To the anniversary of A.T. Tvardovsky: onomastics of the early poem “Exordium” (“The Journey of Vasily Petrov”)

We consider the system of proper names in the early little-known poem by A.T. Tvardovsky “Exordium” (secondary title “The Journey of Vasily Petrov”), which was written by a young poet as preparation for the creation of the famous “The Land of Muravia”, which brought him all-Russian fame. It is proved that the text published in the journal “Nastupleniye” in 1932 is an authorial poetic text, revealing the difficulties of the first time of collectivization. It is shown how the great master of words worked on naming characters, expressing with the help of onomastic vocabulary his assessment of the characters and events. We reveal the nomination motives, which trace the role of onyms in the implementation of the ideological and thematic plan of the work. Using the analysis of onomastic units and their semantic environment, it is shown how A.T. Tvardovsky developed methods of researching proper names in his creative laboratory, which became a kind of master class for many representatives of the Smolensk Poetry School, highlighted by the famous Soviet critic A.V. Makedonov back in 1960. The principle of biography and chronotopy is substantiated, in the light of which all the work of the great poet developed further. Conclusions are made about the significance of the early poem in the context of further work with proper names. The material of this work deepens the study of the early poetic work of A.T. Tvardovsky, one of the great Russian poets of the 20th century.