American Association of Teachers of Slavic and East European Languages

Medieval Russia's Epics, Chronicles, and Tales by Serge A. ZenkovskyReview by: William E. HarkinsThe Slavic and East European Journal, Vol. 7, No. 3 (Autumn, 1963), pp. 316-318Published by: American Association of Teachers of Slavic and East European LanguagesStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/305347 .

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316 The Slavic and East European Journal

himself to being the most accurate and "complete" chronicler. We would like to read his critical evaluations more often. Anton Cexov, who is to- day as popular and appreciated as he was at the beginning of this century, still awaits a badly needed interpretative biography.

Ante Kadic Indiana University

Serge A. Zenkovsky, ed. and tr. Medieval Russia's Epics, Chronicles, and Tales. (A Dutton Paperback, D117). New York: E. P. Dutton and Co., 1963. xii, 436, $2.75.

The present collection fills a long-felt need for a comprehensive an- thology of Old Russian literature in English translation. The selections offered are remarkably extensive, well chosen, and for most part well translated. The book is provided with a fine introductory survey of the history of Old Russian literature. In addition there are brief but informa- tive introductions to each selection; these are generally accurate and reveal the very considerable erudition of the editor.

It may be ungrateful to carp at a work which satisfies a far higher literary and scholarly standard than one might expect from an American commercial publisher in a field as esoteric as Old Russian literature. Mistakes and omissions are inevitable in a work of this scope; in calling attention to what seem to me to be lapses, I do not wish to suggest that I am condemning the work as a whole. The choice of pieces to be included is always a matter of taste, and no two editors will ever agree. The present selection is remarkably full. As in so many anthologies of Old Russian literature (whether it is specifically admitted or not), the cri- terion of selection is ultimately that of interest, not necessarily literary merit. No doubt this proceeds from a healthy desire to popularize, but it does give Old Russian literature a somewhat miscellaneous appearance; this is perhaps inevitable, however, with any approach. Some little-known but absorbing selections deserve our thanks: the polemical verses by Prince IvanXvorostinin are interesting for their quaintness, and the trans- lation preserves well the varied and rather crude quality of the rhymes. Also interesting and off the beaten track are the samples of Novgorodian historical writing. But the rich and interesting parody literature of the seventeenth century seems poorly exemplified with but a single selection, "Shemiaka's Judgment," and, though seventeenth-century verse is fairly well represented, there is nothing by Simeon Polockij.

The characterization of "Period of Feudal Divisions" for the period 1240 to 1478 smacks of Soviet terminology (p. ix). And why is the Old Russian literary language, composed of elements of Church Slavonic and Russian vernacular, such a "very interesting" language (p. 2) ? Was Vladimir Monomax really obeyed by all the other Russian princes ( p. 6) ? If so, it was at the price of endless warfare with them. The comparison of the idyllic "Tale of Peter and Fevronia" to that of Tristan and Isolda (p. 23) hardly seems happy. The name " Tsargrad" does not denote "the city of the Caesars" (p. 66), but rather the "caesar of cities. " Why does the editor credit excerpts from the Primary Russian Chronicle

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Reviews 317

concerning Boris and Gleb and the Kiev Crypt Monastery to Nestor's au- thorship (pp. 87-102), when elsewhere (p. 11) he accepts Saxmatov's theory of division of the Chronicle into layers? On p. 143 a loosely worded footnote implies that Prince Igor' of Novgorod-Seversk was also prince of 6ernigov in 1185. Similarly, on p. 145, the faulty punctuation of the footnote gives the erroneous impression that Vladimir Monomax, rather than his antagonist, Oleg of Cernigov, caused "feudal wars [which] shattered the unity of Russia." The "Orison on the Downfall of Russia" (why orison?) is described as "usually found in miscellanies that con- tain the Tale of the Life and Heroic Deeds of the Great Prince Alexander Nevsky, and always precedes it" (p. 173). This statement is correct only if the words "usually" and "always" can correctly be applied to a total of two cases. Finally, I would question whether "Frol Skobeev" is a "bitter satire on the new man who is shown as a rogue and cunning operator" (p. 397). A satire on a "new man" of the Age of Peter would most probably have been from the point of view of "old men, " and this does not seem to be the case; if anything, the rogue Frol has the author's (not too) sneaking sympathy.

It would have been an immense task to translate the quite extensive contents of this collection anew, and the editor has in some cases relied on published translations. It is probably unfortunate that these include the stylistically bad and sometimes faulty renderings by Leo Wiener, though in some cases Wiener's translations have been revised by the pre- sent editor. It would be a heroic and probably thankless labor to note down all errors in translation in an anthology of this scope. Still, for the record, I shall list those which I caught; some of these are, of course, carried over from older translations. "Primyglja~e kb pervoi dani" prob- ably means "added to the original tribute, " and not "demanded the pre- vious tribute" (p. 55, lines 2-3). "Rabotnaja pre2de, ti potomr svo- bodnaja" does not mean "first one is the handmaiden and then one is free" (p. 80, line 11), but "first the handmaiden, and then the free wo- man," i. e., the handmaiden (Hagar) must come first before the free wo- man.. (Sarah) may come. On p. 83, line 3, the word "behold! " (vi'db) has been accidentally omitted; similarly, on p. 127, line 32, it reads "I do, " but should read "I do not. " "DaleCe zaletalo" ( said of the Olbgovidi in the Igor Tale) probably has the sense of "it has strayed far off (by flying), " not merely "flown away" (p. 143, line 24). "Svyeaj i obyeaj" means not "habits and ways, " but "love and devotion,." a meaning found in the folk wedding ritual, as well as in other Old Russian texts ( p. 144, line 33). "Igor plaky zavorodaetr" means "Igor turns about his troops, " not "leads [them] away" ( p. 146, line 22). On the same page, line 36, the translation "Grief" seems pale for "Obida. " Line 22 on p. 155 should presumably read "to Nemiga from Dudutki," not the reverse. "Stata stjazi Rjurikovy" does not mean "his banners have become the banners of Rjurik" (which is nonsense), but "the ban- ners of Rjurik have stood still, " i. e., stood in position (p. 156, line 19). On the same page, line 24, "zegzica" is usually considered to be a cuckoo, not a seagull. "A va ty dni" at the end of the "Orison on the Downfall of Russia" hardly means "now" ( p. 174, line 38); this would be "a va si dni"; but this, of course, is a difficult question. " Let us encourage the land of Russia" is a pale translation for "vozveselima

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318 The Slavic and East European Journal

Russkuju zemlju" (p. 187, line 27). "Zaleskaja zemlja" (p. 197, line 23) is Northeast (i. e., Suzdalian) Russia, and not the "Russian forest. " "DerzostbI" is better translated by "impudence" than "daring" ( p. 262, line 23). "Pravitb" means "he steers [the ship], " not "to the right" ( p. 324, line 17). The "ry'agi" with which the townswomen beat Avva- kum are probably "oven-forks, " not "shovels" (p. 327, line 16). "Pisage, ne slagaja" presumably implies that Savva Grudcyn could copy individual letters, but not understand them joined together into words (this state of literacy was probably rather common in Old Russia). This idea is somewhat imperfectly rendered as "write senselesly" (p. 381, line 21). "Batogom.. . vygonitb" means "drive away with a stick, " not "with a whim" (sic, p. 417, line 17); probably "whim" is a printer's error for "whip," but this is still not quite exact. "Legota, besprotorica" are perhaps words denoting poverty; translated as "lightness" and "ad- vantages" they make little sense ( p. 418, line 5). "A va gore' itl

- nekrudinnu bytb, a krudinnu va gore poginuti" means "to live in misery, one must be cheerful, and the man uncheerful in misery will perish"; this is somewhat garbled in the translation on p. 419, line 13-14. Fi- nally, "zaveden" means "destined, " not "taught" (p. 420, line 21).

William E. Harkins Columbia University

I. S. Vaxros. Naimenovanija obuvi v russkom jazyke, I: Drevnejsie naimenovanija, do Petrovskoj epoxi. (Annuaire de l'Institut Fin- landais d'?tudes Sovi6tiques, Suppl6ment du No. 6-10. ) Helsinki, 1959. 271 pp.

Among the etymological studies in the Slavic languages, one type stands out clearly during the recent years-the studies comprising certain semantic fields. Here belong V. Machek's study on the Czech and Slo- vak names of plants (1954), I. Nowikowa's work on the names of rodents in East Slavic (1959), . O. Truba~ev's works on the Slavic terms of kin- ship and domestic animals (1959 and 1960, respectively), and Vaxros's (actually Vahros) study on the names of Old Russian footware, to mention just a few.

ProfessorVahros's studyranks highly among those mentioned above. This work has not only a linguistic, but also an ethnographic significance. An advocator of the principle of "Wb5rter und Sachen, " Mr. Vahros has endeavored to assemble all the printed and unprinted data available on the cobbler's profession and various items of footware in Old Russia. This material, coupled with abundant illustrative material, has enabled him to make definite conclusions about the original types of Russian foot- ware. The value of the ethnographic aspect of the work occasionally may even overshadow its linguistic merits.

Naimenovanija obuvi discusses some sixty terms referring to foot- ware. It turns out that half of them are inherited from the Common Slavic, whereas the other half are borrowings. Among the latter, the majority (10) come from Turkic, which is not to be wondered at considering the great mastery of the Turco-Tartar peoples in processing leather. Other

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