«According to the News that Comе from…»: About the New Volume of Vesti-Kuranty

Abstract

[Rev. of: Vesti-Kuranty: 1671–1672, preparation, research, commentary by I. Maier, S. M. Shamin, A. V. Kuznetsova, I. A. Kornilaeva, V. B. Krysko with contribution of E. V. Amanova, ed. by V. B. Krysko, I. Maier, Moscow, 2017, 806 pp., illustr., 27 cm]

The article is devoted to the discussion of the new issue of Vesti-Kuranty, a large project of the V.V. Vinogradov Russian Language Institute, spanning almost half a century and performed by a whole team of authors. Vesti-Kuranty are Russian foreign press reports, a sort of medieval digests from the most recent publications about the main events in the political life of the 17th century. The content of the seventh volume allows one to trace the development of publishing techniques of this special type of documents compiled by the diplomatic workers of the capital (government officials of the Ambassadorial Order) and intended for the chosen audience – only the Russian government, that is, the Tsar and the Boyars Duma. Since the publication of the first volume in 1972, the structure of the work has fundamentally changed, since the Russian digest texts are now published side-by-side with their identified foreign sources; the researchers go to the finest detail to explain all the different methods of message composing, which have been based on a vast amount of information (including that which was missing in the originals, but was well-known by the Russian clerks). Vesti-Kuranty is one of the most valuable sources on the history of Russian foreign policy, the literary and political language of the educated segment of Moscow society, their perceptions and attitudes towards the artifacts of foreign cultures. The author of this review thinks that the methods of publication of Vesti-Kurantу will continue improving. The publishers are forced to test different ways of presenting the text to their readers, because each new issue of Vesti contains more and more material from year to year as new facts are uncovered.

DOI: 10.31168/2305-6754.2019.8.1.20