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D
Dal, Vladimir Ivanovich
(1801-1872)
writer
Dal was an important lexicographer and ethnol-
ogist born in Lugansk (Voroshilovgrad in Soviet
times) on November 10 (22), 1801. The son of a
physician, he enrolled in Dorpat University and
graduated from that institution in medical stud-
ies. He then worked as a physician and as a civil
servant, all the while collecting the flora and
fauna of the Orenburg region near the southern
edge of the Urals and satisfying his interest in
Russian language and literature. He became a
close friend of
PUSHKIN
and was among those
present at the death of the poet. In 1838, Dal
was elected corresponding member of the St.
Petersburg Academy of Sciences for his work in
the natural sciences. From his early youth, Dal
also collected material on Russian folklore. In
1832 he published a collection of Russian stories
and fables, using the pseudonym Kazak Lugan-
skii (Cossack of Lugansk). He also wrote a num-
ber of original tales that won broad popular
appeal and reflected influence by the naturalist
school. In 1862, Dal published his
Poslovitsy
russkogo naroda (Proverbs of the Russian People: A
Collection of Proverbs, Sayings, Expressions, Sobri-
quets, Tongue Twisters, Nonsense, Riddles, Folk Wis-
dom and the Like),
which listed over 30,000
proverbs and examples of humorous sayings.
But his major work was without doubt the
Tol-
kovyi slovar zhivogo velikorusskogo yazyka
(Explana-
tory dictionary of the living great Russian
language), published in four volumes between
1863 and 1866 after almost half a century of
labors. This dictionary lists over 200,000 words
and remains the greatest achievement of Rus-
sian lexicography. It has gone through numer-
ous editions. For this, Dal was awarded the
Lomonosov Prize of the
ACADEMY OF SCIENCES
and in 1863 was given the title of honored aca-
demician. He died in Moscow on September 22
(October 4), 1872. His complete works were first
published in a 10-volume edition in St. Peters-
burg in 1897-98 and again in Moscow in 1956.
Danilevsky, Nikolai Yakovlevich
(1822-1885)
writer
A biologist by training, Danilevsky became
known as one of the most militant advocates of
PAN
-
SLAVISM
, an aggressive nationalist ideology
that developed in Russia in the 1870s. Dani-
levsky was born in the province of Orel (Oryol)
about 200 miles southwest of Moscow. As a
young student Danilevsky participated in one of
the provincial intellectual circles that grew from
the Petrashevsky Circle in St. Petersburg. Dani-
levsky is best known for his book
Russia and
Europe,
issued serially in 1868 and published as a
book in 1870. In this work, Danilevsky laid out a
philosophy that viewed history as the unfolding
of distinct civilizations that often came into con-
flict. He maintained that the conflict of his time
was an irreconcilable one between the Western
(or Romano-Germanic) world and the Slavic
world, of which Russia was the main compo-
nent. Danilevsky argued that the Slavic world
should counteract the West by focusing on its
own natural traditions, primarily political abso-
lutism, that differentiated the Slavic from the
Western world. Danilevsky's ability to use his
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