September 22, 1835 – December 11, 1891

outstanding Russian linguist, literary critic, philosopher, the first major theorist of linguistics in Russia

Biography

Alexander Potebnya was born in 1835 on the Manev farm, near the village of Gavrilovka, Romensky district, Poltava province, into a noble family. He received his primary education at the Polish gymnasium in the city of Radom. In 1851, he entered the Faculty of Law at Kharkov University, from which a year later he transferred to the Faculty of History and Philology. His teachers were the brothers Pyotr and Nikolai Lavrovsky and professor Ambrose Metlinsky. Under the influence of Metlinsky and student Negovsky, a song collector, Potebnya became interested in ethnography, began to study the “Little Russian dialect” and collect folk songs. He graduated from the University in 1856, worked for a short time as a literature teacher at the Kharkov gymnasium, and then, in 1861, defended his master’s thesis “On some symbols in Slavic folk poetry” and began lecturing at Kharkov University. In 1862, Potebnya published his work “Thought and Language,” and in the same year he went on a business trip abroad. He attended lectures at the University of Berlin, studied Sanskrit and visited several Slavic countries. In 1874 he defended his doctoral dissertation “From Notes on Russian Grammar”, and in 1875 he became a professor at Kharkov University.

Corresponding Member of the Imperial St. Petersburg Academy of Sciences from December 5, 1875 in the Department of Russian Language and Literature. In 1877 he was elected a full member of the Society of Lovers of Russian Literature at Moscow University. In the same year he received the Lomonosov Prize, and in 1878 and 1879 he was awarded the Uvarov gold medals. In addition, Potebnya was the chairman of the Kharkov Historical and Philological Society (1878-1890) and a member of the Czech Scientific Society.

Alexander Afanasyevich's brother, Andrei, was an officer who took part in the Polish uprising of 1863 and died in battle during it.

He died on November 29 (December 11), 1891 in Kharkov.

Scientific activity

Grammar theory

Potebnya was strongly influenced by the ideas of Wilhelm von Humboldt, but reinterpreted them in a psychological spirit. He did a lot of studying the relationship between thinking and language, including in the historical aspect, identifying, primarily on Russian and Slavic material, historical changes in the thinking of the people. Dealing with issues of lexicology and morphology, he introduced a number of terms and conceptual oppositions into the Russian grammatical tradition. In particular, he proposed to distinguish between “further” (associated, on the one hand, with encyclopedic knowledge, and on the other, with personal psychological associations, and in both cases individual) and “proximal” (common to all native speakers, “folk”, or, as they now more often say in Russian linguistics, the “naive”) meaning of the word. In languages ​​with developed morphology, the immediate meaning is divided into real and grammatical.

Internal form of a word

Potebnya is also known for his theory of the internal form of the word, in which he concretized the ideas of V. von Humboldt. The internal form of a word is its “closest etymological meaning”, recognized by native speakers (for example, the word table retains a figurative connection with lay); Thanks to its internal form, a word can acquire new meanings through metaphor. It was in Potebnya’s interpretation that “internal form” became a commonly used term in the Russian grammatical tradition.

Poetics

Potebnya was one of the first in Russia to study the problems of poetic language in connection with thinking, and raised the question of art as a special way of understanding the world.

Ukrainian Studies

Potebnya studied Ukrainian dialects (united at that time in linguistics as the “Little Russian dialect”) and folklore, and became the author of a number of fundamental works on this topic.

Ethnocultural views and “Pan-Russianism” of Potebnya

Potebnya was an ardent patriot of his homeland - Little Russia, but was skeptical about the idea of ​​​​the independence of the Ukrainian language and its development as a literary language. He viewed the Russian language as a single whole - a combination of Great Russian and Little Russian dialects, and considered the all-Russian literary language to be the property of not only Great Russians, but also Belarusians and Little Russians equally; this corresponded to his views on the political and cultural unity of the Eastern Slavs - “Pan-Russism”. His student, D.N. Ovsyaniko-Kulikovsky recalled:

Kharkov school

Created a scientific school known as the “Kharkov linguistic school”; Dmitry Ovsyaniko-Kulikovsky (1853-1920) and a number of other scientists belonged to it. Potebnya's ideas had a great influence on many Russian linguists of the second half of the 19th century and the first half of the 20th century.

Main works

• About full consent. “Philological Notes”, Voronezh, (1864).
• Notes on the Little Russian dialect (1870)
• About the external and internal form of the word.

The image of Potebnya in art

On September 10, 2010, on his birthday, Ukrposhta issued a postage stamp with a face value of 1 hryvnia No. 1055 “Alexander Potebnya” with a circulation of 158,000 copies, and also made two first-day cancellations - in his homeland, in Romny, and at the main post office of Kyiv.

Alexander Afanasyevich Potebnya

Potebnya Alexander Afanasyevich (1835/1891) - Ukrainian and Russian philologist-Slavist. He was engaged in the development of the theory of literature (topics: the doctrine of the “internal form” of the word, the poetics of the genre, the nature of poetry, language and thinking), as well as folklore, ethnography, issues of general linguistics, phonetics, grammar and semasiology of Slavic languages. Corresponding member of the St. Petersburg Academy of Sciences (1875).

Guryeva T.N. New literary dictionary / T.N. Guryev. – Rostov n/d, Phoenix, 2009, p. 227.

Potebnya Alexander Afanasyevich - Russian philologist, cultural scientist, philosopher. Graduated from the Faculty of History and Philology of Kharkov University (1856). He defended his master's dissertation (“On some symbols in Slavic folk poetry,” 1860) and doctoral dissertation (“From notes on Russian grammar,” 1874). Trained in Germany, visited a number of Slavic countries to collect materials on the history of language and folklore. Since 1875 - professor at Kharkov University. Corresponding member of the St. Petersburg Academy of Sciences (1877). In studying the history of language and thinking, he relied on the ideas of W. Humboldt. He considered the people living in the element of their native language to be its creator and at the same time the subject of the reverse influence. Language shapes ethnicity; it is the most important means of spiritual development of a nation. He paid a lot of attention to the practical collection of folklore and historical and cultural materials of the Ukrainian and Russian ethnic groups, proving their deep kinship and common mythopoeic consciousness. Studying myth as a special phenomenon in the development of thinking, he interpreted it as “an act of conscious thought, an act of cognition,” which serves as the first step in “explaining the unknown.” In his teaching about language, he singled out the external sound shell of a word, its abstract meaning and internal form. The latter is associated with etymological content and carries an image developed by the memory of the people, recognizable in speech. On the basis of its polysemy and play of meanings, the artistic poetics of verbal creativity is formed. Potebnya had a significant influence on the development of Russian historical linguistics, ethnopsychology, semiotics, and Symbolist poetics.

ON THE. Kutsenko

New philosophical encyclopedia. In four volumes. / Institute of Philosophy RAS. Scientific ed. advice: V.S. Stepin, A.A. Guseinov, G.Yu. Semigin. M., Mysl, 2010, vol. III, N – S, p. 302.

Potebnya Alexander Afanasyevich (10 (22).09.1835, village of Gavrilovka Romensky, Poltava province -29.11 (11.12. 1891, Kharkov) - philosopher, cultural scientist, linguist. In 1851, Potebnya entered the Faculty of Law at Kharkov University, then transferred to the Faculty of History and Philology, from which he graduated in 1856. He passed the master's exam in Slavic philology and was left at the university. In 1862 he was sent abroad for an internship. He studied in Berlin, where he took Sanskrit lessons from A.F. Weber. During his trips to Slavic countries he studied Czech, Slovenian and Serbo-Croatian. Before defending his doctoral dissertation (“From notes on Russian grammar,” parts 1 and 2), Potebnya was an associate professor, then an extraordinary and ordinary professor in the department of Russian language and literature at Kharkov University. The formation of Potebnya’s political views was greatly influenced by the tragic fate of his brother Andrei Potebnya, an active member of “Land and Freedom” who died during the Polish uprising of 1863. Potebnya’s democratic sympathies, which he did not hide, caused a wary attitude towards him on the part of officials authorities. Potebnya's main scientific interest lay in the study of the relationships between language and thinking. According to Potebnya, “language is a means not to express a ready-made thought, but to create it,” that is, a thought can only be realized in the element of language. The structure of a word is a unity of articulate sound, the internal form of the word and abstract meaning. The internal form of a word is associated with its closest etymological meaning and serves, as a representation, as a channel of communication between the sensory image and the abstract meaning. The word with its internal form is a means of “transition from the image of an object to a concept.” Many thoughts and ideas expressed by Potebnya in general form formed the basis for a number of modern areas of humanities.

Potebnya was the creator or stood at the origins of the birth of historical grammar, historical dialectology, semiotics, sociolinguistics, ethnopsychology. The philosophical and linguistic approach allowed him to see in myth, folklore, and literature various sign-symbolic systems that are derivative in relation to language. Thus, myth, from Potebnya’s point of view, does not exist outside of the word. Of decisive importance for the emergence of myths was the internal form of the word, which acts as an intermediary between what is explained in the myth and what it explains. Myth is the act of “explaining the unknown (x) through a set of previously given signs, combined and brought to consciousness by word or image (a).”

The categories “people” and “nationality” are of great importance for Potebnya’s philosophical views. Based on the ideas of V. Humboldt, Potebnya considered the people to be the creators of language. At the same time, he emphasized that it is the language, once it has arisen, that determines the further development of the culture of a given people. According to Potebnya, nowhere is the spirit of a people manifested so fully and brightly as in its traditions and folklore. This is where the values ​​that then fuel professional art and creativity are created. Potebnya himself was a tireless collector of Russian and Ukrainian folklore, and did a lot to prove the unity of basic folklore and mythological stories two Slavic peoples The problem “language - nation” formulated by him was developed in the works of D. N. Ovsyaniko-Kulikovsky, D. N. Kudryavtsev, N. S. Trubetskoy, Shpet. Potebnya's research in the field of symbolism of language and artistic creativity attracted attention in the 20th century. close attention of theorists of symbolism. Numerous echoes of the ideas of Potebnya are contained in the works of V. I. Ivanov, A. Bely, Bryusov and other symbolists.

A. V. Ivanov

Russian philosophy. Encyclopedia. Ed. second, modified and expanded. Under the general editorship of M.A. Olive. Comp. P.P. Apryshko, A.P. Polyakov. – M., 2014, p. 493-494.

Works: From notes on the theory of literature (Poetry and prose. Paths and figures. Poetic and mythical thinking). Kharkov, 1905; About some symbols in Slavic folk poetry. 2nd ed. Kharkov, 1914; From lectures on the theory of literature. 3rd ed. Kharkov, 1930; From notes on Russian grammar. 3rd ed. M., 1958. T. 1-2; From notes on Russian grammar. 2nd ed. M., 1968. T. 3; Aesthetics and poetics. M., 1976; Word and myth. M., 1989.

Literature: Bely A. Thought and language (philosophy of language by A. A. Potebnya) // Logos. 1910. Book. 2; It's him. The magic of words // Bely A. Symbolism as a worldview. M., 1994. S. 131-142; Bulakhovsky L. A. A. A. Potebnya. Kyiv, 1952; Presnyakov O. P. Poetics of knowledge and creativity: Theory of literature by A. Potebnya. M., 1980.

Potebnya Alexander Afanasyevich (10.10.1835-29.11.1891), linguist, creator of the philosophical and linguistic concept - “Potebnianism”. In 1856 he graduated from Kharkov University and taught there from 1860. From 1875 - professor at Kharkov University; Corresponding member of the St. Petersburg Academy of Sciences (since 1877). Potebnya’s central work “From Notes on Russian Grammar” played an outstanding role in the substantiation of historical linguistics and in the development of the grammatical theory of the Russian language. Potebnya was one of the first in Russia to put the development of questions of the history of thinking in its connection with language on the basis of accurate factual research, and tried to establish general semantic principles for man’s awareness of the basic categorical relations of reality. Considering speech units as an act of thought in which the linguistic form acts as a “reference to meaning,” Potebnya substantiates the doctrine of the “internal form” of a word. According to this teaching, along with the sign shell and abstract meaning, the word has an “internal form,” that is, a representation, an image of this meaning, just as the term “window,” in addition to a four-letter combination of signs and the concept of a glazed wall opening, contains the image This meaning is the idea of ​​the “eye” (eye). The internal contradiction between such sensory images and abstract meanings determines, according to Potebnya, the genesis of speech-mental activity. Developing the doctrine of the role of language in mental activity, Potebnya points out that the representation of the meaning of a speech signal, the so-called. “apperception in the word” acts as a prerequisite for self-awareness. In the work “From Notes on Russian Grammar” Potebnya analyzes the sensory image in a word as an “internal sign” of its semantics and considers the function of the “internal form” as the closest meaning of the word, which is of a nationwide nature and is a condition for understanding speech. Analyzing image and meaning as the main components of art, Potebnya emphasizes the polysemantic nature of its language and introduces the so-called. “formula of poetry”: A (image)< Х (значения), возводящую неравенство числа образов множеству их возможных значений в специфику искусства. Соотношение образа и значения в слове носит, по мнению Потебни, исторический характер; оно очерчивает специфику как мифологического сознания (характеризующегося нерасчлененностью образных и понятийных сторон своего языка), так и сменяющих его форм художественно-поэтического мышления (в котором значение преломляется через образ) и научного мышления (характеризующегося приматом значения над образом). Исследуя генезис грамматических и логических категорий, Потебня вскрыл категориальную синкретичность первобытного мышления, связанную с архаичной нерасчлененностью представлений о субстанции и атрибутах, и рассматривал путь ее преодоления. В связи с анализом истории мышления и его категорий Потебня развивает идеи эмпирического обоснования логики. Ценные результаты получены Потебней и в области литературоведения, фольклористики, славяноведения. Потебня считал, что объективны лишь конкретные вещи, а общие заключения о них - продукт «личной мысли». Отсюда концепция Потебни об антропоморфичности категорий мышления.

Materials used from the site Great Encyclopedia of the Russian People - http://www.rusinst.ru

Read further:

Philosophers, lovers of wisdom (biographical index).

Russian national philosophy in the works of its creators (special project of KHRONOS).

Essays:

From notes on the theory of literature. Kharkov, 1905;

From notes on Russian grammar, vol. 1–2. M., 1958; t. 3, M., 1968;

Aesthetics and poetics. M., 1976;

Word and myth. M., 1989;

Theoretical poetics. M., 1990.

Explanations of Little Russian and related folk songs. T. 1-2. Warsaw, 1883-87; From notes on Russian grammar. [T.] 1-2. Ed. 2nd. Kharkov, 1888; New ed. M., 1958; T. 3. Kharkov, 1899; T. 4. M.-L., 1941; Fundamentals of Poetics (Based on lectures given by A. A. Potebnya in the late 80s...) / Comp. V. Khartsiev // Questions of theory and psychology of creativity. T. 2. Issue. 2. St. Petersburg, 1910; Psychology of poetic thinking. (From the lectures of A. A. Potebnya. Article compiled from student notes of lectures... B. Lezin) // Ibid.; Rough notes... about L.N. Tolstoy and Dostoevsky // Ibid. T. 5. Kharkov, 1914; About some symbols in Slavic folk poetry... Ed. 2nd. Kharkov, 1914; Thought and language. 5th edition. Full collection Op. T. 1. [O.], 1926; From lectures on the theory of literature. Ed. 3rd. Kharkov, 1930.

Literature:

Bely A. Thought and language (philosophy of language by A.A. Potebnya). - “Logos”, 1910, book. 2;

Raynov T.A. A.A. Potebnya. Pg., 1924;

Bulakhovsky L.A. A.A. Potebnya. K., 1952;

Presnyakov O.P. Poetics of knowledge and creativity. Theory of literature by A. Potebnya. M., 1980.

Thought and language. - St. Petersburg, 1892;
From notes on Russian grammar, vol. 1–2. - Kharkov, 1874; t. 3. - Kharkov, 1899; v. 4. - M.–L., 1941; vol. 4, no. 2. - M., 1977 ( Reprint.: T. 1–2 - M.: Uchpedgiz, 1958; T. 3 - M.: Education, 1968);
From notes on the theory of literature. - Kharkov, 1905;
About some symbols in Slavic folk poetry. - 2nd ed. - Kharkov, 1914;
From lectures on the theory of literature. - 3rd ed. - Kharkov, 1930;
Aesthetics and poetics. - M., 1976;
Word and myth. - M.: Pravda, 1989;
Theoretical poetics. - M.: Higher. school, 1990;
On the origin of the names of some Slavic pagan deities / Publ. prepared Afanasyeva N.E., Franchuk V.Yu. // Slavic and Balkan folklore. - M., 1989. - P. 254–26 7.

• Potebnya A.A. Thought and language// Potebnya A.A. Word and myth. - M.: Pravda, 1989.
  PotebnyaA. A. Thought and language. - 3rd edition. - Kharkov, Printing house Peaceful Labor, 1913.
• Potebnya A.A. Psychology of poetic and prosaic thinking// Potebnya A.A. Word and myth. - M., 1989. - P. 201–235.
• Potebnya A.A. From lectures on the theory of literature: Fable. Proverb. Proverb// Potebnya A.A. Theoretical poetics. - M.: Higher. school, 1990.
• Potebnya A.A. From notes on the theory of literature. Fragments// Potebnya A.A. Word and myth: Theoretical poetics. - M.: Pravda, 1989. - P. 249–252, 256–260.
• Potebnya A.A. On the mythical meaning of some beliefs and rituals // Readings at the Imperial Society of Russian History and Antiquities at Moscow University. 1865 . Book 2. - M., 1865. - 311 p.
• Potebnya A.A. Little Russian folk song, according to the list XVI century: Text and notes.- Voronezh, 1877. - 53 p.
• Potebnya A.A. Review about the work of A. Sobolevsky// News of the Department of Russian Language and Literature of the Imperial Academy of Sciences. - St. Petersburg, 1896. - T. I. Book. 4. - pp. 804–831. (Review of the book: Sobolevsky A. Essays on the history of the Russian language. - Kyiv, 1884. - Part 1.)
• Potebnya A.A. Theoretical poetics. (pdf, 8 MB.)- M.: Higher. school, 1990. - P. 7–313.
• Potebnya A.A.<Из переписки>:
  • Potebnya A.A. Letter to A.A. Khovansky, September 12, 1866. Kharkov; Potebnya A.A. Letter to A.A. Khovansky, [undated];
  • Potebnya A.A. Letter to A.A. Khovansky, April 15, 1860;
  • Potebnya A.A. Letter to A.A. Khovansky, September 20, 1873. Kharkov; November 8, 1873;
  • Kolosov M.A. Letter to Potebne A.A., November 11, 1874;
  • Buslaev F.I. Letter to Potebne A.A., March 8, 1875;
  • Dmitrievsky A. Letter to Potebne A.A., December 21, 1881. In short;
  • Batalin N. Letter to Potebne A.A., December 6. 1881. Moscow;
  • Zimnitsky V. Letter to Potebne A.A., October 28, 1885. Volsk, Saratov province;
  • Potebnya A.A. Letter to A.A. Khovansky, November 13, 1874;
  • Potebnya A.A. Letter to A.A. Khovansky, December 30, 1874
    Cm.: Franchuk V.Yu. On the centenary of “From Notes on Russian Grammar” by A.A. Potebnya: (1874–1974). // Izv. Academician Sciences of the USSR. Ser. literature and language. - M., 1974. - T. 33. - No. 6: (November - December). - pp. 527–535.
  • Franchuk V. Yu.From letters of M. A. Kolosov to A. A. Potebne: (On the history of the creation of the journal “Russian Philological Bulletin”)// News of the USSR Academy of Sciences. Literature and Language Series. - M.: Nauka, 1985. - T. 44. - No. 6. - P. 548-553.

The nature of language and the goals of linguistics

“...To show in practice the participation of the word in the formation of a consistent series of systems that embrace the relationship of the individual to nature.”

()

“...There is nothing in language except external and internal form.”

(From notes on Russian grammar. T.1-2. - M., 1958. - P. 47)

“...The principles developed by the life of individual languages ​​and peoples are different and irreplaceable one another, but point to others and require their addition.”

(Thought and language // Potebnya A.A. Word and myth. - M., 1989. - S.)

Consciousness and unconsciousness

“Psychology is a science too new and difficult to say anything definite. We limit ourselves to terms, words that replace research. We say: the area of ​​human consciousness is very narrow. That is, we must imagine that, figuratively speaking, we have a narrow stage in our heads on which all the characters cannot fit, but will ascend, pass and descend. This little scene, which cannot be defined more precisely, is called consciousness.”

(From lectures on the theory of literature // Potebnya A.A. Theoretical poetics. - M., 1990. - P. 99)

“Language provides a lot of evidence that such phenomena, which, apparently, could be directly conscious and expressed in words, actually presuppose a long preparation of thought, turn out to be only the last in a series of many previous, already forgotten instances.”

(Thought and language // Potebnya A.A. Word and myth. - M., 1989. - P. 195)

Creativity and understanding

“Art is the language of the artist, and just as through words one cannot convey one’s thoughts to another, but one can only awaken his own in him, so it cannot be communicated in a work of art; therefore, the content of this latter (when it is finished) no longer develops in the artist, but in those who understand. The listener can understand much better than the speaker what is hidden behind the word, and the reader can comprehend the idea of ​​his work better than the poet himself. The essence, the power of such a work is not in what the author meant by it, but in how it affects the reader or viewer, therefore, in its inexhaustible possible content. This content, projected by us, that is, embedded in the work itself, is indeed determined by its internal form, but could not be at all included in the calculations of the artist, who creates, satisfying the temporary, often very narrow needs of his life.”

(Thought and language // Potebnya A.A. Word and myth. - M., 1989. - P. 167)

Science, poetry, philosophy

“Science fragments the world in order to put it back into a harmonious system of concepts; but this goal moves away as one approaches it, the system collapses from any fact that is not included in it, and the number of facts cannot be exhausted. Poetry warns of this unattainable analytical knowledge of the harmony of the world; pointing out this harmony with its concrete images, which do not require an infinite number of perceptions, and replacing the unity of concept with the unity of representation, it in some way rewards the imperfection of scientific thought and satisfies the innate human need to see the whole and perfect everywhere. The purpose of poetry is not only to prepare science, but also to temporarily organize and complete its building, which is not high from the ground. This is the long-noticed similarity between poetry and philosophy. But philosophy is accessible to few; its ponderous course does not inspire confidence in the feeling of dissatisfaction with the one-sided fragmentation of life and is too slow to heal the moral suffering that arises from this. In these cases, art helps a person out, especially poetry and the religion originally associated with it.”

(Thought and language // Potebnya A.A. Word and myth. - M., 1989. - P. 180–181)

Literature about A.A. Potebne

• Lavrovsky P. Critical analysis of the study “On the mythical meaning of some beliefs and rituals”: ​​Essay A. Potebnya // Readings at the Imperial Society of Russian History and Antiquities at Moscow University. - 1866, book. 2. -P.1-102.
• Voltaire E.A., A.A. Potebnya. 1835–1891. Bibliographic materials for the biography of A.A. Potebni. - St. Petersburg, 1892.
• In memory of A.A. Potebnya: Sat. - Kharkov, 1892.
• Ivanov N.I. On the foundations of Russian folk and literary versification (In memory of Al. Af. Potebnya) // Philological notes, 1892, century. IV, 1-24; 1893, c. I. - pp. 25-65.
• Ivanov N.I. Opinion of A. Potebnya on the foundations of Russian folk versification, in connection with the history of the issue. // Readings at the Historical Society of Nestor the Chronicler. T. 7, 1893. - Kyiv, 1893.
• Ovsyaniko-Kulikovsky D.N. A.A. Potebnya as a linguist, thinker // Kiev Antiquity, 1893, VII-IX.
• Ovsyaniko-Kulikovsky D.N. A.A. Potebnya // Ovsyaniko-Kulikovsky D.N. Lit.-crit. articles. In 2 volumes - M., 1989. - T. 2. - P. 464–485.
• Vetukhov A. Language, poetry and science. - Kharkov, 1894.
• Sumtsov N.F., A.A. Potebnya // Russian biographical dictionary. - Tom Plavilshchikov. – St. Petersburg: Primo, 1905. - pp. 643–646.
• Bely A. Thought and language (philosophy of language by A.A. Potebnya)// Logos. - 1910. - Book. 2. - pp. 240-258.
• Bely A. The magic of words // Bely A. Symbolism as a worldview. - M., 1994. - P. 131–142.
• Khartsiev V. Fundamentals of poetics A.A. Potebni. (Based on lectures by A.A. Potebnya) // “Questions of the theory and psychology of creativity.” - T. 2, issue. 2. - St. Petersburg, 1910.
• Shklovsky V.B. Potebnya// Poetics: Sat. on the theory of poetic language. - Pg., 1919. - P. 3–6.
• Shklovsky V.B. Art as a technique // Poetics: Sat. on the theory of poetic language. - Pg., 1919. - P. 101–114.
• Gornfeld A.G. A.A. Potebnya and modern science // Chronicle of the House of Writers. - No. 4, 1921.
• Gornfeld A.G. Potebnya // Gornfeld A.G. Combat responses to peaceful topics. - L., 1924.
• Bulletin of the Editorial Committee for the publication of works by O. Potebnya, part 1. - Kharkiv, 1922.
• Drozdovskaya E. Potebnya// Literary encyclopedia: In 11 volumes - [M.], 1929–1939. T. 9. - M.: OGIZ RSFSR, State. int. “Owl. Encyclical,” 1935. - Stb. 180–190.
• Raynov T. Alexander Afanasyevich Potebnya. - Pg.: Kolos, 1924.
• // Tynyanov Yu.N. Poetics. History of literature. Movie. - M., 1977. - P. 167.
• Shpet G.G. "The Inner Form of the Word: Etudes and Variations on Themes by Humboldt." - M.: GAKHN, 1927. Republished: Shpet G.G. "The Inner Form of the Word: Etudes and Variations on Themes by Humboldt." - Ivanovo, 2000.
• Vygotsky L.S. Psychology of art. - 3rd ed. - M.: Art, 1986. ( Chapter V. Analysis of the fable)
• Vinogradov V.V. “A.A. Potebnya." // Rus. language At school. - 1938. - No. 5–6.
• Vinogradov V.V. Russian language (Grammatical doctrine of words). - 3rd ed., rev. - M.: Higher. school, 1986. - 640 p.
• Vinogradov V.V. Russian science about the Russian literary language // Uch. zap. - Moscow State University, 1946. - Issue. 106.
• Vinogradov V.V. From the history of the study of Russian syntax (From Lomonosov to Potebnya and Fortunatov). - M., 1958.
• Katsnelson S.D. On the issue of stages in the teachings of Potebnya// News of the USSR Academy of Sciences. Department of Literature and Language. - M.: Publishing House of the USSR Academy of Sciences, 1948. - T. VII. Vol. 1. - pp. 83–95. pdf
• Yaroshevsky M.G. The concept of the internal form of a word in Potebnya// News of the USSR Academy of Sciences: Ser. literature and language. - M., 1946. - T. 5. - Issue. 5. html
• Yaroshevsky M.G. Philosophical and psychological views of A.A. Potebny // Izvestia of the USSR Academy of Sciences: Ser. history and philosophy. - M., 1946. - T. 3. - No. 2.
• Bulakhovsky L.A. Potebnya-linguist // Uch. zap. - Moscow State University, 1946. - Issue. 107.
• Bulakhovsky L.A. Alexander Afanasyevich Potebnya. - Kyiv, 1952.
• Oleksandr Opanasovich Potebnya: Jubilee Zbirnik. - Kiev, 1962.
• Granz M. On the concept of the internal form of a word in the works of A.A. Potebnya // Question. philosophy and sociology. - L., 1971. - Issue. 3
• Ermakova O. P., Zemskaya E. A. Comparative study of word formation and the internal form of the word//Izvestia of the USSR Academy of Sciences: Ser. literature and language. - M.: Nauka, 1985. - T. 44. No. 6. - P. 518-525.
• Academic schools in Russian literary criticism. - M., 1975.
• Muratov A.B. About the theory of the image of A.A. Potebnya// News of the USSR Academy of Sciences. Literature and Language Series. - M, 1977. - T. 36. - No. 2. - P. 99–111.
• Presnyakov O.P. A.A. Potebnya and Russian literary criticism of the late 19th – early 20th centuries. - Saratov: Saratov University Publishing House, 1978. - 227 p.
• Presnyakov O.P. Poetics of knowledge and creativity: Theory of literature by A.A. Potebni. - M., 1980.
• Leontiev A.A., Tseytlin R.M. Potebnya Alexander Afanasyevich// Great Soviet Encyclopedia / Ed. 3rd.
• Mineralov Yu.I. Concept by A.A. Potebni and Russian poetic style // From the history of Slavic studies in Russia. - Tartu, 1983. - T. 2.
• Mineralov Yu.I. Theory of literature A.A. Potebnya// Poetics. Style. Equipment / Yu.I. Minerals. – M., 2002
• O.O. Potebnya: Anniversary zbipnik until the 125th anniversary of the people's day. - Kyiv, 1962 (complete bibliography).
• Naukova Spadshchina O.O. Potebni i suchasna philology. - Kiev, 1985.
• The significance of ideas O.O. Potebni for the development of the problem of language voices and the principles of classification of Russian diesels // - Kiev, 1986. - No. 3. - P. 38–44.
• Systemic linguistics of Humboldt – Sreznevsky – Potebnya – Baudouin and modern systemic typology of languages ​​// Problems of typological, functional and descriptive linguistics. - M., 1986 - P. 13–26.
• Linguistic views of A.A. Potebnya and typology of languages ​​// Naukova Spadshchina O.O. Potebni suchasna philology. Until the 150th day of birth of O.O. Potebni. Collection of scientific works. - Kiev: Naukova Dumka, 1985. - P.65–89.
• Melnikov G.P. Systemic typology of languages: synthesis of morphological classification of languages ​​with stage classification. M., 2000. - 90 p. ( 4. Clarification of Humboldt’s ideas about the nature of language A.A. Potebney and I.A. Baudouin de Courtenay ; 5. The nature of words and lexemes in the light of the ideas of Humboldt – Potebnya – Baudouin).
• Ponomareva G.M. I. Annensky and A. Potebnya: On the question of the source of the concept of internal. forms in the “Books of Reflections” by I. Annensky // Typology lit. interactions. - Tartu, 1983.
• Budagov R.A. A.A. Potebnya as a linguist-thinker (To the 150th anniversary of his birth) // Issues. linguistics. - M., 1986. - No. 3. - P. 3–15.
• Ostryanin D.F. About the philosophical views of A.A. Potebny // Problem. philosophy. - Kyiv, 1986. - Vol. 70. - pp. 85–97.
• Matseykiv M.A. Psychological views of A.A. Potebnya: Author's abstract. dis. Ph.D. psychol. Sciences / Research Institute of Psychology of the Ukrainian SSR. - Kyiv, 1987. - 16 p.
• Drozdovskaya E. Potebnya// Literary encyclopedia: In 11 volumes - [M.], 1929–1939. - T. 9. - M.: OGIZ RSFSR, State. int. “Owl. Encyclical,” 1935. - Stb. 180–190.
• Traditions of A.A. Potebnya and modern philology: Materials of the III Potebnyan Readings / Khark. state University named after A.M. Gorky. - Kharkov, 1988. - 92 p.
• Rinberg V.L. On the problem of ancient connected text in the works of A.A. Potebny // Izv. Academy of Sciences of the USSR. Ser. lit. and language - M., 1988. - T. 47, No. 6. - P. 571–576.
• Gatsak V. M.The legacy of A. A. Potebnya and prospects for the historical and poetic study of folklore// Izv. Academy of Sciences of the USSR. Ser. lit. and language - M., 1986. - T. 45. - No. 1. - P. 5-11.
• Girshman M.M. Ideas by A.A. Potebnya and the philological approach to the study of verbal and artistic image // Scientific. report higher school Philol. Sciences. - M., 1988. - No. 1. - P. 25–28.
• Umyarov K.T. About the concept of “internal form” in A.A. Potebnya // Moscow State University named after M.V. Lomonosov - M., 1988. - 17 p.
• Bayburin A.K. A.A. Potebnya: Philosophy of Language and Myth// Potebnya A.A. Word and myth. M., 1989. P. 3–10.
• Zubkova L.G. A.A. Potebnya // Zubkova L.G. Linguistic teachings of the late XVIII – early XX centuries: Development of the general theory of language in systemic concepts. - M., 1989. - P. 82–128.
• Zubkova L.G. Language in the mirror of systemic sign theories: Plato – W. von Humboldt – A.A. Potebnya // Vestn. Ross. Peoples' Friendship University. Ser.: linguistics. - M., 2002. - No. 3. - P. 4–22.
• D ondua K.D. Syntactic assimilation in the light of A. A. Potebnya// News of the Academy of Sciences of the SSR, Dept. literature and language. - 1941, No. 3. - S. 56-60.
• Sokolovskaya Zh.P. The problem of polysemy in the linguistic concept of A.A. Potebny // Scientific. report higher school Philol. Sciences. - M., 1989. - No. 2. - P. 46–52.
• Demyankov V.Z. Interpretation, understanding and linguistic aspects of their computer modeling- M.: Publishing house Mosk. University, 1989. - 172 p.
• Sidorets V.S. On the problem of linguistic implementation of predicative semantics in the light of the research of A.A. Potebni // Russian language. - Minsk, 1989. - Issue. 9. - pp. 64–67.
• Snitko E.S. Teachings of A.A. Potebni about the internal form of the word and its fate in modern linguistics // Rus. linguistics. - Kyiv, 1991. - Issue. 22. - pp. 39–45.
• Franchuk V.Yu. A.A. Potebnya and Slavic philology // Issues. linguistics. - M., 1992. - No. 4. - P. 123–130.
// Russian Philological Bulletin. - 1998. - No. 1/2.
• Kakinuma, Nobuaki. “Sound symbolism” by A. Bely and the theory of the origin of language by A.A. Potebny // Voices of young scientists. - M., 1998. - Issue. 3. - pp. 81–98.
• Engelhardt B.M. The theory of literature in the linguistic system of A.A. Potebny // Publ. Muratova A.B. // Language and speech activity. - St. Petersburg, 1999. - T. 2. - P. 236–263.
• Sukhikh S.I. Theoretical poetics A.A. Potebni. - N. Novgorod, 2001. - 287 p.
• Pocheptsov G.G. Potebnya // Pocheptsov G.G. History of Russian semiotics before and after 1917: Educational and reference publication. - M.: Labyrinth, 1998. (Chapter 1. Prehistory of semiotics in Russia).
• Novikov L.A. What is behind the combined spelling of NOT with verbs in A.A. Potebnya: On one feature of the scientist’s spelling // Dictionary and culture of Russian speech: To the 100th anniversary of the birth of S.I. Ozhegova. - M., 2001. - P. 283–290.
German idealism and Russian philosophy of language // Russian and European philosophy: ways of convergence. Sat. materials conf. - St. Petersburg, 1999.
• Toporkov A.L. Theory of myth in Russian philological science of the 19th century. - M.: Indrik, 1997. - 456 p.
• Rancour-Laferriere, D. Potebnja, Shklovskij, and the Familiarity/Strangeness Paradox / Russian Literature. - 1976. - N. 4. - P. 175–198.
• Ferrari-Bravo, D. Il concetto di «segno nella linguistica russa (da Potebnja a Saussure) / Mondo slavo e cultura italiana. - Roma, 1983. - P. 122–139.
• Bartschat, B. Ideengeschichtliche Bezuge zwischen Hajim Steinthal und Aleksandr Afanas "evic Potebnja / Ling. Arbeitsber. - Leipzig, 1987. - N 63. - S. 1–12.
• Fizer, J. Alexander A. Potebnja "s Psycholinguistic Theory of Literature: A Metacritical Inquiry. - Harvard, 1988. - 184 p. Rec.: R.R. Doister.
• Bushnell, K. Language as activity: Formalism, the Bakhtin Circle, and the debt to Humboldt and Potebnia. Ph.D. Dissertation. 1993.

Philologist, born in the Romensky district of the Poltava province, on September 10, 1835, into a noble family. At the age of seven, P. was sent to the Radom Gymnasium and, thanks to this circumstance, learned the Polish language well. In 1851, P. entered the Kharkov University, the Faculty of Law, but the next year, 1852, he switched to the Faculty of History and Philology. At the university, he lived in a boarding house as a government-funded student and subsequently recalled with pleasure this period of his life and found good aspects in the then student dormitory. At the university, P. became close to student M.V. Negovsky; Negovsky had a special Little Russian library, which P. used. The teaching staff at that time at Kharkov University was not brilliant. The Russian language was read by A. L. Metlinsky, according to P. a kind and sympathetic person, but a weak professor. His “Collection of South Russian Folk Songs,” according to P., was the first book that taught him to take a closer look at the phenomena of language, and there is no doubt that Metlinsky’s sympathetic personality and his literary experiences in the Little Russian language influenced P., lulling his love to language and literature; The collection of Little Russian folk songs compiled by Metlinsky had a particularly beneficial effect on P.. At the university, P. listened to two famous Slavists, P. A. and N. A. Lavrovsky, and later remembered them with gratitude as scientific supervisors. P. completed a course at the university in 1856 and, on the advice of P. A. Lavrovsky, began to prepare for the master's exam. At one time he occupied the place of a class monitor at the Kharkov 1st gymnasium, but was soon appointed supernumerary senior teacher of Russian literature. According to the instructions of N.A. Lavrovsky, P. became acquainted with the works of Miklosic and Karadzic. After defending his master's thesis "On Some Symbols", P. was appointed an adjunct at Kharkov University, with dismissal from his post as a gymnasium teacher, and in 1861 he was entrusted with theoretical studies in pedagogy; at the same time he was secretary of the Faculty of History and Philology. His master's thesis clearly revealed his inclination towards the philosophical study of language and poetry and towards defining symbolic meanings in words. This work did not cause imitations; but the author himself later turned to it many times and subsequently developed some of its sections with greater detail and depth of scientific analysis. The inclination towards the philosophical psychological study of the structure of speech and the history of language was especially clearly revealed in P.’s extensive article “Thought and Language”, published in 1862 in the “Journal of the Ministry. In 1892, after P.’s death, this work was republished by the widow of the deceased, M. F. Potebnya, with a portrait of the author and a short preface written by prof. M. S. Drinov.

In 1862, P. was sent abroad for two years, but soon missed his homeland and returned a year later. P. visited the Slavic lands, listened to Sanskrit from Weber and personally met Miklosic. At this time, his views on the meaning of nationalism in science and life were already quite clearly and clearly defined, as shown by several large letters from P. to Belikov that have survived from that time (now kept in manuscript by Prof. M.E. Khalansky).

Since 1863, P. was an associate professor at Kharkov University. Around this time, his disagreements with Pyotr A. Lavrovsky date back, the literary remainder of which is provided by Lavrovsky’s harsh criticism of P.’s essay (1865) “On the mythical meaning of certain rituals and beliefs,” published in “Readings of the Moscow General History . and ancient Russian." 1866 P. wrote a response that was not published by the editor of “Readings” O. M. Bodyansky and was preserved in P.’s manuscripts. In 1874, he defended his doctoral dissertation at Kharkov University: “From notes on Russian grammar,” in 2 parts; in 1875 he was approved as an extraordinary professor and in the same fall - as an ordinary professor. The dissertation was preceded by a number of other works on philology and mythology: “On the connection of certain ideas” - in Philol. Notes" 1864, "On full-voice" and "On the sound features of Russian dialects" (in "Philol. Notes" 1866), "Notes on the Little Russian dialect" (ib. 1870), "On Dole and creatures related to it" (in " Antiquities" Moscow. Archaeol. General., vol. I) and "On the Kupala fires" (in the "Archaeological Bulletin" 1867). These articles collected a lot of factual material, many valuable conclusions were made. Especially large ones - from early works P. - for specialist philologists is "Notes on the Little Russian dialect", and for mythologists and ethnographers - the essay "On the mythical meaning of some rituals and beliefs." The doctoral dissertation: "From notes on Russian grammar" consists of 2 parts - an introduction (in 157 pp.) and research on the constituent members of a sentence and their replacements in the Russian language. The second edition of this dissertation, corrected and supplemented, was published in 1889. There were very commendable reviews of this work by I. I. Sreznevsky, A. A. Kotlyarevsky, I. B. Yagich, V. I. Lamansky, A. S. Budilovich and I. V. Netushil These reviews were collected in the book “In Memory of A. A. Potebnya,” published in 1892 by the Kharkov Historical and Philological Society. Sreznevsky was surprised at P.’s erudition and his broad intelligence. G. Yagich notes his extensive knowledge, independence of thinking, thoroughness and caution in his conclusions; Budilovich puts P. on his merits next to Jacob Grimm. G. Lamansky considers him superior to Miklosic, calls him “one of the most precious gifts of Russian education,” “deeply knowledgeable,” “highly gifted.”

From P.'s later philological studies are remarkable: “On the history of the sounds of the Russian language” - in 4 parts (1873-1886) and "Meanings of the plural in the Russian language" (1888). In these studies, along with valuable comments on phonetics, there are very important notes on the lexical composition of the Russian language and, in connection with them, ethnographic observations and studies. If on the phonetics of the Little Russian language, along with the works of P., one can rank the works of Miklosic, Ogonovsky, P. Zhitetsky, then in relation to the study of the lexical composition of the Little Russian language, P. occupies the only place, beyond comparison, with almost no predecessors, except for Maksimovich, and without followers , without successors. P. revealed the secrets of the artistic activity of the people in individual words and in their song combinations. The veil has been lifted from many dark words, hiding their important historical and everyday meaning.

From studying the lexical composition of a language, there is only one step left to studying folk poetry, mainly songs, where the word retains all its artistic power and expressiveness - and A. A. Potebnya most naturally moved from philological work to broader and more vibrant historical and literary work, more precisely, to the study of folk poetic motifs. Already in 1877, in an article about a collection of songs by Mr. Golovatsky, he expressed and developed his opinion on the need for a formal basis for the division of folk songs, and in his subsequent works he everywhere highlights the size of the songs being studied and distributes them according to size into categories and divisions .

With the light hand of M. A. Maksimovich, who, while studying “The Tale of Igor’s Campaign,” began to determine the historical and poetic connection between southern Rus' of the present time and pre-Mongol southern Russia in individual poetic images, expressions and epithets, this interesting work was produced in large sizes by Potebnya in the notes to the “Tale” about Igor's Campaign", published in 1877. Recognizing, like many scientists, in the "Lay" a personal and written work, he finds it incredible that it was composed according to a ready-made Byzantine-Bulgarian or other template and points to the abundance of folk poetic elements in it elements. Determining the similarities between the “Lay” and works of oral literature, P., on the one hand, explains some obscure parts of the “Lay”, on the other hand, he traces some folk poetic motifs to a time no later than the end of the twelfth century and, thus, introduces a certain amount of chronology into the study of such aspects of folk poetry as symbolism and parallelism.

In the 1880s P. published a very large study: “Explanation of Little Russian and related folk songs,” in two volumes. The first volume (1883) included stoneflies, the second (1887) carols. For anyone seriously engaged in the study of folk poetry, these works of P. are extremely important, according to the method of scientific research, according to the collected and examined material and the scientific conclusions made on the basis of this material. In addition to purely scientific works and research, edited by P., an excellent edition of the works of the Little Russian writer G. F. Kvitka was published (Kharkov, 1887 and 1889), observing the accents and local features of the Kharkov dialect, published by him in “Kiev Starina” in 1888 the works of Artemovsky-Gulak, according to the original manuscript of the author, observing his spelling, and in “Kyiv Antiquity” in 1890, Little Russian medical books of the 18th century were published.

A tireless work life, and perhaps some other circumstances, made P. old beyond his years. With almost every mild cold, his bronchitis returned. From the autumn of 1890 and throughout the winter, P. felt very ill and could hardly leave the house; however, not wanting to deprive the students of his lectures, he invited them to his home and read from the 3rd part of his “Notes on Russian Grammar,” although the reading was already noticeably tiring him. This third part of the “Notes” especially concerned P. and he did not stop working on it until the very last opportunity, despite his illness. A trip to Italy, where he spent two summer months in 1891, helped him somewhat and, returning to Kharkov, in September he began to lecture at the university, but died on November 29, 1891.

P.'s posthumous papers contained many (twenty folders) of voluminous and valuable works on the history of the Russian language and the theory of literature. The most processed work is the third volume of "Notes on Russian Grammar" - a work of a philosophical nature, which talks about the tasks of linguistics, nationalism in science, the development of the Russian word in connection with Russian thought, the human-likeness of general concepts, etc. These notes were published in 1899 in the form of the 3rd volume. An overview of the content was given by Mr. Khartsiev in the V edition of the “Proceedings of the Pedagogical Department of the Kharkov Historical and Philological Society” (1899).

Most of the materials left after P. can be divided into three sections: materials for etymology (dictionary), for grammar, and notes of a mixed nature.

In the manuscripts, by the way, there was found a translation of part of the Odyssey into the Little Russian language in the size of the original. Judging by the passages, P. wanted to give a translation in purely popular language, close to the style of Homer; and therefore the beginning of the translation he made represents a work that is very interesting both in literary and scientific terms.

As a teacher, A. A. Potebnya enjoyed great respect. Listeners saw in him a man deeply devoted to science, hardworking, conscientious and talented. Each of his lectures sounded personal conviction and revealed an original attitude to the subject of research, thoughtful and heartfelt.

For 12 years (1877-1890) P. was the chairman of the Historical and Philological Society at Kharkov University and contributed greatly to its development.

After Potebnya’s death, his articles were published: “Language and Nationality” in the “Bulletin of Europe” (1893, September); “From a lecture on the theory of literature: fable, saying, proverb” (1894); analysis of Mr. Sobolevsky's doctoral dissertation (in "Izvestia of the Academy of Sciences", 1896); 3rd volume. "Notes on Russian grammar" (1899).

Potebnya's linguistic research, especially his main work - "Notes", in terms of the abundance of factual content and method of presentation, belongs to those that are difficult to access, even for specialists, and therefore their scientific explanation in publicly accessible forms is of considerable importance. In this regard, the first place is occupied by the works of Prof. D. N. Ovsyaniko-Kulikovsky: “Potebnya as a linguist and thinker”, “Language and art”, “Towards the psychology of artistic creativity”. A comparatively more simplified popularization of Potebnya’s conclusions is Mr. Vetukhov’s brochure “Language, Poetry, Art.” A review and assessment of Potebnya's ethnographic works was given by prof. N. Sumtsov in 1 volume “Modern Little Russian Ethnography”.

A collection of articles and obituaries about Potebnya was published by Kharkov Historical-Philol. Society in 1892; Bibliographic indexes of Potebnya's articles: Mr. Sumtsov - in 3 volumes. "Collection of History-Phil. General. 1891, Mr. Voltaire - in 3 volumes. Collection of Academic Sciences 1892 and the most detailed Mr. Vetukhov - 1898 g. - in "Rus. Philol. Vestn.", books 3-4. From the articles published following the publication of the book "In Memory of A. A. Potebnya", published by Kharkov. Historical-Philological General., are distinguished by size and thoroughness: pr. D.N. Ovsyaniko-Kulikovsky in "Kyiv. Old." 1903, N.F. Sumtsov Ave. - in 1 volume. "Notes of the Imperial. Kharkovsk. University" 1903, V.I. Khartsieva - in the V issue of "Proceedings Pedagogical. Department" 1899, A.V. Vetukhov - in "Russian. Philol. Vestnik" 1898, Mr. Kashmensky in "Peaceful Labor" 1902, book I, and V.I. Khartsiev in "Peaceful Labor" 1902 books 2-3.

Prof. N. F. Sumtsov.

(Polovtsov)

Potebnya, Alexander Afanasyevich

Famous scientist; Little Russian by origin and personal sympathies, b. September 10, 1835 in a poor noble family of the Pomensky district of Poltava province; studied at the Radom Gymnasium and at the Kharkov University in the Faculty of History and Philology. At the University, P. used the advice and manuals of P. and N. Lavrovsky and was partly under the influence of prof. Metlinsky, a great admirer of the Little Russian language and poetry, and a student of Negovsky, one of the earliest and most zealous collectors of Little Russian songs. In his youth, P. also collected folk songs; Some of them were included in the "Proceedings of Ethn.-St. Exp." Chubinsky. After briefly being a teacher of Russian literature at the Kharkov 1st gymnasium, P., after defending his master’s thesis: “On some symbols in Slavic folk poetry” (1860), began to lecture at Kharkov University, first as an adjunct, then as a professor. In 1874 he defended his doctoral dissertation: “From notes on Russian grammar.” He was the chairman of the Kharkov Historical and Philological Society and a corresponding member of the Academy of Sciences. He died in Kharkov on November 29, 1891. His very heartfelt obituaries were published by professors V.I. Lamansky, M.S. Drinov, A.S. Budilovich, M. M. Alekseenkom, M. E. Khalansky, N. F. Sumtsov, B. M. Lyapunov, D. I. Bagalei and many others. etc.; they were collected by the Kharkov Historical and Philological Society and published in 1892 as a separate book. For other bibographical information about P., see “Materials for the history of Kharkov University,” N. Sumtsov (1894). A publicly accessible presentation of P.'s linguistic provisions is given in an extensive article by prof. D. N. Ovsyaniko-Kulakovsky: “P., as a linguist-thinker” (in “Kievskaya Starina”, 1893, and separately). For a detailed review of P.’s ethnographic works and their assessment, see issue I. “Modern Little Russian ethnography” by N. Sumtsov (pp. 1 - 80). In addition to the above-mentioned dissertations, P. wrote: “Thought and Language” (a number of articles in the “Journal of Min. Nar. Pr.”, 1862; the second posthumous edition was published in 1892), “On the connection of certain ideas in language” (in “Philologist Notes", 1864, issue III), "On the mythical meaning of some rituals and beliefs" (in 2 and 3 books. "Readings of the Moscow. General History and Ancient.", 1865), "Two studies on the sounds of the Russian language "(in "Philologist. Notes", 1864-1865), "On the share and creatures related to it" (in "Antiquities" of the Moscow Archaeological Society, 1867, vol. II), "Notes on the Little Russian dialect" (in "Philological Notes", 1870, and separately, 1871), "On the history of sounds of the Russian language" (1880-86), analysis of the book by P. Zhitetsky: “Review of the sound history of the Little Russian dialect” (1876, in the “Report of the Uvarov Prizes”), “The Tale of Igor’s Campaign” (text and notes, in “Philologist. Notes”, 1877-78, and separately), analysis of “People's . songs of Galician and Ugric Rus'", Golovatsky (in 21 "On the report on the Uvarov Prizes", 37 volumes of "Notes of the Academy of Sciences", 1878), "Explanations of Little Russian and related folk songs" (1883-87), etc. Under his ed. the works of G. F. Kvitka (1887-90) and “Fairy tales, proverbs, etc., recorded by I. I. Manjura” were published (in the “Collection of the Kharkov Historical-Philological Society”, 1890). After the death of P. The following articles of his were also published: “From lectures on the theory of literature. Fable, Proverb, Saying" (Kharkov, 1894; excellent study on the theory of literature), review of the work of A. Sobolevsky: "Essays from history. Russian language." (in 4 books. "Izvestia of the department of Russian languages ​​and words. Imperial Academic Sciences", 1896) and an extensive philosophical article: "Language and Nationality" (in "Bulletin of Europe", 1895, September) "Very large and valuable scientific research by P. remained unfinished in the manuscripts. V.I. Khartsiev, who analyzed P.'s posthumous materials, says: “Everything bears the stamp of a sudden break. The general impression from viewing P.’s papers can be expressed by a Little Russian proverb: the party is on the table, and death is on the shoulders... Here is a whole series of questions that are most interesting in their novelty and strictly scientific solution, questions that have already been resolved, but were only awaiting the final finishing touch. The historical and philological society offered P.'s heirs a gradual publication of P.'s most important handwritten studies; later the Academy of Sciences expressed its readiness to assign a subsidy for the publication. These proposals were not accepted, and P.'s precious studies are still awaiting publication. P.'s most processed work is Volume III " Notes on grammar." These "notes" are in close connection with P.'s early work "Thought and Language". The background of the entire work is the relationship of thought to word. The modest title of the work does not give a complete idea of ​​the richness of its philosophical and linguistic content. The author draws here is the ancient structure of Russian thought and its transitions to the complex techniques of modern language and thinking. According to Khartsiev, this is “the history of Russian thought under the illumination of the Russian word.” This major work of P. after his death was rewritten and partly edited by his students, so that in general it is completely prepared for publication. Equally voluminous, but much less finished, is P.’s other work, “Notes on the Theory of Literature.” Here a parallel is drawn between the word and a poetic work, as homogeneous phenomena, definitions of poetry and prose are given, their meanings for authors and for the public, inspiration is examined in detail, apt analyzes of the techniques of mythical and poetic creativity are given, and, finally, a lot of space is devoted to various forms of poetic allegory , and everywhere the author’s unusually rich erudition and completely original points of view are revealed. In addition, P. left a large vocabulary material, many notes about the verb, a number of small historical-literary and cultural-social articles and notes indicating the versatility of his mental interests (about L. Tolstoy, V.F. Odoevsky, Tyutchev, nationalism, etc. .), the original experience of translating the Odyssey into Little Russian. According to V.I. Lamansky, “a thoughtful, original researcher of the Russian language, P. belonged to a very small galaxy of the largest, most original figures of Russian thought and science.” P.'s deep study of the formal side of language goes hand in hand with philosophical understanding and a love of art and poetry. Subtle and thorough analysis, developed in special philological works, was successfully applied by P. to ethnography and to the study of Little Russian folk songs, mainly carols. P.'s influence, as a person and a professor, was profound and beneficial. His lectures contained a rich supply of information, carefully thought out and critically verified, one could hear a living personal passion for science, and everywhere an original worldview was revealed, which was based on a highly conscientious and sincere attitude towards the individual and the collective personality of the people.

N. Sumtsov.

(Brockhaus)

Potebnya, Alexander Afanasyevich

Philologist, literary critic, ethnographer. Genus. in the family of a minor nobleman. He studied at a classical gymnasium, then at the Kharkov University at the Faculty of History and Philology. After graduation, he taught literature at the Kharkov gymnasium. In 1860 he defended his master's thesis "On some symbols in Slavic folk poetry..." In 1862 he received a scientific trip abroad, where he stayed for a year. In 1874 he defended his doctoral dissertation “From Notes on Russian Grammar.” In 1875 he received the department of history of Russian language and literature at Kharkov University, which he held until the end of his life. P. was also the chairman of the Kharkov Historical and Philological Society and a corresponding member of the Academy of Sciences. In 1862, a number of articles by P. appeared in the Journal of the Ministry of Public Education, which were then combined into the book Thought and Language. In 1864, his work “On the Connection of Certain Representations in Language” was published in Philological Notes. In 1874, the first volume of “From Notes on Russian Grammar” was published. In 1873-1874, the 1st part “On the history of the sounds of the Russian language” was published in “ZhMNP”; in 1880-1886, the 2nd, 3rd and 4th parts. ("Russian Philological Bulletin"), in 1882-1887 - "Explanations of Little Russian and related folk songs" in 2 vols. However, a significant part of P.'s works was published after his death. Were released: 3 h. "From notes on Russian grammar"; “From lectures on the theory of literature” (compiled from student notes); "From notes on the theory of literature"; "Rough notes on L.N. Tolstoy and Dostoevsky" ("Questions in the theory and psychology of creativity", vol. V, 1913).

P.'s literary activity covers the 60-80s. Among the literary trends of that era, P. stands apart. Both the bourgeois sociologism of the cultural-historical school (Pypin and others) and the bourgeois positivism of Veselovsky’s comparative-historical method are alien to him. The mythological school had a well-known influence on P. In his works he devotes a fairly prominent place to myth and its relationship with the word. However, P. criticizes the extreme conclusions reached by supporters of the mythological school. In Russian literary criticism and linguistics of that era, P. was the founder of the subjective psychological direction. The philosophical roots of this subjective idealistic theory go back through Humboldt to German idealistic philosophy, ch. arr. to Kant's philosophy, Agnosticism, the rejection of the possibility of knowing the essence of things and depicting the real world in poetic images permeate P.'s entire worldview. The essence of things, from his point of view, is not knowable. Cognition deals with the chaos of sensory sensations, into which a person brings order. The word plays an important role in this process. “Only the concept (and at the same time the word, as its necessary condition) introduces the idea of ​​legality, necessity, order into the world with which a person surrounds himself and which he is destined to accept as real” (Thought and Language, p. 131) .

From agnosticism, P. goes to the main provisions of subjective idealism, declaring that “the world appears to us only as a course of changes occurring within ourselves” (“From Notes on the Theory of Literature,” p. 25). Therefore, approaching the process of cognition, Potebnya limits this process to knowledge of the inner world of the subject.

In his views on language and poetry, this subjective idealism manifested itself as a pronounced psychologism. Raising the basic questions of linguistics, P. seeks solutions to them in psychology. Only by bringing linguistics closer to psychology can, in P.’s opinion, fruitfully develop both sciences. P. considers Herbart’s psychology to be the only scientific psychology. Potebnya bases linguistics on Herbart's theory of representations, considering the formation of each word as a process of apperception, judgment, i.e., explanation of the newly cognizable through the previously cognized. Having recognized the general form of human knowledge as the explanation of what is newly known by what was previously known, P. extends threads from words to poetry and science, considering them as means of understanding the world. However, in the mouth of the subjective idealist P., the position that poetry and science are a form of knowledge of the world has a completely different meaning than in the mouth of a Marxist. The only goal of both scientific and poetic work is, in P.’s views, “a modification of the inner world of man.” For P., poetry is a means of understanding not the objective world, but only the subjective. Art and the word are a means of subjective unification of disparate sensory perceptions. An artistic image does not reflect a world that exists independently of our consciousness; this world, from P.’s point of view, is not knowable; it only designates part of the artist’s subjective world. This subjective world of the artist, in turn, is not cognizable for others and is not expressed, but is only indicated in an artistic image. An image is a symbol - an allegory - and is valuable only because everyone can put their own subjective content into it. Mutual understanding is essentially impossible. Every understanding is at the same time misunderstanding. This subjective idealistic approach to art, the consideration of the image only as a symbol, as a constant predicate to variable subjects, leads P. in the theory of poetry to psychologism, to the study of the psychology of creativity and the psychology of perception.

We will not find a systematic presentation of P.'s views on literature in his works, therefore the presentation of his views on literature presents a certain difficulty. We have to present P.’s system based on his linguistic works, rough notes and lectures recorded by his students and published after P.’s death.

In order to understand the essence of P.'s views on poetry, it is necessary to first become acquainted with his views on the word.

Developing mainly the views of the German linguist Humboldt on language as an activity, P. considers language as an organ for the creation of thought, as a powerful factor in cognition. From the word as the simplest poetic work, P. goes to complex works of art. Analyzing the process of word formation, P. shows that the first stage of word formation is the simple reflection of a feeling in sound, then comes the awareness of the sound, and finally the third stage - awareness of the content of the thought in the sound. From Potebnya’s point of view, every word has two contents. One of them, after the word appears, is gradually forgotten. This is its closest etymological meaning. It contains only one feature out of the whole variety of features of a given object. Thus, the word “table” means only something laid out, the word “window” - from the word “eye” - means where one looks or where the light passes, and does not contain any hint not only of a frame, but even of the concept of an opening. P. calls this etymological meaning of the word internal form. Essentially, it is not the content of the word, but only a sign, a symbol, under which we think of the actual content of the word: it can include a wide variety of attributes of the object. For example: how was the color black called raven or blue blue? From the images of a crow or a dove, which are the focus of a whole series of signs, one was singled out, namely their color, and with this sign the newly cognizable thing was named - color.

We cognize an object unknown to us with the help of apperception, that is, we explain it by our previous experience, by the stock of knowledge we have already acquired. The internal form of a word is a means of apperception precisely because it expresses a common feature characteristic of both the explained and the explaining (previous experience). Expressing this general feature, the internal form acts as an intermediary, as something third between the two phenomena being compared. Analyzing the psychological process of apperception, P. identifies it with the process of judgment. The internal form is the relationship of the content of a thought to consciousness, it shows how his own thought appears to a person... Thus, the thought of a cloud was presented to the people under the form of one of its signs - namely, that it absorbs water or pours it out of itself, where does the word “cloud” come from [(root “tu” - drink, pour), “Thought and language”].

But if the word is a means of apperception, and apperception itself is not. what is other than a judgment, then the word, regardless of its combination with other words, is precisely the expression of the judgment, a two-term value consisting of an image and its representation. Consequently, the internal form of a word, which expresses only one attribute, has meaning not in itself, but only as a form (it is no coincidence that P. called it an internal form), the sensory image of which enters consciousness. The internal form only indicates all the richness of the sensory image contained in the cognizable object and without connection with it, that is, without judgment, has no meaning. The internal form is important only as a symbol, as a sign, as a substitute for the entire diversity of the sensory image. This sensory image is perceived differently by everyone depending on their experience, and therefore the word is only a sign into which everyone puts subjective content. The content that is thought by the same word is different for each person, therefore there is not and cannot be a complete understanding.

The internal form, expressing one of the signs of a cognizable sensory image, not only creates the unity of the image, but also gives knowledge of this unity; “It is not an image of an object, but an image of an image, that is, a representation,” says P. The word, by highlighting one attribute, generalizes sensory perceptions. It acts as a means of creating the unity of the sensory image. But the word, in addition to creating the unity of the image, also gives knowledge of its generality. The child calls different perceptions of the mother with the same word “mother”. Leading a person to the consciousness of the unity of the sensory image, then to the consciousness of its community, the word is a means of cognition of reality.

Analyzing the word, P. is like this. arr. comes to the following conclusions: 1. A word consists of three elements: external form, i.e. sound, internal form and meaning. 2. The internal form expresses one characteristic between the compared, i.e., between the newly cognized and previously cognized objects. 3. The internal form acts as a means of apperception, apperception is the same judgment, therefore the internal form is an expression of the judgment and is not important in itself, but only as a sign, a symbol of the meaning of the word, which is subjective. 4. The internal form, expressing one sign, gives consciousness of the unity and community of the sensory image. 5. The gradual oblivion of the internal form turns the word from a primitive poetic work into a concept. Analyzing the symbols of folk poetry, analyzing their internal form, P. comes to the idea that the need to restore a forgotten internal form was one of the reasons for the formation of symbols. Viburnum became a symbol of the maiden for the same reason that the maiden is called red - by the unity of the basic representation of fire-light in the words “maiden”, “red”, “viburnum”. Studying the symbols of Slavic folk poetry, P. arranges them according to the unity of the basic idea contained in their names. P., through detailed etymological studies, shows how the growth of a tree and the genus, the root and the father, the broad leaf and the mind of the mother came together, finding a correspondence in language.

From the primitive word, the word as the simplest poetic work, P. moves on to tropes, to synecdoche, to epithet and metonymy, to metaphor, to comparison, and then to fable, proverb and saying. Analyzing them, he seeks to show that the three elements inherent in the primitive word as an elementary poetic work constitute the integral essence of poetic works in general. If in a word we have external form, internal form and meaning, then in any poetic work we must also distinguish between form, image and meaning. “The unity of articulate sounds (the external form of a word) corresponds to the external form of a poetic work, by which we should mean not just a sound form, but also a verbal form in general, significant in its component parts” (“Notes on the Theory of Literature,” p. 30). The representation (i.e., internal form) in a word corresponds to an image (or a certain unity of images) in a poetic work. The meaning of the word corresponds to the content of the poetic work. By the content of a work of art, P. means those thoughts that are evoked in the reader by a given image, or those that serve the author as the basis for creating the image. The image of a work of art, just like the internal form in a word, is only a sign of the thoughts that the author had when creating the image, or those that arise in the reader when perceiving it. The image and form of a work of art, as well as the external and internal form in the word, constitute, according to P.’s teaching, an inextricable unity. If the connection between sound and meaning is lost to consciousness, then sound ceases to be an external form in the aesthetic meaning of the word. So eg. To understand the comparison “clean water flows in a clean river, and true love in a true heart,” we lack the legitimacy of the relationship between external form and meaning. A legitimate connection between water and love will be established only when the opportunity is given, without making a leap, to move from one of these thoughts to another, when, for example. in consciousness there will be a connection between light as one of the epithets of water and love. This is precisely the forgotten internal form, that is, the symbolic meaning of the image of water expressed in the first couplet. In order for the comparison of water with love to have aesthetic significance, it is necessary to restore this internal form, the connection between water and love. To explain this idea, Potebnya cites a Ukrainian spring song, where a saffron wheel looks out from under the tyna. If we perceive only the external form of this song, i.e. That is, to take it literally, it will turn out to be nonsense. If we restore the internal form and associate the yellow saffron wheel with the sun, then the song takes on aesthetic significance. So, in a poetic work we have the same elements as in a word, the relationships between them are similar to the relationships between the elements of words. The image indicates the content, is a symbol, a sign, the external form is inextricably linked with the image. When analyzing the word, it was shown that for P. it is a means of apperception, cognition of the unknown through the known, an expression of judgment. The same means of cognition is a complex work of art. First of all, it is necessary for the creator-artist himself to form his thoughts. A work of art is not so much an expression of these thoughts as a means of creating thoughts. P. extends Humboldt's point of view that language is an activity, an organ of thought formation, to any poetic work, showing that an artistic image is not a means of expressing a ready-made thought, but, like the word, plays a huge role in the creation of these thoughts. In his book “From Lectures on the Theory of Literature,” P., sharing Lessing’s views on determining the essence of poetry, criticizes his idea that a moral statement, morality, precedes the creation of a fable in the artist’s mind. “When applied to language, this would mean that the word first means a whole series of things, for example, a table in general, and then this thing in particular. However, humanity reaches such generalizations over the course of many millennia,” says P. Then he shows that the artist does not always strive to bring the reader to a moral lesson. The poet's immediate goal is a certain point of view on a real particular case - on the psychological subject (since the image is an expression of a judgment) - by comparing it with another, also special case, told in the fable - with the psychological predicate. This predicate (the image contained in the fable) remains unchanged, but the subject changes, since the fable is applied to different cases.

A poetic image, due to its allegorical nature, due to the fact that it is a constant predicate to many variable subjects, makes it possible to replace a lot of different thoughts with relatively small quantities.

The process of creating any, even the most complex, work of P. falls under the following scheme. Something unclear to the author, existing in the form of a question ( X), looking for an answer. The author can find the answer only in previous experience. Let's denote the latter by "A". From "A" under the influence X everything is pushed away for this X not suitable, something similar is attracted, this latter is combined in the image of “a”, and a judgment occurs, i.e., the creation of a work of art. Analyzing Lermontov's works "Three Palms", "Sail", "Branch of Palestine", "Hero of Our Time", P. shows how the same thing that tormented the poet is embodied in different images. This X, cognizable by the poet is something extremely complex in relation to the image. The image never exhausts this X."We can say that X in the poet it is inexpressible that what we call expression is only a series of attempts to designate this X, and not express it,” says P. (“From lectures on the theory of literature,” p. 161).

The perception of a work of art is similar to the creative process, only in reverse order. The reader understands the work to the extent that he participates in its creation. Thus, the image serves only as a means of transforming other independent content located in the thought of the understander. The image is important only as an allegory, as a symbol. “A work of art, like a word, is not so much an expression as a means of creating a thought; its purpose, like the word, is to produce a certain subjective mood both in the speaker and in the understander,” says P. (“Thought and Language,” p. 154) .

This allegorical image can be of two kinds. Firstly, allegory in the narrow sense, i.e. portability, metaphor, when image and meaning refer to phenomena far from each other, such as. external nature and human life. Secondly, artistic typicality, when an image becomes in thought the beginning of a series of similar and homogeneous images. The goal of poetic works of this kind, namely generalization, is achieved when the understander recognizes the familiar in them. “Abundant examples of such knowledge with the help of types created by poetry are represented by the life (i.e., application) of all outstanding works of new Russian literature, from “The Minor” to Saltykov’s satires” (“From Notes on the Theory of Literature,” p. 70).

The internal form in a word gives consciousness of the unity and community of the sensory image, that is, the entire content of the word. In a work of art, this role of a unifier, a collector of various interpretations, various subjective contents is performed by an image. The image is singular and at the same time infinite; its infinity lies precisely in the impossibility of determining how much and what content will be invested in it by the perceiver.

Poetry, according to P., makes up for the imperfections of scientific thought. Science, from the point of view of the agnostic P., cannot provide knowledge of the essence of objects and a complete picture of the world, since every new fact that is not included in the scientific system, in P.’s opinion, destroys it. Poetry reveals the harmony of the world, unattainable for analytical knowledge, it points to this harmony with its specific images, “replacing the unity of concept with the unity of representation, it in some way rewards for the imperfection of scientific thought and satisfies the innate human need to see the whole and perfect everywhere” (“Thought and Language ").

On the other hand, poetry prepares science. The word, originally the simplest poetic work, turns into a concept. Art, from P.’s point of view, “is the process of objectifying the initial data of mental life, while science is the process of objectifying art” (“Thought and Language,” p. 166). Science is more objective, from P.’s point of view, than art, since the basis of art is an image, the understanding of which is subjective each time, while the basis of science is a concept that is made up of image features objectified in words. The very concept of objectivity is interpreted by P. from a subjective idealistic position. Objectivity or truth, according to P., is not our correct reflection of the objective world, but only “a comparison of personal thought with general thought” (“Thought and Language”).

Poetry and science, as various types of later human thinking, were preceded by a stage of mythical thinking. Myth is also an act of cognition, i.e. explanation X through the totality of what was previously known. But in myth, the newly cognizable is identified with the previously cognized. The image is completely transferred into meaning. So eg. Primitive man equated lightning with snake. In poetry, the lightning-snake formula takes on the character of comparison. In poetic thinking, a person distinguishes what is newly known from what was previously known. “The appearance of metaphor in the sense of consciousness of the heterogeneity of image and meaning is thereby the disappearance of myth” (From Notes on the Theory of Literature, p. 590). Attaching great importance to myth as the first stage of human thinking, from which poetry then grows, P., however, is far from the extreme conclusions reached by representatives of the mythological school represented by the German researcher M. Muller and the Russian scientist Afanasyev. P. criticizes their view that the source of the myth was misunderstood metaphors.

Building his poetics on a psychological-linguistic basis, considering the newly created word as the simplest poetic work and stretching threads from it to complex works of art, P. made enormous efforts to bring all types of tropes and complex works of art under the scheme of judgment, to decompose the cognizable into previously the cognized and the means of cognition - the image. It is no coincidence that P.’s analysis of poetic works did not go further than the analysis of its simplest forms: fables, proverbs and sayings, since it was extremely difficult to fit a complex work into the scheme of words.

The rapprochement of poetics with linguistics based on the consideration of words and works of art as means of knowing the inner world of the subject, and hence the interest in problems of psychology, was what was new that P. introduced into linguistics and literary criticism. However, it was precisely in these central questions of P.’s theory that all the fallacy was reflected and the depravity of his methodology.

The subjective-idealistic theory of literature, aimed at the inner world, interpreting imagery only as allegory and cutting off the approach to literature as an expression of a certain social reality, in the 60-80s. reflected the decadent tendencies of the noble intelligentsia in Russian literary criticism. The progressive strata of both the bourgeois and petty-bourgeois intelligentsia in that era were drawn either to the historical and cultural school or to the positivism of the Veselovsky school. It is characteristic that P. himself felt the kinship of his views with the philosophical foundations of the representative of noble poetry, the predecessor of Russian symbolism, Tyutchev. In the 900s Symbolists - exponents of Russian decadence - brought their theoretical constructions closer to the basic tenets of P.'s poetics. Thus, Bely in 1910 in Logos devoted an article to P.'s main work, "Thought and Language", where he makes P. the spiritual father of symbolism.

P.'s ideas were popularized and developed by his students, grouped around the collections “Questions of the Theory and Psychology of Creativity” (published in 1907-1923, edited by Lezin in Kharkov). The most interesting figure among P.'s students was Ovsyaniko-Kulikovsky, who tried to apply the psychological method to the analysis of the works of Russian classics. Later, Ovsyaniko-Kulikovsky largely moved away from the P. system towards bourgeois sociologization. The rest of P.'s students were essentially only epigones of their teacher. Gornfeld focused his main attention on the problems of the psychology of creativity and the psychology of perception (“The Torment of the Word,” “The Future of Art,” “On the Interpretation of a Work of Art”), interpreting these problems from a subjective idealistic position. Raynov popularized Kant's aesthetics. Other students of P. - Lezin, Engelmeyer, Khartsiev - developed P.'s teaching in the direction of the empirio-criticism of Mach and Avenarius. P.'s theory, which considered the word and a poetic work as a means of cognition through the designation of diverse content in one image-symbol, was interpreted by them from the point of view of economy of thinking. Potebnia's students, who viewed science and poetry as forms of thinking in accordance with the principle of least effort, discovered with exceptional clarity the subjective idealistic foundations of Potebnianism and thereby all its hostility to Marxism-Leninism. Having played its historical role in the fight against the old scholastic linguistics, focusing the attention of the science of literature on questions of the psychology of creativity and the psychology of perception, on the problem of the artistic image, connecting poetics with linguistics, Potebnianism, vicious in its methodological basis, then connecting with Machism, revealed itself more and more sharply its reactionivity. Moreover, the attempts of individual students of P. to combine Potebnianism with Marxism are unacceptable (Levin’s article). In recent years, some of P.'s students have been trying to master the principles of Marxist-Leninist literary criticism (Beletsky, M. Grigoriev).

Bibliography: I. The most important works: Complete collection. works., vol. I. Thought and language, ed. 4, Odessa, 1922 (originally in "ZhMNP", 1862, parts 113, 114; 2, 3, 5 ed. - 1892, 1913, 1926); From notes on the theory of literature, Kharkov, 1905: I. About some symbols in Slavic folk poetry. TI. On the connection of certain representations in language. III. About the Kupala lights and related ideas. IV. About fate and creatures related to it, Kharkov, 1914 (originally published separately in 1860-1867); From lectures on the theory of literature, ch. 1 and 2, Kharkov, 1894 (ed. 2, Kharkov, 1923); From notes on Russian grammar, part. 1 and 2, ed. 2, Kharkov, 1889 (originally in magazines 1874); The same, part 3, Kharkov, 1899.

II. In memory of A. A. Potebnya, Sat., Kharkov, 1892; Ovsyaniko-Kulikovsky D. N., A. A. Potebnya as a linguist, thinker, "Kiev Antiquity", 1893, VII - IX; Vetukhov A., Language, poetry and science, Kharkov, 1894; Sumtsov N.F., A.A. Potebnya, “Russian Biographical Dictionary”, volume Plavilshchikov - Primo, St. Petersburg, 1905, pp. 643-646; Bely A., Thought and language, collection. "Logos", book. II, 1910; Khartsiev V., Fundamentals of poetics A. A. Potebnya, collection. "Issues of theory and psychology of creativity", vol. II, no. II, St. Petersburg, 1910; Shklovsky V., Potebnya, collection. "Poetics", P., 1919; Gornfeld A., A. A. Potebnya and modern science, “Chronicle of the House of Writers”, 1921, No. 4; Bulletin of the Editorial Committee for the publication of O. Potebni's works, part 1, Kharkiv, 1922; Gornfeld A.G., Potebnya, in the book. author of "Combat Responses to Peaceful Themes", Leningrad, 1924; Rainov T., Potebnya, P., 1924. See collection. "Issues of the theory and psychology of creativity", volumes I - VIII, Kharkov, 1907-1923.

III. Balukhaty S., Theory of Literature, Annotated Bibliography, I, L., 1929, pp. 78-85; Raynov, A. A. Potebnya, P., 1924; Khalansky M. G. and Bagalei D. I. (eds.), Historical and philological. Faculty of Kharkov University for 100 years, 1805-1905, Kharkov, 1908; Yazykov D., Review of the life and works of Russian writers, vol. XI, St. Petersburg, 1909; Piksanov N.K., Two centuries of Russian literature, ed. 2, M., 1924, pp. 248-249; In memory of A. A. Potebnya, Sat., Kharkov, 1892.

E. Drozdovskaya.

(Lit. enc.)

Potebnya, Alexander Afanasyevich

Culturologist, linguist, philosopher. Genus. in the village Gavrilovka, Romensky district, Poltava province, in a noble family. In 1851 he entered Kharkov University to study law. ph., but after the 1st year he transferred to history and philology. Faculty, who graduated in 1856. Passed the master's exam in Slavic philology and was left at the university. In 1862 he was one of the first sent by Kharkov University for an internship abroad. Studied in Germany, in Berlin. Before defending Dr. diss. (“From notes on Russian grammar.” Parts I and II) P. was an associate professor, then an extraordinary and ordinary professor. at the Russian Department language and literature. All life and scientific creative The parade took place within the walls of Kharkov University. To form democratic, freedom-loving politics. P.’s views were greatly influenced by the tragic fate of his brother, Andrei Afanasyevich Potebnya, an active member of “Land and Freedom” who died during the Polish uprising of 1863. P.’s democratic sympathies, which he did not hide, caused a wary attitude towards him from by the official authorities. Ch. scientific P.'s interest lay in the study of the relationships between language and thinking. He develops the doctrine, according to which each word in its structure represents a unity of articulate sound, internal. word form and abstract meaning. Int. the form of the word is associated with the closest etymological. meaning of the word and serves, as a representation, as a channel of communication between the sensory image and the abstract meaning. The word with its internal form serves as a means of “transition from the image of an object to a concept.” According to P., “language is a means not to express a ready-made thought, but to create it,” that is, a thought can only be realized in the element of language. Many of P.’s thoughts and ideas, expressed in a general form and as if “along the way,” and clearly formulated later by other thinkers, formed the basis of many modern ones. region humanist knowledge. This happened, for example, with the ideas expressed by P. about the need to distinguish between language and speech, synchrony and diachrony in language. P. was the creator or stood at the origins of the birth of history. grammar, history dialectology, semiotics, sociolinguistics, ethnopsychol. Philosophical-linguistic-st. approach allowed P. to see various things in myth, folklore, and literature. sign-symbolic systems derived in relation to language. So, a myth, from the point of view. P., does not exist outside the word. Decisive for the emergence of myths was internal. the form of the word, which acts as an intermediary between what is explained in the myth and what it explains. In this case, the etymological and linguistic resources of native speakers act as explanatory resources, which reflect their economic and production experience. Myth is the act of “explaining the unknown (x) through a set of previously given signs, combined and brought to consciousness by word or image (a).” Of great importance for philosophy. P.'s views have the categories “people” and “nationality”. Based on the ideas of W. von Humboldt, P. considered the people to be the creator of language. At the same time, he emphasized that it is the language, once it has arisen, that determines the further development of the culture of a given people. From view P., nowhere is the spirit of the people manifested so fully and brightly as in its people. traditions and folklore. This is where those spirits are created. values, which then feed professional art and creativity. P. himself was a tireless collector of Russian. and Ukrainian folklore, has done a lot in terms of documenting the unity of basic folklore and mythology. stories of two fraternal Slavic peoples. The problem “language - nation” formulated by him was developed in the works of D.N. Ovsyanniko-Kulikovsky, D.N. Kudryavtsev, N.S. Trubetskoy, G.G. Shpet. Research P. in the region symbolism of language and arts. creative attracted in the 20th century. the closest attention of theorists of symbolism. Numerous echoes of P.’s ideas are contained in the works of Vyach. Ivanov, Andrei Bely, V. Bryusov and other symbolists.

Op.: From notes on the theory of literature.(Poetry and prose. Paths and figures. Poetic and mythical thinking). Kharkiv, 1905 ;About some symbols in Slavic folk poetry. 2nd ed. Kharkiv, 1914 ; From lectures on the theory of literature. 3rd ed. Kharkiv, 1930 ;From notes on Russian grammar. 3rd ed. T. 1-2. M., 1958 ;From notes on Russian grammar. 2nd ed. T.3. M., 1968 ;Aesthetics and poetics. M., 1976 ;Word and myth. M., 1989 (Here:Section I -"Philosophy of language",section II- "From word to symbol and myth");Theoretical poetics. M.,

A.V.Ivanov

Large biographical encyclopedia. 2009 .

• Biographical Dictionary

Ukrainian and Russian philologist, Slavist, corresponding member of the St. Petersburg Academy of Sciences (1877). Brother of the revolutionary A. A. Potebnya. Graduated from Kharkov... ... Great Soviet Encyclopedia

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Department of Russian Classical Literature and Theoretical Literary Studies of Yelets State University

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MAGAZINE "QUESTIONS OF PHILOSOPHY" INSTITUTE OF PHILOSOPHY AS USSR PHILOSOPHICAL SOCIETY OF THE USSR

EDITORIAL BOARD OF THE SERIES “FROM THE HISTORY OF RUSSIAN PHILOSOPHICAL THOUGHT”

V. S. Stepin (chairman), S. S. Averintsev, G. A. Ashurov, A. I. Volodin, V. A. Lektorsky, D. S. Likhachev, N. V. Motroshilova, B. V. Raushenbakh , Yu. P. Senokosov, N. F. Utkina, I. T. Frolov, N. Z. Chavchavadze, V. I. Shinkaruk, A. A. Yakovlev

Compilation, preparation of text and notes A. L. TOPORKOVA

Executive Editor A. K. BAYBURIN

Preface A. K. BAIBURINA

On the frontispiece: A. A. Potebnya

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© Pravda Publishing House. 1989 Compilation, preface, notes.

A.A. Potebnya: philosophy of language and myth

Alexander Afanasyevich Potebnya (1835-1891), like most domestic thinkers of the last century, left a deep mark in various areas of scientific knowledge: linguistics, mythology, folklore, literary criticism, art history, and all the problems that he dealt with acquired a philosophical sound from him. Subsequent interest in certain aspects of his work has always been correlated with the state of social thought. More often he presented himself as a narrow specialist linguist; less often perceived as a philosopher.

This publication is focused on Potebnya’s works devoted to philosophical problems of language and myth. Potebnya’s autobiographical letter published in the volume (pp. 11-14) makes it possible not to specifically consider his life path. We will only point out the main factors that influenced the formation of Potebnya as a scientist.

Even in early childhood, he spoke two languages ​​- Ukrainian and Russian. This bilingualism will be of fundamental importance to him. The Ukrainian language provided Potebnya with a sense of original connection with the best examples of Slavic folk poetry (it is no coincidence that in his analyzes of song creativity he most often begins with Ukrainian texts). At the same time, the Russian language for him is the language of science and everyday communication. The “dialogue” of these languages ​​turned out to be extremely fruitful 1

He graduated from high school in the provincial Polish city of Radom not only with honors, but also with excellent knowledge of the Polish language, German and Latin. And in the future, Potebnya used all the opportunities presented to him to study languages. Sent abroad by the Ministry of Education in 1862 to familiarize himself with European science, he studied mainly Sanskrit at the University of Berlin. During a trip to Slavic countries, he studies Czech, Slovenian and Serbo-Croatian languages.

The tragic fate of his brother Andrei Afanasyevich Potebnya had an undoubted and profound influence on Potebnya’s worldview -

1 Although Potebnya himself, in the article “Language and Nationality,” argued that bilingualism at an early age makes it difficult to form an integral worldview and serves as an obstacle to scientific abstraction (See: Potebnya A. A. Aesthetics and Poetics. - M., 1976. - P. 263 )

a great member of Land and Freedom, who died during the Polish uprising in 1863. A. A. Potebnya himself shared the ideas of free thought; He retained the moral charge received in his youth forever - this was noted by everyone who knew Potebnya closely. But these same reasons underlay the wary attitude towards him on the part of the authorities, which most likely led to his “hermitage”, which lasted until the end of his life.

In Potebnya, a folklorist-gatherer woke up early, with a keen sense of the living fabric of the folk word. He made his first recordings of Ukrainian folk songs at the age of 17 from his aunt, Praskovya Efimovna Potebnya, and 10 years later (in 1863) a collection of Ukrainian songs was published in the recordings of A. Potebnya 2. In a letter to the Czech Slavist A. O. Patera (dated December 11, 1886), the scientist wrote: “The circumstances of my life determined that in my scientific studies, my starting point, sometimes noticeable, sometimes imperceptible to others, was the Little Russian language and Little Russian folk literature. If this starting point and the feeling associated with it had not been given to me and if I had grown up outside of connection with tradition, then, it seems to me, I would hardly have become involved in science” 3.

The general situation of the 50s and 60s of the last century contributed to the passion for folklore - the spirit of democracy, the populism movement, the sharp growth of national self-awareness in Ukraine, and an appeal to the origins embodied in folklore works.

During these years, the exchange of scientific achievements with the West has also intensified. In Russia, the ideas of Kant and Hegel are again being actively discussed, and the works of V. Humboldt, who had such a noticeable impact on Potebnya, are being translated. It was at this time that the specific synthetic and philosophical nature of scientific knowledge arose. A. A. Potebnya should be fully considered the exponent of this approach and one of its founders.

Potebnya began his scientific research by answering questions posed by German philosophy and linguistics (in particular, W. Humboldt). The main one is about the relationship between language and thinking. When reading his works, one gets the impression that, answering these questions, Potebnya foresaw precisely those collisions that would worry subsequent generations of humanities scholars. Hence the lack of recognition of his merits

2 The collection was published anonymously under the title “Ukrainian writings, seen by O. S. Balina” (St. Petersburg, 1863). Quite recently, a wonderful collection “Ukrainian peoples’ writings in the notes of Oleksandr Potebnya” was published / Order, entry and acceptance. M. K. Dmitrenka. Kii, 1988. It includes not only previously published notes by A. A. Potebnya, but also those stored in the archives.

3 Oleksandr Opanasovich Potebnya: Jubilee zbirnik until the 125th anniversary of the people’s day. - Kiev, 1962. - P. 93.

some contemporaries, but hence the amazing modernity of his works. Many of Potebnya’s thoughts and ideas, expressed by him in a general form and “along the way” (the importance of which he himself most likely did not realize), formulated later by other researchers, will revolutionize some areas of knowledge. This will happen, for example, with the ideas outlined in Potebnya of the distinction between language and speech, synchrony and diachrony (the latter is further 8 more modern than that of F. de Saussure). He was the creator or stood at the origins of modern approaches to historical grammar, historical dialectology, semasiology, ethno- and sociolinguistics, and phonetics. The ability to perceive the world through the prism of language, the conviction that language shapes thought, allowed him to see modeling systems derived from language in myth, folklore, and literature. A hundred years later, the Tartu-Moscow school of semiotics 4 would come to similar ideas.

The exceptional fruitfulness of Potebnya’s theoretical research is largely due to the fact that for him language is not an isolated phenomenon. It is inextricably linked with the culture of the people. Following Humboldt, Potebnya sees in language a mechanism that generates thought. It is as if creative potential is inherent in language from the very beginning. Thought manifests itself through language, and each act of speaking is a creative process in which a ready-made truth is not repeated, but a new one is born (see present, ed., pp. 155 - 156).

When considering Potebnya’s philosophical concept, attention is rarely paid to the fact that, in addition to the categories of language and thinking, categories such as “people” and “nationality” are of paramount importance to him. For Potebnya, the people are the creators of language. Language is a product of the “folk spirit”. At the same time, it is the language that determines the national specificity of the people, in terms of Potebnya - “nationality”. The problem “language and nation” that he formulated (with an emphasis on ethnopsychology) was developed in the works of D. N. Ovsyaniko-Kulikovsky, D. N. Kudryavsky, N. S. Trubetskoy, G. G. Shpet.

The appeal to the concept of “people” when solving the problem of language and thinking explains Potebnya’s constant interest in the issues of the relationship between collective and individual psychology, understanding and misunderstanding, and the psychology of perception of artistic images. These questions were then especially actively developed by the students and followers of Potebnia - D. N. Ovsyaniko-Kulikovsky, V. I. Khartsiev, A. G. Gornfeld, A. L. Pogodin and others. From 1907 to 1927, the “Kharkov Potebnians” (representatives psychological direction) published 8 volumes of the most interesting collections “Questions in the theory and psychology of creativity”, in which Potebnya’s ideas were developed not only in linguistic and literary studies, but also in other directions.

Potebnya was often reproached for ignoring the communicative function of language. This is not entirely fair. In his concept, communicability is expressed by the very social nature of language. The word, according to Potebnya, is a product not only of individual consciousness. In order for a certain set of sounds to become a phenomenon of language, it is necessary to introduce these Sounds into social life, because “society

4 See “Proceedings on Sign Systems” published in Tartu.

precedes the beginning of language” (present, ed., p. 95). The communicative process is dialogical, and understanding always presupposes misunderstanding, since every speech utterance is a creative act and bears the stamp of uniqueness. The validity of this paradox is confirmed by the latest data from communication theory and research on the structure of the text (mismatch of addresser and addressee codes).

The idea that language shapes thought made it possible to place the study of thought on a precise factual (linguistic) basis. The movement of linguistic facts and the development of grammatical categories were considered as a form of movement of thought. Hence the main task of the history of language: “To show in practice the participation of the word in the formation of a consistent series of systems that embrace the relationship of the individual to nature...” (present, ed., p. 155). Potebnya included folklore, mythology and science among such systems. Thus, the history of language was transformed from a specific task concerning one area of ​​knowledge into a grandiose program for the historical study of thought embodied in various kinds of verbal texts. To this list should be added the ethnographic context (rituals, beliefs, etc.) attracted by Potebnya in his research, literary forms of verbal activity in order to imagine the breadth and scope of not only plans, but also their execution.

Potebnya's theory stands out sharply against the background of other concepts of the history of language. Its main principle is pervasive semantics. Revealing the evolution of meanings is the pathos of Potebnya’s entire work, no matter what he does - the history of language, mythology or literary works.

In this sense, his research in the field of grammar, the main topic of his linguistic studies, is very indicative. According to V.V. Vinogradov, it was here that Potebnya showed himself as a true innovator 5 . For Potebnya, grammatical categories are the main categories of thinking. The space of intersection of grammatical categories is the sentence. The structure of a sentence is similar to the structure of the thought formulated in it. Therefore, Potebnya believed that identifying the evolution of sentence types would simultaneously be a historical typology of thinking.

This task radically changed the view on such a traditional area of ​​linguistics as grammar and opened up interesting prospects. Those subjects that were previously of interest only to specialists acquired a completely different quality. For example, Potebnya’s idea about the growth of predicativeness as language develops characterizes not only the evolution of language, but also the evolution of consciousness: the category of process, dynamics, becomes more and more characteristic of thought as it moves from antiquity to modernity. Potebnya’s “grammatical” ideas of this kind later found a response in the works of N. Ya. Marr, I. I. Meshchaninov, G. Schuchardt (the so-called theory of ergativity), but clearly have not exhausted themselves and are awaiting development at a new level.

5 See: Vinogradov V.V. History of Russian linguistic teachings. M., 1978. - P. 94.

Potebnya was one of the first to use antinomies to describe both the phenomena of language and the content of early states of the picture of the world and was thus the direct predecessor of structural methods for describing language and the semiotic approach to supra-linguistic phenomena. It was Potebnya who outlined the main set of semiotic oppositions of the Slavic picture of the world (share - non-share, life - death, etc.).

The semantic principle is consistently applied by Potebnya in relation to the word. It would be more accurate to say that it was the word that was the main object of his semantic research. Starting from his earliest works (“On some symbols in Slavic folk poetry”, “On the connection of some ideas in language”, etc.), Potebnya insists on the need to study the semantic series of words in the broader context of the development of language and thinking.

Another fruitful idea of ​​Potebnya is about the influence of language on mythological consciousness. This influence becomes especially noticeable when different linguistic and mythological systems intersect, as happened, for example, when Christianity was “overlaid” on Russian paganism. This direction of linguistic research is now associated with the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis, but the first steps were taken by Potebnya 6 .

When studying the language, Potebnya expanded the range of sources and facts to be interpreted. The primacy of the word remained, but the inclusion of the word in the ethnographic context (ritualized fragments of everyday life, ceremonies) made it possible to move to a new level of justification and evidence inherent in modern research in ethnolinguistics. In his later essays “On the History of the Sounds of the Russian Language” (1876 - 1883), his desire to give his semasiological research a cultural-historical character was fully demonstrated.

Attention to extralinguistic data, the inclusion of materials from other Slavic traditions, combined with a focus on reconstruction - all this, as shown by the further development of the science of Slavic (and Indo-European) antiquities, allows us to see Potebna as one of its founders. The studies of E. G. Kagarov, O. M. Freidenberg, V. V. Ivanov, V. N. Toporov, N. I. Tolstoy and others, being dissimilar to each other, in the main continued and deepened the tradition at the origins of which he stood Potebnya.

Potebnya's linguistic theory was the foundation for his constructions in the field of poetics and aesthetics. It is no coincidence that his most important ideas in this area (about the isomorphism of a word to a work of art, the internal form of a word - an image in a work of art, etc.) are based on linguistic categories 8.

6 Of the numerous specific developments in this area, directly continuing the line of A. A. Potebnya, see first of all: Uspensky B. A. The influence of language on religious consciousness // Proceedings on sign systems. - Vol. IV. - Tartu, 1969. - P. 159 - 168.

7 Vinogradov V.V. History of Russian linguistic teachings. - M., 1978.-S. 185.

8 For more information about the contribution of A. A. Potebnya to linguistic poetics and aesthetics, see: Chudakov A. P. A. A. Potebnya // Academic schools

Potebnya's research in the field of symbolism of language and artistic creativity attracted the closest attention of theorists of symbolism at the beginning of the 20th century. Andrei Bely dedicated a special article to him, in which Potebnya’s thoughts are considered as the theoretical basis of symbolism 9 . Numerous echoes of Potebnya’s ideas are contained in the works of Vyach. Ivanov, V. Bryusov and other symbolists. Each of them found confirmation of their thoughts in Potebnya: A. Bely - about the “mysticism of the word”, “the theurgic function of art”; V. Bryusov - about a poetic work as a synthetic judgment; Vyach. Ivanov on the connection between poetry and folklore 10 and others. As for the common idea among Symbolists about the need to return to the folk element of myth-making, it is precisely unusual for Potebnya, who believed that modern languages ​​are no less poetic than ancient ones 11 .

As can be seen even from such a brief presentation, the philosophical and linguistic concept of Potebnya was and remains a working concept. It is natural that it attracts close attention not only from historians of science and linguists, but also from culturologists, semioticians, and specialists in the field of poetics and aesthetics.

Potebnya's theory of myth is part of his general, emphatically diachronic concept of language and thinking. Within the framework of this general theory, myth is a kind of starting point, the beginning of the entire further evolution of spirituality sub specie language: myth -> poetry -> prose (science). The creativity of Potebnya himself to some extent corresponds to this scheme. His first works were mainly devoted to mythology: “On some symbols in Slavic folk poetry” (1860), “On the connection of some ideas in language” (1864), “On the mythical meaning of some rituals and beliefs” (1865), “On destiny and relatives” beings with her” (1867), etc. Potebnya again turned to this topic in the late 70s and 80s 12. In addition, many valuable considerations about the theory of myth

in Russian literary criticism. - M., 1975. - P. 305 - 354; Presnyakov O. Poetics of knowledge and creativity. Theory of literature A. A. Potebnya. M., 1980; Ivano I., Kolodnaya A, Aesthetic concept of A. Potebnya // Potebnya A. A. Aesthetics and poetics. M., 1976, - pp. 9 - 31. Fizer J. Alexander A. Potebnja's Psycholinguistic Theory of Literature. A Metacritical Inquiry. - Cambridge, 1988.

9 A. Bely. Thought and language (philosophy of the Potebnya language) // Logos, 1910. - Book. 2.- WITH. 240-258.

10 A. Bely. Symbolism. - M., 1910. - P. 481, etc.; V. Bryusov. Synthetics of poetry // Collection. Op. T. 6. M., 1975. - P. 557 - 570; Vyach. Ivanov. By the stars. - St. Petersburg, 1909; aka: Furrows and boundaries. - M., 1916.

11 See for more details: Presnyakov O. Decree. Op. P. 150.

12 In 1878, his work “The Lay of Igor’s Campaign” was published in Philological Notes. Text and notes”, filled with folklore and mythological parallels. In 1880 - review of the book. Y. F. Golovatsky “Folk songs of Galician and Ugric Rus.” In 1883 the first volume was published, and in 1887 the second volume of the work “Explanations of Little Russian and related folk songs” was published.

was expressed by him in lectures on the theory of literature, notes of which were published after his death (From notes on the theory of literature. - Kharkov, 1905).

Following his general rationalistic concept, Potebnya sees in mythology the first and necessary stage in the progressive evolution of types of knowledge of reality. The evolution of myths, in his opinion, testifies not to the fall (as with representatives of the mythological school), but to the rise (more precisely, the complication) of human thought. The analogy between myth and scientific activity is manifested both in their common orientation towards knowledge of the surrounding world, and in the nature of the explanation: both myth and science use the general principle of explanation by analogy.

Mythological thinking, from the point of view of Potebnya, differed from subsequent forms in that it had not yet separated the image of a thing from the thing itself, the objective from the subjective, the internal from the external. The mythological picture of the world contains in an undivided form that knowledge that would later be classified as scientific, religious or legal (cf. the theory of syncretism by A. N. Veselovsky). At the same time, a myth is by no means an arbitrary accumulation of false or true information: “... for the thought that creates a mythical image, this image serves, of course, as the best, the only possible answer to an important question at a given time. Each act of mythical and, in general, truly artistic creativity is at the same time an act of knowledge. The very expression “creativity” could usefully be replaced by another, more accurate one, or it should become a designation for scientific discoveries. A scientist who discovers something new does not create or invent, but observes and reports his observations as accurately as possible. Likewise, a mythical image is not a fiction, not a deliberately arbitrary combination of data in the head, but a combination of them that seemed most faithful to reality” (present, ed., p. 483).

For Potebnya, myth is, first of all, a specific word. In the language of modern science, he was not interested in the syntagmatics (plot, principles of unfolding) of myth. He was completely focused on its paradigmatic (semantic) aspects. According to Potebnya, myth is born as the result of a double mental procedure: first, earthly objects and phenomena served as an answer to the question about the structure of the celestial world, and only after that the question about the earthly objects themselves arose. The answer to this is the idea of ​​the heavenly world. In other words, man first creates a model of the heavenly world based on his earthly experience, and then explains earthly life using the model of heavenly life. Moreover, celestial symbolism for Potebnya is not the only one (as adherents of the solar theory of myth believed - A. Kuhn, V. Schwartz, A. N. Afanasyev, O. F. Miller), but only one of several levels of the mythological text. This understanding of the semantics of myth comes close to modern views.

Potebnya’s research in the field of folklore symbolism is directly related to the theory of myth. The origin of symbols, from his point of view, is caused by the very course of the evolution of language and thinking. Words in

gradually lose their internal form, their immediate etymological meaning. The symbols used in folk poetry are oriented towards its restoration. The idea of ​​​​manifesting the original meaning of words in various kinds of poetic formulas and tropes has acquired special significance in modern research in the field of etymology. Potebnya believed that different ideas, even opposite ones, can coexist in the same image 13 . Therefore, the content of his symbols turned out to be much more voluminous than that of his predecessors (for example, N.I. Kostomarov) 14. Polysemy turned out to be their natural property. In modern studies of symbolism, this position has become an axiom, and it was Potebnya who was the first to substantiate it theoretically and widely use it in specific developments.

Each of the mentioned ideas of Potebnya not only has a continuation (often more than one), but also has not completely exhausted the meanings inherent in it. The creative potential of Potebnya's philosophical heritage is so great that there is no doubt about its long life.

A. Bayburin

13 Potebnya A. A. Explanation of Little Russian and related folk songs. T. I. - Warsaw, 1883. - P. 41 - 42.

14 Kostomarov N.I. On the historical significance of Russian folk poetry. - Kharkov, 1843. This book, according to Potebnya, influenced his master’s thesis “On some symbols in Slavic folk poetry.” Later N.I. Kostomarov revised it, and it was republished in a significantly expanded form. See the latest edition: Kostomarov N.I. Historical significance of South Russian folk song creativity // Collection. Op. St. Petersburg, 1905. Book. 8. T. 21. P. 425-1084.