Died Admiral Alexander Semenovich Shishkov, military and statesman.

"The young men who graduated from our universities are sure that they can do at least two things well: to transform the state system and to reform the Church."

Russian writer, military and statesman. Secretary of State and Minister public education. One of the leading Russian ideologists during the Patriotic War of 1812, a well-known conservative, the initiator of the publication of the protective censorship charter of 1826. President of the Russian Academy, philologist and literary critic. Admiral. (1754-1841).

"... Education should be domestic, not foreign. A learned foreigner can teach us, when necessary, some of his knowledge in the sciences, but he cannot put into our souls the fire of national pride, the fire of love for the fatherland, just like me I cannot put into it my feelings for my mother... Popular education is a very important matter, requiring great foresight and foresight. It does not operate at the present time, but prepares the happiness or misfortune of future times, and calls upon our head either a blessing or an oath of descendants. ."...

A.S. Pushkin about Shishkov:
"This old man is dear to us: he shines among the people,
sacred memory of the twelfth year."

Minister of Public Education (1824-1828)

Shishkov actively opposed the activities of the Ministry of Spiritual Affairs and Public Education, established in 1817, headed by Prince A.N. Golitsyn, as well as the Russian Biblical Society created by the latter. Golitsyn was called one of the culprits of the decline of morality, "rampant freethinking" and anti-Orthodox mysticism in Russia: "it seems as if all schools have turned into schools of debauchery, and whoever comes out of there will immediately show that he has been perverted from the true path and his head is full of emptiness, but the heart is self-love, the first enemy of prudence. In the 1820s, he became one of the main ideologists of the protective movement and the party that began the fight against Golitsyn and which also included A. A. Arakcheev, Metropolitan of St. Petersburg Seraphim (Glagolevsky), Archimandrite Photius (Spassky), M. L. Magnitsky other.

"... The sciences that refine the mind will not constitute the well-being of the people without faith and without morality ... Moreover, the sciences are useful only when, like salt, they are used and taught in moderation, depending on the state of people and according to need, what kind of rank in their excess, as well as their deficiency, are contrary to true enlightenment. To teach literacy to the whole people or a disproportionate number of people would do more harm than good. To instruct an agricultural son in rhetoric would be preparing him to be a thin and useless or even harmful citizen. ."

The protectiveness of the Shishkovsky charter, directed primarily against the spread of revolutionary and mystical ideas, caused such strong discontent in liberal and Masonic circles that the very next year the emperor agreed to the creation of a commission to develop another, milder censorship charter (Shishkov was not included in the commission). The new Censorship Charter was approved on April 22 (May 4), 1828, and on April 23 (May 5), 1828, Shishkov's resignation from the post of Minister of Education followed.

President of the Russian Academy

Shishkov was appointed to this position in May 1813 and held it until his death. In this position, he advocated that the Russian Academy, as opposed to the Academy of Sciences (where foreigners predominated), became the basis for the development domestic sciences and education, the center of Russian spirituality and patriotism.

The personnel policy of Shishkov at the Academy was to gather all nationally minded Russian scientists into it. To the credit of the admiral, he brought to the Russian Academy many people with whom he once argued: active members of the Arzamas circle, M. M. Speransky, etc.

A. S. Shishkov gave great attention development of both Russian and common Slavic philology. Shishkov was one of the first to make an attempt to organize the departments of Slavic studies at Russian universities, to create a Slavic library in St. Petersburg, in which literary monuments would be collected for all Slavic languages and all books on Slavic studies. Under Shishkov, the academy did a lot to educate the province.

After the death of Shishkov in 1841, the Russian Academy became part of the Imperial St. Petersburg Academy of Sciences as a branch.

Our time is defined as the age of information wars. According to their results, these wars sometimes turn out to be much more effective than usual ones: with the help of means of informational, ideological influence, control over entire states, over their politics, economy, without firing a shot, is achieved. social life. An unprecedented information war is being waged against Russia. It is very important to be aware of the origins, direction and means of this war, in which the linguistic component plays a leading role. “If you want to conquer someone, impose your language on him,” this principle, which goes back to the ideas of Nietzsche, lies at the heart of Western geopolitics.

Independence, self-sufficiency, prosperity of the people is largely determined by its attitude to the word, to the native language. Today, speech actions are considered as the main reserve of socio-economic development in a number of leading countries. A typical example is Government program Japan - "The Linguistic Existence of Man and People" Professor Yu.V. Rozhdestvensky in his works "Theory of Rhetoric" and "Principles of Modern Rhetoric" convincingly showed the connection of this national consciousness society, with the impressive success of Japan. Japan not only managed with the help of this program to overcome the consequences of defeat in World War II, but also to create a positive image of the country in the world. In 1958, the US Congress, under the impression Soviet successes in space passes the National Defense Education Act. This law provided for the rhetorical and hermeneutical orientation of language teaching. the main task- teaching persuasive speaking and deep understanding. Readers of speeches that changed the history of America become the main tool for teaching Americanism - the state ideology of the United States. In our country today, the importance of language in strengthening and building the state, in ensuring national security is beginning to be fully realized.

The Government of the Russian Federation is taking active steps to support and preserve the Russian language. It is enough to point to the federal target program "Russian language" and the draft law "On the Russian language as state language in Russian Federation". In addition, the Russian Language Council has been established under the Government of the Russian Federation. The state and society still have to do a lot of meaningful work to implement the plans.

And in this we can be helped by an appeal to the history of our patronymic, the thoughts, words and deeds of the great men of the past, who managed centuries ago to comprehend the spiritual essence of the path of Russia and indicate the means of preserving and original development of the national organism. One of these great men is the writer and statesman, president of the Russian Academy, the famous Russian lexicographer Admiral Alexander Semenovich Shishkov.

His works for the benefit of the Fatherland are exceptionally varied and fruitful. The first half of Shishkov's life was devoted to a greater extent to the naval field. He graduated from the Naval Cadet Corps in 1771, served in the Navy in Arkhangelsk, made a dangerous transition from Kronstadt through the Mediterranean Sea and the Dardanelles to the Black Sea as part of a naval expedition, taught tactics in the Naval Cadet Corps, translated from French Romm's work "Marine art” and compiles “Trilingual Marine Dictionary in English, French and Russian in three parts”. This work of his is “the first dictionary where special terminology was collected and translated”. At the same time, in the 80s, he compiled the "Children's Library", which included partly translations from German, and partly poems and stories of Shishkov himself. “The “Children's Library” at one time received the highest recognition that poetry can receive, many of Shishkov’s poems became nameless, they were rewritten, memorized. In 1790, Shishkov commanded the frigate "Nikolai" during the war with Sweden, and was awarded a golden weapon with the inscription "For Bravery". And at the same time, Shishkov plays a leading role in compiling and editing the first edition of the Dictionary of the Russian Academy). The second half of the 1990s was successful for Alexander Semenovich's scientific and service career. In commemoration of outstanding scientific and literary merits, Shishkov is elected a member of the Russian Academy. He is also promoted to vice admiral and appointed to the Admiralty Board, but soon finds himself in disgrace, he is removed from the court. In 1802, he resigned and devoted himself entirely to literary and scientific pursuits.

Soon his book “Reasoning about the old and new style” will be published. Russian language". At that time, many Russian people looked with alarm at the contempt spreading in high society for everything domestic, at the desire to mindlessly adopt a foreign way of life. The children of the nobles of that time did not know Russian well and, having reached the age of majority, it was not that they could read, they spoke with difficulty. And when they began to speak and write in Russian, the originally used words were replaced with calques - literal translations from French. Simultaneously with the spread of this language, Russia was also flooded with corrupting ideas - deceit, unrighteous trade, cynicism, adultery were publicly praised. The Europeans themselves, who visited Russia at that time, looked at such a spiritual degeneration of the upper classes with surprise. Here is what the Englishwoman Wilmont wrote, who visited St. Petersburg and Moscow in 1805: “The Russians are transferring you to France, not realizing in the least how humiliating this is for their country and for themselves; national music, national dances and the native language - all this fell into disuse only among the serfs.

Alexander Semenovich Shishkov spoke openly and sharply about all this in his “Discourse on the old and new syllable of the Russian language”: “the children of the noblest boyars and nobles of ours from their youngest nails are in the hands of the French, cling to their morals, learn to despise their customs , insensitively receive their whole way of thinking and concepts, speak their language more freely than their own, and even become so infected with addiction to them that they never practice their language, not only are not ashamed not to know it, but still many of them the most shameful of all ignorance, as if by some dignity that adorns them, they boast and magnify ”

Language is considered by him as the basis of national existence. And the breaking of the language inevitably turns into the breaking of everything - life, folk foundations, statehood. “To whom,” wrote Shishkov, “it came. to transfer your head from the fruitful land, your well-organized house to the barren marshy soil? Well, if the Russian people really believe in “the superiority of the modern times of the French”, then, probably, “it would be necessary to take them as a model in working like them in creating their own eloquence and literature, and not in the fact that they found in their language not at all akin to dragging beauty into your language. Shishkov calls to look for the origins of the literary language and literature in their own centuries-old culture.
Borrowing words from another language, in his opinion, is the rejection of one's own view of things, the subordination of one's way of thinking to someone else's.

Of course, Shishkov understood that neither France nor the French language were dangerous in themselves. It was precisely the dominance of neologisms and gallicisms that caused the admiral's anxiety, unnecessarily littering and crowding out Russian speech. In this dominance, Shishkov saw the destructive role of the “new style” both for the worldview of every Russian person and for national identity as a whole. “Instead of depicting our thoughts according to the rules and concepts accepted since ancient times, which have been growing and rooted in our minds for many centuries, we depict them according to the rules and concepts of an alien people,” wrote the author of “Reasoning about the old and new style ...”.
Shishkov, as an astute observer, realized that, simultaneously with the spread of the French language, the Russian people found themselves under the influence of someone else's way of thinking, someone else's way of life, someone else's ideas, often dubious from a moral point of view. Through "adultery novels", which were then translated and printed in large quantities, mendacity, cynicism, adultery, vanity, avarice and other sins began to be praised. Foreign customs gave rise to a large number of new needs in Russian society, without the satisfaction of which people used to get along calmly.

Conversely, such states human soul how meekness, abstinence, tenderness, humility ceased to be adequately reflected in the language. As a result, about two-thirds of the original Russian vocabulary remained unused. Therefore, Shishkov sought to pay attention to the history of the Russian language, to its Church Slavonic origin, to its connection with the proto-language spoken by the first people. According to the author of "Reasoning ...", the spirit of fullness is embodied in the Slavic alphabet itself, that attitude to life, to God and man, which inspired Saints Cyril and Methodius, its creators, lives in its untouched form. Shishkov was sure that the refusal Slavic alphabet means the simultaneous destruction of this ideological completeness. Language for Shishkov is inextricably linked with morality, with the depth of human feelings, with their sincerity. The first most important function of the language, according to A.S. Shishkov, is the construction of a person's worldview.

Shishkov does not agree with the statements of those who believe that the transfers are made from the French language because there are no words in Russian that form these concepts. But are there many such names in our language that the French cannot accurately express? "Darling", "vile", "weather", "perhaps", "complacency", "love of children" and many similar things, to which, of course, there is no equivalent in French; but are their writers less famous because of that? Should our direct and root names be wild to our ears, such as: "love of wisdom", "modelling", "crimson", "lust", "magnificence" and others? The less we use them, the poorer our language will become and the more our ignorance will increase - this is the main idea of the "Discourse on the old and new style."

Shishkov's work caused a sharp backlash"Westerners" of that time, however, he became the basis for the formation of a whole trend in Russian literature, later called "archaists". This direction is associated not only with the names of writers of the older generation - such as Derzhavin, Krylov, Dmitriev, but the work of the so-called young archaists - A.S. Griboedov, Gnedich, Katenin, Kuchelbeker. Tyutchev had much in common with the archaists. The main and still underestimated merit of Shishkov was the preservation of the Church Slavonic heritage as part of the Russian literary language. A.S. Pushkin, who is called the founder of the modern Russian language, in his youth enthusiastically participated in the literary polemic against Shishkov on the side of his Karamzinist opponents. However, in his mature years, he largely reconsiders his position and does a lot to establish the Church Slavonic element as one of the foundations of the language. fiction and, indirectly, the Russian literary language. Shishkov himself highly valued Pushkin for his special purity of language and everlasting clarity. At the suggestion of Admiral Pushkin, he was elected a full member of the Russian Academy.

In 1812, A.S. Shishkov published his famous Discourse on Love for the Fatherland.

“A person who considers himself a citizen of the world,” he writes, “that is, not belonging to any people, does the same, as if he did not recognize his father, mother, clan, or tribe. He, torn out of the race of people, ranks himself with the race of animals. What monster does not love his mother? But the Fatherland is not less to us than the mother? The disgust from this unnatural thought is so great that, no matter how bad morality and shamelessness we put in a person; even if they imagine that there can be such a person who in his depraved soul really harbors hatred for his Fatherland; however, even he would be ashamed to publicly and loudly admit it. How can you not be ashamed? All ages, all peoples, earth and heaven would cry out against him: only hell would applaud him. There is not much in the history of Russian literature of such an inspired hymn to our Fatherland: “What is the Fatherland? The country where we were born, the cradle in which we are nurtured, the nest in which we are warmed and brought up; the air we breathe; the land where the bones of our fathers lie, where we ourselves will lie.” These and similar lines were written immediately before the war of 1812, found a response in the soul of the Russian people, prepared the ideological ground for resistance to foreign invasion and for victory over the enemy, terrible in its strength.

In his Discourse on Love for the Fatherland, Shishkov outlined two more essential functions of language. First, the Russian language is a state-forming element. Secondly, the Russian language serves as a deterrent to any foreign aggression, and therefore ensures national security. According to Shishkov, “the Russian people have always been strong in language and faith; language made him unanimous, faith consubstantial. For two hundred years he groaned under the yoke of the Tatars, but in language and faith he remained indispensable.

The author of "Reasoning ..." drew special attention of the audience to bright episode history of the early seventeenth century. It was the time of the Time of Troubles, when the Poles and Swedes overcame Russia, and it seemed that death was inevitable. Shishkov describes these events as follows: “Moscow opened its gates to the enemy and, under the rule of a foreign hand, oppressed, plundered, torn to pieces, wept inconsolably. Stone walls, fire-breathing loopholes, a dense forest of spears, lightning clouds of swords, not so much from the great forces of the enemy, but from their own disorder, bowed and fell. In a word, everything was overcome; but there was one more stronghold, the strongest of all: there remained ... Hermogenes. It was Patriarch Hermogenes who, at the most difficult moment of the Time of Troubles, personified the unanimity and unity of the Russian people. And with the refusal of the Patriarch to cooperate with enemies and his martyrdom, the construction of a new Russian state begins.

Confirmation of your thoughts on the most important functions national language Shishkov found not only in Russian history. The admiral argued that only faith and language created the Greek state.

In "Reasoning ..." the importance of the Russian language for the defense of the country is very clearly indicated. According to Shishkov, “more than one weapon and the strength of one people is dangerous for another; a secret attempt to deceive minds, enchant hearts, shake the love for one's land and pride in one's name, is a more reliable means than swords and cannons. The means is slow, but sure, and sooner or later, but reaches its goal. Little by little, it imposes moral bonds, in order to later impose real chains, knowing that a prisoner in chains can break them, he can still be proud and afraid of the winner, but the prisoner always remains a prisoner in mind and heart.

Shishkov's warnings have not lost their relevance today; so, in particular, he remarks: “A people who adopt everything from another, his upbringing, his clothes, his customs will follow, such a people destroys itself and loses its dignity; he does not dare to be a master, he is a slave, he wears his shackles, and the shackles are the strongest because he does not disdain them, but honors them with his adornment.

Alexander Semenovich Shishkov, like no one else, was able to feel and recognize the essence of the conspiracy that had developed against Russia.

The existence of such a conspiracy is evidenced by the Marquis de Custine, who can hardly be suspected of any sympathy for our country:
“The permanent conspiracy against Russia dates back to the era of Napoleon. The perspicacious Italian (as Custine calls Bonaparte) saw the danger threatening revolutionary Europe from the growing might of the Russian colossus, and, wishing to weaken the terrible enemy, he resorted to the power of ideas. Taking advantage of his friendship with Emperor Alexander and the latter's innate inclination towards liberal institutions, he sent to Petersburg, under the pretext of wanting to help the young monarch's plans, a whole galaxy of political workers - something like an army in disguise, which was supposed to secretly clear the way for the soldiers. These skillful intriguers were given the task of infiltrating the administration, taking possession in the first place public education and plant ideas in the minds of young people that are contrary to the political creed of the country. Thus, the great commander, the heir to the French Revolution and the enemy of the freedom of the whole world, sowed the seeds of discord and doubt in Russia ... "

In 1812, Shishkov was appointed Secretary of State instead of Speransky. On behalf of Alexander I, he writes government manifestos, orders for the armies, rescripts.

Shishkov addresses the Orthodox heart of Russia, reveals the spiritual essence of the events taking place. One of the most clear examples we find in the text of the manifesto of December 25, 1812: “So, let us recognize God’s providence in this great work. Let us bow down before His holy Throne and, seeing clearly His hand that punished pride and wickedness, instead of vanity and arrogance about our victories, let us learn from this great and terrible example to be meek and humble executors of His laws and will, unlike these defilers of God’s temples who have fallen away from the faith. , our enemies, whose bodies in myriads are lying around as food for dogs and crows.

AT this case Shishkov continues the traditions of Russian military eloquence, for which Orthodox faith, hope in the providence of God has always been the basis of a feeling of love for the Fatherland. According to Shishkov, patriotism is based not on an abstract idea, but on a living rational-heart feeling of connection with the father's house (hence the word "fatherland"). The loss of the earthly homeland can lead to the loss of the heavenly homeland. And vice versa.

“The human soul,” writes Shishkov, “does not suddenly become evil and godless; it becomes so little by little, from examples, from temptations, from the general and long-term developing poison of unbelief and corruption. Who is to blame for all this? Are they French? “Look at their infernal false wisdom written in books, and the debauchery of life ... at the blood shed by them in their own and foreign lands: has it ever been heard that centenary old men and unborn babies are condemned to execution and torment?” "Are the French guilty?" - A.S. Shishkov asks a question. Yes, they are guilty, but they are also victims, and the first victims. Their country, in fact, was the first to be destroyed, and "a Corsican, a man from nowhere, ascended the ruins of it." That is why the Russian army is not fighting against the French people, but against the world evil that struck first France, then Europe, and now rushed to Russia.

Shishkov believes that the first, albeit small, matter, from which the revival of the national spirit will continue, is to limit imaginary needs. “The enemy of the human race and people who consciously and unconsciously serve him, inflate, like soap bubbles, our desires for luxury, for acquisition, for the possession of everything. large quantity of things. The idea of freedom, which has taken possession of the French, makes people unbridled in acquisitiveness and debauchery, teaches them not to put human life in anything. How many Russians have already become slaves to this idea? The beginning of recovery is self-restraint - so Shishkov believes, because the deprivation of wealth will recover with moderation in luxury, will be rewarded with diligence and multiply a hundredfold over time; but damage to morals, the infection of unbelief and wickedness would destroy us irrevocably.

In “Discourse on Love for the Fatherland”, Shishkov’s idea about the inextricable connection between language and the spiritual and moral state of the people is developed: “Language is the soul of the people, a mirror of morality, a true indicator of enlightenment, an incessant preacher of chastity. The people rise, the language rises; well-behaved people, well-behaved language ... Never an atheist can not speak the language of David; the glory of heaven is not revealed to the worm crawling in the earth; never a depraved one can speak the language of Solomon. The light of wisdom does not illuminate the one who is drowning in passions and vices... Where there is no faith in the hearts, there is no piety in the language. Where there is no love for the Fatherland, there the language does not express feelings for the Fatherland. Where the teaching is based on the darkness of false thinking, there the truth will not shine in the language; there, in impudent and ignorant writings, debauchery and falsehood reign. In a word, language is a measure of the mind, soul and properties of the people.

In 1813, Shishkov was appointed president of the Russian Academy, he takes an active part in the work on the second edition of the Dictionary of the Russian Academy. The main thing at this time for him was "root" - writing works about etymology, about the nature and origin of the language. From Shishkov's point of view, the task of the dictionary is not to show what exactly the words mean, but to make explicit the invisible higher reality that they signify.
Belief in the unity of the world created by God inspired Alexander Semenovich Shishkov in his research on corneology. To understand where languages came from, one must also find the first words that the first people spoke. Alexander Semenovich Shishkov, undoubtedly, being a poet, felt that it was the poetic consciousness ancient man gave birth to words. After all, the original and lost purpose of Adam, the ability given to him by God is to give names to the objects of the created world not according to their external signs, but according to their essence, which was revealed to man before the fall. Shishkov proceeds from ideas about the unity of the world. All words in the world must go back to the original divine Word. Can it be found in human languages? This is what Shishkov thinks about, this is what he gives his strength, his soul to.

Despite the difference in languages, they have something in common. And what Shishkov is especially worried about is the common - in words denoting the most important, close and dear to a person concepts - about father, mother, brothers and sisters, or about the elements of the world - about heaven and earth, sun and water, light and darkness, about the seasons... And from here - and the path to the living Source of life - Jesus Christ.

Alexander Semenovich Shishkov, anticipating modern hermeneutical methods for many years, proposes to lay the basis for teaching a perfect oratorical syllable with smart-heart reading into the Holy Scripture, interpretation and understanding of its difficult passages. The spirit and meaning of Shishkov's method lies in the combination of slow reading with feeling and getting used to the text. Here, the feeling of unity and life of the whole does not disappear for a moment, each line of the interpreter is permeated with the pathos of ascent to the heavenly, to the highest, unifying, enlightening and life-giving Truth. And one more important point. Difficult style, saturated with Church Slavonic words and expressions, Shishkov considers as an important means of public education. Difficulty - heaviness is understood by Shishkov as the equivalent of a cross burden: to read (to understand) means to “bear the cross”. This is a conscious work on the language, when the language turns from a means of communication into a means of testing and hardening national character, testing the strength of Faith. In 1824, when Alexander I appointed the admiral as Minister of Public Education and Spiritual Affairs. This decision of the emperor was joyfully welcomed even by the younger literary generation. With the appointment of Shishkov, they pinned hopes for liberation from the domination of strict censorship, which was established by his predecessor, Prince A.N. Golitsyn. A.S. Pushkin reacted to the changes in the Ministry of Public Education with such enthusiastic lines:

Having finally considered good intentions,
Our good king elected an honest minister.
Shishkov has already mastered the sciences of government.
This old man is dear to us ...

Shishkov began his career as minister by reforming censorship. In his opinion, the existing censorship did not cope with its tasks, since there were not enough censors and there were no clear rules by which books could be evaluated. Shishkov emphasized that the new censorship should not take away the freedom of writers to write and reason, but, on the contrary, to support and nourish it, “at the same time blocking the way to the publication of bad, impudent, seductive, ignorant, empty-worded works.” To solve the task, the minister believed to appoint honest, noble and educated people who are able to distinguish between "permissible and impermissible freedom of thought" as censors.

Another direction of Shishkov's activity in the new post was the struggle against the "Golitsyn heritage" in public education. For this purpose, the Bible Society was closed, which, according to the admiral, sought to exterminate orthodoxy and contributed to the emergence of internal unrest. The minister saw his task in protecting Orthodoxy from any manifestations of mysticism and sectarianism.

Shishkov introduced new requirements for students educational institutions. So, these requirements prescribed obedience to superiors, a God-fearing life according to the rules of religion, wearing the prescribed uniform, a ban on participation in secret societies, a ban on leaving university territory without permission. The new educational system, according to the minister, should be based on the following main principles: “folk education throughout our empire, despite the difference in faith, below languages, should be Russian”, “all non-Christian Russian youth should learn our language and know it”. As you can see, Shishkov also acted as Minister of Education based on an understanding of the state-forming and state-saving functions of the national language.

All three functions of the Russian language indicated above allowed Shishkov to realize and embody in his state and literary activity his love for mother tongue. The life and work of the famous admiral and the Minister of Public Education convincingly demonstrate to us that love for the Russian language is able to preserve the state, ensure its prosperity, and for everyone individual person this love becomes a direct path to moral self-improvement.

Love for the native language is manifested through a series of very important features: careful, careful appeal to the word, the fight against idle talk and verbosity, purification everyday speech from vulgar and swear words, as well as from slang. Love for the native language allows you to receive joy from spiritual communication, wisdom from spiritual reasoning, memory from spiritual connection with previous generations.
Traditionally, love for the native language was instilled in the family, passed on from parents to children. But nowadays, when the very institution of the family is subject to serious changes and even destruction, it is clear that it is necessary to throw all the forces and means available for this to protect the Russian language. The first and main role in the preservation of the Russian language now belongs to the education system. According to one of the authors of a modern Orthodox journal, one should study Russian in a “national aspect”, that is, in other words, one should Special attention turn to Russian eloquence, speech etiquette, the connection of language with Russian history. And the art of the modern school and university teacher, we add, should be to find The best way to convey love for the pure Russian literary language to the hearts of his students and to accustom them to the grace of communion with God.

Shishkov's creative legacy has been an arena for a war of ideas for two centuries. The thoughts of the admiral marked the beginning of the ideology of Russian conservatism, contributed to the formation of the Slavophile movement, had a significant influence on K.N. recent decades there are bright, significant articles and books dedicated to Alexander Semenovich Shishkov. Particularly in this regard, it should be noted the book of the famous modern philosopher, writer and film director Vladimir Igorevich Karpets "Husband of the Fatherland" ("Young Guard", 1987), the materials of which are widely used in our article.

Today the lessons of Alexander Semenovich Shishkov, who revealed the deep genetic connection Russian patriotism with Orthodox roots acquire special significance for us. Piety, love for the native language and love for the Fatherland are inseparable.

It is very important now to fully understand the meaning and essence of the ideas of Shishkov, who was many years ahead of his time. His lexicographic work was aimed at forming the unanimity of the people on the basis of the Orthodox and patriotic worldview. This work was not appreciated by contemporaries and immediate descendants. However, Shishkov's works contain a large positive ideological charge and are in demand by our time. One of the clearest confirmations of this is the re-edition of the 6-volume Dictionary of the Russian Academy, carried out by the Moscow Humanitarian Institute named after Ekaterina Dashkova. Scientists have done a great job. Special fonts were cast, detailed linguistic and cultural-historical comments were made. But the main thing is a sympathetic assessment of Shishkov's position in relation to foreign borrowings. Our linguistic situation has much in common with language situations Russia in the late 17th and early 18th centuries. And after the influx of all sorts of foreign words, today we come to the realization that in our own language there are enough resources, and it is quite possible to avoid foreign words. As an instructive example, we can consider the experience of our closest neighbors - the Finns, who follow the path indicated by A.S. Shishkov: all English words, denoting new phenomena in science, technology, economics, everyday life, are translated into their native language, tracing with the help of original Finnish roots.

At present, the task of preserving the Russian word is becoming on a par with the task of preserving the national identity of the Russian people, their spiritual identity and sovereignty, survival in a global information war. And in solving this problem, the ideas of Alexander Semenovich Shishkov, a great zealot of piety, love for the fatherland and native language, a man of light and reason, can be of great help.

SHISKOV Alexander Semenovich was born - a writer.

He received his primary education at home in the spirit of extreme religiosity and official patriotism.

In 1771 he graduated from the Naval Cadet Corps.

Service career Alexander Semenovich began in Arkhangelsk.

In 1776 he escorted Russian ships from Kronstadt to the Black Sea. The journey took three years, during which Shishkov visited Italy, Greece, and Turkey. At the end of the journey, he was promoted to lieutenant and left at the Marine cadet corps. Since that time, he has been intensively engaged in marine science: he translates a French book "Marine Art", composes a trilingual maritime dictionary. At the same time, Shishkov’s literary interests awaken: he translates French melodrama "Blessings Win Hearts" and German "Children's Library" Camp.

The first original work of art by Alexander Semenovich is a play "Slavery"(1780), which glorifies Catherine II, who donated a significant amount of money for the ransom of Christian slaves in Algeria. His rapid rise in service began in the reign of Paul I. He received successively the rank of captain of the first rank, squadron major and adjutant general. In the same period, Shishkov delved into the study of the Church Slavonic language, basing his thoughts on the Russian and Old Church Slavonic languages on the etymological principle, which was subsequently enshrined in his "Experience of word-derivative dictionary..."(1833).

In 1796 Alexander Semenovich became a member of the Russian Academy of Sciences. The results of the writer's philological works are presented in the following books:

"Discourse on the old and new syllable of the Russian language" (1803),

"An addition to the discussion about the old and new syllable of the Russian language" (1804).

In the field of philology, Shishkov was an amateur, but skillfully pursued his reactionary views on the development of the Russian language. He argued that the Russian language is identical to Church Slavonic. Later in the book "Discourse on the Eloquence of Holy Scripture...", he came to the conclusion that the Russian language is the language of secular books, Church Slavonic is the language of spiritual books. His ideas were directed against sentimentalism in the person of its apologists Karamzin and Dmitriev. Shishkov relied on Lomonosov's doctrine of three styles - high, medium and low, arguing that mixing them is inadmissible. Thus, he opposed the rapprochement of the literary language with the spoken language.

In 1803, after the appearance of "Discourse on the old and new syllable of the Russian language," a controversy broke out between the Shishkovists and the Karamzinists. It became especially acute after the creation of the "Conversations of the Lovers of the Russian Word" and the literary society "Arzamas", which defended the Karamzinist line in matters of language and literature.

The reactionary meaning of Shishkov's speech against the poetics of sentimentalism is obvious. In the works of Karamzinists, according to the writer, the foundations of the protective ideology were shaken. For Alexander Semenovich, with his commitment to the autocratic serf state, a person was, first of all, and before all, a person whose interests are entirely subordinated to the interests of the autocratic state. From this point of view, Shishkov was quite satisfied with classicism. Shishkov believed that attention to the inner world of the individual came from France, where a revolution had recently taken place. All his anger he brought down on the imitation of French literature and French, believing that the works of Karamzinists are devoid of national soil and nurtured on foreign soil. In the writer's mouth, indignation at the imitation of the French language and literature had a very definite reactionary meaning. Hence it is clear that the language, style, poetics of sentimentalism could not satisfy the "archaist" Shishkov. Karamzinists tried to bring the Russian colloquial with literary. The poetics of sentimentalism served to express the thoughts and feelings of a private person, his personal hopes and hopes. Shishkov A.S. demonstrated the need for Old Church Slavonic, incomprehensible to the people, but which, in his opinion, contributed to the approval of the high style adopted to express official patriotic feelings. All this did not exclude the justice of many criticisms Shishkov to the sentimentalists (the cultivation of small genres, the sentimental-pastoral coloring of the works of Karamzinists, etc.). This also attracted Krylov, Derzhavin to Shishkov's "Conversation". But the essence of the teachings of Shishkov A.S. was deeply reactive. The literary struggle between the Shishkovites and the Karamzinists had an ideological basis: the dispute was about the anti-humanistic and humanistic development of Russian literature.

Shishkov, in addition to linguistic writings, wrote several children's stories. The works included in it "Collection of children's stories"(1806), have no artistic value due to their rhetorical and didactic nature.

Until 1828, the state activity of Shishkov A.S. did not stop.

He was Secretary of State, President of the Russian Academy, member of the State Council, Minister of Public Education. In these positions he showed himself to be an extreme reactionary.

Died - Petersburg.

Russian writer, state and public figure, Admiral Alexander Semenovich Shishkov was born on March 20 (March 9, old style), 1754 in Moscow. Educated at the Naval Cadet Corps in St. Petersburg, in 1772 he graduated from the corps with the rank of midshipman.

In 1776, on the frigate "Northern Eagle" he made a trip that lasted three years. Upon his return, Shishkov was promoted to lieutenant and from 1779 taught naval tactics at the Naval Cadet Corps, while simultaneously engaging in literary activities, mainly translations. He also compiled an English-French-Russian marine dictionary.

During a long campaign and fulfillment of secret assignments, Shishkov got acquainted with the situation in Italy, Greece and Turkey. It is characteristic that one of these travel impressions was the first impulse of a hostile attitude towards the French, which subsequently colored almost all of Shishkov's literary activity - he saw how several of the newest Greek chapels were disfigured by the inscriptions of the godless French, despite the fact that even the Turks did not disfigure these chapels.

During the Russian-Swedish war of 1788-1790, Shishkov was a participant in the Gogland (1788) and Eland (1789) battles. For participation in the latter, Shishkov was promoted to the rank of captain of the 2nd rank.

In the spring of 1790, Shishkov was appointed commander of the 38-gun rowing frigate St. Nicholas. As part of the squadron "Saint Nicholas" under the command of Shishkov, he participated in the Battle of Krasnogorsk against the Swedish squadron of the Duke of Südermanland. The battle ended with the retreat of the Swedish squadron deep into the Vyborg Bay.

In 1791, he commanded 64 cannon ships "Retvizan", captured from the Swedes during Vyborg battle and included in Russian fleet. In 1796, Shishkov was transferred to the Black Sea Fleet and appointed governor of the office of the head of the Black Sea Fleet and ports, Prince Platon Zubov.

After the coronation of Paul I (1754-1801), Shishkov returned to St. Petersburg.

In 1797, Shishkov was with the emperor as a squadron major. He was with the emperor on board the frigate "Emmanuel" while sailing in the Baltic, and after the campaign he published the Journal of the Campaign of 1797. In July 1797, he was promoted to captain-commander and given the rank of adjutant general.

In 1799, Shishkov was appointed to the honorary position of historiographer of the fleet and soon became vice admiral.

In the reign of Alexander I (1777-1825), Shishkov reacted negatively to the ongoing reforms of the new ruler, as a result of which he fell into disgrace. Retiring from the court, Shishkov devoted himself to scientific and literary activities.

During the years of disgrace, Shishkov finds himself in creativity and social activities. Since 1796, a member of the Russian Academy of Literature, he devotes himself to linguistic work. The Russian Academy, on the initiative of Shishkov, has been publishing “Works and Translations” since 1805, in which he places his original and translated articles, his translation of “The Tale of Igor's Campaign” and its most extensive analysis.

But all this seemed insufficient to Shishkov, and he decided to form a new academy for the training of young writers.

From February 1807, on the initiative of Shishkov, they began to gather literary evenings, which since 1810 became public and received the name "Conversations of lovers of the Russian word", where, in addition to literary problems social and political issues were also discussed. The society published its own "Readings in the Conversation of Lovers of the Russian Word", where Shishkov's works such as "Discourses on the Beauties of Holy Scripture", "Conversations on Literature" and "Addition to Conversations" were published. The activities of "Conversations" continued until 1816.

In 1811, Shishkov wrote Discourse on Love for the Fatherland. His work attracted the attention of Emperor Alexander I, and Shishkov was appointed Secretary of State, replacing Mikhail Speransky in this post. Being with the emperor in the army, Shishkov wrote the most important orders and rescripts. So, he wrote the famous order to the armies and the rescript to Count Nikolai Saltykov on the entry of the French into Russia.

The manifestos written by Shishkov were read throughout Russia. In fact, he fulfilled the role of the main ideologist of the Patriotic War of 1812. His manifestos, being responses to all major events, raised the spirit of the Russian people and supported them in hard days defeats.

When the retreat of the French began, in December 1812, Shishkov followed the emperor to Vilna, where he was awarded the Order of Alexander Nevsky, and in the Highest Rescript it was said: "for exemplary love for the Fatherland."

The emperor's order to write the manifesto was combined with the appointment of Shishkov on April 9 (21), 1812 to the post of state secretary in place of the removed Speransky. From this moment, vigorous activity begins for Shishkov: the emperor takes him with him to Vilna and, being with the army, Shishkov writes all the most important orders and rescripts. So, he wrote the famous order to the armies and a rescript to Count Saltykov on the entry of the enemy into Russia. The words from them made a deep impression on the whole of Russia, and the same feelings were evoked by further orders edited by Shishkov: these were an appeal and a manifesto on the general militia, manifestos and rescripts on the militia, the news of the abandonment of Moscow by Russian troops. Shishkov's patriotic enthusiasm was expressed in angry accusatory speeches against the French, whom he even likened to "the fusion of a tiger with a monkey." When the retreat of the French began, in December Shishkov followed the emperor to Vilna, where he was awarded the Order of Alexander Nevsky, and in the Highest Rescript it was said: "for exemplary love for the fatherland."

In 1813-1814, Shishkov accompanied the Russian army in foreign campaign. In August 1814, he was relieved of the post of Secretary of State for health reasons, but at the same time he was appointed a member of the State Council, as well as President of the Russian Academy of Sciences.

In December 1823, Shishkov was promoted to admiral.

In May 1813 he was appointed President of the Academy of Sciences and held it until his death. In this position, he advocated that the Russian Academy, as opposed to the Academy of Sciences (where foreigners predominated), became the basis for the development of domestic sciences and education, the center of Russian spirituality and patriotism.

AS Shishkov paid great attention to the development of both Russian and Slavic philology. Shishkov was one of the first to make an attempt to organize departments of Slavic studies at Russian universities, to create a Slavic library in St. Petersburg, in which literary monuments in all Slavic languages and all books on Slavic studies would be collected. Under Shishkov, the academy did a lot to educate the province.

After the death of Shishkov in 1841, the Russian Academy became part of the Imperial St. Petersburg Academy of Sciences as a branch.

In May 1824, Alexander Shishkov became Minister of Public Education and Commander-in-Chief of Foreign Religious Affairs. At the very first meeting of the Main Board of Schools, Shishkov said that the ministry should, first of all, protect youth from infection with “falsely wise philosophies, wind-blown dreams, puffy pride and pernicious self-esteem, involving a person in dangerous delusion to think that he is an old man in his youth, and through this makes him a young man in his old age.

In the autumn of 1824, Shishkov presented the emperor with several notes justifying the need to close the Bible Societies. Minister objected to translations of Holy Scripture from Church Slavonic into modern literary language, seeing in this a blasphemous translation of sacred texts from the "language of the church" into the "language of the theatre". He was able to get Metropolitan Filaret's Christian Catechism banned because it was written in literary language and not Church Slavonic. Shishkov also argued for the need to withdraw from circulation and destroy books published by the Bible Society. Through the efforts of Shishkov and his like-minded people, by the end of 1824, the Izvestiya of the society practically stopped its work, the translation of the Bible stopped, and in 1825 the publication of the Bible in Russian was interrupted.

The activity of the Bible Society was finally liquidated in the reign of Nicholas I after the events of December 14, 1825. Shishkov was a member of the Supreme Criminal Court over the Decembrists and, being a merciful man, advocated some mitigation of punishment for them, which, however, was not taken into account.

The consequence of the Decembrist uprising was also that, being clearly under the impression of the uprising, Shishkov achieved the adoption on June 10, 1826 of a new Charter on censorship, which was nicknamed "cast iron" in the liberal environment for its protectiveness. According to this statute, all historical writings, if they turned out to be unfavorable to monarchical rule, any attempts to directly or indirectly justify any state indignations were prohibited, the prohibition of the works of Rousseau, Diderot, Montesquieu, Helvetius and other French "enlighteners" was specifically stipulated. The authors were charged with the duty to derive "saving teachings" from stories about the revolution and to reveal a favorable disposition towards monarchical rule.

In June 1826, through the efforts of Shishkov, a new charter on censorship (“cast iron”) was adopted, according to which all historical writings were prohibited if they contained an “unfavorable disposition” to monarchical rule.

In 1828, Shishkov was dismissed from the post of minister "due to old age and poor health", but retained the positions of a member of the State Council and president of the Russian Academy.

The beginning of Shishkov's literary studies dates back to the end of the 1770s. In part, these classes were connected with Shishkov's pedagogical service, when he translated the French Naval Tactics and compiled a trilingual English-French-Russian marine dictionary.

At the same time, Shishkov developed an independent interest in literature. The beginning of this interest was the translation of the French melodrama “Blessings win hearts” by Shishkov and the German “Children's Library” by I.K. Campe. The "Children's Library", which consisted of moralizing stories for children, was a great success, being reprinted until the 1830s (that is, for 50 years). For a long time, noble children were taught to read and write on it.

Alexander Semenych Shishkov, no doubt, rendered a great service by translating this book, which, despite the outdated language and moralizing techniques, still remains the best children's book. She had many publications; the first one seems to have been made in 1792.
- S. T. Aksakov. "Childhood of Bagrov-grandson".

The initial period of Shishkov’s literary activity also includes a small independent play “Slavery”, written by him in 1780 to glorify Empress Catherine, who donated a significant amount of money to ransom Christian slaves in Algeria.

Being removed from the court, Shishkov again switched to literary pursuits which took on a slightly different character. He delved into the study of the Church Slavonic language, and was guided by the dominant etymological trend at that time. In 1800 Shishkov became an honorary member Imperial Academy Sciences.

After moving away from public affairs, linguistic studies turned into a tool for a kind of nationalist journalism for him. He was dissatisfied with all sorts of innovations, caring, as a member of the Russian Academy, about maintaining the purity of the Russian language. Shishkov decided to speak out against literary innovations, and at the same time against the source of these innovations, against imitation of the French.

Shishkov's literary activity played a well-known role in the creation of the high civic style of Decembrist poetry (F. N. Glinka, V. K. Kyuchelbeker and others), and his linguistic ideas had some influence on the work of A. S. Griboedov and.

Alexander Shishkov died on April 21 (April 9 according to the old style), 1841 in St. Petersburg.

9.4.1841 (22.4). - Admiral Alexander Semenovich Shishkov, military and statesman, died.

Portrait of A.S. Shishkov by George Dow. State Hermitage Museum (St. Petersburg)

Alexander Semyonovich Shishkov (03/09/1754–04/09/1841) - admiral, writer, philologist One of the leading Russian ideologists of the times, a well-known conservative, the initiator of the publication of the protective censorship charter of 1826. In the public service - State Secretary and Minister of Public Education. President of the Russian Literary Academy.

Born in the family of lieutenant engineer Semyon Nikiforovich Shishkov and his wife Praskovya Nikolaevna. There were four more sons in the family. His family originated from Mikula Vasilyevich, nicknamed Shishko or Shishka, the great-grandson of Yuri Lozinich, who arrived in 1425 to serve the Grand Duke of Tver Ivan Mikhailovich from Western Russian lands. The Shishkovs were small landowners, owning a small village near the town of Kashin.

Alexander was educated at home and was brought up in the spirit of Russian patriarchy, his worldview was formed under the influence of Orthodox literature. Love for the church language later became for him the basis of the struggle for the purity of the modern Russian language.

In 1766, Shishkov entered the Naval Cadet Corps, in 1769 he was promoted to midshipman and began to go on training voyages. In 1771, he survived an unsuccessful voyage from Arkhangelsk to St. Petersburg, the ship was wrecked off the island of Bornholm, and the surviving sailors stayed in Sweden for some time.

In March 1772, Shishkov was promoted to midshipman. After graduating from the Naval Cadet Corps, he received an offer to remain in it as a teacher, which he later combined with swimming as first an officer and then commander of warships. Shishkov (since May 1777 with the rank of lieutenant) participated in long campaigns in the Mediterranean on secret missions, where he got acquainted with the situation in Italy, Greece and Turkey. During this time, he compiled a "Trilingual Marine Dictionary in English, French and Russian in three parts".

Shishkov's pedagogical work was interrupted, in which he was a participant in the Gogland (July 1788) and Eland (July 1789) battles. For participation in the latter, Shishkov was promoted to the rank of captain of the 2nd rank. In the spring of 1790, Shishkov was appointed commander of the newly built 38-gun rowing frigate St. Nicholas. As part of the squadron, this ship of Shishkov participated in the Battle of Krasnogorsk (May 1790) against the Swedish squadron, which was forced to retreat deep into the Vyborg Bay. He also participated in the Revel (May 1790) and Vyborg (June 1790) battles, from May 1790 as a flag officer of the fleet commander, Admiral V.Ya. Chichagov. Having distinguished himself in the last of these battles, Shishkov was sent to with a message of success, the Empress awarded Shishkov with a golden saber with the inscription "For Courage" and a golden snuff-box strewn with diamonds.

After graduation Russian-Swedish war Shishkov returned to scientific studies in maritime affairs and service in the Naval Cadet Corps. In 1793, Shishkov published a translation from the French of Sh. Romm's book Naval Art, or the Main Principles and Rules Teaching the Art of Building, Arming, Governing and Driving Ships. Shishkov brought this book to the then-occupied position of Admiral General, and gained his favor.

In 1796, Shishkov was transferred to and was appointed governor of the chief's office. Black Sea Fleet and ports of Prince P.A. Zubov. Upon accession to the throne, Emperor Pavel immediately returned Shishkov to St. Petersburg and promoted him to captain of the 1st rank, and later granted him 250 souls of peasants in Kashinsky district. Shishkov was appointed to be with the person of the Emperor as a squadron major of His Majesty. In this position, he was with the Emperor on board the frigate "Emmanuel" during the naval campaign organized by Paul in 1797 with the aim of personally checking the case Baltic Fleet. In July 1797, Shishkov was promoted to captain-commander and awarded the rank of adjutant general.

At the end of 1797, Shishkov, on the instructions of the Emperor, was sent on a business trip abroad with the aim of recruiting sailors and officers into the Russian fleet, the results of which were unsatisfactory. Despite this, upon his return to Russia, he was promoted to rear admiral and appointed to attend the Admiralty College. In February 1799, Shishkov was appointed to the honorary position of fleet historiographer, which he took in view of a large number written by that time works on the history of Russian naval art. In May 1799, Shishkov became vice admiral. During the reign of Paul I, Shishkov was awarded the Order St. Anne 2nd class in 1797 and 1st class in 1799

By this time, Shishkov was carried away by philological work at the Russian Literary Academy, of which he was elected a member in December 1796, continuing to serve as vice president of the Admiralty College.

The assassination of Paul I, disagreement with some decisions and Admiral P.V. Chichagov, prompted Shishkov in 1807 to move away from active state activity and completely surrender to the activities of social and philological works. Shishkov paid great attention to the guardianship of young writers and the protection of the Russian language from foreign influences. On his initiative, in 1807, private meetings of writers began, which became public in 1810 under the name "Conversations of lovers of the Russian word." Their goal was to strengthen patriotism in Russian society with the help of the Russian language and literature. In 1811, Shishkov’s Discourse on Love for the Fatherland was read in the Conversation, which stated:

“Education should be domestic, not foreign. A learned stranger can teach us, when necessary, some of his knowledge in the sciences, but he cannot put into our souls the fire of national pride, the fire of love for the fatherland, just as I cannot put into him my feelings for my mother ... National education There is a very important matter that requires great foresight and foresight. It does not operate at the present time, but prepares the happiness or misfortune of future times, and calls on our head either a blessing or an oath of descendants.

In April 1812, Emperor Alexander I, having read "Discourse on the love of the fatherland", decided to return Shishkov to state affairs: “I read your reasoning about love for the fatherland. Having such feelings, you can be useful to him. It seems that we will not do without a war with the French, we need to make a recruiting set; I would like you to write a manifesto about it.”

Shishkov was appointed to the post of Secretary of State in place of the removed Speransky. From this moment, vigorous activity begins for Shishkov: the Emperor takes him with him to Vilna and, being with the army, Shishkov writes all the most important orders. So, he wrote the famous order to the armies and a rescript to Count Saltykov on the entry of the enemy into Russia. The words from them made a deep impression on the whole of Russia, and the same feelings were evoked by further orders edited by Shishkov: these were an appeal and a manifesto on the general militia, manifestos and rescripts on the militias, news of. When the retreat of the French began, in December Shishkov followed the Emperor to Vilna, where he was awarded the order "for exemplary love for the fatherland."

In 1813, Shishkov accompanied the army on a foreign campaign. In August 1814, the Emperor dismissed Shishkov from the post of Secretary of State "for health reasons." Almost all of Shishkov's activities as Secretary of State took place at the main apartment in the army, as a result of which he rather played the role of the Emperor's secretary than the head of the State Chancellery.

Simultaneously with his resignation from the post of Secretary of State, Shishkov was appointed a member of the State Council. In his new capacity, Shishkov stubbornly pursued his conservative-patriotic convictions: he presented a plan for a new censorship device, criticized M.M. Speransky draft of the Civil Code. February 8, 1824 Shishkov was promoted to the rank of full admiral.

In the 1820s Admiral Shishkov became one of the main ideologists of the protective movement, which began the fight against Golitsyn and which also included A.A. Arakcheev, Metropolitan of St. Petersburg Seraphim (Glagolevsky), Archimandrite Fotiy (Spassky), Simbirsk governor and trustee of the Kazan educational district M.L. Magnitsky and others.

They managed to achieve the resignation of Golitsyn. On May 15, 1824, Shishkov was appointed to the post of Minister of Public Education and Chief Executive of the Affairs of Foreign Religions. Ten days later, he presented a report on the eradication of secret sedition by tightening censorship, generally approved by the Emperor. At the very first meeting of the Main Board of Schools, Shishkov said that the ministry should, first of all, protect the youth from infection with “falsely wise philosophies, wind-blown dreams, puffy pride and pernicious self-love ... Science that refines the mind will not, without faith and without morality, bring about the well-being of the people ... Beyond Moreover, the sciences are useful only when, like salt, they are used and taught in moderation, depending on the state of people and according to the need, what any rank in them has. Their excess, as well as their deficiency, are contrary to true enlightenment. To teach literacy to the whole people or a disproportionate number of people would do more harm than good. To instruct an agricultural son in rhetoric would be to prepare him to be a thin and useless or even harmful citizen. On this principle, Shishkov's ministry prepared the Charter of gymnasiums and district and parish schools, finally approved on December 8, 1828. In contrast, the new charter was based on the idea of estate education. (Of course, this did not mean a ban on receiving higher education and scientific career capable peasant children, of which there are many examples. Shishkov's goal was not "obscurantist" ("to prevent the broad masses from being educated," as Soviet propagandists put it), but purely pragmatic. It was assumed that each type of school would be adapted to the specific needs of certain sections of the people and would provide knowledge that was useful to them.)

Shishkovav was also worried about foreign innovative interference in the affairs of the faith. In the autumn of 1824, he presented the Emperor with several notes justifying the need to close the Bible Societies. He objected to the translations of Holy Scripture from Church Slavonic into the modern literary language, which reduced their high style to the level of the "language of the theatre." Through the efforts of Shishkov and his like-minded people in 1825, the publication of the Bible in modern Russian was interrupted. The activity of the Bible Society was finally liquidated in the reign after. Shishkov was a member of the Supreme Criminal Court over the Decembrists and, being a merciful man, advocated some mitigation of punishment for them, which, however, was not taken into account.

The consequence of the Decembrist uprising was also that, being clearly under the impression of the uprising, Shishkov achieved the adoption in June 1826 of a new Charter on censorship. All historical writings were banned if they were critical of the monarchy, any attempts to justify anti-state actions were prohibited, and the free-thinking writings of Rousseau, Diderot, Montesquieu, Helvetius and other French "enlighteners" were specifically prohibited.

The protectiveness of the Shishkov charter, directed primarily against the spread of revolutionary and mystical ideas, caused such strong discontent in liberal circles that the very next year Emperor Nicholas I agreed to the creation of a commission to develop a softer censorship charter (Shishkov was not included in the commission). The new Charter on Censorship was approved in April 1828, at the same time Shishkov resigned from the post of Minister of Education "due to old age and poor health" (the admiral was already 74 years old), while retaining the position of member of the State Council and president of the Russian Academy.

Shishkov was appointed to this position in May 1813 and held it until his death. He advocated that the Russian Academy, in contrast (where it was strongly foreign influence), became the basis for the development of domestic sciences and education, the center of Russian spirituality and patriotism. Shishkov's personnel policy at the Academy was to gather all nationally minded Russian scientists into it.

Shishkov paid great attention to the development of both Russian and Slavic philology. He was one of the first to make an attempt to organize departments of Slavic studies at Russian universities, to create a Slavic library in St. Petersburg, in which literary monuments in all Slavic languages and all books on Slavic studies would be collected. Under Shishkov, the academy did a lot to educate the province. After the death of Shishkov in 1841, the Russian Academy became part of the Imperial St. Petersburg Academy of Sciences as a branch.

Special mention should be made of the publishing and literary activities of Shishkov, which began already in the late 1770s. In part, these classes were connected with Shishkov's pedagogical service, when he translated the French Naval Tactics and compiled a marine dictionary. Then Shishkov took up translations, mainly of children's literature, and literary criticism. In his famous "Reasoning about the old and new syllable of the Russian language" (St. Petersburg, 1803), Shishkov writes:

"What knowledge can we have in natural language in their own way, when the children of our noblest boyars and nobles from their youngest nails are in the hands of the French, cling to their customs, learn to despise their customs, insensitively receive their whole way of thinking and concepts, speak their language more freely than their own, and even to the point of they are infected with a predilection for them, not only in their language they never practice, not only are they not ashamed not to know it, but still many of them, with their most shameful ignorance of all, seem to boast and magnify themselves with some dignity that adorns them. Having been brought up in this way, they hardly learn to explain themselves by the force of the necessary hearsay in that popular language that is common in general conversations; but how can they draw art and information from a bookish or learned language so far removed from this simple thought of their communication? To know the richness, abundance, strength and beauty of one's language, one must read books published in it, and especially those written by excellent writers.

“Many indigenous and very significant Russian words others have fallen completely into oblivion; others, despite the richness of their meaning, have become strange and wild to ears unaccustomed to them; still others have completely changed their meaning and are not used in the senses in which they were first used. So, on the one hand, absurd news is introduced into our language, and on the other, concepts that have long been accepted and approved for many centuries are exterminated and forgotten: in this way our literature flourishes and the pleasantness of the syllable is formed, called by the French élégance!

Pointing out in the "Addendum to the Discourse on the Old and New Syllabary of the Russian Language" (St. Petersburg, 1804) various errors of contemporary writers, Shishkov published in 1810 the discourse "On the Eloquence of Holy Scripture", defending the Church Slavonic language as an integral, stylistically the elevated part of the Russian.

“From where,” he asked, “was born this unfounded idea that the Slavic and Russian languages are different from each other? If we take the word "language" in the sense of an adverb or a syllable, then, of course, we can assert this difference; but we will find not one such difference, many: in every century or half a century, some changes in dialects are noted ... What is the Russian language apart from the Slavic?

Shishkov considers the Church Slavonic language the language of spiritual books, and Russian is appropriate in secular books; this is the whole difference between them, and therefore it is impossible to separate them in the way that new writers do. Through the Minister of Public Education, Shishkov presented his "Discourse on the Old and New Style" to the Sovereign and received his approval.

Somewhat controversial philological work of Shishkov is considered the unpublished "Slavonic Russian Korneslov", which has the subtitle: "Our language is the tree of life on earth and the father of other dialects." The book is devoted to substantiating the role of the Russian language as a world parent language: “Foreign interpreters, in order to find the original thought in the words they use, should resort to our language: it contains the key to explaining and resolving many doubts, which they will search in vain in their languages. We ourselves, in many of the words we use, revered as foreign, would see that they are only foreign in the end, but our own in the root. However, this hypothesis of Shishkov did not find support among a wide range of representatives. linguistic science, which, however, is also engaged in the study of the origin of languages from a common proto-language, and in this respect the direction of Shishkov's research was justified. Especially considering that the Slavs, as descendants of Japheth, are ancient people Europe.