Das Leidener russisch-deutsche Gesprächswörterbuch von ca.1730 ("Christian Gottlieb Wolf -Lexikon"): Bibliotheca Academiae Lugduno-Batavae Msc. LTK 584 by Harm KluetingReview by: H. LeemingThe Slavonic and East European Review, Vol. 58, No. 2 (Apr., 1980), pp. 272-274Published by: the Modern Humanities Research Association and University College London, School ofSlavonic and East European StudiesStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/4208034 .

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272 THE SLAVONIC REVIEW

this word. In any case, it would be surprising to find a verbal noun ending in -nje in a Catholic text. This is more than a mere detail, for it seems the word is not otherwise directly attested for Upper Sorbian.

In one or two cases it is possible to improve the dating slightly. Thus, the word easnik 'clock, watch', described as a 'Neubildung, seit I844', is actually attested at least two years earlier (jutrnieka, I842).

Professor Schuster-Sewc, as an exponent of the view that the Sorbs could not possibly have been influenced by Czech Christian terminology before they were affected by German Christian influences, is entirely consistent in claiming that USorb cise (LSorb cysc) 'purgatory' is not a borrowing from Old Czech but a 'parallel loan-translation'. However, the fact that the suffix -bCb (in *cistbcb) lacks all semantic motivation (and is therefore unlikely to have been used independently on three separate occasions to translate purgatorium in Bohemia (or Moravia), Poland and Lusatia) should have been mentioned, however briefly.

This dictionary is the culmination of many years' patient and pain- staking work. The few minor shortcomings that have been mentioned here do not detract at all from the overall impression of erudition created by these first three fascicles. Oxford GERALD STONE

Klueting, Harm (ed.). Das Leidener russisch-deutsche Gesprdchsworterbuch von ca. i73o (,,Christian Gottlieb Wolf- Lexikon"): Bibliotheca Academiae Lugduno-Batavae Msc. L TK 584. Adolf M. Hakkert, Amsterdam, I978. lXXVi + 274 pp. Foreword. Bibliography. Facsimiles. Sw.Fr. 70.

BOTH the present editor and an earlier investigator, Ton van den Baar, accept the description of MS LTK 584 given in the catalogue of Leyden University Library: Christian Gottlieb Wolf's Russian-German Lexicon (woordenboek). This is a misleading and altogether too modest title for what is in fact an early Russian version of Comenius's Orbis sensualium pictus, preceded by nine pages of assorted linguistic data and followed by a German-Russian glossary of I,529 words. The translated title, BI4AiMbI

CBITh, does appear on f. 6 verso; the preceding page is blank but the significance of this did not strike the cataloguer. One imagines that if it had not been for the additional material which occupies the first few pages this book would have been identified long ago. This material is interesting and tantalizing: the Lord's Prayer in Hungarian, Transylvanian German, Wallachian, Croatian, Dalmatian, Slavonian, Serbian, Russian and Swedish; the Cyrillic alphabet with the letter names and copious illustra- tions of the shapes; three exotic alphabets, Egyptian, Tatar and Indian; a text in the Tatar alphabet; the Our Father in Estonian. Klueting did not bother to decipher the Tatar text. If he had used the key he would have recognized the German 'Vater Unser' with the signature "Ch. G. Wolf" also in Tatar letters, a sure indication that Wolf was not only the owner of the book but the compiler at least of the first pages, and an avid collector of languages.

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REVIEWS 273

The date of the manuscript, 1731, makes this the earliest accessible Russian version of the Orbis pictus. The first Russian printed edition appeared in 1768; a translation had been made in the first decade of the eighteenth century and was used by the pupils of the 'Gymnasium Petrinum', the first high school founded in Moscow, but as far as I can ascertain this still remains unpublished. Short extracts given by V. N. Peretts do not supply enough evidence to determine the relationship of the Leyden version to its predecessor: the opening phrase, an invitation by the pedagogue to his pupil, 'Veni, Puer, disce sapere', shows some slight variation: 'Prichodi otroca ucitsja mudrstvovati' (c.I705); 'Pridi otrok, ucisja mudrstvovati' (I731). On the other hand comparison of excerpts from sections 9I to 97 brings to light only minor differences such as the earlier manuscript's preference for perfective to imperfective present.

Therefore, unless and until such time as an edition of the Moscow manuscript appears this is the earliest published Russian version of one of the most important books in the history of European education, a presenta- tion of the world in I50 methodically arranged chapters. In the original these chapters were each accompanied by an illustration. The absence of these detracts from the pedagogical value but not the linguistic interest of the Leyden manuscript. A further indication that this copy was not produced to serve its original purpose is the absence from the 'animal alphabet' not only of the illustrations but also of the phonetic key. It would not be too much of a strain on the imagination to connect crow, wailing infant, mouse, carter and owl with the vowels a, e, i, o, u, but even an observant naturalist might fail to recognize hoopoe, wolf, cat, jay, and hare as exemplars of the consonants d, 1, n, t, and v. 'Rana coachat. X x.' is clear, though untrue; 'ljaguska kvakajet' without an accompanying letter is true but pointless. On this evidence one could make an inspired guess that here we have a copy, made for his own purposes by a German interested in the Russian language, of that early version used by Pastor Ernst Gluick or his colleague and rival, Johann Werner Pauze, as a textbook in the 'Gymnasium Petrinum' where an early morning period was set aside for its study.

Klueting gives useful information about the Slavonic manuscripts in the Leyden University library, some in the Scaliger collection, others in the collections of Bonaventus Vulcanius, alias De Smit or Smith, and the hopefully named Prosper Marchand. He gives a thorough account of MS LTK 584, the writing materials, watermarks, parts written by each of two scribes, peculiarities of their hands, contents of the three parts of the book. He considers the problem of Wolf's identity and speculates on the reasons for the lack of a title page. In a short section devoted to linguistic characteristics he discusses devoicing of consonants in the German text, reflections of this in the Russian, occurrence of akan'je, which he is rather inclined to play down, and examples of Church Slavonic forms. Klueting devotes some effort and ingenuity to the authorship of the phrase-book. Van den Baar had proposed a Transylvanian background; the present editor thinks rather of a Lutheran from Swabia. Whatever the short- comings of Klueting's reasoning, based as it is on the treatment of

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274 THE SLAVONIC REVIEW

Comenius's text as a German original, we may concur that in the curricu- lum of the Petrine High School it did serve as a textbook of German for Russians, without agreeing that this was the purpose of the Leyden copy. Eleven pages of facsimiles present the inside of the front cover and the first six folia; no facsimiles are provided of the rest of the book. The Russian and German texts are neatly typed in parallel columns. The Russian- German glossaries which explain and accompany each lesson are an innovation which has not been noted in any available editions of the Orbis pictus; this is another pointer to the purpose of the Leyden manu- script. London H. LEEMING

Heroic Epic and Saga: An Introduction to the World's Great Folk Epics. Edited by Felix J. Oinas. Indiana University Press, Bloomington and London, I978. viii + 373 pp. Notes. Bibliographies. Index. $29.95; paperback $10.95.

A BOOK presenting fifteen different traditions of epic and saga by as many authors, and with a general introduction by a sixteenth, requires a commission to review it, and it is perhaps time that works by teams of contributors were reviewed by teams of reviewers. A justification for the review of the present work by one reviewer is, perhaps, that he has just furnished an introduction to a not wholly dissimilar volume on Traditions of Heroic and Epic Poetry (in press). The work under review, which is as important as any ever published on this theme, covers, in order of presenta- tion, Homeric (Wm. F. Hansen), Mesopotamian (J. M. Renger), Sanskri- tic (B. A. van Nooten), Iranian epic (W. L. Hanaway, Jr); Beowulf (A. Renoir); the Nibelungenlied (S. L. Wailes); the Icelandic Sagas (T. M. Andersson); Irish Saga (S. 0. Coileiin); the Chansons de geste (G. J. Brault); Spanish epic (Merle E. Simmons); the Byliny (F. J. Oinas, General Editor); Serbocroatian heroic songs (Mary P. Coote); Balto- Finnic (F. J. Oinas), Turkic (I. Basgoz) and African epic (D. P. Biebuyck). In view of the sub-title 'An Introduction to the World's Great Folk Epics' it is only fair to say that it skips Caucasian (and notably the Ossetic Narte), Thai, Mongol (of Mongolia), Buryat, Kalmak, Samoyed, Tungus, Ainu (with the American authority D. L. Philippi perhaps available), Yakut (the important olo9xo is not dealt with in the Turkic section, nor are the Yakut mentioned among the Turkic-speaking peoples on p. 329, n. 3), Ob Ugrian (rather regrettably in view of the Editor's Fennic prowess) and Amerindian (most regrettably in view of the local advantages enjoyed in the States: the Mohave epic, for example, splendidly presented by A. L. Kroeber, would have elicited interesting comment against the back- ground of surviving heroic poetry of North and South Amerindian, and one looks to American scholars for such an account).

This very useful book was made as follows. A small nucleus of specialists discussed the project beforehand, others were invited to give lectures on epic and/or saga in their fields, and yet others were invited to submit

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