The article deals with the issues of speech culture in interrelation with the concept of linguistic norm and its dynamics in the period from the nineteenth to the twenty-first century. The author analyzes fragments of A.S. Pushkin's works and reveals the specifics of changes at the lexical, morphological, word-formation and syntactic levels. It is concluded that the most significant changes occur in the field of semantics. The author notes that to improve the culture of speech of schoolchildren it is necessary to study the classical literature of the 19th century, but it is important for the teacher to be able to clarify possible "dark places" and comment on "unusual" for speakers of modern Russian language cases of use of lexemes, combinations of words, syntactic constructions.
