The interest in the history of their people, writing, cultural and spiritual values of the Slavs, which has recently appeared in our society, makes it necessary to republish old Russian written monuments. It should be noted that even in the pre-Perestroika period, the most valuable and interesting historical and cultural monuments were produced, for example, the Kiev Psalter, the Izbornik of Svyatoslav 1073, the Aprakos of Mstislav the Great (Moscow, 1983), the Ostromirov Gospel, the Izbornik of Svyatoslav 1076 (Moscow, 1965) and a number of others.

Similar publications are still appearing in our time, but there are still not enough texts that preserve the original appearance of letter styles. Even collections of exercises on the historical grammar of the Russian language contain excerpts from written monuments in an adapted form, which, as a rule, loses not only a number of important historical and linguistic realities, but also simplifies the semantic load of the source. The recently reprinted "Anthology on the History of the Russian Language" by S. P. Obnorsky and S. G. Barkhudarov (Moscow, 1999) to some extent fills the existing shortage of educational literature on the history of the Russian language, but this is almost the only work of this nature in recent years.

An important event was the reissue of the" Anthology on the History of the Russian Language " by N. N. Durnovo, prepared by O. V. Nikitin (Moscow, 2000). The selection of texts in it does not duplicate the anthology of S. P. Obnorsky and S. G. Barkhudarov: along with such classical monuments as "The Letter of the Grand Duke Mstislav Volodimirovich and his Son Vsevolod", "Contribution of Varlaam to the Khutyn Monastery", etc.," The Anthology " by N. N. Durnovo contains interesting excerpts from the Archangel Monastery, rich in didactic material. Gospels, from the Galician Four-Gospel, Prologue of the Moscow Synodal Printing House, etc. The texts from Russkaya Pravda in the anthologies of S. P. Obnorsky and N. N. Durnovo do not coincide, they perfectly complement each other. Despite the small volume of the book (50 pages), it presents various genres of written monuments of canonical and business (everyday) nature, related to the XI - XV centuries. and reflecting the linguistic features of the north, south and west of Ancient Russia.

The passage from the Archangel Gospel given in the Anthology contains a variety of grammatical forms, including the dual forms ("vedena bysta", "nayu", "v routs" premlev "), supin ("vedena bysta oubit"), analytical forms of the imperative mood ("yes to ask", " yes to kill", "yes ras-

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pyate boudet", "da rasp'nout", etc.), which are not so often found in the monuments of Old Slavonic and Old Russian languages (in comparison with the forms of aorist, imperfect, etc.).

The presence of a dictionary greatly facilitates the translation of texts, contributes to their more accurate perception and analysis of language phenomena. Some words, for example, velebny ("title of the sovereign"), volostel "ruler",  Such words as "mutilation", "grave", "ass", "inheritance", "camp", "village", etc., are not included in the dictionaries of anthologies and collections of exercises on the historical grammar of the Russian language (see, for example, the works of I. A. Vasilenko, A. A. Dementiev). Meanwhile, it is precisely such words as sorry,  pogost, etc. that are interesting from the point of view of historical lexicology: semantic changes that have occurred in them over time make it possible to trace the evolution in the field of the vocabulary of the language.

At one time, academician E. F. Karsky, who was one of the first to write a review of this work by N. N. Durnovo, emphasized that the "Anthology" largely fills in the existing gap, adding: "It only seems to me that it would be necessary to supplement the XI century, without referring to the anthology of Professor M. N. Kariysky since the acquisition of two manuals for students is not always possible" (Russian Philological Bulletin, No. 1, 1915, pp. 183-184). I would like to hope that now, when there is an opportunity to choose a particular publication, the current generation of researchers and philologists-practitioners will turn to the classic manual of N. N. Durnovo, which has preserved not only the breath of the era and the "cultural" atmosphere of the life of the Russian word in ancient times, but also the high purpose of the language, without which understand the true meaning of Russian literature.

N. N. Durnovo's" Anthology " in this edition also contains a number of additions: the book opens with a short essay on the life and work of the scientist; a list of works of modern researchers about N. N. Durnovo is given; copies of the scientist's works and his autographs are reproduced on the cover.

In conclusion, it should be noted once again: the reissue of the "Anthology" by N. N. Durnovo is undoubtedly a great contribution to the philological and methodological support of teaching historical and linguistic disciplines.

M. P. Yegoryeva, Candidate of Philological Sciences

Chelyabinsk

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