UDC

81’42

DOI

10.17238/issn2227-6564.2020.1.53

Authors

Andzhella N. Smolina
Siberian Federal University; prosp. Svobodnyy 82a, Krasnoyarsk, 660041, Russian Federation;
ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0947-3763 e-mail: angelic2009@mail.ru

Abstract

Based on the epistolary heritage of Metropolitan Benjamin (Fedchenkov), this article examines the functioning of spiritual recollection letters in the religious and ecclesiastical style and determines their linguistic status. Analysing the epistles combined in the work Letters on Monasticism, the author studies the particularities of the ideological content, thematic sphere, authorship and addressees of such texts, as well as reveals their intentional and linguistic-stylistic features. It is noted that the most characteristic features of the genre are: realization of spiritual and religious intentions, assertion of Christian ideas, and emphasis on Orthodox themes. The author shows that many religiously marked language units are used in this type of text, including theonyms, agioanthroponyms, iconyms, ecclesionyms, names of Christian sacraments, Orthodox holidays, items of liturgical vestments, as well as theological studies and disciplines. In addition, the paper demonstrates that the religious and ecclesiastical nature of spiritual recollection letters is manifested in the use of language units designating Christian texts and belonging to the corpus of Orthodox vocabulary with spiritual and moral meaning and religious formulae. In considering the linguistic incarnation of the genre, the author focuses on the figurative and tropeic organization of the spiritual recollection letter and demonstrates that particularities of the functioning of epithets, metaphors, allusions, comparisons, enumerations, repetitions, rhetorical questions, questionanswer constructs and rhetorical exclamations are connected with their religious and ecclesiastical signification (that is, these means of expression are either religionyms or include religionyms). The problem of Christian intertextuality is also touched upon: intertextemes, which are present in the studied letters, refer to the Old and New Testaments, patristic texts and prayers. It is concluded that the spiritual recollection letter is a hybrid epistolary genre of the religious and ecclesiastical style, a text created by an ecclesiastic writer and targeted at a concrete (individual) Christian addressee. Moreover, it contains elements of dialogization and has a retrospective narrative organization.
For citation: Smolina A.N. Spiritual Recollection Letter as a Genre Phenomenon of the Religious and Ecclesiastical Style. Vestnik Severnogo (Arkticheskogo) federal’nogo universiteta. Ser.: Gumanitarnye i sotsial’nye nauki, 2020, no. 1, pp. 53–63. DOI: 10.17238/issn2227-6564.2020.1.53

Keywords

ecclesiastical and religious style, spiritual recollection letter, Metropolitan Benjamin (Fedchenkov), epistolary culture, epistolary genre, ecclesiastical and religious language units, intertexteme

References

1. Earle R. Introduction: Letters, Writers and the Historian. Epistolary Selves: Letters and Letter-Writers, 1600–1945. London, 2016. 231 p.
2. Doering L. Ancient Jewish Letters and the Beginnings of Christian Epistolography. Tübingen, 2012. 615 p.
3. White P. Cicero in Letters: Epistolary Relations of the Late Republic. Oxford, 2010. 250 p.
4. Muir J.V. Life and Letters in the Ancient Greek World. London, 2009. 240 p.
5. Morello R., Morrison A.D. (eds.). Ancient Letters: Classical and Late Antique Epistolography. Oxford, 2007. 392 p.
6. Carlin M., Crouch D. (eds.). Lost Letters of Medieval Life. English Society, 1200–1250. Philadelphia, 2013. 334 p.
7. Hogel C., Bartoli E. Medieval Letters: Between Fiction and Document. Turnhout, 2015. 471 p.
8. Ponyrko N.V. Epistolyarnoe nasledie Drevney Rusi, XI–XIII: issledovaniya, teksty, perevody [The Epistolary Heritage of Early Russia, 11th – 13th Centuries: Studies, Texts, Translations]. St. Petersburg, 1992. 214 p.
9. Antonova M.V. Drevnerusskoe poslanie XI–XIII vekov: poetika zhanra [The Old Russian Message of the 9th – 13th Centuries: Poetics of the Genre: Diss.]. Orel, 1999. 331 p.
10. Podtergera I.A. Pis’ma i poslaniya Simeona Polotskogo [Letters and Messages of Symeon of Polotsk: Diss.]. St. Petersburg, 2000. 257 p.
11. Sarin E.I. Avtobiograficheskiy diskurs v literature Drevney Rusi XI–XIII vekov (zhitiya, poucheniya, poslaniya) [Autobiographical Discourse in Old Russian Literature of the 11th – 13th Centuries (Lives, Teachings, Messages): Diss.]. Bryansk, 2014. 206 p.
12. Belunova N.I. Intertekstual’nye sredstva i osobennosti ikh funktsionirovaniya v druzheskom pis’me (na materiale pisem tvorcheskoy intelligentsii kontsa XIX – pervoy chetverti XX v.) [Intertextual Means and Their Functioning in Letters to Friends (Based on Letters from the Creative Intelligentsia of the Late 19th – First Quarter of the 20th Century)]. Teoriya i praktika servisa: ekonomika, sotsial’naya sfera, tekhnologii, 2013, no. 4, pp. 69–75.
13. Kur’yanovich A.V. Epistolyarnaya yazykovaya lichnost’: k voprosu opredeleniya kategorial’nykh i tipologicheskikh chert [Epistolary Linguistic Personality: On the Question of Defining Categorical and Typological Features]. Sibirskiy filologicheskiy zhurnal, 2014, no. 4, pp. 255–262.
14. Kovaleva N.A. Chastnye pis’ma russkikh pisateley-klassikov XIX veka: adresant i adresat v rechevoy organizatsii teksta [Private Letters of 19th-Century Russian Classical Writers: The Sender and the Addressee in the Speech Organization of Texts]. Vestnik Sankt-Peterburgskogo gosudarstvennogo universiteta tekhnologii i dizayna. Ser. 2: Iskusstvovedenie. Filologicheskie nauki, 2017, no. 3, pp. 102–105.
15. Murashova E.A. Linguopragmatic Interpretation of Ataman P.N. Krasnov’s Letter Dated 24 July 1918. Vestnik Severnogo (Arkticheskogo) federal’nogo universiteta. Ser.: Gumanitarnye i sotsial’nye nauki, 2017, no. 4, pp. 108–115. DOI: 10.17238/issn2227-6564.2017.4.108
16. Nizhnikova L.V. Pis’mo kak tip teksta [Letter as a Type of Text: Diss.]. Odessa, 1991. 159 p.
17. Vinogradova E.M. Epistolyarnye rechevye zhanry: pragmatika i semantika teksta [Epistolary Speech Genres: Text Pragmatics and Semantics: Diss.]. Moscow, 1991. 274 p.
18. Smolina A.N. Rechevoy etiket russkogo dukhovnogo pis’ma [Speech Etiquette of Russian Spiritual Letters]. Krasnoyarsk, 2018. 288 p.
19. Metropolitan Benjamin (Fedchenkov). Pis’ma o monashestve. Bozh’i lyudi [Letters on Monasticism. God’s People]. Moscow, 2016. 384 p.
20. Postovalova V.I. Teolingvistika v sovremennom gumanitarnom poznanii: istoki, osnovnye idei i napravleniya [Theolingustics in Modern Humanities: Origins, Basic Ideas and Trends]. Magister Dixit, 2012, no. 4, pp. 54–101.
21. Kozhina M.N. (ed.). Stilisticheskiy entsiklopedicheskiy slovar’ russkogo yazyka [Stylistic Encyclopaedic Dictionary of the Russian Language]. Moscow, 2006. 696 p.
22. Ushakov D.N. (ed.). Tolkovyy slovar’ russkogo yazyka [Explanatory Dictionary of the Russian Language]. Moscow, 2000. Vol. 1. 848 p.
23. Kokovina N.Z. Kategoriya pamyati v russkoy literature XIX veka [The Category of Memory in 19th-Century Russian Literature: Diss.]. Tver, 2004. 346 p.
24. Metropolitan Benjamin (Fedchenkov). Promysl Bozhiy v moey zhizni [Divine Providence in My Life]. Available at: https://azbyka.ru/otechnik/Veniamin_Fedchenkov/promysl-bozhij-v-moej-zhizni/ (accessed: 15 July 2019).
25. Urbanovich L.N. Sistema raboty s religioznymi ponyatiyami na urokakh dukhovno-nravstvennoy napravlennosti [The System of Religious Concepts in School Classes of Spiritual and Moral Orientation]. Vestnik PSTGU. Ser. IV: Pedagogika. Psikhologiya, 2017, no. 44, pp. 11–19. DOI: 10.15382/sturIV201744.11-19