Writers, cultural and scientific figures, politicians, as well as many other educated people of the XVIII century tried to contribute to the development of the Russian literary language. The Russian literary language in the 70s and 80s of the XVIII century did not have a strictly defined program and development strategy, since the theory of three styles had lost its primacy by this time, and no other new theory was proposed. Some views on the further development of the Russian language were expressed in literary works by many writers who considered it their public duty to take care of the language. The problems of the functioning of borrowings and Church Slavonisms, the official language and style of secular salons, the struggle for the purity of the Russian language and for the "simple syllable" in general became the main ones in the literary language of that time. All this was reflected, as in a mirror, in the magazine "Interlocutor of lovers of the Russian word, containing various works in verse and prose by Russian writers" (1783-1784), which became an important witness in understanding the process of formation of the Russian literary language of the XVIII century. Separately, I would like to note the language controversy that arose around the figure of "Lyuboslov" (this name was signed by some articles, the author of which spoke as "an impartial lover of the beauty of the Russian word").

The personality of Lyuboslov is still controversial and remains a mystery.-

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It was not possible to find out who was hiding under this name and who was the author of the XIII article in the second part and the XV - in the seventh part of the "Interlocutor..." and the names of many writers who took part in the work of the "Interlocutor..." and entered into disputes with Lyuboslov. Neither the letters nor the notes of that time, studied by scientists, did not lead to any real result.

In his first article (Sobesednik... SPb., 1783, Part II), Lyuboslov analyzed most of the works published at the beginning of the journal and revealed a lot of grammatical errors. One of the criticized authors (presumably Catherine II) responded to his speech and pointed out to Lyuboslov that he, without paying attention to the content of articles, corrects only minor errors that do not affect the perception of the main idea of the work, since "honest rules, sound judgment and a pleasant joke are preferred to pedantry." Pedant. This is what "nickname" was awarded to Lyuboslov, just strictly following the letter of the grammatical law.

And after Catherine (?) many writers began to send their "answers to G. Lyuboslov": Fonvizin, Derzhavin and Kapnist. Some authors did not fail to mention in their articles his increased fascination with "unimportant errors", and some, after reading an appeal to readers, declared that "by those who cannot write, I do not mean those who do not know how to put letters, but those very boring Philologists who like to write words without things...". in general, everyone tried to "prick" him in their own way.

Lyuboslov sincerely believed that "an impartial lover of the beauty of the Russian word" would agree with him: it is necessary to write according to the rules of the Russian language. And already at the end of the first article, anticipating criticism in his address, he noted that these amendments are not "a dream of vanity - no - they are based on rules acquired by careful observation and insightful research of the transfigurer of the Russian language." Overall, most of the errors were so minor that any other reader would not have noticed them. For example, in Derzhavin's poem Lyuboslov pointed out that in the phrase " You write teachings in fairy tales. Write takes the accusative case, not the genitive, " and offers its own version. "You write the idea of the teachings in fairy tales." This edit is more common than others. Apparently, the authors of many articles clearly had problems with the use of cases. Grammatical errors that Lyuboslov identified were associated not only with cases, but also with the incorrect use of the word in general, with the construction of the sentence. He also noted a number of stylistic errors, and identified some speech errors.

Although in the case of Derzhavin Lyuboslov noticed: "An unbiased lover of thoughts and words cannot but stop paying attention to these unimportant mistakes. However, I have a deep respect for the pre --

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to the red compositions of this remarkable poet." This "wonderful poet" was still extremely dissatisfied and wrote in response that his critic " ... did not find anything worthy... except for such unimportant errors that the most knowledgeable person listens to the most important subjects of his composition...". Such a reaction was typical for most writers. Perhaps the current language situation played a role: writers actively mastered the conversational element, which was reflected in the language of the " Interlocutor...".

Elements of colloquial speech are also often found in high style, since it was in the second half of the XVIII century that the process of formation of a new Russian literary language based on colloquial speech began. Therefore, most of all the stylistic and speech errors that Lyuboslov found were related to this phenomenon. But even if this was not the case, and writers did make mistakes, they were in no hurry to justify themselves. Following the tradition of classicism, and then the Enlightenment, the primacy was given to content, not form. The ideas that were expressed in the work were superior to the presentation, since language served as a means of transmitting the author's thoughts. The aesthetic side of it became important for the majority only when it was directly connected with social problems (for example, the problem of language borrowing). Mistakes in the writer's environment were considered only small errors that do not affect the overall meaning in any way. Catherine II in" Bylyakh I fabylitsy "answered about criticism in her address:" Only grammatical critics on I, on s, on I, on e, on oi are boring, especially to us ungrammatical people... And I have not read the grammatical corrections, and I am not corrected by them at all. We can hope that our sinful cases will not harm anyone" (Catherine II. Essays, Moscow, 1990).

The content of the work was also of great importance for Lyuboslov. But he wanted to show "gallomaniacs" and "lovers of everything foreign" the beauty and richness of the Russian language (after all, this was the goal set by publishers and writers who appeared in Sobesednik...), accurately and strictly following its rules.

Lyuboslov's second article was devoted to general problems of language. It consisted of "Letters" and "Writing about Russian works and the Russian language". The "inscription" became a kind of manifesto, reflecting his linguistic views. At the beginning of the article, Lyuboslov formulates his principles on the basis of practical advice given to him earlier: "First, so that all periods are based on grammatical rules for clear understanding; second, so as not to lose the dignity of the substance described; third, so as not to violate the properties of their language." He also talked about how to write, and noted that " in general, you need to make an effort both about words and thoughts; but about the latter more than about the former. For how much worse is the shadow than the body..."

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Like many other authors, he spoke about the harm of only beautiful, ornate words, in which no meaning is laid: "Some ringing and beautiful words that do not contain good thoughts, excite the attention of only small souls with their pomp... so many, abandoning mental objects, strive for sensual and imagination-caressing shadows." At the same time, some participants of the " Interlocutor..."they criticized him precisely for this error ("I mean by those who cannot write... those boring philologists who like to write words without things").

The main part of the article talks about the advantage of the Russian language over foreign ones, that when writing their works, Russian writers should first of all focus on their natural language, which is quite rich and beautiful, and if the writers do not manage to properly express their thoughts in Russian, then this is not the case."It is the lack of knowledge of the Russian language, but in the ignorance of its people, since everyone should understand that" the contentment of the Russian word should be compared with the estate of a very rich person who has received a great treasure by inheritance and added a lot to himself." And to prove that " Russian language... it is not inferior to any European language, but also surpasses many", Lyuboslov argued that the "Slavonic language" (and, in his opinion, it was from him and from ancient Greek that Russian originated) is as ancient as Latin. (Despite the fact that Luboslov mentions the "ancient Slavonic" language, he still, like his contemporaries, does not distinguish between Proto-Slavic and Old Slavonic languages.)

Lyuboslov based his theory on the proof of four propositions. First, if two languages have a large number of similar "root words", it means " they both came from the same source; but the length of time and many peoples have differed in changes: therefore, both are almost of the same antiquity." Implementing this statement in practice, he considered words from Russian and Latin that are similar in meaning, highlighting their graphic similarity, for example, agnus - lamb, culeus-kul, domus-house, gleha-block, ignus-fire, mus-mouse, pains-stick. Further, he argued on the basis of this comparison that, since these words "should have begun cooperatively with the beginning of the Slavonic and Latin people," the language of "Slavonic" and Latin "is almost of the same antiquity."

Secondly, " whether similar root words in one language have a certain signification, similar to the nature of the things signified, which is not found in the other; and whether there are more combined and derived ones from the first: therefore they will be directly indigenous in the first, and in the other closer to the derivatives." Based on this position, he concludes that the Slavic language is older than Latin, since many words, for example, corhis - box: cofta - bone, rib; meta - meta, "have

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Slavonic has a similar denominator in nature, which Latin does not have, and more Slavonic derivatives than Latin has."

Third, if in one language "root words" have "but the endings and many syllables are similar to derivatives, and the root is found in another, then it is very likely that they come from this." Using this statement, Lyuboslov argued that some Latin words were derived from Slavonic: "donee (donele) from do and nele; folidus (solid) from co and cast, fuadeo (advise) from co and vet".

On the fourth point, he gave an example of words that in Latin have only "diminutive forms", and complete-are absent:/m//m / a, graculus, nebula, oculus; in the Slavic language there are also full forms of these words. And if so ,then " the Slavic language's antiquity is not only equal to the antiquity of Latin, but for the obvious signs shown, it hardly exceeds anything. In this argument, the beginning of the Slavic language extends beyond two thousand years."

Such a concept, which at first glance may seem not only unusual, but also somewhat strained, oddly enough, leads us to the language program of classicism.

Indeed, it is in the classical era that scholars begin to contrast the richness of ancient languages with the poverty of new ones. Russian scientists adopted this idea from French theorists, while they also included Church Slavonic among the ancient languages, proving the importance of the great heritage that it and Latin received from the Greek language. Accordingly, the Russian literary language ("Slavenorossiysky"), as the successor of Church Slavonic, which inherited its abundance and wealth, becomes on a par with the classical languages and is opposed to the new poor languages, in particular, French. This idea of the antiquity of the Russian language was analyzed by V. K. Trediakovsky and M. V. Lomonosov, who considered Church Slavonic and Russian as inherently unified languages and, while classifying the Russian literary language as "ancient", attributed to it all the abundance that is characteristic of ancient languages. Such a scheme, according to which verbal abundance passed from Greek to Church Slavonic, and from Church Slavonic to Russian literary language, was widely known to science in the XVIII century. Therefore, there is nothing surprising in the fact that the article of Lyuboslov puts forward a theory about the richness of the Russian language, which is not inferior in anything to Latin, because, like Latin, Russian is related to Greek.

But where did the theory that the "Slavonic" language (even if we mean the proto-Slavic language) is older than Latin come from? After all, the same Lomonosov, although he wrote about the antiquity of the Russian people and the Russian language, said that during the reign of the Latin language, "Slavic" had not yet reached the peak of its development. Liu-

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boslov, as an intelligent and educated man, knew Lomonosov's works well, he clearly focused on the grammar of the great scientist when he "corrected" the cases in the first article (after all, he spoke about Lomonosov at the end of the article, explaining that he makes edits based on the rules " acquired by careful observation and insightful research of the transfigurer of the Russian word"). Oddly enough, but perhaps it was one of the works of Lomonosov that led the Scholar to think about such a great antiquity of the Slavic language.

In his arguments, Lyuboslov wrote, proving to foreigners and his compatriots who are passionate about foreign languages, that the Slavonic language is more than two thousand years old and that it is older than Latin. Lomonosov in his "Remarks on the dissertation of G.-F. Miller" The Origin of the name and people of Russia" "proved to a foreigner that the Russian people have deep historical roots (descended from the people of Roksolana), so the language "Slavensky" had to spread over a huge territory, and for this it took time, so the language " itself it has been standing by itself since the most ancient times, and numerous Slavonic peoples spoke the Slavonic language even before the birth of Christ" (Lomonosov M. V. Complete Works, Moscow-L., 1952, Vol. VI). Lyuboslov decided to go further than his teacher and put forward the statement that not only did the "Slavonic" language exist before the birth of Christ,but it was older than Latin and functioned so actively that many Latin words were taken from it. Perhaps the reason for such a bold statement is the current social situation.

Lyuboslov, following Lomonosov, criticized the attitude of modern society towards the Russian language and the servile worship of the French language, which led to a loss of faith in their people, in their country, to a loss of cohesion, and therefore the strength of the state. The circumstances in which Lomonosov found himself, proving to Miller and to foreigners in general that the Russian people can also be proud of the antiquity of their origin and their language, were repeated. But, as is often the case, the situation worsened at a new stage of development, as Lyuboslov, to a greater extent, had to prove his case to a huge number of his own fellow citizens, who considered Russian not worthy of the French language and often neglected to communicate in their native language. The whole theory of Lyuboslov was aimed only at arousing the interest of Russians in their language and proving the need to use all the riches of the Russian language. Therefore, this theory can be considered more patriotic than scientific.

In general, Lomonosov, like no other, influenced the linguistic views of the Philologist. And it's not just a similar situation, but also the genius of a great scientist who so accurately and simply managed to formulate general ideas about the urgent problems. For example, in

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in his article, Lyuboslov condemned those people who believe that it is impossible to express many thoughts in Russian: "... some people complain unfairly about the scarcity of the Russian language. No knowledge should reason and measure according to its own strength; but it must first be perfect about it, and then boldly talk about it and set limits." Lomonosov also wrote in the" Russian Grammar":: "And if we cannot accurately portray something, it is not our language that should be ascribed to our discontented art" (Lomonosov. Ibid., vol. VII). Also in his" Russian Grammar " Lomonosov noted:: "The ruler of many languages, the Russian language, is not only the vastness of the places where it dominates, but also its own space and content is great before everyone in Europe" (Ibid.). Lyuboslov in the " Interlocutor..." he said that " the Russian language is not only not inferior to any European language in its merits, but also surpasses many, matching and equaling the ancient elegant Greek and Latin; in this it is possible ... bear witness with clear arguments and many examples."

Thus, the basic linguistic principles of the Philologist, set out in the articles of the " Interlocutor...", are reduced not only to the statement that it is necessary to write according to the rules of the Russian language, but also to the desire to clear the native language of French and other "parasites", which are absolutely unnecessary, because the Russian language inherits from the Greek elegance, abundance and wealth, which has huge opportunities for expressing any ideas, is a support for Russian self-consciousness, which can be shaken, since faith in the superiority of another language gives rise to faith in the superiority of another people.

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