Biography of Alexander Afanasyevich Potebnya. A. Potebnya and Kharkov linguistic school A potebnya works

FET, Afanasy Afanasyevich (1820-1892), poet 72 Not sorry for life with languid breath - What is life and death? And it's a pity that fire, That shone over the whole universe, And goes into the night, and cries, leaving. "A. L. Brzheskoy "(1879) Fet, p. 322 73 Oh, if only without a word One could speak with the soul! "Like midges

Alexander Afanasyevich Potebnya is an outstanding Ukrainian and Russian philologist. AA Potebnya distinguished himself from his contemporaries by an extraordinary breadth of scientific interests and an encyclopedic knowledge. This was clearly manifested in his works: they are devoted to Russian grammar (the main work is "From Notes on Russian Grammar" in 4 volumes), the sound structure of the Russian language, the differences between southern and northern Russian dialects, the history of the Ukrainian and Russian languages, their comparative analysis , history of the main grammatical categories. Especially significant are the results obtained by A.A. Potebney in his comparative study of the syntax of East Slavic languages.

In these works, extensive material was used, which was analyzed with such thoroughness, even meticulousness, with the involvement of so many sources that for many decades the works of A.A. Potebnya remained an unsurpassed model of linguistic research.

And this is only a part of the scientific creativity of the talented scientist. He considered language as a component of culture, the spiritual life of the people. Hence AA Potebnya's interest in rituals, myths, songs of the Slavs: after all, here the language is embodied in various, sometimes bizarre forms. And Potebnya carefully studies the beliefs and customs of Russians and Ukrainians, compares them with the culture of other Slavic peoples and publishes several major works that have contributed not only to linguistics, io and to folklore, art history, ethnography, and cultural history.

AA Potebnya was keenly interested in the connection between language and thinking. One of his first books, Thought and Language (1862), is devoted to this problem. Here A.A. Potebnya - and he was only 26 years old - not only showed himself to be a thinking and mature philosopher of language, not only discovered an amazing readiness in special studies (by domestic and foreign authors), but also formulated a number of original and deep theoretical propositions. So, he writes about the organic unity of matter and the form of the word, at the same time insisting on the fundamental distinction between the external (sound) form of the word and the internal one (only many years later this provision was formalized in linguistics in the form of opposing the plane of expression and the plane of content). Exploring the peculiarities of thinking, which, according to Potebnya, can be realized only in the word, he distinguishes between poetic (figurative, symbolic) and prosaic types of thinking. AA Potebnya connected the evolution of language with the development of thinking.

In the creative method of A.A. Potebnya, attention to the smallest facts of linguistic history was organically combined with an interest in fundamental, fundamental questions of linguistics. He was deeply interested in the history of the formation of noun and adjective categories, the opposition of a name and a verb in Russian and other Slavic languages. He reflects on the general questions of the origin of the language, on the processes of updating the language in the course of its historical development and the reasons for the replacement of some modes of expression by others, more perfect. “New languages,” he wrote in one of his works, “are generally more perfect organs of thought than the ancients, because the former contain a greater capital of thought than the latter”.

At the time of AA Potebnya, the “atomic” approach to language learning prevailed; in other words, each fact, each linguistic phenomenon was often considered by itself, in isolation from others and from the general course of linguistic development. Therefore, Potebnya's idea that “languages ​​have a system”, that this or that event in the history of a language should be studied in its connections and relations with others, was truly innovative, ahead of its time.

The glory of Potebnya the scientist outlived Potebnya the human much. Some of his works were published posthumously (for example, "From Notes on the Theory of Literature" - in 1905, the third volume of "Notes on Russian Grammar" - in 1899, and the fourth - quite recently, in 1941. ). And until now, scientists are discovering fresh thoughts, original ideas in the creative heritage of the great philologist, they are learning the methodological thoroughness of the analysis of linguistic facts.

Philologist, was born in the Romensky district of the Poltava province, on September 10, 1835, into a noble family. At seven years old, P. was sent to the Radom gymnasium and, thanks to this circumstance, learned the Polish language well. In 1851, P. entered the Kharkov University, at the Faculty of Law, but in the next 1852 he switched to the History and Philology. At the university, he lived in a boarding school as a state student and later recalled with pleasure about this period of his life and found good sides in the then student dormitory. At the university P. became close to the student M. V. Negovsky; Negovsky had a special Little Russian library, which P. also 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 nice person, but a weak professor. His "Collection of South Russian folk songs", according to P., was the first book that taught him to look closely at the phenomena of language, and there is no doubt that Metlinsky's handsome personality and his literary experiments in the Little Russian language influenced P., lulling love in him to language and literature; In particular, a collection of Little Russian folk songs compiled by Metlinsky had a beneficial effect on P. At the university, P. listened to two famous Slavists, P.A. and N.A. Lavrovskikh, and later gratefully remembered them as scientific advisers. P. graduated from the 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 held the position of a class warden at Kharkov 1st Gymnasium, but was soon appointed a supernumerary senior teacher of Russian literature. On the instructions of N. A. Lavrovsky, P. got acquainted with the works of Miklosich and Karadzic. After defending his master's thesis "On some symbols", P. was appointed an adjunct at Kharkov University, with the dismissal of a gymnasium teacher, and in 1861 he was entrusted with theoretical classes in pedagogy; at the same time he was the secretary of the Faculty of History and Philology. His master's thesis clearly revealed his inclination to the philosophical study of language and poetry and to the definition of symbolic meanings in words. This composition did not evoke imitation; but the author himself later turned to him many times and subsequently developed some of his departments with greater detail and depth of scientific analysis. The inclination to 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 Minister. Nar. Education." In 1892, after P.'s death, this work was republished by the widow of the deceased, M.F. 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 Miklosich. At this time, his views on the importance of nationalism in science and life were already quite clearly and distinctly defined, as shown by several large letters from P. to Belikov that have survived from that time (they are now kept in the manuscript of Prof. ME Khalansky).

Since 1863, P. was an associate professor at Kharkov University. To this, approximately, the time includes his disagreements with Peter A. Lavrovsky, the literary remnant of which provided harsh criticism of Lavrovsky on P. and ancient Russian " 1866 P. wrote an answer that was not printed by the editor of "Chtenii" 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 and in the same year in the fall - an ordinary professor. The dissertation was preceded by a number of other works on philology and mythology: "On the connection of some ideas" - in Filol. Notes "1864," On full accord "and" On the sound features of Russian dialects "(in" Philol. Notes "1866)," Notes on the Little Russian dialect "(ib. 1870)," On the Dol and related creatures "(in" Antiquities "Moscow. Archeol. General, vol. I) and" On the Kupala lights "(in the" Archaeological Bulletin "1867). These articles collected a lot of factual material, made many valuable conclusions. In particular, large - from early works P. - for philologists are "Notes on the Little Russian dialect", and for mythologists and ethnographers - the essay "On the mythical meaning of some rituals and beliefs." 157 pages) and research on the constituent members of the sentence and their replacements in Russian.The second edition of this dissertation, revised and supplemented, was published in 1889. This work was highly praised by I.I.Sreznevsky, A.A.Kotlyarevsky, I. B. Yagich, V. I. Lamansky, A. S. Budilovich and I. V. Netushil. These calls are collected in the book "In memory of A. A. Potebnya", published in 1892 by the Kharkov Historical and Philological Society. Sreznevsky was amazed at P.'s erudition and his broad wit. G. Yagich notes his extensive knowledge, independence of thinking, thoroughness and caution in his conclusions; Budilovich puts P. deservingly next to Jacob Grimm. G. Lamansky considers him higher than Miklosich, calls him "one of the most precious gifts of Russian education," "deeply knowledgeable," "highly gifted."

From later philological studies of P. are remarkable: "On the history of the sounds of the Russian language" - in 4 parts (1873-1886) and "The meanings of the plural in Russian" (1888). In these studies, along with valuable remarks on phonetics, there are very important remarks about the lexical composition of the Russian language and, in connection with them, ethnographic observations and studies. If, according to the phonetics of the Little Russian language, along with the works of P., one can put the works of Miklosich, Ogonovsky, P. Zhitetsky, then in relation to the study of the lexical composition of the Little Russian language P. occupies the only place, beyond comparisons, almost without 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 combination. A veil has been lifted from many dark words, hiding their important historical and everyday significance.

From the study of the lexical composition of the language, there is only one step left to the study of folk poetry, mainly songs, where the word retains all its artistic power and expressiveness, and A.A. more precisely, - to the study of folk poetic motives. Already in 1877, in an article on the collection of songs by Mr. Golovatsky, he expressed and developed his opinion about the need for a formal basis for dividing folk songs and in his subsequent works everywhere he highlights the size of the songs studied and distributes them into categories and divisions in size. ...

With the light hand of MA Maksimovich, who, while studying the Lay of Igor's Campaign, began to determine the historical and poetic connection of southern Russia of the present time with pre-Mongolian southern Russia in individual poetic images, expressions and epithets, this interesting work on a large scale was produced by Potebney in the notes to the Word about Igor's Regiment ", published in 1877. Recognizing, like many scholars, in" Lay "a personal and written work, he finds it improbable that it should be composed according to a ready-made Byzantine-Bulgarian or other template and indicates an abundance of folk poetry elements. Determining the similarities between the Lay and the works of oral literature, P., on the one hand, explains some of the dark passages of the Lay, and on the other hand, he elevates some folk-poetic motifs to a time no later than the end of the twelfth century and thus brings a certain proportion of chronology into study of such aspects of folk poetry as symbolism and parallelism.

In the 1880s. NS. published a very large study: "Explanation of Little Russian and Related Folk Songs", in two volumes. The first volume (1883) included vesnyanki, 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 scientific conclusions made on the basis of this material. In addition to purely scientific works and research, an excellent edition of the works of the Little Russian writer G.F. Kvitka (Kharkov. 1887 and 1889) was published under the editorship of P. the works of Artyomovsky-Gulak, based on the original manuscript of the author, observing his spelling, and in the "Kiev Starin" of 1890, Little Russian medical books of the 18th century were published.

Tireless working life, and maybe some other circumstances have aged P. beyond his years. With almost every mild cold his bronchitis recurred. From the fall of 1890 and throughout the winter P. felt very bad and almost could not leave the house; however, not wanting to deprive the students of his lectures, he invited them to his house and read from the third part of his Notes on Russian Grammar, although reading was already noticeably tired of him. This third part of the "Notes" was of particular concern to 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, he began to lecture at the university in September, but died on November 29, 1891.

In his posthumous papers, there were many (twenty folders) voluminous and valuable works on the history of the Russian language and on the theory of literature. The most processed work is the third volume of "Notes on Russian Grammar" - a philosophical essay that talks about the tasks of linguistics, about nationalism in science, about the development of the Russian word in connection with Russian thought, about the humanity of general concepts, etc. These notes were published in 1899 as the 3rd volume. An overview of the content was given by Mr. Khartsiev in the 5th edition of "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 (vocabulary), for grammar, and mixed notes.

Among other things, the manuscripts contained a translation of a part of the Odyssey into the Little Russian language in the size of the original. Judging by the excerpts, P. wanted to give a translation in a purely folk language, close to the style of Homer; and therefore the beginning of the translation he made is a work that is very interesting both in literary and scientific terms.

As a teacher, A.A. Potebnya was highly respected. The listeners saw in him a person deeply devoted to science, hardworking, conscientious and talented. Each of his lectures sounded a personal conviction and revealed an original attitude to the subject of research, thought out and felt.

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

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

Potebnya's linguistic studies, especially his main work - "Notes", in terms of the abundance of factual content and method of presentation, belong to those difficult to access, even for specialists, and therefore their scientific explanation in public 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", "On the psychology of artistic creativity." A comparatively more simplified popularization of Potebnya's conclusions is the brochure of Mr. Vetukhov "Language, Poetry, Art". An overview and assessment of Potebnya's ethnographic works was given by prof. N. Sumtsov in 1 volume of "Modern Little Russian Ethnography".

The collection of articles and obituaries about Potebna was published by the Kharkov Istor.-Filol. Society in 1892; Bibliographic indexes of Potebnya's articles: Sumtsova - in 3 volumes. "Collection of Ist.-Phil. General 1891, Voltaire - in 3 volumes. Collection of Acad. Sciences 1892 and the most detailed Vetukhov - 1898 - in "Rus. Filol. Vestn. ", Book 3-4. From the articles published after the publication of the book" In memory of A. A. Potebnya ", published by Khark. Ovsyaniko-Kulikovsky in "Kiev. Old "1903, NF Sumtsov Ave. - in 1 volume." Kharkov. University "1903, V. I. Khartsiev - in the V issue." Proceedings of Pedagogical. Department "1899, A. V. Vetukhov - in" Russian. Filol. Bulletin "1898, the city of Kashmensky in" Peaceful Labor "in 1902, Prince I, and V. I. Khartsiev in" Peaceful Labor "in 1902, books 2-3.

Prof. N.F.Sumtsov.

(Polovtsov)

Potebnya, Alexander Afanasevich

Famous scientist; Little Russian by origin and personal sympathies, genus. September 10, 1835 in a poor noble family of the Pomensky district of the 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 the Ethnical-Artistic Exp." Chubinsky. Having spent a short time as a teacher of Russian literature in Kharkov 1st gymnasium, P., 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. 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, H. F. Sumtsov, B. M. Lyapunov, D. I. Bagaley and many others. others; they were collected by the Kharkov Historical and Philological Society and published in 1892 as a separate book. For other bibgraphic data on P., see Materials for the History of Kharkov University, N. Sumtsova (1894). A publicly available presentation of the linguistic provisions of P. is given in an extensive article by prof. D. N. Ovsyaniko-Kulakovsky: "P. as a linguist-thinker" (in "Kiev Starina", 1893, and separately). For a detailed review of P.'s ethnographic works and their assessment, see the 1st issue. "Modern Little Russian Ethnography" N. Sumtsov (pp. 1 - 80). In addition to the aforementioned dissertations, P. wrote: "Thought and Language" (a number of articles in "Zhurn. . Notes ", 1864, issue III)," On the mythical meaning of some rituals and beliefs "(in 2 and 3 books." Readings of 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 akin to it "(in" Antiquity "Moscow Archeological Society", 1867, vol. II), "Notes on the Little Russian dialect" (in "Philological Notes", 1870, and separately, 1871), "To the history of the 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 collection of Uvarov prizes"), "The Word about Igor's Campaign" (text and notes, in "Philologist. Notes", 1877-78, and separately), analysis of "Narodn songs of Galician and Ugric Rus ", Golovatsky (in 21" On the report on the Uvarov prizes ", 37 volumes." Notes of the Academy of Sciences ", 1878)," Explanations of Little Russian and related folk songs "(1883-87), etc. Under his ed. The works of GF Kvitka (1887-90) and "Fairy tales, proverbs, etc., recorded by II Mandzhura (in the Collection of Kharkov History-Philologist. Society", 1890) were published. his following articles were also published: "From lectures on the theory of literature. Fable, Proverb, Saying "(Kharkov, 1894; an excellent study on the theory of literature), a review of the work of A. Sobolevsky:" Essays from history. Russian lang. "(in 4 kn." Izvestia of the department of Russian. lang. and words. Imp. acad. sciences ", 1896) and an extensive philosophical article:" Language and nationality "(in" Vestnik Evropy ", 1895, Sept.) Very large and valuable scientific research of P. remained unfinished in 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 the Little Russian proverb: a vechirenka is on the table, and death is behind the shoulders ... There are a number of questions that are most interesting in their novelty and strictly scientific solution, questions that have already been resolved, but awaited only the last finishing. " The Historical and Philological Society offered P.'s successors a gradual publication of P.'s major manuscript research; later the Academy of Sciences expressed its readiness to grant a subsidy for the publication. These proposals were not accepted, and P.'s precious research is still awaiting publication. The most processed work of P. is Volume III " Notes on grammar. "These notes are in close connection with the early work of P." Thought and Language. " here is the ancient structure of Russian thought and its transitions to the complex devices of modern language and thinking. it is "the history of Russian thought under the illumination of the Russian word." This major work P. after his death was rewritten and partly edited by his students, so it is generally quite prepared for publication. Equally voluminous, but much less finished, another work of P. - "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, their meanings for authors and for the public are given, inspiration is considered in detail, accurate analyzes of the methods of mythical and poetic creativity are given, and, finally, a lot of space is allotted to various forms of poetic allegory , and everywhere the unusually rich erudition of the author and quite original points of view are found. 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 testifying to the versatility of his mental interests (about L. Tolstoy, V.F. Odoevsky, Tyutchev, nationalism, etc. .), the original experience of translating "Odyssey" into the Little Russian language. According to V. I. Lamansky, "a thoughtful, original researcher of the Russian language, P. belonged to a very small galaxy of the largest, original figures of Russian thought and science." In-depth study of the formal side of the language goes with P. next to a philosophical understanding, with a love of art and poetry. A subtle and thorough analysis, developed on special philological works, was successfully applied by P. to ethnography and to the study of Little Russian folk songs, mainly carols. The influence of P., as a person and a professor, was deep and beneficial. His lectures contained a rich store of information, carefully thought out and critically verified, a lively personal passion for science was heard, an original worldview was found everywhere, which was based on an extremely conscientious and sincere attitude towards the person's personality and the collective personality of the people.

N. Sumtsov.

(Brockhaus)

Potebnya, Alexander Afanasevich

Philologist, literary critic, ethnographer. Genus. in the family of a petty nobleman. He studied at a classical gymnasium, then at 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 the history of the 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 in "ZhMNP" published the 1st part "On the history of the sounds of the Russian language", 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 work was published after his death. Issued: 3 hh. "From Notes on Russian Grammar"; "From lectures on the theory of literature" (compiled from the notes of the listeners); "From Notes on the Theory of Literature"; "Draft Notes on Leo Tolstoy and Dostoevsky" ("Questions of Theory and Psychology of Creativity", vol. V, 1913).

The lit-th activity of P. covers the 60-80s. Among the literary currents of that era, P. stands alone. Both the bourgeois sociologism of the cultural-historical school (Pypin and others) and the bourgeois positivism of the comparative-historical method of Veselovsky are alien to him. The mythological school had a well-known influence on P. In his works, he gives a fairly prominent place to myth and its relationship with the word. However, P. criticizes the extreme conclusions reached by the supporters of the mythological school. In Russian literary and linguistic studies 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 idealist philosophy, ch. arr. to the philosophy of Kant, Agnosticism, the rejection of the possibility of knowing the essence of things and depicting the real world in poetic images permeate the entire worldview of P. The essence of things, from his point of view, is not knowable. Cognition deals with a 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 basic tenets of subjective idealism, stating that "the world appears to us only as a course of changes that takes place in ourselves" ("From Notes on the Theory of Literature", p. 25). Therefore, approaching the process of cognition, Potebnya limits this process to cognition of the subject's inner world.

In views on language and poetry, this subjective idealism manifested itself as a pronounced psychologism. In posing the basic questions of linguistics, P. seeks solutions for them in psychology. Only by bringing linguistics closer to psychology, it is possible, according to P., to develop fruitfully both of these sciences. P. considers the psychology of Herbart to be the only scientific psychology. Potebnya bases his linguistics on Herbart's theory of representations, considering the formation of each word as a process of apperception, judgment, that is, an explanation of the newly cognized through what was previously known. Recognizing the general form of human cognition to explain the newly cognized previously known, P. from the word stretches the threads to poetry and science, considering them as a means of knowing 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 purpose of both scientific and poetic works is, according to P.'s views, "a modification of the inner world of man." Poetry for P. is a means of knowing not the objective world, but only the subjective. Art and the word are the means of subjective unification of disparate sensory perceptions. The artistic image does not reflect the world that exists independently of our consciousness; this world, from the point of view of P., is not knowable, it only denotes a 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 only denoted in an artistic way. An image is a symbol - an allegory - and is valuable only because everyone can put their subjective content into it. Mutual understanding is essentially impossible. Any understanding is at the same time a misunderstanding. This subjective-idealistic approach to art, the consideration of the image only as a symbol, as a constant predicate to variable subjects, lead 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 writings, therefore, the presentation of his views on literature is a certain difficulty. We have to present P.'s system, based on his linguistic works, rough notes and lectures, written down by students and published after P.'s death.

In order to understand the essence of P.'s views on poetry, you must first get 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 creating 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 the formation of a word, P. shows that the first stage of the formation of a word is a simple reflection of feelings in sound, then comes the awareness of sound, and finally the third stage - awareness of the content of thought in sound. From Potebnya's point of view, each word has two contents. One of them, after the appearance of the word, is gradually forgotten. This is its closest etymological meaning. It contains only one feature of the whole variety of features of a given object. So, the word "table" means only the positioned one, 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. This etymological meaning of the word P. calls the internal form. In essence, it is not the content of a word, but only a sign, a symbol by which we think of the actual content of the word: it can include the most diverse attributes of an object. For example: how was black called black or light blue? Of the images of crows or a dove, which are the focus of a number of features, one was singled out, namely their color, and this feature was called the newly cognized - 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 mastered. The internal form of a word is a means of apperception precisely because it expresses a general feature characteristic of both the explained and the explanatory (previous experience). Expressing this common feature, the inner form acts as a mediator, as something third between two compared phenomena. Analyzing the psychological process of apperception, P. identifies it with the process of judgment. The internal form is the relation of the content of thought to consciousness, it shows how a person sees his own thought ... So, 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, whence the word "cloud" [(root "tu" - to drink, pour), "Thought and language"].

But if the word is a means of apperception, and apperception itself is not. that other than a judgment, then a word, regardless of its combination with other words, is precisely the expression of a judgment, a two-term quantity consisting of an image and its representation. Consequently, the internal form of a word, which expresses only one sign, is not meaningful in itself, but only as a form (it was not by chance that P. called it an internal form), the sensory image of which enters consciousness. The inner form only indicates all the richness of the sensory image, contained in the cognized object and outside of connection with it, that is, outside of judgment, does not make sense. The inner 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 by everyone in different ways, depending on his experience, and therefore the word is just a sign into which everyone puts subjective content. The content that is conceived of by the same word is different for each person, therefore there is not and cannot be a complete understanding.

The inner form, expressing one of the signs of the perceived 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. By highlighting one feature, the word 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 the knowledge of its community. 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 cognizing reality.

Analyzing the word, P. so. arr. comes to the following conclusions: 1. The word consists of three elements: external form, ie, sound, internal form and meaning. 2. The inner form expresses one feature between the compared ones, that is, between the newly cognized and previously cognized objects. 3. The inner form acts as a means of apperception, apperception is the same judgment, therefore the inner form is an expression of judgment and is important not in itself, but only as a sign, a symbol of the meaning of a word, which is subjective. 4. The inner form, expressing one sign, gives the consciousness of the unity and community of the sensory image. 5. The gradual oblivion of the inner form transforms the word from a primitive poetic work into a concept. Analyzing the symbols of folk poetry, examining their internal form, P. comes to the conclusion that the need to restore the forgotten internal form was one of the reasons for the formation of symbols. Kalina became a symbol of a girl because the girl is called red - by the unity of the main idea of ​​fire-light in the words "girl", "red", "viburnum". Studying the symbols of Slavic folk poetry, P. arranges them according to the unity of the basic concept contained in their names. P. through detailed etymological research shows how the growth of the tree and the genus, the root and the father, the wide leaf and the mind of the mother, converged, finding a match in the language.

From the primitive word, the word as the simplest poetic work, P. moves on to paths, to synecdoche, to epithet and metonymy, to metaphor, to comparison, and then to fable, proverb and proverb. Analyzing them, he seeks to show that the three elements inherent in the primitive word as an elementary poetic work are the integral essence of poetic works in general. If in a word we have an external form, an internal form and meaning, then in any poetic work we must also distinguish 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 one should understand not one sound, but also a verbal form in general, significant in its constituent parts" (Notes on the Theory of Literature, p. 30). A representation (i.e., an internal form) in a word corresponds to an image (or a certain unity of images) in a poetic work. The meaning of a word corresponds to the content of a poetic work. By the content of a work of art, P. means those thoughts that are evoked in the reader in a given way, or those that serve as the basis for the author to create an image. The image of a work of art, as well as the internal form in a word, is only a sign of those thoughts that the author had when creating the image, or those that arise in the reader when he perceived 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., an indissoluble unity. If the connection between sound and meaning is lost to consciousness, then sound ceases to be an external form in the aesthetic sense of the word. So ex. to understand the comparison "pure water flows in a pure river, and faithful love in a faithful heart" we lack the legitimacy of the relationship between external form and meaning. The legal connection between water and love will be established only when there is an opportunity, without making a leap, to move from one of these thoughts to another, when, for example. in the mind there will be a connection of light as one of the epithets of water with love. This is precisely the forgotten inner 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 value, it is necessary to restore this inner form, the connection between water and love. To clarify this thought, Potebnya cites a Ukrainian spring song, where a saffron wheel looks out from under the tynu. If you perceive only the external form of this song, i.e. That is, to understand it literally, it will turn out to be nonsense. If the inner shape is restored and the yellow saffron wheel is connected 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 it is for P. a means of apperception, cognition of the unknown through the known, an expression of judgment. A complex piece of art is the same means of cognition. 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. Humboldt's point of view that language is an activity, an organ of thought formation, P. extends to any poetic work, showing that an artistic image is not a means of expressing a ready-made thought, but, like a word, plays a huge role in creating these thoughts. In his book "From Lectures on the Theory of Literature" P., sharing Lessing's views on the definition of 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 number of things, for example a table in general, and then this thing in particular. However, mankind has been reaching such generalizations for many millennia," says P. Then he shows that the artist does not always strive to lead the reader to moralizing. The poet's immediate goal is a definite point of view on a real special case - on a psychological subject (since an image is an expression of a judgment) - by comparing it with another, also a special case, told in a fable - with a psychological predicate. This predicate (the image contained in the fable) remains unchanged, but the subject changes, since the fable is applied to different cases.

The poetic image, due to its allegory, due to the fact that it is a constant predicate to many variable subjects, makes it possible to replace a mass of various thoughts with relatively small quantities.

The process of creating any, even the most complex work of P. brings it under the following scheme. Something unclear for the author, existing in the form of a question ( NS), looking for an answer. The author can find the answer only in previous experience. Let's designate the latter by "A". From "A" under the influence NS everything pushes off for this NS not suitable, the related is attracted, this latter is combined in the image of "a", and a judgment occurs, that is, the creation of a work of art. Analyzing the works of Lermontov "Three Palms", "Sail", "The Branch of Palestine", "A Hero of Our Time", P. shows how the same thing, tormenting the poet, is embodied in different images. it NS, cognized by the poet is something extremely complex in relation to the image. The image never runs out of it NS."We can say that NS it is inexpressible in the poet that what we call expression is only a series of attempts to designate this NS, 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 process of creativity, only in the opposite order. The reader understands the work as much as he participates in its creation. Thus, the image serves only as a means of transforming another independent content that is in the mind of the one who understands. 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 thought, its purpose, like words, is to produce a certain subjective mood both in the speaker himself and in the one who understands," says P. (Thought and Language, p. 154) ...

This allegory of the image can be of two kinds. First, allegory in a close sense, i.e., portability, metaphoricity, when the image and meaning relate to phenomena that are distant from each other, such as, for example. external nature and human life. Secondly, artistic typicality, when an image in thought becomes the beginning of a series of similar and homogeneous images. The goal of poetic works of this kind, namely, generalization, is achieved when the one who understands recognizes the familiar in them. "Abundant examples of such cognition with the help of types created by poetry are presented by the life (ie, application) of all the outstanding works of new Russian literature, from" The Minor "to the satyr Saltykov" ("From Notes on the Theory of Literature", p. 70).

The inner form in the word gives the consciousness of the unity and community of the sensory image, that is, of the entire content of the word. In a work of fiction, this role of a unifier, a collector of various interpretations, various subjective contents is performed by the image. The image is single and together infinite, its infinity lies precisely in the impossibility of determining how much and what content will be put into it by the perceiver.

Poetry, according to P., makes up for the imperfection of scientific thought. Science, from the point of view of the agnostic P., cannot give knowledge of the essence of objects and the whole picture of the world, since every new fact that is not included in the scientific system, according to P., destroys it. Poetry, on the other hand, reveals the harmony of the world unattainable for analytical knowledge, it points to this harmony with its concrete images, "replacing the unity of the concept with the unity of representation, it rewards in some way 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, which was 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 the point of view of P., than art, since the basis of art is the image, the understanding of which is subjective each time, while the basis of science is the concept, which is composed of the features of the image objectified in the word. The very concept of objectivity is interpreted by P. from subjective-idealistic positions. Objectivity or truth, according to P., is not a correct reflection of the objective world by us, but only "a comparison of personal thought with a common one" ("Thought and Language").

Poetry and science as different types of later human thinking were preceded by the stage of mythical thinking. A myth is also an act of knowledge, i.e., an explanation NS through the totality of what was previously known. But in myth, the newly cognized is identified with the previously cognized. The whole image is transferred to the value. So ex. primitive man put an equal sign between the lightning and the snake. In poetry, the formula lightning - a snake takes on the character of comparison. In poetic thinking, a person distinguishes what is newly cognized from what was previously cognized. "The appearance of a metaphor in the sense of the consciousness of the heterogeneity of the 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 in the person of the German researcher M. Müller and the Russian scientist Afanasyev. P. criticizes their view that the source of the myth was misunderstood metaphors.

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

The rapprochement of poetics with linguistics on the basis of considering the word and a work of art as a means of knowing the inner world of the subject, and hence the interest in the problems of psychology, was the new thing that P. introduced into linguistics and literary criticism. However, it was in these central questions of P.'s theory that all the fallacy and the viciousness of his methodology.

P.'s subjective-idealistic theory, aimed at the inner world, interpreting imagery only as allegory and cutting off the path of approaching literature as an expression of a certain social reality, in the 60-80s. reflected in Russian literary criticism the decadent tendencies of the noble intelligentsia. The progressive layers of both the bourgeois and the 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 affinity of his views with the philosophical foundations of the representative of noble poetry, the predecessor of Russian symbolism Tyutchev. In the 900s. The Symbolists - the spokesmen for Russian decadence - brought their theoretical constructions closer to the basic tenets of P.'s poetics. For example, Bely in 1910 in Logos devoted an article to P.'s main work, Thought and Language, in which he makes P. the spiritual father of Symbolism.

P.'s ideas were popularized and developed by his students, grouped around the collections "Questions of Theory and Psychology of Creativity" (published in 1907-1923, edited by Lezin in Kharkov). The most interesting figure of P.'s pupils was Ovsyaniko-Kulikovsky, who tried to apply the psychological method to the analysis of the work of Russian classics. Later, Ovsyaniko-Kulikovsky largely moved away from the P. system towards bourgeois sociologization. The rest of P.'s students were essentially just epigones of their teacher. Gornfeld focused on the problems of the psychology of creativity and the psychology of perception ("The Torment of the Word", "Future Art", "On the Interpretation of a Work of Art"), treating these problems from a subjective-idealistic standpoint. Rainov popularized Kant's aesthetic. Other students of P. - Lezin, Engelmeier, Khartsiev - developed P.'s doctrine in the direction of the empirio-criticism of Mach and Avenarius. P.'s theory, which considered the word and poetic work as a means of cognition through the designation of various contents with one image-symbol, was interpreted by them from the point of view of the economy of thinking. The students of Potebnya, who viewed science and poetry as forms of thinking in accordance with the principle of the least expenditure of energy, revealed with exceptional clarity the subjective-idealistic foundations of Potebnianism and thus all its hostility to Marxism-Leninism. Having played its historical role in the struggle against the old scholastic linguistics, sharpening the attention of the science of literature on the psychology of creativity and the psychology of perception, on the problem of the artistic image, linking poetics with linguistics, Potebnianism, which is vicious in its methodological basis, later merging with Machism, revealed everything more sharply its reactionary nature. All the more, attempts by 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. Major works: Complete collection. soch., vol. I. Thought and language, ed. 4, Odessa, 1922 (original in "ZhMNP", 1862, h. 113, 114; 2, 3, 5 ed. - 1892, 1913, 1926); From notes on the theory of literature, Kharkov, 1905: I. On some symbols in Slavic folk poetry. TI. On the connection of some representations in the language. III. About the Kupala lights and performances akin to them. IV. About the share and creatures akin 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, ch. 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. H., 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 of Plavilshchikov - Primo, St. Petersburg, 1905, pp. 643-646; Bely A., Thought and language, collection of works. "Logos", book. II, 1910; Khartsiev V., Fundamentals of poetics A. A. Potebnya, collection of works. "Questions of the theory and psychology of creativity", vol. II, no. II, St. Petersburg, 1910; Shklovsky V., Potebnya, sb. "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 seeing the works of O. Potebny, part 1, Kharkiv, 1922; Gornfeld A.G., Potebnya, in the book. author "Military responses to peaceful themes", Leningrad, 1924; Rainov T., Potebnya, P., 1924. See collection. "Questions of 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; Rainov, A. A. Potebnya, P., 1924; Khalansky M.G. and Bagaley D.I. (ed.), 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 and women, 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. enz.)

Potebnya, Alexander Afanasevich

Culturologist, linguist, philosopher. Genus. in with. Gavrilovka, Romensky district, Poltava province, in a noble family. In 1851 he entered Kharkov University for legal studies. f-t, however, after the 1st year, he transferred to the historical-philology. f-t, to-ry graduated in 1856. Passed the master's exam in Slavic philology and was left at un-those. In 1862 he was one of the first sent by Kharkov un-tom for training abroad. He studied in Germany, in Berlin. Before the defense of Doct. diss. ("From notes on Russian grammar." Part I and II) P. was an assistant professor, then an extraordinary and ordinary professor. in the department of Rus. language and literature. All life and scholar. creative P. took place within the walls of Kharkov University. On the formation of democratic, freedom-loving polit. P.'s views were greatly influenced by the tragic fate of his brother, Andrei Afanasyevich Potebnya, an active member of Earth 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 sides of the official authorities. Ch. scientific. P.'s interest lay in the study of the relationship between language and thinking. He develops the doctrine, according to which each word in its structure is a unity of articulate sound, int. word forms and abstract meaning. Int. the form of the word is associated with the closest etymological. the meaning of the word and serves, as a representation, 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, thought can be realized only in the element of language. Many thoughts and ideas of P., expressed in a general form and, as it were, "along the way" and clearly formulated later by other thinkers, formed the basis of many sovr. region humanizes. 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 ist. grammar, ist. dialectology, semiotics, sociolinguistics, ethnopsychol. Philos.-linguistic. approach allowed P. to see in myth, folklore, literature decomp. sign-symbolic systems, derivatives with respect to the language. So, myth, with t. Sp. P., does not exist outside the word. Crucial for the emergence of myths was internal. the form of the word, edges 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 ones, in which their economic and production experience is captured. Myth is the act of "explaining the unknown (x) by means of a set of previously given attributes, combined and brought to consciousness by a word or image (a)." Of great importance for philosophy. views P. have the categories "people" and "nationality". Starting from the ideas of W. von Humboldt, P. considered the people the creator of the 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 t. Sp. P., nowhere is the spirit of the people more fully and vividly manifested as in its bunk. traditions and folklore. This is where those spirits are created. values, to-rye then nourish professional art and creative. P. himself was a tireless collector of Russian. and ukr. folklore, did a lot in terms of docking the unity of basic folklore and mythological. plots 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 XX century. the closest attention of theorists of symbolism. Numerous overlaps with P.'s ideas are contained in the works of Vyach. Ivanov, Andrei Bely, V. Brusov, and other Symbolists.

Cit .: From notes on the theory of literature.(Poetry and prose. Trails and figures. Thinking poetic and mythical)... Kharkov, 1905 ;On 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. 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

Big biographical encyclopedia. 2009 .

• Biographical Dictionary

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

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Alexander Afanasyevich Potebnya is an outstanding Ukrainian and Russian philologist. AA Potebnya distinguished himself from his contemporaries by an extraordinary breadth of scientific interests and an encyclopedic knowledge. This was clearly manifested in his works: they are devoted to Russian grammar (the main work is "From Notes on Russian Grammar" in 4 volumes), the sound structure of the Russian language, the differences between southern and northern Russian dialects, the history of the Ukrainian and Russian languages, their comparative analysis , history of the main grammatical categories. Especially significant are the results obtained by A.A. Potebney in his comparative study of the syntax of East Slavic languages.
In these works, extensive material was used, which was analyzed with such thoroughness, even meticulousness, with the involvement of so many sources that for many decades the works of A.A. Potebnya remained an unsurpassed model of linguistic research.
And this is only a part of the scientific creativity of the talented scientist. He considered language as a component of culture, the spiritual life of the people. Hence AA Potebnya's interest in rituals, myths, songs of the Slavs: after all, here the language is embodied in various, sometimes bizarre forms. And Potebnya carefully studies the beliefs and customs of Russians and Ukrainians, compares them with the culture of other Slavic peoples and publishes several major works that have contributed not only to linguistics, io and to folklore, art history, ethnography, and cultural history.
AA Potebnya was keenly interested in the connection between language and thinking. One of his first books, Thought and Language (1862), is devoted to this problem. Here A.A. Potebnya - and he was only 26 years old - not only showed himself to be a thinking and mature philosopher of language, not only discovered an amazing readiness in special studies (by domestic and foreign authors), but also formulated a number of original and deep theoretical propositions. So, he writes about the organic unity of matter and the form of the word, at the same time insisting on the fundamental distinction between the external (sound) form of the word and the internal (only many years later this position was formalized in linguistics in the form of opposing the plan of expression and the plan * a of the content) ... Exploring the peculiarities of thinking, which, according to Potebnya, can be realized only in the word, he distinguishes between poetic (figurative, symbolic) and prosaic types of thinking. AA Potebnya connected the evolution of language with the development of thinking.
In the creative method of A.A. Potebnya, attention to the smallest facts of linguistic history was organically combined with an interest in fundamental, fundamental questions of linguistics. He was deeply interested in the history of the formation of noun and adjective categories, the opposition of a name and a verb in Russian and other Slavic languages. He reflects on the general questions of the origin of the language, on the processes of updating the language in the course of its historical development and the reasons for the replacement of some modes of expression by others, more perfect. “New languages,” he wrote in one of his works, “are generally more perfect organs of thought than the ancients, because the former contain a greater capital of thought than the latter”.
At the time of AA Potebnya, the “atomic” approach to language learning prevailed; in other words, each fact, each linguistic phenomenon was often considered by itself, in isolation from others and from the general course of linguistic development. Therefore, Potebnya's idea that “languages ​​have a system”, that this or that event in the history of a language should be studied in its connections and relations with others, was truly innovative, ahead of its time.
The glory of Potebnya the scientist outlived Potebnya the human much. Some of his works were published posthumously (for example, "From Notes on the Theory of Literature" - in 1905, the third volume of "Notes on Russian Grammar" - in 1899, and the fourth - quite recently, in 1941. ). And until now, scientists are discovering fresh thoughts, original ideas in the creative heritage of the great philologist, they are learning the methodological thoroughness of the analysis of linguistic facts.

Thought and language. - SPb., 1892;
From notes on Russian grammar, vols. 1-2. - Kharkov, 1874; t. 3. - Kharkov, 1899; t. 4. - Moscow - Leningrad, 1941; vol. 4, no. 2. - M., 1977 ( Reprinted.: T. 1–2 - M .: Uchpedgiz, 1958; T. 3 - M .: Education, 1968);
From notes on the theory of literature. - Kharkov, 1905;
On 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. shk., 1990;
About the origin of the names of some Slavic pagan deities / Publ. prepare Afanasyeva N.E., Franchuk V.Yu. // Slavic and Balkan folklore. - M., 1989. - S. 254–26 7.

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

The nature of language and the goals of linguistics

"... Show in practice the participation of words in the formation of a sequential series of systems that embrace the relationship of the individual to nature."

()

"... In the language there is nothing but the form, external and internal."

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

"... The beginnings, developed by the life of individual languages ​​and peoples, are different and irreplaceable to one another, but they point to others and require their addition from the side."

(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 restrict ourselves to terms, words that replace research. We say: the area of ​​human consciousness is very narrow. That is, we have to imagine that, figuratively speaking, in our head there is a narrow stage 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 perceived and expressed by a word, in fact presupposes a prolonged 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 .-- S. 195)

Creativity and understanding

“Art is the language of the artist, and just as it is impossible to convey one's thought to another by means of a word, but one can only awaken his own thought in him, so it cannot be communicated in a work of art; therefore, the content of this latter (when it is finished) develops not 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 strength 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 really stipulated by its internal form, but it could not at all be 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 .-- S. 167)

Science, poetry, philosophy

“Science is breaking up the world in order to put it all over again into a harmonious system of concepts; but this goal moves away as we approach it, the system collapses from any fact that is not included in it, and the number of facts cannot be exhausted. Poetry warns this unattainable analytical knowledge of the harmony of the world; pointing to this harmony with its concrete images, which do not require an infinite set of perceptions, and replacing the unity of the 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. The purpose of poetry is not only to prepare science, but also to temporarily arrange and complete its building, which was brought out of it, not high from the ground. This is the long-noted similarity between poetry and philosophy. But philosophy is available to few; its ponderous course does not inspire confidence in the feeling of dissatisfaction with the one-sided fragmentary nature of life and too slowly heals the moral suffering arising from it. In these cases, art helps a person, especially poetry and the religion originally associated with it. "

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

Literature about A.A. Potebne

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