Creation and development of the Dictionary of Everyday Russian Language of Muscovite Rus' of the 16th–17th Centuries: From Boris Larin's idea to the electronic version

The article considers the history and development of a historical dictionary describing the lexico-semantic system of the Russian Middle Ages language, the Dictionary of the Everyday Russian Language of Moscovite Rus' of the 16th-17th Centuries. The article aims to summarize the results of the work on the publication of 10 issues of the Dictionary, show the dynamics and research nature of dictionary work, trace the changes and describe the prospects of the project. Its idea dates back to the 1960s and is directly connected with the central fact of Russian historical lexicography - the fate of the Old Russian Dictionary and its Card File. After the Card File's transportation to Moscow, Boris Larin put forward the idea of a dictionary of colloquial vocabulary of the Russian Middle Ages. At the turn of the 21st century, the team of authors was formed, the concept of the Dictionary was widely discussed, and the publication of its draft and issues began. The 10 issues of the Dictionary (2004-2025) contain 12,785 words and 6,983 stable combinations, which makes the project a valuable source for studying the history of the Russian language. The article is the first description of vocabulary work dynamic, changes in methods and techniques of lexicographic description; it also gives an insight on how the Dictionary has been forming and developing. Over the years of publication, its source base has been significantly expanded; a computer text library has been created (currently includes about 400 texts); the methods of work with the material and compiling dictionary entries have changed fundamentally; the frequency zone of the dictionary entry has been revised; the semantic and grammatical characteristic of the material has been deepened; the principles of including proper names have been clarified; commenting is becoming more frequent and more complete. Recently, work on an electronic version of the Dictionary has started. This version allows searching by various parameters and filling in the gaps of the first issues. The Dictionary is included in the online project "Russian Academic Lexicography". The creation of a historical phraseological dictionary is planned based on the Dictionary. Thus, the review of the process of working on the multi-year and multi-volume project allows both seeing the improvement of lexicographic technique and the metalanguage of a particular dictionary and demonstrating a fragment of Russian historical lexicography formation, characterizing its general trends, and presenting specifics in connection with emerging scientific challenges. The author declares no conflicts of interests.

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