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Abstract:

The article is devoted to the analysis of “Selected Russian Proverbs” (1783) by Catherine II. This book stood out sharply against the background of those experiences of publishing and discussing the possibilities of this folklore genre, which were undertaken in the 17^th–18^th centuries. Unlike her predecessors (for example, the “Collection of 4291 Ancient Russian Proverbs” by A.A. Barsov or the “Letter Writer” by N.G. Kurganov), the Empress not only relied on folklore material, on the contrary, she sought to create original texts that should be considered in the broad context of her literary work, ideology and political practice. Thus, the study shows that the Soviet interpretation of the literary heritage of the Empress in general and her “proverbs” in particular, dating back to the works of G.A. Gukovsky and G.P. Makogonenko, simplified and sometimes deformed the material. The work proves that Catherine II used these texts to construct an ideology that was supposed to serve the education of a person (a new elite) in the spirit of the ideas of the Enlightenment era.

Кeywords: Catherine II, proverbs, folklore, the age of the Enlightenment, Russian literature of the 18th century, education, satire.