Speculum Slaviae Orientalis: Muscovy, Ruthenia and Lithuania in the Late Middle Ages by Vyacheslav V. Ivanov , Julia Verkholantsev (review)

Abstract

SEER, Vol. 86,No. i,January 2008 Reviews Vyacheslav, Ivanov, V. and Verkholantsev, Julia (eds). SpeculumSlaviae Orientalis: Muscovy, Ruthenia and Lithuania in theLate Middle Ages. UCLA Slavic Studies. New Series, 6. Novoe izdatel'stvo,Moscow, 2005. 256 pp. Notes. Bibliographies. Index. $29.90. This exceptionally rich collection of articles and essays, edited by Vyacheslav Ivanov and Julia Verkholantsev, was first conceived at the conference on the cultural history of theRus'ian lands ruled byMuscovy and theGrand Duchy of Lithuania, which subsequently became a part of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. With an eye to covering as many topical issues as possible, the editors commissioned additional essays by Vyacheslav Ivanov, Gail Lenhoff, Robert Romanchuk and William Veder, who each gave depth to particular aspects of the cultural contacts of the East Slavs within the Polish Lithuanian state and Muscovy in the latemedieval period (p. 7). In addition to the preface and acknowledgments (pp. 7-8), the bulk of the book ismade up of fourteen essays and articles written by leading specialists onMuscovite, Ruthenian and Lithuanian cultures and languages; the volume is complete with a subject index, which comprises personal, geographical and ethnic names, as well as subject terms proper (pp. 248-54). The volume opens with Tluralinguism inRussia and in the Ruthenian lands in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. The case of Stefan Javors'kyj', by Giovanna Brogi Bercoff(pp. 9-20). In a masterly sketch of the linguistic situation inRuthenia, the author rightly argues that this situation fittedperfectlywell in the cultural and linguistic context ofHumanistic and Baroque Europe (p. 12),hence the abundance ofmixed texts in these lands, which could be written in alternating Polish and Latin sections, or in a mixed language where Latin and Polish, or Latin, Polish and Slavonic words and locutions alternated (p. 12). Brogi Bercoff discovers most of her illustrative examples in the correspondence between the metropolitan of Riazan' and Murom, Stefan Javors'kyj, and themetropolitan ofRostov, Dimitrij Tup?alo, both Ruthenians by origin, who routinely mix words and expressions in three or four languages. While similarlypluralinguistic, the situation inMuscovite Russia was different from that inKyiv, since switching from one linguistic code to another depended not on a different context of communication, but on practical needs arising from the official contacts of the Russian Empire with European countries (p. 14). All in all, the pluralingual situation as outlined by Brogi Bercoff forRuthenia and Russia looks quite realistic. This reviewer thinks,however, that the overall picture might be more coherent if Brogi Bercoff included a functional hierarchy of the constituents of this pluralinguism. The same problem is taken up by Pietro U. Dini in his article, 'Views on Languages and Polyglossia in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania According to Johannes Stobnica's Epitoma Europe (1512)' (pp. 36-43). Dini contends that, in his treatise, Stobnica correctly differentiated between Ruthenian and REVIEWS I29 Lithuanian, but failed to distinguish between theRuthenians and theMusco vites, thereby using as alternatives the names Ruthenia and Russia (pp. 39, 41). Such an opinion seems to be typical of that time, since the termRusija (Lat. Russia) was gradually going out of use under the influence of an 'autocratic' interpretation of Rosija (Lat. Rossia) inMuscovy; Pietro Bizzarri, however, mentioned twice in his Bellum Pannonicum (late 16th c.) the country Rossia referring toGalicia, e.g., inRossia etPodolia 'Galicia and Podolja'. Thematically, the above two articles complement each other. It comes, therefore, as a surprise to see them separated by an article of Elena Boudovskaia on the evolution of nominal declension in Transcarpathian Ukraine (pp. 21-35). Based on field trips, this interesting studywould greatly benefit, particularly in its theoretical part, from the hypotheses ofGeorge Y. Shevelov (1979) and Michael S. Flier (1987), omitted by the author. Next comes a long essay by David Frick on Ruthenians and their language in seventeenth-century Vilnius (pp. 44-67). The text reads like a detective novel, given itsconsiderable intriguingdetail about theVilnius city landscape and inhabitants. Although inplaces somewhat impressionistic, thisessay sheds light on the linguistic situation inVilnius and the process of emergence of a new Ruthenian language which, differingfrom the chancery language, grew out of Orthodox response to the establishment of new European literary languages in the Renaissance, Reformation...