Old Slavonic language as a didactic resource for developing a strong language student personality

Introduction

Axiological approach, which is oriented towards shaping a spiritually mature personality, developing the idea of self-education, cultivating and forming spiritual and moral principles, is traditional for the Russian education system.

Considering the role of education in the above-mentioned aspect archpriest Vasilii Smagin writes: “Education cannot be a simple transmission of knowledge, since human personality must develop in all the aspects of its being. Thus, when we speak about education, we imply that it is meant to improve not only the intellectual and creative potential of a person, but also the emotional and moral spheres of his life. Genuine education must contribute to discovering the meaning of values, shape a personality responsible for the surroundings and for the future” (Smagin, 2004). Such an approach is not nationally specific, since it finds its reflection in the modern world Pedagogy (see, for instance, Francis, 1982; Nucci Larry, 1982; Carr, 1998; Burchett 2000; Kaliannan & Devi Chandran, 2010; Prabhu, 2011; Keshavarz, 2012; Salpykova, Akhmadullina, Valiakhmetova & Valiahmetova, 2016; Cortez, 2019).

Axiological component is especially important in the system of pedagogical education. “Professional training of future educators, that is based on axiological approach, contributes to solving current problems of modern education, connected with the development of the learners’ system of educational and professional values: awareness of social and personal importance of the teacher’s profession, its humanistic mission and understanding of one’s own attitude to basic professional values, to guiding motives of professional formation” (Bicheva & Filatov, 2018).

Among axiological reference points of “genuine education”, value-based attitude to language, in our opinion, has a special importance (see also:

Zerkina, Lomakina & Kostinac, 2015). On the one hand, the language, being a means of national self-identification, unites the members of the society regardless of their social status, education, age, material position. On the other hand, the language, both in its semantics and form, presents an inherent part of national history, culture, spirituality. Hence the most important component and indicator of an individual’s general culture is the responsibility for acquisition of linguistic heritage and preservation of Russian language mentality. Being aware of the importance of the above mentioned aspects of education as well as global demand for Russian language experts (Dzyuba, Zakharova, Ilchenko, Latuhina & Sheveleva, 2019), we consider the formation of the linguistic personality of a philologist to be one of the directions in higher education that define the content of verbal-teacher training.

In the general system of forming teacher’s professional competence (Perevoshchikova, Samoilova, Lapin, Elizarova & Panova, 2019) the core principle of the future philologist training process is, to our mind, the understanding of the role of language in the history of our nation’s spiritual life, the sources of which are found in the Old Slavonic and Old Russian languages. The purpose of this study is to show the didactic potential of including the Old Slavic language in the practice of training a teacher. Undoubted “advantage of church books in the Russian language” was stated by M.V. Lomonosov as far back as the 18th century. He emphasized the uniting role of the Old Church Slavonic language in time and space: “The Russian language in its full force, beauty and richness is not subject to changes or decline, as long as the Russian Church adorns itself with God’s glorification in Slavonic language”.

In the 19th century the objective of studying Old Slavonic (Old Church Slavonic) was understood and it found its practical realization in the system of close interaction of Linguistic academic science and gymnasium education, which was a basis for getting higher, university education. However, the main emphasis in gymnasiums was laid on the Russian language with a methodological basis that had clear goal-setting: “scientific and systematic character of teaching Russian was supposed to contribute to students’ respectful attitude towards their native language which also meant respect for the Russian-speaking nation” (Pavlov & Petrova, 2012). Meanwhile, the role of the Old Slavonic language was quite considerable in the education of the lower classes which was realized by parish schools. The main purpose of elementary education was to enable a learner to use the Holy Bible and sacred books. At the same time, “teaching Slavonic on the level that allows reading sacred texts was intended to contribute greatly to moral upbringing of the masses in keeping with traditional orthodox values and the national idea formulated by S.S. Uvarov, rather than to serve educational aims” (Pavlov & Petrova, 2012).

In the common mindset of a modern Russian-speaker the phenomenon of the Old Church Slavonic language evokes different and even contrasting associations: according to A. Batulina’s research, in publicistic texts devoted to religious topics, attributive extending elements of the word combination the Old Church Slavonic language may both have meliorative connotation (“many-sided”, “beautiful”, “the richest and the most poetic”) and pejorative colouring (“unfamiliar”, “bulky and complicated”). The researcher thinks that “a text in Old Church Slavonic may receive absolutely different metalinguistic characteristics from the same author, depending on his outlook and the reading experience of the one who does the reflection” (Batulina, 2018).

In this regard nowadays the study of historical roots of Russian is intended to form a value-based attitude to the language and to its uniting and consolidating role, which is especially important and significant in the modern social life. Besides, there is no doubt that “the need of addressing the History of the Russian language is also connected with growing interest in peculiarities and roots of the Russian mentality, and the language is known to be its keeper” (Babulevich & Kuzennaya, 2018).

Theoretical framework

The Old Slavonic language is the first written recording of Slavic speech, the first literary language of all Slavic nations, the ceremonial sacral language of the Russian Orthodox Church. Divine purpose and spiritual functions of the Old Slavonic language were already understood at the early stages of its existence. It is a language which was created not only for communicative purpose, but, perhaps, to a greater degree, for the purpose of spiritual pragmatics.

Nowadays the Slavonic language is assigned a special role in the historical development of all Slavic languages – the role of a “preservative language”. In L.G. Panin’s opinion, “preservative languages” (Latin, ancient Greek, Old Slavonic) accumulate in their stock a thousand-year experience of the mankind, ensuring the existence and viability of modern languages: “Historical perspective and historical retrospective (which is more important for a language) – is what defines a language as entity. And an important part in this entity is played by what can be defined as conditions or guarantees of the existence of the language. For me, one of such conditions of the Russian language existence is the Old Slavonic language. It is a “preservative language” (Panin, 2007). Due to the above-noted function the Old Slavonic language “becomes a methodological ground, an integrative basis for studying the History of the Russian language. This statement refers to the Historical Grammar of Russian, the History of the Russian literary language as core academic subjects of historical and linguistic training of a philologist” (Samoilova, 2010).

The language situation in Ancient Russia by the time of the appearance of the written language (10-11th centuries) was marked by co-existence and interaction (mutual influence) of two inherently different systems – the oral, live speech of Eastern Slavs (the Old Russian language) and the bookish, written Old Slavonic language. It makes it possible to use the linguistic resource of Old Russian texts on an equal basis with Old Slavonic (Church Slavonic) in solving educational problems.

One of these is language ethics, that was introduced by N.M. Dmitrieva in order to “define the inner feeling for language or taste of language and to distinguish the notions of language ethics and speech etiquette” (Dmitrieva, 2004). It is quite evident that feeling for language or taste of language can be manifested in the language environment which is rich and various in language units: words, idioms, morphemes, syntactic constructions, etc.

In our opinion, language ethics is a complex phenomenon with both internal and external aspects of its existence and development. On the one hand, language ethics is a part of language mentality that determines the notions, images, peculiarities of the world-view and world-perception, which are most significant for the language speaker. These characteristics of language ethics are formed on a subconscious level, together with understanding and acquisition of forms and units of the native language. On the other hand, feeling for language and taste of language are shaped and developed consciously during the whole life.

Materials and methods

The subject of our research is the axiological potential of the Old Slavonic and Old Russian languages in forming a language personality. This potential is represented as a system of language values reflected in the word-stock and texts of the above mentioned languages. As a methodological base we have chosen the pedagogical conception of linguistic rhetorical (LR) education by A.A. Vorozhbitova and the socio-cultural model developed on the basis of this conception. This is “a model of strong linguistic personality of a dialogical, democratic type – a modern modification of the national LR-ideal, which presents a strategic aim of educational policy both in the field of teaching language and speech and in the sphere of education in general” (Vorozhbitova, 2005).

In the system of pedagogical education the given model must be realized in the process of verbal-teacher training, in order to help a future teacher to develop an attitude to language as anthropocentric phenomenon (Malevinsky et al., 2019). We agree with the position of those researchers who link the current aspects and goals of pedagogical rhetoric and linguistic rhetoric with the appearance of new professional competence of a verbal teacher, which demands “not only “modernizing” the content and methods of teaching students, but also drastic revision of philosophy and methodology of university education” (Erokhina, 2017).

A bright indicator of the development and perfection of a Russian-speaker’s intellectual culture is assimilation of Old Slavonic lexis and, due to this, enrichment of his own vocabulary. It was the Old Slavonic language that has been replenishing the Russian word-stock since the 10th century and at all times played the historical role of a means and method of man’s exposure to spiritual life, aesthetical and ethical language ideal for all the Slavic nations. The Old Slavonic (Old Church Slavonic) language stimulated not only enrichment of the lexis, but also the formation of sacral style, as well as lofty style of the Russian language in general.

The scientific work of such type presents a complex research that enables to trace the dynamics of language development, to define the main directions and principles of changes of language units, to reveal “the remnants of old truth” in the system of modern language and to give them scientific assessment. As an example we can list some themes of graduate qualification works on the History of the Russian language:

“The Tale of Peter and Fevronia of Murom” as a linguistic source”; “Linguistic picture of the world in records of formal texts of the 17th century”; ““The Journey beyond Three Seas” by Afanasy Nikitin: the problem of formation of the Russian Literary language on folk basis”; “Expressive language means in case literature of the 15th century (materials for a special course in Russian)”; “Predicatives as a means of stylistic organization of the 13-14th century texts (materials for a special course)”; “Functioning of lexical units denoting clothes in the Russian language records of the 14-17th centuries”; “Dynamics of changes in the composition and usage of agential nouns in formal texts of the 13-16th centuries”; “Ways of expressing the idea of quantity in manuscripts: lexical and grammatical aspects”; “Impersonality category formation as reflected in narrative literature of the 13-16th centuries (materials for a special course)”.

It is no doubt that using the above-noted lexical units as verbal and cogitative dominants in the speech of a modern philologist contributes to the development of his linguistic rhetoric potential. The results of the questionnaire regularly conducted by one of the authors of the article among 1st-3rd –year students of Philological Department show rather moderate usage of compound words of Old Slavonic origin. The active vocabulary of an average student contains 8-10 lexical units with the root благо, 5-6 units with the root добро, 3-4 – with the root зло. Thus, one of the principal tasks of studying the Old Slavonic lexis is mastering its resources, conversion of corresponding units from passive into active vocabulary of the speaker, which is a mark of such communicative characteristics of speech as richness, expressiveness, variety of stylistic means. It is also necessary to note that after completing the courses of the Old Slavonic and Old Russian languages in the university, the students have an increase in the scope of the above-mentioned vocabulary units.

Discussion

The Old Slavonic language, according to N.S. Trubetskoy, served as inoculation of “Byzantine spiritual culture to the Slavic tribe”. This shows that Old Slavonic fulfilled the functions of preserving and stimulating language development at the same time. We believe that, among other reasons, this is why the modern clergy consider it incorrect to characterize Old Slavonic as a dead language.

For the first time the role of church books and the Old Slavonic language in the development of the Russian literary language was theoretically described by M.V. Lomonosov. In his work “Preface on the benefits of church books in the Russian language” he pointed out the role of Old Slavonic in the enrichment of Russian lexis with Greek words and the ability of expressing strong and lofty ideas. Compound words with the roots благо, добро, зло can serve as good illustration. For instance, Old Slavonic Dictionary according to manuscripts of the 10-11th centuries registers about 70 lexical units with the root благо: благоволение, благоверие, благовештение, благодоушие, благодарение, благодарие, благоизволение, благоиспытание, благословештение, благородие, благорастворение, благословение, благочинение, благочьстие, благооухание, etc. (Old Slavonic Dictionary, 1999). The list of compound words with meliorative semantics is continued by more than 30 lexical units with the root добро, among them are the words добровоние, доброговение, добродеяние, доброродие, доброродьство, доброличьнъ, доброобразьнъ, добропобедьнъ, добропомощьница, добропотребьнъ, доброразумивъ, добросътворение, доброчьстие, доброприимати, добродеянъ (Old Slavonic Dictionary, 1999) and many others. At the same time we can observe a variety of parts of speech to which the words with this root belong: among them are nouns, adjectives, verbs, adverbs. This fact shows the communicative importance of axiological meanings “благо” and “добро” (“goodness” and “kindness”).

Let us analyze the words with antonymous root ‒ зло (зъло). The above mentioned dictionary registers considerable number (more than 20) lexical units with this root: зълобесьнъ, зъловерие, зъловерьство, зълодеиство, зълодеяние, зълокозньнъ, зълонравие, зълотворение, зълострадати, зълочестьнъ, etc. (Old Slavonic Dictionary, 1999). It seems that the semantics of the root зъло does not suggest meliorative shades of meaning of the whole compound word, yet, each of the above given words has a lofty, often accusatory character, produces a strong emotional effect. One of the reasons for this is that using such words in speech creates a special acoustic (auditory) image or graphic (visual) image. These words can be used not for cursing but for accusing, condemning somebody for wrongdoing. It is noteworthy that “in quantitative respect the units with the root зъло are considerably behind the words with the root благо and добро, and this fact can also reflect the system of values of Old Slavonic languages” (Komyshkova & Samoilova, 2015).

A.A. Vorozhbitova, in her description of linguistic rhetorical model of a philologist as a professional language personality in multicultural aspect of training a specialist in the sphere of Russian Philology, notes that one of the characteristics of verbal and cogitative culture of a future professional philologist is the ideal of GOODNESS and KINDNESS (БЛАГО and ДОБРО), which is reached by verbal means. For the researcher it is a complex of values and norms of a future philologist, which is formed in the process of education, “ethos credo –aspiring for the common good, observing the main communicative intention – a global guideline towards the dominance of rhetorical ideal “Goodness – Kindness” in all communication spheres; observing and promoting the national traditions of verbal behavior: steadiness, peacefulness, brevity, honesty, calmness, amiability, etc.” (Vorozhbitova, 2012). The Old Slavonic language in its genetic basis is oriented precisely towards these personal characteristics. Thereby, it seems not by chance that the nominations for all the “traditions of verbal behavior” named by the researcher are presented by lexical units with the features of Old Slavonic origin (corresponding suffixes of abstract nouns and compound words).

The Old Church Slavonic cannot be called quite plain, however, it is not perceived as something alien for a modern Slav: any native speaker of Russian will hear and feel in Church texts the sounds of his native language, familiar words, phrases, intonation. Our viewpoint is proved by the researchers who assert the necessity of introducing a course of Church Slavonic in school education, as the first bookish, written, literary language for all the Slavic nations, the language created specifically for spiritual needs, for conducting religious services in the Slav’s native language.

Speaking about the language personality of a philologist, including that of a verbal teacher, we will point out that the language ethics is an indispensable condition of forming his communicative competence. Researchers underline a special role of sacral preservative languages in this process: “The Old Church Slavonic lexis, due to its sacrality, preserved lively, spiritual images. The language of prayers has no words that could mislead, intentionally or unintentionally. All the words teach penitence, forgiveness, fear of God” (Dmitrieva, 2004).

The formation of a strong language personality of a philologist cannot be possible without considering the most important material in the historical and linguistic sciences – precedent Old Slavonic and Old Russian texts. By precedent Old Russian texts we mean written records of aesthetic significance, included into historical context as mental values of the ethnic group and, for this reason, causing a response in the general cultural and philological consciousness of a Russian person. In such context a precedent Old Russian text as a written record serves as a basis for modeling integrative didactic material for several academic subjects: Historical Grammar of the Russian Language, History or the Russian Literary Language, Old Russian Literature.

The presence of texts of different content and quite diverse language peculiarities in Ancient Russia’s written culture provides an opportunity to select didactic material in a way that enables effective usage of intertextual resources of these texts. Primarily, it is a resource of case texts containing proper names that became precedent phenomena in the minds of modern Russian-speakers: Cyril and Methodius as symbols of Slavic book culture; Alexander Nevsky as an ideal of a warrior, defender of the Fatherland; Peter and Fevronia of Murom as symbols of family, love and marital fidelity; protopope Avvakum as an example of devout faith and unbending will. Addressing these names-images in the context of case artifacts enriches the students’ associative context, stimulates their interest in comprehension of the basis of national worldview. Finally, using case texts as didactic materials contributes to systematization of the students’ historical and linguistic knowledge.

Thus, “Life of Methodius”, included into “Uspensky collection” of the 12-13th centuries, serves as a link between the courses of Old Slavonic and Old Russian, thus allowing to update the knowledge of Old Slavic languages. This artifact presents a text in the Old Church Slavonic (Old Slavonic of Russian edition), that is why it is more comprehensible and accessible to the reader than an Old Slavonic text. The name of the elder of the Thessalonica brothers – Mephodius – is connected in the linguo-cultural consciousness of any Slavic nation with the name of the younger brother – Constantine the Philosopher (Saint Cyrillus), whose spiritual deed became a symbol of generous, selfless serving to the Slavic culture.

It is useful, in our opinion, to compare the artifacts of case literature, written in different cultural and historical epochs. It is known that case literature, translated and created by Old Russian scholars after canonization of Russian saints, was an important means of spiritual and moral development. It is the case literature that provided vivid lessons on practical usage of religious beliefs and realization of abstract Christian ideals in the life of a person who reached spiritual perfection. It is hardly necessary to say that the works of such kind are of great importance in modern epoch – the epoch of denial of different ideals, absence of any prohibitions, deletion and destruction of moral imperatives.

For solving definite educational tasks, we suggest analyzing a number of hagiographical works that were spread in Ancient Russia and were widely read for both spiritual and aesthetic reasons: “Life of Feodosiy Pechersky”, classical, canonical variant (the 12th century); “Life of Alexander Nesky”, literary Slavic variant of the Old Russian literary language, that includes elements of Old Russian military genre, (the 13-14th centuries); “Life if Stephen of Perm”, a “decorated”, ornate variant that reflected archaization of the language as a result of the second Southern Slavic influence (the 15th century); “The Tale of Peter and Fevronia of Murom” an example of hagiographical literature, oriented to a great degree towards folk texts (the 16th century); “Life of protopope Avvakum written by himself” (violation of the accepted canon, including language canon, the 17th century), etc.
In the process of work with case literary records it is especially interesting to make a comparative analysis of texts belonging to one and the same type (style) of language, but to different time periods. Students’ comprehension of changes in the ways of reflecting reality, understanding of peculiarities of world-view and world perception by Russian people from different epochs, creates the necessary background, on which one can clearly see the movement, development, democratization of language system elements.

Material of manuscripts is organized in a similar way: the plots of military tales, included into manuscripts of different periods and different territorial origin; works of “business language” giving the most complete idea of the development of the system of the living Old Russian language at all its levels, and so on. Only after determining a unity of processes and phenomena, it is possible, in our opinion, to speak about differences and specific features of the analyzed texts. Many years of experience as a teacher of “The History of Russian Literary Language” show that the notion of literary bilingualism in Ancient Russia’s literary language is most successfully realized and mastered, if the language situation and types of written records of Ancient Russia were previously discussed in the courses of the Old Slavonic and Old Russian languages.

A special importance in the process of training a Russian-language teacher, from the point of view of forming a strong language personality, is attached to the students’ research work in the sphere of History of the Russian Language (Polivara & Karabulatova, 2018). As a rule, the research is conducted on the material of the Old Russian texts of the 12-13th centuries. The aim of such research is to describe the processes of functioning and development of language units in Russian language records. The objects of analysis are linguistic phenomena and facts in the texts of different stylistic and territorial reference. Analysis, comparison and generalization of the material are conducted on a definite synchronical level, however, the starting point of the research, as well as its finishing point, lie in the system of the modern Russian language in its literary and common colloquial forms.

Thus, consistent and purposeful usage of Old Russian texts on religious and secular topics provides conditions for forming spiritual and value-based orientations of a future teacher of Russian and literature, enhances his special and professional training, strengthens the sense of national identity.

Conclusions

Modern linguists see one more role of the Old Slavonic language (Karabulatova, Vildanov, Zinchenko, Vasilishina & Vassilenko, 2017). Familiarizing with the Church Slavonic language (Old Slavonic in its core) – the ceremonial, sacral language of the Orthodox Church – is now perceived as a way of forming a lofty style of modern person’s converse with God. It is the Old Church Slavonic language that becomes a means of understanding, recognition, perception of the spiritual picture of the world, as well as its “acquisition” as a value-based phenomenon. This process is stimulated by the growing role of the Russian Orthodox Church in the life of Russian society and by the urge of the young generation to understand (and accept!) its roots and origin.

The research of axiological potential of the Old Slavonic and Old Russian languages in connection with forming language personality of a philologist, allows us to make the following conclusions.

Knowledge, understanding, studying of the Old Slavonic and Old Russian languages contribute to forming, development and perfection of such professional competences of the future verbal teacher that will enable him to solve the task of shaping a value-based attitude to native language and its historical development.

Among axiological marks of a strong language personality (primarily, language personality of a philologist) an important place is occupied by language ethics – feeling for language and taste of language, that define notions, concepts, peculiarities of world-view and world perception, which are most significant for a native speaker. An important means of forming language ethics is the lexis of Old Slavonic origin which conceptualizes the abstract notions of goodness, kindness and evil.

Precedent texts of the Old Russian and Old Slavonic languages preserve and keep the genetic memory of our ancestors’ spiritual culture, develop the feeling for language. At the same time, it is the modern national language that serves as the prime basis for this development. The world-view created by blending (and, for a person who familiarized himself with the Old Church Slavonic language to this or that degree – by juxtaposition) of the Old Slavonic, Old Russian and Modern Russian languages, presents itself in mental linguistic forms, which demand not simply careful but reverent attitude to native language, as the point of manifestation of a man’s spiritual culture.