Die Welt der Slaven: Internationale Halbjahresschrift für Slavistik
Die Welt der Slaven: Internationale Halbjahresschrift für Slavistik Herausgegeben von Daniel Bunčić (Köln), Susanne Frank (HU Berlin), Schamma Schahadat (Tübingen), Katrin Schlund (Halle), Monika Wingender (Gießen) Harrassowitz Verlag · Wiesbaden ISSN 0043-2520 · eISSN 2193-5472 Beirat: Natalia Bernitskaïa (Paris), Gesine Drews-Sylla (Würzburg), Mina Đurić (Belgrad), Raoul Eshelman (München), Rainer Grübel (Oldenburg), Sabine Häusler (Halle), Sebastian Kempgen (Bamberg), Aleksandr Lavrov (IRLI RAN, St. Petersburg), Marek Łaziński (Warschau), Volkmar Lehmann (Hamburg), Peter Rehder (München), Wolf Schmid (Hamburg), Ulrich Schweier (München), Igor Smirnov (Konstanz), Michael Wachtel (Princeton), Anna Zalizniak (IJa RAN, Moskau) Wir trauern um unser langjähriges Beiratsmitglied Klaus Steinke (* 27.01.1942, † 02.04.2025). → Aktuelles Heft → Archiv ab 2019 → Archiv bis 2018 indiziert von
Rez.: Bilewicz, Michał & Olko, Justyna (Hg.). 2022. Mniejszości i ich języki wobec kryzysu
Copyright (c) 2026 Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden
On the translations of al-Ḥarīrī’s maqāmas into Russian in the first half of the nineteenth century
The Russian poet Dmitrij Oznobišin is known for his numerous imitations and adaptations of Arabic and Persian literary works. It was he who, according to the opinions of some specialists in the field of Russian literature, translated two stories (maqāmas) by al-Ḥarīrī directly from Arabic out of a total amount of six translated into Russian in the nineteenth century. However, some scholars in the field of Arabic and Islamic studies in the 1980s questioned whether he was really capable of translating one of these maqāmas and suggested that it was Józef Sękowski who translated that story. Therefore, the aim of this study is to find out whether Oznobišin indeed translated these two maqāmas from Arabic or whether it was somebody else. The historical facts, archival materials and textual analysis of Oznobišin’s works reveal that he certainly could not translate these maqāmas by al-Ḥarīrī directly from Arabic and the true translator of one story was, in fact, Sękowski.
Bosnian/Croatian/Montenegrin/Serbian:one language or four?
This paper aims to provide insights into speakers’ perspectives on whether B/C/M/S constitute a single language, as well as their use of the terms (glottonyms) that refer to these languages in the countries where they are spoken (Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Serbia) and in the German-speaking diaspora (Switzerland, Germany, Austria). The findings reveal that glottonyms and attitudes toward B/C/M/S vary primarily based on the speakers’ ethnic affiliation and, to a lesser extent, on their country of residence. The study uses a quantitative analysis of a transnational survey, complemented by an overview of the respondents’ language attitudes.
Konzeptualisierung der Zweisprachigkeit in den Sprachbiographien deutsch-polnischer Bilingualer
The conceptualisation of bilingualism in the language biographies of German-Polish bilinguals In this article I present the ways in which Polish-German bilinguals conceptualise their bilingualism. I argue that language ideologies and language experiences are socially and historically conditioned. They have a strong influence on processes of language shift and loss. The sociolinguistically annotated language biographies available in the LangGener corpus of Polish-German bilingualism (https://langgener.ijp.pan.pl/) provide the material basis for the article. I present the main language ideologies and language experiences of bilingual speakers from Poland and Germany and discuss the process of language shift of both groups in a social and historical context.
Grammaticalization of (in)definiteness markers in Polish monolinguals and bilinguals
Polish is considered to be in an initial stage of grammaticalization towards an article language. While previous research has claimed this to be true for monolingual and bilingual speakers, it can be expected that in Polish-German bilinguals the grammaticalization process is further advanced due to contact with an article language (German). In their case, however, the use of lexical (in)definiteness markers may merely be the result of contact with German and does not necessarily indicate the development of an article-like system in Polish. In order to determine the actual degree of grammaticalization of (in)definiteness markers in Polish and to distinguish it from mere contact-related interference from German, this study presents a fine-grained quantitative and qualitative analysis of the use of the Polish demonstrative ten ‘this’/‘the’ and the numeral jeden ‘one’/‘a’ in different contexts by German-Polish bilinguals and Polish monolinguals. A mixed logistic regression model revealed no significant differences between monolinguals and bilinguals in this respect. While ten was used only as a demonstrative, our data show that jeden has reached the stage of an optional indefinite article.
Copyright (c) 2025 Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden
Wunderglaube als literarisches und imperiales Problem
Belief in miracles as a literary and imperial problem: Leskov, Dostoevskij, and “spiritual power” This essay reexamines the quarrel that Fedor Dostoevskij and Nikolaj Leskov fought in 1873 in the journals Graždanin (The Citizen) and Russkij mir (The Russian World) after Leskov published his story Zapečatlennyj angel (The Sealed Angel). This reading foregrounds the concept of “spiritual power” (duxovnaja vlastʹ), used by Dostoevskij and largely ignored in previous research. Left undefined, Dostoevskij’s use of the concept implies that an essential feature of this power is the ability to resist worldly power. He argues that Leskov portrays spiritual power as “powerless” because in his representation of the official Church the bishop does not object to a bureaucrat’s reckless sealing of an Old Believer icon in Kyiv. Moreover, by having the Old Believers’ community recognize a made-up, “natural” miracle — the unsealing of a copy of their icon — as a sufficient reason for reconversion to the official Church, Leskov, in Dostoevskij’s view, exposes his readers in an unresponsible way to the modern problem of plausibility and eventually to positivism and skepticism. According to Dostoevskij, both of these moves constitute a potential “offense of the people’s feelings” (narodnoe čuvstvo) and “terrible violence.” In this way, he involves Leskov in an argument about populism, which then overlays the imperial dimension of the schismatics’ return to the official Church. As this essay aims to show, the result is an oscillation between both authors’ aim to reintegrate the empire through religion, i.e., the right use of “spiritual power,” on the one hand and a populist justification of art, on the other. The shrill polemic between the two writers shows in a nutshell how the analysis of the ‘imperiality’ of late nineteenth-century Russian literature has to reckon not only with colonialism and nationalism but also with an intertwined set of problems, which are religion, populism, and the aesthetic question of realistic representation.
Metaphoricity of poem titles in the intimist poetry of Aleksandar Leso Ivanović
This paper provides an analysis of the metaphoricity of titles in the intimist poetry of Montenegrin writer Aleksandar Leso Ivanović. The introductory part of the paper provides basic information about his life, poetry, and poetics. Although his poetic corpus is not large and is thematically diverse, this poet is considered the forerunner of Montenegrin intimist poetry. In depicting the lyrical subject, in which many literary critics recognize the author himself, Ivanović predominantly employs metaphor as the most significant poetic stylistic figure. He often gives it a central, titular place in his best poems, which intensifies its aesthetic, artistic effect. Consequently, this paper focuses on analyzing metaphor from both a formal and a functional perspective. The following poetic metaphors have captured my scientific research attention: shadow people, broken window, prisoner on a stone, stub in the karst, two aspens and Šaban’s carriage.
Rez.: Dopart, Bogusław. 2023. Poemat romantyczny, epopeja, summa poetica: O Panu Tadeuszu Adama Mickiewicza
Wczoraj byliśmy oglądać rowery…: On the so-called absentive in Polish Linguistic research has shown that a new construction, referred to as the absentive, has emerged in many languages. It is commonly understood as a grammatical category that expresses the subject referent’s presence in a different location. On a syntactic level, it often involves a combination of the verb to be with an infinitive. Polish also exhibits a structurally similar pattern, which, despite its prevalence, has largely been overlooked in Polish linguistics. The present study addresses this research gap and proposes an interpretation of the construction as a purpose clause.
The Old Church Slavonic eucharistic term въсѫдъ
The Old Church Slavonic eucharistic term vъsǫdъ is an original Slavic word derived from the verb *vъsǫditi (vъ + sǫd-) ‘to judge; to condemn; to determine’. The Slavic lexeme attests a semantic calque of Old High German wiz(z)ōd ‘law, commandment; (Old / New) Testament; communion’ (the second stage of the semantic shift is not attested in Slavic). Among the cognates of the Old Church Slavonic vъsǫdъ are modern Bosnian/Croatian/Serbian usud and Slovenian usoda ‘fatum’, while the reflexes of *vъsǫditi are present in Middle Russian, Middle Belarusian as well as in modern Bosnian/Croatian/Serbian and in modern Russian dialects.
The main purpose of the following paper is to pinpoint the linguistic expressions of nature and human-nature relations in Droga 816 (2015) by Michał Książek. The analysed book documents a growing interest of Polish literature in environmental issues. It represents the so-called nature or environmental writing: a long-established literary tradition in Anglo-American literature, little known in the Polish literary landscape. The proposed analysis draws on the embodied — or, more broadly, grounded — cognition approach (Barsalou 1999, 2008; Gibbs 2003, 2005, 2006; Lakoff & Johnson 1999) which emphasizes the formative role of bodily experiences and sensorimotor capacities in human cognitive processes and linguistic behaviours. An additional theoretical foundation is provided by the notion of the linguistic worldview (Bartmiński 2009/12), whose basic assumption is that the use of language offers insight into the way we conceive of the world in general and the self in relation to nature in particular. The main points of interest are the concepts of wildness/wilderness, natureculture (Haraway 2003), anthropo- and biocentrism as well as the author’s linguistic creativity expressing itself e.g. in various novel (synaesthetic) metaphors aimed at conveying his (multisensory) perception of the natural world.
Cross-linguistic analysis of (potential) buzzphrasemes (banner phrasemes) in European Commission documents on sustainability and in public discourse
The aim of this research is to conduct a cross-linguistic examination of phrasemes in the sustainability discourse, with a particular emphasis on public discourse and publications from the EU Commission. The study links a distinct subset of phrasemes from three EU languages — German, Polish and Bulgarian — and correlates them to Russian as a language spoken outside of the EU. All phrasemes are adjective-noun collocations and are used as “buzzphrasemes”, i.e. phrasemes with discourse marking (they are typical for a specific discourse) and high ethical value. They show prototypical qualities, linguistic simplicity, and suitability for effective communication in public discourse on sustainability. Following a comprehensive cross-linguistic analysis, including pragmatic analysis, synchronic and diachronic investigation, and empirical evaluations, the study characterises these buzzphrasemes and finds that the use of colour adjectives in buzzphrasemes is advantageous. In most cases, this usage supports similar patterns in political, technical, and media discourses, both generally but particularly within the EU.
This article discusses Věra Linhartová and Stefan Themerson’s literary translingualism from the perspective of French sociology of literature. It works with the premises of field theory (Pierre Bourdieu) and its followers (Pascale Casanova’s world republic of letters and Jérôme Meizoz’s literary posture). It traces how the exophonic experience (the experience of authors writing in their second or third language) and the reflection of this experience are incorporated into the formation of Linhartová’s and Themerson’s literary postures. The proclamation of personal postmonolingual liberation from their first languages that both authors declare is then read in a social context. In this context, the authors’ postures: (1) position them at the autonomous poles of the literary fields of the receiving cultures, and (2) contribute to the autonomization of the potential field of literary translingualism.
Rez.: Sauerland, Karl & Krell, Detlef (Hg.). 2022. Mariupol: Reflexionen zur russischen Invasion gegen die Ukraine
The aim of the article is to present the work of a hitherto unknown writer from Lviv, Elżbieta Glaize (ca. 1772–1840). In 1801, Glaize published a collection of poems, Pierwiastki mojej muzy, most of which were devoted to female friendship. As I will argue this poetry owes much to the Sapphic literary tradition and inspiration from Sappho herself (through the poetry of the German poet Gabriele Baumberg and French Enlightenment editions). At the same time, I will identify those elements of Sappho’s poetry that became attractive to female writers of the late Enlightenment.
Urtext, Überlieferungs- und Wirkungsgeschichte im russischen Donat
Original, history of transmission and impact in the Russian Donat: How and whether contrasts can be analysed text-critically The manuscript tradition of the Russian Donatus poses a significant challenge for philologists. The recensio codicum has unveiled an intriguing textual transmission, which can be broadly categorized into two primary branches: 1) Some manuscripts, albeit defective (with two of them preserving a bilingual interlinear format), exhibit a rather mechanical copying process of the text; 2) Another branch consists of a single manuscript, which presents a seemingly better text. However, this version is a clearly augmented and interpolated version, reflecting changes made in a later period. A critical comparison between these two recensions not only permits but also necessitates a new editorial approach. This approach should prioritize the legitimate goal of textual restitution while also considering the subsequent history of the text, including its indirect tradition. It is therefore advisable to blend the “classical” method of identifying errors, wherever applicable, with a thorough examination of the text’s evolution as evidenced by the interpolated version.
Rez.: Mickiewicz, Adam. 2023. Pariser Vorlesungen über die slavische Literatur und ihre Kontexte: Teile I–IV in drei Bänden
Mickiewicz, Adam. 2023. Pariser Vorlesungen über die slavische Literatur und ihre Kontexte: Teile I–IV in drei Bänden. (Neue Redaktion der deutschen Übersetzung von Gustav Siegfried, herausgegeben, kommentiert und mit einem Nachwort versehen von Walter Kroll.) Paderborn: Brill, Schöningh.
Copyright (c) 2024 Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden
Representation of “Absolute Beauty” in F. Dostoevskij’s The Idiot and W. Faulkner’s Light in August
This article is dedicated to the comparative study of the embodiment of positive characters (Prince Myškin and Lena Grove) in the novels of Dostoevskij and Faulkner. The American writer felt great affinity to Dostoevskij’s works, and it was he who (among others) had a strong influence on Faulkner’s writing. When creating a positive character (representing, in Dostoevskij’s words, “Absolute Beauty”), the Russian did not lose sight of the parallel with the traits of his Underground Man (Notes from Underground); admittedly, the archetypal creation, whose pattern of thinking and behaving found its embodiment in many of Dostoevskij’s characters (including, to some extent, Lëv Myškin); and so did Faulkner — without the associated character of Joe Christmas, who fully followed the “underground” pattern, Lena’s “Absolute Beauty” could not be described.
Acquisition and use of Macedonian as L2 by Albanian native speakers
This article investigates the ways the Macedonian language is acquired and used by Albanians in a situation of bilingualism in the multilingual municipality of Struga (North Macedonia). The goal is to discover sociolinguistic factors triggering the use of Macedonian by Albanians in Struga and nearby villages as well as the patterns between types of contact situations and interlocutors on the one hand, and choice of the language on the other. The main source of the material analyzed consists of questionnaires, in-depth interviews, and narratives elicited by means of the picture tasks collected during field work in 2020–2022, which made it possible to use qualitative and quantitative research methods.
The article, whose title makes an ironic reference to a contemporary Internet phenomenon, is a case study of the marginalization of women writers in the literary history of Slavic modernisms. Detailing the reception of Polish volume Poezje (1876) by Maria Bartusówna, Czech Immortelly (1879) by Irma Geisslová, and Slovak Z vesny života (1895) by Ľudmila Podjavorinská, I describe the mechanism of downplaying the precursory modernist poetry on account of the age and gender of its authors. Although the volumes, published well before the emergence of modernist movements in the respective literary fields, show all the characteristics of the later Decadence and Symbolism, they were labeled merely as outpourings of excessively sad girls. Instead of being recognized as decadent, they were discredited as naïve, immature, and pretentious. As a result, none of the poets has been acknowledged as a precursor of modernism, neither by the succeeding modernists themselves nor by literary historians.
Carinthian Slovene authors on the German-language book market
This article deals with Slovene literature in Austrian Carinthia, where the Slovene ethnic group lives. As a case study, the translations and reception of the Carinthian Slovene Florjan Lipuš on the German-language book market are discussed. The research shows that Lipuš, unlike other Slovene writers from Carinthia, managed to attract not only Austrian but also renowned German publishers. Moreover, his works were also translated into French and Italian and were well received by the target audiences. A look at the broader context suggests that not only the excellent style and poetics of the Slovene author’s language played an important role in this success, but also the enthusiasm and positive criticism of Lipuš’s works by Peter Handke, a winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature (2019). This underlines the thesis of the importance of transnational intermediaries when it comes to selecting works to be translated from Slovene into a foreign language/culture.
Interactive reportages in Central and Eastern Europe
Most of the research on interactive documentaries is based on Western productions, while there is a lack of studies devoted to projects from Central and Eastern Europe. To fill this gap, the output of the journalistic Outriders group, which was founded in Poland in 2017, is analyzed. The aim of the study is to isolate the basic compositional schemes according to which these projects are built and to characterize the interactive measures present in them. To achieve this, a combination of methods and techniques is used (elements of content analysis and multimodal analysis, constant comparison technique). Based on the conducted analyses, three main compositional schemes are distinguished: reportage in the linear version, reportage in the linear version plus, and a collection of several paths. Numerous solutions to make the message interactive are also observed, viz. hyperlinks, personalization, and optional materials.
„Nicht nur mit dem Gedanken, sondern mit dem ganzen Wesen“
“Not only with the thought but with the whole being”: Lev Tolstoj on knowledge, dead paper and living action The article discusses Lev Tolstoj’s involvement in the controversy between the Russian Westerners (Sergej Solovʹev, Boris Čičerin) and the Slavophiles (Konstantin Aksakov, Aleksej Xomjakov, Jurij Samarin) about the nature and character of historical knowledge. This controversy about “true” historical knowledge forms the ideological background for Tolstoj’s reflections on the problem of knowledge. This polemic revolves around the Russian reception of Wilhelm Heinrich Riehl, whose works and idea of “living science” also find great support with Tolstoj. In his correspondence with Boris Čičerin and later in literary texts (especially in the novel Anna Karenina), Tolstoj develops a peculiar theory of intuitive knowledge that places “living” experience and action above “dead paper”, i.e. above academic knowledge.
A corpus-based study on the inventory and grammaticalisation of compound indefinite pronouns in Croatian
The class of series-forming indefinite pronouns in Croatian is, like in other Slavonic languages, affected by ongoing grammaticalisation processes. In addition to the indefinite pronouns recorded in grammar manuals and in studies on indefiniteness, it can be extended to include a number of elements whose degree of grammaticalisation varies considerably. Based on corpus material from the hrWaC (Croatian web corpus) and HNK (Croatian National Corpus), we were able to provide the most complete list of Croatian indefinite markers yet compiled, and to analyse the lexical sources of their grammaticalisation. Furthermore, we propose an approach for calculating the degree of grammaticalisation of indefinite pronouns. For this purpose, fifteen specific sub-criteria were developed on the basis of Lehmann’s theory of grammaticalisation, and a mixed method combining both quantitative and qualitative analysis of corpus material was used to evaluate the degree of grammaticalisation according to these sub-criteria.
Rez.: Kątny, Andrzej. 2021. Das Polnische im Spiegel des Deutschen: Studien zur kontrastiven Linguistik
Kątny, Andrzej. 2021. Das Polnische im Spiegel des Deutschen: Studien zur kontrastiven Linguistik. Gdańsk: Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Gdańskiego. 181 S.
The present paper examines the expression of caused motion in Polish and compares the findings with parallel data in English obtained in Hendriks et al.’s (2008) study. The aim of the analysis was twofold: i. to reveal differences between the two languages in the lexicalization of caused motion that may be assigned to their semantic and morpho-syntactic features, and ii. to find similarities between Polish and English that may be accounted for by their affinity to the same typological category. In accordance with our expectations, in Polish and English (which are both satellite-framed), the expressions of caused motion turned out to include information about the Manner of motion (above 90% in both languages) in the verb. Furthermore, we found that Polish utterances are denser in terms of the expression of both Path and Manner than English utterances. The study was based on an elicitation task involving 24 Polish-speaking participants responding to the same set of video stimuli as respondents in Hendriks et al.’s (2008) study.
Rez.: Dobrzyńska, Teresa & Raya Kuncheva (eds). 2021. Recycling in Literature and Culture
Dobrzyńska, Teresa & Raya Kuncheva (eds). 2021. Recycling in Literature and Culture. Sofia: Boyan Penev. 268 pages.
Zur Onomastik des Friedhofs in Bydgoszcz an der Kcyńska-Straße
The onomastics of the cemetery at Kcyńska Street in Bydgoszcz: Slavic surnames of adults who died between 1925 and 1935 – a structural and morphological analysis The cemetery at Kcyńska Street in Bydgoszcz was founded in 1892. Initially it was the final resting place for the homeless, the poor, criminals as well as suicide victims. This article deals with surnames of Slavic origin of adults buried on the cemetery between 1925 and 1935. The basis for the analysis is a list containing 502 anthroponyms. The main contribution of the article is a thorough structural-morphological and semantic analysis of the collected Slavic anthroponyms. The authors want to demonstrate how traditional qualitative methods can be combined with novel quantitative methods and thus contribute to the field of onomastics.
Persuasion in Adrian Bratkowic’s “Spiritual Conversation” (Kraków 1633)
The aim of this article is to discuss persuasion strategies in Rozmowa duchowna i nabożne uważanie o siedmi słowach Pana Jezusowych (Spiritual conversation and pious consideration of the seven words of the Lord Jesus) by Adrian Bratkowic (Kraków 1633). The starting point is the presentation of the devotion of the seven last sayings of Christ, the Fraternity of the Passion of the Lord in Kraków, and the profile of Adrian Bratkowic, who performed the duties of a prefect there. The matter under discussion is the structure of Rozmowa duchowna and its preceding address to Dorota Kątska, the abbess of the Norbertines in Zwierzyniec in Kraków. The article also focuses on the author’s rhetorical style and persuasive methods, as well as persuasive aspects of the communication between the writer and the reader. It becomes apparent that Rozmowa duchowna follows the patterns of seventeenth-century communication, and numerous quotations, biblical allusions, and rhetorical figures are important elements of the author’s persuasive strategy. Another matter under discussion is Bratkowic’s deep conviction in the meaningfulness of the sermons he preached and later published, his frequent emphasis on the value of teaching and benefits for the audience, and his personal attitude towards his listeners, whom he treats with respect. The research shows that the text does not lack exponents of the traditional religious style, and the rhetoric was already popularized in the Counter-Reformation era.
Der Mythos des Krieges im Roman „Das Salz der Erde“ von Józef Wittlin
The article explores Józef Wittlin’s novel “Salt of the Earth” in the light of the mythopoetics of 20th-century literature. It is established that the author refers to classical mythological plots, themes, motives and images, archaic as well as biblical. The main accent is placed on the analysis of the military myth. It is proved that the war is depicted in the novel through the perception of the main character, who is the bearer of mythological consciousness. Peter Niewiadomski’s reflections on the war are based on the main principles of mythological thinking; this concerns primarily his reception of time and space, which has a clearly defined mythological character. The author also creates a number of individual symbolic images (mythologemes), which structure the literary world of the novel, acting as constructs of a new, modern mythology of war. At the same time, the expressive means and stylistic devices of the text aim not only to mythologize the reality but also to demythologize the war, depriving it of its horrifying sacredness.