Sergei Obnorsky, Russian language historian and academician was born

On June 14 (26), 1888 in St. Petersburg was born Sergei Petrovich Obnorsky, Slavicist, researcher of the Russian literary language, academician of the USSR Academy of Science.

In 1905 S. P. Obnorsky graduated from gymnasium and entered History and Philosophy Department of St. Petersburg University where he was taught by: St. Petersburg linguistic school founder, academician I. A. Bodoin-de-Courtnez; philologist and slavist, academician P. A. Lavrov; one of the founders of historical study of the Russian language, academician of St. Petersburg Academy of Science A. I. Sobolevsky, researcher of the Old Russian literature and Russian chronicles, historian, pedagogue, academician of St. Petersburg Academy of Science A. A. Shakhmatov. Having graduated from the University, S. P. Obnorsky stayed at the Russian language department and having obtained his master’s degree started teaching as a privat-docent at St. Petersburg University and Bestuzhev Women Courses.

In 1916 S. P. Obnorsky was conferred the rank of professor of Perm University. In 1922-1941 he had worked in Petrograd – Leningrad as the Head of the Russian Language Department at the University and gave lectures at the N. A. Nekrasov Leningrad Pedagogy Institute. In 1931 S. P. Obnorsky was elected a corresponding member of the USSR Academy of Science. 7 years later he became its full-member. Later the scholar became a member of Pedagogy Science Academy of RSFSR and was elected a member of Czech, Polish and Norwegian Academies of Science. In 1944 Obnorsky stood at the head of the Russian Language Institute under the Academy of Science of USSR, created on his initiative. In 1947 he was awarded with the State prize of USSR and in 1970 became a prize-winner of Lenin prize (posthumously).

The main researches of S. Obnorsky covered dialectology and lexicography of the Russian language. The scholar advanced an original theory of folk basis of the Old Russian literary language in contrast to the theory based on its Church-Slavonic origin. He studied, first of all, the Russian morphology both from synchronous and historical aspects using a wide-range factual material on the history of Russian words’ inflexion accidence.

Scientific interest of Obnorsky also included compiling of dictionaries and their edition. He was the editor of academic ‘Russian Language Dictionary’ which was compiled under the guidance of A. A. Shakhmatov; was one of the authors of the Old Russian dictionary named the ‘Russian Language Dictionary of 11-18 centuries’ and was also a member of editorial board working on 17-volume Great Academic Russian Language Dictionary. S. P. Obnorsky had been researching on the history of the Russian language analyzing the language of Russian literary monuments; he studied the issue of the origin of the Russian language, elaborated the Russian speech standards, the standards of orthography. On his initiative was created the Orthography Committee under the Academy of Science of USSR. Obronsky became the Committee first president.

Academician S. P. Obronsky made a great contribution to the formation of the Russian literary language history as an independent field of linguistics. He wrote over 80 research works. Among his most important researches which influenced the national and world science are: ‘Noun declension in the modern Russian language’ (1927-1931), ‘Culture of the Russian language’ (1948), ‘Essays on morphology of the Russian verb’ (1953), ‘Essays on history of the Russian literary language of the old period’ (1946).

Sergei Obnorsky died on November 13, 1962 and was buried in Moscow.

Lit.: Библиография работ С. П. Обнорского // С. П. Обнорский. Избранные работы по русскому языку. М., 1960. С. 348-354; То же [Электронный ресурс]. URL: http://danefae.org/biblio/obnorskij.htm; Борковский В. И. С. П. Обнорский // Русская речь. 1967. № 5; Виноградов В. В. Научная деятельность академика С. П. Обнорского: К 70-летию со дня рождения // Известия АН СССР, Отделение литературы и языка. 1958. Т. 17. Вып. 3. С. 247-262; То же [Электронный ресурс]. URL: http://feb-web.ru/feb/izvest/1958/03/583-2472.htm; П. Обнорский // Профессора Пермского университета. Пермь, 1991. С. 61-62; Савельева Н. В. Обнорский Сергей Петрович // Энциклопедия «Слова о полку Игореве». Т. 3. СПб., 1995; То же [Электронный ресурс]. URL: http://feb-web.ru/feb/slovenc/es/es3/es3-3351.htm; Филин Ф. П. Сергей Петрович Обнорский (история русского языка, русская лексикография) // Русский язык за рубежом. 1972. № 2.

Соч.: «Беглое» в Супрасльской рукописи // Сб. статей в честь академика Алексея Ивановича Соболевского. Л., 1928. С. 418-422; Заметки по русским числительным // Академия наук академику Н. Я. Марру. М.; Л., 1935. С. 327-332; Избранные работы по русскому языку. М., 1960; Именное склонение в современном русском языке. Вып. 1—2. Л., 1927—30; ... К литературной истории «Хождения» Арсения Селунского. Пг., 1915; Культура русского языка. М.; Л., 1948; ... О языке Ефремовской Кормчей XII века. СПб., 1912; Очерки по морфологии русского глагола. М., 1953; ... Памяти академика Ф.Е. Корша. Пг., 1915; Русский литературный язык. Вехи истории. М., 2010; Русский литературный язык старейшей поры: лингвистический анализ памятников древнерусской словесности. М., 2010; Словарь древнерусского языка XI-XVIII вв. Т. 1 / Под ред. С. П. Обнорского. М.; Л., 1941.