Мъжколичният род в славянските езици

The paper is an attempt to clarify the nature of masculine-personal gender in the Slavic languages, which is an extraordinary phenomenon as far as the scope of language creativity and imagination is concerned. Attention is centred on the interplay of the three criteria used to establish the respective gender of the noun. Priority is given to the semantic criterion. Various grammatical means of expressing the phenomenon of masculine gender in the Slavic languages are also discussed.