“Laugh, clown, but don’t you dare cry!...”

Abstract

The article examines the semantic history of linguistic units related to the nomination of persons in theatrical terminology. The subject of the study is the words actor, clown, buffoon, gaer, nominating “comic and funny” images. The article identifies a common source of the listed gallicisms, continuity in the definition of lexemes and stylistic markings of the units. We analyze the lexical role of foreign words, based on A. Pushkin’s texts, since of interest is a significant number of the units characterizing “actors” that were borrowed in the 17th–18th centuries; thus, we consider their connection with the etymology of these words and with their French prototypes. The Imperial Theater, created in 1756, caused significant changes in the cultural life of Russia, adapting foreign language terminology to new realities in the country. At the same time, this process is connected with events and with people, and in the 18th-19th centuries, on the same stage, you could see a French actress and a serf peasant’s daughter along with the son of a Kostroma merchant; there were Russian original musicians, Italian and French-speaking composers and conductors. The theater of the 18th-19th centuries was a combination of Western European and Russian art, acquiring the experience of foreign artists, adopting a foreign language without losing its original character, at the same time Russifying the foreign language vocabulary of dramatic art.