Rossijanin

[John Dunn]

Where was I?  Ah, yes, Roissija, rossijskij, rossijanin etc.

Rossija was coined in learned circles on the territory of
Polish-Lithuanian commonwealth on the basis of Latin and/or Greek
models.  It was adopted in Muscovy in 1654[?], when the
intermediate[?] version of the Tsar's title was changed from Tsar,
Gosudar' i Velikij knjaz' vseja RUsii to Ts., G. i V.K. vseja
Velikija, Malija i Belija ROsii.  Pending evidence to the contrary I
would assume that the derived forms rossijskij and rossijanin were
either coined by or imported into Muscovite learned circles (i.e. the
Slavjano-Greko-Latinskaja Akademija) around the end of 17th century;
again, pending evidence to the contrary I assume the term Rossijskaja
imperija to be an early 18th-century Church Slavonicism (after 1721
Peter I is referred to as Imperator i samoderzhets vserossijskij).
Lomonosov uses rossijskij and rossijanin as learned/high-style
variants of russkij (e.g. Rossijskaja grammatika), and it might seem
that the distinction in meaning, which depends on a re-interpretation
of the difference between the two terms, must post-date Lomonosov.
Documents relating to Sino-Russian relations in the 1720s, however,
tell a slightly different story: when the Russians tried to appoint
the Swede Lorents Lange as their Consul in Peking, it was for the
benefit of the rossijskoe kupechestvo and he was told to display the
rossijskij gerb;  at the same time his team was meant to include dlja
vsjakix del a ruskoj pod"jachej (sorry about the linguistic
macaroni).  My interpretation of this somewhat ambiguous formulation
is that the need was linguistic: Lange's Russian was not up to
official correspondence; in other documents ruskoj is used to refer
to the language.  Further attestations would be useful, but I would
conclude from all this that the distinction developed gradually and
was probably context-related.

My observation is that the modern distinction beween russkij and
rossijskij etc., though one of the touchstones of post-Soviet
political correctness, is also context-related.  It would take a
Barkashovian revolution (Bozhe upasi) for the official government
newspaper Rossijskaja gazeta to be renamed, but elsewhere, and
especially in more informal contexts (e.g. the name of the television
programme Russkij ekstrim, for which I assume there is no requirement
for participants to be ethnic Russians), the difference seems to be
glided over.  It is also possible to find oneself in situations where
it is genuinely difficult to decide which form to use, and I believe
that hyper-corrections are not unknown.  I have a distant
recollection, which someone might be kind enough to confirm or
refute, that the great stylist and arch-benefactor of the Russian
language V.S. Chernomyrdin got into some trouble for perpetrating
just such a howler.

John Dunn.

--
John Dunn
Department of Slavonic Studies
University of Glasgow
Hetherington Building
Bute Gardens
Glasgow
G12 8RS
Tel.: +44 (0)141-330-5591
Fax: +44 (0)141-330-2297
e-mail: J.Dunn at slavonic.arts.gla.ac.uk

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