Perhaps our young people will soon forget what patronymics mean in Russian, because they are used only in purely official situations or when addressing an official person, and then only because we do not have a generally accepted address to a man or woman today ( Mr. and mrs. are still unusual, sir and madam do not take root). Almost the entire Russian press has taken up a kind of "democratization" of traditional Russian naming, as they say, regardless of the age and social status of the names.

Do you need such freedom in using Russian patronymics? Rather, in their system non-use? Now everything is changing, so maybe it's worth calling the Russian person something else? According to the Western standard, without patronymics? Don't rush it. First, it would be nice to get acquainted with the history of patronymics in Russia, remember what a patronymic is, what it served for.

Ancient Russian sources did not distinguish between the meaning of independent modern lexemes patronymic and fatherland. Written monuments have witnessed various phonetic variants since the XI century: patronymic, patronymic, patronymic, fatherland.

The meanings were also different, for example, "homeland, fatherland"; "hereditary and ancestral rights"; "origin, birth"; "state of the father, paternity"; "paternal honor, dignity"; "properties of the father", "title of confessor", "chosen country", "ancestral possession inherited from ancestors". The meaning of " naming by father "is not mentioned in the Materials for the Dictionary of the Old Russian Language by I. I. Sreznevsky or in the Dictionary of the Russian Language of the XI - XVII centuries until the XVII century.

For the first time it appears in the act texts of the first third of the XVII century: "And after that he said: " and the tsar, the sovereign", but he did not call all of Russia and the Fatherland by the name of his sovereign, tsar and Grand Duke Mikhail Fedorovich " (Acts of the Moscow state. 1623).

It should be pointed out that, judging by the materials of the Russian Dictionary Card File of the XI-XVII centuries, the frequency of using the word patronymic (patronymic) is very high.

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the number of written monuments of the XVII century is low - only four illustrative examples are presented: "Stepan is a Dansk Cossack, but I don't know Evo's middle name... I don't know my father" (Don Affairs, 1659).

As a synonym indicating the father of the named person, at this time the expression with fathers occurs: "... rewrite the names with fathers and nicknames... "(Materials for the history of colonization and everyday life of the steppe outskirts of the Moscow State in the XVI-XVII centuries. Kharkiv, 1886. Vol. XXI).

The activity of the word patronymic increases in the XVIII century, although throughout the century the patronymic and fatherland are still used interchangeably. So, both variants in the meaning of "homeland" are very active: "Peter the Great, father of the patronymic, the most merciful sovereign" (1724 Moscow sukonny dvor / / Serf manufactory in Russia. L., 1934. Ch. V); "... and in our favorite patronymic return " (Butts how different compliments are written in German Moscow, 1712); "I love my native Fatherland" (History of Emperor Peter the Great from his birth to the Battle of Poltava. St. Petersburg, 1773) and others.

And only by the end of the XVIII century we observe a differentiation of meanings for different variants of the same Old Russian word: patronymic and fatherland become independent. The first is assigned the meaning of "naming after the father", and the second - "homeland, fatherland", which becomes the main one.

The process of forming independent words patronymic and fatherland and fixing their main meanings is reflected in the lexicons and dictionaries of the XVII-XIX centuries.

So, in one of the most complete lexicons of the XVII century - the Lexicon of Pamva Berynda, variants of one lexeme are also presented as interchangeable and with two meanings: fatherland, patronymic - "fatherhood"," fatherland " (Lexicon Slovenian Pamvi Berindi. Kiev 1627. Published: Kiev, 1961). We see, and this is confirmed by written monuments: in the first third of the XVII century, the meaning of "naming after the father" is not yet represented - so far it is only rarely attested in the monuments of business writing.

The words patronymic and fatherland are presented differently in the lexicons of the XVIII century. For example, at the beginning of the century in the Lexicon of F. Polikarpov's phonetic variants are also not distinguished, and their meanings are transmitted through synonyms: "fatherland, fatherland-patria, patrie (Latin), fatherland, patronymic-paternitas (Latin)" (F. Polikarpov). Lexicon treyazychny... Moscow, 1704).

In the second half of the XVIII century, lexicons already note the meaning of "naming after the father", which, as we have already indicated, began to be actively used in written monuments of various genres, and also make attempts to differentiate the variants of patronymic and fatherland, although not always consistently.

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In particular, in the Lexicon of I. Gesner we find only the word fatherland as a translation of the Latin word, but with different meanings: "fatherland, fatherland by upbringing (Latin patria )" and " fatherland by kinship (Latin paternitasY (Latin lexicon from Gesner's etymological lexicon into Russian translated at the Imperial University. Moscow, 1767). It is similar to the word fatherland (there is no patronymic option) in I. Nordstet: "fatherland is German. das Faterlend, fatherland-French. la patne ".

In Russian Cellarius there are both words and they are served separately with the meanings: patronymic "name after the father", fatherland - " fatherland "(Moscow, 1771).

However, it should certainly be noted that at the end of the XVIII century, the process of separating variants, the formation of independent words with different meanings (patronymic and fatherland) has not yet found final consolidation in lexicography.

So, in the first explanatory Dictionary of the Russian Academy of Sciences, we find a single dictionary entry: "Fatherland, abbreviated patronymic: 1. Whose country, state, or place of birth. 2. Title, father's name attached to the name of a son or daughter " (Dictionary of the Russian Academy of Sciences, St. Petersburg, 1789-1794, Vol. IV).

For the first time, the words patronymic and fatherland as independent words with the main modern meanings are presented clearly and quite strictly in semantic terms in the second edition of the Dictionary of the Russian Academy of Sciences at the beginning of the XIX century: patronymic - " the name of the father to the name of the son or daughter attached with the addition at the end of the syllables"; fatherland (fatherland)- "country, state, place of birth of whose" (Dictionary of the Russian Academy of Sciences, according to the alphabet order). St. Petersburg, 1806-1822. Vol. IV).

It should be noted in passing that the word patronymic with the meaning "naming after the father" at the end of the XVIII century was fixed in the act documents of chancelleries, in various letters (various lists, lists, registers, certificates, etc.). In business papers, there is a recommendation to fill in the columns First Name, Patronymic, Nickname (Surname).

The independent words patronymic and fatherland and their main meanings are fixed in the Dictionary of 1847: patronymic - "the name after the father's name with a change in its ending in the masculine gender to ov, vich, in, ich, in the feminine to ova, vna, ina, ishna; fatherland -" the state in relation to the one who is in he was born or became a subject." This meaning for the word Fatherland, which is presented as polysemous, has become the main one (Dictionary of Church Slavonic and Russian Language, St. Petersburg, 1847, Vol. III).

In the future, all lexicographic works, including the latest explanatory dictionaries, present the patronymic separately from the word

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fatherland and with a single meaning, which is also fixed in anthroponymy: patronymic - " the name after the father, consisting of the father's name and the endings ovich, evich (aries, evna) or ich (ichna) and usually added to the proper name "(Dictionary of the Russian language. In 4 volumes, Moscow, 1983. Vol. II).

The expression "fathers" in the sense of "naming by the name of the father" has left the language. With such semantics, the colloquial speech of the XIX century was characterized by the expression after the priest: "What is her name? Bazarov asked. - Baubles... Fedosya, " Arkady replied. "And for my father?"... You need to know that too. - Nikolaevna " (Turgenev. Fathers and children). Currently, this phrase is found in the speech of rural residents, especially the older generation. Modern explanatory dictionaries illustrate the expression according to the priest only with examples from the literature of the XIX century, marking it as colloquial (Dictionary of modern Russian literary language. In 17 volumes, Moscow-Leningrad, 1950-1965. Vol. 1).

Interesting and difficult is the history of the seemingly ordinary word patronymic, which A. G. Preobrazhensky in his etymological dictionary interprets beautifully and solemnly - " magnification by the name of the father "(Etymological Dictionary of the Russian language, Moscow, 1959, Vol. 1). Until now, the verb to magnify "to call by patronymic" is known, which, however, becoming obsolete (Dictionary of the Russian language. In 4 volumes, Moscow, 1981. Vol. I).

We do not consider the history of the appearance and existence of Russian patronymics - this is the topic of a special article, but is it necessary to renounce our roots - this "gene code" passed down from generation to generation? After all, Russian culture has left us a wonderful tradition-to call each other names, thus showing respect not only to us, but also to our ancestors.

Smolensk

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