Church Slavonic language. What you need to know about the Church Slavonic language Excerpts of the Church Slavonic language

Pushkin exclaimed passionately: “My children will read the Bible in the original with me.” “In Slavic?” – asked Khomyakov. “In Slavic,” Pushkin confirmed, “I will teach them myself.”
Metropolitan Anastasy (Gribanovsky).
Pushkin in his attitude to religion and the Orthodox Church

The Russian rural school is now obliged to impart knowledge to its pupils... this is a pedagogical treasure that no rural school in the world possesses. This study, constituting in itself an excellent mental gymnastics, gives life and meaning to the study of the Russian language.
S.A. Rachinsky. Rural school

To ensure that children continue to master Slavic literacy, we periodically write texts in this language. We don’t sit down at the table and write down dictations with an A, but we do this. For every twelfth holiday, or great one, or name day, we prepare troparia, kontakia, and magnifications, written in Church Slavonic on beautiful cardboard. One child gets one prayer, the other gets another. Older children copy the text from the prayer book themselves; younger children find it easier to circle what their mother wrote. Very little children color the initial letter and the ornamental frame. Thus, all children participate in preparation for the holiday, for younger children this is the first acquaintance, for older children it is training, for those who already know how to read it is consolidation. And we take these leaves to the church for the all-night vigil to sing along with the choir. At home on holidays, we also sing troparia, kontakion and magnification - before meals and during family prayers. And it is very convenient for everyone to look not at the prayer book, where the troparion still needs to be found and it is written in small print, but at the text prepared by the children. Thus, children regularly engage in activities without even knowing it. Such activities in themselves teach the child to write correctly in this ancient language. Once I suggested that my nine-year-old son write a kontakion for some holiday, but I could not find the Church Slavonic text. I gave him this kontakion in Russian, offering to write it off. And he copied it, but in Church Slavonic, according to his own understanding, placing ers at the end of masculine nouns, stress and even aspiration, writing down almost all the necessary words under titles. As he explained, it is much more beautiful. True, his yati and izhitsy were written in the wrong places; of course, there were mistakes. But in general, a child who had not attended a single lesson in the Church Slavonic language, who studied it in the primitive form as described in this article, simply following his memory, wrote down the unfamiliar text almost correctly.

To study a language at a more serious level, of course, you will still have to turn to grammar. If you are not satisfied with the method of natural immersion in the language and unobtrusive acquisition of knowledge given here, you can conduct something similar to lessons in the Church Slavonic language. Having introduced the Slavic alphabet to a child (in this case, who already knows how to read Russian), we will highlight those letters that are not similar to modern Russian ones - there are not many of them. Let's ask the child to write them down and indicate how they are read. Then we will look at superscript and lowercase characters, including simple and alphabetic titles. We will separately analyze the recording of numbers in Church Slavonic. If a child already knows how to read Slavic, such lessons will not be difficult for either him or his parents. If you have a goal to truly study the Church Slavonic language, then in the future you can either purchase textbooks on this subject and master them at home, or go to courses, then to a specialized university... From textbooks, we can recommend N.P.’s manual. Sablina “Slavic initial letter”, for older children and parents - self-teacher of the Church Slavonic language Yu.B. Kamchatnova, unique in that it was not written for philologists and in accessible language. But all this will be learning a language that has already become native.

The “teaching method” described here can not only be implemented in the family - it is designed specifically for the family. After all, the culture of the parental family first of all becomes our native culture, and it is the language of our parents that becomes our native language. School study can give us knowledge, perhaps brilliant - but for a child this knowledge will not become a part of life if it is not part of the life of the family. Home “immersion in the language”, of course, will not make the child a specialist - but it will make Church Slavonic his native language, whether he will be a specialist in this field of linguistics in the future or will not study the language as a subject at all. And most importantly: such home education, even in its simplest form, opens up new opportunities for communication between parents and children, allows them to find new common topics, without requiring much effort and time from adults.

Such home studies educate the parents even more than their students; Parents study together with their children and receive unlimited opportunities for free pedagogical creativity, which also brings all family members closer together. Maybe this is not possible in every family, but everyone can try. Try to make your home a place of education.

Section for students of Church Slavonic language

Church Slavonic is the liturgical language of the Russian Orthodox Church.

It arose in the 9th century as the language of the Gospel for the Slavic peoples: during the translation of the Holy Scriptures by Saints Cyril and Methodius, Equal-to-the-Apostles.

The alphabet of the Church Slavonic language consists of Slavic and Greek letters; many words used in it are also of Greek origin.

In comparison with modern Russian, Church Slavonic contains and conveys the subtlest shades of spiritual concepts and experiences.

How to learn to understand the liturgical language of the church:

1) Purchase an explanatory prayer book with parallel translation, a dictionary and a textbook.
2) You can start readingprayer book(morning and evening rules, rules for Communion) - in Russian transcription with parallel translation.

3) Use our resource on the Internet.

You can learn to read in CSL in a few hours. To do this, you need to study 2 tables:words with titleand rules for reading severallettersand their combinations.
Most of the words are consonant with the modern language, but you should pay attention to the fact that a number of words familiar to us have a different or even opposite ( paronyms ) meaning. It is also important to take into account that liturgical texts are based on Holy Scripture, without knowledge of which translation will not provide understanding.
4) Participate in divine services, checking the text and commentaries.

Church Slavonic is a language that has survived to this day as the language of worship. Goes back to the Old Church Slavonic language created by Cyril and Methodius on the basis of South Slavic dialects. The oldest Slavic literary language spread first among the Western Slavs (Moravia), then among the Southern Slavs (Bulgaria) and eventually became the common literary language of the Orthodox Slavs. This language also became widespread in Wallachia and some areas of Croatia and the Czech Republic. Thus, from the very beginning, Church Slavonic was the language of the church and culture, and not of any particular people.
Church Slavonic was the literary (book) language of the peoples inhabiting a vast territory. Since it was, first of all, the language of church culture, the same texts were read and copied throughout this territory. Monuments of the Church Slavonic language were influenced by local dialects (this was most strongly reflected in spelling), but the structure of the language did not change. It is customary to talk about editions (regional variants) of the Church Slavonic language - Russian, Bulgarian, Serbian, etc.
Church Slavonic has never been a spoken language. As a book language, it was opposed to living national languages. As a literary language, it was a standardized language, and the norm was determined not only by the place where the text was rewritten, but also by the nature and purpose of the text itself. Elements of living spoken language (Russian, Serbian, Bulgarian) could penetrate Church Slavonic texts in varying quantities. The norm of each specific text was determined by the relationship between the elements of book and living spoken language. The more important the text was in the eyes of the medieval Christian scribe, the more archaic and strict the language norm. Elements of spoken language almost did not penetrate into liturgical texts. The scribes followed tradition and were guided by the most ancient texts. In parallel with the texts, there was also business writing and private correspondence. The language of business and private documents combines elements of a living national language (Russian, Serbian, Bulgarian, etc.) and individual Church Slavonic forms.
The active interaction of book cultures and the migration of manuscripts led to the fact that the same text was rewritten and read in different editions. By the 14th century I realized that the texts contain errors. The existence of different editions did not make it possible to resolve the question of which text is older, and therefore better. At the same time, the traditions of other peoples seemed more perfect. If the South Slavic scribes were guided by Russian manuscripts, then the Russian scribes, on the contrary, believed that the South Slavic tradition was more authoritative, since it was the South Slavs who preserved the features of the ancient language. They valued Bulgarian and Serbian manuscripts and imitated their spelling.
The first grammar of the Church Slavonic language, in the modern sense of the word, is the grammar of Laurentius Zizanius (1596). In 1619, the Church Slavonic grammar of Meletius Smotritsky appeared, which determined the later language norm. In their work, scribes sought to correct the language and text of the books they copied. At the same time, the idea of ​​what correct text is has changed over time. Therefore, in different eras, books were corrected either from manuscripts that the editors considered ancient, or from books brought from other Slavic regions, or from Greek originals. As a result of the constant correction of liturgical books, the Church Slavonic language acquired its modern appearance. Basically, this process ended at the end of the 17th century, when, on the initiative of Patriarch Nikon, the liturgical books were corrected. Since Russia supplied other Slavic countries with liturgical books, the post-Nikon form of the Church Slavonic language became the common norm for all Orthodox Slavs.
In Russia, Church Slavonic was the language of the Church and culture until the 18th century. After the emergence of a new type of Russian literary language, Church Slavonic remains only the language of Orthodox worship. The corpus of Church Slavonic texts is constantly being updated: new church services, akathists and prayers are being compiled.
Being a direct descendant of the Old Church Slavonic language, Church Slavonic has retained many archaic features of its morphological and syntactic structure to this day. It is characterized by four types of noun declension, has four past tenses of verbs and special forms of the nominative case of participles. The syntax retains calque Greek phrases (dative independent, double accusative, etc.). The greatest changes were made to the orthography of the Church Slavonic language, the final form of which was formed as a result of the “book reference” of the 17th century.

Pletneva A.A., Kravetsky A.G. Church Slavonic language

This textbook on the Church Slavonic language teaches you to read and understand texts used in Orthodox worship, and introduces you to the history of Russian culture. Knowledge of the Church Slavonic language makes it possible to comprehend many phenomena of the Russian language in a different way. The book is an indispensable tool for those who want to independently study the Church Slavonic language. It will also be interesting and useful to a wide range of readers.

Our modernity, and especially everyday life, is contradictory and complex. Overcoming difficulties and contradictions, we strive for a full-blooded spiritual and secular life, for renewal and at the same time for the return of many lost and almost forgotten values, without which our past would not exist and the desired future is unlikely to come true. We again appreciate what has been tested by generations and what, despite all attempts to “destroy to the ground,” has been handed down to us as a heritage for centuries. Such values ​​include the ancient bookish Church Slavonic language.

Its life-giving primary source is the Old Church Slavonic language, the language of the holy Slavic primary teachers Cyril and Methodius, called equal to the apostles for their feat of creating and disseminating Slavic literacy and worship, and was one of the oldest book languages ​​in Europe. In addition to Greek and Latin, whose roots go back to ancient pre-Christian times, one can name only three European languages ​​that are not inferior in seniority to Old Church Slavonic: these are Gothic (IV century), Anglo-Saxon (VII century) and Old High German (VIII century). The Old Slavonic language, which arose in the 9th century, lives up to its name, for it, like its first alphabet - Glagolitic, was created by the holy Solun brothers for all Slavs and existed first among the Western Slavs and the western part of the Southern Slavs - Moravans , Czechs, Slovaks, partly Poles, Pannonian and Alpine Slavs, and then the Southern Slavs within the Dalmatian, Croatian, Macedonian, Bulgarian and Serbian Slavs and, finally, the Eastern Slavs. In their midst, more than a thousand years ago, as a result of the Baptism of Rus', it took root, blossomed “like a holy land” and gave amazing examples of spiritualized and chaste writing, to which many generations of our grandfathers and fathers turned.

Without Church Slavonic, which existed in Rus', it is difficult to imagine the development of the Russian literary language in all eras of its history. The church language, like Latin in Western Romance countries, has always been a support, a guarantee of purity and a source of enrichment for the Russian standardized language. Even now, sometimes subconsciously, we carry within us particles of the sacred common Slavic language and use it. Using the proverb “Through the mouth of a child the truth speaks,” we do not think about the fact that “purely” in Russian we should say “Through the mouth of a child the truth speaks,” but we feel only a certain archaism, the bookishness of this wise saying. Our ancestors in the 18th century. or at the beginning of the 19th century, using the French idiom trainer une miserable existence, they did not say “to drag out a wretched life,” as it would seem to be expected, but turned to the Church Slavonic tradition and... began, in some cases, to eke out a miserable existence. Even Mikhailo Lomonosov, in his “Preface on the Use of Church Books in the Russian Language” in 1757, wrote that “by diligently and carefully using the native Slavic language, which is native to us, together with Russian, we will ward off wild and strange words of absurdity that come to us from foreign languages, borrowing from ourselves.” beauty from Greek, and then also through Latin,” and explained that “these indecencies now, through neglect of reading church books, creep into us insensitively, distort the own beauty of our language, subject it to constant change and bend it to decline. All this will be stopped in the manner shown, and the Russian language in full strength, beauty and richness will not be subject to change and decline, as long as the Russian Church is adorned with the praise of God in the Slavic language.” .

Thus, M. V. Lomonosov saw the favorable future of the Russian literary language in relying on the “Slavic language,” which was confirmed at the beginning of the 19th century. the brilliant poetic style of Pushkin, and almost a century later, in the tragic days of the Second Russian Revolution, another servant of the Russian Muse, poet Vyacheslav Ivanov, the author of a number of works in a language close to Church Slavonic, wrote in the article “Our Language”: “The language that has acquired such a blessed destiny at birth, was blessed a second time in his infancy with a mysterious baptism in the life-giving streams of the Church Slavonic language. They partially transformed his flesh and spiritually transformed his soul, his “inner form.” And now he is no longer just a gift of God to us, but as if a gift of God, especially and doubly, - fulfilled and multiplied. Church Slavonic speech became under the fingers of the divinely inspired sculptors of the Slavic soul, Sts. Cyril and Methodius, a living cast of the “divine Hellenic speech”, the image and likeness of which the ever-memorable Enlighteners introduced into their statues.” . For many writers and poets, and simply admirers of the beauty of the Russian language, Church Slavonic was not only a source of inspiration and a model of harmonious completeness, stylistic rigor, but also a guardian, as Lomonosov believed, of the purity and correctness of the path of development of the Russian (“Russian- go") language. Has Church Slavonic lost this role in our time? I believe that I have not lost that it is precisely this functional side of the ancient language, a language that is not divorced from modernity, that should be recognized and perceived in our time. I know that in France, lovers and guardians of the purity of French speech treat Latin in the same way, studying and popularizing this medieval international European language and even trying to make it oral, colloquial in certain situations and conditions. They created a society of “living Latin” (le latin vivant) not in any way to the detriment, but to the benefit of their native French language.

The Church Slavonic language that we hear in churches and find in church books is now commonly called New Church Slavonic in science; new church texts are written in it: akathists, services to newly glorified saints. This term was introduced by the famous Czech paleoslavist Vyacheslav Frantsevich Maresh (he calls himself that in Russian), who devoted several works to the New Church Slavonic language. In a report at a conference dedicated to the 1000th anniversary of the Baptism of Rus' (Leningrad, January 31 - February 5, 1988), he said that “in our time there are three types of the New Church Slavonic language: 1) the Russian type, which is used as a liturgical language in the worship of the Byzantine rite (pronunciation adapts to the linguistic environment); 2) the Croatian-glagolic type, which is used in Roman rite worship among the Croats (from 1921 to 1972 also among the Czechs); 3) Czech type, used in the Roman rite among the Czechs since 1972 (formulated scientifically in 1972).” Recently, service books of the Roman rite were published in the New Church Slavonic language of the Croatian-Glagolic version and the Czech version. Like all liturgical books, they were published anonymously, but it is known that the Croatian version was prepared by I. L. Tandarich, and the Czech version by V. Tkadlick. Thus, the Church Slavonic language can be heard not only in Orthodox churches, but also in Catholic churches, although in the latter it is heard extremely rarely, in exceptional cases and in exceptional places.

In today's Russia, Church Slavonic is felt and perceived by many as a “dead” language, that is, preserved only in church books and services; in all other cases, even when reading the Holy Scriptures at home, the native Russian language is in use. This was not the case in pre-revolutionary times. Numerous sources testify to this, as well as my own memories of my childhood, adolescence and youth. This time passed in the conditions of refugee life in Serbia, in Belgrade, where I studied at an “old-fashioned” Russian school, and then at a Russian men’s gymnasium. In my senior year, my law teacher and spiritual father was Archpriest Georgy Florovsky, and in total the Law of God was taught for at least ten years (complete secondary education lasted 12 years: four years in elementary school and eight in the gymnasium). The prayers, the Creed and the Gospel (New Testament) were exclusively in Church Slavonic, and only the Catechism, as I remember, the Catechism of Metropolitan Philaret, which we selectively crammed word for word, was in Russian, and then very archaic (as I remember now passage explaining why the Savior's death on the cross frees us from sin, damnation and death: "In order that we may more easily believe this mystery, the word of God instructs us about it, as much as we can bear, by comparing Jesus Christ with Adam. Adam is naturally the head of all mankind , which is one with him, by natural origin from him” - etc.) . At Sunday mass, which many of us knew almost by heart, we stood in formation in the gymnasium church, sometimes, before major holidays, we defended vespers, part of the class (the lucky ones!) sang in the church choir, but we also went to the city Russian Trinity Church and to the cemetery to Iverskaya. The Church Slavonic language was constantly heard, Church Slavonic texts (the commandments of Moses and the Beatitudes, Prayers, troparia, small parables from the Gospel), as well as Latin texts or Turgenev’s prose poems, were memorized, individual high school students served in the church, read the hours, and performed the duties of a psalm-reader. The Church Slavonic language was heard more often than it was perceived visually.

To understand how deeply the Church Slavonic language was perceived by Russian people or people of Russian culture in times that now seem almost patriarchal, it is enough to read the short and unusually vivid story “Dirge” by the Parisian Russian writer Gaito Gazdanov, who became an emigrant after the civil war in our country . The story describes how, during the German occupation of Paris in 1942, a Russian refugee died of consumption, how his few, largely casual acquaintances came to him, who called a Russian priest to perform a funeral service for the deceased right in the house and then take him to the cemetery: “Father, an old man with a voice hoarse from a cold, arrived a quarter of an hour later. He was wearing a worn cassock and looked sad and tired. He entered and crossed himself<...>- From what places is the dead man? - asked the priest. Volodya answered - such and such a district in the Oryol province. “A neighbor, that means,” said the priest. - I’m from the same place, and it won’t be thirty miles. The trouble is, I didn’t know that I would have to bury my fellow countryman. What was your name? - Grigory. - The priest was silent for a while<...>“If times were different, I would have served a real memorial service for him, like they do in our monasteries.” But my voice is hoarse, it’s difficult for me alone, so maybe one of you will still help me, pull me up? will you support me? - I looked at Volodya. The expression on his face was<...>tragic and solemn. “Serve, father, as in a monastery,” he said, “and we will support everything, we will not go astray.” - He turned to his comrades, raised both hands up in an imperative and familiar, as it seemed to me, gesture - the priest looked at him in surprise - and the funeral service began. Nowhere and never, neither before nor after that, have I heard such a choir. After some time, the entire staircase of the house where Grigory Timofeevich lived was full of people who had come to listen to the singing.<...>“Truly all is vanity, but life is shadow and sleep, for every earth-born rushes about in vain, as the Scripture says: when we have received peace, then we will dwell in the tomb, and kings and beggars will go together.”<...>“We will all disappear, we will all die, kings and princes, judges and rapists, the rich and the poor and all human nature.”<...>When the funeral service was over, I asked Volodya: “Where did you get all this from?” How miraculously did it all happen, how did you put together such a choir? “Yes, just like that,” he said. - Some once sang in opera, some in operetta, some just in a tavern. And everyone in the choir sang, of course. And we know church services from childhood - until our last breath. “Then the coffin with the body of Grigory Timofeevich was closed.”<...> .

In order to proceed to studying the Church Slavonic language using this textbook, click on the image of its cover.

The name of the Church Slavonic language or the Old Church Slavonic language is usually understood as the language that in the 9th century. a translation of the Holy Scriptures and liturgical books was made by the first teachers of the Slavs, St. Cyril and Methodius. The term Church Slavonic language itself is inaccurate, because it can equally refer to both the later types of this language used in Orthodox worship among various Slavs and Romanians, and to the language of such ancient monuments as the Zograf Gospel, etc. The definition of “ancient” “Church Slavonic language” language also adds little accuracy, for it can refer either to the language of the Ostromir Gospel, or to the language of the Zograf Gospel or the Book of Savina. The term "Old Church Slavonic" is even less precise and can mean any old Slavic language: Russian, Polish, Czech, etc. Therefore, many scholars prefer the term "Old Bulgarian" language.

The Church Slavonic language, as a literary and liturgical language, received in the 9th century. widespread use among all Slavic peoples baptized by their first teachers or their disciples: Bulgarians, Serbs, Croats, Czechs, Moravans, Russians, perhaps even Poles and Slovinians. It has been preserved in a number of monuments of Church Slavonic writing, which hardly go back further than the 11th century. and in most cases being in more or less close connection with the above-mentioned translation, which has not reached us.

Church Slavonic has never been a spoken language. As a book language, it was opposed to living national languages. As a literary language, it was a standardized language, and the norm was determined not only by the place where the text was rewritten, but also by the nature and purpose of the text itself. Elements of living spoken language (Russian, Serbian, Bulgarian) could penetrate Church Slavonic texts in varying quantities. The norm of each specific text was determined by the relationship between the elements of book and living spoken language. The more important the text was in the eyes of the medieval Christian scribe, the more archaic and strict the language norm. Elements of spoken language almost did not penetrate into liturgical texts. The scribes followed tradition and were guided by the most ancient texts. In parallel with the texts, there was also business writing and private correspondence. The language of business and private documents combines elements of a living national language (Russian, Serbian, Bulgarian, etc.) and individual Church Slavonic forms.

The active interaction of book cultures and the migration of manuscripts led to the fact that the same text was rewritten and read in different editions. By the 14th century I realized that the texts contain errors. The existence of different editions did not make it possible to resolve the question of which text is older, and therefore better. At the same time, the traditions of other peoples seemed more perfect. If the South Slavic scribes were guided by Russian manuscripts, then the Russian scribes, on the contrary, believed that the South Slavic tradition was more authoritative, since it was the South Slavs who preserved the features of the ancient language. They valued Bulgarian and Serbian manuscripts and imitated their spelling.

Along with spelling norms, the first grammars also came from the southern Slavs. The first grammar of the Church Slavonic language, in the modern sense of the word, is the grammar of Laurentius Zizanius (1596). In 1619, the Church Slavonic grammar of Meletius Smotritsky appeared, which determined the later language norm. In their work, scribes sought to correct the language and text of the books they copied. At the same time, the idea of ​​what correct text is has changed over time. Therefore, in different eras, books were corrected either from manuscripts that the editors considered ancient, or from books brought from other Slavic regions, or from Greek originals. As a result of the constant correction of liturgical books, the Church Slavonic language acquired its modern appearance. Basically, this process ended at the end of the 17th century, when, on the initiative of Patriarch Nikon, the liturgical books were corrected. Since Russia supplied other Slavic countries with liturgical books, the post-Nikon form of the Church Slavonic language became the common norm for all Orthodox Slavs.

In Russia, Church Slavonic was the language of the church and culture until the 18th century. After the emergence of a new type of Russian literary language, Church Slavonic remains only the language of Orthodox worship. The corpus of Church Slavonic texts is constantly being updated: new church services, akathists and prayers are being compiled.

Church Slavonic language and Russian language

The Church Slavonic language played a big role in the development of the Russian literary language. The official adoption of Christianity by Kievan Rus (988) entailed the recognition of the Cyrillic alphabet as the only alphabet approved by secular and ecclesiastical authorities. Therefore, Russian people learned to read and write from books written in Church Slavonic. In the same language, with the addition of some ancient Russian elements, they began to write church-literary works. Subsequently, Church Slavonic elements penetrated into fiction, journalism, and even government acts.

Church Slavonic language until the 17th century. used by Russians as one of the varieties of the Russian literary language. Since the 18th century, when the Russian literary language mainly began to be built on the basis of living speech, Old Slavonic elements began to be used as a stylistic means in poetry and journalism.

The modern Russian literary language contains a significant number of different elements of the Church Slavonic language, which have undergone to one degree or another certain changes in the history of the development of the Russian language. So many words from the Church Slavonic language have entered the Russian language and they are used so often that some of them, having lost their bookish connotation, penetrated into the spoken language, and words parallel to them of original Russian origin fell out of use.

All this shows how organically Church Slavonic elements have grown into the Russian language. This is why it is impossible to thoroughly study the modern Russian language without knowing the Church Slavonic language, and this is why many phenomena of modern grammar become understandable only in the light of studying the history of the language. Getting to know the Church Slavonic language makes it possible to see how linguistic facts reflect the development of thinking, the movement from the concrete to the abstract, i.e. to reflect the connections and patterns of the surrounding world. The Church Slavonic language helps to better and more fully understand the modern Russian language.

ABC of the Church Slavonic language

Church Slavonic language: how were the saints equal to the apostles able to convey to the Slavs meanings for which there were no words?

How did it happen that there cannot be a proper Russian literary language? Why is it more difficult to translate a divine service into Russian than into any European language? The answers are in Olga Sedakova’s lecture, given at the St. Philaret Institute on December 2, 2004.

The topic of the short lecture that I want to bring to your attention on this solemn day is “Church Slavonic language in Russian culture.” I think this is a very relevant topic for those gathered here, especially in connection with the debate about modern liturgical language that has been going on in recent years. As you well know, its very existence as a liturgical language began with heated controversy.

The real history of the approval of the Cyril and Methodius texts in Rome (the unprecedented - and until the Reformation remained the only precedent - introduction of a new vernacular language into liturgical use!) has been studied by Italian Slavists (Riccardo Picchio, Bruno Meriggi); As far as I know, their research has not yet been translated into Russian.

So, the Church Slavonic language as a new language of worship arose in a storm of controversy - and more than once new and new disputes arose around it, including those questioning the beneficialness of this initial initiative (cf. the opinion of G. Fedotov). But today I would like to talk about the Church Slavonic language as detached as possible from polemics, both past and new.

The Church Slavonic language belongs not only to church history itself, but to the entire history of Russian culture. Many features of our culture and, as it is called, national mentality can be associated with the thousand-year-old strong presence of this second, “almost native”, “almost understandable” language, “sacred language”, the use of which is limited exclusively to worship.

Any, even the shortest quotation in Church Slavonic (I will talk about this later) immediately brings with it the whole atmosphere of temple worship; these words and forms seem to have acquired a special materiality, becoming like temple utensils, objects removed from everyday use (such as the setting of an icon, the free use of which by a modern artist looks like a scandalous provocation, which we have recently witnessed).

However, the attitude towards Church Slavonic quotations in everyday use is softer: such obviously “inappropriate” quotations are experienced as a special game that does not at all parody the sacred text, as a special comic that does not imply the slightest blasphemy (cf. “Cathedral” by N. Leskov); however, those who play this game know its limits very well.

In comparison with Church Slavonic, in contrast to it, it was perceived as a profane language, not just neutral, but “filthy” (some traces of this derogatory meaning of “Russian” were preserved in the dialects: the Vladimir “Russianize” means to descend, to stop taking care of oneself), unacceptable to express spiritual content.

Naturally, this difference in status softened after the creation of the literary Russian language - but did not disappear completely (cf. indignation at the presentation of theological themes in secular language, in the forms of secular poetry: St. Ignatius Brianchaninov on Derzhavin’s ode “God”).

Generally speaking, the Church Slavonic language belongs not only to Russian culture, but to the entire cultural community, which is usually called Slavia Orthodoxa (Orthodox, or Cyrillic Slavs), that is, the Eastern and Southern Slavs (after it left its West Slavic Moravian cradle).

In each of these traditions, Church Slavonic was a second language (that is, one that is mastered not organically, like a native language, but through special study), a written, sacred language (which we have already talked about), a kind of Slavic Latin. It, like Latin, was intended to be a supranational language, which is often forgotten (translating from Church Slavonic as someone else’s “Russian” into one’s own, say, Ukrainian - or considering it, as in Bulgaria, “Old Bulgarian”).

And we should immediately note its difference from Latin. Latin was the language of all civilization. Latin was used in business writing, in secular literature, in the everyday life of educated people, oral and written - in a word, in all those areas where the literary language always operates.

As for Church Slavonic, its use from the very beginning was strictly limited: liturgical. They never spoke Church Slavonic! It could not be taught the way Latin was taught: by asking the student to compose simple phrases, to translate some phrases from his native language, such as “a boy loves his home.”

Such new phrases simply should not have existed! They would belong to a genre that Church Slavonic excluded. The only exercises here could be tasks - to compose a new troparion, kontakion, akathist, etc. according to given samples. But it is very unlikely that this will happen.

This second language, “Slavic Latin” (with all the already made and many other clarifications) was in each of the Slavic countries very closely related to the first dialect, vernacula, “simple language”. So close that he created in a Bulgarian, a Russian, a Serb the impression of intelligibility, which did not require special training. Or almost intelligible: but the vagueness of the meaning of Church Slavonic texts was explained to himself as “sacred darkness” necessary for a liturgical text.

This impression, however, was and remains false, because at its core Church Slavonic is a different language. Let us emphasize: different not only in relation to modern Russian - but also, no less, to ancient Russian dialects. However, his “otherness” was unique: not so much grammatical or vocabulary, but semantic, semantic.

We know that the Church Slavonic “zhivot” is not the same as the modern Russian “zhivot”: it is “life”. But even in ancient Russian dialects, “belly” did not mean “life,” but “property, belongings.” Church Slavonic was, as the Russian language historian Alexander Isachenko said well, essentially a Greek language... yes, a strange metempsychosis of the Greek language into the flesh of Slavic morphemes.

Indeed, the roots, morphemes, and grammar were Slavic, but the meanings of the words were largely Greek (remember that initially all liturgical texts were translations from Greek). Based on his linguistic competence, a person simply could not understand these meanings and their combinations.

Having studied another, most likely Greek, language, the Slav would undoubtedly not have had these semantic illusions (and to this day, some dark places in Slavic texts can be clarified in the only way: by turning to the Greek original). In this regard, one can understand the disputes that arose during the approval of Slavic worship.

Isn’t it dangerous to introduce this new, in the plan of the Slavic Teachers, a more “simple” language (one of the arguments for translation into Slavic was the “simplicity” - unlearnedness - of the Slavs: “we, the Slavs, are simple children,” as the Moravian prince wrote, inviting St. . Cyril and Methodius)?

One of the arguments of opponents of the innovation was precisely that it would be less understandable than Greek, or pseudo-intelligible. Opponents of Slavic worship referred to the words of St. Paul on speaking in tongues: “You who speak in a (new) tongue, pray for the gift of interpretation.” The new language will be incomprehensible precisely because it is too close - and means something else.

I have already said that the Church Slavonic language is surrounded by many different discussions and disputes. One of them is the unresolved dispute between Bulgaria and Macedonia about which dialect is the basis of the Church Slavonic language: Bulgarian or Macedonian. It seems to me that this is essentially not very significant.

It is quite obvious that some South Slavic dialect known to the Solunsky Brothers was taken as the basis. In the language of the earliest codes, both Bulgarian and Macedonian features are noted, and, moreover, interspersed with Moravianisms and untranslated Greek words (like the rooster, which for some reason still remains an “alector” in the Gospel narrative)…

But this is not the essence of the matter, because in fact this material, the material of the pre-written tribal language, was only material, speech flesh, into which the translators, Equal-to-the-Apostles Cyril and Methodius, breathed a completely different, new, Greek spirit. They are usually called the creators of Slavic writing: in fact, it is quite fair to call them the creators of the liturgical Slavic language, this special language, which, as far as I can imagine, is not similar.

And therefore, when the Cyril and Methodius language is called, for example, Old Bulgarian, Old Russian, Old Macedonian, such a national attribution is unfair; in any case, in any of these definitions it is necessary to insert one more word: ancient church-Bulgarian, ancient church-Russian, because this is a language created in the Church and for the Church. As we said, exclusively for church use.

Old Russian scribes were proud of its unique functional purity. In Chernorizets Khrabra’s treatise “On Writing,” the superiority of Slavic is argued by the fact that there is no other such pure language. Letters, government regulations, and secular poetry were not written on it; they did not conduct idle everyday conversations on it - they only prayed to God on it. And the Church Slavonic language has retained this property to this day.

The modern liturgical language is the fruit of the long evolution of the Old Church Slavonic language. This language is usually called synodal in philology. It acquired its final form and relative normalization around the eighteenth century.

We can talk about almost everything in its history only approximately, because until now this history has been practically not studied by philologists, who treated these changes with a certain disdain - as “damage” to the original, pure language. This is characteristic of the nineteenth century; the most ancient, original thing is considered real and valuable in folk culture.

The evolution of the language was seen as its deterioration: with the passage of time, Church Slavonic approaches Russian, becomes Russified and thereby loses its linguistic identity. Therefore, if anything was taught to philologists and historians, it was only the language of the most ancient codes, close to the time of Cyril and Methodius. However, the development of this language was by no means a degradation, it - in connection with the translations of new texts and the need to expand the theological vocabulary - was enriched, it developed, but all this remained completely unstudied.

To appreciate the scope of the changes, it is enough to put two texts of one episode side by side: in the version of the Zograph Codex - and the modern liturgical Gospel. The path from this beginning to the present state of affairs has not been described by linguistics.

One can note the paradoxical nature of the evolution of Old Church Slavonic: this development, in principle, should not have happened! The original democratic, educational pathos of St. Cyril and Methodius, who sought to bring the Holy Scriptures and worship closer to the cultural capabilities of the new Christian peoples, was replaced by another, conservative one, which remained leading for many centuries: it is required by all means to preserve everything in the form in which it was handed down to us, any novelty is suspicious as a retreat from the canon (cf. the chain built by R. Picchio for the Russian Middle Ages: Orthodoxy - legal thinking - spelling; it is enough to recall the fate of St. Maximus the Greek, who - as a dogmatic error - was charged with the incorrect use of the forms of the past tense, aorist and perfect).

Nevertheless, the Russification of Slavic occurred and continues to this day, and not in the form of organized “reforms” and reforms (as is known, every attempt at such a relief was accompanied by sad consequences, splits and human casualties), but gradually, in the form of simplifying texts for singers.

But let’s return to the relationship between Church Slavonic and Russian. These relations (just like Church Slavonic and spoken Bulgarian or Serbian, but I have not studied this and therefore cannot speak with confidence) are described by Boris Andreevich Uspensky as diglossia. Diglossia, not bilingualism (that is, the parallel existence of two languages).

A situation of diglossia is a situation in which there are two languages, but they are perceived by native speakers as one. In their perception, it is the same language in two forms (“higher” and “lower,” standardized and free), and the use of these two forms is mutually exclusive. Where one form of language is used, another is impossible, and vice versa.

It is impossible, categorically impossible, to use “filthy” Russian in church services (as it was in the Middle Ages), and in the same way you cannot use sacred Church Slavonic in everyday life. And this second would be perceived as blasphemy. This situation, diglossia, is known not only in the Slavic and not only in the Christian world (cf. the resistance of some religious movements of Judaism to the everyday use of Hebrew). Typically, diglossia operates where hierarchical relationships are established between two languages: one language is sacred, the other is profane.

As for the intelligibility of Church Slavonic, apparently, it has never been completely understandable without special preparation (and often even after it: after all, grammars and dictionaries of this language appear very late, and learning exclusively from texts does not guarantee understanding of all contexts). We have quite a lot of evidence that it was not understood in the nineteenth century.

For example, the famous prayer scene in “War and Peace”, where Natasha Rostova understands “let us pray to the Lord in peace” as “let us pray to the Lord with all our peace”, “for peace from above” - as “peace among the angels”...

It is not surprising that the nobles and peasants did not understand Church Slavonic phrases, but often the clergy did not understand them either. Evidence of this is the sermons, including the sermons of famous figures of the Russian Church, in which the interpretation of individual verses is based on a simple misunderstanding.

For example, a sermon on the verse of the Psalm: “take your gates, O princes”: there follows a discussion about why exactly “princes” should “take the gates”, based on the Russian meanings of these words, while “take” means “raise” in Slavic and “princes” are a detail of the gate design. You can collect examples of such profound misunderstandings, but they are not very interesting.

Moreover, one should not be surprised that the language of worship is incomprehensible to our contemporaries, who were not taught even the way our grandmothers were taught (read texts, memorize them) and who, as a rule, did not study classical languages. After all, familiarity with classical languages ​​greatly helps to understand these texts: poetic inversions of hymnography, permutations of words, grammatical constructions - everything that is completely unusual for living Slavic dialects and that was introduced from Greek.

But the most difficult thing for an unprepared perception is still not syntax, but semantics, the meaning of words. Let's imagine a translation problem equal to app. Cyril and Methodius. They needed to convey meanings for which there were no words yet!

Slavic dialects did not develop all the meanings that were necessary for the transmission of liturgical texts and texts of Scripture. Centuries of Greek thought and Jewish literature are embedded in these meanings. The pre-literate Slavic word had nothing similar.

We can imagine the translation work of Cyril and Methodius in this way: they took a Greek word that coincided with some Slavic word in its “lower”, material meaning, and, as it were, linked these two words “for growth.” Thus, the Slavic “spirit” and the Greek “pneuma” are connected in their “lower” meaning – “breath”. And further, in the Slavic word, the entire semantic vertical, the content of the “spirit”, which was developed by Greek civilization, Greek theology, seems to grow.

It should be noted that Russian dialects never developed this meaning. “Spirit” in dialects means only “breath” or “vital force” (“he has no spirit” - that means “he will die soon”, there is no vital force). Therefore, a researcher of folk beliefs will be faced with the fact that the “soul” there (contrary to the church’s idea of ​​body, soul and spirit) is higher than the “spirit”: “spirit” is inherent in all living things, with the “soul” the matter is more complicated: “robbers live by one spirit, therefore that their soul is already in hell during life,” this is how the bearer of traditional beliefs based on the “first” oral language argues.

The language that resulted from such semantic grafting can be called artificial in a certain sense, but in a completely different way than artificially created languages ​​like Esperanto: it was grown on a completely living and real verbal basis - but went away from this root in the direction of “heaven” meaning, that is, the non-objective, conceptual, symbolic, spiritual meaning of words.

Obviously, he has gone further into these heavens than the Greek proper - and almost does not touch the ground. It is perceived not only as entirely allegorical, but as relating to another reality, like an icon, which should not be compared with objective reality, natural perspective, etc.

I will allow myself to express this assumption: this “heavenly” quality is very appropriate in liturgical hymnography with its contemplative, “smart” (in the Slavic sense, that is, immaterial) content, with its form, which is an analogue of the iconographic form (“twisting of words” , ploke) - and often this same quality does not allow one to feel the directness and simplicity of the word of Holy Scripture.

Another property of the Church Slavonic language: it does not obey purely linguistic laws. Some features of its spelling and grammar are justified doctrinally, and not linguistically: for example, different spellings of the word “angel” in the meaning of “angel of God” or “spirit of evil”. Or the word “word”, which in the “simple” meaning of “word” refers to the neuter gender, but in the meaning of “God the Word” is declined in the masculine gender, and so on. As we have already said, grammatical forms themselves are interpreted doctrinally.

The problem of translation into Russian is rooted in this thousand-year-old situation of diglossia. It would seem, why is this so difficult or unacceptable if these texts have already been translated into French, Finnish, English and the translations actually operate in the liturgical practice of the Orthodox Churches? Why is it so difficult with a Russian?

Precisely because these two languages ​​were perceived as one. And the Russians did not develop those means, those capabilities that Church Slavonic had at their disposal. He entrusted to the Slavic language the entire area of ​​“lofty” words, the entire area of ​​lofty, abstract and spiritual concepts. And then, when creating the literary Russian language, the Church Slavonic dictionary was simply borrowed for its “high style”.

Since the literary Russian language was formed, the Church Slavonic dictionary has been introduced there as the highest style of this language. We feel the difference between Church Slavonic and Russian words as stylistic and genre. Replacing Slavicisms with Russianisms gives the effect of a strong stylistic decline.

Here is an example given by my teacher, Nikita Ilyich Tolstoy: he translated the phrase “through the mouth of a child the truth speaks”, entirely composed of Slavicisms, into Russian: it turned out: “through the mouth of a child the truth speaks.” It’s as if nothing terrible is happening here yet, but we feel awkward, as if Pushkin’s poems “I loved you...” were translated into youth slang (“I’m kind of crazy about you”).

This is a very difficult problem to overcome: the Church Slavonic language is forever associated for us with a high style, with solemn eloquence; Russian - no, because he gave this area to him. In addition, all Church Slavonic words, despite their real meaning, are always perceived as abstract.

A “gate” is a simple gate, an everyday object: there is no “gate” in everyday life, a “gate” is located in another, intelligible or symbolic reality (although, in spite of everything, a football “goalkeeper” appeared from somewhere). “Eyes” are physical eyes, “eyes” are most likely immaterial eyes (“eyes of the mind”) or unusually beautiful spiritualized eyes.

And if you break this distribution and say “the royal gates” or “he looked with immaterial eyes” - this will be a very bold poetic image.

For translators into Russian, this legacy of diglossia is painful. When we deal with serious, sublime texts, with European poetry - Dante or Rilke - where an angel may appear, we involuntarily and automatically Slavicize. But in the original there is no this, there is no this linguistic two-tier, there is the same word, say, “Augen”, it is both “eyes” and “eyes”.

We have to choose between “eyes” and “eyes”, between “mouths” and “mouth”, and so on. We cannot say “mouth” about the angel’s mouth and “eyes” about his eyes. We are accustomed to speaking about the sublime in Russian using Slavicisms. Of course, there have been attempts to “secularize” the literary and poetic language, and one of them is the gospel “Poems from the Novel” by Pasternak, where everything that happens is clearly and deliberately conveyed in Russian words and prosaic syntax:

And so He plunged into his thoughts...

But usually poets do not dare to do this. This is somewhat similar to painting an iconic image in an impressionistic manner. In any case, this is an exit from the temple into the open sky of language.

The reason for the semantic differences between the Russian and Church Slavonic words most often lies in the fact that the Slavic is based on the meaning of the Greek word that the first translators associated with the Slavic morpheme, and which cannot be known to speakers of the Slavic language if they have not received the appropriate education.

Sometimes, in this way, simple translation misunderstandings entered the Slavic language and remained forever. So, for example, the word “food” in the meaning of “pleasure” (“food paradise”, “incorruptible food”) and “food” in the meaning of “sweet” (“food paradise”) arose from the mixture of two Greek words: “trophe” and “truphe” – “food” and “pleasure”. Examples of this kind can be multiplied, but not all shifts are explained from the Greek substrate. Why, for example, does the Greek eleison, “have mercy,” often correspond to “cleanse” in Slavic?

But, whatever the reasons for the discrepancies, such “double” words, included in both Russian and Church Slavonic, most often complicate the understanding of Church Slavonic texts. Here the person is sure that he understands everything: after all, he knows this word - say, “destructive”! He will look up the word “gobzuet” in the dictionary - but why find out the meaning of “destruction” there? And this word means epidemic, a contagious disease.

While teaching, I conducted small experiments: I asked people who know these texts by heart, and even read them in churches: “What does this mean?” Not in a symbolic sense, not in some distant sense, but in the simplest sense: what is being said here?

The first reaction was usually surprise: what is there to understand? all clear. But when I still insisted that it be conveyed in other words, it often turned out that this or that phrase was understood exactly the other way around! I repeat, I am only talking about the literal meaning.

One of my favorite examples is the word “impermanent” (“astatos” in Greek): “for the greatness of Your glory is impermanent.” And so everyone calmly explained: nothing strange, of course, it’s changeable. When I said: “But the greatness of God cannot change, it is always the same,” this led to confusion.

In fact, the Slavic “impermanent” has nothing to do with “variability”; this is the Russian meaning. In Slavic this means: something against which one cannot “stand” or withstand. That is, “unbearable,” irresistible greatness. My dictionary was compiled from words of this kind - the first of its kind, since there have not yet been such selective dictionaries of the Church Slavonic language. This is the first attempt, and I chose to call what I did not a “dictionary”, but “materials for the dictionary.”

When I started collecting this dictionary, I assumed that it would include several dozen words, like the well-known “belly” or “shame” that everyone here knows. But it turned out that there were more than two thousand. And this is far from the end of collecting material - it is rather the beginning.

The range of discrepancies between these Church Slavonic meanings and Russian ones can be different: sharp, even the opposite, as in “unconstant” - or very soft and subtle, which can be overlooked. Such as, for example, in the word “quiet”. "With a quiet and merciful eye." The Slavic “quiet”, unlike the Russian, does not mean acoustic weakness (as the Russian “quiet” means not loud) and not passivity (the Russian “quiet” as opposed to lively, aggressive).

The Slavic “quiet” is contrasted with “formidable”, “threatening”, “stormy”. Like silence on the sea, calm, absence of storm. “Quiet” is one in which there is no threat. And, in addition, the word “quiet” can convey the Greek “joyful,” and not only in the prayer “Quiet Light.” “God loves a quiet giver”: God loves the one who gives alms with joy.

And one more word, also very important, in which the shift compared to Russian does not seem to be too significant - the word “warm”. Slavic “warm” is not “moderately hot”, like Russian: it is just “very hot”, “burning” - and hence: “zealous”. “Warm prayer book” is a fervent, zealous prayer book. At the same time, the habit of understanding “quiet”, “warm” in the Russian sense in many ways created the image of Orthodoxy.

What is Orthodoxy as a style, as an image? Images of “silence” and “warmth” will immediately come to mind - in these same, as if misunderstood, meanings. And there are a lot of such words, and what to do with them?

This is, I would say, a general historical, general cultural question. At some point, the historian finds out that the original meaning of this or that has been changed, and in such a changed, distorted form it continues for many centuries. What to do here? Insist on returning to the right beginning?

But this distortion itself can be fruitful and can bring interesting results. After all, it is already part of the tradition. And I would look very carefully at such things, because they constitute a tradition, a large tradition of perception of Eastern Orthodox Christianity, even if it arose from a simple linguistic misunderstanding.

This kind of misunderstanding, or understanding of Slavic words from a Russian perspective, is shared by those who translate Orthodox worship into other languages. I looked at English, German, Italian translations - and saw that in predictable places everything was understood exactly like that. For example, “Tenderness” (iconographic type) will be translated everywhere as “tenderness”, “touchedness” (Tendresse, Tenerezza, etc.)

Whereas “tenderness” (“katanyksis”) is “contrition” or “pardon”, and not at all “tenderness”. And at the same time, the habit of attaching to the Slavic the Russian “tenderness”, involuntary movedness, and the Russian “touching”, touching (Slavic: leading to contrition) is a habit dear to us. Clarification of meanings, on the one hand, is necessary for understanding, and, on the other hand, special delicacy is needed here so as not to cancel what is so dear that has already entered into secular culture. What is forever remembered as a native image.

The Church Slavonic language, after all, is - I think has been for many centuries - not so much a language as a text. It does not work as a language, as a structure that generates real new statements. He is the statement.

The entire volume of Church Slavonic texts, all texts in the Church Slavonic language, is a kind of one text, one huge and beautiful statement. The smallest quotation from it is enough to evoke the whole image of church worship, its incense, fabrics, lights in the semi-darkness, melodic turns, its withdrawal from linear time... everything that is connected with the flesh of worship.

For this, not only a quotation is enough - the minimum sign of this language, some grammatical form, including an irregular form. Like Khlebnikov:

The night roses turn blue.

“Dorozi” - there is no such form of “road” and, nevertheless, these irregular “dorozis” (actually, one letter “z” in place of “g”) immediately introduce us to the world of the Orthodox spirit, Orthodox stylistics.

So, this language in many ways created the image of Russian Orthodoxy, “quiet” and “warm”. We can talk for a long time about how he influenced Russian culture in general. What does this habit of bilingualism, understood as monolingualism, mean and entail, this very complex psychological attitude. What does it mean and what does the centuries-old habit of accepting the sacred word mean and entail, knowing it by heart and not being hampered by its “obscurity”, “half-intelligibility”.

People are not used to demanding complete clarity from such a word: what is expected from it is strength. The sacred word is a powerful word. And the Russian everyday word obviously does not possess this power. It can acquire it in poetry - but here, as they say, “a person must burn out,” a personal genius must act.

The Church Slavonic word has this power as if on its own, without its Pushkin or Blok. Why, where? It is unlikely that we will answer this question. I heard similar impressions from Catholics who told me quite recently how some exorcist read prayers in Latin, and they worked: as soon as he said them translated into French, they stopped working.

This is how the Church Slavonic language is perceived: as a strong, authoritative language. Not the language, actually, but the text, as I said. Of course, new texts were created - compiled - on it, but this can hardly be called a composition. This is a mosaic of fragments of already existing texts, compiled in a new order according to the laws of the genre: akathist, canon...

It is impossible to compose a new work in Church Slavonic - it is new according to our concepts of the new. The power of the Church Slavonic word is close to magical - and it is preserved in any quotation - even in one where nothing strictly ecclesiastical or liturgical is assumed. As, for example, in “Poems to Blok” by Marina Tsvetaeva:

You will see the evening light.
You're going to the west of the sun,
And the snowstorm covers its tracks.
Past my windows - impassive -
You will walk in the snowy silence,
My beautiful righteous man of God,
Quiet light of my soul.

Evoked by several inlays taken from it, the prayer “Quiet Light” in these verses plays with all its properties of a sacred, beautiful, mysterious word.

I believe that some properties of Russian poetry are associated with this popular habit of an imperious and conceptually unclear sacred language. As far as I can judge, Russian poetry in the nineteenth, and even more so in the twentieth century, much more easily than other European traditions, allowed itself the fantasy of words, displacements of its dictionary meaning, strange combinations of words that do not require any final “prosaic” understanding :

And the mystery of marriage breathes
In a simple combination of words,

as young Mandelstam wrote. Perhaps this will surprise someone, but it seems to me that the most direct heir of the Church Slavonic language is Alexander Blok, who never equipped his speech with rich Slavicisms, as Vyacheslav Ivanov did, but his language itself carries the magical, non-objective power of the Church Slavonic word, which inspires without explaining:

This strand is so golden
Is it not from the former fire?
Sweet, godless, empty,
Unforgettable - forgive me!

There are no quotations here, but everyone will recognize in this triple step of epithets the rhythm and power of prayer.

Much can be said about the fate of Church Slavonic in secular culture. I will, perhaps, dwell only on one more, very significant episode: Nekrasov’s poetry and Narodnaya Volya. This is where the special imperious persuasive power of Slavic phrases played its role!

Participants in this movement recall that if they had only read articles by socialists written in “Western” “scientific” language, like Belinsky’s, it would have had no effect on them at all. But Nekrasov, who introduced the Church Slavonic language in an unusually rich, generous, unexpected way, found a fascinating word for the ideology of populism. A long, complex Slavic word:

From the jubilant, idly chattering,
Hands stained with blood
Lead me to the camp of the lost
For a great cause of love.

The liturgical language with its key words - love, sacrifice, path - proved irresistibly convincing to the youth of that time. He interpreted to them their work as a “holy sacrifice,” as a continuation of the liturgy.

I will only mention another pseudomorphosis of Church Slavonic - the official language of Stalinist propaganda, which, according to linguists, consisted of 80% Slavicisms (this is the composition of the old edition of Mikhalkov’s “Anthem of the Soviet Union”).

And finally, the last topic for today: literary Russian language. His situation was very difficult. “On top” was the sacred Church Slavonic language, coinciding with it in the zone of sublime, abstract words. On the other hand, “from below” it was washed by a sea of ​​living dialects, in relation to which it itself resembled Church Slavonic.

All Russian writers, right up to Solzhenitsyn, felt this: the Russian literary language seems to be ethereal, abstract, impersonal - in comparison with the bright, material word of the living folk dialects. Until a certain time, the Russian writer had three possibilities, three registers: a neutral literary language, high Church Slavonic and the living, playful word of dialects. The standard Soviet writer no longer had either Church Slavonic or literary language: only the word of dialects could save the situation.

Literary Russian language, about which the already mentioned Isachenko once wrote a scandalous article (in French) “Is the literary Russian language Russian in origin?” And he answered: “No, this is not the Russian language, this is the Church Slavonic language: it is just as cast in the image of Church Slavonic as Church Slavonic is in the image of Greek.”

I omit his arguments, but in fact, literary Russian differs from dialects in the same way as, mutatis mutandis, Church Slavonic differed from them. It's a different language in many ways. By the way, in the documents of the Council of 1917, published by Fr. Nikolai Balashov, I came across a wonderful note from one of the participants in the discussion about liturgical language, concerning the “incomprehensibility” of Church Slavonic.

The author (unfortunately, I don’t remember his name) notes that the language of contemporary fiction and journalism is no less incomprehensible to the people than Church Slavonic. And in fact, the literary language is completely incomprehensible to the speaker of the Russian dialect, if he has not received a certain education. These are “incomprehensible”, “foreign” words (not only barbarisms, which the literary language, unlike conservative dialects, easily absorbs into itself - but also actual Russian words with different semantics that do not arise directly from the language itself, from the dialects themselves).

Yes, the vast majority of the vocabulary of a literary language seems Russian to people who have not received a specific education; in grammar it is Russian, in meaning it is foreign. I think that everyone has encountered this when talking with a person who can ask again: what do we think about what you said? The literary language is, as it were, foreign to them, and thus it carries within itself the properties of the Church Slavonic language, its pointlessness, its superfluity.

That, in fact, is all that I could tell you today about the Church Slavonic language in Russian culture, although this is an endless topic. This is a conversation about the great treasure of our culture, having lost which we will lose contact not only with Church Slavonic texts, but also with secular Russian literature of the last three centuries. And this is a conversation about a treasure, which from the very beginning carried a certain danger: a strong, beautiful, suggestive, but not interpretable, not interpretable word.

Have you read the article Church Slavonic language: words for meanings. Read also.

Church Slavonic, as its name indicates, is a special purpose language. The name “ecclesiastical” indicates its use in church services, and the name “Slavic” indicates that it is used by the Slavic peoples, to which mainly Russians, Serbs and Bulgarians belong.

The beginning of Church Slavonic literacy dates back to the second half of the 9th century. The entire system of Church Slavonic literacy, the composition of its letters and sounds and its spelling were compiled by the holy brothers Constantine and Methodius. They were born in Thessaloniki, where their father was an assistant mayor. There is an assumption that their father was a Slav. Many Slavs lived around Thessaloniki, and therefore many residents of Thessaloniki knew the Slavic language. Constantine and Methodius also knew the Slavic language.

The main share of labor in creating the grammatical system of the Slavic language falls on Constantine. He received an excellent education at court, where he was destined for a high court position, but he preferred serving God in the monastic rank and retired to a monastery on the “Narrow” (Marmara) Sea. Soon, however, he was persuaded to return back, and he was appointed teacher of philosophy at the court school of Caesar Bardas.

Even in his young years, Constantine attracted attention as an outstanding philosopher and polemicist, and therefore in all difficult cases related to theological issues, the king or his synclite turned to him. When in 862 the Moravian prince Rostislav sent envoys to Emperor Michael with a request to send him preachers of the Christian faith who could preach in their native language, the choice fell on Constantine.

His brother Methodius was first the governor of the Strum region in Macedonia. Having served 10 years in this rank and having experienced the bustle of worldly life, he retired to a monastery on Mount Olympus. In Constantine's educational activities among the Slavs, Methodius became his indispensable collaborator.

At that time, Slavic literacy did not yet exist, although there were attempts to convey Slavic speech in Latin or Greek letters or some “features and cuts,” as the 10th-century Bulgarian writer Monk Khrabr writes about this.

The holy brothers began by compiling the alphabet, translated some books and then, with some other helpers, set off for Moravia. The preaching in a language understandable to the people was successful, but the German clergy, seeing that the Slavic population was slipping away from their influence, began to hinder this in every possible way. They slandered the holy brothers before Pope Nicholas I, whose jurisdiction was Moravia. The holy brothers were forced to go to Rome for justification. Their path lay through Pannokia, where they preached for some time at the request of Prince Kotsel.

In Rome St. the brothers no longer found Pope Nicholas I alive, and his successor Pope Adrian II, a gentler man, received them favorably and allowed them to preach in the Slavic language. In Rome, Constantine fell ill and died, having accepted the schema with the name Cyril before his death.

His death followed on February 14, 869. Saint Methodius was consecrated to the rank of bishop, and returned to his former preaching, first in Pannocia, and then in Moravia, where, with great difficulty, even enduring imprisonment, he preached the word of God in the Slavic language until his death which followed in Velegrad on April 6, 885. The holy brothers are commemorated on May 11.

The popes several times first allowed preaching in the Slavic language, then again prohibited it. This changing policy of the popes regarding the preaching of the Christian faith in the Slavic language depended on the general policy of the papal throne in relation to the western and eastern Carolingians and the Byzantine emperor.

After the death of Methodius, his disciples were expelled from Moravia, and the center of educational activity moved to the borders of Bulgaria and Serbia. Prominent disciples of the holy brothers were their followers Saints Gorazd, Clement and Naum, who developed extensive activity in Bulgaria.

The alphabet used in modern Church Slavonic is called the Cyrillic alphabet, named after its compiler, Saint Cyril (Constantine). But at the beginning of Slavic writing there was another alphabet, which is called Glagolitic. The phonetic system of both alphabets is equally well developed and almost coincides.

The Glagolitic alphabet is distinguished by a very confusing style, and, apparently, this circumstance led to the fact that it was supplanted by the Cyrillic alphabet as more convenient and easier to write. The Glagolitic alphabet remained in use only in the church language of Croatian Catholics.

Among learned linguists, there are different opinions as to which alphabet is more ancient and which of them was invented by Saint Constantine (Cyril). Most linguists are inclined to believe that Constantine invented the Glagolitic alphabet, and the Cyrillic alphabet came into use a little later.

Those who attribute a later origin to the Cyrillic alphabet believe that it appeared in eastern Bulgaria, during the reign of Tsar Simeon (893-927), who tried to imitate Byzantium in everything. Some people make the assumption that both alphabets were created by Constantine.

The Cyrillic alphabet is based on the Greek unschal script, with the addition of letters of different origins for purely Slavic sounds. The main source of the Glagolitic alphabet, as some researchers believe, was Greek minuscules. However, many Glagolitic letters have deviated so much from their original source that learned linguists have long found it difficult to determine their source. Some letters appear to be of Hebrew, Samaritan, or even Coptic origin (see Selishchev's "Old Slavonic Language").

The ancient Church Slavonic language is based on ancient Bulgarian, which was spoken by the Slavs of the Macedonian region. At that time, the linguistic national difference between the Slavs was much smaller than now, and therefore the ancient Church Slavonic language immediately acquired a common Slavic meaning. However, the ancient Church Slavonic language had its own grammatical and phonetic features, which differed from the language of the Slavs of non-Bulgarian origin. As a result, the scribes, when rewriting the sacred text, inevitably introduced into it the features of their language. Thus, manuscripts of different versions appeared: Bulgarian, Serbian, Russian, etc.

The ancient Church Slavic language was also a literary language, that is, the language of chronicles, lives of saints, various legends and teachings, and since such a language reflected the influence of the spoken language, this circumstance contributed to the fact that the ancient Church Slavic the language, mainly in its phonetics and spelling, did not remain frozen in one place, but gradually changed. In different countries, this change occurred in accordance with the language of a particular country.

If we take an early Serbian printed text (for example, the edition of Bozidar Vukovic in Venice, 16th century) and compare it with an early Russian printed text (Ivan Feodorov, 16th century), we will see a significant difference in spelling and grammatical forms, although the text itself remains without change. Due to the fact that Serbia and Bulgaria were under Turkish yoke, printing progress there was weak. Russia was given special treatment. Soon, in southern, southwestern and Muscovite Rus', printing was greatly developed, and from here printed books were delivered to Serbia and Bulgaria. Thus, the Church Slavonic text of the Russian version supplanted other national varieties.

Initially, the Cyrillic text was written in letters that were clearly written and upright: such a letter is called “charter”. The statutory letter was written with a cane, as can be seen from the depiction of the evangelists in the Ostromir Gospel, and the very style of the letters indicates this. At the end of the 14th century. a letter appeared with letters slightly inclined and more freely written: such a letter was called “half-charter”. At first it was used for everyday needs, but after the half-establishment they began to write church books, only with greater accuracy.

Soon the semi-charter completely replaced the charter letter. In the 16th century A letter appeared with sweeping handwriting, the so-called cursive, but it was not used in liturgical texts. Both semi-ustav and cursive were written with a quill pen, to which they owe their style.

Over the course of many centuries, the Church Slavonic language in Russia acquired different spelling features, gradually evolving under the influence of the Russian language.
In the Church Slavonic text, the following spelling and phonetic features can be noted that have undergone changes.

In the ancient text, the sign l or ~ was used to indicate the softness of smooth r, l7 n: mor7 wold, nnvd. Similar signs to denote softness were placed above guttural ones in foreign words: kkdr, htonya. Sometimes aspiration marks were written over the initial vowel of a word, following the Greek model. However, these superscript marks were not observed in all manuscripts; for example, in the Ostromir Gospel they are found relatively rarely.

Here are a few examples from Ostromir Evan Gelkhya: nsphinntya, syakripni (fol. 278 on the reverse); otkhaj (Gghinsl (l. 235 on the reverse); costdntnnou, adk^ntnm (l. 286).

In the semi-ustav, which appeared at the end of the 14th century, signs of aspiration and stress come into use as an orthographic affiliation of the text. The aspiration sign began to be written not only over the initial vowel of a word, but also over each vowel that does not have a consonant, for example, Writer of the late 14th century. and the beginning of the 15th century. Konstantin Konstenchesyu, to help master the spelling of writing dasia and apostrophe (daegya - aspirate, apostrophe - aspirate with stress), makes the following analogy: vowels are wives, consonants are husbands.

Wives may be bareheaded only in the presence of their husbands; Likewise, a vowel with a consonant does not have a datum or an apostrophe. If a wife goes out into the street or into society, she must have her head covered, otherwise she will dishonor her honor (Y K tb/Iou Ne DONMD SYTI IYA d<ииду моу?КД И! (ел) мь. (но) ся сдвумн. цдмн), так и гласная без согласной должна иметь на себе по-кров - дасии или апостроф. Над согласной не должно ставить этих знаков, так как покров для мужчины - срам ему (СрДМ/ийГГе СН МКО Й МчуЖА ЖийГК4 «уТК4ре). При ВСТрече ДВуХ СО-
vowels belonging to different syllables should stand (erok), like a watchman or witness, warning “staggering”. In the Ostromir Gospel, the sign "" (meaning erka) appears only between two identical consonants: dkdrnn (l. 234); krddvkzh (l. and 64 per rev.); sdrefd»u(ndonskl (fol. 276 on reverse),.

The superscript characters used in the ancient text also include titla. The titles were simple and alphabetic. The omissions under the titles had a different character than is customary in the modern Church Slavonic language, for example. ke (kgzh), gj (giy), he (hrt°5Ya) - Titles in the statutory letter were used less frequently than was later practiced in the semi-charter and in the first printed books.

As lowercase characters in the ancient text, a cross or a dot, or several dots in a decorative form (:), sometimes with the addition of a comma or a dash, were placed between phrases: - the latter type of lowercase character was used more at the end of a paragraph.

The pronunciation of yus (я, а) in the Russian language was apparently lost already in the 10th century, since Russian scribes often used them incorrectly. However, in the ancient Slavic church text, the more or less etymologically correct use of yus is observed until the 16th century.

The semivowels ya (er) and ь (er), having lost their short pronunciation, in the middle of the word in strong positions they turned into o, I, and in weak positions: I disappeared, and in some cases disappeared and k, for example: xianmya - gonmya; otts, ottsd - fatheree ottsd, from here the runaway oh, s Sonya - smd were formed; go^kya - bitter.

The inscription zh in the semi-charter was replaced by s.
s after guttural (g, k, x) kt” of the 16th century. begins to disappear and be replaced by the letter n.
Some letters had two styles (for example: оу, о, ии, о, etc.). Secondary outlines initially had either decorative or practical significance, for example. if there was not enough space, then they wrote V instead; but later in printed books they began to be given a specific orthographic purpose.
The vowel sound n in the ancient text had the shapes n and T, and the latter iY was used relatively rarely and, most often, at the end of the line due to lack of space. If there were two “and” in a row, then the second was often written through and, for example, nTsya (Ostrom, Ev.). In semi-charter I is found much more often, and the tradition of writing it before vowels is established.
n with the sign of brevity (n) came into use in the 14th century, but in them. There is only one full masculine adjective, the number n remained without the sign of brevity until Nikon’s reform, and in Old Believer texts m is preserved in this form.
AND TO THIS day (STIN BZhi).
The vowel “o” was depicted by means of o and i, and in the semi-ustav also by o. The inscription was introduced into the Slavic text in the nagtisai of Greek words. In the statutory letter, ii is found relatively rarely and is often absent even in Greek words (for example, nodnkh Ost.ev.). It was written much more often in semi-status, and quite often it had only a decorative meaning, not determined by the requirements of spelling. o also had a decorative meaning, although in some manuscripts and printed texts (see in some texts by Ivan Veodorov) there was a tendency to put it under stress.
The vowel “u” had the shapes оу and V. The latter in the statutory letter was written, mostly at the end of the line, if

there wasn't enough space. In the semi-charter, both styles were used in the same way; the choice of one or the other had only a decorative meaning. In printed books there is a tendency to give them an orthographic application. Here is an excerpt from the afterword of the Prologue of the Edinoverie press regarding the spelling “V and V: T4K0 n ii ^ n “u, rzz^zhd#n?# ii d^vnidya pr?AKHO/MYA. nd^zhe ^ch ijTAZHCH4iTSA (heavy impact), go n5o (acute impact With aspiration) strltl, teu podgdkh^ eu., drivmTn piitsi. ykii lrTidvu, prmniu, v”zou, ndou. sound#. rz"&v^ nde^Zhi, o, prgd.
V4RAiT2 34 single S#KBOM. G4Kiy, TOM#, KOM#, T^, U, POD4G4GTIA; ndy, uddto^stya; go your way... the yurologist was printed in the second printing in 1875 from what was printed under Patriarch Joseph in 644). However, this spelling rule was not always followed; At the same time, there were publications in which “y and V had slightly different uses.
' The sound “e” in the ancient Church Slavonic language was conveyed in two styles, according to pronunciation: § pronounced as “e” and k (iotated) - like the modern Russian “e”. The latter was written at the beginning of the word or after the vowels and in some other cases (khedziyh). In the semi-ustav there was no distinction made in the style for hard and soft “e”; or in some manuscripts (for example, the Pozharsky manuscript) the ancient soft n corresponded to e “boliioe”; in most manuscripts there are differences) e had a purely decorative meaning. In printed books, e (more) was usually placed at the beginning of a word. It is also found in the middle of a word, but, apparently, without an orthographic meaning. Hard and soft pronunciation of the sound “e” in church The Slavic language was preserved until the 18th century, and the Old Believers retain a similar pronunciation to this day.
The letter 5 in the ancient Church Slavic language denoted the sound “dz”, originating111 og softened g, papr.: kojn^ mnoai. Subsequently, this sound lost its original pronunciation and became ravei “z”, therefore in the later text & was often used incorrectly.
At the beginning of typographic printing, printers were also the text’s reference workers; spelling also depended on them, and therefore almost every printer had his own spelling features. It is clear that when printing became more developed, they began to strive to unify spelling.
The south and southwest of Rus' had their own peculiarities in the press. Printing developed there to a greater extent than in Moscow.

skoy Rus'. The fight against Catholicism and Christianity forced the Orthodox to keep up culturally with the West. In the south and southwest there were several large printing houses: in Yuevo (in Lvov, in Ostrog, in Vilna, and a number of other small printing houses. There were several spiritual and religious icons. The Iyevo-Mohyla collective was especially famous for producing educated defenders of the faith. Slavic the language in its main body, apparently, was developed there in the south and southwest. The first Slovenian-Russian lexicon and grammar appeared there. The southwestern scholar Lavrentiy Zizati published a primer and Church Slavonic grammar in 1596 The learned philologist Meletiy Smotritsky published a grammar of the Church Slavonic language in 16-9, which, somewhat altered and supplemented, was published in Moscow in 1648. In the middle of the 18th century, Smotrytsky’s grammar was reprinted in Moldova for the Bulgarians and Serbs However, despite all this, in the south and southwest the text of church books was not exemplary.
Thus, the orthographic and phonetic structure of the Church Slavonic language continued until the 17th century. In the 17th century, under Patriarch Nikon, a correction of church books was carried out, or, more correctly, a new translation of them. At the same time, the orthography of the Church Slavonic language was determined. Kiev scholars took a large part in correcting books, and therefore, undoubtedly, the grammar developed in the south was the basis for determining grammatical forms and spelling, but, of course, the peculiarities of the forms of the Church Slavonic language of Moscow editions were also taken into account. So, the Church Slavonic language of the liturgical books was finally formed by the middle of the 17th century.
After this, the grammatical side of the Church Slavonic language did not change, but the text of church books was sometimes subject to correction and following the Nikon reform. Thus, under Empress Elisabeth Petrov, the Bible was reviewed and corrected, but under Patriarch Nikon it was not corrected. Apparently, subsequently the editing of the sacred text was subject to some amendments - some words or phrases were replaced with more understandable ones. When comparing the text of the liturgical Gospel and the Slavic Gospel intended for ordinary reading, one can notice the difference in some expressions of words or phrases. Nikon's translation turned out to be far from perfect. The disadvantage of Nikon's translations is

in a strictly literal translation of the Greek text, and therefore in the liturgical books there are many things that are difficult to understand. At the beginning of this century, before the revolution, it was time to eliminate this shortcoming. In 19-5, a Lenten work was published, the text of which was newly revised. However, regarding the latest edition, it cannot be said that it was completely successful. Many amendments were made where the previous text could have been left. Let's give some examples of the previous and new text of the Lenten work: in the previous editions the word kldgoHtrbk?!., in the new edition it was replaced everywhere by another - kllgosche; in previous editions: loGzhd g?tsm nd vozstdkndya (Vel. Friday, 6th part), in the new edition: neprdkkdh; in previous editions: umndA viititvd, in the new: iivshchiitvennda viinnstvd. In the new edition, the Slavic terms (nzh|, mzhe, ezh|) are completely removed: instead of the old text, there is dmkntn<ма, в новом: вм<&тимкЕВи ко мнй (Вел. Пят. 6-й ч.) и много других примеров"ь можно было бы привести, но наииа задача - не наследован! е текста, а раасмотрете его только со стороны грамматической.
Thus, the real Church Slavonic grammar is the grammar of the Church Slavonic language, which was formed by the middle of the 17th century.
Since the Church Slavic language is the language of divine services, it is clear that every Orthodox Christian who wishes to actively participate in divine services must know the language of these services. Therefore, Church Slavonic grammar is intended to be not only a manual for theological seminaries, but also for more widespread use. Bearing in mind the fact that the majority of Russians abroad studied in foreign schools, we introduced into this grammar, to complete the system, a number of elementary information that are usually known from Russian grammar.