B. A. Larin as researcher in bilingual lexicography of 16th-17th-сentury Muscovite Rus’ epoch

Abstract

The contribution of B. A. Larin to the formation of a new lexicographic tradition in Russian science associated with the study of bilingual lexicons of the epoch of Moscovite Rus’ is analyzed. The events from the history of Soviet philology of the 1930s–1940s are commented on. The name of B. A. Larin is introduced into the context of contradictory phenomena in the public life of the country and the struggle against “cosmopolitans”. Attention is drawn to the originality of the scientist’s approach to the formulation and solution of the problem of understanding and introducing into research practice unique textual monuments compiled by foreigners. B. A. Larin’s painstaking work on deciphering and linguistic commenting of dictionary texts is noted. It is emphasized that for the first time in the philological tradition, Russian-foreign phrasebooks and dictionaries have become the object of attention of scientists as a linguistic and cultural phenomenon, which made it possible to give objective information about the features of everyday speech of different social strata of the population of Moscovite Rus’ in the 16th and 17th centuries. It is said about the prospects of this direction and subsequent developments in the study of dictionary bilingualism in domestic and foreign science. The role of the Larin school in the continuation of the historical and linguistic traditions of I. I. Sreznevsky, A. A. Shakhmatov, L. V. Shcherba is highlighted. The papers concludes on the originality of B. A. Larin’s ideas and their scientific value in modern lexicographic theory and practice.