Transformations of the Russian language in the Petrine era. How Peter I removed “extra” letters from the Russian alphabet

On January 29 (February 8), 1710, Peter's reform of the Cyrillic alphabet was completed in Russia - Peter I approved a new civil alphabet and civil font. The Russian Orthodox Church continued to use the Church Slavonic alphabet.

The implementation of the reform was connected with the needs of the state, which needed a large number of educated domestic specialists and timely communication of official information to the population. The achievement of these goals was hampered by the weak development of book printing, which was mainly oriented towards the dissemination of spiritual literature and did not take into account changes in the language. By the end of the XVII century. the alphabet, which came to Rus' along with Christian writing, retained its archaic features, despite the fact that some letters in secular texts were not used or were used incorrectly. In addition, the form of letters, which was established within the framework of written culture, was inconvenient for typing printed texts due to the presence of superscripts. Therefore, during the reform, both the composition of the alphabet and the shape of the letters changed.

The search for a new model of the alphabet and font was carried out with the most active participation of the king. In January 1707, according to sketches, presumably made personally by Peter I, fortification engineer Kulenbach made drawings of thirty-three lowercase and four uppercase letters (A, D, E, T) of the Russian alphabet, which were sent to Amsterdam for the manufacture of letters. At the same time, according to the sovereign decree, type-casting work was carried out at the Moscow Printing House, where Russian masters Grigory Alexandrov and Vasily Petrov, under the guidance of the type-writer Mikhail Efremov, made their own version of the typeface, but the quality of the letters did not satisfy the tsar, and the Dutch masters typeface was adopted for printing books. The first book typed in the new civil type, "Geometry of the Slavic Survey" - was published in March 1708.

Later, based on the results of typesetting tests, the king decided to change the form of some letters and return some of the rejected letters of the traditional alphabet (it is believed that at the insistence of the clergy). On January 18, 1710, Peter I made the last correction, crossing out the first versions of the signs of the new font and the old signs of the printed half-charter. On the back of the cover of the alphabet, the tsar wrote: “These letters should be printed in historical and manufactory books, and which are underlined, those in the above books should not be used.” The decree on the introduction of the new alphabet was dated January 29 (February 9), 1710. Shortly after the publication of the Decree, a list of books published in the new alphabet and put on sale appeared in the Vedomosti of the Moscow State.

As a result of Peter's reform, the number of letters in the Russian alphabet was reduced to 38, their outline was simplified and rounded. Forces (a complex system of diacritical stress marks) and titles were abolished - a superscript sign that allowed letters to be skipped in a word. The use of capital letters and punctuation marks was also streamlined, and Arabic numerals began to be used instead of alphabetic numbers.

The composition of the Russian alphabet and its graphics continued to change later in the direction of simplification. The modern Russian alphabet came into use on December 23, 1917 (January 5, 1918) on the basis of the decree of the People's Commissariat of Education of the RSFSR "On the introduction of a new spelling."

Peter's era (1700-1730). This is the beginning of the formation of the Russian literary language. The Petrine era in the history of our people is characterized by significant reforms and transformations that affected statehood, production, military and naval affairs, and the life of the ruling classes of the then Russian society. These transformations made a revolution in the minds and habits of Russian nobles and industrialists, and it is natural to look for their reflection in the development of the Russian literary language.

1) Changed alphabet.

2) The emergence of mass printing

3) Introduction of norms of speech etiquette.

4) Changing the internal essence of the language.

The Petrine era is the last stage in the functioning of the Book Slavonic language in Russia, from now on its fate is connected only with the confessional sphere. The LA of the Petrine era is characterized by further democratization on the basis of its rapprochement with live colloquial speech, which was due to socio-economic and political changes in the life of Russian society by the 17th-18th century. During this period, a type of written LA was created, called the civil mediocre dialect, in which elements of the book-Slavic language, the old command language and everyday speech of the 18th century coexist. The use in the literature of the Petrine era of all the language units that really existed at that time led to the linguistic and stylistic diversity of written monuments, where everyday means of expression (dialect, vernacular, colloquial) were used along with book ones. The Petrine era is characterized by the borrowing of foreign vocabulary and tracing - the translation of foreign terms into Russian. The desire of philologists and writers to regulate the use of various language units, to determine the phonetic, grammatical and lexical norms of LA is noticeable.

Conclusion: In the era of the ancient Russian literary language begins to be used in all areas of communication - written and oral, the dialect of the city of Moscow becomes a universal standard language, on the basis of which the language of the nation is formed.

Political breakdown, a change in the social structure of the state, the democratization of state power, the strengthening of foreign contacts leads to the formation of a language that can be called a mediocre folk dialect.

The rapprochement of the bookish language and the living colloquial, sharp logic, opposition (which was relevant for the Slavic language) that are mixed up. This process receives a bright external manifestation (the reform of the Russian alphabet). Occurs during the years 1708-1710.

Citizen - alphabet

Geometry - the first book

Conclusion: the language of the Petrine era for us who read these texts seems to be colorful and combining the incompatible.

An explosion of foreign borrowings, a huge influx of foreign words (and an outflow of foreign words in 20-30 years).

Groups of words are the most active for penetration.

Household vocabulary (luggage, chest of drawers, coffee, bandage).

Terms of literature and art (ballet, concerto, symphony).

Military vocabulary (army, governor, artillery).

Administrative vocabulary (governor, amnesty, minister).

Scientific vocabulary (axiom, algebra, geometry).

Socio-political vocabulary (constitution, nation, patriot).

Technical and professional vocabulary (workbench, factory, manufactory).

Conclusion: redundancy and insufficiency collide.

The main conclusion of the Petrine era:

The destruction of the book-Slavonic type of the Russian language.

Further democratization of the literary Russian language with lively colloquial speech.

Creation of a new special language that lasted 30 years.

Connection of the unconnected: penetration within the same text, variegation.

Foreign borrowings, tracing, variance within foreign borrowings.

After the 1930s, people began to strive to purify the Russian language.

ABC reform: brought Russian printed type closer to European standards, eliminated unused letters - xi, psi, small and large yusy, doublet letter zelo; the letter acquires a rounded, simple outline, superscripts and numerical values of letters were canceled. It contributed to the widespread dissemination of literacy in Russian society. The main significance of the graphic reform was that it removed “the veil of “holy scripture” from literary semantics”, provided great opportunities for revolutionary shifts in the sphere of the Russian literary language, opened up a wider road for the Russian literary language and styles of live oral speech, and to the assimilation of Europeanisms, surging at that time from Western languages.

Normalization and codification of norms in the language of the Petrine era.

A great merit in the stylistic ordering of the Russian literary language of that time, in the creation of a harmonious and well-thought-out stylistic system belongs to outstanding writers and cultural figures who worked in the middle of the 18th century. on the processing and normalization of the Russian language - to A. D. Kantemir, V. K. Trediakovsky and, first of all, to the great poet and scientist M. V. Lomonosov.

The normalization of the language was expressed in the solution of two interrelated tasks:

1) determining the place and role of folk colloquial elements in literary speech;

2) setting boundaries for the use of traditional book elements. Solving them means working out the principle of selection and mutual combination of elements of live speech and traditional bookish means in different texts, that is, the principles of stylistic differentiation, the means of the literary language. The decision was made difficult by the fact that the Church Slavonic language, originally kyizhny, and the Russian language were related and closely interacted with each other for a long time, as a result of which many “Slovene-Russian” words and forms were formed, for example: gradok, grrmotka, wash away, the largest, very much, etc.

As a result, it was not easy to distinguish between Slavicisms and ancient Russianisms, and this led to the assimilation of old book elements into the new literary language and made it difficult to eliminate archaic units from it.

Different ways of normalization were proposed. But they all led to fruitful results. The first practical attempt to normalize the Russian literary language can be seen in popular science, journalistic and artistic works.

The genre of popular science works is represented by diverse texts both in prose and in poetic form. Educational books, educational-scientific, scientific descriptions, special popular academic periodicals appear: the first popular science magazine "Notes in Vedomosti" (1728-1748), general calendars, or calendars A728-1804), private monthly books, "Monthly compositions" (1755-1764), etc. An example of scientific popularization of that time can be A. Cantemir's translation of B. Fontenelle's book "Conversations about the Many Worlds" A742) and the notes made by the translator to the text of the translation.

There were attempts to normalize the language in journalistic texts, especially in the satires of A. D. Kantemir. V. G. Belinsky wrote that “since the time of Kantemir, the satirical trend has become a living stream of all Russian literature”1. Publicistic style by this time already had its own traditions. Its development continued in texts that occupied a place in two extreme expressive-genre styles: satirical - in low, oratorical - in high.

The traditional bookish journalistic style expands the scope of its application and incorporates new linguistic elements. Here it is already difficult to talk about the equal use of various linguistic means. In the language of satires and epigrams of Cantemir, elements of "simple syllable" predominate.

Of interest are the attempts of V. K. Trediakovsky to streamline the literary language, give it norms and theoretically substantiate them. He is trying to adapt colloquial speech for a work of art, completely abandoning the "profound Slavic language." He gives the motivation for this in the preface to his translated novel by P. Talman "Riding to the Island of Love" (1730).

13:24 — REGNUM

A sample of the civil alphabet, corrected by Peter I. 1710

1710. January 29 (January 18 old style) Peter I, visiting the Printing House, decided to change the alphabet to civil. At the same time, the church continued to use the Church Slavonic alphabet.

Camping printing press of Peter I. Engraving. 1900s.

“However, the civil alphabet has not yet been finalized. A number of letters from Peter himself and Count Musin-Pushkin, who was then at the head of the Order of Printing Books, testify to the hard and energetic work of the Moscow printing house. The masters themselves speak no less eloquently about the same printing houses Asking the sovereign in their petitions for remuneration for their "much labors", the workers declare that they "collect and sort all kinds of civil books and have the sovereign's affairs incessantly day and night," and sometimes they happened to "be at that business and in holidays". In one petition we read such a request for a reward: "so that I, being at your sovereign's book and printing business, would be hungry, and my fiance from the kids would not die a cold death." And the sovereign never refused a reward, but "considerable sum" provided the typographical workers.

So, simultaneously with the printing of new books in the Moscow printing house, they also improved the new civil alphabet. Her corrections were carried out under the direct supervision of the sovereign himself. For two whole years, from 1708 to 1710, Peter constantly made various changes to the new alphabet. That is why we see such a change in fonts in books printed during this period of time. The very name of the alphabet was unstable. It is called either the Amsterdam letters, or the civil, or the Belarusian alphabet. Initially, the new alphabet was without any superscripts, but then they wanted to return to the old days and they began to introduce accents into the new font, or, as they were then called, "forces". But the sovereign rejected it. In a letter to Count Musin-Pushkin dated January 25, 1709, he says: "I only wrote to put forces, and now they don't even lead to put forces." In his letter, the sovereign also notes that "the seal is thick before the previous one - tea from the fact that the words have already become dull - which needs to be looked at and poured more often." Seeing the "curvature" in the new seal, Peter the Great gives the following order to Count Musin-Pushkin (January 4, 1709): "The letters of the letters, as well as peace, were ordered to be transported: they were badly made." Several times the sovereign made changes in the new font, trying to improve it more, for which the Printing House repeatedly presented the sovereign with test prints of the alphabet. Finally, after two years of work, at the beginning of 1710, a model was developed, which [S. 18] which was approved by the sovereign. At this very time - January 18, 1710 - Peter the Great visited the Printing Yard. The imprint of the alphabet approved by the sovereign under the title: "Image of ancient and new Slavic scripts, printed and handwritten" was sent on February 10 to the printing house with the following inscription by Peter himself: ". In this exemplary print, the sovereign crossed out all uppercase and lowercase Slavic letters and completely excluded the letters "from", "omega" and "psi".

The following document is stored in the archive of the printing house. "On the 29th day of January 1710, the Grand Sovereign Tsar and Grand Duke Peter Alekseevich of All Great and Small and White Russia, the autocrat indicated, according to his personal sovereign decree, in the order of books of printing, from now on, from the above date, all sorts of historical and handwritten (in the margins: manufactory) books and what translations will be sent to print with Amsterdam newly published letters against the samples, what are his own great sovereign’s own hand corrected and sent to the order of the books of the printing business of the above number, and besides those letters, other letters of such books will no longer be printed; and that genuine notebook for his great sovereign’s hand to give from the order books of printed matter to the book-keeping chamber to the book keeper, the reference monk Aaron, with a receipt; and this great sovereign has a personal decree to artisans and foreigners and Russians who have civil books, to say about the conduct of those letters with the application of hands.

Shortly after this, a list of books published in the new alphabet and put on sale appeared in Vedomosti of the Moscow State.

Quoted from: Bicentenary of the Russian civil alphabet. 1708-1908 - M .: Synodal type., 1908. S.15-19

History in faces

From a letter to I.A. Musin-Pushkin to Peter I:

By your decree, the Swedish articles, having straightened out, will be printed; the geometric book will not soon be in time for the figures, the architectural book by Gagarin, 2000 calendars sent to the army for sale, the smaller ones are 4 kopecks, the larger ones are 5, sent 30 complementary books, the same number of sluices. The book of Aesop has been corrected in the Slavic dialect and we can print it soon

Quoted by: Soloviev S.M. History of Russia since ancient times. M.: Thought

The world at this time

In 1710, the construction of the residence of Louis XIV - the Palace of Versailles was completed

Palace of Versailles. P.-D. Martin. 1722

"Louis XIV devoted a lot of worries to the arrangement and decoration of his court. He started the strictest etiquette; without special permission, no one could talk to the king. Pastime at court was accurately distributed by hours and minutes. In the morning, the princes of the blood and the most noble dignitaries (peers) were present when the king was awakened and dressed, each of them giving him some piece of clothing. Then he went to mass in the court church, where the whole court was already waiting for him; he immediately spoke to members of the royal family who were present while standing, only the king's brother occasionally received permission to sit down. Several times a day the king changed clothes, a special suit was provided for each of his appearances. At ten o'clock the king dined, and a select few were invited to dinner. Courtiers usually crowded at the doors of the inner chambers, waiting for the exit of the royal valet, who read out the list of l those who have received this honor; the porter let them through, and signaled to the rest to leave. Sometimes for several years members of the most aristocratic families waited in vain to hear their name on the list of the lucky ones.

To make his court irresistibly attractive, the king erected expensive buildings, held frequent holidays, and introduced luxurious costumes. The descendants of rude warlike feudal lords hastened to leave their ancient castles in order to enjoy the pleasures of court life and learn here refined treatment. The king himself had a representative appearance: he was stately, his swarthy face, with small traces of smallpox, bore the imprint of intelligence and energy. By a moderate lifestyle and bodily exercises, he constantly strengthened his already strong body. He knew how to carry himself with great dignity and grandeur; he did not like haste in business, and his every word was spoken with calculation. The courtiers tried to imitate the king in the costume of men, caftans embroidered with gold, silk stockings, shoes and huge wavy wigs came into fashion; Ribbons and lace adorned both women's and men's outfits in abundance. (Fancy squats, bows, and compliments were the most appropriate for this costume.) Louis lived little in Paris, he arranged his main residence in Versailles. Before it was a village where there was a shelter for royal hunters. Louis XIV wanted to make a big city out of it and built a palace there. The construction and decoration of this palace continued throughout his reign, and the king spared no expense on it. The Palace of Versailles, in accordance with the nature of the era, is distinguished by its grandiose size, regularity of outlines, but at the same time the monotony and coldness of style. The vast park adjoining the palace also corresponds to the time of pretentiousness and sophistication with its rectilinear alleys, symmetrically arranged curtains, fountains and trees, which are given certain geometric shapes through shearing. The best French painters (including Lebrun) worked on the interior decoration of the palace. After Versailles, Louis built more pleasure palaces Trianon and Marly.

Quoted from: Ilovaisky D.I. Ancient history. Middle Ages. New story. M.: Sovremennik, 1997

Accent placement: CIVIL

CIVIL TYPE - a font design introduced in Russia after the reform of Peter I (1708) for civil printing publications. Until 1708, the Old Church Slavonic font was used.

The development of science and education in Russia to the beginning. 18th century demanded a simpler and more accessible alphabet for the general population. Therefore, Peter I carried out a reform of the Old Slavonic font - the alphabet and spelling were simplified, the graphics of the font were changed. By this time, some of the 41 letters of the Old Slavonic alphabet turned out to be redundant. Peter I excluded 9 such letters in the original version of the new alphabet: 6 letters duplicating the same sounds - "izhe" and "izhitsa" (instead of these letters "I" was left), "earth" (remained "green") , "omega" (remained "he"), "uk" (remained "y"), "fert" (remained "fita"); 2 Greek combinations "xi" and "psi", as well as a letter denoting the preposition "from" ("omega" with a superscript "t"). However, in the final edition of the alphabet (1710), only 3 letters were excluded: "from", "omega" and "psi". In addition, letter styles were introduced: instead of iotated. "E" - the letter "E" lat. style; instead of the iotated "A" - the letter "I", which was already used in sinks, a letter of the late 17th century, and the reverse "E", needed primarily to convey the initial "E" in words without the preceding "iota". Significantly simplified spelling, since "forces" and "titles" - signs of stress and abbreviations were excluded. The designation of numbers by letters, which made arithmetic difficult. action, was simplified by the introduction of Arabic numerals. In addition, soon after the approval of the new alphabet, the letters "zelo" and "uk" ceased to be used (instead of them, "earth" and "y" were used). G. sh., approved by Peter I, lasted mainly until 1735, when, according to the decision of the Academy of Sciences, the letters "psi" and "izhitsa" were excluded from the alphabet and the letter "i" was introduced; in 1738, "i" was dropped and "i" was retained (it was used before vowels, and "i" in all other cases). In 1758 "Izhitsa" was restored in separate foreign words and a combination of letters for the iotated "o" was introduced.

Despite the fact that even V. K. Trediakovsky (1703 - 69) proposed to withdraw from Russian. alphabet extra letters, in particular "fitu", one of the two "i" and "yat", these letters remained in the alphabet until Vel. Oct. revolution.

Documents of the Moscow Synodal Printing House 1707 - 09 and the similarity of the graphics of G. sh. from sinks, a letter from the end of 17 and beginning. 18th century refuted the pre-existing opinion put forward by Trediakovsky that G. sh. was built exclusively on the basis of lat. font. G. sh. was created on the basis of new types of Russian. letters that appeared at the end of the 17th century. and spread in the 18th century, as well as on the basis of the printed type lat. "antiques". The title of the ABC approved by Peter I on January 29. 1710, - "The image of ancient and new Pismenslaven printed and handwritten" - indicates the connection of H. w, with the handwritten font. The original drawings of the letters G. sh. the "drawer and draftsman" Kulenbach did, and the sketches of the letters were made by Peter himself; the letters were made in Amsterdam and Moscow. The book of the time of Peter the Great, typed in a new font, acquired a fully secular image. The first such book was "Geometry of Slavonic Land Surveying" (1708). The Old Slavonic script (Cyrillic semi-ustav) remained in church books, being called "Church" or "Church Slavonic".

1) Changed alphabet.

2) The emergence of mass printing

3) Introduction of norms of speech etiquette.

4) Changing the internal essence of the language.

Citizen - alphabet

Geometry - the first book

Conclusion: the language of the Petrine era for us who read these texts seems to be colorful and combining the incompatible.

An explosion of foreign borrowings, a huge influx of foreign words (and an outflow of foreign words in 20-30 years).

Groups of words are the most active for penetration.

· Household vocabulary (luggage, chest of drawers, coffee, bandage).

· Terms of literature and art (ballet, concerto, symphony).

· Military vocabulary (army, governor, artillery).

· Administrative vocabulary (governor, amnesty, minister).

· Scientific vocabulary (axiom, algebra, geometry).

· Socio-political vocabulary (constitution, nation, patriot).

· Technical and professional vocabulary (workbench, factory, manufactory).

Conclusion: redundancy and insufficiency collide.

The main conclusion of the Petrine era:

8) The destruction of the book-Slavonic type of the Russian language.

9) Further democratization of the literary Russian language with lively colloquial speech.

10) Creation of a new special language that lasted 30 years.

11) Connection of the unconnected: penetration within the framework of one text, variegation.

13) After the 1930s, people began to strive to purify the Russian language.

The Westernizing tendencies of the Petrine era are expressed not only in the borrowing of many words to designate new objects, processes, concepts in the sphere of state life, everyday life and technology, but also affect the destruction of the external forms of church-book and social everyday language by such barbarisms that there was no direct need . Western European words attracted like fashion. They had a special stylistic imprint of innovation. They were a means of breaking away from the old traditions of the Church Slavonic language and the Old Testament everyday vernacular. The very unusualness of phonetic compounds in borrowed words, as it were, hinted at the possibility and necessity of a new structure of the literary language, corresponding to the image of the reforming state. The fashion for foreign words was both in everyday and in the official language of the Petrine era.

Some of the Europeanized nobles of that time almost lost the ability to use the Russian language correctly, developing some kind of mixed jargon. Such is the language of Prince B.I. Kurakin, the author of "History of Tsar Peter Alekseevich": "At that time, the named Franz Yakovlevich Lefort came to extreme mercy and confidentiality of amorous intrigues."

Peter I condemned the abuse of foreign words.

The use of foreign words was an external symptom of a new, "European" style of speech. A peculiar feature of the business, journalistic language of the Petrine era, the technique of duplicating words, is striking: next to a foreign word is its Old Russian synonym or a new lexical definition, enclosed in brackets, and sometimes simply attached by means of an explanatory union or (even union and). The enlightening significance of this technique stands against the background of the general governmental tendency to involve the broad masses of society in the new political system. And in laws, and in journalistic treatises, and in technical translations of the early 18th century. up to the 40s. this duality of word usage, this parallelism of Russian and foreign words is noticed. For example: “the admiral, who controls the avant-garde (or front line) of the ships, should”, “the economy (house manager)” ...

The strengthening of Western European influences and their new sources.

In the Russian literary language of the early 18th century, phenomena appear that testify to attempts to create new forms of national Russian expression, close to Western European languages and testifying to a wider influence of European culture and civilization.

The Polish language still retains for some time for high society the role of a supplier of scientific, legal, administrative, technical and secular everyday words and concepts. Many polonisms are detachments borrowing from a previous era. Polish culture continues to be a mediator through which the luggage of European concepts, the cargo of French and German words, comes to Russia. However, the number of translations from Polish has decreased, as increased familiarity with Latin and Western European languages in general has enabled us to intensify the translation directly from the originals, bypassing the Polish mediation.

Polish influence begins to yield in strength to German influence. The Polish and Latin languages, in some of their forms, have already penetrated quite deeply into the system of Russian book and colloquial speech of the upper classes, create an apperceptive background for the further Europeanization of the Russian literary language, for the development of abstract concepts in its semantic system. The Latin language played a huge role in the process of developing an abstract scientific-political, civil, philosophical terminology of the 18th century.

The Importance of Translations in the Process of Europeanization of the Russian Literary Language.

The intensified translation activity of the Petrine era, directed towards socio-political, popular science and technical literature, led to the convergence of the constructive forms of the Russian language with the systems of Western European languages.

A new way of life, expanding technical education, a change in ideological milestones - all this required new forms of expression. The new intellectual demands of society were satisfied by translating into Russian concepts developed by Western European languages, or by borrowing from dictionaries.

True, at the beginning of the 18th century, the influence of Western European languages on the Russian literary language was still external, shallow: it was expressed more in the assimilation of words-names, in borrowing terms and in replacing Russian words with foreign language equivalents than in the independent development of the European system of abstract concepts.

Elements of the same verbal fetishism that remained in the attitude of Russian society towards the Church Slavonic language were transferred to the terminology, vocabulary and phraseology of Western European languages.

The translation of special technical and scientific terminology in that era was associated with almost insurmountable difficulties, since it assumed the existence of internal semantic relationships and correspondences between the Russian language and Western European languages. But even experienced translators could not overcome the resistance of the language material. The Russian language still lacked semantic forms for the embodiment of concepts developed by European science and technology, European abstract thought.