Stephan Pisarev’s fate and the importance of the translator’s heritage for the development of the Russian spiritual literature

The paper is dedicated to the sermons of the Greek bishop Elias Meniates (1667–1714) translated into Russian by Stefan Ivanovich Pisarev (1708?–1775), who was a Foreign Affairs official. The paper focuses upon a role of Pisarev’s translation in the history of the Russian spiritual literature and clarifies how it has influenced the contemporaneous and later practice of preaching. The translation is considered in the wider context of the mid 18th c. It is characterized in detail as an innovative work in comparison with contemporaneous spiritual literature; the author lists the reasons why the work might seem innovative in the eyes of contemporaries. Special attention is paid to the language of the translation, and the russification strategies are considered in the light of Victor Zhivov’s theory: it is shown that the text contains no or a small number of the so-called “markers of literary language”: simple preterits, иже, яже and еже clauses, specific constructions, etc. A fragment of the manuscript dated as 1741 is analyzed in comparison with the printed text of 1759, so that tendencies of the text evolution are revealed. The cultural role of the Russian preaching in the early 18th c. as well as in the mid 18th c. is examined in details. The author shows how new conception of leisure-time established in the Russian society put forward new demands to the spiritual literature.