B. A. Uspenskij, Kratkij ocherk istorii russkogo literaturnogo iazyka (XI—XIX vv.), Moskva, “Gnozis”, 1994, 239 p. (Iazyk; Semiotika; Kul’tura).
by M. Sh.
(Summary)
In terms of its material and of its fundamental concepts, B. A. Uspenskij’s An Outline of the History of Russian Literary Language reproduces his work from the early 1980s; only the Lomonosov and Pushkin sections can be considered at all new. Numerous logical contradictions and factual inaccuracies, already found in Uspenskij’s earlier studies, are repeated and even increased in the book under consideration, in which, as before, indifference to facts goes hand in hand with the author’s inclination towards unverifiable statements and vague definitions. A section of the review is devoted to a discussion of the derivative character of Uspenskij’s basic ideas.
