Life of the conscience of a nation

Rosamund Bartlett
Times Higher Education Supplement, 10. August 2001

Reflections on the Russian Soul: A Memoir
Dmitry S. Likhachev
Central European University Press

For members of Russia's beleaguered intelligentsia, the death of Dmitry Likhachev in September 1999 at the age of 92 represented the end of an era, since he was not just an eminent scholar of medieval literature, but the „conscience of the nation“. A modest and retiring man, Likhachev became a public figure in Russia in his 80s, after being appointed by Gorbachev as head of the Soviet Cultural Fund, where he led a vigorous campaign for the restoration of neglected monuments, churches and libraries. In his role as a senior people's deputy in the shortlived Soviet parliament at the end of the 1980s, his stature was further enhanced by his condemnation of anti-Semitic and nationalist political groups. It seemed entirely fitting that when Russian astronomers discovered a new asteroid, they decided to name it after him.

Likhachev's deep-seated belief that culture was „first and foremost morality“ was born from his unwavering faith as an Orthodox Christian and from the circumstances of his remarkable life. It was a belief that informed all his work and defined him as the archetypal Russian intelligent. His lifelong refusal to conform to political demands, combined with his exceptional talents as a historian and then custodian of Russian culture are what turned him into such a revered figure of authority. Likhachev never identified himself openly as a dissident, or sought to draw attention to himself, but his refusal to sign an official letter attacking Sakharov, his fights to prevent old churches and monuments from being demolished, and his activities as an environmentalist resulted in various forms of intimidation from the authorities. Contributing to Solzhenitsyn's Gulag Archipelago in 1976, for example, provoked an arson attempt on his flat. Likhachev does not dwell on such incidents in the account of his life, but it is regrettable that the reader equally learns nothing about his campaigns to save trees and ancient buildings. Instead, several chapters are devoted to Likhachev's time in Solovki, the labour camp set up by Lenin in 1920 on an island in the White Sea. Likhachev was sentenced to spend several years there, narrowly missing a mass execution in 1929. It was the formative experience of his life. . . .

Likhachev's description of the St Petersburg of his childhood is richly evocative, and certainly the most enjoyable part of the book. Inevitably inviting comparisons with Nabokov's Speak, Memory, to which it provides an attractive complement, it is much more down to earth in every respect. Whereas the aristocratic Nabokov surveys the city from the vantage point of the family limousine, Likhachev (whose parents both came from merchant backgrounds) goes on foot, watching the barges on the crowded Neva, or riding a noisy red and yellow electric tram. What distinguishes this part of Likhachev's memoir is his elegy for the lost sounds of the city – the hooting of steamers, the jangling of soldiers' spurs, the whisper of carriage wheels on wooden roads and its rich colours. A sharp contrast is drawn between the kaleidoscopic palette of pre-revolutionary St Petersburg and the drabness of its spectrum after 1917. Yet it is the colourless years of Stalinist rule to which the bulk of Likhachev's memoir is devoted. Apart from his experiences in the camps, he provides a compelling account of life in Leningrad during the blockade. In between, we learn something of his scholarly career, which began in 1928 with the delivery of a spoof paper to an irreverent student society, in which he defended the old orthography. For this he was awarded the Chair of Melancholy Philology, and then promptly arrested. . . .

http://www.nytimes.com/2002/09/01/magazine/01SPELLING.html?pagewanted=all&position=top

Spaßschreibungen! Genau! Das ist ein schöner Begriff!
Man kann ihn ohne weiteres auch auf die neue deutsche Rechtschreibung übertragen: So einige Neuerungen der Rechtschreibreform dürften vor allem deshalb populär sein, weil es einigen Leuten (vorläufig) Spaß macht, sie zu verwenden. Vielleicht schreiben Werbung und Presse deshalb so gern Tipp, weil sie es als originell empfinden.

- Ich danke für den Link zu Noah Webster (Ich bin von dort dann auch gleich weiter zu einer Link Page der englischen Rechtschreibreformer geraten! Du meine Güte! Ich hatte ja keine Ahnung!)! – Kann man also sagen, daß dieser Eindruck, den die englische bzw. amerikanische Rechtschreibung auf den ersten Blick macht – nämlich: offener, spielerischer, wandlungsfähiger zu sein –, täuscht? Waren die letzten neuen Schreibweisen, die ins Englische bzw. Amerikanische eingegangen sind, in Wahrheit die von Noah Webster? Und ist es also unwahrscheinlich, daß tonite je auch in der 'New York Times' üblich wird?
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Jörg Metes

Do you have a language question or dispute? Write to Word Court in care of The Atlantic Monthly, 77 North Washington Street, Boston, MA 02114, or send e-mail to msgrammar@theatlantic.com. All letters become the property of Word Court. Ms. Grammar is also on the Web, at http://www.theatlantic.com/courtrecord.

Diejenigen unter diesen vereinfachten Schreibungen, die nicht schon Webster einführte, gelten beinahe ausnahmslos auch weiterhin als falsch und haben ungefähr den Status von Spaßschreibungen wie „4 U“, können einem also in der Werbung oder im Chat begegnen, nicht aber in der NYT. Mit Ausnahme von „jail“ haben diese Schreibungen auch nicht den Atlantik überquert, wenngleich es „labor“ immerhin über den Pazifik geschafft hat -- die australische Arbeiterpartei schreibt sich so.

Dieser Link über Noah Webster gibt einige Auskunft:

Noah used American spellings like „color“ instead of the English „colour“ and „music“ instead of „musick“. He also added American words that weren't in English dictionaries like „skunk“ and „squash“. It took him over 27 years to write his book. When finished in 1828, at the age of 70, Noah's dictionary had 70,000 words in it.

Mich interessiert der Orthographiewandel in anderen Sprachen. Ich wüßte zum Beispiel gerne, wie der im Englischen verläuft.
Wann zum Beispiel hat sich in Nordamerika color gegen das englische colour durchgesetzt? Weiß da jemand was drüber? Ich habe gerade entdeckt, daß Herman Melville bereits 1853 color geschrieben hat.
Und ich frage mich, wie das mit neueren amerikanischen Schreibweisen ist. Haben sich z.B. lite, nite, tonite etc. schon so weit durchgesetzt, daß sie auch in den Wörterbüchern stehen? Mein Langenscheidt/Muret-Sanders von 1988 hat tonite noch nicht. Die 'New York Times' schreibt weiterhin ausschließlich tonight. Aber Google findet tonite immerhin schon 181000mal.
Bekommt ein amerikanischer Schüler es noch als Fehler angestrichen, wenn er tonite statt tonight schreibt?
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Jörg Metes