ABSTRACT
In this chapter, author tries to explore what Turgeniev once called "the great, powerful, truthful and free Russian tongue" with the aid of a dictionary. Modern dictionaries are collective, cumulative, standardized compilations, informative but uninspired and uninspiring. The author perused Russian books and papers, and, in moments of confusion, turned to the little compendium for help and enlightenment. Only gradually did author become aware of the fact that other words on the page might be more interesting than the one he was seeking. For most words there was the Russian, and then, without more ado, a single English equivalent, e.g., "ventilyator, ventilator" or "verblyud, camel". No less natural was it to find occasional words like "velikii, great", first defined and then illustrated by the expression, "velikie derzhavy, great powers", or even to find that "vera, faith", was illustrated with the expression "faith in the revolutionary cause", without any hint that there might also be a faith denominated as religious.
