Studien zur terminologischen Lexik bulgarischer Geographielehrbücher (1835-1875) by SabineRiedelReview by: Thomas HenningerThe Slavonic and East European Review, Vol. 71, No. 3 (Jul., 1993), pp. 508-510Published by: the Modern Humanities Research Association and University College London, School ofSlavonic and East European StudiesStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/4211309 .

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508 THE SLAVONIC REVIEW

Riedel, Sabine. Studien zur terminologischen Lexik bulgarischer Geographielehrbucher (I835-I875). Slavistische Beitrage, 290. Otto Sagner, Munich, I 992. 552 pp. Bibliography. Index. No price available (paperback).

THIS monograph on the terminological lexis used in Bulgarian geography textbooks between I 835 and I 875 is a valuable contribution towards the historv of the Bulgarian literary language. Riedel surveys the foundation of Bulgarian schools in the nineteenth century, the geography textbooks available at that time, and then focuses on the formation of geographical terms as used in five geography books used in Bulgarian schools between I 835 and I 843, as well as on the further development of these terms up to I875. An alphabetical index of more than 300 pages allows the book to be used as a reference work.

The first Bulgarian lay school was founded in I835 by Vasil Aprilov. Before that the only source of lay education for Bulgarians had been provided in Greek schools. A rudimentary teaching of Church Slavonic in Bulgarian monastery schools alongside was too limited in scope to ensure the develop- ment of a proper Bulgarian school system. The final inspiration came from the Greek lay school model. The appearance of mixed Helleno-Bulgarian schools between I 8I2 and I828 marked the transition.

The foundation of a national school system in the Bulgarian lands also required the formation of a viable literary language in which the lay subjects were to be taught. Similarly to the Greek trends, the debates were about the extent to which the features of the spoken language should be reflected in the new literary language. The outcome was that the grammatical features of the East and West Bulgarian dialects were standardized, supplemented by a strong participation of Church Slavonic and Russian lexical elements, espec- ially in the field of abstract concepts and specialized terminologies.

From the i 840s the Greek language and culture were gradually driven back in favour of an increasing Russian influence. This started when Bulgarian youths were sent to Russian educational institutions to deepen their know- ledge. It also involved the translation and adaptation of Russian textbooks for use in Bulgarian schools. The Russian influence was welcomed in view of an energetic campaign on the part of the Greek clergy and aristocracy against an independent Bulgarian cultural life.

Between I835 and I875 a number of Bulgarian geography textbooks were published. In the second quarter of the nineteenth century these were all translations: from Serbian, Greek and Russian. During the following two decades the number of languages translated from was expanded. Greek sources were gradually abandoned in favour of Russian sources, and French, German and English books were also used. This range was complemented by a number of possibly Bulgarian original textbooks. In the I 87os Russian sources clearly predominated over other foreign sources.

Bulgarian geographical terminology in the nineteenth century reflected the various foreign sources used, as this terminology did not exist before. Bor- rowings from other Slavonic languages as well as from non-related languages, the re-using of semantic adaptation of Slavonic vernacular elements and the introduction of newly coined words and expressions, partly in the form of calques, were all available.

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REVIEWS 509

In an analysis of five geography books by Neofit Bozveli (1835), Neofit Rilski (i838), Sava Radulov (I843), Konstantin Fotinov (I843) and Ivan Bogorov (i843), Riedel follows up lexical correspondences and differences between the originals and the Bulgarian versions. The textbooks considered go back to foreign sources from which they are adapted rather than directly translated. Evidence is given of the early transmission of international terms through Russian and Serbian, which take their origin primarily from French and German. Greek borrowings are represented more easily in the geo- graphical terminology than Turkish words, the latter being mainly used as glosses to new Slavonic synonyms and international terms. The representation of Slavonic vernacular elements amongst geographical terms is rather insigni- ficant compared with Slavonicisms from other sources. The substitution of the Church Slavonic influence by the Russian around the middle of the nineteenth century is not evident in the case of geographical terms, as many Russian words are themselves borrowings from Church Slavonic. The role of newly coined terms in these early geography books is important, even though most of them were not retained in the literary language. These mainly represent calques and semi-calques from the respective originals used.

More than half of the geographical terms used in the early Bulgarian textbooks underwent further lexical transformation in the third quarter of the nineteenth century and later. The borrowings from Church Slavonic, Russian and Serbian were gradually reduced to one third of their earlier number. Of the domestic elements, as well as the borrowings from non-related languages, only two thirds of the original number in the textbooks of the second quarter of the nineteenth century were retained later on. Most of the neologisms of that time were abandoned in the literary language and replaced by more suitable terms.

In the last chapter Riedel investigates the further development of about two hundred early geographical terms up to I875. A selection was made of terms occurring in mathematical, physical and political geography. Two examples will demonstrate the approach. Ostrov 'island', a Common Slavonic word, was used by all five translators, alongside a now obsolete variant ostrovec, and the Turkish gloss ada was added by two of the authors; ostrov is now the standard term used in Bulgarian, which means that the old rendering from the second quarter of the nineteenth century proved successful. The term for 'industry' was expressed in the early geography books by the plural forms manifakturi or fabriki, two international terms borrowed through Russian, but also by the Turkism gecenmek or the genetically very mixed neologism manifakturni gecen- mek; the term industria, transmitted through German and Serbian and occur- ring already in the first geography book of I835, was for some reason reintroduced only in this century; the Russicism promislenost came into usage not earlier than the third quarter of the nineteenth century; and the Church Slavonicism rdkodelie/rakodelaa as well as the neologism rakodelnij pominJk were confined to the I86os; - present-day standard promiNlenost and industrija had therefore a long way to go before they were established.

The very useful index of nearly 4,ooo entries summarizes the geographical terms found in the earliest textbooks of the nineteenth century, with indication of their further development in later geography books, their inclusion in the dictionaries and their forms or equivalents in the present-day language.

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5IO THE SLAVONIC REVIEW

Riedel's approach to the development of geographical terms in Bulgarian can certainly be used as a model for investigating similar specialized termino- logies. These are normally very complex and involve a number of related and non-related languages and sources. London THOMAS HENNINGER

Potthoff, Wilfried, Dante in RufJland. Zur Italienrezeption der russischen Literatur von der Romantik zum Symbolismus. Carl Winter Universititsverlag, Heidel- berg, I99I. 682 pp. Notes. Bibliography. Indexes. DM I72.00 (paperback).

ENORMOUS in size, exhaustive in detail, exorbitant in price and exacting in precision, this monograph should be the last, as well as the first, word on such an important theme. Nowhere more than in Russia is Schopenhauer's dictum better understood: 'Where else did Dante get the material for his Hell other than from this, our real world?', and a study of Dante in Russia, where Guelphs, Ghibellines and poets under sentence of death continue the patterns of Renaissance Italy, must inevitably deepen our understanding of Dante, as well as of his Russian interpreters.

It must be conceded that Potthoff's magnum opus does tell us more about Dante, especially through the eyes of Russia's lesser poets, from Maikov to Briusov, as well as bringing out the essentially Italian aspirations of Russian poets, against all the differences in sonorities and poetics between the two languages. Potthoff has read extremely widely and his major contribution is to show how important non-Italian thinking, especially English and German critiques, were in acting as a vehicle for Dante to travel to Russia. The academic apparatus of this study is exemplary, it is lovingly equipped and almost faultlessly proof-read. As a non-German, I feel best equipped to declare that Potthoff writes about complex matters in a German unusually lucid and unsubordinating for this or the last century. Any library whose budget allows respectable holdings in comparative literature should buy (and bind) this volume.

Nevertheless, this reviewer has reservations, if not strictures. The most unfair reservation is that the work stops short with the Russian Symbolists, at the very point where Dante is about to be fully understood. We are largely deprived of Russia's pOSt-1922 Dante, the god of Anna Akhmatova, Osip Mandel'shtam and Mikhail Lozinskii, the Dante whom Stalin encouraged poets to translate into Russian and Lavrentii Beria into Georgian, as a political and literary signal whose meaning we can only dimly guess at. One would gladly sacrifice a quarter of this study, the investigation of nonentities like Golenishchev-Kutuzov or Ellis, for an extension of the study's scope until at least 1940. Mandel'shtam's Razgovor o Dante is given little more than a footnote in an epilogue. True, Potthoff explicitly offers us an Ausschnitt, but it seems hard to cut out the best and preserve the worst. Thus the nub of the work, three quarters, is devoted to twenty years of Russian Symbolist interpretation, which makes this study more an extension of Pamela Davidson's 1989 work, The Poetic Imagination of Vyacheslav Ivanov, than a comprehensive evaluation of Dante in Russia.

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