The name of a person in official communication of the 18th century (features of naming Pugachev in the documents of the 1770s)

Abstract

On the example of naming Pugachev in various documents of the 1770s, where he played various social roles — the interrogated, imposter tzar, a person under investigation, the accused — the article examines the dependence of the form of officially naming a person based on his position in society, the type of document and the place of the name in the documentary text. Official anthroponyms of the 18th century began to oppose the forms of naming a person in unofficial communication. This process demonstrates the gradual alienation of official communication from live speech. The correct naming of a person in different types of documents required special skill and training and was a sign of inclusion in the official communication. The article analyzes changes in naming Pugachev in documents related to different stages of Pugachev’s Rebellion, and it is concluded that gradually in the documents of rebels, when choosing the forms of his naming, the number of deviations from the established official forms of anthroponyms decreases. The analysis of the documents related to the investigation of Pugachev reveals a number of serious deviations in his naming, which indicated that the authorities considered Pugachev’s crime as one of particular severity and they deprived Pugachev of the usual forms of official naming. The investigation documents usually used the contemptuous diminutive form of the name Emel’ka or the evaluative noun villain.