Novyj god

[Margarita Orlova]

>
>> The rule is more general: a nominative proper phrase has only the 
>> first  noun capitalized, e. g., Novyj god, zhural "Novyj mir", 
>> Oktiabr'skaja revoliucia, gazeta "Za nashu Sovetskuju Rodinu" (both 
>> last nouns were capitalized  as a result of atheism;0
>
> OK, that makes sense.
>
> But how do you explain Российская Федерация with capital Ф? I don't 
> remember the last time I saw it with a small ф...
>
> And how about «Государственная Дума Федерального Собрания РФ» 
> <http://www.duma.gov.ru/> and «Совет Безопасности РФ» 
> <http://www.scrf.gov.ru/>, but «Счетная палата РФ» 
> <http://www.ach.gov.ru/> and «Центральная избирательная комиссия РФ» 
> <http://www.cikrf.ru/>?
>
> How about «Парламентская Ассамблея Совета Европы»?
>
> And what rule governs «День Конституции РФ»?


Those are the rules of "atheism", basically. What I mean supporting the 
"atheism" joke is the search of some sacredness in the civil life as 
well as in the notion of human, featured by the French and Russian 
successful revolutions to replace for God. So, capitalization of some 
nouns may be seen as a sign of veneration to the point of sacredness.

But it is just a tendency; there are no rules about what should be 
considered as sacred. Nowadays  the tendency is broadening: maybe 
people want more sacredness, at least, in the orthographic area... Or 
Putin's government wants them to be more respectful.

Your instances may be explained this way:

> «Государственная Дума Федерального Собрания РФ»
Государственная - all coming from the state is sacred;
Дума -  historically sacred, probably from the times of Ivan the 
Terrible;
Федерального - recently "верхи" forced the feelings of awe on people;
Собрания - historically sacred (taken in this particular sense).

> «День Конституции РФ»
День - the first noun of the proper noun phrase
Конституции - sacred from the Stalin times; when Googling, "Конституция 
1905" and alike gets about 50% -50% capitalized - non-capitalized 
responses, depending on the attitude of the writers toward the thing.
  РСФСР / РФ - the capitalization is supported by frequent abbreviating: 
it is not desirable to have mixt letters in an abbreviation. But the 
sacredness can be felt, too. In 1930-s, and in Russian emigree 
publications you can still encounter ф-;

> Совет Безопасности РФ
Совет - the first word
  Безопасности - recently "верхи" forced the feelings of awe on people.

Other your examples have fewer sacred words, evidently.

In my opinion, «Парламентская Ассамблея Совета Европы» should be 
«Парламентская ассамблея Совета Европы». Though i may feel this way 
because i do not have that specific emotion of awe of the assembly. 
However, the analogy with the sacred Собрание and respect to Europians 
("низкопоклонство перед Западом" :) can play some role, too. Probably, 
that is why they have capitalized Ассамблею.

It is even possible to count on a google-like statistic research to 
figure out the attitude of (well-read) Russians toward some 
instututions according to the tendency of capitalization.
I recall a similar coursework that was done at Russian Dept. of 
"Казахского педагогического института" (though abbreviated as "КазПИ" 
;) in 1980-s.

  Margarita A Orlova
Graduate Student in Linguistics, SJSU
PhD in Russian
http://rent-a-mind.com/margarita/

  

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