Great Russian - Czech Dictionary

A pivotal research objective pursued by the Department of Linguistics and Lexicography of the Institute of Slavonic Studies of the ASCR is scientific research into the stock of words and grammars of contemporary Slavonic languages, especially in the synchronous-contrastive aspect. East Slavic languages have always been of continuing and vital research interest. The latest result of this research objective is the release of an updated and supplemented edition of the originally two-volume Czech-Russian Dictionary, an electronic version of which was published by the publishing house Leda in 2002. In spring 2005, this dictionary was issued in book form by the same publishing house (M. Sádlíková et al.: Velký česko-ruský slovník. Leda, Praha 2005, 1407pp. Electronic version. Leda, Praha 2002).

The basis for this edition was the two-volume Czech-Russian Dictionary consisting of 62,000 words, the editor-in-chief of which was Prof. L. V. Kopecký who later with O. Leška directed the project work guided by his progressive lexicographic theory and methods. The first edition of the Dictionary appeared in 1973, the second in 1976. Social changes that took place in the recent past in the Czech Republic and in Russia have been attentively reflected in the word-stock of both languages. Consenquently, entries of the Dictionary were supplemented with new expressions. In addition to a literary word-stock, the Dictionary also contains expressions of the colloquial and common Czech language with pertinent Russian equivalents. In total, more than 3.000 new words and word connections were added to the electronic version. The printed version was supplemented with an additional 7. 000 words which were taken partly from material excerpted by the Department of Linguistics and Lexicology at the Institute of Slavonic Studies of the ASCR. The geographical index and the index of abbreviations have been updated as well.

This research project continues with work on the Great Russian-Czech Dictionary on the basis of the unpublished manuscript of the five-volume dictionary which was completed at the turn of the eighties and ninetieth and supplemented with selected information from contemporary translational, encyclopaedic, professional and special dictionaries and from own dictionaries of neologisms (Rusian-Czech and Czech-Russian Dictionary of Neologisms 19991, 20042) and from further excerpts from printed as well as electronic sources.