the language question in panslavism

[P. Seriot]

Dear colleagues
I am interested in the language question in the panslavist ideology in the
19th Century. What was at stake was the classical problem of "parts and
whole" in the panslavist argumentation. For example : are Slavic languages
dialects, variants of one and the same Great (and beautiful) Slavic
Language, or different langages? I am not at all interested to know if one
solution is TRUE and the other FALSE, but in the types of arguments, the
representations of language which are involved in those types of discourse
on language and identity in the Slavic world in the 19th (and 20th)
Century. Another example : in 1848 at the 1st Slavic congress in Prague,
the Polish, Bulgarian, Illyrian delegates were sure they would speak the
Great Slavic language with their Brothers-Slavs. Nonetheless, they were
totally unable to understand each other, and they were eventually obliged
to speak German together, the German language was in fact the language of
Panslavism, though it was the language of the main ennemy.
Another problem : are (Great) Russian, Bielorussian and Ukrainian dialects
of the same Russian language (it was the opinion of N.S. Trubetzkoy), or
differerent languages? What are the linguistic, grammatical, ideological,
political arguments to prove one thesis or the other?
One typical example is Macedonian : the same grammatical facts can be used
to prove that Macedonian IS or IS NOT the same as Bulgarian. But thje
Kashubian dialect/language is also interesting : for the German census
officers under the Bismarck regime, Kashubian was a real language, differne
tfrom Polish, but for Polish patriots it could not be, because it was only
a part of the language of the (united) Polish nation to be liberated from
the occupants.
The Minister of Education under Alexander III prohibited the Ukrainian
language in Ukraine, especially at the University of Kiev. His argument was
: "everybody knows that Ukrainian is not a language". But what was his
overt, implicit definition of what a language IS and IS NOT, to declare
that Ukrainian is not a language? Of course, the aim was strictly
political, nonetheless he used a sort of linguistic argument.
Thank you in advance for any help and suggestions.

Patrick SERIOT
University of Lausanne, Switzerland



 ___Patrick SERIOT_________________________
___Faculte des Lettres_______________________
___Langues slaves-BFSH2-UNIL________________
___CH-1015_LAUSANNE_____________________
___Tel_+41_21_692_30_01_________________
___Fax_+41_21_692_29_35_________________
___e-mail_Patrick.Seriot at slav.unil.ch__________
___http://www.unil.ch/slav/ling______________