Vladimir Dal - “a pupil of his teacher - a living Russian language”

“Whoever thinks in what language belongs to that people. I think in Russian”, - said Vladimir Dal, whose father was a Dane, and his mother came from a family of French Huguenots. This was written in the historical essay by N. Modestov “Proceedings of the Orenburg Scientific Archival Commission. Vol. 27. Vladimir Ivanovich Dal in Orenburg” (1913), which is available on the Presidential Library’s portal.

November 22, 2019 marks the 218th anniversary of the birth of Vladimir Dal, a Russian writer, lexicographer, ethnographer, compiler of the Explanatory Dictionary of the Living Great Russian Language. The Presidential Library on its portal in the public domain presents digitized rare editions of the scientist, which are of great importance for Russian science, culture and education. In the little-known memoirs of his contemporaries, Vladimir Ivanovich in different periods of his life appears either as an enthusiastic collector of words, or a writer of fairy tales, or a courageous field surgeon, or a sapper, who became famous in the battle on the Vistula.

During his bright life, however, the most striking thing is the ability to fully, with love, express all the power and diversity of the “great and mighty”. Dal’s Explanatory Dictionary of the Living Great Russian Language has been and remains the most famous and readable dictionary of the Russian language for many decades. In fact, this invaluable work can be called the encyclopedia of Russian life of the nineteenth century as the result of many years of work by a great connoisseur of Russian folk words.

"At thirteen years old" Dal entered the St. Petersburg Naval Cadet Corps. There, his life made him interested in the meaning of the words used. Having mastered the vast vocabulary, Dal suddenly became a favorite in his midst, as he revealed a talent for imitating someone else's speech, as well as the ability to act. His classmate at the Faculty of Medicine in German Dorpat, the future great surgeon Nikolai Pirogov, described Dal’s talents: “With his huge nose, smart gray eyes, always calm, smiling slightly, he had the rare ability to imitate the voice, gestures, and mines of other people; with extraordinary calm and most serious mine, he conveyed the most comic scenes”. This quote is from the Proceedings of the Orenburg Scientific Archival Commission. Vol. 27. Vladimir Ivanovich Dal in Orenburg".

A graduate of the Marine Corps unexpectedly changed his life course for a very good reason. Dal wrote about himself: "I was rocked by the sea so that I could not serve". It was not fate for him to distinguish himself at sea, but later the military surgeon Dal made a real feat.

He got to the theater of operations as a divisional doctor. The book by F. Ridiger “Description of the bridge built on the Vistula River to cross the detachment of Lieutenant General Ridiger” (1833), illustrates that in 1831 during the period of the Polish uprising, Dal, who took part in the campaign as a doctor, applied his engineering skills, having mined the Vistula crossing and undermining it after the retreat of the Russian division across the river. In a report to the authorities about Dal’s decisive actions, the corps commander General F. V. Ridiger imposed a resolution: “For the feat, submit to the order. Reprimand for non-fulfillment and evasion of their direct duties". Emperor Nicholas I awarded Dal with the Order of St. Vladimir of the 4th degree: a cross in a buttonhole.

Ridiger considered it his duty to leave to the descendants the memories of this event: “Crossing a significant river, made in the eyes of the enemy without losing even one person, with means so limited that they were almost to be built, should not disappear in our memory, as the sheets of a brief military relations".

Upon his return to St. Petersburg, Dal became known as a brilliant surgeon, but continued to write: he created several articles, sketches for future works. In 1832 Russian Tales were published which Pushkin took a serious interest in. Subsequently, Dal and the great poet developed companionship. Planning to release a large explanatory dictionary, Dal, of course, continued to collect different words and interpret their meaning.

Vladimir Dal as the creator of the dictionary, was not a linguist by profession, about which he himself said: “It was not written by a teacher, not a mentor, not one who knows the work better than others, but who worked on it more than many; a student who has been gathering all his life bit by bit what he heard from his teacher, a living Russian language".

The motivation for this painstaking gathering for a lifetime was, on the one hand, love of the native word, on the other, Dal painfully experienced separation of the written language from the popular basis, complained of the profuse clogging of book speech with “foreign words”, that is, borrowed words. He wrote: "The language of the people is indisputably the most important and inexhaustible spring or mine, the treasury of our language...". He believed that the time had come to “inventory” the language, to free it from archaisms and far from always relevant Western borrowings.

Dal has collected, compiled and improved his explanatory dictionary for 53 years. The Presidential Library’s portal features a rare edition “Proverbs of the Russian people” by Vladimir Dal, some of which the author included in the main work of his whole life. This interesting and informative work reflects the state of the Russian language of the 19th century. It contains 200 thousand Russian words - exact, juicy, figurative. So far the dictionary of Dal continues to be an invaluable treasury of the history of the Russian people, their culture and language.