XII Международная студенческая научная конференция Студенческий научный форум - 2020

Famous Russian philologist, poet and translator A.Kh. Vostokov was born on March 16, 1781 in Ahrensburg on the island of Ezel (now Saaremaa, Estonia). Alexander was the illegitimate son of Baron H.I. Osten-Saken, who received at birth a fictitious surname Osteenek, the Russian translation of which became first a literary pseudonym, and then the new official name of the young man. Until seven years old, the boy spoke only German, but then, in 1788, his father sent him to St. Petersburg, where Alexander mastered French in the Shlyakheti cadet corps, and already considered Russian his native language.

In the cadet corps, the boy became completely Russified, and even the poems that he wrote from the age of 13, he managed better in Russian than in German. He showed great abilities, but he was prevented by a strong stutter. In view of this, the authorities transferred him in 1794 to the Academy of Fine Arts, where he improved his skills in French. There, Alexander made friends with the future first Russian paleographer A.I. Ermolaev. In October 1801, the young man joined the Society of Fine Arts Lovers, which was soon renamed the Free Society of Lovers of Literature, Sciences and Arts. Members of the Society were I.M. Born, V.V. Popugaev, V.I. Krasovsky, V.V. Dmitriev, M.K. Mikhailov, I.P. Pnin, G.P. Kamenev, A.E. Izmailov, D.I. Languages, sons A.N. Radishcheva - Nikolai and Vasily, later K.N. Batyushkov, S.S. Bobrov, N.I. Gnedich. Young people wrote poetry, discussed the problems of literary skill, the theory of versification and aesthetics.

In the Society A. Ostenek was considered the most authoritative poet, it was not by chance that from May 1, 1802 until March 18, 1805 he acted as Secretary of the Society, and then from 1807 to 1826 he was the treasurer. But he was attracted by the theory of poetry: later A. Ostenek wrote the first book about Russian versification, highly praised by A.S. Pushkin. In 1801, his first literary and scientific works appeared in the magazines of the Free Society of Lovers of Literature, Sciences and Arts, and in 1802, Alexander graduated from the Academy. After graduating from the course, A. Ostenek was left at the Academy for three years as a boarder; but he was not at all attracted to art. In 1803, he became an assistant librarian in the library of the Academy of Arts, but, considering that he was forced to do nothing, he was burdened with work; then served as a translator in the Law Commission in Heraldry, but he was attracted to science.

Own poems, on the advice of A.N. Venison, he began to sign the East - tracing paper from German. Then the young man began to study Slavic languages ​​and the monuments of ancient Slavic writing and achieved such perfection that he published the work “Reasoning about the Slavic language, which serves as an introduction to the Grammar of this language, compiled from the oldest written records” (1820). In the “Reasoning”, the attitude of the Church Slavonic language to Russian was determined, three periods in the history of Slavic languages ​​were distinguished. Vostokov first described the existence of nasal vowels in the Old Slavonic language, proved that the letters "b" and "b" in Slavic manuscripts denoted vowels. Vostokov proved the primordial proximity of Slavic languages, indicated the chronological place of the monuments of the Church Slavonic language, revealed its differences from the Old Russian, indicated the meaning of nasal and deaf vowels, the use of wide vowels after the rear-lingual, the presence of nasal vowels in Polish, explained the formation of endings in adjectives, found in Church Slavonic lack of participles and the presence of supine, which he called the attainable mood.

All these conclusions shocked not only Russian, but also European scientists. This work, which saw the light almost simultaneously with the works of F. Bopp, R. Rask and J. Grimm published in 1816-1819, was put by A.Kh. Vostokov on a par with the founders of comparative historical linguistics and laid the foundation for the scientific study of the history of Slavic languages. The luminaries of philology spoke of him: "Vostokov is the creator of Slavic philology." All his free time he was engaged in the etymology of the Russian language, wrote an extensive work “Etymological wordlist”, figuring out “the gradual origin and transition of words from one language to another”. In the early period of his work, the East wrote poetry ("Lyrical and other minor works in poetry", 1805-1806), which were published in the journal of the Free Society of Lovers of Literature, Sciences and Arts. These verses (the collection included 57 poems and 2 poems) are very weak in the artistic sense, although they are not without thoughts and sometimes animations, such as, For example, “To Harpocrates”; curious is Vostokov’s unsuccessful attempt to write with the meters that were used in classical poetry.

In the "Experience of Russian versification", published in 1812 in the "St. Petersburg Herald", Vostokov first determined the size of the Russian folk verse. This work, highly praised by A.S. Pushkin, one of the first deep scientific studies of the system of Russian tonic versification. Vostokov’s communication with Pushkin took place mainly at various meetings: in 1818, the Society of Lovers of Russian Literature, Sciences and Arts; and starting in 1833, the Russian Academy (by the way, in December 1832, Vostokov was among those who voted for the election of Pushkin to the Academy). By 1810, Vostokov was already well acquainted with such monuments of ancient Russian literature as Russian Truth, The Instruction of Vladimir Monomakh, The Chronicles of Nestor, The Word of Igor's Campaign, and Svyatoslav's Collection 1076. In the same 1810, he read (probably in the Society of Lovers of Literature) his translation of the notes of the linguist Dobrovsky into the arguments of Schletser on the Old Slavonic language, equipped with his own notes.

In 1815 A.Kh. Vostokov joined the Imperial Public Library as an assistant to the curator of manuscripts A.I. Ermolaev, whom N.M. Karamzin called "lover and connoisseur of our antiquities." This place of the East took four years and devoted himself entirely to the study of monuments of ancient Slavic writing, the grammar of Slavic languages, especially Russian. In 1824, Vostokov retired and took up the description of manuscripts from the collection of Count N.P. Rumyantsev. The service gave Vostokov the opportunity to better recognize handwritten monuments. This work was in line with his scientific interests. Vostokov began the description and compiled a catalog of Slavic manuscripts; the work lasted as long as ten years. The fundamental “Description of Russian and Slavic manuscripts of the Rumyantsev Museum” contained a paleographic, archaeological and literary description of 473 monuments. Only after this work did the study of ancient Russian literature and Russian antiquities become possible. OH. Vostokov indicated the headings, format, number of sheets, nature of the material, date, material, miniatures, disclosed in detail the contents of the manuscript. Work was highly appreciated by scientists. Philologist and ethnographer I.I. Sreznevsky emphasized: "Not a single line is written in vain." In addition, Vostokov was engaged in the description of manuscripts of the Kiev Metropolitan Eugene and the Lavrentievsky list of the Nestor Chronicle. His article “Grammatical explanations for three articles of the Freisingen manuscript” (“Collection of Slavic monuments located outside Russia”) dates from 1827, which is important both for the impeccable publication of the text and for the still valid comments.

During the years 1827-1831 A.Kh. Vostokov worked on a Russian language textbook. The basis of the study of grammar, he put a lively spoken language. In 1831, the scientist published two educational grammars of the Russian language, brief and complete, repeatedly reprinted in the 19th century. He first singled out in Russian words that have only one numerical form (walking, sledding, etc.) and general nouns (such as an elder), made a number of other observations, expressed ideas that influenced the further development of grammatical theory in Russia. The full version of the grammar received the Demidov Prize. OH. Vostokov, by order of the director of the Imperial Library, made a description of "rare and curious manuscripts in both Russian and other languages" known to him. Consistency, scrupulousness in work - these are the qualities of A.Kh. Vostokov as a scientist and bibliographer. He personally checked all the descriptions made on the cards before him, before copying them into the catalog, and this is a huge job. Vostokov made several important suggestions on the catalog system of manuscript books, for example, he applied the method of referrals. Often he acted as a copyist artist: he copied manuscripts at the request of scientists. He was able to read erased notes in manuscripts, deciphered obscure words, determined the date of writing the manuscript - he was an expert on paleography.

Vostokov was elected an honorary professor at the University of Tübingen for good service (1825. In 1820, Vostokov was elected a member of the Russian Academy; on December 20, 1826, the Academy of Sciences elected Vostokov a corresponding member, and on October 19, 1841 he became an ordinary academician of the St. Petersburg Academy of Sciences in Department of the Russian language and literature. He continued to explore the monuments of Old Russian writing as a paleographer, archaeographer and linguist. The most important of his works was the first scientific publication (in 1843 Ostromirova Gospel of 1056, the oldest dated monument of Slavic writing, granted to the Public Library by Emperor Alexander I. In the publication, for the convenience of comparing the Slavic translation with the original, the Greek text was printed at the bottom of the book, and at the end of the book was added the word indicator “Grammatical rules of the Slavic language, extracted from Ostromirova Gospel. ”For this work, the remarkable scientist was once again awarded the Demidov Prize. In 1841-1842, edited by Vostokov, “Historical Acts Relating to Russia Extracted from Foreign Archives and Libraries” were published (in 2 volumes). In 1843, the Reims Gospel was parsed. He did much for the creation of Russian paleography and archeography, as well as descriptions of private collections, parts of the manuscript collection of the library of the Academy of Sciences (1855-1856), and a number of other paleographic works. Of the rest of Vostokov’s works, most of them are dictionary ones. As far back as 1835, he was appointed a member of the committee for the publication of the ABC Dictionary; but he worked especially hard on the dictionaries, after his appointment as an ordinary academician. OH. Vostokov edited and participated in the compilation of the "Dictionary of Church Slavonic and Russian Language" - it contains more than 114 thousand words. Compiled the fundamental "Dictionary of Church Slavonic language", in which almost 22 thousand words; edited "Experience of the regional Great Russian dictionary" and "Supplement" to it. Together with the “Grammar of the Church Slavonic language” this work is a capital acquisition of Russian science. For many years, Vostokov was engaged in the "Slavic-Russian etymological dictionary", which was started back in 1802.

Merits A.Kh. Vostokov was recognized both in Russia and abroad. He was a doctor at Prague University (1848), a full and honorary member of many foreign scientific societies, universities and academies. In 1855 he was elected an Honorary Member of Moscow University. Alexander Khristoforovich Vostokov - German by nationality, because of his love for the Russian language, even changed his surname - an outstanding Slavist, language historian, researcher of monuments of ancient Slavic writing (such as “The Word of Igor’s Regiment” and “Ostromir Gospel”), grammar of Slavic languages, including Russian, laid the foundations of the comparative historical Slavic linguistics in Russia, was engaged in a lot of lexicographic work. OH. Vostokov is a poet and researcher of Russian versification, one of the founders of Slavic philology. He owns works on comparative grammar of Slavic languages, lexicography of Church Slavonic and Russian languages, paleography.

References:

1) http://funeral-spb.narod.ru/necropols/volkovskoe/tombs/vostokov/vostokov.html

2) http://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/Востоков,_Александр_Христофорович

3) https://gpib.livejournal.com/74192.html