The Presidential Library marking the Day of Dictionaries and Encyclopedias

In Russia, the Day of Dictionaries and Encyclopedias is celebrated annually on November 22 and is timed to coincide with the birthday of Vladimir Dal, the creator of the Explanatory Dictionary of the Living Great Russian Language. Dal said about the work of his whole life: “It was not written by a teacher, not by a mentor, not by one who knows the matter better than others, but who worked on it more than many; a student who has been collecting all his life bit by bit what he heard from his teacher, the living Russian language. The dictionary is the collector and keeper of the language, the source of understanding the life of the people, their history and culture, worldview and thinking. Dictionaries anticipate many other books. They are the result of the development of the language.

The history of dictionaries dates back to the time when ancient scribes copied books by hand and found unfamiliar words in the text. They looked for the interpretation of these words in other books, and then in the margins or between the lines they made explanations. Such words were called glosses. Later, glosses were the material for alphabet books, so named after the first letters of the alphabet. Alphabet books have been known in Rus' since the 13th century.

Printed dictionaries appeared much later, in the 17th century. These were the Lexis, compiled by the priest Lavrentiy Zizaniy Tustanovsky, and the Slavic Russian Lexicon and Interpretation of Names by Pamva Berynda.

The time of the Petrine reforms was the era of mastering new words, understanding borrowed expressions. The Presidential Library provides the Trilingual Lexicon (1607–1731), which includes “Slavic, Greek and Latin treasures from various ancient and new books, collected and arranged according to the Slavic alphabet”.

The 19th century was the heyday and close attention to the vocabulary. It was at this time that Vladimir Dal created his famous work.

Even as a teenager, writing down words he did not understand and giving them explanations, Dal realized that this would become the main business of his life. Indeed, he devoted more than fifty years to finding treasures that reveal the diversity of the language of the vast territory of Russia. Contemporaries recalled that Dal could determine the origin of a rare dialect word by ear and explain what it means. Having shown the brightness, “elegance” of the Russian word, Vladimir Dal testified to how flexible, malleable and plastic the possibilities of Russian word formation are. It is no coincidence that Dal's findings were inspired by the poets of the 20th century: Andrei Bely and Velimir Khlebnikov, Nikolai Klyuev and Sergei Yesenin.

Dal asserted “his own” vision of the Russian language in the rejection of “foreignness” - borrowed words and expressions, believing that the Russian language does not need to use “alien” words. There is an opinion that he himself invented “folk” analogues for some borrowed words and included them in the dictionary. The Explanatory Dictionary of the Living Great Russian Language by Vladimir Dal contains about 200,000 words, a third of which have never been included in other dictionaries before. This dictionary has been reprinted many times. The Presidential Library holds the 1903 edition, supplemented by the outstanding linguist Baudouin de Courtenay, who, like Vladimir Dal, attached great importance to the study of dialects.

An associate of Vladimir Dal was a philologist, researcher of Russian orthography Yakov Grot. In the book Philological Research. Materials for a Dictionary, Grammar and History of the Russian Language (1885), which is a collection of scientific works of the scientist, Grot gives an idea of ​​the language processes of that time and, recalling the merits of his predecessor Mikhail Lomonosov, who learned "respect for Church Slavonic books", as well as his A contemporary of Nikolai Karamzin, who brought sophistication and simplicity of style to the Russian literary language, Grot argues that "the situation of the Russian literary language is not so desperate".

The topics of dictionaries of different eras are diverse and sometimes unexpected. So, for example, the dictionary of Avdiy Sokolov Russian Names and Nicknames in the 17th century (1891) is available in the Presidential Library. The author included in this edition the nicknames that belonged to peasant and townspeople.

In the 19th century, there was a need for "a small and cozy book for students and youth, in which many lines would contain everything you need". This is how the idea of ​​a pocket dictionary was born. Ivan Kalaidovich in the book A Brief Statement of the Rules for Compiling a Manual Dictionary of the Present Russian Language, with Enclosure of Trial Dictionary Sheets (1826) writes: “We have been using the large Dictionary of the Russian Academy for a long time, but we do not have a manual dictionary of the Russian language. Any lover of literature would be pleased with the appearance of such a book. Kalaidovich proposes to collect all commonly used Russian words in a pocket dictionary. In "Holy Scripture, the writings of the best writers, in the language of an educated society", the author of the book sees those "reserve repositories from which materials for the proposed publication must be extracted".

Dictionaries of foreign words dating back to the time of Peter the Great often had interesting stories. In this regard, we can recall the “case of the retired lieutenant Fyodor Pushchenko”, who, being a prisoner of the Japanese, began to study the Japanese language. He succeeded so much that, after returning to Russia, he decided to go to Japan again, but already as an intern to study the Japanese language. Subsequently, he wrote a book on Japanese grammar and two dictionaries, Russian-Japanese and Japanese-Russian, and turned to Secretary of State Pyotr Stolypin with a request to help him publish dictionaries and “determine him to teach Japanese in Russia”. One can find out how the case ended from the documents containing the petition of the retired lieutenant Pushchenko available in the Presidential Library.

New time brings new words. The need for an updated spelling dictionary arose at the beginning of the 20th century. Mikhail Volper, author of The New Spelling Dictionary (1922), writes about the usefulness of such a publication: “The need for it is felt by everyone who works with the word. The main reason for incorrect writing is that due to the frequent discrepancy between the style of words and their pronunciation, the struggle of phonetics with etymology, the writer has doubts about spelling. In the event of such hesitation, a spelling dictionary may be of service”.

Speaking of dictionaries, it is appropriate to recall the statement of Yakov Grot, given in the book Philological Research. Materials for the Dictionary, Grammar and History of the Russian language (1885). The spelling master claims that all words in the dictionary are equal - there are no main words and no secondary words. But at the same time, each word is not like anything, it is unique. Isn't that why a dictionary is a book that can't be completed?

The Presidential Library features an extensive collection of Russian language dictionaries, including the theory, history and current state of vocabulary in Russia. It also includes collections of East Slavic and Church Slavonic languages. This collection is undoubtedly useful to anyone who cares about the correctness and beauty of their speech.