East Slavic Research Articles

Лексичне нормування та культуромовні рекомендації очима етимолога (зауваги, роздуми, оцінки)10.33190/0027-2833-337-2024-4-001

The article addresses the issue of the professionalism of cultural-language recommendations, criteria for lexical standardization, and the assessment of words as acceptable or unacceptable, considering their origin — whether native or borrowed. In the context of the trend towards differentiation from the Russian language, the authors of cultural-linguistic recommendations urge avoiding linguistic units shared with Russian and replacing them with different equivalents. It is shown that this trend extends not only to genuine Russianisms but also to words of East Slavic, Common Slavic, and even Indo- European origin. These words are mistakenly perceived not as native Ukrainian but as imposed Russian. The need to distinguish between genuine and perceived Russianisms in the process of standardization is emphasized.

E. Boratynsky’s poem ‘The Stillborn’ [‘Nedonosok’] in the context of Slavic mythology

The article deals with E. Boratynsky’s poem about a spirit of a nonviable nedonosok, or stillborn, drifting between heaven and earth. Scholars have noted the poem’s affinity with works of Dante and Goethe, as well as Plato’s philosophy and the Old Testament. The present study considers the poem’s system of motifs and images in comparison with concepts found in folklore and mythology. The East Slavs believed premature or stillborn babies to be dangerous creatures. They emerged from the ‘other world’ and were ‘unclean.’ For that reason, an infant’s christening was a crucial means to humanize the baby. Unbaptized children (preterm or stillborn) were trapped in the air between heaven and earth. They were feared along with the rest of ‘unclean forces,’ e. g., spirits of sorcerers and sinners. Barred from entering heaven and restless, their existence was an agony that made others suffer as well. Boratynsky poetically interprets a popular superstition about a ‘wrongful’ or ‘bad’ death and its consequences for an infant who was forced out of this world unbaptized. These archaic topics and imagery, among others, inspired the poet’s religious and philosophical reflections.

HOLISTIC EDUCATION IN THE EUROPEAN SOCIO-CULTURAL SPACE IN THE EARLY MODERN PERIOD

The article presents a historical-pedagogical analysis of the content and development of the humanistic idea of holistic education in the European socio-cultural space during the Early Modern Period. It traces the value-based interpretations of the idea of holistic education within both secular (Renaissance humanism) and religious (Christian humanism) worldviews of the early modern era. The study reveals that the concept of holistic education was formulated within the philosophical and cultural discourse of Renaissance humanism. It is noted that the Renaissance ideal of holistic education was based on three key components: first, the virtues of broad erudition, intellectual culture, and the art of rhetoric; second, moral principles focused on the ideals of goodness, virtue, modesty, and personal inner culture, as well as Christian priorities of love and compassion; third, the recognition of the individual as the highest value, grounded in the dignity and rights of the person, and the idea of comprehensive and harmonious development of one’s abilities and talents. This also includes the Renaissance virtues of active engagement, initiative, industriousness, persistence, and the appreciation of physical beauty and courage. It is shown that the institutionalization of the idea of holistic education was carried out through the educational activities of Protestant gymnasiums, Jesuit colleges, brotherhood schools, and other educational institutions founded in the context of Protestant Reformation, Catholic Reformation, and religious reforms in the East Slavic lands. The article outlines the civilizational and human-creative significance of the concept of holistic education for the formation of modern European civilization.

Lithuanian women in Ravensbrück concentration camp

In the Lithuanian historical memory, imprisonment in Nazi concentration camps (the best known to Lithuanians is Stutthof concentration camp) is entrenched as a largely male experience. This led to the fact that not only the experience of women prisoners has faded, but also the memory of other concentration camps. The most important of these, in researching women’s experiences in Nazi captivity, is Ravensbrück concentration camp. The aim of this paper is to analyse the information available in the memorial’s internal database and online archives about Lithuanian women in Ravensbrück, not only on the basis of statistical data but also by presenting at least partially reconstructed biographies. The results of the research showed that most women of Lithuanian and Polish origin (often this origin was difficult to distinguish) related to Lithuania, the majority of whom were imprisoned in Ravensbrück, were young workers, born between 1920 and 1926, voluntarily or forcibly deported to Germany for works, having committed a certain offence. Also, women of Jewish (9), East Slavic (5), German and (2) Latvian (1) origin, born or having Lithuanian citizenship were imprisoned in Ravensbrück. Thus, a large number of women were brought to Ravensbrück not directly from Lithuania or another place of residence, but already while being in Germany. The fate of only a few women whose records of death from alleged exhaustion or murder at the end of the war have survived is known. Many women survived not only Ravensbrück but also other concentration camps and prisons, where the remaining information (prisoner cards) and post-war documents of German authorities about foreigners who came to Germany during the war have already helped to reconstruct the biographies of some women and can be used in the future while conducting research on prisoners from Lithuania and in other concentration camps.

On the etymology of the word <i>konoval</i>

The author of the article analyzes the etymology of the lexeme konoval, which originally served to name people who were engaged in grooming and treating horses, as well as other domestic animals. They were homegrown doctors. The attitude towards them was ambiguous. Frequent unsuccessful results of treatment led to the fact that the word konoval began to acquire a negative connotation and, as a result, in the 18th century there appeared another meaning of the word in Russian language: ‘a bad, unqualified doctor’. There is no unity regarding the etymology of the lexeme konoval. There are two mutually exclusive points of view. M. Vasmer believes that this noun is borrowed from the Polish language. The compilers of the “Etymological Dictionary of the Russian Language” edited by N. M. Shansky share this view. The authors of the Etymological Dictionary of Slavic Languages edited by O. N. Trubachev attribute this lexeme to the Proto-Slavic lexical fund. The author examines in detail both versions of the origin of the lexeme. As a result of the analysis and referring to numerous Polish and East Slavic sources, we put forward a hypothesis that the word konoval is actually Russian. This lexeme originally belonged to the Old Russian language, and subsequently got into the Polish language through Ukrainian.

Kiedy zaczyna się ojczyzna? O wschodniosłowiańskim koncepcie ojczyzna w aspekcie historycznym

The central topic of this paper is the Slavic concept of homeland in its historical aspect. It will be discussed here with the example of two East Slavic areas: the Moscow Russia and the Belarusian residents of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. The time span covered is the later pre-national period, i.e. the 17th-18th c. In this context, more global questions are also addressed, concerning the differences between these two areas, as well the main characteristics of the Moscow culture that makes it substantially different from the European culture and worldview.

Features of the Transmission and Reading of Incantations Among the Eastern Slavs

This article examines the characteristicss of charms transmission among East Slavic healers. The tradition of passing on charms from the older generation to the younger, both inside and outside the family, and the trend of transferring magical knowledge for free, as well as the practice of limiting the transfer of especially important fragments of incantations (the so-called ‘locks’ or ‘fixings’) is highlighted in this piece. In the second part of the article, the author explores the rules of the healer’s treatment with a charm as a magic tool: the attitude to a verbal charm as a material object, the practice of restoring the power of charms, the types of healer, as well as the regulations governing the choice of incantation object.

Loitsude edasiandmise ja esitamise iseärasused idaslaavlastel

The article discusses the peculiarities of passing on incantations by East Slavic sages (znahar’), emphasising the tradition of passing on incantations from one generation to another, inside and outside the family, tendencies of free magic knowledge transfer, as well as limitations to the passing of closing fragments of especially significant incantations (zamok ‘lock’ or zakrepka ‘fastening’). The second part of the article focuses on the rules the healer follows when using incantations as a magical means: attitude to incantations as material objects, practices for restoring the power of incantations, types of sages, as well as rules concerned with choosing the object of incantations.

ОСНОВАНИЯ И КОМПАРАТИВИСТСКИЙ АНАЛИЗ РУССКОГО ЭПОСА

The investigation of Russian folklore has not yet been fully institutionalized in literature, cinema, and theater. In Russian literature, for example, there are no novels about Koshchei the Immortal, Ivan the Prince, heroes of Slavic pagan culture and many other characters of this genre. Meanwhile, these are deep, colorful images organically integrated into an equally vivid context. Many great writers, such as Thomas Mann, have written about such gaps. The goal is to identify the main typological characteristics of the Russian epic, which, in our opinion, has been studied in this sense very one-sidedly. The methodology is a comparative analysis of various approaches (mythological, historical, structural, etc.) closely interconnected with the characteristic features and structure of epics. At the same time, considerable attention is the harmonious combination of various motifs of the epic: heroes, Kalik-passers-by, epic time, pagan influences, hyperbolization, etc. An attempt is made not to accept, but to take into account various influences on such studies (pre-revolutionary, post-revolutionary, inspired by the Marxist approach, structural analysis, which began to be used in the study of Russian epic since the 1970s). The Russian epic, thanks to a huge number of historical, social, and cultural connections, naturally interacts with the epics of the republics (union and autonomous) that were part of the former USSR, which opens up wide opportunities for comparative studies of various types. Paths are outlined for a comparative analysis of the Russian epic with the epics of the East Slavic peoples, as well as with the Yakut heroic epic Olonkho. The authors' further plans involve continuing the study of Russian folklore in the genre of fairy tales and the field of culture of Slavic paganism. The first of them has been studied quite fully, but the structural and systemic approaches to research need to be further developed. The culture of Slavic paganism is a little-studied area where there are still no established approaches, and there are different points of view on many issues. Here you can apply the methodological approaches outlined in our monograph “Philosophy of Olonkho”.

In Search of Nature and Consciousness in Andrei Bialobotskii’s Pentateugum: Classical Echoes and Modern Impulses

Through close reading and reference to the philosophies of the time, this paper demonstrates how the long poem Pentateugum (1690s) by Andrei Bialobotskii (ca. 1640-1720) offers us a dynamic picture of the tensions —between Classical and Orthodox cultures and between religious and secularized literatures—leading to the East Slavic Enlightenment. According to Andrei Bialobotskii, culture is vain because such is human knowledge. Simultaneously, culture triumphs because, through it, the subject acquires and expresses their consciousness in a summa that comprises the whole history of humankind. In this context, Classical culture provides a model for writing techniques and functions as the highest instance of punished vanity, while expressing the harmony between nature and the individual.

The Concept of the Intermarium and the Confessional Issue: Geopolitical Challenges to Belarusian Orthodoxy in ХХ – early ХХI century

The article discusses the problems of merging geopolitics and religion. Using the example of Belarusian Orthodoxy, the author shows how religious institutions can become instruments for the implementation of geopolitical strategies, in particular the Polish foreign policy doctrine of the Intermarium. The influence of this doctrine on the position of the Orthodox Church in the Baltic-Black Sea region, including on the territory of Belarus, is analyzed. The author examines the specific historical conditions of the periodic actualization of Polish geopolitical projects in relation to Belarus. Using some examples, he shows the technologies of the United States working with the Belarusian anti-Soviet emigration and the technologies of using religious institutions to implement geopolitical strategies. It is concluded that modern interpretations of the Intermarium doctrine are directly related to the policy of the Patriarchate of Constantinople in relation to the East Slavic territories associated with the Kiev Metropolis of the XV–XVII centuries. The assessment of the activities of the primate of the Orthodox Church in Poland on the Ukrainian-Belarusian lands in the first half of the 1940s is new for domestic and foreign historiography as an attempt to build a “church Intermarium”. The article contains unique materials about the anti-Soviet activities of the Belarusian emigration, its contradictions and splits. The findings actualize the issue of developing mechanisms to counteract manipulative influence against the Orthodox Church, carried out in order to achieve political benefits. Based on the results of the consideration of the problem, a recommendation is proposed regarding the need for planned systematic work to strengthen church immunity against external manipulative influence, fraught with disruption of social and confessional balance in the Republic of Belarus.

NATIONAL-CULTURAL SPECIFICITY OF THE OF THE EAST SLAVIC CONCEPT OF LAZINESS IN COMPARISON WITH THE CHINESE 懒 (LAN) (BASED ON THE MATERIAL OF THE FAIRYTALE DISCOURSE)

The purpose of the work is to reveal the national and cultural specificity of the Eastern Slavic Laziness concept in comparison with the Chinese one 懒 (lan). The object of research is Eastern Slavic and Chinese folk tales. In folk tales, the conceptual sphere inherent in folk consciousness is best reflected. In Chinese folk tales, laziness is condemned because it is perceived as a vice. The result of the study is the revealed specificity of the East Slavic mentality, which is expressed in the correlation of the concepts Laziness and Success/Luck. Conclusions. Russian fairy tales can show different values. There are Russian fairy tales in which laziness is assessed as a defect and condemned; in others, the lazy person receives a reward, because he is kind and compassionate to other people's misfortune. The main components of the concept of Success / Luck in the Russian fairy-tale picture of the world are the absence of the need for hard work, a successful marriage, material well-being and the opportunity to demonstrate one's success to those who previously did not believe in it. Chinese folk tales unequivocally condemn laziness. Lazy people suffer from troubles and do not have happiness and wealth. The practical application of the research results lies in the possibility of their use in translations of East Slavic folk tales into Chinese.

ON BOYAN AS A MINSTREL AND HIS ROLE IN MEDIEVAL RUSSIAN CULTURE

The name “Boyan” first appears in the written works of Old East Slavic literature. Boyan is referenced in the prologue of one of these sources, The Tale of Igor’s Campaign (Slovo o polku Igoreve), which is presented in Russian-speaking countries as a groundbreaking example of literary criticism that was not recognized in the 12th century. The anonymous author does not comply with Boyan’s epic narrative tradition, stating that he will sing the song in his own way. Therefore, the narrator, who desires to surpass the obsolescent rite of oral narrative and appears keen to join the contemporary trends of the time or direct them himself, chooses to criticize his predecessor. In Old Russian culture, Boyan is considered to be a wandering minstrel, a bard, and a prophet. He is also referred to as the grandson of Veles, a member of the pantheon of pagan gods and protector of musicians. The fingers of Boyan, which are associated with an ancient stringed instrument called “gusli”, are believed to be sacred and magical. A type of accordion called the “bayan” also takes its name from Boyan. This study, which focuses on Boyan, an important figure in Old East Slavic literature and folklore, aims to reveal his role in medieval culture and explore whether he was a real or fictional character. For this purpose, the study includes an evaluation of the etymology of the word Boyan and an analysis of how Boyan is depicted in literary texts. In light of the data obtained, the probability of Slavic, Scandinavian, Bulgarian, or Turkic roots of the word is evaluated. The study then delves into a wide range of evidence to provide insight into whether Boyan was a minstrel or a court singer. In conclusion, this study reveals Boyan’s significance as a folk minstrel who served as a protector of national memory and a transmitter of cultural heritage.

Cross-shaped pendants of the ‟scandinavian” type as markers of ethnocultural processes: a new look at an old problem

Medieval cruciform pendants of this “Scandinavian” type are associated with the Norse hird culture; however, as material finds from various regions accumulated, most researchers were inclined to believe that this phenomenon originated in Old Rus’, if not in even more southern realms. At the same time, the connection of problems of this type with Eastern Christian ancient doubts, since ancient artifacts of Byzantine types are quite far from the ‟Scandinavian” ones. It is suggested that the Western Sarmatian type crosses served as the prototype of the remaining crosses, which arose with the solar or plant sacred world of the ancient nomads rather than with the Christian cult. The subsequent appearance of pendants of the ‟Scandinavian” type, first among the Merovingian antiquities, complements the ideas of the Germanic-Sarmatian cultural symbiosis known to archaeologists. Increased distribution of pendants in the Crimea and the basin reflects ethnic migrations, advancement into East Slavic lands and Scandinavia – obviously confessional and cultural processes, as the symbolism of the Sarmatian cross gradually acquired a Christian character.

Attributive Features of F. I. Tyutchev’s Poetics

The article substantiates the idea of Tyutchev as a recipient of the Orthodox ideals of East Slavic literature. Four of the eight attribute properties inherent in it, which are of particular importance for Tyutchev’s poetry, are considered in detail: knowledge of God, grace, religion, conciliarity. As in ancient Russian literature, Tyutchev’s author appears as an instrument of the Creator, which is manifested in the practical absence of a lyrical hero in Tyutchev’s works and the activity of an epic narrator. For Tyutchev, the poet is a student of the Russian poetry school. The highest authorities for Tyutchev are Pushkin, Karamzin, Zhukovsky and Lomonosov, who, like himself, are only an instrument in God’s hands. The property of the knowledge of God for Tyutchev is associated with the image of a secret-seer, a contemplator of elevated spectacles: natural, historical, spiritual. In this regard, Tyutchev’s poetry abounds with natural, airy, heavenly images. Tyutchev’s image of the temple is also connected with the property of God-knowledge, which comprises the whole complex of dogmatic, historical and liturgical meanings. The property of grace in Tyutchev is especially manifested in love lyrics, acting as poetry of spiritual and moral self-exposure. Wounds inflicted in a personal relationship can only be healed by the gift of divine grace. Suffering and sacrifice for Tyutchev are the means of acquiring godlike properties: patience, meekness, humility, love. In Tyutchev’s mature lyrics, the property of religion manifests itself to a special extent, visibly appearing in the cycle of poems about Slavs and in polemical poems directed against Catholicism and Protestantism. They also actualize the category of sobornost’, which reveals itself in Tyutchev’s address to a fellow poet, a Slav poet. Tyutchev’s poetry thus appears as the place of struggle for the Truth, for Orthodox ideals, for his native word, native faith, and for his soul. It is a decisive refutation of Western individualism and secessionism and the affirmation of the ideals of Orthodox sobornost’.

Scholarship and Myth in the Shaping of East Slavic Premodernity

Scholarship and Myth in the Shaping of East Slavic Premodernity

Akathist Hymn in the East Slavonic Literature of the 15th – 16th Centuries: On the Problem of the Existence of Russian Version

Purpose. The paper presents the results of a textological investigation of the Church Slavonic translation of the Akathist Hymn – the masterpiece of the Byzantine hymnography – based on East Slavic manuscripts of the 15th – 16th centuries. The author examined textological data proving the existence in the Russian area of a special (unknown n the South Slavic territories) version of the Akathist Hymn. The problems concerning the process of the appearance and the existence of that version in the East Slavic written tradition are discussed in the work.Results. That distinct version is presumably attributed to Metropolitan Cyprian (1330–1406) basing on the attribution of the manuscripts containing its full form, its South Slavic protograph (that fact was also proved with the usage of textological methods), as well as the language features of the corrections to the text of the hymn. Due to textological data it is also supposed that the correction to the text of the Akathist was performed by Cyprian after he had come to Rus and worked on the correction to the Psalter. The compiling process of the certain version of the Akathist with the Athonite version, that existed simultaneously in Rus, explains the diversity of textual traditions of the Akathist Hymn presented in Russian manuscripts of the 15th – 16th centuries.

Once again to the problem of the chronology of the emergence and decay of Slavic nasal vowels

We show that already in the very first examples of Slavic vocabulary that has come down to us in the 6th–8th centuries. (Slavic onomastics in Byzantine sources, Slavic toponymy in Greece, Slavisms in the Romanian language) there is a fairly large layer of terms with nasal vowels. This quite convincingly suggests that the phonetic phenomenon under discussion arose in Proto-Slavic times, even before the Slavs themselves appeared on the historical arena. Analyzing the decay of nasal vowels in the East Slavic language, we show that the generally accepted argument about the disappearance of these vowels in the 10th century, based on the names of the Dnieper rapids by Constantine Porphyrogenitus (Νεασήτ and Βερούτζη), is very weak. Data from Byzantine sources, for example, the mention of the name Svyatoslav in the form Σφενδοσθλάβος/Σφενδοσθλάβον in the treatise of Leo the Deacon, describing the events of 971/972, convincingly indicate that nasality in princely anthroponymy in the 10th century. was still preserved. We show that the thesis about the disappearance of nasal vowels in Rus' in the 10th century, which has acquired the character of an imperative ideologeme in the modern linguistic environment, is incorrect both in form and in essence. The chronology of nasal vowel decay was determined by the specific vowel. Anthroponyms with small yus retained their nasality until the second — third decades of the 11th century. Using the example of the lexeme сѫбота, we demonstrate that its nasal phonetics were borrowed into the Kipchak dialects during the first contacts of the Russian princes with the Cumans in the middle of the 11th century. The term shambe / şənbə / šenbe will become the basis for designating the days of the week in Iranian and a number of Turkic languages. Nasality in the pronunciation of words with a major yus in the Old Russian language was lost only in the last decades of the 11th century.

Between Comparative and Postcolonial Studies: the Past and Future of Italian Approaches to East Slavic Literary Intersections

This contribution reflects on the state of comparative studies devoted to East Slavic literatures in Italy. Between the end of the 20th and beginning of the 21st century, Italian scholars of Slavic studies and the editors of Italian journals have made a number of interesting proposals on the subject. However, hyper-specialization has often hampered efforts to put theory into practice. I foreground some of these important methodological contributions by Italian scholars on comparative Slavic studies and discuss them both in the international context and with reference to other methodologies and research fields, most notably postcolonial studies. After the full-scale invasion of Ukraine by the Russian Federation in February 2022, comparative studies at the crossroads of Belarusian, Russian, and Ukrainian cultures have become a thorny issue. Scholars should seek to strike a balance between a philological approach and the ethical need to respect the different cultural orientations of East Slavic nations.

Travelers from Murom, Briansk and Polotsk in Lucca (On Previously Known and Newly Discovered Old East Slavic Inscriptions on the Walls of St. Martin Cathedral)

Travelers from Murom, Briansk and Polotsk in Lucca (On Previously Known and Newly Discovered Old East Slavic Inscriptions on the Walls of St. Martin Cathedral)