German–Serbian dictionary (1791)

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Title page of the Avramović Dictionary (1791 variant)

The 1791 German–Serbian dictionary, referred to as the Avramović Dictionary (

headwords in each direction, it is the largest Serbian dictionary of the 18th century. Vuk Karadžić possibly used it as a source for his Serbian Dictionary
, which first appeared in 1818 as the first book in modern literary Serbian.

The Avramović Dictionary translates between Slavonic-Serbian, which was the dominant

Cyrillic printing house of Josef von Kurzböck, who published the German–Serbian dictionary. The vernacular Serbian used in the dictionary reflects a dialect of the Serbs in Vojvodina
.

Background

At the beginning of the 18th century, the principal literary language of the Serbs was

headwords.[4] The last notable work in Slavonic-Serbian was published in 1825.[5]

Since 1750, German had been steadily replacing Latin as the official language in the Habsburg Empire. In Serbian schools, German began to be taught on 1  October 1753 in Karlovci.[6] A knowledge of that language was especially important for those Serbs who sought a career in the imperial bureaucracy, the army, or commerce. A German grammar in Slavonic-Serbian appeared in 1772,[7] adapted by Stefan Vujanovski. The book also contained a dictionary with around 4,500 headwords. Two years later, Sava Lazarević wrote a textbook for learning German, with a dictionary of around 1,600 headwords. This dictionary would be published as a separate book titled Рѣчникъ малый (Little Dictionary) in 1793, and it was reprinted in 1802, 1806, 1814, 1823, and 1837.[6]

The 1772 grammar and the 1774 textbook were printed in

Maria Theresia granted him a monopoly on printing and importing Cyrillic books.[8][9] The empress sanctioned a Cyrillic press in Vienna to reduce the massive importation of Russian books requested by the Serbian Orthodox Church and schools.[3] The Habsburg court had repeatedly rejected the Serbs' petitions to found their own printing houses.[2][10] In 1786, Kurzböck employed Teodor Avramović as a proofreader,[11] who previously worked as a teacher in his home town of Ruma.[12]

Metropolitan of Karlovci
(1781–1790)

Between 1779 and 1785, there was an intensive campaign in the Habsburg Empire to eliminate the Cyrillic script and the Church Slavonic language from Serbian schools and secular publications. The Cyrillic script was to be replaced with the Latin alphabet, and the "

Metropolitan of Karlovci, Mojsije Putnik.[7] The term "Illyrian" was used in the Habsburg Empire to refer to any South Slavic peoples or to the South Slavs in general, though in the 18th century, non-Slavic Habsburg officials associated it primarily with Serbs.[13]

Production and usage

After an agreement with Metropolitan Putnik, Joseph Kurzböck undertook the project of producing a German dictionary for the Serbian people.[14] The quickest and least costly way to do that was to adapt an existing work. At that time, highly regarded as the German–Russian bidirectional dictionary composed by Jacob Rodde in Riga and printed in 1784 in Leipzig.[15] Kurzbeck entrusted his proofreader Teodor Avramović with the job of adapting Jacob Rodde's work into Slavonic-Serbian.[14] Avramović was helped by Atanasije Dimitrijević Sekereš,[16] the censor of the Cyrillic books installed by the Habsburg court in 1772.[17][18] Sekereš began composing his Slavonic-Serbian dictionary in 1775, using five Russian dictionaries as sources, but he later abandoned that work.[16]

The printing of the Avramović Dictionary began at the end of 1789.

florins and 30 kreutzers.[19]

Count Francis Balassa's engraving in the Avramović Dictionary

Balassa sent a copy to Stratimirović recommending the book, and the metropolitan informed the

Pest University Press in 1795, there were 360 unsold copies of the Avramović Dictionary in the warehouse. The book was listed in the university's sale catalogs until 1829.[19] It was part of the library of Sava Tekelija, who wrote additional entries in his copy.[20] The first edition of Vuk Karadžić's Serbian Dictionary appeared in 1818 as the first book in modern literary Serbian, based on the Eastern Herzegovinian dialect. There are indications that Karadžić used the Avramović Dictionary as a source for his work.[21]

In 2002, the

Matica Srpska with the help of the National Library of Serbia. Among 212 exhibited publications, there were 28 of those printed by Kurzböck,[22] one of which was the Avramović Dictionary.[23] Between 1770 and 1792, Kurzböck printed 151 Serbian publications, including textbooks, religious books, philosophical, literary, and other works, by authors such as Jovan Rajić, Jovan Muškatirović, Aleksije Vezilić, Dositej Obradović, Zaharije Orfelin, and Pavle Julinac.[22]

Description

The Avramović Dictionary is the largest Serbian dictionary of the 18th century.[24] Printed in the octavo format, it contains 1045 pages of lexical text divided into two separately paginated parts.[7][14] The first part is a German–Slavonic-Serbian dictionary titled Deutsch–Illyrisches Wörterbuch (German–Illyrian Dictionary), consisting of 719 pages. The second part is a Slavonic-Serbian–German dictionary titled Славено-Сербскïй Леѯïконъ (Slavonic-Serbian Lexicon), consisting of 326 pages.[14] Either part has approximately 20,000 headwords; the first part has more pages as its entries are larger and more detailed.[25]

By the time of its publication in July 1791, the book had been printed in four variants, differing only in

copperplate engraving depicting Count Francis Balassa, and these two variants differ only in some details of the engraving. After the title page comes a dedication to Balassa, composed by Kurzböck in the tone of humble devotion.[26] All variants have the same foreword written by Kurzböck,[14] while none of them mentions Jacob Rodde as the source or Teodor Avramović as the editor of the dictionary. Only Kurzbeck is mentioned as its publisher.[27] Its source and editor have been identified respectively by Samuel Linde at the beginning of the 19th century[28] and Pavel Jozef Šafárik in 1865, since when the book has been referred to as the Avramović Dictionary.[24]

Page 1 of the 2nd part of the dictionary, titled Slavonic-Serbian Lexicon

Its German component is practically identical to that of Rodde's dictionary.

Polysemes are entered as separate headwords accompanied by a disambiguating remark; thus, four senses of the noun Frucht (fruit) are found s.v. Frucht (Baum), Frucht oder Nutz, Frucht (vom Acker), and Frucht des Leibes. Usage of headwords is illustrated with phrases, idioms, and collocations, and the Lexicon contains many proverbs and sayings.[30]

The Serbian component of the Avramović Dictionary reflects the contemporary condition of the literary language of the Serbs—a blend of Church Slavonic, vernacular Serbian, and Russian.

ѵ.[25] Many Russian terms are copied from Rodde verbatim or with a small modification, especially those used in areas with which the Serbs were not very familiar at the time. Serbian vernacular terms predominate in some areas, such as armament and trade;[32] there are also common Serbian expressions like айдемо (ajdemo, "let's go").[33] A number of Russian words in Rodde are replaced by Avramović with their Russo-Slavonic equivalents.[31] An example of the entries dominated by vernacular Serbian terminology is that under the headword Nadel (needle), in which only one word is taken from Russian, meaning "magnetic":[34]

Nadel, (die) zum Nähen ("needle, for sewing"), игла; Nädelchen, (das) ("little needle") иглица; eine Nadel einfädeln ("to thread a needle)", ꙋдети конацъ ꙋ иглу; zu Nadel gehörig ("which belongs to a needle"), игленый; Nadel zum Spicken ("

magnetic needle"), игла магнитнаѧ; Stecknadel ("pin"), чïода.[34]

In the second part of the dictionary, the copied Russian headwords are often accompanied by their Serbian equivalents; e.g., under the headword очки (glasses), "очки, наочари, die Augengläser".

calico), and баïонетъ (bajonet, bayonet).[32]

Notes

  1. ^ Ivić 1998, pp. 105–6
  2. ^ a b Ivić 1998, pp. 116–19
  3. ^ a b Paxton 1981, pp. 107–9
  4. ^ Ivić 1998, pp. 129–33
  5. ^ Ivić 1998, p. 194
  6. ^ a b c Kostić 1998, pp. 39–43
  7. ^ a b c Paxton 1981, pp. 110–11
  8. ^ Denić 2004, pp. 64–65
  9. ^ Gastgeber 2002, para. 7
  10. ^ Gastgeber 2002, para. 6
  11. ^ Denić 2004, pp. 68–69
  12. ^ Denić 2004, pp. 62–63
  13. ^ a b Fine 2006, p. 374
  14. ^ a b c d e f g h Denić 2004, pp. 122–24
  15. ^ Denić 2004, pp. 119–21
  16. ^ a b c Denić 2004, pp. 142–45
  17. ^ Brković & Kartalović 2002, p. 40
  18. ^ Gastgeber 2002, para. 8
  19. ^ a b Denić 2004, pp. 132–34
  20. ^ Denić 2004, pp. 140–41
  21. ^ Gudkov 1972, pp. 195–96
  22. ^ a b Brković & Kartalović 2002, pp. 119–22
  23. ^ Brković & Kartalović 2002, p. 75
  24. ^ a b Gudkov 1993, p. 78
  25. ^ a b Gudkov 1993, p. 81
  26. ^ Denić 2004, pp. 125–26
  27. ^ a b Denić 2004, pp. 127–28
  28. ^ Gudkov 1993, p. 80
  29. ^ Keipert 2006, pp. 94–95
  30. ^ Birzhakova 2010, pp. 66–67
  31. ^ a b Gudkov 1993, pp. 106–7
  32. ^ a b c Gudkov 1972, pp. 193–94
  33. ^ a b Gudkov 1972, pp. 187–88
  34. ^ a b Gudkov 1972, p. 186
  35. ^ Gudkov 1993, p. 87
  36. ^ Gudkov 1972, p. 185
  37. ^ Gudkov 1972, pp. 191–92

References

External links
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