«Memory Storage of the Slavs in Words»: To the Jubileum of Zh.Zh. Varbot

The paper is timed to coincide with the jubilee of the famous Russian etymologist, Professor Zhanna Zhanovna Varbot, and analyses the scientist's fourth book «Memory Storage of the Slavs in Words. Etymological Essays». Numerous merits of the work, which includes articles united in thematic sections, such as «Semantics in Etymology», «Reconstruction and Etymologisation of Proto-Slavic Lexicon», «Etymologisation of Slavic Lexicon», «Etymologisation of Russian Lexicon», are noted. Among the articles there are those published earlier in different editions. The idea of the special importance of dialectal lexicon for the elucidation of the origin of words runs through the book. In particular, the author pays much attention to Russian dialectisms, which often play a key role in the etymologisation of Slavic words and demonstrate their pan-Slavic character. In some cases, the etymology put forward by the author seems to be debatable, so an alternative opinion has been proposed, for example, for the words: bolg. смùне са or slavon. šetrica.