Papers by Dmitrij Timofejev
Cornova: Revue České společnosti pro výzkum 18. století, 2022
This paper is a loose sequel to our 2017 essay The Hussite Era in the First Edition of Daniel Ad... more This paper is a loose sequel to our 2017 essay The Hussite Era in the First Edition of Daniel Adam of Veleslavín’s Historical Calendar, in which we argued that any researcher of an Early Modern Czech historiographic text should thoroughly compare its factual content with the sources it creatively paraphrases, mainly with Václav Hájek of Libočany’s Czech Cronicle. The present article introduces eight Czech manuscripts that emerged in the years 1741–1835 containing passages devoted to the Hussite era and retelling the story of the late 14th and 15th century, each with its own particular angle and emphasis. Since at least six authors are Catholic, their reception of Jan Hus and the militant Utraquist movement is predictably negative; however, our most interesting outputs concern the way historiographers pursued an intertextual discussion with their Humanist predecessors on the first three decades of the 15th century, while paying little or no attention to events that took place after the ratification of Basel Compacts in 1436.
Amsterdam University Press eBooks, Dec 31, 2022
The authors of this chapter present the first ever analysis of the orthography of Czech broadside... more The authors of this chapter present the first ever analysis of the orthography of Czech broadside ballads from the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Aligning with the previous chapter by Pleskalová and Navrátilová, they show that the features of the language of broadside ballads in fact do correspond with the general orthography of Czech printers of the time, whatever their targeted class of consumer. They show that the orthography of Czech broadside ballads is influenced by a mixture of long-preserved archaic features and innovative tendencies (including the use of capitalization). The chapter also reflects the concurrence of both types of Czech black-letter typefaces typical for Czech printings from the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries (Schwabacher and Fraktur).
Wiek Oświecenia, 2022
The paper presents the latest trends in studying the eighteenth-century written culture of the Cz... more The paper presents the latest trends in studying the eighteenth-century written culture of the Czech lands and covers research on the history of the Czech language and Bohemian literature, its modern challenges, and prospects. Many nineteenth- and twentieth-century philologists stigmatised the first ca 70 years of the eighteenth century as an era of „downfall” unworthy of interest, and at the same time praised the last quarter of the century as the formative years of the Czech National Revival. The latest research in this area proves this point of view to be distorted and, in some ways, mistaken. The paper gives a brief overview of the older approach to studying the eighteenth-century Bohemian written culture and points out its disadvantages. The central part of the paper introduces concepts developed by contemporary scholars that might also be applied to linguistic and literary studies in other Central European countries.
Naše řeč, vol. 105, № 2 (2022), p. 59-77, 2022
The famous Czech printer Daniel Adam of Veleslavín (1546–1599), as well as most of his fellow typ... more The famous Czech printer Daniel Adam of Veleslavín (1546–1599), as well as most of his fellow typographers, not only published previously unreleased works, but also prepared a number of re-editons. Our research is focused on the changes made by Veleslavín in his re-edition of Martin Kuthen’s Chronicle of the Founding of the Czech Lands. The paper concludes by arguing that Kuthen’s original text from 1539 was reprinted by Veleslavín in 1585 rather precisely, and changes were made in an attempt to systematically treat phenomena that vary at random in the first edition. This resulted, for example, in a quantitative reduction of minuscule digraphs, in the declining occurrence of the prothetic consonant v- before the phoneme /o/, as well as in a diminished usage of the auxiliary verb to be in the third person of the past tense. Nevertheless, a few features (e.g., an increasing usage of the letters combination «uo» instead of the more progressive letter «ů» to spell the vowel /u:/ from Old Czech /o:/) were employed by Veleslavín most probably to keep the archaic aura of Kuthen’s Chronicle, otherwise modernized by him in several aspects.
STLUKA, Martin; ŠKRABAL, Michal (eds.). Liſka a czban. Praha: Nakladatelství Lidové noviny, 2017
The paper deals with distribution of letters i and y for the vowel i in three Czech manuscripts e... more The paper deals with distribution of letters i and y for the vowel i in three Czech manuscripts emerged in 1830s, 1840s and 1850s, concluding that orthographic reforms of the early 19th century had little to no influence on orthographic standards of handwritten texts.
In: BALOWSKI, Mieczysław (ed.). Bohemica Posnaniensia, fasc. 14. Chaos i ład w języku i w literaturze czeskiej. Poznań: Uniwersytet im. Adama Mickiewicza w Poznaniu, Instytut fililogii słowiańskiej, 2016
The paper researches capitalisation in four Czech manuscripts emerged in the late 18th and in the... more The paper researches capitalisation in four Czech manuscripts emerged in the late 18th and in the early 19th century. It reveals the tendency to capitalise nouns, that starts to vanish in the first decades of the 19th century. The same conclusions might be applied to adjectives. Capitalisation of other parts of speech was realised without a clearly defined system.
Slavica Iuvenum XI, 2010
Memories of František J. Vavák, the mayor of Milčice (1770–1816) is a text, which was for a long ... more Memories of František J. Vavák, the mayor of Milčice (1770–1816) is a text, which was for a long time out of the field of vision of the linguists and the literary scholars. It was written by a self-educated peasant and deals with local and world news, encyclopedic information; it also contains Vavák and hid friends’ poems. By comparing the chronicle and the poetic fragments of the text following one another and telling of similar events, we can see that the author, though using both “literary” and “spoken” grammatical forms and expressions with no certain system, understands the difference between “prose” and “verse” and often tries to make his poems sound more “literary”. The conscious using of the artistic devices, archaic and colloquial words and forms to reach certain artistic effects shows that the end of the XVIII century was not the time of decline
of the Czech literature, but the time of it’s second rising – not only by efforts of Prague intellectuals, but also by efforts of the provincial self-made authors.
Slavica Iuvenum XII, 2011
The language of the literary works written by the literate peasants or artisants in the small Boh... more The language of the literary works written by the literate peasants or artisants in the small Bohemian, Moravian and Silesian towns and villages often includes both features of the Humanism era Czech language and so-called “spoken” Czech. The author tries to show that the usage of these features wasn’t random on the example of the text written in the very beginning of the XIX century by František Jan Vavák, a peasant from Milčice village.
Husitský Tábor, 2017
The paper examines the image of Hussite era as presented in the first edition of Daniel Adam of V... more The paper examines the image of Hussite era as presented in the first edition of Daniel Adam of Veleslavín’s Historical Calendar (1578). It identifies sources used by Veleslavín for description of XVth century history in Czech lands, follows the author’s method of modifying their information and makes an attempt to reconstruct Veleslavín’s view of events related to the anti-Catholic movement. Brief analysis proves that, despite using sources written by the Catholic authors, Veleslavín by means of paraphrasing shows Czech Hussites as warriors fighting for „the truth of Christ“, i.e. the Utraquist communion, against Germans and Hungarians. Therefore Historical Calendar should be perceived and analyzed as an integral part of the XVIth century Czech Utraquist historiography.
Cornova: Revue České společnosti pro výzkum 18. století, 2017
The paper examines origin and professional background of the scribes of the 18th century Bohemian... more The paper examines origin and professional background of the scribes of the 18th century Bohemian manuscripts and follows the changes in the social structure of their readers, using the information from several hundred handwritten books and documents. Received data show that the number of scribes is rising immensely in the last decades of the 18th century. The most distinct growth might be observed within the number of scribes working in the rural areas. In the first half of the 18th century the most productive group of scribes are monks. In the last quarter of the century this role goes to teachers and parish priests. Their production, however, often has commercial or official character. Besides in the late period of the century strongly increases representation of craftsmen and farmers among the scribes. Also growth of the number of readers living in the countryside, especially women, might be observed. These changes seem to be the results of educational, administrative and Church reforms performed by Maria Theresa and Joseph II in the late 18th century.
Postscriptum Polonistyczne, 2015
The article aims at analysing selected legal acts concerning language policy issued by Joseph II ... more The article aims at analysing selected legal acts concerning language policy issued by Joseph II for Galicia in the period of time between 1780 and 1790. The consequences of these acts are also described. For the Austrian authorities, Galicia – as a multilingual and multicultural region – was a challenge because there had not been any strong state authority or bureaucratic structure there even before Galicia became a part of the Habsburg monarchy. One of the biggest problems for the local officials was a very limited knowledge of the German language amongst the inhabitants of the region, therefore a number of legal actions had to be initiated to enforce the local people’s learning of the official language of the Habsburg monarchy, and yet, at the same time the languages of minorities were recognized.
Cornova: Revue České společnosti pro výzkum 18. století, 2014
The article looks at how emotion is represented in Bohemian folk chronicles, i.e. texts of a hist... more The article looks at how emotion is represented in Bohemian folk chronicles, i.e. texts of a historiographic character, written by autodidacts — mostly peasants and artisans. At the core of our analysis is the most famous work of this kind, Paměti Františka Jana Vaváka z let 1770–1816 (Memoirs of František Jan Vavák 1770–1816). Other writings from the turn of the 19th century (e.g. those of Václav Jan Mašek, Jan Petr, Ondřej Lukavský) are also considered. Our initial question is: How, and in which contexts, did Czech-speaking authors of the late 18th and early 19th century, having no opportunity to get acquainted with contemporary philosophical theories, express affects? The study shows that the emotions, especially joy and grief, are expressed in a way recommended by early modern rhetoricians (e.g. Cypriano de Soarez or Bernard Lamy): particular figures are associated with particular affects. Though the principle is the same, the figures used by autodidacts differ from those recommended by the rhetoric manuals. Being unable to read Latin, German or French rhetorics, the authors had probably grasped the principles of how to represent affect from their reading, but adapted them according to their own talent and vision. As might be expected given the rural origin and values of the authors, joy is expressed mostly in the context of weather favourable for the harvest, while grief is realised in the context of rising prices and natural disasters.
Cornova: Revue České společnosti pro výzkum 18. století, 2013
The article deals with the regulation of the use of Czech, German and classical languages in the ... more The article deals with the regulation of the use of Czech, German and classical languages in the administrative, school and Church spheres as it appears in the decrees published during Joseph II's reign for the lands of the Bohemian crown. The author attempts to reconstruct the emperor's vision of the usage of the different languages in the Czech lands, find the reasoning behind it, and identify the methods of this regulation. He also asks whether, in Joseph II's case, one can speak about a " language policy " as a deliberate strategy to change the language situation in the Czech lands.
Thesis Chapters by Dmitrij Timofejev
The traditional view describing Czech literary works written in the period from the late 17th cen... more The traditional view describing Czech literary works written in the period from the late 17th century to the end of 18th century as signs of decline in the level of the Czech language and literature has been successfully overcome by linguists over the past few decades. However, most papers covering the topic were focused on prints; handwritten sources are being analysed marginally and unsystematically. The aim of this dissertation is to provide a more detailed picture of the language used in original handwritten works from the “long” 18th century.
To meet the set objectives, the following seven handwritten books of historiographical notes have been selected for close analysis: Některé památky written by František Šolc in the period from 1726 to 1736, the first volume of Paměti některé written by Vojtěch Kegler in the middle of the 18th century, the first volume of Spisy pamětní written by František Jan Vavák between 1770 and 1783, Paměti by Antonín Štěpán from the last quarter of the 18th century, Knihy pamětní written by Vojtěch Jílek in the 1780's, Knížka pamětní written by Filip Ignác Dremsa in the period from 1787 to 1809 and Novostrašecká kronika by Václav Preinhelter written between 1801 and 1834.
The research targeted specific linguistic phenomena considered typical for the so called “Baroque Czech language” at the spelling, phonetics, morphology and lexis levels. The results of the analysis have been construed in the context of contemporary linguistic and extralinguistic facts, especially pieces of grammatical, lexical and rhetorical advice, considering also the situation of the educational system, the book market and the handwriting culture.
Contrasting the gained data to the results of the quantitative analysis of various sources from the 17th and 18th centuries has led to the conclusion that the authors of the examined handwritten works usually followed contemporary views on written language usage, which allowed writers to use alternative variants of linguistic units along with their dominating forms. The application of such an “unstable” form of the cultural Czech language in the individual books of historiography records largely depends on the education of the scribe, the intended purpose of the text and other external factors.
Books by Dmitrij Timofejev
Rukopisné zlomky Knihovny Národního muzea. Signatury 1 D, 1 E a 1 G., 2016
The section 1 D b of manuscript fragments in the National Museum Library comprises 78 shelf marks... more The section 1 D b of manuscript fragments in the National Museum Library comprises 78 shelf marks, consisting of ca 375 units of different character (scraps, clippings, loose leaves, bifolios, sections and fascicles), which come from 160–170 original manuscripts. Most of the fragments come from the 16th–18th centuries, but the collection also contains several fragments from the 15th and 19th centuries and probably also from the beginning of the 20th century. The physical description contains information on the structure, damage, the number of scribes including the characteristics of the writing, on the decoration or notation if applicable as well as data on both earlier and contemporary provenance marks (ownership notes and stamps).
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Papers by Dmitrij Timofejev
of the Czech literature, but the time of it’s second rising – not only by efforts of Prague intellectuals, but also by efforts of the provincial self-made authors.
Thesis Chapters by Dmitrij Timofejev
To meet the set objectives, the following seven handwritten books of historiographical notes have been selected for close analysis: Některé památky written by František Šolc in the period from 1726 to 1736, the first volume of Paměti některé written by Vojtěch Kegler in the middle of the 18th century, the first volume of Spisy pamětní written by František Jan Vavák between 1770 and 1783, Paměti by Antonín Štěpán from the last quarter of the 18th century, Knihy pamětní written by Vojtěch Jílek in the 1780's, Knížka pamětní written by Filip Ignác Dremsa in the period from 1787 to 1809 and Novostrašecká kronika by Václav Preinhelter written between 1801 and 1834.
The research targeted specific linguistic phenomena considered typical for the so called “Baroque Czech language” at the spelling, phonetics, morphology and lexis levels. The results of the analysis have been construed in the context of contemporary linguistic and extralinguistic facts, especially pieces of grammatical, lexical and rhetorical advice, considering also the situation of the educational system, the book market and the handwriting culture.
Contrasting the gained data to the results of the quantitative analysis of various sources from the 17th and 18th centuries has led to the conclusion that the authors of the examined handwritten works usually followed contemporary views on written language usage, which allowed writers to use alternative variants of linguistic units along with their dominating forms. The application of such an “unstable” form of the cultural Czech language in the individual books of historiography records largely depends on the education of the scribe, the intended purpose of the text and other external factors.
Books by Dmitrij Timofejev
of the Czech literature, but the time of it’s second rising – not only by efforts of Prague intellectuals, but also by efforts of the provincial self-made authors.
To meet the set objectives, the following seven handwritten books of historiographical notes have been selected for close analysis: Některé památky written by František Šolc in the period from 1726 to 1736, the first volume of Paměti některé written by Vojtěch Kegler in the middle of the 18th century, the first volume of Spisy pamětní written by František Jan Vavák between 1770 and 1783, Paměti by Antonín Štěpán from the last quarter of the 18th century, Knihy pamětní written by Vojtěch Jílek in the 1780's, Knížka pamětní written by Filip Ignác Dremsa in the period from 1787 to 1809 and Novostrašecká kronika by Václav Preinhelter written between 1801 and 1834.
The research targeted specific linguistic phenomena considered typical for the so called “Baroque Czech language” at the spelling, phonetics, morphology and lexis levels. The results of the analysis have been construed in the context of contemporary linguistic and extralinguistic facts, especially pieces of grammatical, lexical and rhetorical advice, considering also the situation of the educational system, the book market and the handwriting culture.
Contrasting the gained data to the results of the quantitative analysis of various sources from the 17th and 18th centuries has led to the conclusion that the authors of the examined handwritten works usually followed contemporary views on written language usage, which allowed writers to use alternative variants of linguistic units along with their dominating forms. The application of such an “unstable” form of the cultural Czech language in the individual books of historiography records largely depends on the education of the scribe, the intended purpose of the text and other external factors.