Russian obscenities, as part of the national heritage

The author of the article considers various aspects of the non-trivial existence of the so-called Russian mat in everyday communication: the problems of the origin and original semantics of the oldest words in the Slavic language; the problem of their modern understanding, evaluation and role in the national language. The author believes that all the ancient obscene language in the distant past was common Slavic, sacred and in no case abusive or low. This applies equally to the actual “obscene” expression, and to the vocabulary denoting the generative organs of a person. Further, the problems of the functioning of the swear vocabulary in the works of domestic masters of the word and their attitude to the use of such a layer of the Russian language in works of art are also considered.