The present paper deals with the problems caused by the discrepancies between orthographic reference books prescriptions (including the most updated ones) and modern realias. The author believes that changes in speech practice during the last decades initiated shifts in general proper name theory. That is why many aspects of orthography will be considered against a background of some more general linguistic problems. Several new suggestions concerning the rules of capital letter usage are made to the corresponding section of Russian orthography.

The situation with the Russian language in the Republic Macedonia for a long time has been seen as critical. Previous researches on the position of the Russian language in the Republic Macedonia find a constant decline in the number of students who study Russian language in primary and secondary schools. But alongside this, there is an increased number of interested in the study of Russian language courses offered by foreign language centers and schools. This was a reason to conduct a survey among students of these courses about what motivated them to choose namely the Russian language. According to the survey we can conclude that the motivesof the participants are complex and varied but emotional, aesthetic and pragmatic motives dominate.

The aim of this text is to examine the vacant citation as one of the intertextual models in recent Macedonian postmodern fiction. The subject of analysis are two texts: the short story “Rakopisot od Kitab-an” (“The Manuscript of Kitab-an”) by Macedonian author Vlada Urosevik and the novel “Papokot na svetot” (“The Navel of the World”) by Macedonian author Venko Andonovski. The interpretation is focused on two levels: on the main characteristics and procedures of this intertextual model (pseudocitation, deductive narration, mystification, paradoxes, intertextual mise en abyme); and on the level of metatextual functions of vacant citation: its implicit comments on the intertextuality, epistemological uncertainity and ontological transgressions of literature and within literature.

The motives of Mari folk songs, included by S.A. Klychkov in the book of his poetical translations “Saraspan”, represent the ethnic mentality and universal emotional world of man. Mythological consciousness, national character, way of life, depicted in songs, correlate with the content of the epic genre works, but because of the lyricism they differ from the generally accepted ideas about the character, habits, ethics of Mari. The content of the songs is dominated by intimate human experience. The article specifies the principles of translation outlined by Klychkov in his articles.

The article presents the history of academic study and teaching of national literatures of the USSR and Russia in this country. The author gives the names of the most prominent scholars in the field, and finally presents an overview of the life and creative heritage of some of them, according to the format of the dictionary “Russian Literary Critics of the Twentieth Century”.

This publication is based on the materials preserved in the fund of the All-Union Society for Cultural Relations with Foreign Countries. It shows that the policy of the statesmen of the USSR and the USA during the Cold War, focused on the curtailment of Soviet-American relations that had been strengthened during the Second World War, was not popular among many cultural figures of two countries. However, irrespective of their goodwill, such a policy harmed artistic creativity: S. Prokofiev did not receive the booking of W. Primrose, and the Russian genius did not create a concert for viola.

The published article is a preprint for preparing an additional volume of the dictionary “Russian Literary Critics of the Twentieth Century”. The study contains a biographical information, reviews of scientific papers of R.G. Bikmuhametov and a bibliographic application.

The published article is a preprint for preparing an additional volume of the dictionary “Russian Literary Critics of the Twentieth Century”. The study contains a biographical information, reviews of research papers of H.G. Koroglu and a bibliographic application.

The article deals with the key landmarks in Turgenev’s perception, as a reader and critic, of Karamzin’s creation. The notion of the nature of Karamzin’s influence on Turgenev in modern literary studies is systematised and the perspectives of studying the problem of “Turgenev and Karamzin” are identified. The particular attention is given to “Liza’s text”, the fate of “Russian European” and the plot associated with this to the type of the hero, as well as to the elegiac modality in Turgenev’s works.

The article discusses the literary contexts of a note in the St. Petersburg Gazette about the release of the first part of N.M. Karamzin’s “Aglaya” almanac.

The article deals with a school work of Osip Mandelstam “Crime and Punishment in ‘Boris Godunov’ ” written during his studying under the supervision of the famous specialist in N.M. Karamzin – V.V. Gippius. Comparing the Tenishev school programmes and pedagogical views of the teacher one reveals the historical and literary connections, on the basis of which the original concept of the young Mandelstam was formed not only in relation to “Boris Godunov” of A.S. Pushkin, but also to the article of Rodion Raskolnikov, the hero of “Crime and Punishment”. It turns out that the reason for the controversy with the great critics was the Introduction to the publication of Pushkin speech by Dostoevsky in “The Diary of the Writer”. Also some discourses of the hero of “Crime and Punishment” go back to the view of Karamzin at Napoleon as a genius, who ignores moral laws.

The paper deals with the reception of Alma Karlin’s work which has a hybrid national identity. In the article the specificity of her life and of her texts written in German are considered. Otherwise these German texts which attract attention of Slovenian researchers and publishers, inspire Slovenian writers, film and stage directors, are of great interest to Slovenian readers and spectators. The transnational character of her writings allows to problematize the borders of national literature in general.

The article deals with the differences in semantics and combinability of the adjectives of general evaluation with the “plus” in modern Slovenian language, primarily lexemes ‘dober’ and ‘lep’. The semantics of adjectives is analyzed in terms of the classification of various kinds of goodness, developed by philosopher H. von Wright. We come to the conclusion that a quality-pleasure opposition, which is not reflected in this classification, plays a key role for the differentiation of their usage.

This article provides a typological analysis of marked lexemes appropriated from Russian lexicographic sources and listed in the most comprehensive collective bilingual dictionaries of the 19th century, Deutsch-slovenisches Wörterbuch (1860) and Pleteršnik’s Slovenian-German Dictionary (1894–1895). The portal www.fran.si was used to verify their continuity in contemporary standard Slovenian and in the past, including Lägreid’s Russianisms indexed in Vodnik’s and Murko’s dictionaries from the first half of the 19th century. The Slavic lexemes were used as a source of appropriation or interlinguistic comparison. Russianisms were utilised for nomenclatural purposes or the conveyance of semantic nuances, although Slovenian equivalents did exist. The Slovenian-German Dictionary includes approximately 400 (0.4% of all) entries or sub-entries, which are part of the neutral or terminological lexis. Thematically, the most prevalent ones are the names for social and cultural concepts, animals, plants, characteristics etc. A quarter of the entries have entered the standard language, 13% are temporally (obsolete, archaic, historisms), literally and expressively marked or restricted to a particular field. Certain lexemes with a mutual comparative basis only vary phonetically or with regard to word formation. Approximately 15% of the transliterated Russian lexemes are linguistically comparable and show a high degree of relatability. Half of all (mostly terminology in various fields) have not taken root in standard Slovenian. 12% derive from Old Church Slavonic, whether directly via Russian or indirectly via Croatian / Serbian or other Slavic languages (Czech, Polish); contemporary research has shown that some are derived from another Slavic language or that they have a common Proto-Slavic ancestor.

Slovenians have long been denied the opportunity to use their own language freely. In the Province of Trieste, which is densely populated by Slovenes, although they are a minority, fighting for this right has been a particular challenge. This is narrated in the books of two Slovene-writing authors from Trieste Miroslav Košuta “A Sailor on the Goat” and Marko Kravos “The Time which was not Dull: Trieste from the Perspective of a Little Frog”. A person belonging to the two cultures has a peculiar way of thinking, his own conscious and subconscious mechanisms of speech-creating. The Slovenian author Lojze Kovačič who came to Slovenia from Switzerland in his early childhood, is reflecting on the process of his “growing in the language” in his book “Childish Things». All the authors refer to folk songs: folk tradition becomes a sort of weapon and instrument which helps to keep commitment of the native language.

Slovene lectureships and degree studies organized at 57 foreign universities are supported by the programme ‘Slovene at Foreign Universities’ with professional teachers, teaching materials, coordination of the projects, and also with monitoring the changes and adapting the programme and its support. The programme with its activities, organisation and practice provides support for the advancement of the Slovene studies, research in the field of Slovene studies and interdisciplinary studies, and at the same time it promotes the Slovene language, literature and culture around the world, strengthens the cooperation among universities, and teachers‘ and students‘ mobility.
There is a number of internal factors that have a significant impact on the programme, namely the development of the field of Slovene as a foreign language, organisation of the programme, teachers‘ education and training, their network, and the financial support of the programme. External factors present social conditions and changes at university markets that are the results of broader changes in the society. Teachers that go abroad to teach Slovene at foreign universities, are on the one hand obliged to work in accordance to the established study programmes at foreign universities, status of the Slovene studies (degree study, compulsory or optional courses), and on the other hand they work closely with the academic staff, and literature available. The article will present the network of Slovene lectureships at foreign universities and its development during the last 25 years, and also the challenges it meets.

This article presents dialect vocabulary from the semantic fields 1) ‘human body and family’ and 2) ‘Slovenian (farm)house, its architectural elements, and interior furnishings’. The selected dialect material from Slovenian linguistic territory was collected for ‘Slovenski Lingvistični Atlas’ [Slovenian Linguistic Atlas, SLA]. The vocabulary for human body parts is quite uniform and contains mainly non-borrowed words with Slavic origin, while some other lexemes (e.g. for house equipment) show a greater degree of borrowing (especially germanic loan words). Vocabulary for close relatives (such as starši ‘parents’, oče ‘father’, mati ‘mother’, brat ‘brother’ and sestra ‘sister’) is also more uniform from lexemes denoting more distant relatives (e.g. bratranec or sestrična ‘male or female cousin’). Vocabulary for fant ‘boy’ on the other hand shows a predominance of German and Romance loan words (approx. 95%). This paper points out the proportion between borrowed and non-borrowed words in Slovenian dialects.

The article presents an analysis of a fragment from ‘Natural being’ – a poem in prose dedicated to a Mexican artist Rufino Tamayo, from Octavio Paz’s ‘Eagle or Sun?’ (1951). The author shows how Paz translates into a poetical form ideas formulated in the essay written concurrently as a comment to the first exhibition of Tamayo in Paris, finds parallels with the two later essays about the artist and reveals some correspondences between poetical and visual images.

The article discusses uses of the word ‘cross’ in Russian occasional and conventional metaphors, in fiction, in the vernacular, and other discourses, so as to see the frame structure of the concept CROSS and its potential for creating myths in the national consciousness.

The article deals with the works of photo artist Yuri Kholdin, who was the first made the fotos of the frescoes of Dionysius in Ferapontovo in daylight. It conveys the subtle color, light, airiness and immateriality of the frescoes of the Russian icon painter Dionisy.