'chernoknizhie, chernoknizhnik'

[William Ryan]

Dear Elizabeth,
Thank you for your comments. However, this is not a problem about the
origin of the lexemes involved in the words. They are indeed 'similar'
to a variety of expressions in other languages, as one might expect -
but they are not the same. The words seems to be a late occurrence
(first half of the sixteenth century) and are of a type which one would
normally expect to be a calque, most probably from Greek. But there is
no Greek word which would serve as a model; the medieval Latin
'nigromantia' is not a precise model and in any case is a corruption of
'necromantia'. In fact all the European vernacular uses of 'black' in
the context of magic appear to have come from this medieval Latin
corruption of Greek. The earliest context for the Russian words known to
me is the ecclesiastical trial of Maxim the Greek, who was accused of
'chernoknizhnoe volkhvovanie'('black-book sorcery') and similar 'Hellene
and Jewish magic cunning'. Since this was a heresy and treason trial one
has to assume that the words were chosen with care and were intended to
be damaging. There is the further complication that there was already a
considerable number of words for different kinds of magic and witchcraft
in Old Russian, but the notion of black versus white magic was probably
not known in Muscovy at the time. I am still hoping that someone can
point to a source, probably Latin or German, which could have been known
to senior churchmen in the sixteenth century, in which the elements of
'black' and 'book' are combined in a semantic context of magic.
Regards,
Will Ryan

Elisabeth Ghysels wrote:
>
> Dear Will,
>
> I'm not sure whether I understood your question correctly because I don't
> know your background exactly. I think you know all that, but perhaps some of
> the following can still be of some use: The first part, 'cherno', 'black',
> of course is used in this context all over the indogerman languages and
> probably beyond that. The second part, 'knizhnik', 'scribe' or 'pundit'
> seems to be quite similar to the originally Persian word, taken over by
> Greeks and Romans as 'magos' / 'magus', which before getting its pejorative
> connotation just stood for 'priest', 'pundit'. Thus 'chernoknizhie' and
> 'chernoknizhnik' are indeed very similar to 'black magic' and 'black
> magician' and their equivalents in other European languages, 'Schwarzkunst',
> 'zwarte magie'.
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W. F. Ryan, MA, DPhil, FBA, FSA
Warburg Institute (School of Advanced Study, University of London)
Woburn Square, LONDON  WC1H 0AB
tel: 020 7862 8940 (direct)
tel: 020 7862 8949 (switchboard)
fax: 020 7862 8939
Institute Webpage  fttp://www.sas.ac.uk/warburg/
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