From the editor-in-chief

Abstract

Dear colleagues, our authors and readers!

The issue of the journal presented to your attention — the first in 2022 — is devoted to the problems of onomastics. This linguistic discipline has always attracted the attention of both researchers and a wide range of interested readers. Articles published in the journal show that onomastic research is still relevant today. Moreover, they demonstrate both the specifics of modern approaches to study onomastic problems and their inseparable connection with the classics of Russian onomastics.

The articles grouped under the heading “Problems of Onomastics” discuss issues that cannot but be recognized as important for its current state. Thus, the key problem of onomastics, that is, the ratio of onyms and appellatives, is discussed in the article by Natalya Vladimirovna Vasilyeva, representing the Institute of Linguistics of the Russian Academy of Sciences and thereby supporting the already traditional academic tenor in our journal. Paying attention to the concept of onym accidentia, N.V. Vasilyeva presents its theoretical understanding and demonstrates the manifestation of this onym property in the source literary text, where the use of onyms as appellatives becomes the main stylistic device. The article demonstrates how great the stylistic potential is of the status of the onym, which means that onomastics is closely related to stylistics, which is an important aspect of its study.

Another theoretically important aspect is considered in the article by Olga Anatolyevna Tkachenko, who makes valid points in favor of the idea that the modern onomastic space is expanding due to the mass of names of the political communication, which sets the task for researchers not only to comprehend such processes, to integrate new phenomena into the context of modern onomastics, but also to improve its conceptual and terminological apparatus.

And finally, the third article in this section, proposed by the well-known specialist from Moscow in the field of onomastics and other problems of linguistics Maria Vyacheslavovna Akhmetova, draws readers' attention to that part of the vocabulary, which, being a derivative of onyms and formally lying outside of onomastics, is closely connected with it and offers the researcher a lot of interesting questions. The article considers the names of the inhabitants of two cities, in the formation of which ancient word-formation models come to life. It is interesting how they operate in modern speech practice. The relevance of this linguistic case goes without saying: it has always been an important subject of public discussion in many cities where linguistic preferences and habits collide with linguistic trends.

Thus, under the heading “Problems of Onomastics”, there are articles that discuss different and relevant for modern onomastics problems related to the expansion of onomastic space, the status of onyms and vocabulary associated with them. Of course, we do not suppose that the problems of modern onomastics are exhausted by this, but their seriousness is beyond doubt.

An article by Valery Leonidovich Vasiliev, the most famous Novgorod toponymist, is published under the heading “Novgorod Motif”, important for our journal. It presents a description of many Novgorod and Pskov hydronyms built on the model of oikonyms. The facts make it necessary to clarify the typology of hydronymic vocabulary, which V.L. Vasiliev has been working on for a long time and successfully, as evidenced, in particular, by his monograph “Hydronymy of the Msta River Basin. Code of Names and Analysis of Microsystems” (M., 2017). The expansion of the hydronymic space, from a river to the Novgorod-Pskov lands, deepens the onomastic perspective of the research, enhances our knowledge with many facts lesser-known to scientists due to their local attachment.

In fairness, it should be said that the Novgorod motif begins to sound already in the article by M.V. Akhmetova, where she considers the fate of the name of the inhabitants of Staraya Russa — the oldest and most interesting city of the Novgorod land.

And the Pskov motif is picked up in the article of the Pskov author Lyubov Sergeevna Golovina, who considers toponyms in an applied aspect, more precisely, a linguodidactic one. The article convincingly shows the importance of onymic vocabulary in the acquisition of the Russian language by foreign speakers and the possibility of its inclusion in didactic practice. The combination of theoretical and applied research is characteristic of modern onomastics, and our journal does not fall out of these traditions.

The youngest authors of the journal, Cherepovets linguists Alina Albertovna Diveeva and Elvira Mulkadarovna Askerova, speak in the Young Voices section. Their youth is evidenced by the fact that Alina Albertovna defended her Ph.D. thesis quite recently, in April 2022, and her co-author is still a student. The object of their research is also young — the texts of Russian rap, which uniquely reflect the modern onomastic space, which allows us to talk about the map of Russian rap. The freshness of the view of our young authors allows us to introduce non-trivial onomastic facts into the scientific circulation in poetic contexts.

So, the present issue of our journal, we hope, demonstrates a variety of onomastic problems, new facts, non-trivial approaches. The authors of this issue represent universities of the Northwestern Federal District (Veliky Novgorod, Pskov, Cherepovets), Moscow and the academic institution. I thank all the authors for responding to our invitation and providing high-quality articles.

Traditionally, I sincerely thank our reviewers — Tatyana Gennadievna Nikitina, Victoria Gennadievna Didkovskaya and Valery Mikhailovich Mokienko. It is not the first time that all of them help the journal to maintain high scientific standards.

Until we meet again on the electronic pages of our journal!

T.V. Shmeleva