In memory of a colleague

The life of Boris Samoilovich Schwarzkopf developed in such a way that his main scientific activity took place within the walls of the Institute of the Russian Language of the USSR Academy of Sciences (then the Academy of Sciences of the Russian Academy of Sciences) from the day he joined the Department of Culture of Russian speech in 1958 (as a senior scientific and technical employee) until the last day - November 8, 2001- a day of unexpected, sudden death.

Boris Samoilovich was invited to work at the Institute by Sergey Ivanovich Ozhegov, the founder of a new linguistic discipline - the culture of speech - just at the time when its formation and formation was just beginning. Let us recall that the sector of culture of Russian speech and modern literary language was created by SI. Ozhegov and the director of the Institute, Academician V. V. Vinogradov, in 1952.

A young, creatively active research team started working on the linguistic problems of the newly created sector almost from scratch. At the suggestion of S. I. Ozhegov, the publication of a non-periodic series entitled "Questions of Speech Culture" was undertaken, eight issues of which were widely published (1955 - 1967). One of the editors - in-chief of the Russkaya Rech magazine, V. P. Vompersky, once spoke well about this series: "The eight-volume book is one of the most striking phenomena of post-war Russian studies."

In the preface to the first issue, S. I. Ozhegov wrote:: "The development of questions of everyday language practice, stylistics and theoretical foundations of the normalization of literary languages has become an urgent task of Soviet linguistics "(WRC. 1955. N 1). In the first article of this collection, devoted to "Regular issues of speech culture", the necessity of introducing a new discipline in science was justified and the problems related to the creation of a scientific and theoretical base in this area were outlined.

page 55

Ozhegov's first and main assistant in the collection and editing of these collections was B. S. Schwarzkopf. Previously, back in 1956, he worked as a freelance leading editor of linguistic literature in the Publishing House of the USSR Academy of Sciences. This helped him develop excellent editorial skills. Subsequently, he often performed editorial work, in particular, participated in editing reports and materials of the IV International Congress of Slavists.

Boris Samoilovich was an extremely sociable person and had outstanding organizational skills. Jokingly, Sergei Ivanovich called him " the Minister of special assignments." If it was necessary to answer any casuistic letter (and dozens of letters from workers came to the sector) or talk to a dissatisfied visitor, these instructions were given to Boris Samoilovich. He was a good psychologist, intelligent, diplomatic and tactful interlocutor, and I must say that he could find a decent way out of any difficult situations. Therefore, it is not surprising that already from the third issue of Voprosy Kul'tury Rechi (Voprosy kultury Rechi) (1961) B. S. Schwarzkopf was introduced to the editorial board of the collection as a responsible secretary, which he was always very proud of. Thanks to the activities of the editor-in-chief (S. I. Ozhegov) and the executive secretary, the most famous linguists were involved in the author's participation in the collection, whose works in the field of speech culture and related disciplines were already recognized at that time. It is enough to mention some of these names: V. V. Vinogradov, A. A. Reformatsky, V. G. Kostomarov, D. N. Shmelev, V. P. Vompersky, I. S. Ilinskaya, V. P. Grigoriev, Yu. A. Belchikov, V. D. Levin, R. A. Shmelev. M. Tseitlin, et al.

At the same time, Boris Samoilovich tried to identify for himself the area of scientific problems in which he could bring the greatest benefit. He successfully proved himself in three main areas of activity-theoretical, educational and popularizing, informational and reference.

S. I. Ozhegov noted: "Linguistics is a public science. But not only by object: social science. But also for its intended purpose: science for society... "(See the collection " Dictionary and culture of Russian speech. To the 100th anniversary of S. I. Ozhegov's birth", Moscow, 2001, pp. 397-398). Popularization of scientific ideas has always been perceived as a priority task in the sector.

Boris Samoilovich Schwarzkopf belonged to the generation of defenders of the Motherland in the Great Patriotic War. Having gone through the war from beginning to end, he did not lose a lively interest in life, sympathetic attention to the people around him, and a sense of humor. He was a man of many talents: very musical - all skits and evenings at the Institute were accompanied by his piano accompaniments; he composed poetry wonderfully: he especially liked to joke about holidays, birthdays and sector events.

page 56

I can't resist quoting his poem about a housewarming party in the sector:

In this narrow, cramped cell
We are celebrating a housewarming party...
Let our conditions be difficult:
We are not enough, but we are wearing vests!
Our goal is the culture of speech,
And it's not even evening yet!...

(June 3, 1997)

Of course, B. S. Schwarzkopf was also one of the brightest stars of the sector in popularizing the ideas of speech culture. His first notes and articles of this kind were published in Voprosy kul'tury Rechi (Voprosy kul'tury rechi) (No. 3, No. 8) on the subject of the meaning of the verb complete (the note was called "Complete") and variants of the phraseology discard ("Discard phraseology and its variants"). In the future, he wrote many convincing, very lively articles on a variety of topics and published them mainly in his favorite magazine - in Russkaya Rech. You can recall some of them: "He goes - the most leads" (1967), " Why do we say that? "(1970), "On social and aesthetic assessments of personal names" (1976), "The Wedding General" (1983), "Three Spinoza and Chekhov's works" (1983), "The Grey Cardinal "(1997) and others.

However, popular articles, even the most brilliant ones, still do not reveal the true essence of a scientist's research activity. In the late 60s-early 70s, one of the most important tasks facing the staff of the sector was to create a foundation for scientific research on the theory of speech culture. V. G. Kostomarov (the second head of the department after S. I. Ozhegov's death in 1964) first presented a theoretical understanding of how and from what points of view the theory of speech culture should be developed, first at the Academic Council of the Institute on January 20, 1966, and then published in Voprosy kul'tury rechi (Voprosy kul'tury Rechi) (1966, No. 7) under the title "Actual issues of speech culture". In 1970, the collective monograph "Actual problems of Speech Culture" was published, in which the theoretical, practical and historiographical aspects of this topic were considered on a wide basis.

Boris Samoilovich Schwarzkopf presented in this book a detailed outline of the development of theoretical views on the literary norm in Russian studies. This is the first work that summarizes everything that had been done in the field of speech culture by that time. In the process of thinking about the material, thinking about it, B. S. Schwarzkopf decided and determined for himself in which direction he should work in the future. And the decision was made. His own ones-

page 57

heretical research was devoted to the problems of the norm in two aspects: 1. Analysis of the norm mechanism, its variations and deviations from the norm in the sphere of Russian phraseology. 2. Axiological (value) aspect of the norm.

Already in 1971, B. S. Schwarzkopf wrote a serious study on the topic " Evaluation of speech facts by speakers (linguistic aspect)" and successfully defended this work as a candidate's thesis. He was one of the first to give a detailed understanding of what "speech evaluation" is as a linguistic phenomenon. In his works, the language material was always very fresh and diverse, it is enough to give illustrations about speech evaluations: "I can't even quote (the word is kind of skeletal!) places that struck with their poetry... "(G. Andryukhina. Yes, that's fine). Or:"...Our crew, speaking the language of aviators, flew well during numerous training sessions "(P. Belyaev, A. Leonov. In outer space); "It's a bad word for 'Number of floors', but what can you do!" (D. S. Likhachev. The fourth dimension).

Boris Samoilovich saw and identified those aesthetic, psychological, and socio-gustatory patterns that affect both the" acceptance " of a word in society and the peculiarities of its stylistic use. Subsequently, the topic of "speech evaluations" became widespread in many research works of other authors. The broad outlook of the scientist, his love of language and passion for various topics were especially evident in the late 70s and 80s, when B. S. Schwarzkopf participated in many initiatives and scientific collections of the sector. Let me remind you of them: "Linguistic norm and statistics "(1977) with his article "Types of correlation of variants and statistical studies of the norm", "Grammar and norm" (1977) with the article "Morphological paradigmatics of phraseological units and norm"; "Literary norm in vocabulary and phraseology" (1983) with the article "Morphological norm of phraseological units and norm". variation"; " Modern Russian punctuation "(1979) with the article "Experience of describing Russian punctuation as a functional system" (co-authored with A. B., Penkovsky). The collection on punctuation was especially dear to Boris Samoilovich: he compiled it, edited it, and most importantly, began to think more deeply about the systematic and normative methods of theoretical description of modern Russian punctuation.

After the well-known book by A. B. Shapiro "Fundamentals of Russian Punctuation "(1955), no Russian linguists studied the theory of punctuation in cultural, speech and normative terms in depth. This niche was not occupied. Meanwhile, in the spelling group of the sector, the need for research in this area was very acute. Punctuation marks, which are often used as a means of expressing an attitude to a word, as a manifestation of linguistic taste, could not be used as a means of expressing an attitude to a word.-

page 58

whether not to attract the attention of Boris Samoilovich-the topic met his scientific interests. The example given by him is typical in this respect: "In the article by K. Simonov" River and people " we read: "Batenchuk has a strong hand and a domineering character, you can feel it. One feels that he is the owner of the construction site in the correct and necessary sense of the word... "I wrote all this and thought about the word "owner". We are wary of this word and do it correctly, because this word and the years of Stalin's power became synonymous not only with a firm hand, but also with arbitrariness... " (V. G. Kostomarov, B. S. Schwarzkopf. On the study of the relationship of speakers to the language. WRC. 1966. N 7. p. 27).

The study of modern Russian punctuation, the regularities of its structural and systemic organization and functioning captured B. S. Schwarzkopf for a long time. In 1988, his individual monograph "Modern Russian Punctuation: the System and its Functioning" was published, which became the most significant and authoritative study in this field in recent years. When I read this book, I constantly find myself thinking that only a good chess strategist and tactician, a connoisseur of various and intricate combinations, who accurately verifies the movement of pieces, could have written it this way. And in fact: in the dictionary of names of linguists " Who is who in modern Russian studies "(Moscow-Helsinki, 1994) in the section" hobbies " about B. S. Schwarzkopf it is written: chess game.

The book on punctuation was defended as a doctoral dissertation, and Boris Samoilovich was awarded the degree of Doctor of Philology. At this time, Boris Samoilovich worked very intensively: he often acted as an opponent at dissertation defenses, constantly reviewed abstracts, regularly lectured in various organizations, and repeatedly made reports and presentations at many scientific conferences. Finally, he taught special courses, special seminars and gave lectures on speech culture in universities of the country, at the Faculty of Journalism of Moscow State University, at the RSUH, as well as at the Institute for Advanced Training of Television and Radio Broadcasting Workers. In his speeches, especially during lectures, he always knew how to find the right key, could entertain the audience with a joke in time and appropriately, and keep the audience's attention throughout the lecture.

B. S. Schwarzkopf used the first academic textbook " Culture of Russian Speech (for higher education institutions)", published in 1998, but prepared by the research team of the department much earlier. In this textbook, Boris Samoilovich wrote an important chapter - "The culture of business speech".

As a specialist in his chosen field of Russian studies, B. S. Schwarzkopf was widely recognized. His work on phraseology, spelling, and a wide range of speech culture issues is well-known-

page 59

They are often used both in research work and in teaching.

His recent activity corresponded to the new realities of the language life of the 90s, but while preserving the traditions and order of the existing ideas about the literary norm. These are his works " The Norm in a written codified language "(a chapter in the book "Culture of Russian speech and the effectiveness of communication", 1996) and an article in the collection dedicated to the 100th anniversary of the birth of S. I. Ozhegov, on the topic "Fluctuation of the norm: its essence and status in cultural-speech and theoretical terms" (see the book "Dictionary and Culture of Russian Speech", Moscow, 2001). This sector book was the last in his life. As a member of the editorial board, B. S. Schwarzkopf prepared it for publication, and O. V. Nikitin wrote well about this stage of his work in "Questions of Linguistics "(2002. N 4. p. 158): "One should have seen how childishly, with what pride and sincerity at the same time, he rejoiced at the appearance of the long-awaited the author of this collection, with what trepidation he presented this secret book to many, how he then prepared to present it to the public, took care that the authors received the copies they were entitled to, ... in a word, lived by this last creation of his and wanted to see it during his lifetime." He was holding this already published book in his hands, but he didn't have time to speak at the presentation, although he was going to say a lot.

In science, Boris Samoilovich, of course, fulfilled his purpose, he always worked at the call of his heart. It seems that he was able to fully realize his scientific, professional and pedagogical potential. In the memory of his friends and colleagues, he remained not only a great scientist, but also a bright, charming, friendly and generous person.

L. K. Graudina, Doctor of Philology.

Permanent link to this publication: