Knowledge is power. 2021. No. 11

Living and self -willed: Russian from self -sustaining and self -propelled to thanks and greetings
Materials of the main topic of this number, in which we speak of modern Russian, about its changes and features, at first glance may seem heterogeneous. In fact, two participants in the conversation - literary critic, candidate of philological sciences Anna Krechetova and linguist, also candidate of philological sciences, researcher at the educational and scientific laboratory of sociolinguistics of the RSU Irina Fufaeva - discuss issues of pressing and intriguing: where these features and bizarns of today"s household, conversational , slang speech to which young people gravitate so much and who often irritate (and is it fair, by the way, annoy - so we will figure it out ..) of more adults and prone to conservatism? (They forgot, probably, as they themselves said in his youth, but this is so, aside) Why do we (and people in general) need all these expansion and incorrectness - moreover, deliberate, deliberate? What motives follow, usually without realizing it, our contemporaries, abundantly asleep with the words with reducing suffixes - in a scientific diminutii (all these "cats", "dumplings", "stools", "put on a mask", not to mention already mentioning already about "Greetings" and "Somoanushki" ... is it annoying, huh? .) Where do the roots of this intrusive speech practice go? (Spoiler: They are much deeper than we think ..) But what does Vladimir Ivanovich Dahl do here - a man of the deep 19th century? It was about him - who remained in historical memory primarily as a lexicograph, although he did not come down to this role - says the third participant in the conversation - philosopher, philologist, cultural historian, doctor of philological sciences Alexander Markov (And then the reader will catch himself - quite fairly - on the next question: why do we still remember Vladimir Dal mainly on the one hand of his multilateral personality? Patience, reader,? - we will find out soon) The answer to the question of the reason for the appearance of Our pages of this hero gives the name of the most probably famous book today, which he did not even compose, but composed, recorded for the modern Russian people: the “Explanatory Dictionary of the Living Great Russian Language”. The key word here is the third, and the dictionary itself, in addition to its scientific and historical value, is the most important symbolic gesture.
Dahl showed his famous dictionary - he did not express at the level of general abstract provisions, but it was precisely to see everyone who wants it: the language is alive and he himself gives rise to his own rules and norms (in which he himself, if his will happens and does not fit ..) The life of the Russian language is today"s, momentary, selfless, changeable (and, moreover, logical!) - which Vladimir Dahl made the first to the subject of systematic attention, collecting, observation - and is what unites all of our today"s interlocutors at the virtual round table