Department of Russian Language at Herzen University (1918–2024)

Abstract

The article highlights the main stages of history and the current state of studying and teaching the Russian language at one of the oldest departments of the Herzen State Pedagogical University of Russia. In 2018, the department celebrated its 100th anniversary. When the Philological Faculty was emerged at the Herzen Institute, the best academic traditions of Russian studies and philology of the early 20th century intersected there, and it determined the prospects for scholarly research of the Russian Language Department for a long time. The history of the Russian language and Slavic studies, dialectology and lexicography became the main scholarly directions of the department, where outstanding linguists and lexicographers of the 20th century worked: B. A. Larin, L. P. Yakubinsky, N. P. Grinkova, F. P. Filin, V. I. Kodukhov, A. P. Evgenieva, S. G. Ilyenko, A. V. Bondarko, V. D. Chernyak and others. In the 1970s scholarly problem groups were organized, which determined the main directions of work of the department for a half a century: syntax, functional lexicology, functional grammar, the language of fiction, general theory of language. In the 1990s, the activities of the department were reformatted for the following reasons: the structure of higher education in the country and the linguistic paradigm had changed, and the faculty of the department was renewed. In the 21st century all the best traditions of the Russian language department were preserved and developed. Now we can distinguish three main areas of scholarly activity of the team: rhetoric and speech culture, syntax and text theory, lexicography.

Keywords:

Russian studies, modern Russian language, Department of Russian Language, Herzen State Pedagogical University of Russia