The phenomenon of the ground

On December 12, 2017, Andrei Anatolyevich Zaliznyak read a report on birch bark letters found last season at the Institute of Slavic Studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences; On December 16, he conducted a lesson with students of Moscow State University on the historical accentology of the Russian language; On December 24, he was gone. So he said goodbye to the two main spaces of his activity - the Academy of Sciences, where he worked for more than half a century (since 1960), and the Moscow University, with which he was associated even longer - as a student (1952–1957), a graduate student and teacher (since 1958).

The surprise of his departure plunged the whole scientific community into deep grief mixed with resentment and a sense of protest. It was impossible to believe in this, because by his 82 years AAZ did not have time to grow old, he was light and speed, full of young enthusiasm and interest in life. We now have to realize that his life is over, that he did what he did, and said what he had time to say. We have to comprehend the logic of his life in all its irreparable completeness.

Over the past days, many beautiful words have been said and written - these were not only the words of his orphaned students and colleagues, but also first pronounced, but long -developed assessments of the works and personality of the scientist and his role in Russian philology. His name was placed on a par with the names of the Corilents of the Russian science about the Russian language - A. A. Shakhmatov, N. N. Durnovo, N. S. Trubetskoy; His personality was compared with Mozart and Pushkin.

I met Andrei Anatolyevich in 1958, when he, 23-year-old, returned from Paris and began to lead the Sanskrit course at the Faculty of Philology, and then the Vedic language, ancient Persian cuneiform, a little later than the Arabic language, the Ochoevreian language and linguistic tasks. These were optional classes for which students of different courses gathered. All these courses were read in subsequent years, others were added to them, already related mainly with the Russian language.

This sharp turn of AAZ from Indo -Europeanism and Oriental Studies to Russianstics seems inexplicable to some. Indeed, this was an element of chance, although there was both its own logic and pattern. In fact, a student of the English group of the Romano-German branch is unexpectedly sent for an internship in Paris. The choice of all the students of the philological faculty Andrei Zaliznyak, with a while by the accident of specific circumstances and bureaucratic considerations, was justified not only by his brilliant successes in his studies, but also by the knowledge of French and many other languages.

In Paris, he listens to lectures of outstanding linguists, studies ancient Indo -European and oriental languages. And in 1958, a young scientist was returning to Moscow, who received brilliant training in Indo -Europeanism and general linguistics, and excellent scientific prospects are revealed to him in this area.

From this he begins at Moscow State University, where almost at the same time Vyacheslav Vsevolodovich Ivanov, a teacher of AAZ, led classes on Crete-Miken inscriptions, a Hittite cuneiform and read a course of introduction to the comparative grammar of the Indo-European languages ​​(however, in the fall of 1958, Vyach. Ivanov was fired from Moscow State University for the support of Pasternak and the connection with the roman Jacobson).

In 1960, AAZ, who had not yet graduated from graduate school, was invited to work at the Slavic Studies Institute, to the department of Slavic linguistics. The head of this department, the well-known Slavist, student of A. M. Selishchev and the head of the domestic Slavicism Samuel Borisovich Bernstein, preoccupied with the collection of scientific youth and who has already achieved the enrollment of such bright linguists as V. A. Dybo and V. M. Illich-Svitych, has high hopes for the binding and offers him to engage in an in-depth study Language contacts.

This area of ​​Slavicism was (and remains) poorly developed, and AAZ with its deep and versatile Indo -European linguistic training was the only hope of Bernstein. But this hope was not destined to come true. I well remember the time when the planned Slavic -Iranian theme was listed behind Andrei Anatolyevich; I remember how he languished and suffered, because his scientific interests were already in a completely different field. As a result, this stage ended with the publication of only two, albeit quite professional and thorough articles in institute publications.

In those years, S. B. Bernstein spoke about the stall with annoyance: “A smart head, but the fool got it” (recently I remembered this formula in a conversation with AAZ, and he laughed merrily). Subsequently, Samuel Borisovich fully appreciated the significance of the works of AAZ in the field of Russistic, and their warm personal relations were preserved until S. B.

This completely different area was Russian. Everyone knows the phenomenal abilities of AAZ to foreign languages, which manifested themselves in his school years, but he has repeatedly said that he was not interested in languages , but his language , language as a perfect and extremely complex mechanism that made a person a person and ensured his continuous progress in the knowledge of the world and himself. Such comprehension of the deep mechanisms of the language is possible only on the basis of the native language.

Work with the Russian language as the subject of study began for AAZ with a brief essay on the Russian language for the French, which he published as an appendix to the educational Russian-French dictionary, and the dictionary itself became a “by-product” of internship in France. It is from this application that the threads are drawn to the entire further brilliant path of Andrei Anatolyevich as a Russianist. Already work on the application showed how inaccurate, incomplete and contradictory descriptions of the morphology of the Russian language in existing grammars were.

His strict mind could not put up with such imperfection, and he began to look for ways to a more adequate representation of language rules. Serious gaps in the science of Russian were also discovered: in grammars there were completely no rules regarding stress. The only author whose work was close in the Russian language, AAZ was close to, Nikolai Nikolaevich Durnovo, repressed in the 1930s. In the approach, which was chosen by Andrei Anatolyevich, the main ones were the strict logic and completeness of the actual data; Nothing should have been lost, it was necessary to find the algorithm for constructing the correct grammatical forms, taking into account the stress - at first an exhaustive analysis of real forms, and then clear rules for their generation.

The candidate dissertation of A. A. Zaliznyak was called the “classification and synthesis of personal paradigms in the Russian language”, for it on the recommendation of opponents and the unanimous decision of the Academic Council of the Slavic Studies in 1965, the degree of Doctor of Philological Sciences was awarded. In 1967, the dissertation was published in the form of the book “Russian Name of Pog change”, which immediately became the classic of Russism.

Its natural continuation and development was the “grammatical dictionary of the Russian language”, published ten years later, the first complete description of all the grammatical forms of the Russian language, according to which all its word -how -forming forms could be built for each of almost 100 thousand words. And all this grandiose work was done before the appearance of computers, manually! Subsequently, this is a description that fully satisfies the most stringent requirements of automatic generation of all the word -stizistic forms of the Russian language formed the basis of the Russian Internet.

This kind of work, which would seem incommensurable with the capabilities of one person, was only possible for such a scientist as AAZ with his need and the ability to “restore order” in the endless sea of ​​facts and “go until the end” along the path of establishing truth. This was helped by the general scientific atmosphere of the 1960s, interest in accurate methods in the humanities, and especially in linguistics, the development of research in the field of machine translation, and then semiotics. In all these areas, one of the leaders was the teacher of Zaliznyak Vyach. Sun. Ivanov.

In the same 1960, when AAZ was hired by the Institute of Slavic Studies, by special decision of the Presidium of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR, sectors of structural linguistics were created in three academic institutions: the Institute of Linguistics under the leadership of A. A. Reformat, the Russian Language Institute under the leadership of S.K. Shaumyan and the Slavic Institute under the leadership of V. N. Toporov (which at that time was all at that time. 32 years). A. A. Zaliznyak, who taught at the university, recommended that Vladimir Nikolayevich recommended several of his students; I was among them, and this determined my whole further scientific fate.

A few years later, AAZ crossed the sector, who was engaged in "traditional" Slavicism, to the structural typology sector (where he worked until his death), which Vyach later led. Sun. Ivanov, then T. M. Nikolaev, F. B. Uspensky and at the very recent time I. A. Sedakov. In the first edition of the sector-the 1962 structural and typological research collection-AAZ article was printed on a strict formal description of the street movement rules as one of the "simple" systems, the study of which is necessary to appeal to such complex language.

This was thus a direct anticipation of its formal morphology. AAZ actively participated in the famous symposium on the structural study of the iconic systems of 1962, in Tartu summer schools in semiotics, in many other scientific events and sector publications. But nevertheless, the main line of his scientific activity was connected precisely with Russiastry - first with the creation of a strict formal description of the indexation of the modern Russian language, and later with the history of the Russian language. The turn from modernity to history was outlined very early: already in 1962, AAZ made a report on the topic "On the possible connection between the operational concepts of synchronous description and diachrony."

The development of the emphasis of the Russian language was the quite logical stage in the scientific path of Andrei Anatolyevich. This line also ultimately ascends to the essay of Russian morphology in a brief Russian-French dictionary. His first work on this topic (“Estimation in modern Russian declension”) appeared already in 1963. The interest of AAZ in the theory and history of Russian stress was supported not only by his own desire for an exhaustive description of Russian indexation, but also by the pioneering works of his closest colleagues at the Institute of V. A. Dybo and V. M. Illich-Svitych in the field of Slavic accentology. Thanks to the accentological works of A. A. Zaliznyak, a strong building of the history of Russian stress was first built.

From 1982 until the last days of AAZ’s life he worked on decryption and interpretation of the Novgorod birch bark letters, as a result of which he was reconstructed by a special ancient Dialect as a kind of Russian folk language of the ancient pore, a theory of paleography of birch bark letters and a practical system of paleoographic indicators (he called this “discretion Continuum ”), allowing us to date letters and inscriptions with great accuracy, comparable with the accuracy of dendrological and other dating.

This circle of AAZ works, performed in cooperation with V. L. Yanin, A. A. Gippius and other “Novgorodians”, received not only recognition of specialists (archaeologists, historians, linguists), but also great fame in the broad circles of society, including thanks to the annual Loads of Andrey Anatolyevich, who were unprecedented among students of different students of different students faculties and scientific community.

It was the study of the language of the Novgorod letters that allowed AAZ that the text “Words about Igor’s Regiment”, the debate about the authenticity and dating of which did not stop for many decades, and show that the linguistic features of this text indicate its unconditional antiquity and confirm its classification as the XII century.

In the spring of 1992, after one of the lectures on the history of the Russian language at the RSUSU, my daughter Martha Tolstaya and her colleague Alexander Ter-Avanesov addressed Andrei Anatolyevich with the question of the prospects for including the materials of birch bark letters in the dictionary of the Old-XIV centuries. AAZ said that all these materials were processed and he is worried about their preservation. Then Martha suggested typing them on a computer.

"Are you serious?" AAZ asked. He had no computer at that time (he appeared much later, only in 2000). It was decided to try. Andrei Anatolyevich handed Martha by hand (usually with a pencil and very neat handwriting), letters of literacy and comments, and she brought all this to the computer. As a result, the text of the “Ancient -Gorod dialect” was completely dialed, a model of this book, published in 1995, was made.

She also owns the layouts of all subsequent books of AAZ, including an exclusively labor -intensive volume for the paleography of birch bark letters, which demanded the use of a special, specially designed technique of recruitment and mocking. Over time, AAZ himself perfectly mastered the computer and freely gained the texts of his books and articles, although the computer interface did not fully satisfy its requirements for the logic and accuracy.

In 2000, in Novgorod, a unique wax book of the XI century was discovered with the texts of psalms, under which on a wooden (linden) basis AAZ examined the weak traces of numerous texts written on the wax previously, in the form of countless and randomly layered alphabetical strokes. For several years, Andrei Anatolyevich managed to incredible - to read, actually decryption, large fragments of these texts.

The difficulties of this reconstruction cannot be overestimated. However, he had to leave this work, including because of vision problems. Nevertheless, the fate of this monument and prospects for its further study did not cease to worry AAZ. Now it is impossible to imagine who could continue this work.

The phrase of AAZ, which he said at the ceremony of presenting to him by the award named after A. I. Solzhenitsyn, has already become aphorism, that the truth exists and the task of science is its search [1]. This belief was for AAZ and philosophy, and religion, and the strategy of life. It inspired him on all his hard -working scientific path, and it also gave him the power to elevate his vote against pseudoscience and all kinds of scientific speculations such as historical “reconstruction” of Fomenko and his supporters.

His public temperament was manifested in this, for many unexpected, because he was not involved in the system of relations in the scientific environment, rarely responded to the work of colleagues, did not act as an opponent, did not lead graduate students, did not hold any posts, did not enter into any scientific advice and commissions, with rare exceptions, did not sign any letters - neither protest nor protective ones. But at the same time, his influence on the scientific community - especially thanks to teaching and public performances - was and remains huge.

In my life, I have not met a happier person than AAZ. Happy and more free. How did he manage in our country and in our time to be free from the Vut of reality, from the circumstances that many of his contemporaries either broke or constrained and oppressed? How did he manage to see nothing but the life itself, the joy of labor and knowledge? He enjoyed his work, communicating with youth, he was happy in his family and friends (he was friends with some from his school years). In some incomprehensible way, he managed to push away everything that was able to stop or delay his rapid movement to scientific truth, to the knowledge of the language and penetration into its secrets.

His works, which compiled an era in the development of the science of the Russian language, will be studied, will be published and reprinted, new generations of Russians will be brought up on them. But there will no longer be his lectures and reports, his living voice, his provoking questions to the listeners, his childish laughter, will not be his new books and articles. It is difficult for those who were lucky enough to know him for many years and study with him.

Svetlana Tolstaya,
doct. Filol. sciences, professor, academician of the Russian Academy of Sciences, head. department
ethnolinguistics and folklore of the Institute of Slavic Studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences

1. Zaliznyak A. A. Truth exists, and the purpose of science is its search. May 16, 2007. elementy.ru/nauchno-populyarnaya_biblioteka/430463/430464 ;
www.rp-net.ru/book/premia/2007/textzaliznjak.php