in the city of N

[FRISON Philippe]

NN comes from the Latin : «  Nomen ne scio »

Cheers

Philippe

De : SEELANGS: Slavic & East European Languages and Literatures list [mailto:SEELANGS at LISTSERV.UA.EDU] De la part de Alina Israeli
Envoyé : lundi 4 novembre 2013 16:23
À : SEELANGS at LISTSERV.UA.EDU
Objet : Re: [SEELANGS] in the city of N

N or even NN for a city or person meant that 'we will not disclose the name, it's anonymous, it's any name'. I think it comes from French, at least French authors have been doing it plenty in 19th century.

S and other abbreviations are more transparent: S — Saratov, O — Orel


Перед раскрытым окном красивого дома, в одной из крайних улиц губернского города О... (Дворянское гнездо)


And since we all know that Turgenev is from Orlovskaya guberniya we can decipher it.

In "Дама с собачкой" it's gorod S. which is Saratov, I believe.


On Nov 4, 2013, at 9:19 AM, Michele A Berdy wrote:


Dear SEELANGers
An internet friend with an engaging blog called LanguageHat posed a question a few days ago that I’m embarrassed to say I don’t know the answer to and in fact never thought to ask. He asked why Russian authors writing about provincial cities called them “N” (or S, etc.). Beyond “it’s a convention” and “it gives an air of verisimilitude” – I have no idea. Where did this convention come from? Has anyone written about this?

The second question that followed: can anyone think of pre-revolutionary Russian fiction about provincial cities (other than St. Petersburg and Moscow) where the city is identified?
Many thanks!
Michele Berdy

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Alina Israeli
Associate Professor of Russian
WLC, American University
4400 Massachusetts Ave.
Washington DC 20016
(202) 885-2387   fax (202) 885-1076
aisrael at american.edu<mailto:aisrael at american.edu>





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