LEXICOGRAPHICAL DESCRIPTION OF THE MILITARY VOCABULARY FOUND IN LEO TOLSTOY’S NOVEL “WAR AND PEACE”

The article analyses the general principles of the compilation of a specialized explanatory dictionary which contains military vocabulary found in Leo Tolstoy’s novel “War and Peace”. A small overview of lexicographic projects related to the creative work of the famous writer is given. The results of the word-list formation of the author’s lexicography project are summed up and the main approaches to the dictionary compilation are demonstrated in the research: the approach “from the semantic dictionary to the text” has made it possible to create 21 groups of words and phrases united on the basis of thematic and semantic principles. The path “from the text as a starting point” engenders a problem of the criterion of completeness: a holistic description of the military vocabulary found in the novel presupposes the inclusion in the dictionary of all units without exception (including proper names, precedent texts, and metaphoric expressions). In addition, in order to form the dictionary word-list scientifi c literature is studied which considers Leo Tolstoy’s idiostyle and the war-related vocabulary used in his works. The thesis is put forward that it is necessary to take into account the principle of cognitive signifi cance while making the defi nitions of the key words. It is assumed that the most striking explicators of the text concept of the same name include the words war, commander-in-chief, battle order, peace, campaign, soldier, boundary, proper names Battle of Borodino, Kutuzov, Napoleon and others. The entry structure of the author’s dictionary is modeled, and the prospect of including a scientifi c (encyclopedic and historiographic) commentary in the reference zone is evaluated. The problem concerning the methodology of refl ection of the phenomenon of Russian-French bilingualism in the aspect of the military theme in the micro- and macrostructure of the dictionary is posed. A conclusion is made about the transition to the next research stage: the compilation of trial dictionary entries for units of diff erent types.