American Contributions to the 14th International Congress of Slavists. Ohrid 2008

The New Ukrainian Standard Language of 1798: Tradition vs. Innovation

Christina Y. Bethin, ed. American Contributions to the 14th International Congress of Slavists, Ohrid, September 2008. Vol. 1: Linguistics. Bloomington, IN: Slavica, 59–74. The New Ukrainian Standard Language of 1798: Tradition vs. Innovation Andrii Danylenko The place of the old literary tradition in new standard Ukrainian has been recently addressed by Mechkovskaia (2004) in her study of spatial and chronological parameters of the social typology of Slavic languages. Closely following Tolstoi (1988: 7– 26), who authored one of the most comprehensive typologies of the Slavic literary languages, Mechkovskaia (2004: 261) examined Ukrainian in terms of dialect homogeneity vs. diversity, as well as the chronology of extralinguistic events in the history of written Ukrainian. With regard to the last parameter, standard Ukrainian, going back to the Peresopnytsia Gospel (1556–61), experienced, according to her, a “break” in its language tradition (ibid.: 277–78). This break purportedly lasted 150 years, from the mid-17th century to 1798, when Ivan Kotliarevs!kyi’s Ene!da was published by Maksym Parpura, thus ushering in the new Ukrainian literature and language based on the vernacular (Mats!ko 2000: 7). Yet, in a footnote, Mechkovskaia (2004: 273, fn. 14) admits that, in the case of Ukrainian, there was in fact no break in the literary tradition as observed by the 18th century, inasmuch as Hryhorii Skovoroda wrote in “new Church Slavonic of the Ukrainian recension.” Mechkovskaia’s arguments are open to doubt. First, in the case of the Peresopnytsia Gospel, Archimandrite Hryhorii and amanuensis Mykhailo Vasylevych made an attempt to combine Church Slavonic with the prostaia mova rather than with the Ukrainian vernacular. Second, the language of Skovoroda is a unique creation since, apart from its many Biblical and ecclesiastical features, it represents the Slobozhanshchyna variety of standard Russian as used by educated townspeople (Shevelov 1994). Mechkovskaia opted for an extreme stance in considering the relationship between the old literary tradition and new standard Ukrainian, while radically expanding the chronological limits of the alleged break in this tradition; Tolstoi (1988: 22), however , maintained that Ukrainian seemed to hold middle ground in its retention of the literary tradition. The position of Mechkovskaia fits well into the popular theory of the formation of new standard Ukrainian after the demise of its previous literary tradition (Fedot Zhylko, Lukiia Humets!ka, Olexa Horbatsch, Svitlana Iermolenko, and Larysa Masenko) which maintains that, from the early 18th century onward, during the first partition of Ukraine between the Russian Empire and Poland, the development of 60 ANDRII DANYLENKO literary styles in Ukrainian was abruptly halted (Masenko 1995, 2003). Allegedly, all literary varieties of Middle Ukrainian ceased to function in Left-Bank Ukraine, where Russian was introduced in all spheres of public life. Masenko (1995: 44) believes that it is to Kotliarevs!kyi’s credit that he discovered the only acceptable way to formulate a standard Ukrainian in his day, by choosing Southeast Ukrainian as the homogenous dialect basis of belles-lettres. The use of “bookish elements” by Kotliarevs!kyi in the Ene!da supposedly attests to the lack of any synthesis of written styles with the vernacular of the peasantry. Not surprisingly, the “old bookish idiom,” contrary to “the vernacular of the Ukrainian peasantry,” tends to be represented in this theory as “an extinct language” which has no right whatsoever to exist (ibid.: 45). The latest studies by Mechkovskaia (2004) and Masenko (1995, 2003), who staunchly support the idea of a break in the literary tradition and the subsequent creation of new standard Ukrainian based on the peasant vernacular, warrant serious revision , especially in view of the latest populist solution to this problem offered in Mats!ko (2000). A more dispassionate and comprehensive treatment of new standard Ukrainian must be placed in the context of the formation of literary genres and styles in the 18th century in two different standard languages. They are Church Slavonic of the Meletian version and the prostaia mova (Ruthenian), both influenced by Great Russian and, to a much lesser extent, Polish. Ultimately, gradual changes in the distribution of genres and standard languages throughout the 18th century were accompanied by transformations in their dialect foundations. Ignoring these factors, the populist theory will be always premised on “poorly grounded primitive ideas about the beginning of our literary language” (Syniavs!kyi 1928: 206–07). This is why the populist theory fails to appreciate Kotliarevs"kyi’s contribution to the formation of new standard Ukrainian, inasmuch as his literary output represents only “a certain stage in the history of the Ukrainian...