I thought I’d quote a bit from the chapter on Russian (pp. 281-98) in How Literatures Begin (see this post), by Michael Wachtel:
Histories of Russian literature invariably begin with the medieval period. However, this period can be understood as the beginning of the Russian literary tradition only if literature is defined in the narrowest sense, as any word that is committed to paper—or, more precisely, to parchment. Even within this limited definition, it would be difficult to argue for the medieval period as the beginning of Russian literature because the language used was not Russian, but rather what is now called “Old Church Slavonic” or—depending on one’s linguistics and politics—even “Old Bulgarian.” The creation of an alphabet can be dated to the ninth century. It was the work of Cyril (hence the word “Cyrillic”) and Methodius, two monks who sought to translate holy texts from Byzantine Greek into a language that could be understood by the Slavs in Moravia. Whether Cyril and Methodius were of Greek or Slavic origin is disputed, but to call them Russian would be anachronistic, since the concept of Russia as a distinct location or even ethnicity did not exist at the time. […]
The existence of a written language was essential for disseminating holy writ. Over the next few hundred years, numerous texts were produced in this “church” language, almost all of which were translations of the Gospels and the liturgy, the only texts familiar to most believers in the early centuries of Slavic Christianity. Precise numbers are revealing: only twenty of the fifteen hundred surviving parchment manuscripts from the eleventh to the fourteenth centuries are not concerned with religion. Once again, there is a thorny issue of nomenclature in regard to the language used in these texts. As Alexander Schenker notes: “Depending on the local political situation the terms Old Russian, Old Ukrainian, and Old Belarussian have been applied to essentially the same body of texts.” Regardless of what we call this language, it must be emphasized that the range of texts it produced was extremely limited. While Eastern Orthodoxy in Byzantium (much like Christian culture in the West) was steeped in the traditions of antiquity, Kiev’s approach to Orthodoxy was narrow and pragmatic. In the words of D. S. Mirsky: “The study of rhetoric, dialectics and poetry, of the Trivium and Quadrivium, of all the ‘humaniora,’ never penetrated into South Slavia, Georgia or Russia, and only those forms of literary art were adopted which were considered necessary for the working of the national Church.”
The few literate people in the Slavic lands were primarily engaged in copying religious texts. There was no tradition of exegesis, nor was it encouraged. To the extent it was deemed necessary, interpretation of the holy texts was borrowed from preexisting Byzantine sermons. In this regard, it is worth noting that well into the eighteenth century, literacy in Russia was acquired by painstakingly working through sacred texts and committing them to memory. As Victor Zhivov writes: “The basic means of learning language was reading ‘po skladam’ (‘by syllables’). The procedure was strictly regimented and considered sacred. It began and ended with prayer and was seen as a kind of introduction to Christian life. The special importance of correct and comprehensible reading was conditioned by the fact that the failure to follow the rules of reading could, from the point of view of Eastern Slavic bookmen, lead to heretical error.” […]
Perhaps the most Hattically interesting passage is this (pp. 292 ff.):
Since Lomonosov was living in Germany rather than France, he had grown accustomed to syllabo-tonic verse, which is based not on the number of syllables per line, but on metrical feet, the regular alternation of stressed and unstressed syllables. By writing his poem in iambs, Lomonosov in one stroke did away with more than seventy years of poetic practice. Equally innovative was Lomonosov’s importation of masculine rhyme, used in consistent combination with feminine rhyme. The fact that one poem could undo such a lengthy tradition suggests that this tradition was not terribly firm to begin with. And indeed, the alacrity with which syllabic verse was forgotten is astonishing. In the space of a few years, syllabic poetry disappeared from the repertoire of Russian poets. After a few brief attempts to modify syllabic verse to bring it closer to syllabo-tonics, even Trediakovsky recognized that Lomonosov’s reform had won the day. Like everyone else, he began to write syllabo-tonic poetry, even returning to his previously published syllabic poems and revising them in accordance with the new system.
Scholars still debate why Lomonosov’s reform of versification was so successful, but whatever the reason, it is difficult to overstate its significance in the history of Russian literature. Syllabo-tonic poetry has dominated Russian poetry ever since Lomonosov introduced it. And while additional prosodic forms have coexisted with it, such as accentual (tonic) verse since the early twentieth century and free verse in the post-Soviet period, syllabo-tonic verse has never been displaced. Equally important for the present discussion is that fact that, since the advent of syllabo-tonics, not a single effort was made to revive syllabic poetry. That chapter of Russian literary history came to an abrupt and complete end. […]
The precise rules for Russian poetry had yet to be established, but both Trediakovsky and Lomonosov had no doubt that this was a task they must resolve. Once again, Lomonosov’s views proved to be the more influential. Borrowing as usual from earlier writers (in this case Quintilian), Lomonosov formulated a theory of poetic language based on three styles. The high style was drawn from Old Church Slavonic words no longer in common usage, but nonetheless understandable: completely obscure words in Old Church Slavonic were rejected altogether. This lexicon, with its solemn liturgical associations, served as the ideal vehicle for elevated genres like the ode and the tragedy. The middle style relied on words common to Old Church Slavonic and Russian. Because these words were in everyday use, but not devoid of elevated associations, they were deemed appropriate for “delicate” genres such as the verse epistle, idylls, and love poetry. One might recall in this context the above-cited comments of Trediakovsky on why he translated Tallement’s novel about love into “Russian” rather than “Slavonic.” A low style, which drew maximally on words in common usage that did not have Church Slavonic elements, was reserved for genres such as epigrams, fables, and (prose) comedies.
It is interesting that there is no place in Lomonosov’s scheme for loan words from western European languages. For all his formal dependence on Western models, Lomonosov viewed the Russian lexicon as sacrosanct. Indeed, he argued that Russian was in this respect the true heir to Greek and thus superior to the Latinate languages of western Europe. The influence of “Gallicisms” would become a factor in the Russian literary language only after Lomonosov’s death; it is especially pronounced in the literature of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries.
According to Lomonosov’s influential theories, the more elevated the genre, the less familiar it should sound. In addition to the Slavonic lexicon, Lomonosov’s odes displayed complicated syntax, a “thick” and barely pronounceable—and thus distinctive—sound texture, and elaborate tropes (e.g., zeugmas, striking similes and metaphors, unexpected personifications). These factors combined to create a poetic language that sought to move readers—or listeners—emotionally rather than convince them through logic and syllogism.
It continues to impress me that Lomonosov had such a powerful influence on the development of the Russian literary language.
I detect the influence of Alexander Issatschenko who in his posthumously published history of the Russian language argued that until the 17th or 18th century what his Soviet colleagues described as “literary Russian” was really Church Slavonic with a varying degrees of East-Slavonic influence. I remember his Soviet colleagues in the 1980s felt the need to refute this thesis (I think more rhethorically than with cogent arguments), even though officially they couldn’t read his book.
His Die russische Sprache der Gegenwart, although officially only a morphology (but a lot of syntax was covered as well), was a great help for me in learning Russian, better than any other grammar of Russian available in Germany at the time.
I feel like among German academics “Altbulgarisch” is a fairly traditional and neutral name for what we standardly call OCS in English, although now I see that German wikipedia goes with “Altkirchenslawisch oder Altslawisch oder Altbulgarisch.” It’s really Old Macedonian, of course. [ducks]
Lomonosov’s impact on poetry reminds me of Martin Opitz, who, in his Buch von der deutschen Poeterey (1619), single-handedly saved German poetry from its confinement to doggerel*, i.e. syllabic verse. He reinterpreted the lengths in Classical meters as stresses and so made (some of) them syllabotonic; suddenly they were applicable to German. Doggerel did not die out completely, but became completely confined to “non-serious” poetry (including superficially light-hearted parts of Goethe’s Faust), and this seems to have gone about as fast as in Russian.
* Strenger Knittelvers: 8 or 9 syllables per line, pairwise rhyme, and that’s it. The meters of MHG poetry, mora-counting in stressed syllables, had been rendered inapplicable by the complete loss of short stressed syllables.
There’s even the idea that at least Cyril was Armenian – there were apparently a lot of Armenians at the imperial court at that time, and Glagolitic supposedly has letters for the sounds that Slavic shares with Armenian but not for others.
I’ve seen it called that, of course.
They made their translation into Old Slavonic/Bulgarian/Macedonian primarily to proselytize in Great Moravia? I wonder how similar local Slavic speech was.
@DM, not sure I understand “doggerel” here. Do you mean “technically undemanding”?
@Ryan, of course the interesting part of the question is that about specific relationships between specific dialects. But at least I can say that all then Slavics are seen as “dialects” in terms of mutual intelligibility.
I think Slavonic books could be difficult or require commentary for many Slavs … because of the Greek calques.
Given that neither Bulgars nor Macedonians were originally Slavic speaking peoples, those seem like odd names for Old South Slavic. What did contemporaries think they were speaking? Did the formerly Turkic speaking Bulgar elites just decide to immediately call their adopted Slavic tongue „Bulgarian“?
“What did contemporaries think they were speaking?” – why not “Slavic”?
Of course they also could think they are “speaking”, much unlike the немцы (mutes).
By the way, what were Romance endoglottonyms back then? Either for specific dialects or for “Romance” (distinct from Germanic, Greek or Berber).
It would be convenient to have a name similar to Slavic “Slavic”.
@Ryan
Also keep in mind that „Great Moravia“ was a lot bigger than modern Moravia and appears to have included lots of territory south of the Danube where South Slavic was probably the dominant dialect.
In addition to early church productions, “almost all of which were translations of the Gospels and the liturgy,” there is the Slavonic Josephus, a version of his War.
After the original Roman audience of War faded, it’s often supposed that copiers and readers were all Christian. For instance, Hippolytus, Philosophumena or Refutation of all heresies 9.18-28, has a long passage on Essenes quite similar to War 2.199-161, but with significant differences. Three camps of opinions emerged: Josephus and Hippolytus shared an older source (Strabo or Philo?), or Hippolytus rewrote Josephus directly, or, as Albert Baumgarten argued (HUCA 1984), Hippolytus used a version of Josephus that had been modified by a later Jew. If Baumgarten is correct, such might be relevant in the prehistory of Slavonic Josephus. (And–less likely perhaps–Yosippon?)
It would be more than “interesting” to know how the number and contents of private libraries changed with time.
It is of course fascinating that Russians read something like Стефанит и Ихнилат, a reworking of the Slavonic translation* (thought to be made in Athos**) of a Greek translation (Στεφανίτης και Ιχνηλάτης) of an Arabic translation of a Persian book based on Panchatantra. But one also wants to know how widely it was read outside of monasteries and what else people read.
* the Latin translation was made from a Greek translation made in Sicily. I don’t know how widely it was read either. Google for “The Latin Translation of the Eugenian Recension of Stephanites and Ichnelates”
** WP link because the place is very important for the Russian church. Would be the second most important for pilgrimage (after Palestine) if they allowed everyone to come. The way it is, visiting it is the dream of many clerics.
Very. The ancestors of the later separate languages differed in something like six features total, and the distinctive innovation of Eastern South Slavic, i.e. Bulgarian + Macedonian today, is found in OCS as well as in placenames as far north as Budapest.*
Actual Proto-Slavic had been spoken just 200 years earlier, and most innovations since then had reached all of Slavic.
* The Pre-Slavic cluster *tj became a single phoneme everywhere. In Western South Slavic, it became an affricate [t͡ɕ], leading to a crowded system that distinguished /t͡s t͡ɕ t͡ʃ/. This is still quadruply standard in FYLOSC, but many dialects, plus almost all of Slovene including its standard, have meanwhile merged it with /t͡ʃ/. East Slavic has the same merger. West Slavic instead has a merger with /t͡s/. Eastern South Slavic took a quite different approach: metathesis to /ʃt/. Largely analogous things hold for *dj, *sj, *zj.
Словѣньскъ.
Compare Slovene, Slovak, Slavonian and Slovincian, as well as the number of Romance languages that still call themselves “Latin” or “Roman” today.
Even more so for the Serbian one.
drasvi: It would be more than “interesting” to know how the number and contents of private libraries changed with time.
See this recent post for an example of using archival notes in manuscripts to reconstruct the contents of old libraries.
“Even more so for the Serbian one.”
I expect that. When I mentioned the place, I though that maybe not everyone interested in Russian (or Slavic) culture knows how important it is.
Meanwhile a friend of mine is playing with his group in Belgrade and sending me photographs meant to illustrate the name. They seem to be having Russian-style winter, everything is white.
What’s more surprising, when he was returning home along the Adriatic shore in the morning after New Year celebrations, he was walking over frozen puddles.
“the number of Romance languages” – so can we expect ALL Romance speakers to say so somewhere in the first millenium when local languages distinct from what WE know as “Latin” took shape?
“The few literate people in the Slavic lands” !?
Also the first paragraph is rather confusing.
1. He says “the narrowest sense”, but it seems he means a sense wider than the one that as he thinks would make sense.
2. You can’t call “Russian” a text which was not written in Russia. If it was written in Russia in Slavonic… Honestly, I think even Russian novels in French can be called “Russian novels”, but Slavonic and Russian languages were mutually intelligible.
However it is not that we only know the (linguistical) Russian from 1500s. He writes about “Old Russian” (or Ukrainian etc.) – he understands that this language is known in written, not oral form. Why does then he say that all texts were in Slavonic?
3. Calling Cyril “Russian” would be silly, but that has nothing to do with “anachronisms” and “concepts” of Russia. Especially given that the word русский is formed based in Rus’, not Россия – it is simply not an anachronism.
“3.” – though if he means the concept of “Russia, Ukraine and Belarus”, these are indeed anachronistic.
But these are problematic in the context of texts from Rus’ (not for Cyril) and you can’t “solve” this problem easily by saying “anachronistic”.
“The basic means of learning language was reading ‘po skladam’ (‘by syllables’).
But why 18th century? My first “2” in school came when for the first time in maybe a month the teacher looked at bored me and asked me to read aloud something from the book.
I did and got “2” because I read it normally and not by syllables.
I think in the 21st century they do it as well, and it well can be a good approach. Or a bad approach. Idk. What I know is that it does NOT work with fluent readers:)
Saints Cyril and Methodius were from Thessalonica, and it seems likely that they first learned the southern variety of Slavic then spoken there even while aiming toward missionary work further north. (Local Slavic-speakers in Thessalonica, however, were expected to put up with Greek being the language of the Church, because the local political situation did not create the same incentive structure encouraging translation as it did where the secular magnates were Slavs who knew little or no Greek …)
Old Bulgarian as a Slavic tongue, as distinguished from Danubian Bulgar as a Turkic tongue, is parallel to Old French (a Romance tongue) as distinguished from Frankish (a Germanic tongue).
I think I mentioned (a) that I have to look up words in 1. Old Russian 2. Old Ukrainian 3. Old Belarusian dictionaries even though borders of the three countries hardly have much to do with the langauge they reflect. It is not that texts written in Novgorod were not copied in Ukraine and vice versa. And that’s me, I think most Russian users of Old Russian dictionary don’t look up anything in the Old Ukrainian or Belarusian dictionaries and I don’t know about Ukrainians and Belarusians.
I also often mention that almost all examples from the Bible I hear in Russian (I mean, as moral lessons and not when we are specifically talking about the Bible) come from the Gospels. What I didn’t mention is that I wonder if this fact has to do with (b) the early translations.
I’m glad that Michael speaks of both (a) and (b). But I also thinks he is sloppy.
____
Reading about Lomonosov:
“…in the post-Soviet period”
er. Sloppy again. I dunno, it is quite possible that in 2020s forms characteristic for modern poetry in English are becoming more common. Influence of English now is enormous (subjectively: compared to even 2010s). But this does not mean they were not known and practiced LONG before.
Did the formerly Turkic speaking Bulgar elites just decide to immediately call their adopted Slavic tongue „Bulgarian“?
AFAIK, it was the other way round – the Slavic speaking subjects adopted the name of their rulers, like Greeks used to call themselves and their language “Roman” for more than a millennium.
Re Altbulgarisch: nowadays, you’ll find that term mostly in re-editions of old handbooks and similar texts and in non-Slavistic texts that don’t keep up with Slavicist usage; I would be astonished to find it in articles of German-speaking Slavicists who graduated in the last 30 years or so. The current term is Altkirchenslavisch.
@LH: Does the book at least mention lives of saints and chronicles as literary genres?
As for the influence of Lomonosov and Opitz, part of their success is that stress-based poetry is simply a much better fit for languages with strong stress like Russian and German. Once you show how it’s done, why would anyone want to go back to counting syllables and ignoring stress?
Does the book at least mention lives of saints and chronicles as literary genres?
Yes, I only quoted a few paragraphs.
why would anyone want to go back to counting syllables and ignoring stress?
Why would Chinese poets go on for many centuries composing poetry for which they had to look up the rhymes in ancient rhyme tables? I’m sure there are many other examples of clinging to outdated linguistic forms. Poets adore challenges.
Spelling it with a V is a Slavicist insider thing.
I forgot:
No, I mean a particular meter (which is indeed technically undemanding, but that’s beside the point). An example from 1494 is here; contrary to what I implied, it’s mostly in iambs – but still not entirely. More context in the 2nd-to-last comment in that thread.
Do “insider” German scholars who write -slavisch rather than -slawisch pronounce it with an /f/ rather than a /v/?
I did and got “2” because I read it normally and not by syllables.
I am sure no one expected you to read in school “by syllables”. At least not in 18/19c sense. For what this method meant you may consult first pages of War and Peace where it is shown with a twist of humor. You probably were supposed to read “ма-ма мы-ла ра-му” stressing every syllable, which is literally syllable-wise, but not as in 18c method.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7hQsU7tCDsw
Словѣньскъ.
Indeed in this early period, though when Tzetzes (12th century) welcomes the Ros according to their habits, the dialect in which he does so is not East Slavic.
(I’m not sure if there’s enough distinctive features in the tiny snippet [sdra[…], brate, sestritza; dobra deni] to distinguish SE/SW/West, but East can be ruled out.)