?
The Onomasticon of M. Y. Lermontov On the Example of the Drama “The Spaniards”
The article analyses the connection between anthroponyms in M. Y. Lermontov’s drama “The Spaniards”
and characters’ features from the point of view of literary onomastics. The author advances the thesis that the author
chose the list of names under the influence of both the etymology and the frequency of naming in the culture of the
described country. M. M. Bakhtin’s principle of dialogism determines the relationships between the name and the
character: the character has either the characteristics associated with the semantics of the name, or the opposite of
them. The influence of onomasticon of Romanticism epoch authors such as Lessing and Schiller on the early works
by M. Y. Lermontov noted in the research is explained by author’s deep connections with German Romanicism. It is
concluded that most of the characters from the drama “The Spaniards” have names that reflect their character traits.