Recently, you can often find a bike about an ideological incident that occurred in Soviet times with one of the most authoritative dictionaries of the Russian language. We checked how plausible it is.

Here's what we tell us Literary Club Maria Averina: “In the second edition of Ozhegov’s dictionary (1952), the word“ Leningrades ”appeared, although there were no names of residents of other cities. He was ordered to insert him there to separate the words "lazy" and "Leninets" from each other.

You can also learn about this story from the editor -in -chief of the site "Gramota.ru" Vladimir Pakhomov, leading researcher at the Institute of Linguistics of the Russian Academy of Sciences Alexandra Vasilevich, leading researcher at the Institute. Pushkin Alexandra Olkhovskaya, on the portal of online learning "House of Knowledge", V "The most necessary book for the most desired place", on the site Bryansk Museum of Local Lore And in many other sources.

The names of the inhabitants of populated areas (in a particular case of cities - for example, Leningradets) in linguistics are called katamikonemi. How Mark Specialists, katamokonyms are really rare in explanatory dictionaries, since these words require “not interpretation, but simple correlation with a specific toponym, require an encyclopedic reference, which contradicts the principles of compiling explanatory dictionaries.”

Now about dictionaries. In 1935-1940, a four -volume "Explanatory dictionary of the Russian language" Edited by Professor Dmitry Ushakov. In parallel, in 1939-1940, work started already on a single -volume dictionary, the editors of which were also headed by Dmitry Ushakov. However, in 1942, the professor died in evacuation in Tashkent, and his closest assistant Sergei Ozhegov took on the main work on compiling a dictionary. "Dictionary of the Russian Language" For the first time he was published in 1949, withstood five more lifetime publications (in 1952, 1953, 1960, 1963, 1964) and is still being published (after Ozhegova’s death, his student Natalia Swedova continued).

Let's take a look at Ushakov’s dictionary first. His second volume (L - Ovalovet), published in 1938, does not contain either the Leningrades article, or, for example, the article “Moskvich”. "Lazy" here calmly adjacent to the "Lenin":

And now let's turn to the first edition of the dictionary Ozhegov (1949):

As you can see, a new article really appeared between the above articles - however, not about the word “Leningrades”, but about a single -rooted word “Leningrad”. At the same time, the situation has not changed with the Moscow. Note that this happened already in the first edition of the Ozhegov Dictionary, and not in the second, as numerous sources say.

But in the 1970 publication there are no similar articles:

Moreover, there are no them in the 17-volume "Dictionary of the modern Russian literary language" The editorship of Vasily Chernyshev, although his volume “L-M” was published much earlier-in 1957. That is, already a few years after the incident with the dictionary of Ozhegov, high-ranking faces, apparently, considered the seditious neighborhood permissible. However, given the volume of the articles of the 17-volume and their location on different pages, to read at once the “lazy Leninets” does not seem real there.

In the publication "Domestic lexicographers of the XVIII - XX century" (2000) The following episode of the biography of Professor Ushakov is given: “When reading the proofing of the second volume of the dictionary, the political editor found that, following the word“ lazy ”in the alphabet, the word“ Leninsky ”, and then“ Leninism ”,“ Leninism ”(the correspondence of the feminine to the word“ Leninets ”), Leninino, which was almost ideological, the censor, was almost ideological, almost not ideological abuse, Insulting the name of the great leader. He demanded to eliminate the blasphemous neighborhood of the adjective "lazy" and "Leninist" words, for which it was necessary to insert some neutral word between them. But for this, it was necessary to invent a word that did not exist in the Russian language, or, for example, include the word "Leningrader" in the dictionary, thereby violating the principle according to which the names of the inhabitants in this explanatory dictionary are not described. Ushakov remained the solid and did not change anything in this place of the dictionary, although at that time such firmness could cost him if not his head, then freedom. ”

Around the same time, on the 100th anniversary of Sergei Ozhegov, a collection came out "Dictionary and culture of Russian speech"Which includes the memories of the famous linguist. In one of the episodes of the book, he admits:

“ - Why do you think in my dictionary there is the word" Leningrader "? After all, the names of the inhabitants of the cities are not given in it ..

It turns out that censorship was not satisfied with the fact that the word "Leninets" was immediately after the word "lazy" (it will turn out "lazy Leninets"!). It was necessary to insert something between them ... "

And although in this part of the memoirs it seems to be about Ozhegov’s work on the dictionary of Ushakov (in particular, it is said a little below that they managed to complete the book before the start of the war), but the absence of the words “Leningrades” or “Leningrad” in the four -volume house, as well as the mention of “my dictionary” may mean that Ozhegov’s memories were mixed and he actually talked about his own one -volume. There are also a few more curios with other words.

From all of the above, we can conclude that the instruction to somehow scatter the words “lazy” and “Leninets” was given back in the 30s, when compiling the Dictionary of Ushakov, but the latter insisted on his own, but Ozhegov had to submit to the requirements of censorship in the next decade. However, in this form the dictionary did not last long. And although the details of the bikes contain inaccuracies (part of the speech, the year of publication), however, it cannot be called fiction.