Sorabistik in Deutschland: Eine wissenschaftsgeschichtliche Bilanz aus fünf Jahrhunderten byWilhelm ZeilReview by: Gerald StoneThe Slavonic and East European Review, Vol. 75, No. 4 (Oct., 1997), pp. 745-746Published by: the Modern Humanities Research Association and University College London, School ofSlavonic and East European StudiesStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/4212521 .

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REVIEWS 745

lays bare the daily workings of a commercial agent in Riga in the I 780s, and concludes that the contemporary William Tooke's observation that the tradesmen of Riga 'earn a great deal of money with little trouble' is hardly borne out by the evidence. Politics is rather less in evidence, and the contributions on the nineteenth and twentieth centuries do not fit as well into the general theme, although there are some good essays, and culture tends to pop up at odd moments. But as collections of essays go, this is an exceptionally good bunch, the most outstanding of which for my money is Karsten Briggemann's piece on the image of Russia presented in the sixteenth-century chronicle of Balthasar Russow, an essay which manages to link together several centuries in a particularly elegant and thought-provoking fashion.

School of Slavonic and East European Studies DAVID KIRBY University of London

Zeil, Wilhelm. Sorabistik in Deutschland: Eine wissenschaftsgeschichtliche Bilanz aus fuinf Jahrhunderten, Domowina, Bautzen, I 996. 2I 6 pp. Notes. Index. DM 39.00.

DR WILHELM ZEIL'S Slavistik in Deutschland (Cologne, Weimar and Vienna, 1994) provided us with a comprehensive account of the German contribution to Slavonic studies as a whole (see my review in SEER, 74, I 996, I, Pp. I I 2- I 3). He has now written a separate, specialized history of the study of the Sorbs, a subject which inevitably has its centre of gravity in Germany, though the contribution of scholars from other countries, especially the Slavonic countries, is not negligible. Fortunately, despite the geographical restriction in the book's title, Dr Zeil gives due recognition to the work of these outsiders. His narrative begins in the sixteenth century. He notes the importance for the Sorbs then of the University of Wittenberg, where, between I 538 and the end of the century, I 47 Sorbian clergymen are said to have been ordained. One of them was Wjaclaw Warichius (I 564- I 6 I 8), whose 'Kurzer Unterricht, wie die Buchstaben in wendischer Sprache zu gebrauchen und auszusprechen', prefacing his Der kleine Catechismus ... D. Martini Lutheri (Budissin, I597), is correctly noted by Zeil as an embryonic linguistic analysis. Though still rudimentary, it is a significant advance on the meagre note on pronunciation in the I595 edition. However, the allusion to the 1597 edition as 'the first Upper Sorbian printed book' (p. I5) makes us wonder whether the author is aware of the existence of the I 595 edition.

In the course of the last four hundred years a good deal has been written on Sorbian subjects and the rate at which it has been published has accelerated steadily. There is consequently a risk, particularly in the most recent period, that the story of the search for new knowledge may be submerged in a plethora of marginal and minor publications. That danger has been skilfully avoided here, however, for discernment is one of Zeil's main strengths. Nevertheless, there is an unmistakable imbalance between the earlier and later chapters. The sixteenth and seventeenth centuries are dealt with cursorily, whereas more than two thirds of Zeil's account (pp. 59- I 96) are devoted to the period since the I840s. This clearly has something to do with his definition of the

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746 THE SLAVONIC REVIEW

subject, which appears to be liberal but inconsistent. If the fastidious reader, noting the absence of any reference to, for example, Gregorius Martini's Die sieben Bufipsalmen des koniglichen Propheten Davids: Windisch und Deutsch (Budissin, I627), were to conclude that it had been excluded because it is not itself a study of the Sorbs, he would then find it difficult to reconcile this with the inclusion of Miklaws Jakubica's Lower Sorbian translation of the New Testament (I 548) or Albin Moller's Ein ewigwerender Kirchen Calender . .. Auch ein wendisches Gesangbuch ... (Budissin, I574). He would find it even harder to understand the omission of Michal Frencel's translation of the gospels of SS Matthew and Mark (Budissin, I670), which contains introductory notes on pronunciation of equal significance to those in Warichius. Frencel's Post- witzscher TauJfstein (Budissin, i688), which contains substantial comments on the Sorbs and their language, is also unmentioned, though there is a quotation from it on p. 28 which is mistakenly attributed to Frencel's letter of I697 addressed to Peter the Great. Like the erroneous allusion on p. 29 to a meeting between Frencel and Peter (they never met), this slip might have been avoided by reference to the original source, but it is hard to escape the sad conclusion that reliance on secondary sources is a routine feature of this book.

Particularly interesting is the way Zeil relates the sudden upsurge of activity among the Sorbs in the I 840s to the institutionalization of Slavonic studies at German universities and elsewhere. Academic posts in Slavonic studies were established at Breslau and Berlin in I 84I, and at Leipzig in I 843. In I 847 the Macica Serbska was founded in Bautzen. Zeil guides us safely step by step through the next century and a half, finishing with the collapse of the German Democratic Republic ( I990), the opening of the new Serbski institut (1992), and the completion of the fifteen-volume Sorbischer Sprachatlas (I996). It turns out to have been a good moment to look back and take stock.

Her~ford College GERALD STONE University of Oxford

Cross, A. G. By the Banks of the Neva: Chaptersfrom the Lives and Careers of the British in Eighteenth Century Russia, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, I 997. xvi + 474 pp. Notes. Illustrations. Index. ?6o.oo: $79.95.

THIS very handsome volume on the British in eighteenth-century Russia is the companion to By the Banks of the Thames, which Anthony Cross published in I980 and which charts the life and adventures of the many hundreds of Russians who visited England and Scotland in the eighteenth century. Anglo- Russian cultural, scientific and craft relations have, in his own words, obsessed Cross for years, and the extent of his erudition takes one's breath away.just as his earlier volume provided fascinating insights into English commercial and industrial history, so the present volume is most illuminating about Russian social life, the navy, shipbuilding, industry, trade and finance, architecture, painting, education and medicine (doctors were mainly Scots).

Unlike the Russian visitors to Britain, who mainly went as individuals or were officially sent, Britons in Russia were mainly volunteers who went to earn a living or make a fortune. The basic nucleus around which the British

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