Stylistics of the Old Testament translation by Mikhail Fotinsky

This paper proposes new data to the study of Russian Bible translations history. Traditionally, it is considered that the earliest Russian Bible translations are connected with a Russian Bible Society’s activity (1812-1825), but that is shown to be not entirely true. Our investigation introduces the reader to the manuscript called «Opyt perevoda tochnago vethosvyaschennyh knig iz podlinnago evreyskogo na rossiyskiy, po evreyskomu perevodu kak oni samy perevodyat, s prilozheniem nekotoryh ih iz’yasneniy uchinen namestnikom iereem Mikhailom Fotinskim 1806 goda» ( An Attempt in Precise Translation of the Sacred Old Books from True Jewish into Russian, According to the Jewish Translation as They Do It Themselves, with an Addition of Some of Their Explanations, Performed by Vicar Priest Mikhail Fotinskii in Year 1806 ) (kept in Russian State Library, Collection of Manuscripts, f. 173.II, 12). This translation has not been described, studied or published before, and for that reason it remains unknown to most scientists, but the work should be considered the earliest Old Testament translation from Hebrew into Russian. The article reviews the main stylistic peculiarities of the Mikhail Fotinskii’s translation, and describes translator’s stylistic conception. In addition, language characteristics are described, such as archaic, vernacular and Ukranian elements. The translator’s goal was to make his translation from Hebrew. Despite this fact, Mikhail Fotinskii depended on the Bible in Old-Church Slavonic, known as The Elisabeth Bible which is the authorized version of the Russian Orthodox Church. Because of this, there are many Old-Church Slavonic elements in Mikhail Fotinskii’s translation which can be interpreted as archaic ones. These components are used for various purposes: 1) Old-Church Slavonic elements as markers of literary style (e.g. comp. yzmu Old-Church Slavonic variant - vyimu Russian variant); 2) Old-Church Slavonic transcription is used to distinguish different meanings of one polysemant (e.g. comp. tarshish ‘the name of the place’ using Hebrew transcription tharsis ‘precious stone’ using Old-Church Slavonic transcription); 3) Old-Church Slavonic words as equivalents for Hebrew ones (e.g. Oldfor Hebrew word tma Church Slavonic Ukrainian elements are a distinctive feature of Mikhail Fotinskii’s idiolect. They are frequently found on phonetic, lexis and grammar levels: characters ы and и denote the same sound (e.g. writing sin instead of syn ); West Slavic borrowings which are typical for Ukrainian (e.g. lantsugi ‘chain’ from Polish ɫаńсuсh ); alignment of genitive and accusative forms of personal pronomens / ‘ten thousand’). ṓ/ ribb ִinto mene, tebe instead of menya, tebya typical for Russian, etc. In addition, the translator used some vernacular words though only in his commentaries and not in the translation text. These elements helped Mikhail Fotinskii to make his translation clear and understandable. In conclusion it may be said that Mikhail Fotinskii’s Old Teatament translation is made into Russian language, but his idiolect is characterized by mixing of various types of language elements: Russian, Old-Church Slavonic and Ukrainian ones.