“Early historical writing” and the beginning of the Russian chronicle tradition

Vladimir N. Toporov demonstrated that the beginning of the Primary Russian Chronicle corresponded to a typical beginning of the early his-torical writing: questions and answers concerning main historical events. The cosmographical introduction to the Chronicle and the legend of the invitation of the Varangians was based on the Biblical tradition (the Book of Jubilees).

Sign of graphic meaning” in Andrei Bely's work

The article analyzes the method of imposing the initials of Jesus Christ, described in the poem by Andrei Bely “First rendezvous” and generating new meaning.

Notes on Some Russian Wordsand Their Indo-European Relations

1. Etymology of озóрный, озорнóй ‘mischievous, misbehaving'; 2. Variants of мнить ‘to think, imagine' 1. The root element -зор- extracted from the demorphologized (decomposed) verb ра-зор-ить is probably borrowed from Ossetic (Digor) zol ‘skew, oblique' > ‘false, unjust, unfair' after it underwent rhoticism. The proposed hypothesis helps to etymologize the above verb rejecting previous attempts making use of Proto-Slavic preverb *orz combined with the verb *oriti ‘to destroy'. 2. Russian verbs мнить and млеть [if refl ecting Indo-European *m(V)R-] are related assuming the alternation мн- /мл-. Both verbs belong to the semantic fi eld of thinking, imagining and, specifi cally, of praying.

The heritage of “Sidor Karpovich” in the modern song culture

The article analyzes the transformation of the Russian folk song “Dear Sir Sidor Karpovich”, studied by V. N. Toporov in 1979. This text was a prison game depicting a funeral rite and having a function of initiation, but re cently it has become a popular song and lost its minor mood. At the same time, the protagonist (Sidor Karpovich) loses his name and becomes a secon dary character. The main role is taken by his wife, Lyubka, called by the epithet “gray dove”. The plot of the song is based on twists and turns of her life after the death of her husband. Analyzing the image of the dove in poetry and, in particular, in prison lyrics, as well as looking at possible infl uences of other popular songs, the author proposes possible reasons for such a transformation.