natural man”, developing in European literature, obtains in the poetry of Al. Blok and V. Bryusov specifically Russian dimensions.

The article presents a critical review of research works on the topic “Folklore-literary interaction in the creative activity of A.M. Remizov” published in Russian. The study of the topic has been conducted mainly within the framework of literary criticism. Meanwhile, for a writer known for his commitment to preservation and innovative approach to traditional literary genres, folklore is one of the dominant sources of creativity. Currently, Remizov studies cannot boast of generalizing works on folklorism in the writer’s creative activity and on the influence of oral folk art genres on his artistic system, so one of the aims of the article is to attract scholarly interest to the issue and stimulate further research in this area. The publication gives a brief description of the current state of research on the problem, identifies the main vectors of its consideration and reveals the academic lacunae. The author analyzes the works, which deal with the creative heritage from the point of view of folklore studies and address the problems of the typology of folklorism and mythologism of the writer, clarify the range of folklore sources and the specificity of working with them, as well as the role and function of the author’s comments on the miniatures of Posoloni. These notes to the texts were created under the influence of a literary scandal related to the accusation of the writer of plagiarism. The assessment of the events around this incident by specialists in Remisov studies and folklorists does not coincide, the article outlines prospects for further research. The author undertakes a detailed description of the influence of the texts of calendar rite, spiritual verses, fairy tale, conspiracy-spell tradition, folk drama, children’s folklore and Russian folk pictures on the writer’s creative activity. For the first time, the author poses a hypothesis about the possible influence of the aesthetics of rayok (“World Cosmorama”) on the work of A. M. Remizov by the example of the fairy-tale novella “What is Tobacco”, which which depicts the reformatting of the apocryphal model by artistic means of lubok and rayok. The analysis of numerous studies made it possible for the author of the article to conclude that the writer’s creative activity does not only reflect the real diversity of folklore genres but also such specific features of them as oral format and variability. The results of the study can be used in the design of the course of the history of Russian literature and folklore studies of the beginning of the early 20th century, in the studies dealing with folklore-literary interaction, and in popularization and publication of folklore texts.

The scope of research in the article includes author’s vocabulary, or the vocabulary of the language of O. E. Mandelstam (based on the book of poems “Stone”). The research object is an author’s vocabulary entry as a system that has a structure and its own units. The basic research method is the method of poetic ideography as a kind of literary ideography and a type of general ideography in lexicographical perspective. The units under study are heterogeneous and diverse: these are units of a quantum and metafunctional nature. The former include units of prosody, lexical and conceptual units; the latter comprise units of a poetological and prosodic nature, as well as conceptual formations. The study reveals and characterizes typological features of the author’s vocabulary (of the language of O. Mandelstam), and introduces new features: poetological, prosodic, and interpretative. In general, the investigation is carried out within the framework of lexicography, ideography, textual studies, text linguistics, text hermeneutics, and text decoding (interpretation). The article establishes the operational order of description of poem units (the arrangement of the material in the author’s vocabulary is text-related), which corresponds to the set of systemic areas of the poetic text analyzed in the vocabulary entry: textual, poetological, prosodic, lexico-semantic, denotative, ideographic, and interpretative (based on the analysis of the system of functional-semantic field of vocabulary in a particular poem as the title unit of a vocabulary entry) spheres. The results of poetic-ideographical analysis correlate with the specific features of the poetic worldview of O. Mandelstam. The study suggests, illustrates, and analyzes a model and structure of a vocabulary entry of O. Mandelstam’s language. The degree of subjectivity/objectivity of the content of the interpretation sphere of a vocabulary entry is also determined. Furthermore, the authors conceptualize the nature, character, and structure of the interpretative sphere of a vocabulary entry. They analyze O. Mandelstam’s poem “Silentium”. The vocabulary entry contains eight structural elements. The logic of description and analysis of the units of the poetic text (by stanzas) is as follows: the title unit of the vocabulary entry – the poem → poetological information → prosodic information → semantic-denotative-ideographic information → interpretative sphere of the vocabulary entry. Interpretation of textual, general lexicographic, and ideographic information is performed with reference to the identification and analysis of paradigmatic (causative) series of conceptual formations implemented in the text word by word, line by line, and stanza by stanza (the units of interpretative analysis – vocabulary, phrase, utterance, complex syntactic construction and complex syntactic unity). Interpretation of conceptual formations is carried out taking into account the polysemy of the vocabulary. The interpretative sphere is the result of functioning of such a feature of the text as interpretability, or poliinterpretability, and also an outcome or generalized conclusion of the poetic and lexicographic study of O. Mandelstam’s poems.

This article is aimed at defining the terms “fantasy” and “fantastic elements” from the point of view of fiction and finding its application in relation to N. V. Gogol’s works. The main attention is paid to fantastic elements, their classification, as well as the way they are used in the literary text. The material for the analysis was the works of Nikolai Vasilyevich Gogol – Nevsky Prospect, the Nose and the Portrait. In this study we use the typological method, with the help of which the common generic features of literary phenomena typical of the fantasy are studied, and their application in the course of analysis. The biographical method helps to reveal the connection between N. V. Gogol and his works filled with fantastic elements. The poetical-structural analysis of the text was undertaken to find intertextual and typological connections between the means of expression in the text and to identify fantastic elements in the selected stories. In the end of the article, the results of the work are summarized and the main conclusions are formulated. On the basis of literary works devoted to the theoretical definition of the terms fantasy and fantastic elements, we came to interesting conclusions. In the story of Nevsky Prospect, we can observe a philosophical and fantastic type of convention. The nature of the story Nose can be attributed to satirical conventions, and in the story the Portrait we can find both philosophical and mythological conventions. In our analysis and interpretation of all of the selected stories, the theme of the characters’ duality was substantiated, which had been emphasized in relation to these works by the literary critic J. Dohnal, whose conclusion we agree with. Among other things, we have found that all three selected stories of Gogol are connected by another important link that contributes to the expression of the fantastic in them, namely, a dream, which plays a special role in the work of this writer.

The article is devoted to the analysis of the frame text (titles of books, titles of poems, subtitles, epigraphs, dating) of two books of M. A. Zenkevich; the book “Wild Purple Mantle” [Dikaya porfira] published in 1912 and the compiled, but unpublished book “Under the Meat Purple Mantle” [Pod myasnoi bagryanitsei], which included poems of 1912–1918. The authors provd that the elements of the frame of the text of “Wild Purple Mantle” [Dikaya porfira] unambiguously indicate the connection with the theoretical principles of acmeism and creative activity of N. S. Gumilyov and A. A. Akhmatova. It is shown that the titles of the poems are interpreted as a symbolic convolution of their meaning; in addition, the titles set the compositional vector of perception of the author’s first book as a metacyclic unity. The authors conclude that the epigraphs in “Wild Purple Mantle” [Dikaya porfira] indicate a polemical dialogue with the proximal tradition (the creative work of Russian and foreign Symbolists, as well as the symbolically minded classic poets); the subtitles play the role of genre landmarks of the acmeistic format; the dedications also indicate the “guild” solidarity with literary colleagues. In the second book, we observe a redistribution of the functions of the components of the text frame. Epigraphs are no longer used as an instrument of polemics, but as an indirect method of embodying the apocalyptic motives of our time: the horror of waiting for death, pain, violence, in tune with the realities of revolution, world and civil wars. In the titles of the books Zenkevich represents his life-creating myth, relying on the key motives of his mature creative work. The quintessence of this myth is associated with the figure of the titan Porfibagr, whose name was compiled by the author from the key words of the titles of the two books under consideration. The elements of the frame “Under the Meat Purple Mantle” [Pod myasnoi bagryanitsei] are to designate the prophetic essence of the poet and show the perception of new socio-cultural realities through the prism of the author’s myth. In general, the titles of the poems and sections of both books form the meta-plot of each of the books and set the main semantic lines of their reader’s comprehension.