Ob’’yavit’ v narod / Announce to the People: About Speech Formulas with Meaning ‘Bringing to Attention’ in Printed Decrees of Peter I (1714–1719)

Abstract

The article describes the language of administrative documents created during the period of the most active reform activity of Peter I (1714–1719), during which more than 110 printed decrees were issued with tsar’s direct participation. The focus is on stable combinations with the meaning of ways of bringing the sovereign’s decree orders to the attention of the population. Their historical, cultural, and substantive value is emphasized, since they often testify to those extra-linguistic reasons that determined the formation of a corpus of stable combinations, designated in modern business language by the terms “cliche,” “formula,” etc. Thus, imperative infinitive combinations often include verbal words with the root pechat- / print- (pechatat’, pechatano / print, printed), the two-word nomination “pechatnyy list” / “printed sheet” or one-word “list” / “sheet” becomes extremely frequent, imperative structures “pribit’ listy”, “rozdat’ listy” / “to nail sheets”, “to distribute sheets” — all this reflects the total transition of Peter’s office to printed document form. The lexical and syntactic stability and frequency of selected combinations in the texts of decrees can be traced, which allows one to speak of them as formulaic combinations or genre formulas, the formation of which during this period becomes a striking feature of the new official language. It is indicated that printed decrees significantly speed up the delivery of the sovereign’s will to the most remote provinces of Tsarist Russia, to the widest circle of people, as evidenced by the formulaic combinations “dlya vsenarodnogo vedoma”, “dlya vsyakogo vedoma”, “dlya vsenarodnogo ob”yavleniya” / “for public knowledge”, “for all knowledge”, “for public announcement”, etc. When considering the extremely frequent formulaic combination “ukazy poslany” / “decrees have been sent”, it is emphasized that the lack of subjectivity of official communication, which is reflected in this form, subsequently becomes one of the main features of state official communication, characteristic of modern documentary language.

Keywords:

printed form of the document, official language of the 18th century, decrees of Peter I, formality of official speech, cultural content of the formula