American Association of Teachers of Slavic and East European Languages

Basic Russian by Rebecca A. DomarReview by: J. G. GarrardThe Slavic and East European Journal, Vol. 6, No. 2 (Summer, 1962), pp. 176-178Published by: American Association of Teachers of Slavic and East European LanguagesStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3086113 .

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The Slavic and East European Journal

Rebecca A. Domar. Basic Russian, New York: McGraw-Hill, 1961. vii, 516, $6.95.

This beginning textbook is divided in two roughly equal parts. Part I deals with the elementary rules of grammar; Part II reviews much of the ma- terialgiven in Part I and also introduces the student to more advanced gram- mar, e. g., participles and gerunds. I think we must agree with the claim of the author that this arrangement has considerable advantages: Part I fits neatlyinto a firstyearcourse; only the basic parts of speech are introduced, sufficient to enable the student to begin supplementary reading; there is not too much material which would only overwhelm him. The student may then continue with Part II in his second year, reviewing what he has already studied in greater detail and learning the remaining basic elements of the language. It would be possible to complete both Parts in one year in an in- tensive course.

Basic Russian begins with the alphabet, followed by a dozen pages on phonetics. Following Parts I and II there is an Appendix which takes the form of a reference grammar (including a very useful list of basic verbs in both aspects) . There is also a General Index and a Verb Index.

On page 2 there is a slip in the names of the letters: el' should be el. Perhaps "azure" is not the best example to explain the pronunciation of the Russian letter z. Ibelieve thatthe chapter on Phonetics is the weakest part of the book. It seems unnecessary to introduce the beginning student to such rare words as the Russian for "sheatfish, " "mineral fertilizer, " and "sounding lead. " If it is argued that the meaning of the words is not im- portant, then the meanings should not be given. Another fault is that far too many words are given as examples of the pronunciation of each letter: there are twenty for the letter r; seventeen pairs of words for the letters i and y The pronunciation of double consonants is not mentioned (e.g.,nn ). It is possible that this presentation of the rules of phonetics might frighten away the beginning student from what is a very fine grammar book. Fewer examples should be given to illustrate correct pronunciation, and as far as possible the examples should be simple, everyday words that the student will be meeting again when he begins the grammar proper.

Part I is the core of the book: it must introduce the student to the grammar and vocabulary in such a way that he will learn the most important elements in the language and will wish to continue his studies. The student who tackles Part II already has some knowledge on which to build; by com- parison, the beginning student is a babe in arms. Part I consists of twenty- eight lessons. Each lesson consists of a text, usually in the form of dia- logue; vocabulary; grammar; and exercises. Generally speaking, the texts are excellent: the choice of dialogue is a good one, since this enables the instructorto follow the aural-oral approach more easily if he wishes. At the same time, the grammatical explanations are concise and do not underesti- mate the student's intelligence. It seems to me that the author has managed to avoid the two extremes of(1) "just say it after me; we'll get down to the grammar later" and (2) "write down this rule a hundred times. " There are several good points worth mentioning: useful English into Russian exercises; the present tense of verbs is introduced before the gender of nouns, and in- deed particular emphasis is placed on the verb-aspects, verbal prefixes,

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formation of second imperfectives, and so on. This is justified since the verb is the most important part of speech in Russian. The accusative case of nouns is given immediately after the nominative, instead of the usual prepositional. The author treats the accusative case as a whole (both ani- mate and inanimate); a fairly complete treatment of each part of speech or point of grammar at one time is a feature of this book which will meet the criticism of many grammars that they discuss parts of speech bit by bit in a piecemeal fashion: this method appears to annoy most students.

Part I gives a solid basis in the elementary mechanics of the language, but the student must expect to continue with Part II, since he still has a number of important points to meet. There are a few slips which can be cor- rected in a later edition: the use ofi ...i meaning "both...and" is ex- plained on page 45, but has already occurred in a previous text on page 36; the broken line on the top of page 113 illustrating the significance of the perfective aspect is confusing; Lesson 15 is too full of new material that must be absorbed and practiced; on page 179 soft endings are given for the short form of adjectives-such short forms do not exist and it is not advisable to give the lone exception sin', only to follow it with a footnote: "Seldom used (especially in a beginning grammar); in Lesson 13 i is used meaning "also, " "too, " but this usage is not explained; on page 218 it might have been worth pointing out that the adjective after a numeral is more often in the nominative plural if the noun following is of feminine gender, whereas it is more often in the genitive plural if the noun following is of masculine or neuter gender. A final point is that the vocabularies after each text could have been given in alphabetical order for easier reference.

The texts in Part II, consisting partly of dialogue and partly of narra- tive, are excellent and some of them are quite humorous. The grammar ex- planations are complete and full lists of declensions are given. One great advantage of the material in Part II is that the lessons may be taken in any order up to a point. For example, the instructor can jump forward a few les- sons to the comparative degree of adjectives should this be necessary as an aid to comprehension of supplementary reading material. In a grammar as full as this there are several omissions which might be filled in a later edi- tion. I was disturbed to find little or no mention made of word order, stress patterns in nouns, patronymics, diminutives, or punctuation; a list of nouns taking the preposition na instead of, or as well as, v would have been help- ful. On page 287 the example illustrating the value of knowing consonantal change patterns for tracing comparative adjectives is an exception to the rules just stated. On page 352 mention might have been made of the fact that the preposition s can equal "and," e.g., xleb s maslom. In the final lesson it should be made clear that the past-participle passive in the short form is often used to translate an English passive verb.

In general, the proof reading has been very well done. The only errors I noticed were the following: stress omitted on xotite ( p. 108); uslysdt' should be uslygat' (p. 178); fzdali should be izdli (p. 205); prinosli should be prinosfli (p. 305); fzdal should be izdal (p. 343); stress omitted on truden ( p. 390).

Basic Russian is intelligently put together, and I strongly recommend

Reviews 177

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The Slavic and East European Journal The Slavic and East European Journal

that instructors at the beginning and elementary level examine it as a text- book for their classes.

J. G. Garrard Carleton University, Ottawa

Hans Rogger. National Consciousness in Eighteenth-Century Russia. (Russian Research Center Studies, 38. ) Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard Univ. Press, 1960. ix, 319, $6.75.

This book is equally interesting for specialists in Russian literature, language, folklore, and intellectual history, and for historians proper. The development of national consciousness is treated here for the first time on a verybroad basis by investigating its manifestations in historical facts, the life of society, the origin of a national literary language and literature, and finally in "The Discovery of the Folk" (Chapter IV). This monograph thus cuts through various disciplines by following up one very important theme. It should be mentioned that the author investigated an astonishingly high number of eighteenth century literary works (fifty-seven of the primary sources quoted in the selected bibliography fall into this category). His- torians will, therefore, find in this book a well chosen and documented pic- ture of Russian literature, and philologists who are familiar with most of these works will certainly be stimulated by the historical-cultural evaluation of them.

Since the value of this monograph has already been very positively appraisedbyhistorians and since the present reviewer is a linguist, the fol- lowing remarks are restricted to the author's treatment of the development of the Russian literary language in the eighteenth century. These remarks are not intended to diminish the merits of this excellent book in any way, but are merely minor comments on one of the many problems discussed therein.

Chapter III, "Towards a National Language" (pp. 85-125) is devoted to philological problems, but the author clearly and cautiously states his goal and "does not trace this development in philological or linguistic terms. [He] merely views the formation of a national, secular, literary language- and the negation of foreign intrusions." (p. 85.) This chapter is avery good survey of the traditional view of the development of literary Russian. As an historian, the author is certainly not to blame if he repeats some of the tra- ditional but erroneous opinions which have wandered from one handbook on the history of Russian into another. For example: Trediakovskij's literary and philological activities are discussed in detail (pp. 95-100), but no mention is made of the fact that he was the most erudite philologist of that time (despite his unfortunate etymologies, but Lomonosov's are in no way better; etymological phantasies seem to belong to this epoch), nor that he probably was the most fertile creator of new terms. The enrichment of liter- ary Russian by Sumarokov is asserted ( p. 106), though this writer is ac- tually of little importance in this respect. The publication of the Academy dictionary (6 vols., 1789-94) is justly praised as a national achievement, but if one mentions that a contemporary even considered it superior to the dictionary of the French Academy (p. 119) one should add that this dictionary

that instructors at the beginning and elementary level examine it as a text- book for their classes.

J. G. Garrard Carleton University, Ottawa

Hans Rogger. National Consciousness in Eighteenth-Century Russia. (Russian Research Center Studies, 38. ) Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard Univ. Press, 1960. ix, 319, $6.75.

This book is equally interesting for specialists in Russian literature, language, folklore, and intellectual history, and for historians proper. The development of national consciousness is treated here for the first time on a verybroad basis by investigating its manifestations in historical facts, the life of society, the origin of a national literary language and literature, and finally in "The Discovery of the Folk" (Chapter IV). This monograph thus cuts through various disciplines by following up one very important theme. It should be mentioned that the author investigated an astonishingly high number of eighteenth century literary works (fifty-seven of the primary sources quoted in the selected bibliography fall into this category). His- torians will, therefore, find in this book a well chosen and documented pic- ture of Russian literature, and philologists who are familiar with most of these works will certainly be stimulated by the historical-cultural evaluation of them.

Since the value of this monograph has already been very positively appraisedbyhistorians and since the present reviewer is a linguist, the fol- lowing remarks are restricted to the author's treatment of the development of the Russian literary language in the eighteenth century. These remarks are not intended to diminish the merits of this excellent book in any way, but are merely minor comments on one of the many problems discussed therein.

Chapter III, "Towards a National Language" (pp. 85-125) is devoted to philological problems, but the author clearly and cautiously states his goal and "does not trace this development in philological or linguistic terms. [He] merely views the formation of a national, secular, literary language- and the negation of foreign intrusions." (p. 85.) This chapter is avery good survey of the traditional view of the development of literary Russian. As an historian, the author is certainly not to blame if he repeats some of the tra- ditional but erroneous opinions which have wandered from one handbook on the history of Russian into another. For example: Trediakovskij's literary and philological activities are discussed in detail (pp. 95-100), but no mention is made of the fact that he was the most erudite philologist of that time (despite his unfortunate etymologies, but Lomonosov's are in no way better; etymological phantasies seem to belong to this epoch), nor that he probably was the most fertile creator of new terms. The enrichment of liter- ary Russian by Sumarokov is asserted ( p. 106), though this writer is ac- tually of little importance in this respect. The publication of the Academy dictionary (6 vols., 1789-94) is justly praised as a national achievement, but if one mentions that a contemporary even considered it superior to the dictionary of the French Academy (p. 119) one should add that this dictionary

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