THE UNFORGETTABLE BOOK BY N. A. KONDRASHOV “GENERAL LINGUISTICS” (THE RELEVANCE OF RETROPHILOLOGY OF THE XXth CENTURY)

Abstract

The article gives an analytical review of one of the first detailed University textbooks on the course “General linguistics” (1972-1974), created by Professor N. Kondrashov. It tells about the stages of preparation of the scholar to collect materials and writing this book, his rich philological and life practice, which allowed to correct description of the significant milestones in the history of world linguistics, since the era of ancient Indian grammatical tradition and completing descriptive linguistics in the United States, new directions in linguistics of the second half of the 20th century and the stages of development of Soviet science. For the first time, the textbook deals in detail with the ideas of the Prague linguistic school. The article emphasizes that N. A. Kondrashov gave a competent analysis of the main linguistic concepts: the essence of language; language and thinking; internal structure of language; language and society; language and its development, etc. Attention is drawn to the fact that with the well-known Soviet standard and censored nature of such works, the course of lectures “General linguistics” contained exciting author’s findings and characteristics and generally gave an objective idea of the history, theory, and methodology of linguistics.