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Explanatory dictionary dal online meaning. Dal's explanatory dictionary online for free, Dal's synonym dictionary on wordonline

The living folk Russian language is magnificent in all its diversity. A lot of dialect expressions, obsolete words, emotional shades color folk speech. But there, no less, sometimes you have to look into the dictionary to look for the designation of a particular phrase, proverb, expression.

The Explanatory Dictionary of the Living Great Russian Language by V. I. Dahl is a unique and indispensable creation in the history of the Russian language. Compiled in the middle of the 19th century, it played an important role in the development of the Slavic humanities.

The dictionary is based on living folk oral and written speech, its regional modifications. The composition includes more than 30,000 proverbs and sayings, 200,000 words. The information placed in the dictionary explains not only individual morphological units, but also phenomena from folk life, traditions and rituals of various kinds, the use and creation of one or another object. So, in the column "oil" you will find not only a description of a particular thing, but also its origin, method of production and principle of application. Russian explanatory dictionary online will help you with the search for this or that important information. Thanks to the presence of not only literary, but also colloquial words and phrases, you can find explanations that do not exist in other dictionaries.

The explanatory dictionary for the Russian language is not considered normative. In the interpretation of words, there are no indications of the grammatical plan, stylistic characteristics. Despite the lack of extensive definitions, examples of the correct use of words and constructions are given.

The dictionary was compiled according to the principle of alphabetic-nested distribution. In fact, the method is not bad, but in some places it is not entirely successful. Sometimes in a cell of a particular word there are simply words or expressions that are consonant with it, but which have no connection in meaning.

History of creation

The roots of Dahl's explanatory dictionary stretch back from the time of his first trip to Russia. At that time, the author wrote down almost every word and expression that was interesting to him. It was they who became the basis of the dictionary created later. The long and painstaking work on compiling the final version lasted almost 54 years.

For the first edition of the explanatory dictionary of the living language, the author received the Konstantinovsky medal (1861). Moreover, a week before his death, bedridden Vladimir Dal gave his daughter instructions regarding the second edition of his masterpiece.

How to use Dahl's explanatory dictionary online?

Not every member of modern society has the finances to buy an expensive book, or the time to visit the library. Recently, the problem of finding information has been completely solved. Dahl's explanatory dictionary online free of charge will help you find all the necessary explanations. It is enough to decide on the search word, go through the alphabetical clue and find the nest you need. The search principle is simple even for younger students, not to mention adults.

On our site you can find the Dahl dictionary online for free and other useful sections with dictionaries of synonyms, phraseological units, etc.

Usually, when writing articles or notes, you often have to use dictionaries in order to correctly enter the necessary phrases into the article. Often, in false technical or philosophical-logical texts, when parsing, new terms appear that are difficult to explain. You have to use third-party resources on the Internet, for example, an online explanatory dictionary that allows you to quickly and completely easily, without wasting time, find an interpretation of complex words and phrases. I want to thank for a similar one, which is so convenient to use while sitting at a computer. Alena Safonova

Our Russian language has always been reverent. Several dictionaries that were in the house wandered from the coffee table to the desktop, bypassing the shelves of the bookcase. They were actively used. The eldest daughter recently took a couple of pieces to the university. I, involuntarily, had to look for a dictionary of Russian synonyms online. After some googling, I found this site and continued to work. The variety of local dictionaries matters. Let the daughter leaf through the book pages, I will now use the pages of the site. Tatyana

The name of Oleg Dal, his works, is the first thing that comes to mind of a Russian person on occasion. And the memory will live as long as our language will exist. And the dictionary of synonyms online in our house is used by several generations: a schoolgirl, an institute student, a mother-teacher and a grandmother of retirement age. There are a lot of synonyms, they are included in many scientific works on various topics. There are many of them here! the site is simple, convenient, the computer is always at hand. It is enough to follow the links to the bookmarks, this address has recently been added. Veronica

I read Dahl's stories, he is a very interesting, original writer, he introduced into Russian literature such a thing as a physiological essay. And he was also a doctor, if I am not mistaken, an oculist. Moreover, they said about him that he knew how to perform operations on the eyes, both with his right and left hand. But the main brainchild is of course a dictionary. After all, a non-Russian person, he is a Swede or a Dane, in my opinion, but how conscientiously and painstakingly. Due to my occupation, I quite often have to use dictionaries, and so, in my opinion, Dalia is the best sergey fedorovich

The dictionary is unique in its kind. Its exclusivity lies in the fact that the great literary critic did not just write his work, but lived it. Collecting information bit by bit, carrying it through the soul and transforming it into accurate and capacious interpretations. Dal considered the Russian language itself as his teacher, which was a living entity for him. Therefore, it turned out to be an immortal encyclopedic bestseller that tells about Russian life and spirit. The explanatory dictionary of the Russian language reveals the slightest nuances of the Russian character and the liveliness of the people's mind. The meaning of words takes on new colors and shades. This resource is an indispensable online companion for philologists: students, teachers, writers, philologists, journalists.

Evgenia S

it was interesting to learn about the dictionary, this is the best dictionary of all in the world, I recommend looking for the meaning of words in Dahl's dictionary. Please write more about this dictionary site Lera Troshina

  1. There are no accents in Dahl's dictionary. It wasn’t - Dal didn’t put down? ... or is it published like that now.
  2. Did Dahl have the letter Yo (yo)? Have they gotten rid of it now? There are a lot of misunderstandings without her.
Nicholas

The dictionary of V.I. Dahl is the pearl of Russian literature. This is a beacon that guides us in the right direction of our language creation. Helping to synchronize watches in the 21st century, so that we do not dissolve the "great and mighty" - with English phraseological units, and do not slide into the "Albanian" dialect. It is gratifying that Dahl's online dictionary is presented to a wide audience and is completely free. The only thing is a timely upgrade, for aesthetics and ease of use. DictionaryOnline

It would be nice if Veronica knew the real name of Dahl, the author of the dictionary - Vladimir Ivanovich. And one more thing: about the "non-Russian person". Not only was Dal born in Russia, he also wrote the following lines: “When I sailed to the shores of Denmark, I was very interested in what I would see the fatherland of my ancestors, my fatherland. Having set foot on the coast of Denmark, I was finally convinced at first that my fatherland is Russia, that I have nothing in common with the fatherland of my ancestors. Alexander

Why "The Name of Oleg Dal"?. The dictionary was created by Vladimir Ivanovich Dal, and Oleg Dal was an actor. And they lived at different times. Vladimir Dal is a contemporary of Pushkin, and Oleg Dal was our contemporary Ninelli

It's great that on your site you have V.I.Dal's Dictionary, an invaluable treasure for everyone who studies the history of the Russian language and indeed for every Russian-speaking person. Thank you! Noticed errors: 1) in the editorial article of the site in the third line of the penultimate paragraph, the word "decide" is written without a soft sign , Ethnographer, and only then - a writer and literary critic. Altaibaeva Dana

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Leave your wishes for the site, or describe the found error in the article about Dahl's Dictionary

The Grimm brothers managed to bring their vocabulary only to the letter F; it was completed only in 1971.. Not only did Dahl's dictionary become an extraordinarily important text in itself - a national treasure, a source of a truly popular word for generations of Russian people; around him grew his own mythology.

2. Each word in the name of the dictionary is not accidental

Title page of the first volume of the first edition of the Explanatory Dictionary of the Living Great Russian Language. 1863

Dahl's dictionary from the very beginning was a polemical enterprise - the author contrasted it with dictionaries prepared by scientists of the Russian Academy (since 1841 - the Academy of Sciences). The famous title "Explanatory Dictionary of the Living Great Russian Language" reads a combat program, partly deciphered by the author himself in the preface.

a) an explanatory dictionary, that is, “explaining and interpreting” words using specific examples (often a good example replaces the element of interpretation). Dahl contrasted the “dry and useless” definitions of the academic dictionary, which are “the wiser, the simpler the subject,” with descriptions of the thesaurus type: instead of defining the word “table,” he lists the components of the table, types of tables, etc .;

b) a dictionary of the “living” language, without vocabulary peculiar only to church books (unlike the dictionary of the Academy, which, in accordance with the regulations, was called the “Dictionary of the Church Slavonic and Russian Language”), with careful use of borrowed and calque words, but but with the active involvement of dialect material;

c) a dictionary of the “Great Russian” language, that is, not claiming to cover Ukrainian and Belarusian material (although, under the guise of “southern” and “western” dialect words, a lot from these territories also entered the dictionary). Dahl regarded the dialects of "Little and White Russia" as something "completely alien" and incomprehensible to native Russian speakers.

By design, Dahl’s dictionary is not only and not so much literary (“dead” book words, the compiler did not like), but also dialectal, and not describing any local dialect or group of dialects, but covering a variety of dialects of a language common over a vast territory . At the same time, Dahl, although he was an ethnographer, traveled a lot and was interested in various aspects of Russian life, did not go on special dialectological expeditions, did not develop questionnaires and did not write down entire texts. He communicated with people while traveling on other business (this is how the legendary hush-lives) or listened to the speech of visitors in large cities (this is how the last four words of the dictionary were collected, written down by the servants on behalf of the dying Dahl).

The well-known even in our time method of collecting material - "for credit" - is described in his memoirs by Petr Boborykin:

“... the teachers of the gymnasium went to him [Dal]. Through one of them, L-n, a grammar teacher, he obtained from the schoolchildren all sorts of sayings and jokes from the raznochinsk spheres. Whoever delivered L-n a certain number of new proverbs and sayings, he gave him five of the grammar. So, at least, they said both in the city [Nizhny Novgorod] and in the gymnasium.

3. Dahl compiled the dictionary alone

Vladimir Dahl. Portrait by Vasily Perov. 1872

Perhaps the most impressive thing in the history of the creation of the dictionary is how its author, while not a professional linguist, collected material and wrote all the articles alone. Large authoritative dictionaries were made and are being made independently not only in the 19th century, in the era of universal talents, but also in times closer to us - remember Ozhegov's Dictionary of the Russian Language However, Ozhegov very actively used the achievements of Ushakov's collective dictionary, in the preparation of which he himself participated., "Etymological Dictionary of the Russian Language" by Vasmer or "Grammar Dictionary of the Russian Language" by Zaliznyak. Such dictionaries are, perhaps, even more complete and more successful than the cumbersome products of multi-headed teams, in which the project is not limited by the duration of a human life, no one is in a hurry, the idea is constantly changing, someone works better, someone worse, and everything is different.

Dahl nevertheless used some external sources, including those collected by the Academy (recall how a gymnasium teacher wrote down “sayings and jokes” for him), although he constantly complained about their unreliability, tried to double-check every word, and not rechecked marked with a question mark. The burden of the huge work of collecting, preparing for printing and proofreading the material constantly caused him lamentations to burst onto the pages of the dictionary (see below).

However, the material he collected turned out to be generally reliable, quite complete and necessary for a modern researcher; this is a testament to how sharp his ear for language and instinct was, despite the lack of scientific information.

4. As Dahl's main business, the dictionary was evaluated only after his death.

Dal later became known as a lexicographer: he made his debut in prose as early as 1830, and the first issue of the first volume of the Explanatory Dictionary of the Living Great Russian Language came out only in 1861. At the same time, if we take the bound first volume of the first edition, then the year 1863 is on the title page. Few people know that the dictionary, like many other publications of the 19th century, came out in separate editions (having their own covers and title pages), which were then bound into volumes; at the same time, the covers and titles of the issues were usually simply thrown away, and only a few copies of them survived..

Despite the prize that the Dalev dictionary was awarded during his lifetime, and the extensive controversy in the press, contemporaries, judging by the memoirs, often perceived interest in the language and compiling a Russian lexicon as only one of Dalev's versatile talents and eccentricities. In sight were other, previously manifested aspects of his bright personality - a writer, author of popular fairy tales and stories from folk life under the pseudonym Cossack Lugansky, military doctor, engineer, public figure, eccentric, sophisticated ethnographer. In 1847 Belinsky wrote with warm praise:

“... from his writings it is clear that he is an experienced person in Russia; his reminiscences and stories refer both to the west and to the east, and to the north and south, and to the borders and to the center of Russia; of all our writers, not excluding Gogol, he pays special attention to the common people, and it is clear that he studied them for a long time and with participation, knows their life to the smallest detail, knows how the Vladimir peasant differs from the Tver one, and in relation to shades of morals, and in relation to ways of life and crafts.

This is where Belinsky would have to say about the language of Dalev's prose, about folk catchphrases - but no.

Dal, of course, was part of the gallery of "Russian eccentrics", "originals" of the 19th century, who were fond of various unusual and impractical things. Among them were spiritualism (Dal started a "medium circle") and homeopathy, which Dahl at first ardently criticized, and then became its apologist. In a small circle of fellow doctors who met at Dahl's in Nizhny Novgorod, they spoke Latin and played chess four of them. According to fellow surgeon Nikolai Pirogov, Dal “had a rare ability to imitate the voice, gestures, mine of other people; with extraordinary calmness and the most serious mien, he conveyed the most comical scenes, imitated sounds (the buzzing of a fly, a mosquito, etc.) incredibly true, ”and also masterfully played the organ (harmonica). In this he resembled Prince Vladimir Odoevsky - also a prose writer, approved by Pushkin, also fairy tales, also music, spiritualism and elixirs.

That Dahl's main business is a dictionary, they noticed, in fact, after his death The first edition of the dictionary was completed in 1866. Vladimir Ivanovich Dal died in 1872, and in 1880-1882 a second, posthumous edition prepared by the author was published. It was typed from a special author's copy of the first edition, in which a blank sheet was sewn into each spread, where Dahl wrote down his additions and corrections. This copy has been preserved and is in the Department of Manuscripts of the Russian National (Public) Library in St. Petersburg.. So, in 1877, in the "Diary of a Writer" Dostoevsky, discussing the meaning of words, uses the combination "future Dal" in an almost nominal sense. In the next era, this understanding will become universally recognized.

5. Dahl believed that literacy was dangerous for peasants


Rural free school. Painting by Alexander Morozov. 1865 State Tretyakov Gallery / Wikimedia Commons

Dahl's social position caused a great resonance among his contemporaries: in the era of great reforms, he saw the danger in teaching the peasants to read and write - without other measures of "moral and mental development" and real familiarization with culture.

“...Literacy in itself is not enlightenment, but only a means to achieve it; if it is used not for this, but for another thing, then it is harmful.<…>Allow a man to express his conviction, without being embarrassed by exclamations, zealots of enlightenment, although in respect of the fact that this man has 37,000 peasants in nine counties and nine rural schools at his disposal.<…>Mental and moral education can reach a significant degree without literacy; on the contrary, literacy, without any intellectual and moral education, and with the most unsuitable examples, almost always leads to the worst. Having made a person literate, you aroused needs in him, which you do not satisfy with anything, but leave him at a crossroads.<…>

What will you answer me if I prove to you named lists that out of the 500 people who studied at the age of 10 in nine rural schools, 200 people became famous scoundrels?"

Vladimir Dahl. "A Note on Literacy" (1858)

This idea Dahl mentions many publicists and writers of the era. The democrat Nekrasov wrote ironically: “Literacy is not without art / The venerable Dal pounced - / And he discovered a lot of feelings, / Both nobility and morality,” and the vindictive Shchedrin, as usual, recalled this more than once, for example: “... Dal at that time defended the right of a Russian man to be illiterate, on the grounds that if you teach a locksmith to read and write, he will immediately begin to forge the keys to other people's caskets. Years later, the philosopher Konstantin Leontiev sympathetically recalled Dahl's anti-pedagogical pathos in an article with the eloquent title "How and in what way is our liberalism harmful?", where he complained about liberals responding "with laughter or silence" to "a person who is direct or not afraid of original thought."

The lifetime reputation of an obscurantist is remarkable both for its wide distribution and for the fact that it was quickly forgotten - already at the turn of the century, not to mention the Soviet era, Dal was perceived as an educator and populist.

6. Dal wrote the word "Russian" with one "s"

The full name of Dahl's dictionary is quite widely known, and many will also remember that, according to the old spelling, the words "living Great Russian" are written through "a". But few people notice that Dahl actually wrote the second of these words through one "s". Yes, the collector of the Russian word insisted that it was precisely “Russian”. The dictionary itself explains this:

“They used to write Pravda Ruska; only Poland called us Russia, Russians, Russians, in Latin spelling, and we took it over, transferred it to our Cyrillic alphabet and write Russian!”

Dahl's historical and linguistic judgments are often incorrect: of course, the name Russia is historically not Polish or Latin, but Greek, and in ancient Russian the word Russian, with the second "s" in the suffix, it was quite. Dal did not favor double consonants, and in general (as we see from the word cyrillic).

Only at the beginning of the 20th century, the linguist Ivan Baudouin de Courtenay, who was preparing the third edition of the dictionary, introduced the normative spelling (with two "s") into the text.

7. In Dahl's dictionary, there are indeed words invented by him, but very few

Among the mass ideas about Dahl's dictionary, there is this: Dahl invented everything (or a lot), composed it, people don't really say that. It is quite common, let us recall at least a vivid episode from “My Age ...” by Mariengof:

“In the library, my father, of course, had Dahl's explanatory dictionary. This book, in my opinion, is priceless. What wealth of words! What sayings! Proverbs! Tips and Riddles! Of course, they are about one-third invented by Dahl. But what of that? Nothing. It is important that they are well thought out. This explanatory dictionary in a gold-embossed cover was not just Nastenka's favorite book, but some kind of her treasure. She kept it under her pillow. I read and reread every day. Like an Old Believer Bible. From him, from Dahl, this wonderful Russian speech went to Nastya. And when she first came to Penza directly from her Saransk village Chernye Bugry, there was nothing like that at all - Nastenka usually said, grayishly, like everyone else.

In Pasternak's Doctor Zhivago, there is a less enthusiastic expression of the same thought: "This is a kind of new Dal, the same fictional, linguistic graphomania of verbal incontinence."

How much did Dahl actually come up with? Is everything in his vocabulary “living Great Russian”? Of course, there are also book neologisms in the dictionary, and quite fresh ones: for example, the expression in March, as "they say in memory of Gogol", and the word Decembrist, as "former state criminals were called." And what did the lexicographer himself write?

The ethnographic department of the Russian Geographical Society, awarding Dahl's dictionary with the Gold Konstantinovsky medal, asked the compiler to enter the words into the dictionary "with the reservation where and how they were reported to the compiler" in order to avoid criticism "that he puts nasty words and speeches in the dictionary of the folk language its spirit, and therefore apparently fictitious." In response to this remark (in the article "Answer to the Sentence", published in the first volume of the dictionary), Dahl admitted that he occasionally introduces into the dictionary words that "have not been in use hitherto", for example dexterity, as an interpretation-substitution for foreign words ( gymnastics). But he puts them not as independent articles, but only among interpretations, and with a question mark, as if "offering" them for discussion. Another similar technique was the use of a word that really exists in some dialect to interpret a foreign language (for example, livelymachineZhyvulya, zhivulka, well. Vologda carnivorous insect, flea, louse, etc. || All living things, but unreasonable. Sits, a living zhivulichka on a living chair, pulling at a living meat?|| Baby. || Machine?"), “in a sense in which it, perhaps, has not been accepted until now” (that is, a new meaning is invented for a really existing word - the so-called semantic neologism). Justifying the inclusion in the dictionary of diverse unusual-sounding verbal names ( concession, allowance, allowance and allowance), Dahl referred to the fact that they are formed "according to the living composition of our language" and that he had nothing to refer to, as soon as the "Russian ear". On this path, he had a most authoritative predecessor - Pushkin, who wrote almost the same:

“The magazines condemned the words: clap, talk and top as an unfortunate innovation. These words are native Russian. “Bova came out of the tent to cool off and heard people’s talk and a horse’s top in the open field” (The Tale of Bova the King). clap used colloquially instead of clapping, as thorn instead of hissing:

He launched a spike like a snake.
(Ancient Russian poems)

It must not interfere with the freedom of our rich and beautiful language.”

"Eugene Onegin", note 31

On the whole, the percentage of Dahl's “invented” is very low, and researchers identify such words without difficulty: Dahl himself indicated what types they belong to.

A large number of words noted by Dahl are not only confirmed by modern dialectological studies, but also most convincingly demonstrate their reality through comparison with ancient Russian monuments, including those inaccessible to Dahl even theoretically. For example, in Novgorod birch bark letters, which have been found since 1951 (including in the most ancient ones - XI-XIII centuries), there are parallels with the words known from Dahl: buy into- become a business partner survive- hound puppy, fine-tuning- inquiry, investigation, lodba- fish, whitefish breed, warrior- women's dress, the same as the warrior, pollock- commotion head- at first, mail- an honorary gift, estimate- add, to inquire- inquire on occasion saying- bad reputation, take off- take off, be able to- arrange business sta-current- property, tula- discreet place, worm fish - not gutted; as well as phraseological units fall out of sight, bow to your money(the latter was found almost verbatim in a letter from the 13th century).

8. The order in the dictionary is not strictly alphabetical.

Dahl's dictionary contains about 200 thousand words and about 80 thousand "nests": single-root non-prefixed words are not in alphabetical order, replacing each other, but occupy a common large article from a separate paragraph, within which they are sometimes additionally grouped according to semantic links. In a similar way, only more radically, the first "Dictionary of the Russian Academy" was built. The "nested" principle may not be very convenient for searching for words, but it turns dictionary entries into fascinating reading.

On the other hand, separate articles, which is also unusual for our time, are prepositional-case combinations that “fell out” of the nest (obviously, Dal perceived them as adverbs written separately). These include one of the most memorable entries in the dictionary:

FOR VODKA, for wine, for tea, for tea, gift in small money for a service, beyond the ranks. When God made a German, a Frenchman, an Englishman, etc., and asked them if they were satisfied, they responded with satisfaction; Russian also, but asked for vodka. The orderly and from death asks for wine (lubok picture). You pull a man out of the water, he asks for vodka for that too. Lead money, initial data for vodka.

9 Dahl Was A Bad Etymologist

In establishing the relationship of words and their belonging to a common nest, Dahl was often mistaken. He had no linguistic education However, in that era it was still a rarity, and it was not an indispensable attribute of a professional: for example, the great Slavist (and also the compiler of an invaluable dictionary, only Old Russian) Izmail Ivanovich Sreznevsky was a lawyer., and in general, the scientific approach to language was alien to Dahl - perhaps even consciously. In the "Wandering word" to the dictionary, he admitted that with grammar

“from the beginning he was in some kind of discord, not being able to apply it to our language and avoiding it, not so much by reason, but by some kind of dark feeling, so that it would not confuse ...”

On the second page, we see, albeit with a question mark, the convergence of words abrek(although it would seem to be labeled as Caucasian!) and doomed. Next, Dahl combines in one nest drawbar(borrowed from German) and breathe, space and simple and many others, but a number of single-root words, on the contrary, do not reduce. Subsequently, the erroneous division into nests was, if possible, corrected in the edition edited by I. A. Baudouin de Courtenay (see below).

10. Dahl's dictionary can be read in a row, like a work of art

Dahl created a dictionary that can not only be used as a reference, but also read like a collection of essays. The reader is confronted with rich ethnographic information: of course, it does not apply to dictionary interpretation in the narrow sense, but without it it is difficult to imagine the everyday context of the terms themselves.

That's what it is handshake- two or three words and you can’t say:

“beating on the hands of the fathers of the bride and groom, usually covering their hands with the floors of caftans, as a sign of final consent; the end of courtship and the beginning of wedding ceremonies: engagement, conspiracy, blessing, betrothal, engagement, a big chant ... "

Here is another example that vividly depicts the atmosphere of a wedding:

“The matchmaker was in a hurry to the wedding, she was drying her shirt on a whorl, the warrior was rolling on the threshold!”

The reader can learn about the epistolary etiquette of previous generations:

"Old sovereign or sovereign used indifferently, vm. gentleman, gentleman, landowner, nobleman; to this day we speak and write to the king: Most Merciful Sovereign; great. princes: Most Gracious Sovereign; to all individuals: Your Majesty[our fathers wrote, to the highest: your Majesty; to equal: my dear sir; to lower: my lord]».

An encyclopedic article surprising in detail is given at the word bast shoes(which fell into the nest paw). We note the involvement of not only “living Great Russian”, but also “Little Russian” (Ukrainian, more specifically, Chernihiv) material:

LAPOT, m. lapotok; pawpaw, pawpaw, m. posts, south app. (german Vasteln), short wicker shoes on the foot paw, ankle-deep, from bast (bastards), bast (bast shoes, worse), less often from the bark of willow, willow (verzni, willows), tala (sheluzhniki), elm (elm), birch ( birch bark), oak (duboviki), from thin roots (root roots), from the shavings of a young oak (dubachi, Chernihiv), from hemp combs, broken shabby ropes (kurpy, krutsy, chuni, whisperers), from horse manes and tails (hairs), finally, from straw (straws, kursk.). Bast shoes are woven in 5-12 lines, bundles, on a block, kochedyk, kotochik (iron hook, pile) and consists of wattle (sole), head, firebrands (front), ear, collar (border from the sides) and heel; but bad bast shoes, in a simple braid, without a collar, and fragile; the collar or border converges with its ends on the heel and, when connected, forms a guard, a kind of loop into which the collars are threaded. The transverse basts, bent on the collar, are called kurts; there are usually ten chickens in a wattle fence. Sometimes the bast shoes are still hoofed, they pass over the wattle fence with a bast or tow; and hand-written bast shoes are decorated with a patterned undercut. Bast shoes are put on tailor and woolen linings and tied with frills in a binding crosswise to the knee; bast shoes without frills for the house and yard, weave higher than usual and are called: kapets, kakoty, kalti, shoe covers, tricks, chuyki, little tables, whisperers, frogs, feet, bare feet, topygs, etc.

11. Dahl has two articles with pictures

Modern lexicography, especially foreign lexicography, has come to the conclusion that the interpretation of many words cannot (or is unreasonably difficult) be given without a graphic illustration. But a full-fledged authoritative illustrated Russian explanatory dictionary, unfortunately, has not yet appeared (one can only name “picture dictionaries” for foreigners and recent dictionaries of foreign words for Russians). In this, Dahl was far ahead of not only his own, but also our time: he provided two articles with pictures. In the article hat drawn-vano, what types of hats are, and can be distinguished by silhouette hairpin moscow from straight hairpin, a kashnik from tops. And in the article beef(nest beef) depicts a pensive cow, divided into parts indicated by numbers - among them, in addition to the usual sternum, shank and loin, there are, for example, underplows and a curl.

Russian State Library

Russian State Library

12. Dahl complained about the hard work right in the articles.

On the pages of his dictionary, Dahl often complains about the severity of the work undertaken. Complaints of the lexicographer is an old and venerable genre, begun on Russian soil by Feofan Prokopovich, who translated the poems of the 16th-century French humanist Scaliger as follows:

If someone's hands are condemned to torment,
waiting for the poor head of sorrow and torment.
They did not order him to be tormented by the work of difficult forges,
nor send to the hard work of ore places.
Let the vocabulary do: then one thing prevails,
All the pangs of childbirth this one labor has in itself.

But Dahl's work is notable for the fact that the complaints are not included in the preface, but are scattered across the articles (moreover, their number naturally increases in the last volumes of the dictionary):

Volume. The volume of the dictionary is large, one can not do it.

Define. The simpler and more common a thing, the more difficult it is to define it in a general and abstract way; Define, for example, what is a table?

P. This is a favorite consonant of Russians, especially at the beginning of a word (as in the middle about), and occupies (prepositions) a quarter of the entire dictionary.

Accomplice(in nest Together). Grim had many accomplices in compiling the dictionary.

Celebrate. Edit the set for printing, keep proofreading. You can’t do more than a sheet of this dictionary a day, your eyes won’t.

As a kind of “offering of descendants” to Dahl’s feat, one can consider an example from the fourth volume of the dictionary compiled by G. O. Vinokur and S. I. Ozhegov, edited by Ushakov:

Employee. Dahl compiled his dictionary alone, without employees.

13. Dahl's dictionary experienced a rebirth

Ivan Baudouin de Courtenay. Around 1865 Biblioteka Narodowa

Ivan Aleksandrovich Baudouin de Courtenay, one of the greatest linguists in the history of science, played a major role in the history of Dahl's dictionary. Suffice it to say that basic linguistic concepts phonemes and morphemes were invented by his colleague Nikolai Krushevsky, who died early (Baudouin introduced them into scientific circulation), and the founder of the new Western linguistics, Ferdinand de Saussure, read Baudouin's works carefully and referred to them.. Ivan (Jan) Alexandrovich was a Pole whose family boldly claimed descent from the royal house of Capet: his namesake, also Baudouin de Courtenay, sat on the throne of Constantinople conquered by the Crusaders in the 13th century. According to the legend, when the professor, who went out to a political demonstration, was taken to the police station together with the students, Ivan Alexandrovich wrote in the police questionnaire: "King of Jerusalem." Passion for politics did not leave him even later: having moved to independent Poland after the revolution, Baudouin defended national minorities, including Russians, and almost became the first president of Poland. And it’s good that he didn’t: the elected president was shot by a right-wing extremist five days later.

In 1903-1909, a new (third) edition of Dahl's dictionary was published, edited by Baudouin, supplemented by 20 thousand new words (missed by Dahl or appeared in the language after him). Of course, a professional linguist could not leave in place a bold hypothesis about the relationship of words abrek and doomed; etymologies were corrected, the nests were ordered, unified, the dictionary became more convenient for searching, and the "Russian" language became "Russian". Ivan Alexandrovich neatly marked his additions with square brackets, showing respect and sensitivity to Dahl's original idea.

However, in Soviet times, this version of the dictionary was not republished, in particular because of risky additions (see below).

14. Russian mat was well known to Dahl, but added to the dictionary after his death

The editorial board of Baudouin de Courtenay entered the mass consciousness not because of the purely scientific side: for the first time (and almost for the last time) in the history of mass domestic lexicography, obscene vocabulary was included in the dictionary. Baudouin explained it this way:

“The lexicographer has no right to cut and castrate the ‘living language’. Since well-known words exist in the minds of the vast majority of the people and constantly pour out, the lexicographer is obliged to enter them into the dictionary, even if all the hypocrites and tartuffes, who are usually great lovers of greasiness in secret, rebel against this and pretend to be indignant ... "

Of course, Russian swearing was well known to Dahl himself, but due to traditional delicacy, the corresponding lexemes and phraseological units were not included in his dictionary. Only in the article old-fashioned Dahl outlined dialectological views on the subject:

LOTTER, swearing swear, swear, swear, swear obscenely. This scolding is characteristic of a high, aka, southern. and app. adverb, and in the low surrounding, sowing. and east. it is less common, and in some places it is not there at all.

Professor Baudouin approached the plot more thoroughly and included all the main, as he put it, "vulgar abuse" in their alphabetic places, noting, in particular, that a three-letter word "becomes almost a pronoun." This became an event, and references to the Baudouin dictionary, which was not reprinted in the USSR, became a popular euphemism:

Alexey Krylov, shipbuilder. "My memories"

“And all these professors and academicians began to bend such expressions that no Dahl dictionary of the 1909 edition It was in 1909 that the 4th volume of the dictionary with the letter "X" was published. no need".

Mikhail Uspensky."Red Tomatoes"

15. According to the Dahl dictionary, the language was taught by both Russian people and foreigners

From about the 1880s to the 1930s, Dahl's dictionary (in the original or in the Baudouin edition) was the standard reference to the Russian language for all writers or readers. There was especially nowhere else to “check the word”, apart from numerous dictionaries of foreign words (the old lexicons from the times of Dashkova or Shishkov became the property of history, and the new academic dictionary that was being prepared just in these years, edited by Grot and Shakhmatov, remained unfinished) . Surprisingly, a huge vocabulary, no less than half consisting of dialectisms, was also used by foreigners studying Russian. In 1909, after the Russo-Japanese War, the Japanese, reconciled with Russia, with their inherent thoroughness, placed an order for a batch of copies of the Explanatory Dictionary, which were supplied to "all regimental libraries and all military educational institutions in Japan."

16. Yesenin and Remizov took the "wealth of folk speech" from Dahl's dictionary

At the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries, writers of various trends actively turned to Dahl: some wanted to diversify their own vocabulary and saturate it with unusual-sounding words, others wanted to look close to the people, to give their writings a dialect flavor. Even Chekhov spoke ironically about "one writer-populist", who takes the words "from Dahl and Ostrovsky", later this image will flicker in other authors.

Sergey Yesenin. 1922 Wikimedia Commons

The petty-bourgeois and peasant lyric poets of the 19th century, from Koltsov to Drozhzhin, have very few dialectisms, they try to write "like gentlemen," they pass an exam for mastery of a large culture. But the new peasant modernist poets, headed by Klyuev and Yesenin, exaggerate their lexical colors to the utmost. But far from everything they take from their native dialects, and Dal, of course, serves as an important source for them (for reading which Professor I. N. Rozanov used to catch the embarrassed Yesenin).

The way for the peasants, of course, was pointed out by the intelligentsia. Klyuev's predecessors were urban stylists of folklore and reenactors of paganism Alexei Remizov, Sergei Gorodetsky and Alexei N. Tolstoy, who carefully studied the Explanatory Dictionary. And later, the “Kyiv Mallarmé” Vladimir Makkaveisky regretted “that until now Dahl had not been bought for a dusty shelf” (he immediately mentioned Remizov and Gorodets), and the Moscow futurist Boris Pasternak in 1914 wrote three inspired by Dahl poems about "drinking over the water of the bochaga" and sometimes returned to this technique in the future.

The unannounced Dahlian subtexts and sources from Russian poets and writers have yet to be fully revealed. Perhaps it is no coincidence that in Mandelstam's "Poems in Memory of Andrei Bely" the word "gogol" (inspired, in turn, by the name of Gogol) is adjacent to the word "goldfinch" - "gogol" is interpreted by Dahl as "dandy".

17. Dahl's dictionary has become a mythological symbol of Russian cultural identity

This understanding goes back to the era of modernism. In Andrey Bely's symphony The Cup of Blizzards, one of the phantom characters "grabbed Dahl's dictionary and obsequiously handed it to the golden-bearded mystic," and for Benedikt Livshits, "the vast, dense Dahl became cozy" in comparison with the primitive elements of futuristic word-creation.

Already in the years of the collapse of traditional Russian culture, Osip Mandelstam wrote:

“We don't have an Acropolis. Our culture still wanders and does not find its walls. On the other hand, each word of Dahl's dictionary is a nut of the Acropolis, a small Kremlin, a winged fortress of nominalism, equipped with the Hellenic spirit for a tireless struggle against the formless element, non-existence, threatening our history from everywhere.

"On the nature of the word"

For the Russian emigration, of course, the "Explanatory Dictionary" was interpreted even more strongly as a "little Kremlin" and salvation from non-existence. Vladimir Nabokov twice recalled, in verse and prose, how, as a student, he stumbled upon Dahl's dictionary at a flea market in Cambridge and eagerly reread it: as in a Russian town - / I found Pushkin and Dal / on an enchanted tray. “I bought it for half a crown and read it, several pages every night, noting the lovely words and expressions: “olial” - a booth on barges (now it’s too late, it will never come in handy). The fear of forgetting or clogging up the only thing that I managed to scratch out, however, with rather strong claws, from Russia, has become a direct disease.

Among emigrants, the sentimental-lubok poem “Russian Culture” by hussar Yevgeny Vadimov (Lisovsky), which had lost its authorship, was popular among emigrants, in which Dal became a characteristic series: “Russian culture is Makovsky’s brush, / Antokolsky’s marble, Lermontov and Dal, / Terema and churches, the ringing of the Moscow Kremlin, / Tchaikovsky's music is sweet sadness.

18. Dictionary of Solzhenitsyn: based on extracts from the Dalev

Publishing house "Russian way"

In Soviet Russia, the canonization of Dal, including by writers, only intensified. Although new explanatory dictionaries of the modern literary language appeared in the 20th century - Ushakov, Ozhegov, Bolshoy and Small Academic - the "outdated regional" dictionary still continued to retain the aura of the "main", "real" and "most complete", a monument to "Russia, which we have lost." Patriot writers like Aleksey Yugov accused modern dictionaries of “thrown out of the Russian language” compared to Dalev’s about a hundred thousand words (“forgetting”, however, that the vast majority of these words are non-literary dialectisms) . The crowning achievement of this tradition was Alexander Solzhenitsyn's "Russian Dictionary of Language Expansion", which is an extensive extract of rare words from Dahl that may be useful to a writer (a cautious mark "sometimes you can say" is introduced). They are supplemented with relatively few words compared to the main Dalev mass, taken from Russian writers of the 19th-20th centuries and from some other sources. The very linguistic manner of Solzhenitsyn the writer, especially the late one, - the replacement of foreign words with primordial and neologisms composed of primordial roots, a large number of verbal nouns with a zero suffix like "nahlyn" - goes back precisely to Dahl.

19. Soviet censors threw out an entry from the dictionary Jew

In 1955, Dahl's dictionary was republished in the USSR as a reprint of the second (posthumous) edition of the 1880s. This was one of the first examples of a Soviet reprint (and it was not a reprint, but an extremely laborious complete retype) of an old book in pre-reform orthography, almost forgotten for 37 years, with all the “eras” and “yats”. The exclusivity of such an action, in addition to philological accuracy, also indicated the special sacred status attached to the dictionary. This reproduction strove to be as accurate as possible - but it was still not quite so. In particular, the number of pages in it does not correspond to the original edition, and most importantly, part of the text was excluded due to censorship conditions.

In the first volume, page 541 has a strange appearance - there is much less text on it than on the neighboring ones, and at a glance you can see that the lines are unusually sparse. In the appropriate place, Dahl had a word Jew and its derivatives (in the second posthumous edition - page 557). Probably, initially the dictionary was completely retyped, and then from the ready-made set the nest Jew they threw it out, retyped the page again with an increased interval and left no such frank indication of censorship as just a blank spot for the Soviet reader (in addition, from its location it would be quite obvious which word was deleted). However, examples scattered throughout other entries of the dictionary with this word remained (for example, “Jews write and read vice versa, from right to left” in the nest wrap).

Generally speaking, Dahl did not include the names of ethnic groups as such on a general basis: there is not a single word in his dictionary. Englishman, nor French, and actually Jew(there is only jewish stone). In those days, ethnonyms were often considered proper names in general, many other authors wrote them with a capital letter. Such vocabulary penetrates Dahl's dictionary only in connection with figurative meanings. Article Tatar exists, but it opens with the definition of a plant (Tatar), and in the nest hare the article about the hare occupies about the same space as all the figurative meanings associated with the ethnonym itself. Redacted article Jew was no exception: it begins with the definition of a figurative meaning - "stingy, miser, mercenary miser", and it contains many proverbs and sayings from which such an image of a Jew arises. They are also in Dalev's Proverbs of the Russian People. Although if you open, for example, an article hare, then we know that Russian mind- "hind mind, belated", Russian God- "maybe, I suppose yes somehow", and in the article Tatar we read: Tatar eyes- "arrogant, shameless rogue."

It is not clear whether the lexicographer himself was an ardent anti-Semite by the standards of that time. Dahl, an official in the Ministry of the Interior dealing in particular with religious movements, is credited with the "Note on Ritual Murders," a compilation of German and Polish texts sympathetically expounding on the blood libel against the Jews. This essay “surfaced” only during the Beilis case in 1913, and its belonging to Dahl has not been proven. Of course, neither the Soviet national policy, nor even the state Soviet anti-Semitism, built on bashful and hypocritical silences, did not allow discussing these plots among Russian classics in any way. The fact that the word “Jew” since the time of Dahl has sharply strengthened the negative connotation that was present at that time also played a role, and in Soviet times it became officially taboo. It seemed inconceivable that the treasury of the national spirit, which Lenin highly appreciated, would contain characteristics that have now become "Black Hundred-pogrom" (according to Ushakov's dictionary). All this led to such an unusual censorship of the dictionary, and then made the “Russian prophet”, whose lines “the Bolsheviks hide from the people”, an icon of the anti-Semitic nationalists of the 1970s and 1980s.

20. Modern dictionaries of “criminal jargon” are distorted Dal

A few years ago, linguist Viktor Shapoval, while working on Russian slang dictionaries, discovered that in two large dictionaries of Russian criminal jargon, published in the early 1990s, there is a large layer of outlandish words that are not confirmed by any real texts, marked “international” or "foreign". Allegedly, these words are part of a certain international jargon of criminals and are described in departmental dictionaries with the heading "for official use." Among them, for example, the word screen, which allegedly means "night", and the word unit, which means "surveillance".

Shapoval noticed that these words and their interpretations suspiciously coincide with the words from the two extreme - the first and last - volumes of Dahl's dictionary. Moreover, in the "international" words are especially readily taken, in which Dahl himself was not particularly sure and marked them with a question mark. That is, either Dahl, writing down and taking such dubious words from other sources, did not make a single mistake, and then these words exactly in this form fell into the international slang of criminals, or some quick-witted compiler of a police dictionary “for official use” (perhaps , the criminal himself, who was promised leniency for such work) saw Dahl's dictionary on the shelf, armed himself with two extreme volumes and began to make extracts, paying special attention to outlandish words with questions. Judge for yourself which version is more likely.

An anonymous "departmental" lexicographer arbitrarily interpreted completely innocent words as criminal terms, and also did not firmly understand the old spelling and Dahl's abbreviations. Yes, the word unit began to mean “surveillance” (in the sense of police surveillance), although Dahl’s context is as follows: “something in appearance is whole, but incoherent, composite; collection, selection, selection, osprey; sleep, surveillance, sgnetka. Before us is a typical attempt for Dahl to choose among the original words of synonyms-a replacement for a foreign one, and surveillance (through e) here means “something caked” (and surveillance from the word follow was written through "yat"). The imaginary argotism is completely anecdotal screen- "night"; the plagiarizer did not understand Dahl's entry screen, screen, night, i.e. “screen, screen or screen”. And this word means not “night”, but “chest”.

Words written out by someone from Dahl, misunderstood and additionally falsified, went for a walk in the numerous dictionaries of criminal jargon, published and republished in our time. Real secret languages ​​(Dal, by the way, also dealt with them) are, in general, rather poor - they need a cipher for a relatively limited range of concepts, and the public understands the word “word-variety” as “a thick and solid book”, therefore numerous lexicographic phantoms in such publications are always in demand.

To the 150th anniversary of the publication of the Explanatory Dictionary of the Living Great Russian Language

In 1866, a century and a half ago, the publication of the final fourth volume completed the publication of the Explanatory Dictionary of the Living Great Russian Language by Vladimir Ivanovich Dal (1801-1872), a Russian writer, ethnographer, folklorist and lexicographer.

This is a huge work, it would seem unbearable for one person. The dictionary includes about 200,000 words and 30,000 proverbs, sayings, riddles and sayings that explain the meaning and use of the given words. Dahl gave his dictionary 53 years of hard work. Surprisingly, he was not a professional philologist. A naval officer, a military doctor, a surgeon, an ophthalmologist, a successful official who rose quite high up the career ladder ... During his life, Vladimir Ivanovich tried himself in various professions and achieved a lot, he managed to get two educations, but he didn’t have a philological one. He was not, the son of a German and a half-German, half-French woman and Russian by nationality, although he rightly considered himself such in spirit and thought. However, this man, in love with the Russian language, Russian folklore, Russian customs and traditions, did more than other titled lexicographers.

IN AND. Dal was born on November 10 (22), 1801 in the village of Lugansk Plant (today Lugansk, Ukraine). The literary pseudonym Dal is associated with his native city - Cossack Lugansk. The house where he lived is now a museum. The future lexicographer apparently inherited linguistic abilities from his parents: the Russified Dane Ivan Matveyevich Dal, who knew eight languages, and his mother, Maria Khristoforovna, nee Freitag, who spoke five languages. It is not surprising that later V.I. Dahl knew at least 12 foreign languages.

Having received a good and versatile home education, Dahl continued his studies at the Naval Cadet Corps. According to his own recollections, immediately after graduation in March 1819, he, a young midshipman, on the way to his duty station in Nikolaev, “unconsciously laid the foundation for ... a dictionary, writing down every word that he had not heard before.” Work on the "Explanatory Dictionary ..." has become the main, but not the only thing in life. In 1826, Dahl entered the Faculty of Medicine at Dorpat University, during the years of the Russian-Turkish war of 1828-1829. and the Polish company (1831) served as a military doctor, later worked as an intern at the St. Petersburg military land hospital, where he showed himself to be a brilliant surgeon. He did not leave medical studies and later, was considered a gifted ophthalmologist and homeopath.

His literary debuts date back to the time of Dahl’s medical work: in 1830, his story “The Gypsy” was published in the Moscow Telegraph magazine, and in 1832 they published ““ Russian fairy tales from folk oral tradition into civil literacy transposed, to everyday life adapted and decorated with walking sayings by the Cossack Vladimir Lugansky. Five first." "Tales ..." was hostile to the manager of the III department A.N. Mordvinov, who filed a denunciation against the author against the highest name. Dahl was arrested right in the hospital during a round of patients, and only the intercession of V.L. Zhukovsky, the tutor of the heir to Tsarevich Alexander Nikolaevich (the future Emperor Alexander II), saved him from what seemed inevitable imprisonment. Most of the circulation was destroyed. One of the few copies left in his possession was presented by the author to A.S. Pushkin, was favorably and friendly received by the poet and became his good friend.

In 1833, Dal once again changed his career, becoming an official for special assignments under the Orenburg military governor V. A. Perovsky. When Pushkin collected materials for his "History of Pugachev", his companion in the Orenburg steppes naturally became Dal, who served in the Orenburg region. He was also at the bedside of the dying poet in January 1837 as a friend and doctor. Pushkin before his death gave him a gold talisman ring with an emerald with the words: "Dal, take it as a keepsake."

Subsequently, V.I. Dahl served in the capital, where he was in charge of the office of the Minister of the Interior. But he was not attracted by the seemingly quite successful career of an official, but most of all he was occupied with scientific and literary work. The compilation of a dictionary and the work of collecting folklore seemed difficult to him in the capital, and he sacrificed his service for the sake of science, achieving an appointment as manager of the Nizhny Novgorod appanage office. In Nizhny Novgorod, he completed "Proverbs of the Russian people." After retiring in 1859 with the rank of real councilor of state, Dahl devoted himself entirely to compiling a dictionary. The first volume was published in 1863, and the last, as already mentioned, in 1866. A few days before his death, the already seriously ill Vladimir Ivanovich dictated to his daughter four dictionary entries for the second edition of his main life work - the Explanatory Dictionary of the Living Great Russian Language.

IN AND. Dal about Russia, the Russian language and his dictionary

Whoever thinks in what language belongs to that people. I think in Russian.

I will climb a knife for the truth, for the fatherland, for the Russian word, language!

Wrote it [Explanatory Dictionary of the Living Great Russian Language. - S.B.] not a teacher, not a mentor, not one who knows the matter better than others, but who worked on it more than many; a student who spent his entire life collecting bit by bit what he heard from his teacher, the living Russian language...

Dictionary, glossary, word-interpreter, word-interpreter m. dictionary, dictionary; dictionary; dictionaries; riverman, lexicon; a collection of words, sayings of any language, with interpretation or translation. Dictionaries are general and private, everyday and scientific, etc. Dictionary, referring to it. Dictionary, compiler, dictionary writer.

It is not enough glory to serve out of self-interest alone; no, serve under slander, under slander, faith and truth, as they serve in Russia, out of jealousy and out of honor.

A Russian person cannot be happy alone, he needs the participation of others, and without this he will not be happy.

Russia will perish only when Orthodoxy dries up in it.

Language is the age-old work of an entire generation.

The time has come to value the people's language and develop an educated language out of it.
Proverbs, sayings, jokes, born in the bowels of the masses, speak of a healthy, powerful body.

The language will not keep pace with education, will not meet modern needs, if it is not allowed to work out from its juice and root, to ferment on its own yeast.

Composer's note ( S.V. Bushuev )

A search in the electronic catalog of the Russian State Library yields 104 volumes of the Explanatory Dictionary of the Living Great Russian Language by V.I. Dahl. This is a variety of publications, from the first lifetime to modern ones. There are also numerous online versions of the dictionary (see, for example, or), which are convenient for searching for a specific dictionary entry. In connection with the 150th anniversary of the publication of the dictionary by V.I. Dal, we consider it necessary to pay attention to the "hero of the occasion" - the first edition of the "Explanatory Dictionary" of 1863-1866. It is available for viewing in the format of an exact digital copy of the original and is of scientific and bibliophilic value (see links below). In addition, the reader will find in this thematic collection collected by V.I. Dahl's fairy tales and proverbs, literary works created by him. In the selection, in contrast to this note, we have included only those works available in the NEL and the Digital Library of the RSL that are available for online viewing.

It is clear that the materials presented here are only a small fraction of the scientific and literary heritage of the great Russian scientist and writer. A more complete panorama of it is presented in the biobibliographic index “Vladimir Ivanovich Dal. Life and creativity” (compiled by O.G. Gorbachev. Ed. T.Ya. Briskman; Bibliography. Ed. E.A. Akimova. M., 2004; available for reading online). The fundamental work on the same subject is a voluminous volume of more than 800 pages: “V. I. Dahl: Biography and creative heritage: a biobiliographic index "(compiled by N.L. Yugan, K.G. Tarasov; scientific editor. R.N. Kleimenova; bibliography. editor. L.M. Kulaev. - M .: FLINTA: Science, 2011).

With the biography and works of V.I. Dahl can be found in the following publications:

Dal Vladimir Ivanovich [[Text]:]: Documents. Letters. Memories / [comp. : G.P. Matvievskaya and others]. - Orenburg: Orenburg Prince. publishing house, 2008 - 542, p., portr.

Matvievskaya G.P. Vladimir Ivanovich Dal, 1801-1872 / / G.P. Matvievskaya, I.K. Zubov; Rep. ed. E.N. Mirzoyan. - M.: Nauka, 2002 - 221, s.il., portr. - (Scientific and biographical literature: Ser. / Ros. Acad. Sciences).

Porudominsky V.I. Dal. . - Moscow: Mol. guard, 1971 [issue. Dan. 1972] - 384 p.

(Life of remarkable people. A series of biographies, Issue 17 (505))

Dal Volodymyr Ivanovych- Russian writer, doctor, author of "" (1863-1866) - one of the largest dictionaries of the Russian language, containing about 200,000 words and 30,000 proverbs, sayings, riddles and sayings that serve to explain the meaning of the given words.

Years of life: 1801 - 1872.

Memorable dates of Vladimir Dahl

Dahl wrote about the importance of the explanatory dictionary:

“The living folk language, which has preserved the spirit of vital freshness, which gives the language harmony, strength, clarity, integrity and beauty, should serve as a source and treasury for the development of educated Russian speech”;

“General definitions of words and the objects and concepts themselves are almost impossible and, moreover, useless. It is the more sophisticated, the simpler, more everyday the subject. The transmission and explanation of one word by another, and even more so by a dozen others, of course, is more intelligible than any definition, and examples clarify the matter even more.

Dahl and had a strong friendship. Somehow he began to ask Dahl what he was working on now, and Dahl told him everything about his long-term passion for collecting words, which he had already collected about twenty thousand. warmly supported Dahl's idea. About the proverbs and sayings collected by Dahl, he responded enthusiastically: “What a luxury, what a sense, what is the use of every saying of ours! What a gold!" paused, and then continued: “Your meeting is not a simple idea, not a hobby. This is a completely new business for us. You can be envied - you have a goal. To accumulate treasures for years and suddenly open chests in front of astonished contemporaries and descendants!

In 1861, for the first editions of the Dictionary, he received the Konstantinovsky medal from the Imperial Geographical Society. Completely "Explanatory Dictionary of the Living Great Russian Language" by V.I. Dahl was published in 1863 - 1866. In 1868, Dahl was elected an honorary member of the Imperial Academy of Sciences and awarded the Lomonosov Prize.

The Explanatory Dictionary of the Living Great Russian Language by Vladimir Ivanovich Dahl is one of the largest dictionaries of the Russian language, containing about 200,000 words and 30,000 proverbs, sayings, riddles and sayings that serve to explain the meaning of the words given.

Editions of Dahl's Explanatory Dictionary:

1st edition of the Society of Lovers of Russian Literature, M., in the printing house of A. Semen, 1863 (vol. 1), in the printing house of the Lazarev Institute of Oriental Languages, 1865 (vols. 2, 3), in the printing house of T. Rees, 1866 (vol. . 4)

2nd, "corrected and significantly increased according to the author's manuscript" "edition of the bookseller-typographer M. O. Volf", St. Petersburg-M., 1880, 1881, 1882, 1882.

3rd, "corrected and significantly enlarged edition, edited by prof. I. A. Baudouin-de-Courtenay”, publication of “suppliers of the Court of HIS IMPERIAL MAJESTY” (as indicated only in vol. 1) of the M. O. Volf partnership, St. Petersburg-M., 1903, 1905, 1907, 1909. In the dictionary was introduced at least 20,000 new words, including vulgar-swear words (in the fourth volume). For his additions, the editor was severely criticized; in Soviet times, Dahl's Baudouin Dictionary was not reprinted.

Reports and messages in the Russian language

To the topic: HISTORY OF THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE RUSSIAN LANGUAGE

"He opened a verbal mine"

First of all, Vladimir Ivanovich Dal entered the history of our culture as the creator of the Explanatory Dictionary of the Living Great Russian Language, which reflected with exceptional completeness the vocabulary of the language of the 19th century. Dahl's work is richer in material than anything that has ever been done by the forces of one person. Without any exaggeration, we can say that Dahl accomplished a feat in science, having created a dictionary in 50 years, the compilation of which would require "a whole academy and a whole century" (Melnikov-Pechersky). But Dahl was still a writer, ethnographer, physician, botanist, geographer, sailor, engineer, and he called himself (in the highest degree modestly) "a student who collected all his life bit by bit what he heard from his teacher, the living Russian language."

"He knows a Russian person," Turgenev said of Dala, "like his own pocket, like the back of his hand."

Everywhere, wherever he went, Dal greedily grabbed words and phrases on the fly, when they fell off the tongue in a simple conversation of people of all classes, all outskirts ... And he collected - 30 thousand proverbs (almost 6 times more than in the then known collection of Knyazhevich), 200 thousand words (83 thousand more than in the newly published Academic Dictionary).

Dahl's dictionary is not only a lexicon, a dictionary, it is a one-of-a-kind encyclopedia of a wide folk life. This is a book to study: it contains such a mass of information from the most diverse areas of life, human activity, everyday life.

Dahl lived for 71 years. Of these, more than 50 years have been devoted to the study of language. The life of this amazing man was not calm. He participated in 2 military campaigns: Turkish and Polish, was an official, an oculist surgeon, a veterinarian, a writer, even the author of the textbooks "Botany" and "Zoology", but most of all he loved the Russian word. In this huge piggy bank he put living Russian words, and with them - proverbs, sayings, songs, fairy tales, legends, beliefs, legends, sayings, fables, even games. Dahl's biography does not fit into any framework, because it resembles a real novel of a traveler and a tireless worker.

From the biography of V. Dahl

Vladimir Ivanovich Dal was born on November 10, 1801 in Russia, in a small town in Ukraine, in Lugan (now the city of Lugansk), in the family of a doctor, a native of Denmark. His father came to Russia at the invitation of Empress Catherine II and accepted Russian citizenship. Love for his second homeland, for Russia, he passed on to his son. Mother - Russified German, daughter of the famous translator and writer M. Freitag. Dahl's parents knew many languages ​​and were educated people. Dahl also received a good education at home. At the age of 13, he was appointed to the Naval Cadet Corps in St. Petersburg, and after 2 years (in 1816) he was promoted to midshipmen. This was his first military rank. At that time, the rank of midshipman was considered an officer's. Among the 12 best young men on the Phoenix brig, together with P. Nakhimov and D. Zavalishin (future Decembrist), he visited his father's homeland, in Denmark (in Copenhagen), but even then he came to the conclusion that he had one homeland - Russia.

In 1818, Dahl was promoted to midshipman. After completing his studies, the young midshipman went to serve in the fleet, in the city of Nikolaev. In the same year, he began to collect words that were later included in his Explanatory Dictionary of the Living Great Russian Language.

The first word

Young Dal graduated from the St. Petersburg Naval Corps and went to serve in the Black Sea Fleet. The sleigh rolled lightly across the snowy field. The wind hummed. The coachman, wrapped in a heavy sheepskin coat, urged the horses on, looking over his shoulder at the rider. He shivered from the cold, turned up his collar, put his hands in the sleeves. The new, brand new midshipman's uniform does not warm well. The coachman jabbed his whip at the sky, boomed, consoling:

Rejuvenates...
- How does it "rejuvenate"?

It's getting cloudy," the coachman briefly explained. - To warmth. Dal pulled out a notebook and a pencil from his pocket, blew on his stiffened fingers and carefully wrote out: “It makes you younger, it makes you younger - otherwise to become cloudy in the Novgorod province means to be covered with clouds, talking about the sky, tending to bad weather.”

This frosty March day turned out to be the main one in Dahl's life. On the road, lost in the Novgorod snows, he made a decision that turned his life upside down. Since then, no matter where fate threw him, he always found time to write down a well-aimed word, expression, song, fairy tale, riddle heard somewhere.

Dal served in the Navy for 7 years (this period was mandatory for graduates of the Naval Corps). All this time he was enthusiastically engaged in literature and collecting words. Having served the due term and received a promotion, Dal served for another year and a half in the Baltic, in Kronstadt, and resigned: he decided to follow in the footsteps of his father and entered the Faculty of Medicine at Dorpat University (Derpt is the former Russian city of Yuryev, now Tartu). Dahl called this period of life "the time of delight." Among the people with whom he communicated in Derpt were the poets N. Yazykov, V. Zhukovsky, the sons of N. Karamzin. In the house of his mentor and friend, professor of surgery A. Moyer, Dahl gathered friends, they thought about the future, read A. Pushkin's poems. In Dorpat, Dal first published his poems in the Slavyanin magazine. Friends remembered him as a witty young man, a brilliant storyteller, a cheerful joker. Studying at the university was interrupted by the outbreak of the Russian-Turkish war. Dahl defended his dissertation ahead of schedule and went to the banks of the Danube, in the thick of hostilities, where he operated on the wounded, fought plague and cholera. Communicating with soldiers gathered from all over Russia, the military doctor Dal did not forget about his hobby - he collected words.

At war. "Golden" camel

Dahl's reserves grew by leaps and bounds. He spent every free minute in the war among the soldiers - soon there were so many notebooks with written words that they did not fit in any suitcase. Dal folded the notebooks into bales and loaded the camel with them. Somehow, after one of the skirmishes with the enemy, the camel ended up in the enemy camp. Dal was very sad: how many of his works were lost with him! Fortunately, a few days later our soldiers recaptured the camel from the enemy and returned it to its owner. The enemy did not covet the Dalev notebooks. Not great value - words! And for Dahl, his records were more valuable than gold.

In the spring of 1831, the corps where Dal served was sent to Poland to suppress the uprising. To cross the Vistula, it was necessary to build a bridge and then immediately destroy it (in order to prevent the enemy from passing through). Then they remembered Dahl's other profession and entrusted him with this operation. For her excellent performance, Dal received the Order of St. Vladimir and a ring with a diamond.

Since 1832, Dahl worked in a military hospital in St. Petersburg, gained fame as an oculist surgeon (he successfully performed operations on the eyes with both his right and left hands).

The beginning of literary activity

The beginning of Dahl's literary activity dates back to 1830. His first story, The Gypsy Woman, was called an "excellent work" by the publisher, but was not noticed by the general public. Dahl's writings appeared under the pseudonym Cossack Lugansk (taken from his place of birth), and Russian Tales brought fame to Cossack Lugansk. Here is the name of this well-known collection: "Russian fairy tales, from folk oral tradition to civil literacy, adapted to everyday experience and embellished with vagabond sayings by Cossack Vladimir Lugansky. The first five."

In these satirical tales, Dahl ridiculed the "court lickers", the stupidity of officials, using well-known folklore stories. The collection was banned and withdrawn from sale - it was regarded as "a mockery of the government." The author of scandalous tales was even taken under arrest in the Third Division, but released on the same day: Emperor Nicholas I remembered Dal's merits in the Polish campaign, and V. Zhukovsky also asked for him. The reading public greeted the fairy tales with delight, there have never been books written in such a rich Russian dialect, with such an abundance of proverbs and sayings. This story brought Dahl fame among writers. However, the fairy tales were republished only after 30 years.

Meetings with A. Pushkin

Fairy tales became the reason for Dahl's acquaintance with Pushkin, it happened in 1832. Dal came to Pushkin with his collection as a writer to a writer. What did Pushkin and Dahl talk about? There is no exact information about this conversation, but it is known that Pushkin liked The First Heel, especially Dahl's language.

In 1833, another memorable meeting between Pushkin and Dahl took place in the Orenburg province. Pushkin followed the paths of Pugachev, collecting materials for The Captain's Daughter. Dahl accompanied him. He recalled the Orenburg years as "a golden time for preparing words." This is not difficult to explain: the region was filled with immigrants and former residents of 20 provinces were gathered in uyezd 1! On the way, Pushkin told Dahl the tale of Georgy the Brave and the Wolf (later Dahl published it), and Dahl, in response, told the story of "The Tale of the Fisherman and the Fish." A month later, Pushkin sent his friend Dahl a manuscript of this tale with the inscription: "Yours from yours! The storyteller Cossack Lugansky - the storyteller Alexander Pushkin."

Once, in January 1837, Pushkin looked in on Dahl, rummaged through his notes with cheerful impatience, loudly rejoiced at every word, amusing expression. Who would have thought? A few days later, Dal was at Moika 12, sitting at the bedside of the poet mortally wounded in a duel, trying to alleviate his suffering, giving medicines, changing compresses, hearing Pushkin's dying words. In memory of Pushkin, Dahl was given a black frock coat shot through in a duel and the poet's ring with a radiant green emerald, his talisman. Dahl often repeated that he took up the dictionary at the insistence of Pushkin.

Life goes on

Dal worked a lot, he is an official for special assignments under the governor of Orenburg. In the Orenburg Territory, Dal organized a zoological museum, collected collections of local flora and fauna, published articles on medicine, wrote textbooks "Botany" and "Zoology" for military educational institutions. In 1838, the Academy elected Dahl as a corresponding member in the department of natural sciences.

Since 1841, Dahl was the head of the office of the Minister of the Interior. Official Dahl was busy with his service. Cossack Lugansk wrote stories. But what about the dictionary? Were the cherished notebooks filled with words? Dahl continued to gather words. It is estimated that with uniform work on the spruce, Dal wrote down 1 word per hour. This is a lot. But while all the words were hidden in his notebooks, Dahl's priceless treasure belonged to him alone. But he wanted to preserve the living language of the people for everyone. Dal called his work "The Explanatory Dictionary of the Living Great Russian Language". He joked: “The dictionary is not called “intelligent” because it could turn out stupid, but because it explains and interprets the words.” The notes in this dictionary are small stories about the life of the people, their labors, about folk customs, beliefs and customs. From these notes, we learn today what kind of houses Russian people built, what clothes they wore, what stoves they folded and how they were heated, how the field was plowed, how bread was harvested, how brides were wooed, how children were taught, how porridge was cooked.

About porridge (from the Dalev Dictionary)

“PORRIDGE,” Dal interprets, “thick food, cereals boiled in water or milk. Steep porridge, buckwheat, millet, spelled, barley, oatmeal, rye ... cooked in a pot and in an oven, baked on top; liquid, gruel; slurry, in density, between steep and gruel" (spelling and punctuation of the 19th century. - Approx. ed.). But porridge is called not only food. This is also an artel, which gathers for common work (artel workers sometimes say: "We are in the same porridge with him"). During the harvest, the peasants help each other, such help is also sometimes called porridge. Finally, we all understand that the proverb himself brewed porridge, he himself also disentangles not about food: here porridge is a mess, turmoil, misunderstanding.

"Man is born to work"

For 50 years, one person has collected more than 200 thousand words in a dictionary of 4 volumes. If these words are simply written out in columns, you will need 450 student notebooks in a ruler. And in Dahl's dictionary, each word is explained, examples are given for each. In addition to constant work with words, Dahl made wooden caskets, carved horned reels for yarn, worked on lathes and locksmiths.

Dal did not differ in an accommodating character, he was an independent person, he never looked for influential patrons. He got up early and immediately set to work. Until noon, Dahl worked on the dictionary without stopping, had lunch at one o'clock and, regardless of the weather, went for a walk. After the rest, he again sat down at the desk, in the evenings he no longer wrote, but only made corrections. At exactly 11 pm he went to bed. Involuntarily, having learned about Dahl's routine, you will remember the proverb: "A man is born to work."

They say that until the last days he made corrections and additions to the dictionary with a goose quill so that the letters were rounder and clearer, while muttering: "And when will there be leisure? And when we will not be." Even before his death, Dahl asked his daughter to write down a new word.

One word of course

When Dahl served as an official in St. Petersburg, the service took him a lot of time, but still he managed to write. One day his story "Vorozheyka" appeared in a magazine. The story was about how a clever fortune-teller robbed a gullible peasant woman and this incident was reported to the authorities. According to Dahl, "that, of course, was the end of the matter." It didn't end. The word, of course, angered the authorities, because it meant that the authorities were always inactive and did not want to understand anything. Dahl's dangerous story was read by the king. The Minister of the Interior called the writer and gave him the words of the king: "To write is not to serve like that, to serve is not to write like that." Dahl had no choice. The service brought income, he had a large family (11 souls!), besides, without a salary, he could not complete work on the dictionary. Dahl had to promise that he would not write stories in the future. That's how much it cost him just one word, of course.

"A proverb is an assistant to all things"

From 1849 to 1859, Dal served as manager of a specific office in Nizhny Novgorod. This city was famous for many things, but one of the most striking events here was the annual fair. This is how Dahl's contemporaries described this fair: "For a month and 10 days, the fair has been moving, buzzing, shimmering with colors. A thin, nosy man, a Nizhny Novgorod official Dal, is walking around the fair. goldfish from the pool. And every day Dahl brings home countless treasures, the only ones for which they don’t take money at the fair - just pick it up. At home, he puts the words on the shelves in his vaults. He rewrites each proverb twice on narrow strips of paper (Dal calls them "Straps"). One "strap" will go as an example for explaining words, the other is pasted into a notebook designed to collect proverbs. There are already 180 such notebooks..."

Dahl took folk proverbs as examples for almost every word in his dictionary. There were also a lot of them - more than 30 thousand. In 1853, Dahl presented his collection Proverbs of the Russian People to the Academy of Sciences. On the title page was the epigraph: "The proverb is not judged." In the preface, the author addressed his readers: "What if every lover of our language, running through my collection at his leisure, made notes, corrections and additions ... and handed them over to the collector - isn't it true that the next edition, if it were needed , could leave the first far behind? Friendly - not heavy, but one and the porridge will perish.

But the censorship opposed the publication of the collection, declaring that it "encroaches on the corruption of morals." "Proverbs of the Russian people" were published only in 1861-1862, after the death of Emperor Nicholas I.

A living word is more precious than a dead letter - Dal loved this proverb and throughout his life he collected words, folk expressions, trying to show the richness of the living language, and through it - to more fully and brighter reveal various aspects of folk life.

"My ship is launched!"

Neither service, nor studies in science and literature could interrupt Dahl's persistent and painstaking work on compiling the Explanatory Dictionary of the Living Great Russian Language. But Dahl could fully devote himself to this main cause of his life only after his retirement. In 1859, due to a conflict with the new minister, he resigned and settled in Moscow, having served the rank of real councilor of state. Here, in Moscow, Dahl completed his great work.

The first volume of the dictionary was published in 1863. Emperor Alexander II took the costs of issuing all the following volumes (there are 4 in total) and granted Dahl a sash.

The last volume of the dictionary appeared in 1866. The Academy of Sciences awarded Dahl the Lomonosov Prize for the dictionary and elected him an honorary member. The Geographical Society awarded the author with the gold Konstantinovsky medal, and the University of Derpt sent a diploma and a prize. Dahl rejoiced: "My ship is launched!" But he did not consider the work on the dictionary finished - in subsequent years he prepared its second edition.

So, the "ship", the "Dictionary of the Living Great Russian Language", went into the Russian voyage, and today already into the world - there is Dahl's dictionary on the Internet.

Two houses-museums of V. Dahl

The memory of Dal is kept in 2 house-museums: one - in which he was born, the other - in which he lived in recent years. The house where Dahl was born is well preserved. It is located in a city that often changed its name: Lugansk - Voroshilovgrad. However, at that distant time (more than 2 centuries ago) the town in Ukraine was called Lugan, and the house at number 12 stood on English Street (then it became known as Young Spartak Street). Today, everyone in the city knows and reveres Dahl. Since 1983 Dalev readings have been regularly held. The local intelligentsia gathers in the literary drawing room of the house-museum. The regional television carries out Dalevsky "Thursdays". In 1981, the country's first monument to Dahl was solemnly opened in the city, and his bust was installed on the territory of the hospital (after all, he was also a wonderful doctor!)

And the house in which Dal lived in recent years stands on Bolshaya Gruzinskaya in Moscow (he lived here for almost 13 years). The house has been updated, restored, and the Dahl Memorial Museum has been opened in it. The old crooked poplar, centuries-old lindens certainly remember this man. They say that in 1941 a Nazi bomb fell in front of the house, but did not explode. When the sappers opened it, instead of a detonator, they found ... a Czech-Russian dictionary. Providence, through the hand of an anti-fascist worker, preserved for us this wonderful house of the great Dahl.

"Reports and messages on the Russian language" V.A. Krutetskaya. Additional materials, useful information, interesting facts. Elementary School.