The fate of borrowings in Russian language (to the history of the word partisan)

We analyze the semantics and usage of French borrowing of military partisan themes from the moment it entered Russian at the turn of the XVII–XVIII centuries to the present time. We give an etymological and historical analysis of the word, and consider the evolution of its semantics in Russian language due to the functional diversity of its use both in the donor language and in the recipient language. The study of lexeme history in cultural and historical terms helps to trace the development of the form and meaning of the word partisans and its derivatives, the peculiarities of its functioning as a representative of battle vocabulary sphere in Russian language. We conclude that the sememe is completely borrowed from the French language into the Russian literary language in terms of its form (phonetics, grammar, peculiarities of word usage) and meaning. We indicate and analyze in detail the sources of word study in the synchronous-diachronic aspect, lexicographic, documentary-historical, and artistic-textual sources both on the material of the modern Russian literary language and in the previous periods of its development, and we identify the transformation of its semantic structure. We pay attention to the disclosure of the extensional value of the word in the text of Leo Tolstoy’s epic novel “War and Peace”, which is the most valuable source for studying the lexical and semantic system of Russian language of the pre-Pushkin era. A number of examples from different spheres of the modern usus of Russian language show changes in the functional and stylistic coloration of the word and the acquisition of enantiosemicity features and other additional shades by the word. We conclude that the word partisan is adapted as an element of the battle term system of Russian language and that its use in modern conditions of conducting combat operations is inevitably fading away, turning it into historicism.