Letters to young readers. Open Library - open library of educational information

<...>It is not the purpose of this letter to discuss what philology is. This cannot be done either by a simple definition or by a short description. This Greek word can be translated as “love of the word”. But in reality philology is wider. AT different time philology was understood as different areas of culture, namely culture, and not just science. Therefore, the answer to the question of what philology is can only be given through a detailed, painstaking historical study of this concept, starting from the Renaissance, at least when philology occupied a very significant place in the culture of humanists (it arose much earlier).

Now, from time to time, the question of the need for a “return to philology” is raised again and again.

There is a current notion that the sciences, as they develop, differentiate. It seems, therefore, that the division of philology into a number of sciences, of which linguistics and literary criticism are the most important, is an inevitable and, in essence, a good thing. This is a deep delusion.

The number of sciences is indeed increasing, but the emergence of new ones is not only due to their differentiation and “specialization”, but also due to the emergence of connecting disciplines. Physics and chemistry merge, forming a number of intermediate disciplines, mathematics enters into connection with neighboring and non-neighboring sciences, and many sciences are “mathematized”. And the advancing of our knowledge about the world is remarkable precisely in the gaps between the “traditional” sciences.

The role of philology is precisely binding, and therefore especially important. It connects historical source studies with linguistics and literary criticism. It gives a broad dimension to the study of the history of the text. It combines literary criticism and linguistics in the field of studying the style of a work - the most difficult area of literary criticism. In its very essence, philology is anti-formalistic, for it teaches us to correctly understand the meaning of a text, whether it be a historical source or an artistic monument. It requires deep knowledge not only in the history of languages, but also knowledge of the realities of a particular era, the aesthetic ideas of their time, the history of ideas, etc.

I will give examples of how important a philological understanding of the meaning of words is. A new meaning arises from the combination of words, and sometimes from their simple repetition. Here are a few lines from the poem "Away" by a good Soviet poet, and, moreover, simple, accessible - N. Rubtsov.

And everything sticks out
A neighbor sticks out at the door,
Awakened aunts stick out behind him,
Words stick out
A bottle of vodka sticks out
A meaningless dawn sticks out in the window!
Again window glass in the rain,
Again fog pulls and chills
If there were not two last lines in this stanza, then the repetitions “sticks out”, “stick out” would not be full of meaning. But only a philologist can explain this magic of words.

The fact is that literature is not only the art of the word, it is the art of overcoming the word, acquiring by the word a special “lightness” from what combinations the words enter into. Above all the meanings of individual words in the text, above the text, there is still a certain super-sense, which turns the text from a simple sign system into an artistic system. Combinations of words, and only they give rise to associations in the text, reveal the necessary shades of meaning in the word, create the emotionality of the text. Just like dancing overcomes gravity human body, in painting, the uniqueness of color is overcome through combinations of colors, in sculpture, the inertness of stone, bronze, wood is overcome - so in literature, the usual dictionary meanings of the word are overcome. The word in combinations acquires such shades that you will not find in the best historical dictionaries of the Russian language.

Poetry and good prose are associative in nature. And philology interprets not only the meanings of words, but also the artistic meaning of the entire text. It is absolutely clear that one cannot engage in literature without being at least a little linguist, one cannot be a textual critic without delving into the hidden meaning of the text, the entire text, and not just individual words of the text.

Words in poetry mean more than they are called, "signs" of what they are. These words are always present in poetry - whether when they enter into a metaphor, into a symbol, or they themselves are, or when they are associated with realities that require from readers of some knowledge, whether when they are associated with historical associations.

The researcher of the work of the poet O. Mandelstam gives the following example from his poem about the theater of Racine:

I will not hear facing the ramp.
Double rhyme feathered verse.
and writes about these two lines: “For the associations to work correctly, the reader here must know about the paired rhyming of the Alexandrian verse, that the actors of the classical theater uttered their monologues, addressing not to a partner, but to the public, to the hall (“to the ramp” ).

For most modern readers and even admirers of O. Mandelstam's poetry, these two lines from his poetry would have remained completely incomprehensible if a philologist had not come to his aid - namely, a philologist, for to inform the reader at the same time about the Alexandrian verse and about the manner of acting on the classical stage only a philologist can. Philology is the highest form of humanities education, a form that connects all the humanities.

It could be shown by dozens of examples how historical source studies suffer when historians misinterpret texts and reveal not only their ignorance of the history of language, but also of the history of culture. Therefore, they also need philology.

Therefore, one should not imagine that philology is associated primarily with the linguistic understanding of the text. The understanding of the text is the understanding of the whole life of the epoch standing behind the text. Therefore, there is philology, the connection of all connections. It is needed by textual critics, source scholars, historians of literature and historians of science, it is needed by art historians, because at the heart of each of the arts, in its “deepest depths”, are the word and the connection of words. It is needed by everyone who uses the language, the word; the word is associated with any form of being, with any cognition of being: the word, or more precisely, combinations of words. From this it is clear that philology underlies not only science, but all human culture. Knowledge and creativity are formed through the word, and through overcoming the inertness of the word, culture is born.

The wider the circle of epochs, the circle of national cultures that are now included in the sphere of education, the more necessary is philology. Once philology was limited mainly to the knowledge of classical antiquity, now it embraces all countries and all times. The more necessary it is now, the more “difficult” it is, and the rarer it is now to find a real philologist. However, every intelligent person should be at least a little philologist. This is required by the culture.

The culture of mankind moves forward not by moving in the “space of time”, but by accumulating values. Values do not replace each other, new ones do not destroy the old ones (if the “old” ones are really real), but, joining the old ones, increase their significance for today. Therefore, the burden of cultural values is a burden of a special kind. It does not make our step forward heavier, but makes it easier. The more values we have mastered, the more sophisticated and sharp becomes our perception of other cultures: cultures remote from us in time and space - ancient and other countries. Each of the cultures of the past or of another country becomes for an intelligent person "his own culture" - his own deeply personal and his own in the national aspect, because the knowledge of one's own is associated with the knowledge of someone else's. Overcoming all kinds of distances is not only the task of modern technology and the exact sciences, but also the task of philology in the broadest sense of the word. At the same time, philology equally overcomes distances in space (studying the verbal culture of other peoples) and in time (studying the verbal culture of the past). Philology brings together humanity - contemporary to us and the past. It brings together humanity and different human cultures not by erasing differences in cultures, but by realizing these differences; not by destroying the individuality of cultures, but on the basis of identifying these differences, their scientific understanding, on the basis of respect and tolerance for the “individuality” of cultures. She resurrects the old for the new. Philology is a deeply personal and deeply national science, necessary for the individual and necessary for the development of national cultures. It justifies its name ("philology" - love for the word), as it is based on love for the verbal culture of all languages, on complete tolerance, respect and interest in all verbal cultures.<...>

On the Art of Words and Philology

D.S. Likhachev

I. Philology

<...>It is not the purpose of this letter to discuss what philology is. This cannot be done by a simple definition, nor by a short description. This Greek word can be translated as “love of the word”. But in reality philology is wider. At different times, philology was understood as different areas of culture, namely culture, and not just science. For this reason, the answer to the question of what philology is can only be given through a detailed, painstaking historical study of this concept, starting from the Renaissance, at least when philology occupied a very significant place in the culture of the humanists (it arose much earlier) .

Now, from time to time, the question of the extreme importance of "returning to philology" is raised again and again.

There is a current notion that the sciences, as they develop, differentiate. In this regard, it seems that the division of philology into a number of sciences, of which linguistics and literary criticism are the most important, is an inevitable and, in essence, a good thing. This is a deep delusion.

The number of sciences is indeed increasing, but the emergence of new ones is not only due to their differentiation and “specialization”, but also due to the emergence of connecting disciplines. Physics and chemistry merge, forming a number of intermediate disciplines, mathematics enters into connection with adjacent and non-neighboring sciences, and many sciences are “mathematized”. And the advancing of our knowledge about the world is remarkable precisely in the gaps between the “traditional” sciences.

The role of philology is precisely binding, and therefore especially important. It connects historical source study with linguistics and literary criticism. It gives a broad dimension to the study of the history of the text. It combines literary criticism and linguistics in the field of studying the style of a work - the most difficult area of literary criticism. By its very essence, philology is anti-formalistic, for it teaches us to correctly understand the meaning of the text, whether it be a historical source or an artistic monument. It requires deep knowledge not only in the history of languages, but also knowledge of the realities of a particular era, the aesthetic ideas of their time, the history of ideas, etc.

<…>Literature is not only the art of the word - it is the art of overcoming the word, acquiring the word of a special "lightness" from what combinations the words enter into. Above all the meanings of individual words in the text, above the text, there is still a certain super-sense, which turns the text from a simple sign system into an artistic system. Combinations of words, and only they give rise to associations in the text, reveal the necessary shades of meaning in the word, create the emotionality of the text. Just as in dance the heaviness of the human body is overcome, in painting the uniqueness of color is overcome through combinations of colors, in sculpture the inertia of stone, bronze, wood is overcome - so in literature the usual dictionary meanings of the word are overcome. The word in combinations acquires such shades that you will not find in the best historical dictionaries of the Russian language.

Words in poetry mean more than they are called, "signs" of what they are. These words are always present in poetry - whether when they are included in a metaphor, in a symbol, or they themselves are, or when they are associated with realities that require some knowledge from readers, or when they are associated with historical associations.

The researcher of the work of the poet O. Mandelstam gives the following example from his poem about the theater of Racine:

I will not hear facing the ramp.

Double rhyme feathered verse.

and writes about these two lines: “For the associations to work correctly, the reader here must know about the paired rhyming of the Alexandrian verse, that the actors of the classical theater uttered their monologues, addressing not to a partner, but to the public, to the hall (“to the ramp” ).

For most modern readers and even admirers of O. Mandelstam's poetry, these two lines from his poetry would have remained completely incomprehensible if a philologist had not come to his aid - namely, a philologist, for to inform the reader at the same time about the Alexandrian verse and about the manner of acting on classical scene can only philoloᴦ. Philology is the highest form of humanities education, a form that connects all the humanities.

For this reason, it should not be imagined that philology is associated primarily with the linguistic understanding of the text. The understanding of the text is the understanding of the whole life of the epoch behind the text. For this reason, there is philology, the connection of all connections. It is needed by textual critics, source scholars, historians of literature and historians of science, it is needed by art historians, because at the heart of each of the arts, in its “deepest depths”, are the word and the connection of words. It is needed by everyone who uses the language, the word; the word is associated with any form of being, with any cognition of being: the word, or more precisely, combinations of words. From this it is clear that philology underlies not only science, but all human culture. Knowledge and creativity are formed through the word, and through overcoming the inertness of the word, culture is born.

The wider the circle of epochs, the circle of national cultures that are now included in the sphere of education, the more necessary is philology. Once philology was limited mainly to the knowledge of classical antiquity, now it embraces all countries and all times. The more necessary it is now, the more “difficult” it is, and the rarer it is now to find a real philologist. Moreover, every intelligent person should be at least a little philologist. This is required by the culture.

The culture of mankind moves forward not by moving in the “space of time”, but by accumulating values. Values do not replace each other, new ones do not destroy the old ones (if the “old” ones are really real), but, joining the old ones, increase their significance for today. For this reason, the burden of cultural values is a burden of a special kind. It does not make our step forward heavier, but makes it easier. The more values we have mastered, the more sophisticated and sharp becomes our perception of other cultures: cultures remote from us in time and space - ancient and other countries. Each of the cultures of the past or of another country becomes for an intelligent person "his own culture" - his own deeply personal and his own in the national aspect, because the knowledge of one's own is associated with the knowledge of someone else's. Overcoming all kinds of distances is not only the task of modern technology and the exact sciences, but also the task of philology in the broadest sense of the word. At the same time, philology equally overcomes distances in space (studying the verbal culture of other peoples) and in time (studying the verbal culture of the past). Philology brings together humanity - contemporary to us and the past. It brings humanity and different human cultures closer together not by erasing differences in cultures, but by realizing these differences; not by destroying the individuality of cultures, but on the basis of identifying these differences, their scientific understanding, on the basis of respect and tolerance for the “individuality” of cultures. She resurrects the old for the new. Philology is a deeply personal and deeply national science, necessary for the individual and necessary for the development of national cultures. It justifies its name (“philology” - love for the word), as it is based on love for the verbal culture of all languages, on complete tolerance, respect and interest in all verbal cultures.<...>

Questions:

1. Why, according to D.S. Likhachev, the concept of "philology" is not amenable to a simple definition?

2. How does D.S. Likhachev understand the subject and main tasks of philology?

3. Why is philology “the highest form of humanitarian knowledge”?

<...>Now, from time to time, the question of the need for a "return to philology" is raised again and again.

There is a current notion that the sciences, as they develop, differentiate. Therefore, it seems that the division of philology into a number of sciences, of which linguistics and literary criticism are the most important, is an inevitable and, in essence, a good thing. This is a deep delusion.

The number of sciences is indeed increasing, but the emergence of new ones is not only due to their differentiation and "specialization", but also due to the emergence of connecting disciplines. Physics and chemistry merge, forming a number of intermediate disciplines, mathematics enters into contact with neighboring and non-neighboring sciences, and many sciences are “mathematized”. And the advancing of our knowledge about the world is remarkable precisely in the gaps between the "traditional" sciences.

I will give examples of how important a philological understanding of the first meaning of words is. A new meaning arises from the combination of words, and sometimes from their simple repetition. Here are a few lines from the poem "Away" by a good Soviet poet, and, moreover, simple, accessible - N. Rubtsov.

And everything sticks out / A neighbor sticks out at the door, / Awakened aunts stick out behind him, / Words stick out, / A meaningless dawn sticks out in the window! / Again the window glass in the rain, / Again it pulls with fog and chills.

If it were not for the last two lines in this stanza, then the repetitions “sticks out”, “stick out” would not be full of meaning. But only a philologist can explain this magic of words.

The fact is that literature is not only the art of the word - it is the art of overcoming the word, acquiring the word of a special "lightness"

depending on the combinations of words. Above all the meanings of individual words in the text, above the text, there is still a certain super-sense, which turns the text from a simple sign system into an artistic system. Combinations of words, and only they give rise to associations in the text, reveal the necessary shades of meaning in the word, create the emotionality of the text. Just as in dance the heaviness of the human body is overcome, in painting the uniqueness of color is overcome through combinations of colors, in sculpture the inertness of stone, bronze, wood is overcome - so in literature the usual dictionary meanings of the word are overcome. The word in combinations acquires such shades that you will not find in the best historical dictionaries of the Russian language.

<...>Therefore, one should not imagine that philology is associated primarily with the linguistic understanding of the text. The understanding of the text is the understanding of the whole life of the epoch standing behind the text. Therefore, philology is the connection of all connections. It is needed by textual critics, source scholars, historians of literature and historians of science, it is needed by art historians, because at the heart of each of the arts, in its “deepest depths”, are the word and the connection of words. It is needed by everyone who uses the language, the word; the word is associated with any form of being, with any cognition of being: the word, or more precisely, combinations of words. From this it is clear that philology underlies not only science, but all human culture. Knowledge and creativity are formed through the word, and through overcoming the inertness of the word, culture is born.<...>

Dear eleventh graders!

This text may be useful for preparing for an essay on the exam.

2. Pay attention to the fragments highlighted in the text.

3. Select the clichés you need.

1. One problem is attached to the text.

2. Please note that the title of the text does not always correspond to the title that the author might have had. Therefore, in an essay on the exam, if you do not know the exact name, avoid the name that is offered in different sources.

expresses (expresses, formulates, conducts) the idea that “…”

seeks (wants) to convey to the reader the idea that “…”

makes the reader pay attention to...

invites the reader...

thinks that...

convinces us that

States that…

claims that only

advocates for

shows us people who...

leads (leads) the reader to the idea that ...

comes to the following conclusion: ...

admires (whom? what?)

amazed (why?)

as if inviting you to admire (what?)

watching with interest (what?)

with pain in the heart (with bitter irony, with bitterness) writes (says) that ....

can't deal with...

expresses concern...

draws attention to…

“...” - these words, in my opinion, reflect the main problem of the text.

“...” - this statement accurately reflects the thought of the author.

The text proves the idea that “…”

The author evaluates (what?)
The author reveals the essence (of what?)
The author sets out his approach (to what?)
The author proceeds from the fact that
The author distinguishes between concepts (of what)
The author draws attention to the fact that
The author convincingly proves (what?)
Defining the essence and place (of what? in what?), the author believes that
Emphasizing the relevance (of what?), the author draws attention to (what?)
According to the author, it is important (what?)

TEXT

PROBLEM- the role of philology in the human world

From a letter to D.S. Likhachev "On the Art of Words and Philology"

1)word art- the most difficult requiring from a person the greatest internal culture ...

2) ... literature is not only the art of the word, it is the art of overcoming the word, the acquisition by the word of a special "lightness" from what combinations the words enter into. 3) Combinations of words, and only they give rise to associations in the text, create the emotionality of the text. 4) Just as the heaviness of the human body is overcome in dance, in painting the unambiguity of color is overcome thanks to color combinations, in literature, the usual dictionary meanings of the word are overcome. 5) The word in combinations acquires such shades that you will not find in the best historical dictionaries of the Russian language.

6)Philology underlies... all human culture. 7) Knowledge and creativity are formed through the word, and through overcoming the inertness of the word, culture is born. 8) Philology brings humanity together - modern to us and the past. 9) She brings humanity closer and different human cultures, not by erasing differences in cultures, but by realizing these differences ... on the basis of respect and tolerance for the "individuality" of cultures.

10) There should not be those who are blind to beauty, deaf to words and real music, callous to goodness, forgetful of the past. 11) And for this you need knowledge, you need intelligence, which is given humanities. 12) Read fiction and understand it, read history books and love the past of mankind, read travel literature, memoirs, read art literature, visit museums, travel with meaning and be spiritually rich.

13) Yes, be also philologists, that is, "lovers of the word”, for the word stands at the beginning of culture and completes it, expresses it. (According to D.S. Likhachev)

Likhachev Dmitry Sergeevich (1906-1999) - Russian philologist, literary scholar, cultural historian, publicist, public figure.

Man in the literature of ancient Russia

Poetics of Old Russian Literature

The Artistic Heritage of Ancient Russia and the Present

"The Tale of Igor's Campaign" and the culture of his time

Dialogues about yesterday, today and tomorrow (co-author N. G. Samvelyan)

I remember

Book of Anxiety

reflections

About the intelligentsia

Letters about good and beautiful

We wish you patience in preparing for the composition! Be sure: perseverance, diligence and intensive training will give decent results.

___________________________________________________________________________________

For preparation for the exam You can use study guide « SEMI-FINISHED WORKS. RUSSIAN LANGUAGE. COLLECTION #1».

Detailed instructions on how to use the collection or if you would like to use the collection of semi-finished essays, write to

DS Likhachev LETTERS TO YOUNG READERS LETTER FORTY-FOUR ABOUT THE ART OF WORD AND PHILOLOGY Until now I have been talking about the beauty of nature, the beauty of cities and villages, gardens and parks, the beauty of visible monuments of art. But the art of the word is the most difficult, requiring the greatest internal culture, philological knowledge and philological experience from a person. It is not the purpose of this letter to discuss what philology is. This cannot be done either by a simple definition or by a short description. This Greek word can be translated as follows - "love of the word." But in reality, philology is wider. At different times, philology was understood as different areas of culture: namely culture, and not just science. Therefore, the answer to the question of what philology is can only be given through a detailed, painstaking historical study of this concept, starting from the Renaissance, at least when philology occupied a very significant place in the culture of humanists (it arose much earlier). Now, from time to time, the question of the need for a "return to philology" is raised again and again. There is an idea that sciences, developing, are differentiated. Therefore, it seems that the division of philology into a number of sciences, of which linguistics and literary criticism are the most important, is an inevitable and, in essence, a good thing. This is a deep delusion. The number of sciences is indeed increasing, but the emergence of new ones is not only due to their differentiation and “specialization”, but also due to the emergence of connecting disciplines. Physics and chemistry merge, forming a number of intermediate disciplines, mathematics enters into contact with neighboring and non-neighboring sciences, and many sciences are “mathematized”. And it's wonderful: the advancement of our knowledge in the world takes place precisely in the intervals between the "traditional" sciences. The role of philology is precisely binding, and therefore especially important. It connects historical source study with linguistics and literary criticism. It gives a broad dimension to the study of the history of the text. It combines literary criticism and linguistics in the field of studying the style of a work - the most difficult area of literary criticism. By its very essence, philology is anti-formalistic, for it teaches us to correctly understand the meaning of the text, whether it be a historical source or an artistic monument. It requires deep knowledge not only in the history of languages, but also knowledge of the realities of a particular era, the aesthetic ideas of their time, the history of ideas, etc. I will give examples of how important a philological understanding of the meaning of words is. A new meaning arises from the combination of words, and sometimes from their simple repetition. Here are a few words from the poem "Away" by a good Russian poet, and, moreover, simple, accessible - N. Rubtsova: And everything sticks out. A neighbor sticks out at the door, Awakened aunts stick out behind him. Words stick out, a bottle of vodka sticks out,

A meaningless dawn sticks out in the window! Again the window glass in the rain, Again it pulls with fog and chills ... If it were not for the last two lines in this stanza, then the repetitions “sticks out”, “stick out” would not be full of meaning. But only a philologist can explain this magic of words... The fact is that literature is not only the art of the word, it is the art of overcoming the word, the acquisition by the word of special lightness from what combinations the words enter into. Above all the meanings of individual words in the text, above the text, a certain super-sense still hovers, which turns the text from a simple sign system into an artistic system. Combinations of words, and only they give rise to associations in the text, reveal the necessary shades of meaning in the word, create the emotionality of the text. Just as in dance the heaviness of the human body is overcome, in painting the uniqueness of color is overcome through combinations of colors, in sculpture the usual dictionary meanings of the word are overcome. The word in combinations acquires such shades that you will not find in the best historical dictionaries of the Russian language. Poetry and good prose are associative in nature. And philology interprets not only the meanings of words, but also the artistic meaning of the entire text. It is absolutely clear that one cannot engage in literature without being at least a little linguist, one cannot be a textual critic without going into the hidden meaning of the text, the entire text, and not just individual words of the text. Words in poetry mean more than they are called, "signs" of what they are. These words are always present in poetry - whether when they enter into a metaphor, into a symbol, or they themselves are, whether when they are associated with realities that require some knowledge from readers, or when they are associated with historical associations. The researcher of the poet O. Mandelstam gives the following example from a poem about the theater of Racine: ... I will not hear a feathered verse facing the ramp with a double rhyme ... - and writes about these two lines: “For the associations to work correctly, the reader here must know about the paired rhyming of the Alexandrian verse , that the actors of the classical theater uttered their monologues, addressing not to a partner, but to the public, to the hall (“to the ramp”). For most modern readers and even admirers of O. Mandelstam's poetry, these two lines from his poetry would have remained completely incomprehensible if a philologist had not come to his aid - namely a philologist, because to inform the reader at the same time about the Alexandrian verse and about the manner of acting on the classical stage only a philologist can. Philology is the highest form of humanities education, a form that connects all the humanities. It could be shown with dozens of examples how historical source studies suffer when historians misinterpret texts and reveal not only their ignorance of the history of language, but also of the history of culture. Therefore, they also need philology. Therefore, one should not imagine that philology is associated primarily with the linguistic understanding of the text. The understanding of the text is the understanding of the whole life of the epoch standing behind the text. Therefore, philology is the connection of all connections. It is needed by textual critics, source scholars, historians of literature and historians of science, it is needed by art historians, because at the heart of each of the arts, in its “deepest depths”, are the word and the connection of words. She is

needed by everyone who uses the language, the word, the word is associated with any form of being: the word, or more precisely, combinations of words. From this it is clear that philology underlies not only science, but all human culture. Knowledge and creativity are formed through the word, and through overcoming the inertness of the word, culture is born. The wider the circle of epochs, the circle of national cultures that are now included in the sphere of education, the more necessary is philology. Once philology was limited mainly to the knowledge of classical antiquity, now it embraces all countries and all times. The more necessary it is now, the more “difficult” it is, and the rarer it is now to find a real philologist. However, every intelligent person should be at least a little philologist. This is required by the culture. The culture of mankind moves forward not by moving in "space and time", but by accumulating values. Values do not replace each other, new ones do not destroy the old ones (if the “old ones” are really real), but, joining the old ones, increase their significance for today. Therefore, the burden of cultural values is a burden of a special kind. It does not make our step forward heavier, but makes it easier. The more values we have mastered, the more sophisticated and sharp becomes our perception of other cultures - cultures remote from us in time and space of ancient and other countries. Each of the cultures of the past or of another country becomes for an intelligent person "his own culture" - his deeply personal and his own in the national aspect, because the knowledge of one's own is associated with the knowledge of someone else's. Overcoming all kinds of distances is not only the task of modern technology and the exact sciences, but also the task of philology in the broadest sense of the word. At the same time, philology equally overcomes the distance in space (studying the verbal culture of the past). Philology brings together humanity - modern to us and the past. It brings together humanity and different human cultures not by erasing differences in cultures, but by realizing these differences; not by destroying the individuality of cultures, but on the basis of identifying these differences, their scientific understanding, on the basis of respect and tolerance for the "individuality" of cultures. She resurrects the old for the new. Philology is a deeply personal and deeply national science, necessary for the individual and necessary for the development of national cultures. It justifies its name ("philology" - love for the word). Since it is based on love for the verbal culture of all languages, on complete tolerance, respect and interest in all verbal cultures. You may ask me: well, I call everyone to be philologists, to become all specialists in the field of the humanities? I do not call to be specialists, professionals in the humanities. Of course, all professions are needed, and these professions must be evenly and expediently distributed in society. But ... every specialist, every engineer, doctor, every nurse, every carpenter or turner, driver or loader, crane operator and tractor driver must have a cultural outlook. There should not be those who are blind to beauty, deaf to words and real music, callous to goodness, forgetful of the past. And for all this knowledge is needed, intelligence is needed, which is given by the humanities. Read fiction and understand it, read history books and love the past of mankind, read travel literature, memoirs, read art literature, visit museums, travel with meaning and be spiritually rich. Yes, be philologists, that is, "lovers of the word," for the word stands at the beginning of culture and completes it, expresses it. LETTER FORTY-FIVE THE SPACE HERMITAGE Sometime, about ten or two years ago, the following image came into my mind: the Earth is our tiny house, flying in an immensely large space. Then I discovered that this image had occurred to dozens of publicists at the same time as I did. It is so obvious that it is already born hackneyed, stereotyped, although this does not lose its strength and persuasiveness.

Our house! But the Earth is the home of billions and billions of people who lived before us! This is a defenselessly flying museum in a colossal space, a collection of hundreds of thousands of museums, a close collection of works of hundreds of thousands of geniuses (oh, if you could roughly count how many universally recognized geniuses there were on earth!). And not only works of geniuses. How many customs, lovely traditions. How much has been accumulated, saved. How many possibilities. The earth is all covered with diamonds, and under them there are so many diamonds that are still waiting to be cut, made into diamonds. This is something of unimaginable value. And most importantly: there is no second life in the Universe! This can be easily proved mathematically. Millions of conditions had to come together in order to create human culture. And what is there before this incredible value of all our national ambitions, quarrels, personal and state revenge (“retaliatory actions”!). The Hermitage rushing through outer space! LETTER FORTY-SIX IN THE WAYS OF KINDNESS Here is the last letter. There could be more letters, but it's time to sum up. I'm sorry to stop writing. The reader noticed how the topics of the letters gradually became more complicated. We walked with the reader, climbing the stairs. It could not have been otherwise: why then write, if you remain at the same level, without gradually ascending the steps of experience - moral and aesthetic experience. Life requires complications. Perhaps readers got the impression of the letter writer as an arrogant person who tries to teach everyone and everything. This is not entirely true. In letters, I not only "taught", but also studied. I was able to teach precisely because I was learning at the same time: I was learning from my experience, which I was trying to generalize. Much came to my mind as I wrote. I not only stated my experience - I also comprehended howling experience. My letters are instructive, but in instructing I myself have been instructed. The reader and I climbed the steps of experience together, not only my experience, but also the experience of many people. Readers themselves helped me write letters - they talked to me inaudibly. What is the most important thing in life? The main thing can be in the shades, each has its own, unique. But still, the main thing should be for every person. Life should not crumble into trifles, dissolve in everyday worries. And yet, the most important thing: the main thing, no matter how individual it may be for each person, should be kind and significant. A person should be able not only to rise, but to rise above himself, above his personal daily worries and think about the meaning of his life - look back at the past and look into the future. If you live only for yourself, with your petty concerns about your own well-being, then there will be no trace of what you have lived. If you live for others, then others will save what they served, what they gave their strength to. Has the reader noticed that everything bad and petty in life is quickly forgotten. Still people are vexed at a bad and selfish person, at the bad things he has done, but the person himself is no longer remembered, he has been erased from memory. People who do not care about anyone seem to fall out of memory. And people who served others, served smartly, had a good and significant goal in life, are remembered for a long time. They remember their words, deeds, their appearance, their jokes, and sometimes eccentricities. They are told about them. Much less often and, of course, with an unkind feeling, they talk about evil people.

Letters to young readers. Open Library - open library of educational information

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