CONJUNCTION ZANE IN THE POETIC IDIOSTYLE OF I. A. BRODSKY AND IN RUSSIAN POETRY ACCORDING TO THE DATA OF THE RUSSIAN NATIONAL CORPUS: FEATURES OF FUNCTIONING

The subordinating conjunction with the meaning of causality zane in modern Russian belongs to the bookish words and is perceived as a Church Slavonicism. This conjunction seems to have been little used already in the fi rst third of the 19th century. For this reason, one could assume that this conjunction should be rarely used in modern Russian poetry (in poetry of at least the twentieth century), and cases of its use should be stylistically marked. However, the data from the Russian National Corpus contradict this: in the poetic subcorpus, starting from the first third of the 18th century, 208 cases of zane use were recorded, of which 117 date back to the 20th and early 21st centuries. At the same time, the main corpus of the Russian National Corpus contains 311 examples. Thus, zane was and is used primarily as poeticism. The absolute preference of the poets for zane in comparison with other bookish conjunctions of Church Slavonic origin, poeliku and ponezhe, is explained by several reasons. Firstly, the last two conjunctions beginning with the 18th century acquired the status of officialese unacceptable for fine literature. Secondly, both conjunctions, at least by the middle of the 19th century, have become uncommon archaisms. Thirdly, there are restrictions on their use in two-syllable meters caused by the syllabic structure which are absent in the case of zane. The use of zane by J. Brodsky is highly frequent — 14 examples for 13 poems. For almost none of the other poets it exceeds 10, most often it is 1 or 2 cases. In Brodsky, the use of zane apparently indicates existential reasons and is intended to draw attention to them. The use of the conjunction zane by Brodsky refl ects the general trends inherent in Russian poetry, but atthe same time testifi es to its individual properties: stylistic archaization and meditative-reflective nature.