In the article, on the basis of the correlation between linguistic and state-legal categories, certain questions of the formation of the concept of the Russian language as a state language during the 20th century are considered. The material for the research was scientific developments in the field of language policy, as well as monuments of Russian law of the 20th century which reflected the issues of "language construction". The key principles of the Russian Constitution of 1993 in the field of language policy, as well as the Law on the State Language of the Russian Federation of 2005, develop concepts formed in the pre-Soviet and Soviet periods of "language construction". The concept of the state language, considered at the moment of its development taking into account the categories of the present time (in synchrony), reflects all the phenomena that occurred in the past, the previous time periods of development (in diachrony). It is noted that, initially, the Basic State Laws of the Russian Empire of 1906 fixed the concept "national language". The emphasis is on the relationship of this concept to the concept "state law", their discursive conditioning and similar functions. In connection with the events of the post-revolutionary and early Soviet periods, the reasons for excluding the concept "national language" from the state-legal context and vice versa, the development of different statuses of languages are considered. The author gives four groups of concepts that were used in "language construction" to denote the status of languages: a) concepts that reflect the fixedness of the speakers of languages over a certain locality of residence, as well as the number of speakers of the language ("local languages and dialects", "language of the majority of the population in the locality", etc.); b) concepts that reflect the relationship of language and nation ("language of indigenous nationality", "language of the people", etc.); c) the concept "native language" (emphasis is placed on the spheres of application of the concept: education, everyday communication, formal-business communication); d) concepts that reflect the structure of the state ("languages of the Union republics", "languages of the autonomous republics", etc.). Some aspects of fixing the statuses of the Russian language in the legal texts of the late 20th century are analyzed: first, the "official language", after this "state language". It is concluded that the state-legal sphere of communication causes a typical "specialization" of the language, including the formation, expansion or narrowing of its functional status; stipulates the rules of non-alternative, alternative or duplicative use of languages. Russian as a state language is one of the basic symbols of the Russian state and legal culture.
