V. I. Lenin

Source: ru:PSS/v51;es:MIA
Translated: machine translation (DeepSeek) from the Russian; AI-translated.

January 18, 1920

Comrade Lunacharsky:

Recently I had occasion—to my regret and shame I must say, for the first time—to look into the famous Dahl dictionary.124

It is a magnificent thing, but it is an oblastnichesky dictionary and has become outdated. Is it not time to create a dictionary of the real Russian language, say, a dictionary of words that are in use now and have been used by the classics, from Pushkin to Gorky?

What if we were to assign thirty scholars to this job, giving them Red Army rations?

What would be your attitude to this idea?

A dictionary of the classical Russian language?

Without making any noise, talk to the experts, if it is not too much trouble, and let me have your opinion.

Yours, Lenin