Reformation und gemeine Sprache bei den Ruthenen – Vasil’ Tjapinskis Vernakularisierung der heiligen Schrift

Abstract

Summary Departing from received notions about Vasil’ Tjapinski as an early representative of Belarusian national enlightenment, who in translating parts of the gospel into Ruthenian endeavoured to turn over the established diglossic linguistic order in favor of the vernacular language of the people, this article is meant to principally reassess his cultural role and significance. By subjecting the foreword to his gospel edition to a close reading and aligning our reinterpretation of this key document with the actual make-up and design of his text-critical synoptic edition of the gospel texts, it is hoped to place Tjapinski in a more adequate manner than heretofore within the broader framework of cultural change brought about by the vivid dynamics of innovative protestant religious thought against the backdrop of orthodox traditionalism. We argue that Tjapinski, being socially rather conservative, aimed at the expansion of active bible interpretation beyond the narrow sphere of priests and professional theologians within his own social class of minor gentry (szlachta) through adopting methods of critical philology as a highly formalized and therefore reliable truth-finding device. We argue further that, in an effort to win over primarily adherents of orthodoxy, Tjapinski rather than suggesting to have Church Slavonic replaced by the Ruthenian vernacular went out of his way to reestablish Church Slavonic as the true language of the Ruthenian nation (i. e. the Ruthenian szlachta) by arguing for the authoritativeness and reliability of the original Cyrillomethodian gospel translation, which would put the Church Slavonic gospel translation on a par with its Greek source text. His synoptic gospel edition should be appreciated as an effort at making the Church Slavonic gospel accessible through the medium of a vernacular Ruthenian translation, which accordingly ought to be seen as a gloss on the Church Slavonic original rather than as an independent text in its own right.