Russian in the 1740s

by Thomas Ros n

Overview

During the 1740s, literate Russians mostly kept to traditional forms of written language. Although the linguistic reforms undertaken by Peter the Great earlier in the century affected printed secular texts and the imperial administration, these reforms were less radical than often assumed. This study draws conclusions based on an analysis that differs from earlier ones. First of all, the study examines the Russian language during a comparatively little-known decade of the eighteenth century. In doing so, it takes into account not only strictly linguistic data, but also developments in Russian society. Second, the investigation analyzes sources that are seldom valued for their linguistic content, thus offering a broader perspective on the Russian language of the period.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781644697979
Publisher:	Academic Studies Press
Publication date:	03/22/2022
Pages:	212
Product dimensions:	7.00(w) x 10.00(h) x (d)

About the Author

Thomas Rosén holds a PhD in Slavic linguistics from Uppsala University, Sweden. Most of his work has been in medieval and early modern historical linguistics. He is currently teaching Russian and Ukrainian at the University of Gothenburg. His pedagogical experience also includes Serbian, Croatian, Bosnian, Albanian, and Slavic historical linguistics.

Table of Contents

Author’s Notes
Notes on Transliteration
Spelling of Names
The Old Style Calendar
Translation of Quotations
Acknowledgments

Chapter 1: Introduction

1.1 Aim and Purpose of the Investigation

1.2 Language and Society in Eighteenth-Century Russia

1.3 Historical Sociolinguistics?

1.4 Chronological Delimitations

1.5 Was Post-Petrine Russian in Disarray?

1.6. Research Questions

1.6.1 Extralinguistic Questions

1.6.2 Linguistic Questions:

1.7 Outline of the Investigation

Chapter 2: Survey of Existing Research

2.1 Russian Language from the 1740s as a Field of Study

2.2 General Studies of Eighteenth-Century Russian

2.3 Sociolinguistically Oriented Studies of Eighteenth-Century Russian

2.4 Language and Politics in the 1740s

2.5 Assessing the Situation

2.6 Conclusions

Chapter 3: The Impact of Society on Language

3.1 Introductory Remarks

3.1.1 Peoples and Languages

3.1.2 Social Stratification

3.1.3 Politics and Administration

3.2 Education and Literacy in Eighteenth-Century Russia

3.2.1 Education

3.2.2 Literacy

3.3 Language Management

3.3.1 Examining Language Management in Handwritten Documents from the 1740s

3.3.2 The Imperial Academy of Sciences, a Language Management Agency

3.3.3 A New Function: The Founding of the Russian Conference

3.3.4 The Demise of the Russian Conference

3.4 Language Management in the Administration

3.4.1 Template for the Imperial Title, 1741

3.4.2 Template for a Letter of Credit, 1744

3.5 Conclusions

Chapter 4: Available Sources

4.1 Electronic Corpora of Eighteenth-Century Texts

4.2 Printed Texts

4.2.1 Books

4.2.2 Newspapers

4.2.3 Popular Prints

4.3 Archival Material

4.3.1 Selection of Sources

4.4 Paleographic Characteristics of the Material

4.4.1 Developments in Printing during the 1740s

4.4.2 Handwritten Documents

4.5 The People behind the Material

Chapter 5: Methodological Considerations

5.1 Existing Methods

5.2 Methodological Renewal

5.2.1 The Uniformitarian Principle

5.2.2 The Uniformitarian Principle and the Registers of Eighteenth-Century Russian

5.2.3 What May Have Influenced the Registers?

5.2.4 Register Analysis

5.3 Register Analysis of Russian from the 1740s

Chapter 6: Situational Analysis of Registers

6.1 Participants

6.1.1 Individuals

6.1.2 Institutions

6.2 Relationships among Participants

6.3 Channel

6.3.1 Change of Printed Medium: A Weather Phenomenon in Spain

6.3.2 Speech to Writing: Witness Statements

6.4 Processing Circumstances

6.5 Setting

6.6 Communicative Purpose

6.7 Topics

6.8 Conclusions

Chapter 7: Linguistic Analysis

7.1 Autographs

7.1.1 Mate Filipp Lanikin’s Receipt

7.1.2 Mikhail Turchenikov’s Letter and Its Cultural Context

a) The Report

b) The Letters

7.2 The Language of Regional Administration

7.3 The Language of Diplomacy

7.3.1 The Treaty on Subsidies

7.3.2 Letters to the Royal Families

7.3.3 A Letter by A. I. Rumiantsev

7.4 The Life of Printed Texts

7.4.1 Printing and Obsolete Characters

7.4.2 The Development of Printed Texts

7.4.3 Parallel Editions: Field-Marshal de Lacy’s Reports from the Front

Chapter 8: Functional Analysis

8.1 Tradition

8.2 Education

8.3 Social Identity

8.4 Efficiency of Administration

8.5 Informativity

8.6 Conclusion

Chapter 9: General Conclusions

9.1 Territorial Expansion and the Need for Trained Specialists

9.2 Education and Literacy

9.3 Organized Language Management

9.4 Functional Spheres of Russian in the 1740s

9.5 Perspectives

Bibliography
Archival Sources
Archival Sources on the Internet
Printed Sources
Literature

What People are Saying About This

From the Publisher

“This book offers an excellent example of a historical-sociolinguistic micro-study. Focusing on just one decade in the history of Russian, the 1740s, the study offers a detailed and most welcome analysis of the registers used at that time and still available to readers today—if they take the admirable effort of unearthing substantial archival data from a variety of countries. Bringing together so much information related to such a short timespan creates a fine-grained picture of the use of Russian across text types and language users, abundantly illustrated with extensive quotes from the original sources. As such, the study demonstrates the value of triangulating data and methods to gain a full understanding of a particular historical situation.”

– Gijsbert Rutten, Leiden University

Editorial Reviews

This book offers a meticulous examination of written Russian texts dating to the 1740s, the first decade of Tsarina Elizabeth’s reign. … The author’s methodology will inform future investigations of brief time periods in the history of Russian language usage needed to better understand the country’s social development. This book is a model for sociolinguists, especially social historians interested in the development of education and literacy in czarist Russia. … Recommended.”

— E. J. Vajda, Western Washington University, CHOICE (April 2023: Vol. 60 No. 8)

"...[T]he manuscript heritage of the 1740s is an extensive and very heterogeneous material. A comprehensive analysis of this array in all its diversity is a matter of the future – in this regard, T. Rosen's book offers a promising direction for further research and is an essential step towards them."

— Natalia Kareva, Вивлiоѳика: E-Journal of Eighteenth-Century Russian Studies (Translated from Russian)

From the Publisher