The legacy of Mikhail Viktorovich Panov and a conversation about the present and future of Russian spelling

The study is devoted to the life and scientific path of M.V. Panov – an outstanding philologist, teacher, popularizer of the science of language. Particular attention is paid to the scientific interests of M.V. Panov in the field of spelling, his work as deputy chairman of the Spelling Commission in the 1960s, which was preparing a large-scale spelling reform, and activities to popularize spelling, which was associated primarily with the need to explain to society the essence of the changes proposed then. Understanding of M.V. Panov, a speller and educator, is necessary for the further successful work of not only spelling codifiers, but also popularizers of linguistic science. Despite the fact that today it is not supposed to reform the Russian letter and created at the Institute of the Russian Language. V.V. Vinogradov of the Russian Academy of Sciences, a complete academic description of the rules of modern Russian spelling does not imply any changes to the existing rules for writing words, the tasks of linguistic education are not at all outdated. Today, like 60 years ago, native speakers confuse the language itself and writing, pronunciation and spelling, and when commenting on any news related to the language, they demand that “language reforms” be prevented. The legacy of the enlighteners of the past can and should be used by modern popularizers of orthographic science, whose main task today and in the foreseeable future is to prepare the ground for a calm conversation in society about the fate of Russian spelling. 

Panov, rules, spelling, phonology, phonetics, sociolinguistics, history of science, popularization of science, Spelling Commission