Slavomania and Celtomania in the 18th Century Russian Linguistics
Authors: Ivanov Sergey 
Published: November 2021

Our paper is concerned with the linguistic work of two Russian antiquarians, Vasily Kirillovich Tredyakovsky (1703–1769) and Alexander Petrovich Sumarokov (1717–1777). Both of them are renowned mostly as poets, but their antiquarian skills are much less known. For a long time their etymologies were regarded as a historical curiosity and it was only recently that there appeared a noticeable shift towards a more favourable opinion. But while dealing with history of linguistics, we should ignore correctness / falseness or plausibility / implausibility of etymologies and lay the emphasis on the task and purpose of an author. Etymological studies have always been a handy instrument for detecting the origins of peoples.

The 18th century Europe witnessed an extraordinary rise of celtomania. Scholars tried to find Celtic roots of their nations, striving to emphasize their significance and priority, which was understood as antiquity or, one might say, indigenity. Tredyakovsky set himself a similar task in his “Three treatises on three main Russian antiquities” (1758). He starts with comparing Slavic and Germanic languages aiming to prove that Slavic is more ancient than Germanic and, accordingly, the Slavs are superior to the Germans. Taking into account the fact that the author did not distinguish between Slavic and Russian, it is obvious that in the end he sees his task in glorifying the Russian nation. Tredyakovsky’s treatise, for all its intents and purposes, is a rebuttal of German scholars who have claimed the superiority of Teutonic languages over Slavic. Tredyakovsky resorts to the best possible argument that was in store of contemporary linguistic science and appeals to Celtic language which was perceived as the last instance due to a celtomaniac wave that flooded all over Europe. For this purpose he first derives Slavic from Scythian, or rather identifies the Scythians with the Slavs, and then claims the antiquity of Scythian. Now, it turns out that the Slavonic language in fact is identical not only to Scythian, but also to Celtic, in a sense that Celts had spoken Slavonic before they formed a separate tribe and spread all over Europe where due to the natural language corruption they lost their original dialect and fell away from their roots. By means of such argument the Slavonic language at once takes the upper hand over Teutonic. In fact, Tredyakovsky tries to implant the European celtomania in the Russian ground, but substitutes the Slavs for the Celts, thereby changing celtomania into slavomania. In my opinion, Tredyakovsky’s etymologies should be considered against the background of this purely pragmatic task; in this case they cannot be regarded as ridiculous or curious. They should be taken as historical facts determined by extralinguistic causes.

Certainly, Tredyakovsky’s use of linguistic arguments has often been ad hoc. Once Slavic was proclaimed as the most ancient language, it was necessary to show that the material of all other languages may be deduced and explained on the ground of Slavic. Naturally, the most valuable way of proving this was to derive from Russian ancient and modern ethnonyms as well as place names. In this manner a number of etymologies were produced, such as Etruscans – “hitroushki” (i. e. “sly ones”); Celts – “zhelty” (i.e. “yellow ones”) “after their fair hair”; Iberians – “oupery”, because they are locked (“ouperty”) from all sides by seas.

Sumarokov published a treatise “On the origin of Russian people” which for the most part follows Tredyakovsky’s wake. Pragmatically considered, their work presents us with an interesting paradox: on the Russian ground the Western celtomania turns into slavomania. On the one hand, there is a noticeable and passionate desire to introduce the Russians into the European family of nations and, furthermore, to bring the Russian science up to the Western European standards. Making Slavs and Celts related, both scholars expanded the boundaries of Europe, presenting Russia as its natural part. From this point of view, they acted as predecessors of the 19th century “Westerners” in Russia. On the other hand, their method of etymologizing and the persistence with which they derived all the words of all languages from Russian, closely resembles the way of thinking which the 19th century slavophils adhered to.