D. N. Ushakov’s Forgotten Article About V. I. Dahl (On the 225th Anniversary of His Birth)

A forgotten popular-science article by D. N. Ushakov about V. I. Dahl and his “Explanatory Dictionary of the Living Great Russian Language”, released in 1922, is published with comments, including fragments omitted from the scientist’s draft notes from the Archive of the Russian Academy of Sciences. The introductory article examines D. N. Ushakov’s scientific interest in the lexicographical heritage of V. I. Dahl. Biographical and philological history of the article’s is reconstructed. The philological continuity of the Dahl tradition is traced in D. N. Ushakov’s lexicographic practice of the 1920s–1930s. It is emphasized that the name of V. I. Dahl, during the period of forming new cultural and historical ties in the 1920s, was a symbol of folk culture and the language of the peasantry. It is noted that the criticism of V. I. Dahl’s ideas in the “Explanatory Dictionary of the Russian Language” edited by D. N. Ushakov was not only ideological in nature but also contributed to the normative principles of dictionary compilation and the search for optimal methods of word semantization. Attention is drawn to the fact that the 3rd “Baudouin” edition, which provoked criticism from contemporaries, is mentioned by D. N. Ushakov in the article with a positive evaluation as an original lexicographic experiment. The cultural code of V. I. Dahl in the Russian philological tradition is discussed. The article’s text is of particular interest due to D. N. Ushakov’s observations on V. I. Dahl’s linguistic personality and the specifics of his lexicographic work; it focuses on V. I. Dahl’s contribution to the development of a new “educated speech” and summarizes contemporaries’ opinions about the Dictionary. The article’s comments explain the key names and archival details. The publication may be of interest to historians of linguistics and lexicographers as it expands knowledge about the philological work of scholars studying V. I. Dahl’s legacy and may stimulate further archival research.