Predecessors of A. S. Shishkov at the Naval Cadet Corps

Abstract

Despite the extensive literature on A. S. Shishkov’s linguistic views, the question of their sources has not yet been resolved. This article considers Shishkov’s views on language in the context of the cultural atmosphere in the Naval Cadet Corps in St. Petersburg. The upbringing of future marine officers was strongly influenced by the English naval science, which, apparently, left its mark on the cultural life of the Corps. In the last quarter of the 18th century, the Corps was dominated not by the Gallomania inherent in Russian high society, but by traditionalist views. An example of such traditionalism is the attitude of the Corps inspector V. V. Nikitin and his assistant P. I. Suvorov, who taught mathematics and a number of other disciplines, toward language. They put their linguistic views into practice in their two textbooks on mathematics — Euclidean elements and Two books of trigonometry where they translated all mathematical terminology into Russian. Moreover, they expounded their views in the introduction to the Euclidean elements. Based on the materials of the Russian State Naval Archive, the article traces the complex publishing history of these textbooks and their further fate. For over ten years, from the first half of the 1780s to the mid-1790s, Nikitin and Suvorov were spreading their linguistic views through their math textbooks and while teaching cadets. Shishkov, who served and taught at the Naval Cadet Corps in the 1770–1780s, was undoubtedly familiar with these views. Some features of his point of view on language suggest that it could be influenced by the linguistic views of his colleagues from the Naval Cadet Corps.