scholarly journals A Big Change Starts Small – Pronominal Clitics in 12-15th Century Old Russian Chronicles

2020 ◽  
Vol 49 ◽  
Author(s):  
Beáta Györfi
Keyword(s):  
Parametric Variation ◽  
Old Russian ◽  
Slavic Languages ◽  
15Th Century ◽  
National Corpus

East Slavic languages, in contrast with South and West Slavonic ones did not retain enclitic pronominals. In Old Russian (ОR) however, these forms were widely used. As manuscripts suggest, they dissapeared from the language by the end of the OR period, i. e. by the 15th-16th centuries. The paper gives an overview of the use of enclitic pronominals in the text of five OR chronicles relying on the diachronic corpus of Russian National Corpus. The analysis focuses on the  distribution of clitic pronominals, their placement, clusterizing properties and deviating constructions. The last section is devoted to the placement of the investigated phenomenon in the complex of parametric variation envoked by the disintegration of the tense-aspect system.

On the Origin of the Zaraysk Gospel

2021 ◽  
Vol 70 (2) ◽  
pp. 193-204
Author(s):  
Alexey B. Mazurov ◽  
Alexander V. Rodionov
Keyword(s):  
19Th Century ◽  
17Th Century ◽  
Theoretical Development ◽  
Old Russian ◽  
15Th Century ◽  
Art Historians ◽  
Ancient Manuscripts ◽  
The 19Th Century ◽  
The Temple ◽  
The Church

The article considers theoretical development of the problem of the origin and provenance in the 15th — the first quarter of the 19th century of the famous Old Russian book monument — the Zaraysk Gospel. Although it has repeatedly attracted the attention of archaeographers, textologists, paleographers, linguists and art historians, this article is the first experience of studying these issues. Created in 1401 in Moscow, the Gospel, which is parchment manuscript, was purchased in 1825 by K.F. Kalaidovich for Count N.P. Rumyantsev from the Zaraysk merchant K.I. Averin, that determined its name by the place of discovery. The scribe book of Zaraysk in 1625 in the altar of the Pyatnitsky chapel of the St. Nikolas wooden church (“which’s on the square”) in the city’s Posad, recorded the description of the manuscript Gospel, corresponding by a number of features to the Zaraysk Gospel. The connection of the codex with the St. Nicholas church is indirectly confirmed by the drawing of the church placed on one of its pages (f. 156 ver.) with the remains of inscription mentioning St. Nicholas the Wonderworker. This allows concluding that the manuscript in the 17th century was in the book collection of the temple. In the 17th century, the ancient St. Nicholas church was re-consecrated to the Epiphany, and the sacristy was moved to the stone St. Nicholas cathedral in Zaraysk. It is most likely that in the first quarter of the 19th century, the merchant K.I. Averin purchased the Gospel from the members of the cathedral’s clergy. The article analyzes the context of the early contributions of the 15th century “to the Miraculous Icon of St. Nikolas of Zaraysk”, one of which, most likely, was the parchment Zaraysk Gospel. The authors assume that this contribution is related to the chronicle events of 1401 or 1408. The study is significant in terms of the theoretical development of methods for identifying ancient manuscripts and their origin.

scholarly journals Guidebooks to the Holy Land in the repertoire of the pilgrim literature of Muscovite Rus'

2021 ◽  
Vol 18 (1) ◽  
pp. 220-238
Author(s):  
Irina V. Fedorova ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Russian Translation ◽  
Material Selection ◽  
Literary Culture ◽  
16Th Century ◽  
Holy Land ◽  
Old Russian ◽  
15Th Century ◽  
Russian Literary ◽  
The Wanderer ◽  
Holy City

The repertoire of guidebooks to the Holy Land in the Old Russian literary culture of Muscovite Rus’ is significant and diverse. Its basis is texts translated from Greek and Polish. Using the example of the Old Russian translation of a monument preserved in handwritten lists of the 17th–18th centuries entitled “A Tale for the Benefit of Hearing and Reading About the Holy City of Jerusalem and its Surrounding Places”, the article discusses the content and narrative features of guidebooks to the Holy Land. The analysis showed that the studied Tale in terms of composition, principles of material selection and organization is close to similar monuments of the Byzantine tradition, which to one degree or another are associated with the 15th century proskynetarian Anonymous Allyatsiya. Comparison of the text of the Tale with this proskynetarian suggested that the original of its Old Russian translation was one of the alterations of this guide, dating no earlier than the 16th century, when the Turks mentioned in the text ruled Palestine. The relevance of guidebooks to Palestine for the Old Russian book culture is also demonstrated by the original monuments of this genre, the creation of which began in the 15th century. The article names and briefly describes several such texts of the 15th–18th centuries, found in manuscripts under the titles “The Wanderer of Jerusalem”, “The Legend of the Jerusalem Way”.

scholarly journals Loanwords in the catechism of M. Petkevičius (1598): slavisms of unknown origin

2017 ◽  
pp. 1-34
Author(s):  
Anželika Smetonienė
Keyword(s):  
Unknown Origin ◽  
Old Russian ◽  
Slavic Languages ◽  
Grand Duchy Of Lithuania ◽  
Grand Duchy

There are only few studies on lexis of catechism of M. Petkevičius (PK) (1598), even if this is the second book in Lithuanian language in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania and the first hymnal in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. J. Kruopas concluded vocabulary of this catechism and noted it's loanwords, however, an origin of these words has not been explained. Also, there is no list of equivalents of these borrowed words in Slavic languages, because aim of J. Kruopa's work wasn't to determinate origin of loanwords. The object of this article is Slavic loanwords in the PK, the aim – to specify and to list Slavisms of unknown origin and their equivalents in the Slavic languages. To achieve the aim the following objectives were set: to collect all borrowed words and Slavic stem words from the selected text; to determinate criteria, that can indicate origin of Slavisms, and to classify Slavisms depending on their origin. In total separate 410 Slavic stem lexemes were found in the catechism of M. Petkevičius. After all these lexemes were generalized (e. g. only forms without prefixes are presented), 344 words left: 30 revealed itself to be hybrids, 149 – Slavisms of unknown origin. It only confirms once again that sometimes it is not possible to determine the path of Slavisms into Lithuanian language due to the similarity of the Slavic languages, and therefore it is possible only to give chronologically accurate equivalents of the loanwords of the PK in the Old Russian, Ruthenian and Polish languages.

The ‘feel like’ construction in Russian and its kin: Implications for the structure of the lexicon

2014 ◽  
Vol 51 (1) ◽  
pp. 107-145 ◽  
Author(s):  
ANASTASIA SMIRNOVA
Keyword(s):  
Syntactic Rule ◽  
Semantic Variation ◽  
Slavic Languages ◽  
The Status ◽  
National Corpus

Russian has a family of reflexive constructions that have non-canonical syntax and express a variety of meanings that range from disposition (‘I feel like working’) to ability (‘I cannot work here’) and generic assessment of quality (‘I work well here’). Previous analyses assume that these constructions are derived by a regular syntactic rule and postulate a null modal in the structure to account for their semantics (Benedicto 1995, Franks 1995, Rivero & Arregui 2012). Focusing on the ‘feel like’ construction, I show that derivational analyses have difficulty explaining its idiosyncratic properties, including non-canonical agreement (independent of the structural subject), as well as the interpretation of aspect. Moreover, derivational analyses overgeneralize, since only a subset of predicates occur in the ‘feel like’ construction in Russian, as the data from the Russian National Corpus indicate. In order to account for their idiosyncratic properties and semi-productivity, I propose that the ‘feel like’ construction and its kin are stored in the lexicon as constructions (Goldberg 1995; Jackendoff 1997, 2008). The proposed analysis clarifies the status of reflexive constructions in Russian and establishes the scope of cross-linguistic semantic variation by comparing reflexives in Russian to that in other Slavic languages.

Iron household items with cutlers’ marks from excavations in Veliky Novgorod 13th – the first half of the 15th century

2020 ◽  
pp. 175-182
Author(s):  
Daria S. Serezhnikova
Keyword(s):  
Czech Republic ◽  
The Netherlands ◽  
Research Literature ◽  
The Czech Republic ◽  
Old Russian ◽  
15Th Century ◽  
Western European ◽  
Almost All ◽  
First Time ◽  
European Production

Experts in the blacksmithing of Ancient Russia have long been interested in iron household items with cutlers’ marks, such as knives and scissors. The research literature has already reviewed similar findings from Moscow, Tver, Torzhok, Pskov, Smolensk and Izborsk. In this study for the first time assembled, described and dated all iron knives and scissors with cutlers’ marks identified in the archaeological collection of Veliky Novgorod. All cutlers marks have been analyzed, and almost all have analogies in medieval Western European material. Almost all types of cutlers’ marks that are represented on Novgorod items are found on knives, and sometimes on swords or falchions found on the territory of Poland, the Czech Republic, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands and England. There are similar cutlers’ marks on the territory of Ancient Russia, but in much smaller numbers. All items marked with the cutlers’ marks are products of Western European production, the old Russian blacksmiths did not practice branding their products. Most items with cutlers’ marks were brought to Novgorod from Poland, the Czech Republic and Germany. Individual items could get to Novgorod and from England through Hanseatic merchants. Items with cutlers’ marks found during excavations in Veliky Novgorod date back to the 13th – first half of 15th centuries.

scholarly journals Sootechestvenniki (compatriots) in the 19th century: semantic profile based on the data of the National Corpus of the Russian language

2020 ◽  
Vol 11 (3) ◽  
pp. 72-84
Author(s):  
S. T. Zolyan
Keyword(s):  
20Th Century ◽  
19Th Century ◽  
Russian Language ◽  
The Other ◽  
State Institutions ◽  
Old Russian ◽  
Place Of Origin ◽  
The 19Th Century ◽  
The Russian Language ◽  
National Corpus

The concept “sootechestvenniki” is one of the key tools for self-description of society; it is an instrument for drawing borderlines between “we” and “they”. The article describes the development of the meaning of this word since its coinage. The word appeared in the 18th cen­tury as a merger of the Old Slavic and Old Russian ‘otechestvo’ (fatherland, understood as one’s place of origin) and the French ‘compatriot’. This merger resulted in the formation of two new prototypical meanings: one is civic, collective and elevated, and the other gravitates to ethnicity since it is used to refer to Russians. With the strengthening of state institutions in Russia, the first meaning was bound to dominate and it did at the beginning of the 19th century. However, one should speak not about the synthesis, but rather about the discordance of the two meanings. In the 19th century, another meaning developed in the semantic struc­ture of the word: ethnic Russians living abroad. Gradually, the word acquired new evaluative meanings, while negative connotations still prevailed. The basic oppositions (we — they, here — there, ours — alien) interacted in an ambiguous way, substituting each other. A variety of hy­brid “compatriots” arose: we are there, they are here, etc. The heterogeneity of the seman­tics of the word reflects collisions within society, which faced a tragic internal split in the 20th century.

scholarly journals Language of Russian Charity: Verbs

2020 ◽  
Vol 22 (4 (202)) ◽  
pp. 293-310
Author(s):  
Valeria S. Kuchko ◽  
◽  
Keyword(s):  
Russian Language ◽  
Semantic Features ◽  
Semantic Field ◽  
Specific Context ◽  
Old Russian ◽  
The Status ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Subject ◽  
The Russian Language ◽  
National Corpus

This article studies Russian verbs which name the action of gratuitous material assistance to those in need, i.e. благотворить, благотворительствовать, благодетельствовать, меценатствовать, жертвовать, спонсировать, and their few derivatives. The author focuses on the history of their origin and use in the Russian language, the development of their meanings, semantic features, and functioning in the text. The analysis of these characteristics of the life of the word in the language allows the author to identify and formulate some norms of the use of these verbs in modern charity discourse for those who speak and write about charity. The study is based on historical and modern lexicographic sources, such as explanatory dictionaries of the Old Slavic Language, Old Russian Language, Russian language of different time periods, as well as examples of word usage, retrieved from The National Corpus of the Russian Language. In spite of the fact that the verbs studied realise the predicate of a situation of charity and designate the subject’s action of providing a poor or deprived object with material support, they considerably differ in terms of time of their appearance in the language, periods of usage, and semantic capacity. The analysis demonstrates that there is no verb that could claim the status of a nuclear verbal lexeme of the semantic field of charity: the word with the widest neutral semantics благотворить has almost fallen out of use, the verbs благодетельствовать and меценатствовать have a narrower application, while жертвовать imposes semantic restrictions on the choice of words for the positions of the object and the instrument of charity, and in the case of the verb спонсировать a specific context of “market” charity is important, in which the subject receives a certain benefit from their contribution.

scholarly journals The Ritual of “Exposing the Thief” in Old Rus: from the Enactment by the Archbishop of Novgorod Ioann III to Apocryphal Manuscript Culture

Slovene ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
pp. 262-295
Author(s):  
Alina S. Alekseeva
Keyword(s):  
Full Text ◽  
18Th Century ◽  
17Th Century ◽  
Original Text ◽  
Manuscript Culture ◽  
Old Russian ◽  
Textual Study ◽  
15Th Century ◽  
Greek Tradition ◽  
History Of

The Old Russian ritual of “Exposing the Thief” (“The Decree on the Proskomedia to the Holy Three Confessors Gurias, Samonas and Abibus”) was written by the Archbishop of Novgorod, Ioann III. The creation of the text was inspired by the sign from the icon of the confessors on December 24, 1410 in St. Sophia Cathedral. The full text of the “Decree…” is preserved in two copies from the 16th –17th centuries, whereas the prayer alone until recently was known in two copies not earlier than the 17th century. The corpus of copies of the prayer was replenished with two copies in manuscripts from the end of the 14th or the beginning of the 15th century and from the 18th century, respectively. The discovery of the first copy raised the question about the original text written by Archbishop Ioann: did he write the prescriptive part for a previously known prayer only or the full text? A textual study of the “Decree...” and the copies of the prayer allows to reconstruct the history of the text and conclude that the archetype contained both the prayer and the prescriptive part. Thus, it could be confirmed that the author of both parts of the “Decree...” is Archbishop Ioann, but the prayer is a less uniform formation. The comparison with Slavic prayers showed that the fragment about the forefathers, going back to a Greek tradition, was borrowed by Ioann from a South Slavic manuscript, while the first part of the text about the three confessors was compiled by the archbishop himself in the context of the special attitude of Novgorod to the cult of St. Gurias, Samonas and Abibus.

scholarly journals Czech borrowings in the Old Belarusian and Old Ukrainian written languages

Movoznavstvo ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 317 (2) ◽  
pp. 36-54
Author(s):  
H. V. Aleksiayevych ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Main Channel ◽  
Song Of Songs ◽  
Old Russian ◽  
15Th Century ◽  
Legal Texts ◽  
Grand Duchy Of Lithuania ◽  
Linguistic Relations ◽  
The Military ◽  
Language Influence

The article assesses the role of the Old Belarusian and the Old Ukrainian languages in the development of Czech-Eastern Slavonic linguistic relations in the 14th–18th centuries. There were both direct and indirect ways of Czech language influence on the Old Belarusian and the Old Ukrainian written languages. The 15th century saw favourable conditions for military-political alliance between the Grand Duchy of Lithuania and Bohemia. The emergence and development of these relations was accompanied by diplomatic activity: for instance, Grand Dukes Vitovt and Svidryhailo had correspondence in Latin and Old Czech with the Czech Hussites. Contacts in the military-political, socio-religious and cultural-educational spheres contributed to the development of Czech-East Slavic language ties. Translations of the Czech written texts into Old Belarusian and Old Ukrainian («The Life of Alexei the Man of God», «The Story of Apollo of Tyre», «Lucidarius», «The Song of Songs», «The Tale of Toadal», «The Tale of the Prophetess Sibylline», «The Trojan Story»), use of the Czech legal texts in writing Galicia-Volyn letters in the 14th and early 15th centuries. The use of Czech legal texts in Galicia-Volyn monuments (Norman Statute of 1438–1439, Statutes of 1529, 1566, 1588, Lithuanian Metric Acts) contributed to the direct penetration of Bohemianisms into the Old Belarusian and Old Ukrainian writing. Although there were channels through which Czech linguistic elements could be directly borrowed into Old-Belarusian and Old-Ukrainian, the main channel for their penetration was Polish. Through the Polish mediation Bohemian loanwords were borrowed from various lexical-semantic groups, mainly from religious, military, socio-political and economic, everyday life vocabulary. The similar conditions of borrowing of Bohemianisms in Old Belarusian and Old Ukrainian are obviously the main reason why Bohemianisms in both languages are close in number and chronology of written fixation. This similarity is especially noticeable against the background of Old Russian data, where bohemisms were recorded later and in smaller numbers

scholarly journals Sophia – the Personification of Divine Wisdom in the Culture of Novgorod the Great from 13th to 15th Century

2014 ◽  
Vol 4 ◽  
pp. 13-26
Author(s):  
Zofia Brzozowska
Keyword(s):  
Old Russian ◽  
15Th Century ◽  
The Feminine ◽  
State Construction ◽  
Hagia Sophia ◽  
Attributes Of God ◽  
The Republic ◽  
City State ◽  
The City ◽  
The Temple

The idea of Sophia – the personified Wisdom of God served as a symbol of independence and identity of the republic in the political culture of Novgorod the Great. In Old Russian chronicles and other narrative sources which can be connected with Novgorod, one may find statements showing that – in the eyes of the Novgorodians themselves – Wisdom was not only one of the main attributes of God, but also a separate character, a kind of divine being, who could be interpreted as patronesses and supernatural protector of the city-state. Construction of the temple of Hagia Sophia in Novgorod is usually dated to 1045–1050. In the source material one can find information that Novgorodian Sophia church was undoubtedly the most significant and important monument in the city. The theme of Wisdom of God is also a very prominent topic in Novgorodian historiography and literature. Moreover, the feminine personification of God’s Wisdom can also be found on the coins, emitted by the city-state from 1420.

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