The Distortion of the Social Ideal of the Russian Linguistic Personality in the Late XVIII - Early XX Century and Its Consequences

The Russian linguistic personality, due to geographical and limited communication conditions, developed mainly in relative isolation. The article is devoted to the development of a new problem for Russian linguocultcrology - the process of distortion of the social ideal of the Russian linguistic personality of the end of the XVIII - beginning of the XX century and its consequences. The article investigates the Russian traditional social ideal of linguistic personality, which had been formed by the XVIII century and in general corresponded to the social ideal of linguistic personality of the European of that epoch. The reasons and internal mechanisms of deformation and distortion of this social ideal in the late XVIII - early XIX century are revealed, which took place mainly among the noble creative intelligentsia, i.e. in literary circles. It was then that Russian literature began to fulfill not only the functions of developing the Russian language, developing and rooting in the people’s consciousness the historical concept of Russia, but also disorienting the Russian linguistic personality in its priorities and personified examples of development. This role played by Russian literature in the history of Russia is labeled in the article as destructive, contributing to the distortion of the adequate social ideal of the linguistic personality. The identified process is regarded as an internal Russian problem, in no way brought in from outside. Its causes are rooted in the geographical and mental remoteness of the Russian nobility from the main civilizational center of that time - Europe. The article traces the further evolution of the process of distortion of the social ideal of the Russian linguistic personality throughout the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. For this purpose, the language of not only the liberal noble creative intelligentsia, but also the Dissenters, as well as poets who came from the milieu of revolutionary terrorists is analyzed. The article bridges from the cultural and linguistic processes of the nineteenth century to the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. Thus the historical concept of indivisible unity of development of social ideal of Russian linguistic personality during the end of XVIII and the beginning of XXI centuries is formed, the internal, intra-national nature of the process and its consequences is asserted.