Historical Stylistics

This article deals with the usage and combinability of words from the synonymic rows Rusʹ/Rossiia/Russiia, russkii/rossiiskii/rosskii, and russkie/rossiiane/rossy, on the basis of the Catalogue of the Kievan Metropolitans, from the early 18th c.—a little-known work on the history of the Russian Church. In the Catalogue, there are about the same number of place names using either rus- or ros- and the adjectives derived from them (a total of 32 and 37, respectively); however, there is an identifiable relationship between each adjective and a specific noun, apparently reflecting fairly stable collocations. Also, the author notes the predominance of ethnonyms with ros- and a general trend towards editing rus- to ros- in the later copies of the Catalogue and in its sole publication in 1776.

Odborné recepci díla Václava Hájka z Libočan se dosud vyčítalo nezohledňování dobového rétorického diskurzu, ze kterého Kronika česká vycházela. Z rozboru dosavadní kritiky a interpretace Hájkovy kroniky i z excerpce klíčových bodů teorie fikčních světů v této práci vyplývá nedostatek znalostí o raněnovověké diskurzivní praxi, která určovala fikčnost textu/ů, ale též o formální stránce díla. Teprve díky zevrubnému poznání obou těchto aspektů bude totiž možno docílit moderního využití Kroniky české a jí podobných děl jako pramenů i jako dílčích kroků v literárním vývoji. Práce sestává z výběru teoretických nástrojů pro odlišení fikčního a nefikčního narativu, přehledu recepce Kroniky české v kompendiích a textech doprovázejících vydání díla a na závěr v syntéze teoretických závěrů a praktických klasifikací Hájkovy kroniky, tedy přináší zhodnocení jejich výpovědní hodnoty ohledně současného (ne)fikčního statutu díla.

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.

While Elizabeth’s linguistic excellence is widely acknowledged and easily verifiable in her writings, scholars have paid her prayers surprisingly little attention. Yet, the voice of Elisabetta supplex, of the Queen at prayer, is one of the most revealing examples of Elizabeth’s strategic gendering of her self-representation in writing as a political persona. In particular, this essay focuses on a small corpus of four prayers in vernacular attributed to Elizabeth’s authorship, which provide a crucial example of the linguistic and discursive strategies used by the Queen in her construction of a personal authorial voice directly addressing God. An idiolect of piety emerges in dialogue and confrontation with her political role, in what this essay proposes to call a form of “devotional Petrarchism”.

Статья посвящена рассмотрению материалов периодических изданий, из которых осуществлялась выборка примеров для Картотеки «Словаря русского языка XVIII века», а также использованию этих примеров при подготовке выпусков самого «Словаря». Отмечается необходимость разделения собственно журналистских текстов и текстов периодических изданий, близких к журналистике, но полностью ею не являвшихся, что позволяет более точно определить тематическое распределение источников «Словаря» и жанрово-стилистические характеристики избранных из них цитат.

The article is devoted to the consideration of the periodical materials by the selection of examples for “The Dictionary of Russian language of the 18th century” Card index and also to the use of these examples by preparation of volumes of the “Dictionary”. There is a need to divide the actually journalistic texts and the texts of the periodicals close to the journalism not completely. That allows to define more precisely the thematic distribution of the “Dictionary” sources and the genre and stylistic characteristics of the chosen quotes.

„O cursed bastard, o faithless traitor, o violent volves…” – apostrophes in Rozmyslanie przemyskie  as a different part of the Text…
This article treats about apostrophes in Rozmyslanie przemyskie. In the past few years in mediaeval studies began to appear the questions about what in this biggest oldPolish Apocrypha is original, written by it’s author, and what is taken from the Latin sources. Also began to appear the questions about the role of this text (treaty, story, mediatation) and who was it’s author. It was pointed out, inter alia, that some parts of the text is finished part of the sermon.
The author took a different, than previously indicated, area of the text. She selected for analyses the apostrophes. She analyzed only those apostrophes, which are addressed directly to the characters by the narrator – the independent ones, and not those, which are inserted into the mouth of the other performing character. Due to lack of Latin sources, we can assume that they were written by the Polish author.
Out of the characters, to which the narrator speaks in these complex apostrophes, Judas is distinguished by the number of apostrophes and their content. Invocations to the traitor add not much to the plot, the reader of the apocrypha can learn few about the Judas from them. They rather build the reader's attitude to this villain, cause they are very emotional. In addition, they refer to these defects of Judas, which can also concerne people of all ages – especially avarice and greed. Their language and content suggest that are the next - next to two sermons - ready, prepared rhetorically, passages of the text that can serve the work of preaching.

This article deals with external voicing in early news discourse, focusing on how the function of announcing future events was realised in letters to the editor and classified adverts, using data from the British daily newspaper The Times in the late eighteenth and the nineteenth centuries. The external voicing of texts announcing future newsworthy events – upcoming cricket and football matches – is interpreted in terms of a participation framework in which the newspaper plays the role of the animator, mediating messages originating elsewhere. It is argued that this arrangement of the communicative situation is related to pre-modern journalistic practices that tended to rely on the aggregation of content rather than editorial processing of information.