Karavaeva P.Yu. The Life of Saint Theodore the Studite in Nil Sorsky’s “Collection”: Lexical Editing of the Antigraph Text
DOI: https://doi.org/10.15688/jvolsu2.2026.1.1
Polina Yu. Karavaeva
Candidate of Sciences (Philology), Leading Researcher, Lexicography Laboratory, Pushkin State Russian Language Institute, Moscow, Russia; Associate Professor, Department of Applied Linguistic and Literary Studies, State Academic University for the Humanities, Moscow, Russia
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https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3876-229X
Abstract. The paper examines newly discovered lexical substitutions in the Life of Saint Theodore the Studite, edited by Nil Sorsky. This Life originally belongs to the ancient translations from Greek made by South Slavic scribes in the territory of Old Rus'. It is shown that, in the Life edited by Nil, among the majority of lexical substitutions, which are freely differentiated into groups, there are examples of lexical improvements that require particular consideration. Such exclusive substitutions include corrections of translator's errors based solely on the Church Slavonic context of the extract (изложенїе – низложенїе), the introduction of Slavic explanations to Greek words preserved in the text (ѥпитимия – запрѣщениѥ) in accordance with the traditions of the Athos-Tyrnovo school of book reading, as well as the replacement of lexical and semantic archaisms with the synonyms commonly used in the 15th – 16th century texts (позоръ – позорище, притъча – ѡбразъ). It has been established that a striking feature of the lexical revisions carried out by Nil is the desire to adapt the original text to the perception of a scribe of the late 15th – early 16th centuries. The discovered lexical substitutions enable the conclusion that the Sorsky ascetic, undoubtedly guided by the lexical norms of the new Svyatogorsk translations and taking into account the development of the Middle Russian variant of Church Slavonic, approached the correction of each lexeme individually.
Key words: Nil Sorsky, Life of Saint Theodore the Studite, main antigraph, autograph, lexical substitutions, translator's errors, Slavic explanations, archaisms.
Citation. Karavaeva P.Yu. The Life of Saint Theodore the Studite in Nil Sorsky's "Collection": Lexical Editing of the Antigraph Text. Vestnik Volgogradskogo gosudarstvennogo universiteta. Seriya 2. Yazykoznanie [Science journal of Volgograd State University. Linguistics], 2026, vol. 25, no. 1, pp. 5-18. (in Russian). DOI: https://doi.org/10.15688/jvolsu2.2026.1.1
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