Introduction

The Caucasus, so beloved by many classic Russian writers, remains an inexhaustible theme, full of new discoveries and interpretations for literary scholars and linguists even today. The Caucasus is a land of mountains and blooming gardens, proud as mountains of industrious people. Many Russian writers and poets were intrigued not only by the beautiful nature but also by the mountain people who lived there.

The exile of great Russian poets and writers to the Caucasus and the Caucasian War of 1817–1864 inspired the creativity of many famous writers. The beauty of the Caucasus was celebrated by Alexander Pushkin, Alexander Bestuzhev-Marlinsky, Mikhail Lermontov, Sergei Yesenin, K.D. Balmont, Leo Tolstoy, and other writers. The study of the Caucasus region, its geography, culture, traditions, and customs of the local peoples were embodied in the works of A.S. Pushkin, M.Yu. Lermontov, and L.N. Tolstoy, who, in describing the Caucasus region, captured the peculiarities of life, customs, and traditions of the mountain population (Kalinin, 1990).

Russians previously considered the Caucasus a land of eternal, senseless wars and savage, dissident people. The Caucasus had a tremendous impact on the development of fiction. Exile contributed to the development of poets and writers who conveyed the beauty of the Caucasus, its mountainous nature, and the hospitality, kindness, and generosity of the mountain people. This is where A.S. Pushkin’s great work «Prisoner of the Caucasus» and M.Yu. Lermontov’s poem “Mtsyri” appeared, in which the main characters are enchanted by the natural beauty of the Caucasus, with its “lush fields” and mountain ranges “as bizarre as dreams”.

Literature review

The Caucasus held a special place in Leo Tolstoy’s life and work. In 1851, Tolstoy and his brother participated in military operations. It was in the Caucasus that he wrote his first novella, “Childhood”, which, along with “Boyhood” and “Youth”, became his literary debut. Impressed, Tolstoy later wrote in his diary: “I am beginning to love the Caucasus, albeit with a posthumous, but intense love”. It was the spirit of the mountaineers and their inexplicable Sharia laws that later greatly influenced Leo Tolstoy’s spiritual understanding of his life. Here, Tolstoy wrote his famous Caucasian novellas, including “Raid”, “Timber Felling”, “The Prisoner of the Caucasus”, “The Cossacks”, and “Hadji Murat”. To add realism to his descriptions of the life and culture of the mountain peoples, Tolstoy used Eastern vocabulary. In doing so, he not only deeply and comprehensively described Caucasian reality and introduced Russian readers to this world, but also enriched the Russian literary language with lexemes little known to Russian readers. In these works of Leo Tolstoy, particularly in the stories “Hadji Murad”, “The Cossacks”, and “The Prisoner of the Caucasus”, more than 250 Turkic words are used (Kalinin, 1990).

As a result of the study, the following types of Turkic vocabulary were identified:

• Toponyms;
• Anthroponyms;
• Ethnonyms;
• Names of food and drinks;
• Names of household items;
• Names of dwellings and buildings;
• Names of natural phenomena, animals, and plants;
• Religious vocabulary;
• Names of items of clothing;
• Names of weapons, tools, and other objects;
• words denoting various social relationships and occupations;
• words denoting familial and friendly relationships;
• words denoting the characters’ social status;
• words expressing various emotions, feelings, greetings, addresses, and wishes.

An analysis of the vocabulary reveals that Turkisms in Leo Tolstoy’s stories perform the following functions:

1. Nominative – they denote concepts that do not exist in the Russian language;
2. Creating a physical portrait of the hero;
3. Reflecting national linguistic characteristics;
4. Emotional-evaluative function;
5. Creating a positive image of the highlander;
6. Emotional-expressive function – imparting a special flavor to the work;
7. Ethno-formative function – characterizing the domestic life and moral character of the Caucasian population.

It is the borrowed vocabulary in these works that allows us to accurately and reliably convey the national identity, image, cultural values, and social system of the Turkic-speaking peoples of the Caucasus.

The study of Turkisms based on Leo Tolstoy’s works of art is significant and relevant. The Turkisms studied in these texts shape the artistic aesthetic, create a worldview with diverse connections, and also perform a specific stylistic and national-cultural function.

A lexical and semantic analysis of Leo Tolstoy’s Caucasian Stories reveals that Tolstoy uses Turkic toponyms; anthroponymy; ethnonyms; religious vocabulary; and vocabulary for describing everyday life, social relations, and customs to designate places in the Caucasus: mountains, rivers, settlements, cities, and steppes. In “Cossacks”, which describes the life of the Greben Cossacks, we can notice that although the work is about the life of the Cossacks, Russian by origin, but in the culture of their speech and life, they are abundantly used Turkisms – barbarisms are used.

Thanks to the use of barbarisms, one can understand how close the relations were between two different peoples, and how interethnic relations influenced the life and culture of the Cossacks (Dal, 1998). Barbaric greetings can be seen in simple dialogues between the Russian inhabitants of the Greben village: “– Koshkildy!” – he said. – That means in Tatar: we wish you health, peace, in their language. – Koshkildy! I know,” answered Olenin, offering him his hand. “Hey, you don’t know, you don’t know the rules! Fool!” said Uncle Eroshka, shaking his head reproachfully. – If they tell you koshkildy, you say alla razi bo sun, God save you. That’s how it is, my father, not koshkildy. I will teach you everything. That’s how our Ilya Moseich was, your Russian, that’s how we were friends.” (Tolstoy, 1980).

Research methodology

We studied Russified words in Leo Tolstoy’s works, such as “sabre”, “pants”, “treasury”, “money”, “owner”, “glass”, “bogatyr”, “iron”, “sarafan”, “caftan”, “burlak”, “shoe”, “hut”, “poker”, and “fist”, from an etymological perspective, i.e., with the goal of identifying their origins. They do not serve a national or cultural function. Tolstoy uses them to impart stylistic coloring to the texts of his works, to reveal the essence of existence and imagery (Dal, 1998).

The Turkic words – exoticisms – used in his stories are used to denote realities absent from the Russian language and to impart a special flavor, i.e., expressiveness, to the literary language.

Exoticisms, in turn, according to A.B. Kalinin, «can be divided into replaceable and irreplaceable». Replaceable words are those that can be translated into Russian without causing significant damage to the meaning (Kalinin, 1990). For example, Allah is God, the Most High; dua is a prayer; namaz is a prayer, etc., but in doing so, the stylistic artistic coloring is lost. “Irreplaceable words include words that require explanation and do not have direct equivalents”. For example, the word chilim cannot be translated as a cigar or a snuffbox, but only as an oriental smoking device, and a turban is a bandage made of a piece of light fabric wrapped around the head over a headdress).

Most of the exoticisms in the Caucasian Stories are introduced into the literary text directly, without the author’s commentary, but the meaning of the exoticisms is revealed in the context of the work, which is where Tolstoy’s mastery lies.

In the story “Hadji Murat”, one can observe how the lexical and semantic acquisition of a foreign word occurs during reading, a technique called contextualization. In this case, the exoticism does not appear as something foreign, but rather coexists harmoniously with other words native to the Russian language. “‘Run to the mosque, call your father,’ the old man ordered him, and, ahead of Hadji Murat, he opened the light, creaking door to the saklya for him” (Tolstoy, 1980).

Mosque and saklya are exoticisms that help the reader understand that the story takes place in a Muslim environment, where a place of worship is called a mosque, and a saklya is a distinctive mountain hut, and there is no corresponding realia in Russian. Both words are of limited use, but the acquisition of the word “saklya” occurs as the story progresses. And reading «he opened the light, creaking door of the saklya for him», we learn that a saklya has a door, and accordingly, we understand that a door is only a building or shelter for people. «– no one will do anything to my kunak, as long as I live». In this sentence, the exotic word “kunak” is further explained in the text: “Sado considered it his duty to protect his guest – his kunak” From this, we learn that the word “kunak” corresponds to the word “guest”.

From a linguistic perspective, the Caucasian Tales represent the first attempt at assimilating the languages of the Caucasus into Russian.

In the stories under study, the writer actively commented on the Turkic words used, thereby popularizing the unique vocabulary of the Caucasus.

Analysis and Results

Through the description of the life and customs of the highlanders, one can understand the Russian writer’s heightened interest in this fearless people, who for quite a long time resisted the conquest of the Caucasus by foreigners.

The use of Turkic words in the stories contributed to the revelation of everyday life, customs, as well as descriptions of housing, clothing, mountain food, and rituals of the Caucasian people.

Through the stories of the Caucasian cycle, L.N. Tolstoy demonstrated the maturing and resolution of the conflict between two cultures and religions, as well as the possibility of strengthening Russian-Caucasian relations.

Through masterful use of Turkic words and phraseological barbarisms with Russian words, the writer showed not only the conflict between the highlanders and Russians (as exemplified in “The Cossacks,” “The Prisoner of the Caucasus,” and “Hadji Murat”), but also within the peoples themselves.

Tolstoy also presented conflict resolution through the acquisition of languages and the exchange of cultural values. Turkic vocabulary objectively depicted mountain life, revealing the courage and heroism of the highlanders. Also, through language and literature, L.N. Tolstoy attempted to change the attitude of the Russian autocracy toward the peoples of the Caucasus.

Through the mixed dialect of the characters in the stories “The Cossacks” and “Hadji Murat,” the writer demonstrated that a “common language” – a “special dialect” – was created between the warring representatives of the Russian and Caucasian communities, the soldiers and the highlanders.

The writer’s use of specific highland ethical formulas and barbarisms, which serve not only a communicative function but also an emotional and expressive one – such as greetings, addresses, and good and evil wishes – speaks to the writer’s high linguistic abilities. The reader can also mentally distort Russian words phonetically, adapting them to the local dialect, which can be seen in the syntactic structure of sentences. For example: “‘Your arrival brings happiness,’ she said, bending double and beginning to arrange cushions along the front wall for the guest to sit on. ‘May your sons live,’ replied Hadji Murad, taking off his burka, rifle, and saber, and handing them to the old man.” “‘Koshkildy!’ he said. ‘That means in Tatar:

We wish you health, peace, in their language; “Alla berdy,” he said, and drank. (Alla berdy means “God gave”; this is a common greeting used by Caucasians when drinking together.) (Tolstoy, 1980).

The skillful use of Turkisms revealed the distinctive Caucasian etiquette of “proper behavior” and “proper communicative response”; a broad hospitality that does not distinguish between the weak and the strong, the rich and the poor; and the unique phenomena of local culture symbolizing the mores of the mountain ethnic group.

Conclusion

Exoticisms in the stories served nominative, emotional-evaluative, and aesthetic functions, and were also a means of creating an external portrait of the hero and events; a reflection of the specific linguistic environment; and a number of other important functions. In addition to the function of Turkisms in our study, we sought to examine the etymology of Turkisms – anthroponyms, toponyms, and Russified Turkisms. We attempted to trace their phonetic, grammatical, and word-formation adaptation into Russian vocabulary. The text of the novella “Cossacks” was particularly helpful in studying the etymology of Russified Turkisms. In it, the resettled Russians, living alongside the highlanders, gradually adopted local words into Russian, phonetically adapting them to Russian pronunciation. We also learned that the first Turkisms were recorded in manuscripts in the literature of the Kievan period, including “The Tale of Igor’s Campaign.” The process of adaptation of Turkisms, which are now considered Russian, is no longer considered borrowed. This adaptation of Turkisms took centuries. Despite their Russification, we decided to consider them Turkisms, albeit Russified ones. There were cases in our research where, given the unusual word-formation structure of a word, we assumed it was a Turkic borrowing, as in the word “izvozchik,” which, according to Vasmer, turned out to be a common, obsolete Russian word. The word “yantar,” which was interpreted as a Turkic borrowing from the word “gin ters,” also originated in the Lithuanian language of the Baltic branch of the Indo-European language family. We decided to dedicate our next research paper to words of dubious etymology. Therefore, we decided not to delve further into the etymology of dubious Turkic borrowings.