Abstract
The Correspondence between Prince Andrei Kurbsky and Tsar Ivan IV is an Old Russian writing, highly demaneded by philologists and historians and especially significant for linguists, since the opponents expressed an urgent need to not only enter into a dialogue, but also to outline their intentions and verbally interact with their potentially significant audience in the course of debate. Kurbsky’s “self-justifying” first message, literally reflected in Ivan IV’s consistent factual and linguistic analysis, is supplemented and detailed in the tsar’s second letter, which is structured according to the laws of a trial – a detailed refutation of accusations. Accordingly, metalinguistic reflection concentrates around key entities that determine the semantic space of the messages, primarily power and “legality of kingdoms” and their destruction, which requires referencing authoritative sources. Ivan IV carefully analyzes and scrupulously refutes Kurbsky’s antithesis of the “opposing” tsar and “kind” subjects, which determines the use of keywords, their various repetitions, and playing with word-formation and semantic elements of word structures. The philological accusations in Kurbsky’s second and especially third “epistles”, which play an important role in building his own reputation in the European community, remain unattended by Ivan IV, because they are not part of the polemical tasks of substantiating autocracy. As a result, both Kurbsky and Ivan IV use the correspondence for their own purposes, starting from the linguistic messages that are important to them, and developing them in line with intentions of a purely personal or autocratic nature, which collided on the field of power.
Published Version
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a call