Metamorphoses of word-by-word translation in the 18^th century and their influence on the Slavic standard language

   In the 18^th century, the fate of the Russian literary language in general and Church Slavonic in particular was decided. The Church Slavonic language continued to exist in the form of a conservative standard, simultaneously developing stylistic differentiations within itself. However, its fate was ultimately decided in line with general linguistic processes, as a result of which Church Slavonic remained only in the liturgical sphere. The high genres of literature began to move to the “Slavonic” language, whose lexical fund and word-formation possibilities represented the Church Slavonic heritage, while the grammatical structure was Russian. These changes are especially clearly traced on translated spiritual literature: it raises another important problem – the relationship with the Greek language, which was rightfully considered the prototype of Church Slavonic, and this understanding formed the basis of the doctrine of word-by-word translation in Slavia Orthodoxa. The article presents the results of observation conducted on three translations of the same text made in the second half of the 18^th century – the treatise of Dionysius the Areopagite “De coelesti hierarchia”. These translations demonstrate all three main tendencies in the functioning of the Church Slavonic language: the desire to preserve it (translation by Paisiy Velichkovsky), russification of grammar while preserving traditional vocabulary (translation by Moses Gumilevsky), and destruction of connections with Greek (anonymous translation). In our opinion, the latter tendency contributed to the formation of a new language of spiritual literature, in which the Church Slavonic element performed the function of a style sign.

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