Language in general is quite extraordinary in its capacity to reflect history in its momentum and evolve with it. Sometimes—as happens in today's Russia and previously happened after the 1917 Revolution—the changes are fast and dramatic. But looking back at less dramatic periods of history and the way language evolves offers an equally fascinating perspective since it focuses on detail and nuances that could otherwise remain unexplored.
Thomas Rosén's Russian in the 1740s opens on a personal note outlining the story that sparked this very focused, meticulously structured research of a fairly narrow subject and this little personal touch somehow turns this generally very academic study into something much more intriguing. The author explores the state of the Russian language in a relatively short historical period—just a decade—and thus puts it under his scholarly microscope, exploring how the historical background of that era and Peter the Great's reforms that took place earlier in the eighteenth century gradually affected both secular and printed texts. What makes Rosén's work stand out is that the linguistic situation in Russia during that decade has never been subject to detailed study: there have only been some papers exploring individual genres (mostly sermons) and so the overall state of the language has, until now, remained unclear.
Even though the 1740s could be described as relatively calm and quiet, earlier events, together with further territorial expansion of the Russian empire, resulted in the formation of new population groups, the rise of multilingualism amongst nobility and landed gentry, and the continuous establishment of French as prevailing language of the Russian court and official administration.
In fact, one chapter specifically explores the impact of Russian society on language as a whole, exploring its social stratification, existing political structures, and various types of administrative bodies. It assesses general trends in education policies and initiatives and offers thorough analysis of general levels and degrees of literacy: for example, the author addresses such interesting issues as literacy rates amongst men and women, as well as those from diverse social backgrounds, he talks about the way literate people used their skills. He also touches upon specific historical events like the foundation and subsequent demise of the Russian Conference.
One of the chapters specifically focuses on Linguistic Analysis of a large corpus of documents, including autographs, personal letters, reports of the regional administration, international treaties and correspondence with foreign rulers, with particular emphasis on Russian diplomatic exchanges with Sweden (its traditional rival) and Denmark (traditional ally), as well as some letters to Swedish and Danish royal families. The author offers interesting insights into stylistic, grammatical and syntactical shifts in the language and supports them by specific examples drawn from a wide range of sources, always suggesting a precise structural approach.
However, it's not all about the evolution of the language; the book contains a thorough account and review of Russian state structures of the time, talks about the general system of education and overall sociolinguistic situation, demographic and age structure of the Russian population of that decade, as well as language management, development of printing, and other topics. It also contains a thorough, well substantiated review and analysis of various registers and situational classification.
Rosén also offers a detailed overview of socio-linguistically orientated studies of that period carried out both in Soviet Russia and abroad. A large corpus of linguistic data is thoroughly analyzed and based on this, the author draws a number of interesting conclusions and interpretations of some previously unnoticed nuances.
As previously stated, the book is presented in a very precise academic format, is consistently well-structured, with persistent attention to detail and thorough referencing. Thomas Rosén's Russian in the 1740s would be of particular interest to a wide range of scholars working within the area of historical linguistics of Slavic languages as a whole, but would certainly be mostly of interest to Russianists.
