Cossack of Luhansk Turns 200

November 22 marked the bicentennial of the birth of celebrated Russian lexicographer, ethnographer, and writer Vladimir Ivanovich Dal’ (1801-1872) born in Luhansk. Published in 1863-1866 was his major work, a gemstone of world linguistics, The Great Dictionary of the Great Living Russian Language, in four volumes.

UNESCO announced 2001 the Year of Dal’. A series of festive events were staged in Luhansk, his fatherland, among them The VI International Dal’ Lectures, exhibitions, sessions of scientific assemblies studying the scientist’s legacy. A model of versatility, he worked as a serviceman, sailor, physician, and engineer.

Vladimir Dal’ was born on November 22, 1801 into the family of Dr. Ivan Dal’ of Dutch ancestry (ironic that a Dutch national stood at the cradle of Russian linguistics). After graduating from the University of Dorpat in Tartu, Estonia, he worked as a doctor and a functionary. From an early age he took to collecting linguistic and folklore materials. The first five books of his Russian Fairytales came out in 1832; in 1833-1839 he published four books of True Stories and Fables. In the 1830s and forties Dal’ published realistic essays in the press under a pen name of Luhansk Cossack. What was his contribution to Ukraine? Just like Dal’ compiled the explanatory dictionary of the Russian language, almost half a century later in 1907-1909 Borys Hrinchenko, under his influence, bit by bit compiled his own Dictionary of the Ukrainian Language. Both have much in common conceptually. The approach presents gems of the living language as a concrete illustration for each given word.

One would wish that honoring the celebrated Russian scholar not to turn into one of a series of campaigns for imagined “protection of the Russian language” in Ukraine. Chauvinism, just like nationalism in any guise, often makes use of any occasion, especially jubilees of noted figures of culture, to serve its ends. The Ukrainian language needs now to be “saved” in Luhansk, though it should not be done by lordly sweeps from high offices in Kyiv, but in a balanced manner taking into account the region’s specificity, where the Russification policy in recent years granted the Ukrainian language the status of a “lowly relative.” Thus the famed Russian Dal’ feels more at home in Luhansk than do such great Ukrainians as Taras Shevchenko and Borys Hrinchenko.