On the Problem of Liturgical Translations into Indigenous Languages in the Russian Empire until 1917

The article deals with Russian Orthodox missionary translations of the Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom into the languages of the indigenous nations of the Russian Empire in the historical context. Attention is paid to the phenomenon of apostasy from Orthodoxy in the Volga region, which required a new approach to the Christianisation of the indigenous peoples in the early-mid 19th century. The turning point was the missionary programme of N.I. Ilminsky, according to which translations of the liturgy were created based on spoken local languages. The missionary translations of the liturgy into Abkhazian, Altai, Buryat, Chuvash, Karelian, Komi, Mari, Tatar, Udmurt, and Yakut languages are considered. It is pointed out that the liturgical translation into Karelian (1911) contains the largest number of Slavic borrowings. Although the tradition of Christianisation was interrupted during the Soviet period, nowadays priests turn to the old missionary liturgical translations in some regions, making some linguistic revisions.