Family pedigrees as a speech genre

Abstract

The genre of family pedigrees is now becoming more widespread. However, as a speech genre, it has hardly been studied. The author began collecting data on genealogies in 2002, compiled a personal archive of family genealogies in 30 volumes, which is partly reflected in the database “Fragments of family genealogies”: certificate of state registration of the database No. 2014620814 dated June 3, 2013. Three dissertations on this issue have been defended and a large number of articles and books have been published. Now arises a question of the peculiarities of pedigrees as a speech genre. The preparation of the book “History of the Motherland in the Mirrors of Family Genealogy” (Belgorod, 2021, 420 p.) brings up this topic. It turns out that it is fragments from genealogies, taken in the plural, and comments to them that allow us to more objectively consider the history of the country in all its contradictions and cataclysms. Fragments of pedigrees become research material. The first part of the book deals with history (the revolution, the 1920s, the 1930s, etc.), the second – with family (grandfather, grandmother …). Between these parts there is a life environment, a spatial sector which we cannot avoid. In the end, a forward is made to the present time with the emphasis on how family genealogies insured people against many troubles. The article aims both at the study of family genealogy and at recording what else can be recorded and preserved for future descendants.