Slavic Area Research Articles

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.

Norse Whetstones in Slavic Areas—Indicators of Long-Distance Networks During the Viking Age and the Middle Ages

SCANDINAVIAN ARTEFACTS FROM THE VIKING AGE ONWARDS are found in Slavic areas, suggesting interactions between Slavs and Scandinavians. In this paper, whetstones from present-day Norway are regarded as a proxy for this contact, and three different locations within the Oder estuary district in present-day north-western Poland are investigated, the Viking-Age town of Wolin, Szczecin Castle Hill and Lubin Stronghold. Geological characterisation and analysis of whetstones indicate that from the 9th/10th to the 13th centuries, whetstones at these sites were largely imported from quarries in present-day Norway, from Mostadmarka in Trøndelag and Eidsborg in Telemark. A reliance on distantly sourced products among Slavic people is demonstrated, and despite cultural and linguistic differences there seem to have been long-lasting networks between Norse and Slavic areas through the centuries.

„Romantičarska“ slika djetinjstva u stvaralaštvu Jovana Sundečića

In this paper I analyze one of the first collections of poems for children in the SCBM language, Niz dragocijenoga bisera ili Duhovne i moralne pjesme za djecu by Jovan Sundečić (Zadar 1856, Cetinje 1865). Although many have stated that it is one of the first original publications intended for children and young readers of the South Slavic area, there has been no detailed analysis of it until now. In the introductory part of the paper, I will look at the circumstances which led to creation of literature for children and young people, in the central part, through the analysis of Sundečić’s book, I will show why Romanticism in children’s literature inevitably intertwined with Enlightenment, and I will try to illuminate the socio-historical circumstances that led to the reprint. In the conclusion, I make an evaluation of the book from the viewpoint of Romanticism, as the period in which it was created, as well as the contemporary moment, which tends to mark the timeless literary qualities.

Етнолингвистични проекти и приложението им в образователния про- цес в чуждоезикова среда

The article presents the characteristics of two research projects conducted by the Department of Slavic Philology in the Faculty of Arts at Comenius University in Bratislava, focused on the field of ethnolinguistics and ethnophraseology, which pertain to the perception of the supernatural in languages and cultures of the West Slavic and South Slavic areas. Particular emphasis is placed on the perspective of applying the knowledge gained during the research in the educational process, for instance, within lectures such as “Slavic Linguistic Image of the World”, “Slavic Phraseology”, “Slavic Dialectology”, as well as in designing topics for final papers, and so on.

Murlin Croucher, the Slavic Librarian of Indiana University-Bloomington, 1980-2005

ABSTRACT Murlin Lee Croucher (1941–2010) served as the third Slavic librarian of Indiana University (IU) from 1980 to 2005 during which he built one of North America’s premier Slavic collections at IU’s Bloomington campus. There have been a few biographical accounts of Croucher that highlight his achievements as a professional area studies librarian in the United States and his contributions to Slavic and East European studies and librarianship. Drawing on unpublished documents provided by the Indiana University Archives as well as published sources, this essay expands existing accounts dedicated to Croucher by providing more details on his personal background and career experiences prior to his tenure at IU. It also incorporates the story of IU’s emergence as a stronghold of Slavic studies in the Midwest, the rise of its Slavic collection before Croucher, and brief biographical sketches of his two predecessors, Dr. Fritz T. Epstein (1898–1979) and Dr. Andrew (Andrij) Turchyn (1912–2004). These sketches serve as background that place Croucher’s work in a broader context and illuminate his achievements as a professional Slavic area studies librarian.

Научная рецензия на академическое издание: Славянский мир в настоящем и прошлом. Памяти Владимира Павловича Гудкова: сборник статей / под ред. Е. И. Якушкиной. М.: МАКС Пресс, 2022. 224 с.

Dedicated to the memory of the outstanding Russian Serbo-Croatian scholar V. P. Gudkov (1934-2020), the collection presents articles by his students and colleagues from Lomonosov Moscow State University, St. Petersburg State University, the Russian Academy of Sciences, the Academy of Sciences and Arts of the Republika Srpska on the topical issues of studying and teaching Slavic languages and literatures, primarily (but not limited to) of the South Slavic area. The publication is addressed to a wide range of specialists in Slavic studies.

Archaeological DNA data of the XII century from ancient Klyazma settlements. Part 2

The paper describes the results of determining the haplogroups of two ancient burials of the 12th century from the middle reaches of the Klyazma. The data obtained make it possible to determine the Y-haplogroup and mitohaplogroup using the markers identified in the study. The article describes the using of bioinformatics methods and the result obtained. The result with a high probability determines the Y-haplogroup I1-Z58 of burial No. 26 and the mitochondrial haplogroup H1-146C (highly probable, H1m1) of burial No. 25. This work summarizes the initial stage of research undertaken in 2019-2020, and continued in other works by the team of authors. Some of the results have been published; mitoDNA from burial No. 25 is published for the first time and completes the series of DNA data from the described group of burials from ancient Klyazma settlements, published by the authors earlier. Modern technologies make it possible to extract DNA and test it using various methods, including determination of the Y-chromosome haplogroup and mitochondrial DNA. The article presents the results of the study conducted in 2019-2020 years. The first evidence of the presence of mitochondrial haplogroup H1-146C (burial No. 25) and Y-haplogroup I1-Z58 (burial No. 26) among the Klyazma population of North-Eastern Russia in the 12th century not only confirms the presence of Y-haplogroup H1 in medieval Russian lands (inhabited descendants of the Eastern Slavs), but also indicates that some genetic unity with the western parts of the Slavic area might exist that time.

ПРИДНЕСТРОВСКОЕ ПОГРАНИЧЬЕ В ДРЕВНОСТИ: ОТ КИММЕРИЙЦЕВ ДО СЛАВЯНСКОГО ЗАСЕЛЕНИЯ

For centuries and even millennia, Pridnestrovie has been a geopolitical frontier and a contact zone for various layers of human civilization and cultures. The Dniester River has always played an exceptionally important role, being a natural border between the various ethno-cultural zones of Eastern and South-Eastern Europe. The lands extending to the East of the Dniester, including modern Pridnestrovie, nowadays are an integral part of the Eastern Slavic area, more precisely, the Slavic-Orthodox civilization of the «middle land», Eurasia. What happened before the Slavic appearance in the Pridnestrovian lands? How did the borderland of the Pridnestrovian region affect the existence and development, interaction and confrontation of different peoples and cultures? The author of the paper tried to answer the questions posed and renew the discussion about this problem.

Young Scholars Conference “Slavic World: Community and Diversity”. Moscow, 23–24 May 2023. Section “Linguistics”

Young scholars from Moscow, St. Petersburg, Smolensk, Kazan, Minsk (Republic of Belarus), Budapest (Hungary) took part in the “Linguistics” section. A wide range of topical issues of Slavic linguistics were discussed in four thematic sessions. The first was devoted to contact linguistics and language policy issues. The results of field and corpus research were presented. The speakers paid special attention to issues of epigraphy in ethnically mixed regions. Language policy in Upper Silesia after World War II was also discussed. The analysis of the accent system of the Upper Sorbian language and the study of contact phenomena in the Czech language were based on corpus material. The next session brought together reports that developed the problems of ethnolinguistics and toponymy of Slavic areas. The features of the folk culture of the Macedonians, Bulgarians, and Eastern Slavs were highlighted. Chinese folk ideas about the crane were presented against the background of associations that arise in connection with this bird among modern Belarusians. On the second day of the conference, issues of grammar, lexicology and pragmatics were discussed. Borrowings in the Czech and Bulgarian languages were examined, the pragmatics of the headlines of the modern Polish press were analyzed, archaic and innovative phenomena in the system of Slovenian clitics were discussed, strategies were proposed to help the teacher of the Russian language in a Serbian-speaking audience explain the correspondences between Russian and Serbian verbs of speech. The final session was devoted to the language of written and printed documents, as well as the diachronic study of the semantics of some lexemes. The features of the Slavic translation of the life of St. Gregory of Sinai, the graphic and orthographic features of the Apostolus Christinopolitanus of the 12th century were discussed in detail, and a strategy for studying biblical quotations in Church Slavonic grammars of the 16th–17th centuries was proposed. Versions of the origin of the adjective “хороший” (“good”) and the adverb “зря” (“in vain”) were also analyzed. Active discussion of reports within the framework of discussions in the hall and during informal communication between sessions indicates the relevance of the scientific event.

Slavic Feminative Suffixes in Linguistic Geography Presentation

The article deals with the linguistic geography analysis of the words meaning women and female animals containing the suffixes *-ica, *-ъka/*-ьka, *-ixa and *-ynja /*-inja on the material of “Slavic Linguistic Atlas”. The research object are schematic maps compiled on the base of its seven volumes of lexical and word-formation series. On each of them the main localization of the forms with one of the affixes in both meanings is given. As a result of their analysis the conclusions about the degree of area matching of words in both meanings is made. It appears that the areas of the highest concentration of the suffixes in both lexical groups in most cases match only partly. Its main part is located in different Slavic languages. The most clear examples of such spatial differentiation are the following: the low frequency of woman designations with the suffix *-ica in Polish and Czech along with quite numerous fixations of female animal names with the same formant. On the contrary, in the Slovak language the forms with *-ica meaning “woman” strongly prevail over female animal names. Whereas, in contrast, the suffix *-ъka/*-ьka in Polish and Czech mostly appears in woman nominations but Slovak largely has it in female animal names as well. It is noteworthy that there is a difference in the suffix *-ica functioning between the Serbian East Shtokavian dialects and Macedonian language on the one hand and Bulgarian on another hand: in the first pair it is mainly used in woman designations in contrast to female animal names in Bulgarian. Although this South Slavic area is united by the high frequency of the suffix *-ъka/*-ьka in both lexical groups. This feature opposes it to Croatian and West Shtokavian dialects of Serbian. The same formant determines word-formation differentiation of the East Slavic languages: Ukrainian differs from Belarusian and Russian by high concentration of words with the suffix *-ъka/*-ьka.

LEXICAL PECULIARITY OF SERBIAN DIALECTS OF SOUTHEASTERN HERZEGOVINA

This article is a part of a large study of the linguistic and geographical features of Serbian vocabulary, carried out by the author of this article on the basis of dialect questionnaire materials specially collected for this purpose in 2019-2021. In order to identify the arealogical characteristics of Serbian vocabulary and identify isoglosses passing through the territory of Serbian dialects, in conversations with dialect speakers from various regions of Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina and Montenegro, and in some cases personally by dialect speakers, questionnaires were filled out based on lexical questions of the Serbo-Croatian Dialect Atlas. The article describes the lexical features of the dialects of two settlements located in southeastern Herzegovina – Ljubinje and Djedići (In addition to the Herzegovina villages described in the work, material from another 20 Serbian settlements in Bosnia and Herzegovina and Serbia, as well as several Croatian ones, is involved in the analysis.). The article highlights the following characteristics of Southeast Herzegoviаn vocabulary: 1) the preservation of Proto-Slavic archaisms, characteristic of the peripheral areas of the Central Slavic area;
 2) the use of words characteristic of the west of the Central Slavic area and uncharacteristic of its eastern part; 3) the use of words characteristic of the regions near the Adriatic coast; 4) the widespread use of lexical doublets, namely the use of words with different areal characteristics in the dialect. Based on the comparison of questionnaires from Ljubinje and Djedići with questionnaires from other researched points, we can distinguish several types of areas, which include south-eastern Herzegovina. 1) the south-western area; 2) the east Herzegovian area: unity with the dialect of the village of Mosorovići; 3) the western area; 4) the peripheral (in the broad sense of the word, including the dialects west of Drina and the dialects of (south) eastern Serbia); 5) Bosnian-Slavonian 6) eastern (uniting the dialects of eastern Herzegovina, Bosnia and Serbia). Typical, however, is the case of overlapping, or interference, of the western and eastern or central and peripheral areas.

Popularne nazwiska mieszkańców powiatu hajnowskiego na początku XXI wieku

The aim of the article is to describe popular surnames of the residents of the Hajnowka district in the early 21st century. The object of analysis is the surnames that, with regard to the number of their bearers, occupy the 20th to 40th position. The following surnames have been analyzed: Pawluczuk, Sawczuk, Sacharczuk, Wołkowycki, Sadowski, Gawryluk, Leoniuk, Oniszczuk, Daniluk, Jakoniuk, Niczyporuk, Jakubowski, Fiedoruk, Jakimiuk, Androsiuk, Sajewicz, Ostaszewski, Roszczenko, Romańczuk, Sidoruk. The surnames are described according to the following patterns: a) dialectal pronunciation of the surname, b) the number of bearers of the surname in Poland, c) the distribution of the surname, d) populations of bearers of the surname in the Podlaskie voivodeship, e) larger populations of the surname bearers outside of the Podlaskie voivodeship, f) the number of the surname bearers in the Hajnowka district, g) the percentage of the surname bearers in the Hajnowka district compared to the whole country, h) the position of the Hajnowka district in Poland with regard to the number of bearers of the surname, i) probable etymologies and motivations of the surname, j) cognate surnames. A separate publication was devoted to the most popular names in the Hajnowka district in the early 21 st century, where the author described 20 anthroponyms. The analysis of the anthroponymic material shows that the surname system of the Hajnowka district residents has largely preserved its traditional East Slavic character. The prevailing ones here are patronymic surnames, predominant in the East Slavic areas, which are related to names of Greek origin. This system contains features typical of individual East Slavic languages and of the Polish language, which played a significant role in its formation.

Archaeological DNA Data from the XII-XIV Centuries from Ancient Klyazma Settlements

PaleoDNA testing is becoming one of the most complex areas of modern biotechnology. Modern technologies make it possible to qualitatively extract DNA and test it by various methods, including the determination of the Y-chromosome haplogroup and mitochondrial DNA. The paper describes the results of determining the Y-DNA haplogroups of two ancient burial sites of the XII-XIV centuries from the middle course of the Klyazma. The data obtained make it possible to determine the Y-haplogroup by the markers identified in the study. The article describes the technology using bioinformatics methods and the result obtained, which with high probability determines the Y-haplogroups R1a-M458-L1029 and I1-Z58. This work summarizes the initial stage of research undertaken in 2019-2020. The first evidence of the presence of R1a-M458 and I1-Z58 among the Klyazma population of Northeastern Russia in the XII-XIV centuries not only supports the point of view of the presence of Y-haplogroup R1a for all medieval Russian lands (inhabited by descendants of Eastern Slavs), but also hints that a certain genetic unity with the western parts of the area of the Slavs may exist (since the most serious concentrations of R1a-M458 and I1-Z58 are observed in the western part of the Slavic area).

Mythology of Infants’ Excessive Crying and Certain Mythical Characters in the Folk Culture of the Carpathian Mountains of Ukraine

Basing on the materials from expeditions to the Ukrainian and Rusyn villages of the Carpathian Mountains in Ukraine, we describe two groups of beliefs concerning excessive crying in infants. According to one group of beliefs, such crying represents something similar to a magical infection and can be transmitted from a crying infant to a non-crying one by manipulations with the crying infant’s bath water. According to another group of beliefs, infant crying results from the human child being exchanged for a non-human child by a female mythological creature connected with wind and forest. This creature is also known in the Balkans, and is probably genetically related to the Western European, especially Irish, fairy. We also suggest that the spell for curing infant crying describing an exchange of crying for non-crying between a human woman and a “forest woman”, known in Slavic traditions since the 14th c., might be a reduced refl ection of the belief in changelings in Slavic areas.

Noun в(иј)енац in phrases with Christian meaning component in the Serbian language (from the viewpoint of lexicographic description)

This paper deals with the noun ?(??)???? in phrases with Christian (biblical) component of meaning in contemporary Serbian language from the lexicographic aspect. The research is founded on the assumption that in the Serbian language there is not only a greater number of phrases containing the noun ?(??)???? with Christian (biblical) component of meaning than those registered in the existing descriptive dictionaries, but also on the fact that the noun ?(??)???? in these realizations represents universal Christian concepts that are, to a greater or lesser extent, described in dictionaries of Slavic languages. Semantic components ?immortality?, ?feat? and ?glory?, which are inherent in the lexical content of expressions motivated by the noun ?(??)????, belong to primarily Christian concepts of martyrdom, being tortured, feats and victory, which at the same time represent their primary meanings. This concretely means that, for example, the expression ????? ????? is firstly labelled as a biblical expression, and then the derived, i.e. phraseological meaning was formed and separately defined. In the former case it is a biblical expression, while in the latter it is a biblicism as a special type of phraseologism. Moreover, by examining equivalent expressions in dictionaries of Slavic languages, where special attention is paid to dictionaries from the Slavic area of Slavia Orthodoxa, it was noticed that the noun ?(??)???? as part of expressions in concrete semantic realizations represents universal Christian concepts which are, to a lesser or greater extent, described in dictionaries of Slavic languages.

ПРАГМАТИКА ЛИЧНЫХ МЕСТОИМЕНИЙ В СОСТАВЕ МЕСТОИМЕННЫХ КОМПЛЕКСОВ И ДИАЛОГОВЫХ ЕДИНСТВ

The article is devoted to pronoun complexes on the base of personal pronouns, which at present traditionally are not usually singled out as autonomic language units. Nevertheless many things indicate their particular status in the vocabulary as well as in lexical system. So this way the status of such formation (created on the base of personal pronouns) as the units of the speech are confirmed by constancy of their function’s spheres, the connection to communication’s situation, frequency of their use and by some other factors. Among the analyzed units in the article are presented pronoun complexes on the base of pronoun subject, units of symbolic character, popular expressions (pithy sayings), phraseology of syntactical type etc. There is marked the role of units of such kind for the stylistic shape of speech and their value in the connection to ethnolinguistic tradition. There is underlined that such pronoun units’ inscription to dictionaries as a standing by itself vocables or subvocables are mostly expedient and advisable. There is used also comparison stratum of lexis – functional correspond units from the near related Slavic area.

Dazhbog: The Ancient Slavic Pagan Deity of the Shining Sky

The paper is concerned with a detailed consideration of one of the most well-known and frequently mentioned Slavic pagan deities: Dazhbog (or Daž(d)bog). Historiographic stereotypes full of contradictions and problems have been fixed in research concerned with the deity, for example, defining Dazhbog as the deity of the sun; its proximity to another solar deity (Chors) and vagueness, why are there two solar deities; Dazhbog’s relation to the deity Svarog/Svarozhich; Dazhbog’s belonging only to the East Slavic area; the etymology of his name as a “giving deity”. An alternative view on Dazhbog (overlooked rather than new) that can solve these problems is given in this paper.

The influence of the Italian vocal school on the professional formation of Ukrainian singers (the end of the XVIII – the beginning of the XIX century)

The purpose of the article is to study the influences of the Italian vocal school, the traditions of Italian opera performance on the professional development of Ukrainian singers in this period. Methodology. Analysis was carried out on the basis of such methods as historical and chronological to study trends and patterns of Ukrainian music at the end of the 17th – the beginning of the 19th century, analytical – for a comprehensive consideration of the influence of Italian culture on the emergence of opera in East Slavic areas, source – for elaboration and analysis of sources, bio-bibliographic – for studying creative biographies of artists, the method of systematization – for the reduction of all found facts to a logical unity. Scientific novelty. By studying the creative biographies of prominent Ukrainian musicians (M.Berezovsky, D.Bortnyansky, M.Ivanov, S.Gulak-Artemovsky) for the first time the Italian pages of their creative biography were systematized, new facts were introduced into scientific circulation, which allow to clarify the contribution of Italian vocal culture in the development of the Ukrainian opera school at the initial stage of its formation. Conclusions. The interest of the Russian Empire in Western European, especially Italian, opera led to the rapid development of a new era in the history of musical theater in the East Slavic territories. Internships of Ukrainian musicians in Italy, invitations of Italian artists, composers, vocal teachers to the Russian Empire, joint performances on stage with foreign singers give grounds to assert the influence of the Italian vocal school on the skills of Ukrainian opera singers of the end of the 18th – the beginning of the 19th century and laying of the fundamental foundations for the development of the Ukrainian vocal school.

West and East in Ashkenaz in the Time of Judah he-\u1e24asid

The present study interprets and frames a long-standing question concerning Judah he-Ḥasid’s motivations in migrating to Regensburg against the social and geographical contexts of the Jews of Ashkenaz. By examining the use of Hebrew geographic terminology during the High Middle Ages (Loter, Ashkenaz, Ashkelonia), the article demonstrates that twelfth-century Jews perceived and were engaged in contemporary political and territorial processes of the surrounding kingdom. The Hebrew terms describe the cultural tripartite division of the German kingdom (Regnum Teutonicum) in Lotharingia, the five duchies of the earlier tribes (Saxony, Franconia, Thuringia, Swabia, and Bavaria), and the still Slavic territories of the East. These imperial territories were settled and Christianized by mostly German migrants from the west of the kingdom from the eleventh century onwards. Comparable developments are evident in the movement and expansion of Jewish settlement in the German Kingdom. After many Jewish communities were founded in the Ashkenazic heartlands, beginning in cities on the Rhine, Main, and the Danube, i.e., in the territories of the five duchies (Ashkenaz), Jewish settlers founded new communities and settlements in the still Slavic areas (Ashkelonia), beyond the Elbe and Saale rivers, as part of the German settlement movement. Judah he-Ḥasid’s family’s migration is part of this development. With his relocation to Regensburg, he lived on the border of the Ashkenazic heartland (Old/West Ashkenaz) and the new Ashkenazic settlement areas in Ashkelonia (New/Eastern Ashkenaz). In Regensburg he became one of the central spiritual and halakhic authorities for the communities of the eastern neighboring territories. Through his work Judah he-Ḥasid opened the way to an “Ashkenazation” of the Jewish communities in eastern Central Europe and Eastern Europe.

Мотивационен и етнокултурен потенциал на концепта вода в славянската езикова картина на света

The first part of the article is focused on theoretical side of the process of idiom creation and on defining terms word motivation and idiom motivation. In the second part of the article the concept water is analyzed within the Slavic linguistic area from the aspect of imagery, mythology and ethnolinguistics. Special attention is paid to the motivation of creation and cultural-idiomatic information carried by non-verbal idioms with the structure of determinative syntagma, which contain the component water. Based on the analysis of the idioms, whose constant structural element is in addition to the noun water an attribute, it is pointed out that in several of them the function of the attribute is crucial, because the connotational-pragmatic constituent of an idiom binds precisely to that attribute, as for example in the case of жива вода or тиха вода units.