Duo Russian Grammar

70) History & Fantasy

Да здра́вствует коро́ль!

The Russian "Long live the X" structure is an example of the high-style 3rd-person imperative. It sounds solemn and is typical of old texts. One more example:

  • Да бу́дет свет! = Let there be light!

за́мок / замо́к

"A castle" and "a lock" are spelt the same in Russian; only the stress is different. Such use is a calque from German. Or rather WAS—in Polish. The Russian word for "castle" is borrowed from Polish, hence its penultimate stress:

  • Мы наконе́ц взя́ли за́мок. = We finally took the castle.

Борьба́ добра́ со злом.

Good and evil as concepts are «добро́» and «зло». If you want to describe a person or a deed as good or evil, use adjectives «до́брый» and «злой».

The former used to mean "good" as in "not bad"; this is why you have «доброе утро». In modern Russian this meaning is largely gone.

Храм

A larger (in layman's terms) Christian church building is called a «храм», which is also a word for places of worship belonging to other religions/belief systems.

World War II

The Russian expressions for the two world wars of the 20th century are «Пе́рвая мирова́я война́» and «Втора́я мирова́я война́». In less official texts and speech they work just fine without «война»:

  • Этот фильм был снят ещё до второй мировой. = This movie was filmed before World War II.

Levels

  1. 1) Alphabet 1
  2. 2) Basics 1
  3. 3) Phrases 1
  4. 4) Единственное число
  5. 5) Name and polite "You"
  6. 6) Plurals
  7. 7) Where is it?
  8. 8) Animals 1
  9. 9) Genitive Case - 1
  10. 10) Possessive Modifiers 1
  11. 11) Partitive
  12. 12) Accusative Case: the direct object
  13. 13) Verbs Present 1
  14. 14) Infinitive, Likes and Dislikes
  15. 15) Food
  16. 16) Adjectives Introduction
  17. 17) Conjunctions
  18. 18) There is
  19. 19) Questions
  20. 20) People 1
  21. 21) Around you
  22. 22) Prepositions and Places
  23. 23) Verbs Present 2
  24. 24) Time and Numbers
  25. 25) Family
  26. 26) People 1
  27. 27) Weather and Nature
  28. 28) Sport
  29. 29) Adjectives 1
  30. 30) Past & Infinitive
  31. 31) VLAD
  32. 32) Dative and Plurals
  33. 33) Reported speech
  34. 34) Perfective Verbs
  35. 35) I
  36. 36) Body and Health
  37. 37) Genitive Plural
  38. 38) Adjectives 2
  39. 39) Short and Long
  40. 40) Perfective verbs
  41. 41) Countries and Places
  42. 42) House
  43. 43) Reflexive
  44. 44) Time expressions 2
  45. 45) Imperative and Adverbs
  46. 46) Образовние
  47. 47) City and People
  48. 48) Imperative2
  49. 49) That Which
  50. 50) Technics
  51. 51) Future Simple
  52. 52) Being Instrumental
  53. 53) Placing Objects
  54. 54) Kitchen and Food
  55. 55) Speaking
  56. 56) Subjunctive
  57. 57) Compound Future
  58. 58) Prefixed Verbs of Motion
  59. 59) Arts & Entertainment
  60. 60) Together
  61. 61) Numbers 2
  62. 62) Adjectives 3
  63. 63) Plans
  64. 64) Prepositions 2
  65. 65) The Same
  66. 66) Fleeting Vowels
  67. 67) Measure
  68. 68) Business
  69. 69) Morphology
  70. 70) History & Fantasy
  71. 71) Participles
  72. 72) Computers & Internet
  73. 73) Adverbial Participles
  74. 74) Science
  75. 75) Politics
  76. 76) Spiritual
  77. 77) Some Spoken Patterns
  78. 78) Nothing Left
  79. 79) Crime and Justice