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THE SPEECH REPRESENTATION OF THE SAMOYEDS IN THE FIRST RUSSIAN POPULAR SCIENTIFIC ARTICLE ABOUT THE SAMOYEDS (1732) // Tomsk Journal of Linguistics and Anthropology. 2021. Issue 2 (32). P. 49-57

The article is devoted to the stylistic peculiarities of presenting information about one of the North-ern peoples in the first printed article about them, published in 1732 in the popular scientific academic magazine “Notes to the Saint-Petersburg Vedomosti” (republication [Malyshev, 2014]) and intended to acquaint the audience (mostly in St. Petersburg and Moscow) with the way of Samoyed's life. The article was prepared by its author on the basis of Nicolaes Witsen’s book “Noord en Oost Tartarye” (Amsterdam, 1692), but the defining role is precisely given to the stylistic manner of the recounted book presentation. The materials take four releases (16 pages, parts XXVIII–XXXI). In the article, the speech representation of Samoyeds is done doubly: “from the outside” and “from within”. First, the article is built according to the general scheme realizing typical steps of the ethnographic informing communicative scenario: 1) Contribution of the key nomination and etymological information about it; 2) Contribution of the nationality origin and structure; 3) Story about relationship with colonists of the Russian North; 4) Description of religion and its status in Samoyed’s life. Secondly, in the end of the article the reader can see a part of language which Samoyeds speak: some examples of keywords in Archangelsk Samoyed dialect (71 words and 16 short everyday phrases) are given, the translations of “Lord’s Prayer” prayer into three dialects of the Samoyed language (in Archangelsk, Turukhansk and Tafsk) and the counting from one to ten on the same dialects are shown. The article “About the Samoyeds” not only told the Russian readers about the “strange foreign” people, but also acquainted these people and the territory they lived on with other people and lands as a part of the Russian state. In this article, the tonality as a key factor plays a special role in forming the reader’s general perception of the Russian North nation’s original culture and formed the positive perception of Samoyeds as common people which are living subsistence economy, kept streaks of primitive culture, but at the same time goodhearted, partly naive and friendly.

Keywords: historical stylistics, speech representation, ethnic identity, speech assimilation, Samoyeds, popular scientific journalism, journalism of the 18th century