Nikolaj Karamzin et la pensée linguistique de son temps

Nikolaj Karamzin’s Linguistic Thought It is a commonplace to say that French prose influenced the stylistic reform which led to the 'new Russian style' [novyj slog] defined and critized by Admiral A. S. Šiškov as early as 1803. In comparison the strictly theoretical sources of the Karamzinian reform have been largely ignored, except in V. V. Vinogradov and V. D. Levin's works — still relevant today — and particularly in B. A. Uspenskij's work, published in 1985, Fragments of Literary Russian History in the 18th and Early 19th Centuries : Karamzin's Linguistic Programme and Its Historical Roots, which studies the link between Karamzinism and French preciosity (Vaugelas in particular). This paper intends to show that Karamzin was influenced by linguists and philosophers much closer to his own time. Studying Karamzin within the framework of the linguistic thinking of his time, it shows that sensualism, the underlying philosophy behind sentimentalist aesthetics, also represents the theoretical basis of sentimental writing.