Customer Reviews (2)

A useful textbook that shoud not, however, be your first
William Schmalstieg's AN INTRODUCTION TO OLD CHURCH SLAVIC is a primer of the earliest attested Slavonic language, vital for understanding the development of the Indo-European languages and the reconstruction of their common ancestor, and useful for studying the development of Christianity among the Slavs. In addition to a grammar synchronically tracking the development of Common Slavonic and Old Church Slavonic, it also includes a collection of readings so that students can put their knowledge to work with real texts.

The grammar is, for the most part, satisfying as a reference, though better introductions to the language can be found elsewhere. I was especially happy with his references to Lithuanian, since the possibly common heritage of the Baltic and Slavonic branches is a matter of great importance. While OCS works are normally given in Latin transliteration (retaining the yer letters from Cyrillic), tables of conjugation and declension use the Cyrillic alphabet, and there is also a small layout of the Glagolitic script.

Schmalstieg's work has some problems. Instead of presenting a normalized view of the language and saving matters of debate for later, he essentially begins the book by laying out every disagreement before he even presents the phonemic system which has sparked such polemic. I think that a student who has never studied OCS before would be quite lost for the first fifty pages of the work. Schmalstieg's style is also somewhat unpolished, the text did not make a complete transition from lecture notes to a text for the ages. Finally, the selection of texts is mostly Biblical, which won't test students fully because one already knows the English of such famous passages as the Sermon on the Mount; texts such as saints' lives or prayers would have been a bit more challenging.

An additional failing, which is by no means limited to Schmalstieg's primer, is that the work does not discuss the evolution of the Proto-Indo-European laryngeals in the Slavonic branch. Schmalstieg wrote a paper in 1986 called "Monophthongizations--more probable than laryngeals!" which perhaps means that he does not even believe in their existence, but the time has come for an introduction to OCS that includes laryngeals in the view of the proto-language.

If you have no prior experience with this sexiest of early Indo-European languages, I would recommend Nandris' HANDBOOK OF OLD CHURCH SLAVONIC I: Grammar (London: The Athlone Press, 1959). That a truly impressive work, equally useful as primer and as reference grammar, and written in a clear style all linguistics works should emulate. If you read Russian, Voylova's STAROSLAVJANSKIJ JAZYK is a good introduction as well. One might also mention the old chesnut that is Lunt's OLD CHURCH SLAVONIC GRAMMAR, but since its examination of the language is synchronic, it is of limited utility for the Indo-Europeanist. Schmalstieg's work is worth acquiring, but not as the very first textbook.

Title Tells it
Note that the title of this book is "Introduction to Old Church Slavic", not "Old Church Slavonic."It is an exercise in historical linguistics.If that's your interest, it covers the subject in considerable depth and you'd be hard pressed to find another book written in English to do it so thoroughly.

However, if your interest is in reading Eastern Orthodox material, this book won't be much help, except in a very roundabout way.Be advised. ... Read more

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Slavic Village began as part of the Connecticut Western Reserve, a parcel of land surveyed and populated with East Coast residents seeking adventure and fortune in the 19th century. As industry came to the Cuyahoga River valley, immigrant workers-first Irish, then Poles and Czechs-settled in the area to be near jobs in the rolling mills, chemical plants, and garment factories. They left their mark on the neighborhood's architecture, food, and culture, and many of their descendants still call the area home. Slavic Village has produced a number of interesting personalities, including Olympic sprinter Stella Walsh and former Cleveland mayor and current United States congressman Dennis Kucinich. ... Read more

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Historical View of the Languages and Literature of the Slavic - Nations is presented here in a high quality paperback edition. This popular classic work by Therese Albertine Louise von Jacob Robinson is in the English language. If you enjoy the works of Therese Albertine Louise von Jacob Robinson then we highly recommend this publication for your book collection. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

A very innovative treatment...
of the comparative historical grammar of the Slavic languages. The complicated phonological changes are presented in taut and concise fashion. The morphology, as often happens, is more resistant to a satisfactory,integrated presentation. Highly recommended. ... Read more

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Paul Videsott examines the fate of the vernacular non-literary written language in Northern Italy from its first appearance up to 1525 (the year of publication of P. Bembo´s Prose della volgar lingua). For this, he undertakes a scriptological and scriptometric analysis of 1165 non-literary Old North Italian texts with a total of 558,892 words from 35 writing centres. Overall, one result is that the North Italian dialects displayed a far greater autonomy towards the emerging Tuscan norm than was the case in France for the Northern French dialects vis-à-vis the imperial Parisian standard language. ... Read more

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The present work is founded on an essay, which appeared in the Biblical Repository for April and July, 1834, then conducted by the undersigned. The essay was received with favour by the public; and awakened an interest in many minds, as laying open a new field of information, hitherto almost inaccessible to the English reader. A few copies were printed separately for private distribution. Some of these were sent to literary men in Europe; and several scholars of high name among those acquainted with Slavic literature, expressed their approval of the work. Since that time, and even of late, inquiries have repeatedly been made, by scholars and by public libraries in
Europe, for copies of that little treatise; which, of course, it was
impossible to satisfy.

Download Historical View Of The Languages And Literature Of The Slavic Nations Now! ... Read more

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The definitive Slavic Mythology.
With illustrations and a chapter on Baltic Mythology.

This book, taken from The Mythology of all Races, is the most complete study of Slavic mythology available. The pagan Slavs had a unique view of spirituality, and their own pantheon of fascinating gods. This book delves into the past of the Eastern Europeans to construct a surprisingly full account of their rituals, religion, gods, and beliefs from the scarce primary sources still in existence.

Features of this electronic edition:
Hyperlinks
Endnotes
Illustrations
DRM-free
... Read more

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The fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 ushered in a period of democratization and market reform extending across the East-Central European region, with one important exception: Belarus. Ironically, Belarus's fledgling attempts at democracy produced a leader who has suspended the post-Soviet constitution and its institutions and created a personal dictatorship. Located in the center of the European continent, Belarus lies at the crossroads of an expanded NATO and the Russian "near abroad." This fact underlines the importance of Belarus to European security and to East-West relations.

To discuss developments in Belarus, an international group of scholars and policymakers gathered at Harvard University in 1999. The broad spectrum of issues covered is examined in this volume, providing an understanding of Belarus today and its prospects for the future.

In addition to the editors, contributors include Timothy Colton, David Marples, Uladzimir Padhol, Rainer Lindner, Patricia Brukoff, Leonid Zlotnikov, Arkadii Moshes, Andrei Sannikov, Yuri Drakokhrust, Dmitri Furman, John Reppert, Astrid Sahm, Kirsten Westphal, Hrihoriy Perepelytsia, Algirdas Gricius, AgnieszkaMagzdiak-Miszewska, Hans-Georg Wieck, Sherman Garnett, Elaine Conkievich, and Caryn Wilde. ... Read more

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For several decades David Bethea has written authoritatively on the 'mythopoetic thinking' that lies at the heart of classical Russian literature, especially Russian poetry. His theoretically informed essays and books have made a point of turning back to issues of intentionality and biography at a time when authorial agency seems under threat of 'erasure' and the question of how writers, and poets in particular, live their lives through their art is increasingly moot. The lichnost (personhood, psychic totality) of the given writer is all-important, argues Bethea, as it is that which combines the specifically biographical and the capaciously mythical in verbal units that speak simultaneously to different planes of being. Pushkin's Evgeny can be one incarnation of the poet himself and an everyman rising up to challenge Peter's new world order; Brodsky can be, all at once, Dante and Mandelstam and himself, the exile paying an Orphic visit to Florence (and, by ghostly association, Leningrad). It is this sort of metempsychosis, where the stories that constitute the Ur-texts of Russian literature are constantly reworked in the biographical myths shaping individual writers' lives, that is Bethea's primary focus. This collection contains a liberal sampling of Bethea's most memorable previously published essays along with new studies prepared for this occasion. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

wonderfully expansive! a sure-fire hit!
in my career teaching slavic mythology to ukranian orphans, i have never come across a book so expansive in breadth. kulikowski deftly displays his vast bibliographical knowledge. page after page is filled with amazing resources, detailed annotations, and funny illustrations. it is a source of great amazement how one human could even have the time to find all of these books, much less be so well versed in them. i distributed this reader to my children at the ukranian ymca last week, and they have been clamoring for more ever since. i sincerely hope that another volume is soon on the horizon. bravo, mr. kulikowski, and encore! encore! encore! ... Read more