In the poem "Gypsies" in response to Zemfira's question: "Tell me, my friend: do you have any regrets / About leaving you forever?" - we hear Aleko's first monologue:

What is there to regret? If only you knew.

When would you imagine

The captivity of stuffy cities!

There are people in piles, behind the fence,

Do not breathe the morning coolness,

No spring smell of meadows...

Pushkin's definition of townspeople, even in the mouth of Aleko, is unusual and shocking to readers. There is a certain pile of small trees outside the fence of cities, in which people are swarming.

The comment of the compilers of the authoritative "Dictionary of the Pushkin Language" only reinforces this disturbing perplexity: the word form in piles is defined as "to live, to be, to be crowded" (Dictionary of the Pushkin Language, Moscow, 1957, Vol.P.).

In Aleko's monologue, A. S. Pushkin puts the credo of his romantic hero: a lone rebel, a freedom-loving man who rebelled against a society that suppresses the human personality. Aleko took the path of struggle, he denies "captivity":

...Great excitement,

Predisposition sentence,

Crowds are a mad chase...

and suddenly the colloquial word in relation to a cluster, a lot of people - a bunch\

The development of the Russian language is "to blame" for the appearance of reader nonsense, or rather a complex case of coincidence in the pronunciation of soft variants of three proto-Slavic roots at once: * kuk -, *kqt -, *kust -, as a result of which their meanings converge or are homonymically repelled from each other, and some of the values go into the passive reserve the dictionary.

The first root *kuk-forms a common Slavic word with the suffix -jb-

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vo kuca: Russian heap "something piled up in a hill, pile", " crowd, accumulation (of people, animals)", Russian dialect "hill, small haystack, pile"; "stack, seed, stack"; "fire"; Ukrainian, Belarusian heap, according to dialects " snowdrift, gourba"; Czech kuce "piece, piece", "mass"; Slovenian kuca "bundle, tuft", "brush", "sheaf"; Polish old dialect kucza "pile, pile".

Kik, kuka, kuca-in Russian they gave numerous derivatives: kuk-a "kulak", kuk-ish, kuk-an, kuch-ka, o-kuch-ivat, kuch-eryavy, etc.

Researchers usually associate the root kik with Lithuanian kaukas "bump", Gothic hauhs "high", German hoch "high" (See Fig.:

Etymological Dictionary of Slavic languages: Proto-Slavic Foundation / Ed. by corresponding Member O. N. Trubachev, Moscow, 1987, Issue 13).

Another Proto-Slavic root is *kqt-b. As O. N. Trubachev writes, "the predominant and original meaning of the word * kqt is "an internal or concave angle", "while" an external, convex angle has always been denoted by the word *qgl".

Due to the fact that the Proto-Slavic root had a nasal vowel, in modern Slavic languages we have different root vocalization; Church Slavonic kout, Bulgarian kt, Macedonian kat, Serbo-Croatian kut, Slovenian kqt, Czech kout; Polish kqt, Old Russian kut. In Russian dialects, kut is "the place where the external or internal sides of an object converge, the corner of something; the corner in the hut; the back part, the corner of the Russian oven; baking, under-baking, kitchen", etc.

Softening of the dental t, in contrast to the previous case, gives different results for groups of Slavic languages: Church Slavonic koushta "tent", Bulgarian kyscha "house", Serbo-Croatian kuca "house", Slovenian koca "hut, hut", Slovak kucka "house", Czech dialect kuca "booth, hut", Old Polish kucza "hut", Russian dialect heap "hut", Ukrainian heap "bird cage, cage for walking geese for meat", "booth, kennel", "hut, kuren", "pigsty", "room, poor, old house"; Belarusian dialect heap " stable, a small hut." The word kqtja is widely known to the southern Slavs, and in the East Slavic languages - in the Ukrainian and Belarusian Polesie, Volhynia, Gomelitsin, Naddneprovschina, upper Neman, Ryazan Meshchera (See: Etymological Dictionary of Slavic languages, Moscow, 1985, Issue 12; Etymolopchny slovnik ukrainskoi movi. Kshv, 1989. Vol. 3).

Kqtb, kuca the Russian language and its dialects were given the words: kut-ok, kutka, za-kut-ok; kut-ets, kut-ya, kut-ya, kuch-a, kut-yat, kut-nitsa, kut-nik, kut-ny, kut-ny, etc.

The third Proto-Slavic root is kust-b. The Slavic bush is now clearly identified with the Lithuanian kuokStas " handful, bunch, bunch,

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bush". "Probably, the word was lost in other Slavic regions and was preserved only among the Eastern Slavs" (Filin F. P. Obrazovanie yazyka vostochnykh slavyan, Moscow-L., 1962).

Kust-with the suffix-j 'in East Slavic languages through the step (sh't'sh' > sh'ch') naturally forms-tabernacles. Kust-jb, apparently, was originally a definition for the name of a plant. In everyday practice, there is often no clear distinction between the concepts of tree, bush and grass, cf.: spruce bush (Sreznevsky I. I. Materials for the dictionary of the Old Russian language, Moscow, 1989. Vol. I. Part 2), bush grass "medicinal plant" (Dictionary of Russian Don dialects. Rostov-on-Don, 1991. Vol. 1). Only in one of the East Slavic languages-Ukrainian-the substantive adjective is fixed directly as the name of the object, instead of kust-kush, although there are no phonetic obstacles to this in Russian and Belarusian. In Ukrainian, kush has a rich word formation nest: kush-shik, kushchak, kushchanik, kushchanka, kushchar, kushcharnik, kushchina, kushchovik, kushchovinka, kushchovka, kushchistiy, kushchastyy, kushchuvatiy, kushchitisya, etc. (Russian-Ukrainian dictionary. Kiev, 1970. Vol. 1).

Thus, the soft variants of the three proto-Slavic roots have the following functions.

Kuk-ja. In all Slavic languages, it has the form kuca, is polysemous, but retains its central seme "something that stands out for its height, multitude", "a cluster, a pile of heterogeneous objects".

Kgt-ja. In the Old Russian language, in contrast to the modern Russian language, both soft variants of the Slavic kgtb functioned. In the popular colloquial language, the East Slavic model of a heap was used in the sense of "hut, hut, residential building" with its numerous derivatives: 1510 - " At the same time the earth was shaking... and they all ran out of the city for fear of the great, from a place in the field far from the city, repairing the heaps, and living in heaps to these places. Novg. IV years., 538. And now we [Yelchans] are ruined by the Tatar wars, and many of our brothers, the boyar children, live together in their own piles, in other people's piles... AMG P" (History of the XI-XVII centuries, Moscow, 1981, Issue 8).

At the same time, in translated works and original works, not only on church but also on secular topics, the word kushcha was used, dating back to the Old Slavonic koushta of 1037-1049.:

"... God appeared to Abraham, and I sat him before the door of his tabernacle at noon by the oak of Mamre; and Abraham went to meet him, and worshiped him to the ground, and took him to his cush. Hilarion. The Word of Law and Grace (Moldovan A.M. The Word of Hilarion's Law and Grace. Kiev, 1984); XVII c. - " Multitudes of men and cattle, the devil of protection exists, and I will rob every tree and stone for the creation of tabernacles, after the fall of the time of nast. Skaz. Avr. Palitsina" (SLRYA XI-XVII centuries. Issue 8).

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Growing stronger after the Battle of Kulikovo, the Muscovite state was preoccupied with creating a literary language that was authoritative for all Slavs. Such a language, from the point of view of official Moscow, could be a single Old Russian language of Kievan Rus. The archaization of the literary language increases with the influx of South Slavic scribes to Moscow and the beginning of the so-called "second South Slavic influence". In the South and East Slavic synonym series, preference is given to the book version of the word, and kusha in the main meaning of "house, residential and economic building, tent" begins to replace the East Slavic heap. Kucha meaning "hut, shack, cattle shed, kennel" is preserved only in the Ukrainian and Belarusian languages and Russian dialects bordering on them. The complete disappearance of the word heap "house" was also promoted by the homonymic repulsion from the word heap "pile", "heap". Old Ukrainian and Old Belarusian literary languages are formed on the basis of "simple mova", and the East Slavic heap in these languages is preserved, although it greatly narrows its range and its semantics.

Kust-jъ. Due to the lack of its own softened kust formation in the Old Russian language, we can only talk about the penetration of Ukrainian kushch into the Russian language.

With the reunification of Ukraine with Russia, then during the Polish intervention of the XVII century, when the court circles developed a "polity in the manner of Polish", the Polish-Ukrainian-Belarusian influence on the Russian literary language increased. The ideal literary language was the language of the south - Western natives of Simeon of Polotsk, Epiphanius of Slavinetsky and the latter's disciples-the monk Euthymius, Karion Istomin, who set themselves the task of where to use Slavic words and forms and avoid Russian. Peter I's contemporaries Metropolitan Job, Pitirim, Stefan Yavorsky, Gavriil Buzhinsky, and Feofan Prokopovich also wrote in Slavonic. Therefore, it is not surprising that the word tabernacle in the sense of "foliage, crown of trees, greenery, thickets, thicket" is first recorded in the " Lexicon of three-language words of Slavonic, Hellenic-Greek and Latin..." (Moscow, 1704. Vol. I). F. P. Polikarpov-Orlov, a student of the Likhudovs, a friend of the monk Euthymius, a teacher of the Slavic-Greek language.Greek-Latin Academy, then director of the Moscow Printing Yard. Insufficient completeness of secular vocabulary and foreign words, predilection for Church Slavonisms and archaisms in F.'s dictionary. Polikarpov was not satisfied with Peter I. On January 2, 1716, I. A. Musin-Pushkin wrote to F. A. Tolstoy. To Polikarpov: "Your history and vocabulary... they were not very pleasing" (Brailovsky S. N. F. P. Polikarpov-Orlov-director of the Moscow printing house / / Journal of the Ministry of National Education. 1894. N 9-11).

The new word was very quickly instilled in the Russian language as a collective designation of bushes, clumps of trees, the benefit of word-forming.-

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the body model was common Slavic, cf.: growth > grove, partial > thicket, flat > area. The word kusha "crown" enters into a "competitive struggle" with its South Slavic homonym kusha "house", which has taken deep roots in the Russian literary language. In the Ukrainian language, the singular and plural forms of kush - kush still prevail, so the design of the word kush "foliage, crown of trees" in the form of the nominative case of the feminine gender should be recognized as the merit of the Russian language itself.

Purists, guardians of the purity of the Russian language, saw the use of the word kushcha in the sense of "foliage, crown of trees, thicket" as a violation of norms. A. S. Shishkov wrote that " some of the old words and phrases have completely fallen into oblivion; others, despite the richness of their meaning, have become strange and unfamiliar to ears. others have completely changed their signification and are not used in the same sense in which they were used from the beginning,.. instead of kuch, thinking to write in an exalted syllable, they write kush, which word means hut. "In the silent thicket of dense pines...", a thicket does not mean anything else, like a hut or hut; what is it: a thicket of pines? " (Shishkov A. S. Reasoning about the old and new syllables of the Russian language. SPb., 1803). V. V. Vinogradov in "Essays on the History of the Russian literary language of the XVII-XX century.of the XIX century" (Moscow, 1982) noted that Karamzin in " My trinkets "(part 2, 1794) "in the poem "Autumn" was made such a mistake:

The singing in the tabernacles stopped,

but while republishing his works, Karamzin, under the influence of Shishkov's criticism, corrected the verse:

The singing in the groves stopped.

(Karamzin N. M. Soch., 1803. Vol. 1)".

In the language of A. S. Pushkin, the word bush meaning "tent, hut, shelter" occurs four times: under the shadow of a smoky bush in "Gypsies", native bush, shadow of oak trees, hang the sword of war in the middle of the paternal bush and in the parody text: yes Byron he will see the bush (Dictionary of the Pushkin language, Vol. II). If you do not take into account the not entirely clear context of native bush, the canopy of oak trees, then the bush as "canopy, cover of trees, thicket" is not used even once. The academic Dictionary of Church Slavonic and Russian Languages, compiled by the Second Department of the Imperial Academy of Sciences (St. Petersburg, 1867, Vol. I), does not recognize the new meaning of the word tabernacle.

Nevertheless, we can say that the bush in the sense of "foliage, crown of trees, thicket" finally strengthened in the Russian language at the beginning of the XIX century. Already in the language of M. Y. Lermontov's works, the word tabernacle is used seven times, but not one of them does not reliably go back to the old meaning of tabernacle "house, dwelling", for example, " He sang about the bliss of sinless spirits / Under the tabernacles of the Gardens of Paradise... "(Angel); " With a flaming breast to the cold moisture / I have not yet bowed down under the green tabernacles-

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Noah..."(Three palm trees); " And the rose groves, where nightingales / Sing unrequited beauties / To the sweet voice of their love..."(Demon).

It is possible that it is after M. Y. Lermontov in the word bush that the meaning "greenery, thickets, thicket, foliage, crown of trees" comes out in the first place, and the meaning "tent, hut, dwelling" is supplied in explanatory dictionaries with the litters traditional), ustar(spruce), poet (historical). Etymologically correct tabernacle "house", "dwelling", is used only when describing biblical, historical places or when comparing with them: "The roofs of houses and huts scattered on the mountain and on the slope are decidedly the tabernacle and canopy of the ancient world" (Goncharov. Frigate "Pallada").

The biblical paradise tabernacles - "heavenly dwellings of the righteous" in Russian are most often used ironically as "paradise gardens" - something inaccessible, mysterious, fabulous: "That's the end of it - I'll eat apples in paradise tabernacles" (Vysotsky. Paradise Apples);

"But if Pinochet is profoundly indifferent to the fate of the working people, then he promised paradise to his allies - the middle and large bourgeoisie" (Carmen A. Signor, take a taxi / / Kome. pr. 1982. 29 Dec.).

Let's return to the Pushkin text. After the analysis, it is clear that A. S. Pushkin, who had a fine linguistic flair, scrupulously read the Old Russian chronicles, working after his southern exile in the Pskov outback on the poem "Gypsies", could not have failed to know the Old Russian meaning of the word heap, and probably knew the Ukrainian-Belarusian-Russian (Novgorod - Pskov) dialect the word heap means " shack, shack, unassuming dwelling." You can easily verify this by reading the continuation of Aleko's monologue:

O Rome, O mighty power!

Singer of love, singer of the gods,

Tell me, what is fame?

Grave rumble, a voice of praise,

From birth to birth the sound is running

Or under the shadow of a smoky thicket

A wild gypsy story?

The contrast between the "captivity of stuffy cities" and wandering poverty and will" is further strengthened by the antithesis of kuch "shack, hut, hut" - tabernacle "canopy, tabernacle, tent, dwelling". So the shacks behind the fence that people are in... they do not breathe in the coolness of the morning and are contrasted with the free vestibule of gypsy tents. A. S. Pushkin also used the euphonic side of sch and h, which distinguish the words kush and heap. The words so shch are always perceived in Russian as elements of bookish, poetic, solemn, Slavicized speech, etc.-

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tiv are contrasted with their East Slavic parallels with h, cf. future - being, lighting-candle, midnight-night.

So the perception of the word form in piles as "to live, to be, to be crowded" impoverishes the poetry of A. S. Pushkin, destroys the stylistic drawing of Aleko's monologue and the romantic pathos of the poem. Therefore, when commenting on "Gypsies", to the case form in the piles it is also authorized to put the mark obsolete) and explain "people (in huts, shacks) behind the fence. They don't breathe the cool air of the morning."

Chelyabinsk

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