Over the past decade, interest in Russia's historical past has significantly increased. Many publications of ancient Russian monuments appeared-the primary sources of knowledge of material and spiritual life, culture of medieval Russia. Without a dictionary of the Old Russian language, it is difficult for a non-specialist reader to understand the texts. And there is such a dictionary. It has been published for a quarter of a century, but, unfortunately, not everyone is familiar with it, and its circulation is too "academic".

For 25 years, we have been able to reveal the world of medieval Russia with the help of the Dictionary of the Russian Language of the XI-XVII Centuries, produced by the Department of Historical Lexicology and Lexicography of the V. V. Vinogradov Institute of the Russian Language of the Russian Academy of Sciences. This Department was founded in 1981 by G. A. Bogatova, who is currently the editor-in-chief of the Dictionary.

On the eve of the Dictionary's anniversary and the publication of its 25th volume, G. A. Bogatova and her colleagues L. Y. Astakhina and E. I. Derzhavina tell our readers about the history of the Dictionary's creation, the direct participants in this work, as well as the materials on the basis of which the most valuable document of the history of the Russian language is made.

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The last cycle declared by UNESCO in the XX century has ended: Decade of Culture. The Memory of the World program was created to save the world's cultural treasures, including handwritten collections. The programs "Memory of France" and "Memory of America"were created. In Moscow, the Russian State Library created the program "Memory of Russia".

During these years, two significant events took place in the life of the Russian Language Institute of the Academy of Sciences. First, the Institute received the right to name Academician Viktor Vladimirovich Vinogradov in its title, which the Russkaya Rech magazine has already written about. Second, the Institute launched the program "Historical Memory of Russia". These two events are not connected only at first glance. But it is by

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At the initiative of V. V. Vinogradov, Moscow became a center for the preparation of historical dictionaries. The wheel of history cannot stop. The time is ripe for the program as well.

Of the four parts of the program, two make up its core, for them the 2000th anniversary year.

The first part is related to the Dictionary of the Russian Language of the XI-XVII centuries, the first issue of which was published in 1975.

V. V. Vinogradov created favorable conditions for the development of the organizational talent of its first editor-in-chief, corresponding member of the USSR Academy of Sciences S. G. Barkhudarov. Thanks to the following editors - in-chief-Corresponding Member of the USSR Academy of Sciences F. P. Filin and Academician of the USSR Academy of Sciences D. N. Shmelev, as well as a team of its authors and compilers, the Dictionary has become more complete and correct. Members of the Literature and Language Department of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Directors of the V. V. Vinogradov Institute of the Russian Language of the Russian Academy of Sciences always understood the scale of this publication and knew its history.

The Academy of Sciences was previously called the "Imperial Academy of Sciences", it consisted of the First Department-Natural Sciences, the Second Department-Russian language and Literature, which arose on the basis of the Russian Academy of Sciences, founded by E. R. Dashkova, and the Second Department-philology and history, where all other languages and history were located, and also flourished our Oriental studies. The Department of Russian Language and Literature, unlike all others, was a department of the silverless, members of the ORYAS did not receive material support from the government and therefore were not so dependent on the opinion, desire and will of the imperial government. But the Department was one of the most reputable in Europe.

In the 20s of the XX century, the Academy of Sciences was reorganized. The Department of Russian Language and Literature was liquidated, and the entire Academy was divided into two parts: social and natural science.

The archive of linguist M. N. Speransky has preserved a letter of protest from 11 academicians against the destruction of the Academy of Sciences and the destruction of the Department of Russian Language and Literature: "It means to delete the Russian name in one more place, just as it was deleted from the name of the state." In the archive, it is presented in different versions, probably each scientist wrote his own.

Fearing for the fate of the future dictionary undertaking, Academician A. I. Sobolevsky proposed to create a Commission to collect materials for the Old Russian dictionary and was the first to contribute one hundred thousand of his cards, thereby beginning the creation of the Old Russian Language Card File. September 22, 2000 marks the 75th anniversary of the foundation of our Card Catalog. By the way, KDRS is the second part of the program "Historical Memory of Russia".

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Dictionary of the Russian Language of the XI-XVII centuries (presumably 35 volumes) is a fundamental work of the XX century in the field of historical Russian studies. title edition of the Vinogradov Institute of the Russian Language. It documents on its pages the historical path of the people, their spiritual appearance and material culture. This is a kind of barrier to the loss of national spiritual values and historical memory of the people. The dictionary is among the publications that provide the East Slavic background of our history. Together with the Historical Belarusian (XV-XVIII centuries) and Old Ukrainian (XVI-XVII centuries) dictionaries, it prevents the linguistic separation and ethnic alienation of the three closely related Slavic peoples.

"Dictionary of the Russian language of the XI-XVII centuries" as a goodwill ambassador stands on the shelves of all European universities and institutes of Slavic studies, keeping interest in Russia, the Russian language and awakening respect for Russian history and writing.

For a quarter of a century, the efforts of the authors ' team and the staff of the Nauka publishing house have ensured a systematic, uninterrupted annual publication of the dictionary, which in this situation causes surprise and admiration among foreign specialists. The dictionary has a positive press, both in Russia and abroad.

The Vinogradov Institute of the Russian Language of the Russian Academy of Sciences and the authors 'and compilers' team regularly receive Russian written monuments published abroad, so that when forming the next volumes of the Dictionary and preparing them for publication, we can take into account all the finds and scientific developments on the history of words. We are even more closely connected with Russian specialists who publish local written monuments and make regional historical and dialect dictionaries. They also submit their materials to our Dictionary and are very much in need of an all-Russian reference point, which is what it is for them.

Special attention should be paid to the role of a unique team of authors who have been working on the Dictionary for almost 40 years. By the way, according to European standards, such dictionaries are created once a century: on average, work on them is carried out from 50 to 75 years. One can imagine how fundamental dictionaries are being made in the West, if a simple two-volume dictionary of modern (!) In the 1930s, there were six full-time employees, 14 editors and 40 consultants!

Now let's compare this with the conditions of working on the" Dictionary of the Russian language of the XI-XVII centuries", also historical, where the bulk of the material of the XV-XVII centuries is generally lexicographically processed for the first time. The team of 16 employees in 1975 was reduced to 10 in 1999. But during this period, the Department defended eight candidate and six doctoral theses. The team also mastered electronic methods of work. Now we aim to save

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a two-million-dollar handwritten old Russian card file on machines provided by UNESCO for the Memory of the World project.

The Department has created a lexicographic seminar for training specialists; our employees conduct classes on a voluntary basis; they also work with students of the State Academy of Slavic Culture, graduate students, and graduates of pedagogical universities.

As for the historical and cultural significance of dictionaries, their role in shaping state policy, and the national idea, it is useful to recall another symbolic act that is still alive in our memory. Realizing the idea of national and state unity carried by dictionaries that accumulate the historical memory of the people, the Berlin and Göttingen Academies in post-war, defeated, destroyed and divided Germany turned to the completion of the Historical German Dictionary, begun by the brothers Grimm in 1852, and completed it in the 380th volume in 1960. We know the further history of Germany.

The twenty-fifth anniversary of the publication is not a reason to "distribute wreaths and write eulogies", but still I would like to quote lines from the magazine "Palaeoslavica", published in the USA: "The world has changed significantly. The scientific "market" has also changed, and not in a favorable way for serious science. The dictionary continues to come out with an inexorable progressive sequence, becoming more complete and correct from volume to volume. It is becoming more and more risky to continue ignoring the information and work embedded in the Dictionary, because-whether we want it or not - not all dictionaries of this kind and volume form the foundation of philological culture, the current state of which in general (and Slavistics and Russian studies, in particular) is far from brilliant. How many enterprises of this scale can be found in the annals of these sciences? " (Palaeoslavica. 1999. N VI. P. 253).

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