Yuri Tynyanov’s comparative studies in the light of translation theory

Against the background of the latest trends in the field of translation theory, the article attempts to distinguish between the terms “translation studies” and “translatology”. The material for analysis is a number of authoritative studies by Russian and foreign authors, in which literary translation and translated literature are considered as a fact of cultural transfer and the subject of comparative literary studies. Variants of the translatological approach are illustrated by an example from George Steiner’s monograph After Babel: Aspects of Language and Translation (1975) and Yuri Lotman’s “‘Journey to the Island of Love’ by Vasily Trediakovsky and the function of translated literature in Russian culture of the first half of the 18th century” (1985). The central part of the article is devoted to the comparative studies of Yuri Tynyanov in the early 1920s. An example of a more traditional translation approach is given by Tynyanovs study “Tyutchev and Heine” (1922), a classic example of Russian comparative studies that confirms the thesis that the delimitation and differentiated use of the terms “translation studies” and “translatology” allow us to more accurately describe the semantic structure of both scientific texts and those works of art to which they are devoted. On the contrary, in Tynyanovs study “Blok and Heine” (1921), which is close in theme and when created, both analytical strategies are present on equal terms; translation studies and translatology complement each other, forming a synthesis. A typological comparison includes both observations of Block’s translation strategy, supported by an aesthetic analysis of the works of both poets, and the posing of the question of the social function of art and the role of the artist in shaping the modernist metanarrative of personality emancipation.

Corpus-based methods in stylistic studies: reshitel’nyi/reshitel’no in Fedor Dostoevskii’s individual style

The article discusses the idiolectic features of the adjective reshitel’nyi and the adverb reshitel’no in Fedor Dostoevskii’s writing style. Conceived as one lexical item, reshitel’nyi and reshitel’no have a semantic structure that includes three blocks of meanings: quality/mode of action; discursive meaning; intensity (corresponding to the lexical function Magn). The dictionary definitions suggest that all of them were common to reshitel’nyi/reshitel’no in Russian language of the 19th century. Ноwever, a corpus-based study shows that reshitel’nyi/reshitel’no in discursive or intensifying use is one of Dostoevskii’s idiolectic patterns. The study comprises 1219 contexts from Dostoevskii’s five great novels and from Leo Tolstoy’s, Mikhail Saltykov Shchedrin’s, Ivan Turgenev’s and Ivan Goncharov’s literary texts accessible in the Russian National Corpus. The analysis reveals the closeness of intensification tо discursive meanings up to nondistinction. Almost half of the contexts extracted from Dostoevsky’s texts are discursive or intensifying uses of reshitel’nyi/reshitel’no. This share is much smaller for the texts of other authors (12%, 22%, 15% and 14% respectively). The article considers some types of contexts and constructions that refer to discursive or intensifying uses of reshitel’nyi/reshitel’no in Dostoesvskii’s literary texts.

On the history of the texts of the Moscow Anfologion of 1660: Chapters… from the book Paradise and Tetrastichae sententiae by Gregory Nazianzen

The article is devoted to the publication history of two poetic gnomologies (collections of maxims) as part of the collection “Anfologion” published in 1660 at the Moscow Print Yard. This collection house primarily published works translated from the Modern Greek Venetian editions, which presented new versions of monuments of hagiography and Byzantine patristic heritage, theological treatises and poetic works of medieval Christian authors. Some translations were made by the publisher — director (spravshchik) of the Printing House Arseny Grek. Among his translations there were also collections of poetic maxims Chapters… from the book Paradise and Tetrastichae sententiae by Gregory Nazianzen. Until now these texts were known in Slavic translation only from the Moscow edition of 1660. The article provides information about the previously unknown translation of both gnomologies, found in a Western Russian manuscript of the early 17th century. The study of the texts showed that one of them ( Chapters… from the Book Paradise ) was published in Anfologion in this translation, and the newly found translation of the maxims of Gregory Nazianzen was used by Arseny Greek to work on his text. The author expresses a hypothesis about the origin of the newly found translation of two gnomologies from the literary circles of the Ostrog Book publishing Center, and its possible attribution to Cyprian, the author, publisher and translator directly related to the works of the Ostrog printing house and the printing house of the Derman Monastery. Newly found translations are published in the Appendix.

Turkisms in one of the early Russian translations of the 18th century

The article considers Turkic borrowings in the Russian language at the beginning of the 18th century. The material of the study was a translation of the 17th century treatise “The History of the Present State of the Ottoman Empire” written by the English diplomat Paul Ricaut and translated into a number of European languages. The Russian translation was done by P.A.Tolstoy from the Italian version in 1702–1714 and published as “The Turkish Monarchy” in 1741. The study presents the methods of phonetic (orthographic) and morphological adaptation of Turkisms by comparing a typographical manuscript for typesetting with edits (made in 1725) and the printed text. The article aims at comparing the usage of borrowings with their forms in the Italian version of the treatise and in the Polish translation since the latter, apparently, was used in the process of typographical editing of the Russian text. A number ofdistorted forms of Turkisms that appeared in the Russian “Monarchy” as a result of the mechanical transfer of typos from the Italian translation were revealed. It has been established that the translation of compound nouns identified in the Turkic languages as izafet constructions was mainly a copying of their forms from the Italian translation. Most of the Turkisms in “The Turkish Monarchy” are exoticisms, but likely relevant for the Russian reader of the 18th century. Hence, the principles of including exoticisms in the “Dictionary of the Russian Language of the 18th Century” require clarification because a number of Turkisms denoting confessional concepts in modern Russian are part of active vocabulary.

Guidebooks to the Holy Land in the repertoire of the pilgrim literature of Muscovite Rus'

The repertoire of guidebooks to the Holy Land in the Old Russian literary culture of Muscovite Rus’ is significant and diverse. Its basis is texts translated from Greek and Polish. Using the example of the Old Russian translation of a monument preserved in handwritten lists of the 17th–18th centuries entitled “A Tale for the Benefit of Hearing and Reading About the Holy City of Jerusalem and its Surrounding Places”, the article discusses the content and narrative features of guidebooks to the Holy Land. The analysis showed that the studied Tale in terms of composition, principles of material selection and organization is close to similar monuments of the Byzantine tradition, which to one degree or another are associated with the 15th century proskynetarian Anonymous Allyatsiya. Comparison of the text of the Tale with this proskynetarian suggested that the original of its Old Russian translation was one of the alterations of this guide, dating no earlier than the 16th century, when the Turks mentioned in the text ruled Palestine. The relevance of guidebooks to Palestine for the Old Russian book culture is also demonstrated by the original monuments of this genre, the creation of which began in the 15th century. The article names and briefly describes several such texts of the 15th–18th centuries, found in manuscripts under the titles “The Wanderer of Jerusalem”, “The Legend of the Jerusalem Way”.

N.N. Strakhov, the journal Zarya and F.M. Dostoevsky’s works at the end of the 1860s

The article examines the significance of Nikolai Strakhov and the journal Zarya for Fyodor Dostoevsky’s works at the end of the 1860s, in particular, for the poetics of the story The Eternal Husband. Strakhov’s well-known review of Tolstoy’s novel War and Peace and the range of his writings on problems of psychology is analyzed in the article. The context of Strakhov’s works allow us to investigate the specifics of the mechanism for creating the image of an “eternal husband” in the writer’s story (the problem of the “predatory” and “meek” types) and consider the features of Dostoevsky’s psychological realism through the prism of Strakhov’s scientific developments, which have not yet been updated in Dostoevsky studies. Analysis of the poetics of dreams and the problem of will in the context of Strakhov’s objectively idealistic approach allows us to interpret them in accordance with the author’s modality of Dostoevsky’s creative laboratory. The study revealed the multidimensional character of the “eternal husband” type realized by Dostoevsky in the image of the Trusotsky type, which includes the typological features of the cuckold, the underground man and the dreamer. The conducted research makes it possible, at the present stage, to fill in the gaps that exist in the source study base of Dostoevsky studies.

Assumptions of mass-media contributors about sources of language norms and rules of language use (based on survey materials)

The article represents the results of a survey among mass-media contributors (journalists, editors, content-managers) on their assumptions about compulsory requirements to use the national language in mass-media, inter alia — what legal limitations are established for this, which sources are used for the norms of the Russian language, those necessary to follow, and if mass-media contributors are specially trained on these norms in editorials offices. The survey showed that only a quarter of respondents knew about the compulsory rule to follow the norms of contemporary standard (literary) Russian in spheres where the national language (including mass-media) is used, and only 6% knew about the necessity to adhere to the official norms. A comparable number of respondents knew the sources for these norms. This leads to the conclusion that requirements to follow the norms of contemporary standard language established by legislation on national language are not effective. The widespread use of the Internet, primarily the site gramota.ru, articulately indicates the need to update the source of official norms of contemporary standard Russian language for its use as the national language. This source should be electronic and freely accessible, uniting different dictionaries and reference books, in order to provide comprehensive information on the norms for using acertain word in a particular language situation. More than 50% of respondents knew about the existence of mechanisms of state control over compliance with the requirements of language legislation, but they were not familiar with the actual requirements of this legislation. Editorial offices of media organizations do not pay due attention to this question.

The рrospective in Spanish: Forms, semantics, pragmatics (part 1)

Based on corpus data, the article discusses three Spanish infinitive constructions with a prospective meaning: two constructions with the verb of location estar and one with the verb of movement ir: </estar a punto de + inf.>, </estar por + inf.> and </ir a + inf.>. A new approach is applied that views these constructions as a means of expressing the grammeme of the prospective in Spanish. The first part of the article contains an overview of the results of a corpus study of all three constructions which aims to clarify both diachronic and synchronic issues of the simultaneous functioning of three different means of expressing prospective semantics, their frequency, as well as the distribution of each construction in the Spanishspeaking area. The first part also offers a detailed comparative analysis of the semantics of two infinitive constructions with estar. It begins with the establishment of a characteristic restriction for both constructions on filling the infinitive slot with atelic lexemes (which makes them different from the construction with the motion verb) and ends with proposed interpretations of the semantics of both constructions with the verb of location. In the second part of the work, based on a review of descriptive grammars, theories, and corpus research, the prospective construction with the verb of movement ir is discussed, and (based on the results of a corpus study of all three constructions) a description of the prospective zone in Spanish is proposed from the position of general, i. e., typologically oriented, morphology and grammatical semantics.

F.M. Dostoevsky and A.N. Ostrovsky in the process of learning about the people (1860s)

The article examines the history of formation and development of Fyodor Dostoevsky’s “soil concepts” in the 1860s in the light of his close attention to the work of Alexander Ostrovsky. Previously, researchers did not correlate the different positions of Ostrovsky and Dostoevsky in the writers’ shared process of the cognition of folk life. The main focus of the article is centered on revealing the dynamics of changes in Dostoevsky’s attitude towards the work of Ostrovsky: from the recognition of impartiality of the playwright’s portrayal of the Russian people to the belief of his misunderstanding of foundations of folk life and the conviction of the gradual increase in accusatory tones in its coverage, starting from the final resolution of the play Thunderstorm. The article identifies the areas of synchronicities and disagreements of the two writers from a problem-thematic standpoint. The work concludes that the main point of divergence in the writers’ understanding of the Russian people was, on the one hand, Dostoevsky’s certainty of the monolithic unity of the Russian people, anchored in the Orthodox faith, and, on the other, Ostrovsky’s idea that the fundamental crises of the mid-19th century encompass all strata of Russian society, without any exceptions. The idea of the significance of the Last Judgment in the life of the common people is identified as essential for Ostrovsky.

Literary parallels to one Novgorod inscription of the 12th century

The article cites new literary parallels to a graffiti inscription of the 12th century about the death of Prince Vsevolod-Gabriel, found on the wall of the Church of the Annunciation on the Settlement in Veliky Novgorod as a result of archeological and work by Vladimir Sedov in the summer of 2016–2017. This inscription is a traditional genre of annalistic news of the death of the Old Russian princes. They usually use the expression “weeping and sobbing”, “weeping and longing / sorrow”, in different versions, to refer to the crying and tears of the prince’s squad and relatives. In the inscription under consideration, it refers to the weeping of the squad for the deceased Prince Vsevolod Mstislavich. The author of the article adds a number of other literary parallels to the literary sources noted by the publishers and interpreters of the Annunciation inscription. Especially important for expanding the literary context is the old Russian apocryphal “Homilia for the Resurrection of Lazarus” at the end of the 12th — beginning of the 13th centuries”. An important episode in it is the weeping — the prayer of Adam in Hell, where he turns to Christ. The theme of weeping in the inscription on the wall of the Church of the Annunciation and in the “Homilia on the Resurrection of Lazarus” is expressed in similar words and phrases. The examples of similar expressions and formulas presented here allow us to expand the literary context of the Annunciation inscription about the death of Prince Vsevolod Mstislavich.