Translating Θεοτοκος / Богородица

[Daniel Rancour-Laferriere]

Dear Slavists,

I am considering possible alternatives to "Mother of God" in translating Russian "Bogoroditsa" (which is a calque on Greek "Theotokos" according to Fasmer).  Some possibilities:

Godbearer
Birth-giver of God
Godbirther
Birther of God
The God-bearing One

The christological and mariological consequences of the terminology here have been enormous (see, for example, the four columns of fine print under the entry "theotokos" in Lampe's Patristic Greek Lexicon).  From a psychological perspective, "Mother of God" is too inclusive, for there is much more to mothering God than giving birth to him.  So Latin "Deipara" was a precise rendition of "Theotokos," while "Mater Dei" came later.  Analogously, I am looking for a more precise rendition of "Bogoroditsa," and I have tentatively chosen one in a major revision of a passage from an earlier book, The Joy of All Who Sorrow (2005).  For the time being, it reads as pasted in below.

Any suggestions would be most welcome.

With regards to the list,

Daniel Rancour-Laferriere


>             The universal core experience of having been mothered helps to explain why it is possible for one maternal metaphor to replace (or to exist in syncretistic overlap with) another such metaphor.  In ancient feudal Rus’, for example, the Birther of God (Bogoroditsa, a calque on the Greek Theotokos)[1] as Mary is still called in Russia) arrived from Byzantium in the tenth century and began to provide some of the same maternal amenities which the pagan “Mother Moist Earth” (mat’ syra zemlia) had provided worshippers before the conversion of Rus’ to Christianity.[2]  Even in the late pre-Soviet period Russian peasants would still sometimes refer to the Birther of God as “Earth” (zemlia), and conversely, they would sometimes refer to Earth as “Birther of God” (Bogoroditsia).[3]  This replaceability or interchangeability of metaphorical mothers was made possible by the ontogenetic past of the individuals involved, that is, by personal childhood experience of the real mother in those particular adult individuals who were choosing to worship one or the other – pagan or Christian – maternal deity.  Even without the help of psychology, the Russian folk themselves understood perfectly well that a third party – one’s real mother – had to be involved, as in this passage from a spiritual song collected in the middle of the nineteenth century:
> 
>  
> 
>                         Первая мать – Пресвятая Богородица;
> 
>                         Вторая мать – сыра земля;
> 
>                         Третия мать – кая скорбь приняла.
> 
>  
> 
>                         The first mother is the Most Holy Birther of God;
> 
>                         The second mother is Moist Earth;
> 
>                         The third mother is the one who took on pain [i.e., in childbirth].[4]
> 
>  
> 
> From a religious (Russian Orthodox) viewpoint, the Birther of God was certainly ‘number one,’ as indicated here.  From a historical viewpoint, however, this ditty is wrong.  Moist Earth was first, not second, for this pagan metaphor (among others) was revered in Rus’ before Christianity officially arrived there in the tenth century.  From a psychological viewpoint, however, neither the Birther of God nor Moist Earth was primary.  One’s own mother was (and still is) ‘number one’ in Russia (as elsewhere), for she was the first human being an individual interacted with from the moment of conception, and for quite some time after birth the preponderance of interaction was with this particular, literal mother.  Both “Moist Earth” and the “Birther of God” were experienced relatively late in childhood development – if at all, depending on the individual’s socio-cultural environment within Russia.
> 
> 
> [1] Fasmer 1986-1987 (1950-1958), vol. I, 183.
> 
> [2] For a review of some of the literature on this topic, see: Rancour-Laferriere 2005, 256-260 (from which some of the observations about the Russian Bogoroditsa made here are adapted).
> 
> [3] Uspenskii 1996-1997, vol. 2, 93.
> 
> [4] Quoted in: Fedotov 1991, 78; Uspenskii 1996-1997, vol. 2, 85.
> 




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