Authors:Vít Boček Pages: 7 - 21 Abstract: The aim of this paper is to discuss the existing theories of the origin of the Old Czech word anděl ‘angel’, whose -ď- may be explained as reflecting influence from Old Church Slavonic анг҄елъ, containing a palatalised sound, or from Medieval Latin angelus [anjelus]. New supporting arguments in favour of the latter view are presented, and, in particular, further evidence of Old Czech [ď] in place of earlier [j], the possible secondary influence of antonymous Old Czech diábel/ďábel ‘devil’ in the modification of original Old Czech anjel to anděl, and the form of words for ‘angel’ in other West and western South Slavonic languages. Also considered is the possibility that the origin of anděl is to be found in a spoken Early Romance dialect. DOI : 10.31168/2305-6754.2021.10.2.1 PubDate: 2021-12-25 Issue No:Vol. 10, No. 2 (2021)
Authors:Marina A. Bobrik, Viktor K. Singkh Pages: 22 - 40 Abstract: In the summer of 2020, a fragment of a cow's rib with a Cyrillic inscription was found at excavations in Novgorod. The place of the find is one of the richest boyar estates in the Lyudin quarter of medieval Novgorod. The time of the document hitting the ground is the last quarter of the 13th—the first twenty years of the 14th century. The inscription is fully preserved, it contains a whole readable message. The historical and cultural value of the find lies in the content of its compact inscription: it is unique evidence of a bride-price agreement. The terminology is of value: the bride, on whose behalf the text is written, and the groom (addressee) are designated not by their own names (Christian or pre-Christian), but by the images of the ritual folklore of the wedding — kuna ‘marten’ (she) and sobol’a ‘sable’ (he). The bride-price is no less interesting. The text communicates an idea of a dialogue between the two sides of the marriage ritual. The new evidence of the matrimonial rites and the associated oral-written communication expands our understanding of this sphere of medieval culture and allows us to correct some interpretations of the few birch bark letters on the topic of marriage.
Authors:Katarína Džunková Pages: 41 - 75 Abstract: The New Testament translation from the mid-15th century attributed to the Utraquist priest and diplomat Martin Lupáč represents the first phase of the 4th redaction of the Old Czech Bible translation. It served as a model for the Prague Bible (1488) — the first printed Slavic Bible.The aim of the present work is to detect specific features of Lupáč’s translation method by comparing his texts with four editions of the Old Czech Bible translation. In addition we aim to verify Lupáč’s authorship of the translation, previously attributed to him on the basis of insufficient evidence, by comparing it with two Czech texts written by him. Our results show that Lupáč’s translation contains a number of grammatical innovations that were consciously used to make the Bible content more accessible to the contemporary recipients, e.g., using iterative verbs instead of disappearing imperfect tense, using compound sentences with a finite verb instead of Latin nominal constructions. We detected vocabulary specific for the 15th century (currency, units of measurement, names of feasts), additional explanatory notes, precise translations of non-specific Latin verbs, stylistic dissimilation, and German and new bohemicized Latin loanwords. In addition, in Lupáč’s translation of the Pauline Epistles we found traces of Utraquist theology. We compare the language of two Czech tractates written by Lupáč with the New Testament translation attributed to him, but the degree of similarity is not sufficient to confirm the attribution. In conclusion, Lupáč’s New Testament is a vivid and explanatory translation with unique stylistic figures. Some innovations were so unusual that they were omitted in the Prague Bible created by Utraquists 40 years later.
Authors:Viacheslav V. Lytvynenko Pages: 76 - 96 Abstract: This article identifies a set of Slavonic passages from Athanasius’ Orations against the Arians quoted by Joseph Volotsky and Metropolitan Daniil in opposition to the heresy of Judaizers. These writers are two of the three men (the third one being Zinoviy Otenskiy who is examined in a separate study) that cited Athanasius’ work as originally written in Greek and translated to Slavonic in 907 (today preserved in ten manuscripts of Russian origin). This study is aimed at exploring the significance of this fact, and it also provides a transcription and analysis of all the quotations by comparing them with the text of the Orations in all known manuscripts DOI : 10.31168/2305-6754.2021.10.2.4 PubDate: 2021-12-25 Issue No:Vol. 10, No. 2 (2021)
Authors:Aleksandra A. Pletneva Pages: 97 - 123 Abstract: The article is devoted to the interpretation of one of the most famous lubok prints (cheap popular prints) The Mice Are Burying the Cat, which was printed in different editions and versions from the beginning of the 18th century to the middle of the 19th century. The plot of this picture is under discussion. Some researchers view it as a parody of the funeral of Peter I, while others draw attention to the fact that the stylistic features of the early images and the language of captions indicate an earlier origin.Our analysis showed that the epithets of Kazan (Rus. казанский), of Astrakhan (Rus. астраханский) and of Siberia (Rus. сибирский) used with regard to the cat clearly refer to the title of the tsar. This points to the fact that it is a tsar's funeral that the picture parodies. The captions depicting mice reflect the entertaining laughter culture of the second half of the 17th century. It is significant that the mice are carrying buffoonery musical instruments, they are dancing, drinking alcohol and smoking tobacco. The attributes of buffoonery culture and fun, which the tsar used to combat with the support of Patriarch Nikon, make it possible to bring the prototext of the popular print into correlation with a parody of Alexei Mikhailovich's funeral.In later pictures, the plot-forming element is constituted by the indication of the areas the mice are associated with. Changes in a number of images, as well as the introduction of new toponymy, refer the viewer and reader to the funeral of Peter I, the ceremony of which involved a procession with the coats of arms of provinces. The proposed interpretation makes it possible to reconcile the two concepts and prove that this lubok represents a caricatural funeral of the tsar. However, in older engravings the funeral procession consists of buffoons, and in the later ones, it features representatives of different parts of the empire. In the first case, the tsar is Alexei Mikhailovich, and in the second case, Peter I.
Authors:Vitaly G. Bezrogov, Olga E. Kosheleva, Ekaterina Yu. Romashina Pages: 124 - 162 Abstract: The article focusses on the manuscript stored in Leiden as a witness of Russian-German linguistic, cultural, and pedagogical transfer. The manuscript consists of three parts and contains a "linguistic" introduction, the full text of the Orbis Pictus by Jan Comenius in two languages, and a German-Russian dictionary. The authors systematized the results of previous studies of the manuscript by foreign Slavists, put forward and substantiated their own assumptions about its origin. Based on paleographic and textological analysis of the Leiden manuscript, its place among other manuscript copies of the Russian translation of Orbis Pictus was determined. DOI : 10.31168/2305-6754.2021.10.2.6 PubDate: 2021-12-25 Issue No:Vol. 10, No. 2 (2021)
Authors:Dmitry Ya. Kalugin Pages: 163 - 192 Abstract: The article is dedicated to the usage of the concept of prisutstvie (presence) in the texts by Alexander Radishchev. As the analysis shows, this concept is the meeting ground of three semantic fields: first of all, it signifies God’s presence in the Holy Gifts, secondly, it means ‘being together at one place’, as well as ‘court hearing’, and, finally, it is associated with the presence of an object in the mind (for example, in the work of Descartes, Hume, Locke). Thanks to Radishchev’s philosophical interests, his dependence on the language of European philosophers, and the circumstances of his biography, Radishchev’s works provide abundant material for analyzing the topoi of presence and absence in their different meanings. In spite of the fact that this concept is not essentially reflected by Radishchev, its usage has a systematic character: ‘presence’ emerges in special contexts. The article discusses three aspects of its usage. The first one is philosophical, linked with the idea of ‘personal identity’. The second aspect is intersubjective, connected with the presence-absence of a friend. The last one is political, where the utopian vision of the future is formulated. The conclusion of the article is that the concept of presence denotes a special regime of relations with another person, which is then correlated with the particular perception of the political society. DOI : 10.31168/2305-6754.2021.10.2.7 PubDate: 2021-12-25 Issue No:Vol. 10, No. 2 (2021)
Authors:Yulia I. Krasnoselskaya Pages: 193 - 216 Abstract: In the paper, we examine chapters XXI–XXIII of War and Peace Book 3 Part 1, where Tolstoy depicts the preparations of the Russian nation to the war of 1812. He portrays the visit of Alexander I to Moscow and his meeting with people: first in the Kremlin, then in the Sloboda Palace, where nobles and merchants are gathered to define the conditions on which militia should be organized. The political problem stated in these chapters could be formulated as the problem of legitimacy of the supreme power, as well as of its relationship with the citizens. We state that the Kremlin scene in chapter XXI shows an archaic scenario of power that could remind of the old Russian tradition of the Zemsky Sobor. The next two chapters represent a more modern and more western scenario of power in the form of the advisory assembly with estate representation. In our opinion, Tolstoy, while creating these episodes, was deeply impressed by publications on D. V. Karakozov’s attempt on the life of Alexander II and by the Slavophiles’ and Westernizers’ (mainly B. N. Chicherin’s) works on the Ancient Russian and Western models of popular representation. DOI : 10.31168/2305-6754.2021.10.2.8 PubDate: 2021-12-25 Issue No:Vol. 10, No. 2 (2021)
Authors:Ivan Šimko Pages: 217 - 251 Abstract: The present paper studies the problem of standardization of Bulgarian within the context of the emergence of the Balkan Sprachbund. Traditionally, standardization is considered to be a part of the nation-building process, understood as the codification of orthographic and other linguistic norms in authoritative documents. As they are legally binding within the national collective, the traditional view distinguishes texts from the era before standardization containing more dialectal phenomena and the standardized literature, where dialectal features are usually suppressed.This study presents the hypothesis that the codification of the Bulgarian language in the 19th century did not have such an impact on the later development of language norms. Rather, the codification merely led to changes in orthography. Other norms of the literary language gradually developed within the manuscript tradition of the so-called damaskini. This hypothesis is supported by a quantitative analysis of a sample of texts from various centuries and dialectal areas. DOI : 10.31168/2305-6754.2021.10.2.9 PubDate: 2021-12-25 Issue No:Vol. 10, No. 2 (2021)
Authors:Svetlana Nedelcheva, Ljiljana Šarić Pages: 252 - 276 Abstract: This is a comparative study of the verbal prefix do- in two South Slavic languages, Bulgarian (Blg.) and Croatian (Cro.). Although these two languages show many similarities in the meaning of the verb stems and prefixation patterns, there are some unusual differences that may confuse foreign learners of Slavic, who expect identical or similar base verbs to combine with the same prefixes. The cognitive linguistics framework allows us to approach these differences systematically. We apply it to two databases of Blg. and Cro. prefixed verbs developed for the purposes of this research and extracted from reference books, dictionaries, and online corpora.We systematise do- verbs in a semantic network and account for both the overlapping meaning categories and the differences between the two languages studied, taking into consideration prefixes semantically similar to do- that combine with the same base verbs to form near-synonyms of do- verbs. We point to prefix variation as ensuing from different perspectives on the same event. DOI : 10.31168/2305-6754.2021.10.2.10 PubDate: 2021-12-25 Issue No:Vol. 10, No. 2 (2021)
Authors:Roman V. Ronko Pages: 277 - 296 Abstract: In this paper we will consider a construction with a preposition na (on) and an addressee of speech with verbs govorit’ (to speak) and skazat’ (to say) in some Southern Russian and Western Russian dialects. In standard Russian, the semantic role of the addressee of speech is marked with the dative case. We will focus on the examples from Russian dialects that use a different marker of the addressee of speech: the preposition na with the accusative case. The research is based on the data extracted from several dialectal corpora, including the Rogovatka corpus, (Starooskolsky district, Belgorod region) the Malinino corpus (Khlevinsky district, Lipetsk region), and the Opochka corpus (Opochecky district, Pskov region). Thus, we analyzed Western Russian (Opochka corpus) and Southern Russian data (Rogovatka and Malinino corpus). Constructions with the preposition na can have several meanings that can be distinguished into 2 groups: contexts with invectives and contexts that contain an impulse (motivation) to action. In the paper, we will consider these two groups of meanings as three stages of a semantic shift. We can suggest that the metaphorical transition of the construction occurs as follows: 1. A surface of a real physical object; 2. A sound wave on a surface, in which the addressee of speech acts with a component of aggression; 3. Influence and control of this addressee. DOI : 10.31168/2305-6754.2021.10.2.11 PubDate: 2021-12-25 Issue No:Vol. 10, No. 2 (2021)
Authors:Sergey V. Knyazev Pages: 297 - 320 Abstract: The paper reports some new data based on an experimental study in voice coarticulation of voiced and voiceless obstruents adjacent to sonorants as a function of place and manner of articulation of these consonants in Standard Modern Russian. The results of the experiment based on the 384 tokens collected from 24 participants confirm once again that in word internal clusters of [sonorant + obstruent + sonorant] coronal consonants the voice coarticulation of the obstruent is observed; it may be determined by the surrounding sonorants. The coarticulation in question may be realized in three different ways. In the case of sonorants not identical in place and manner of articulation [dental nasal + dental voiceless stop + alveolar vibrant] the closure part of the dental stop becomes voiced throughout, but this accommodation in phonation type does not lead nevertheless to the voiced/voiceless phonemes’ neutralization since the the contrast in question is still maintained by means of phonetic parameters other than voice (phonation itself), such as closure duration, burst duration (being significantly higher in underlyingly voiceless stops) and relative overall intensity (being noticeably higher in underlyingly voiced obstruents). On the other hand, in the case of dental sonorants identical in place and manner of articulation [nasal + voiceless stop + nasal], where the maximum effect of coarticulation for an homorganic stop was expected, the contrast in burst duration is eliminated since no burst of dental stop is found in the position before an homorganic nasal, but the closure part of the stop does not acquire voicing in order to prevent the voiced/voiceless phonemes’ neutralization. Finally, in the case of [dental nasal + dental voiceless stop + dentalveolar lateral] consonantal clusters the closure part of the dental stop is voiced throughout and the increased burst duration leads to (generally complete) devoicing of the following lateral. The direction of coarticulation in [ntlj] clusters is progressive, it is carried out gradually, left to right. DOI : 10.31168/2305-6754.2021.10.2.12 PubDate: 2021-12-25 Issue No:Vol. 10, No. 2 (2021)
Authors:Maria V. Korogodina Pages: 321 - 337 Abstract: Грамота патриарха Константинопольского Дионисия, отправленная в Новгород в 1467 г. и утверждавшая Григория Болгарина в качестве единственного законного Киевского митрополита, сохранилась в двух списках, вклеенных в одно рукописное Евангелие. Исследование этих списков показывает, что один из них датируется временем посольства и оформлен как грамота, а не как книжная копия. Это позволяет предположить, что перед нами список перевода, бывший в руках у послов. В приложении приведена публикация грамоты по старшему списку с разночтениями по копии XVII в. DOI : 10.31168/2305-6754.2021.10.2.13 PubDate: 2021-12-25 Issue No:Vol. 10, No. 2 (2021)
Authors:Ekaterina I. Kislova Pages: 338 - 352 Abstract: The article focuses on the use of Russian and Latin in rhetoric classes in Russian seminaries of the 18th century, based on published and archival documents. Over the course of the century, the status of the Russian language changed significantly, which may be attributed to a number of factors: the development of belletristic literature, an increase in book publishing, the encouragement of preaching, etc. However, despite the fact that rhetorical textbooks began to be published in Russian, Latin remained the language of rhetorical theory in seminaries. These processes are illustrated both by surviving collections of extracts and exemplary texts, and catalogs of seminar libraries. DOI : 10.31168/2305-6754.2021.10.2.14 PubDate: 2021-12-25 Issue No:Vol. 10, No. 2 (2021)
Authors:Konstantin Yu. Lappo-Danilevskii Pages: 353 - 366 Abstract: [Rev. of: Kafanova O. B., Perevody N. M. Karamzina kak kul’turnyi universum. St. Petersburg: Aleteiia, 2020. 356 p. (in Russian)] O. B. Kafanova’s monograph «N. M. Karamzin’s translations as a cultural universe» (2020) is the result of many years of comparative studies. Numerous articles on the topic preceded this book, which covers the period from 1783 to 1800. In the beginning Karamzin had good knowledge of French and German only so that he used numerous intermediaries in these languages to acquaint the Russian audience with world literature (ancient and eastern poetry, dramas of Shakespeare, Ossian etc.). Only in the final decade of the eighteenth century did Karamzin begin to draw on texts in English and Italian for these purposes. Among other things, the review establishes some previously unknown sources of Karamzin’s translations. V. I. Simankov’s supplemental list pursues the same objective.
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