Ukrainian as a Language of Church

The subject "Ukrainian as the Language of Church" will be treated by 6 specialists in Slavonic philology, 3 from Vienna and 3 from Kyjiv. Two diachronic studies dealing with earlier periods in the history of the Ukrainian language will show the first attempts to substitute Church Slavonic as the traditional language of Church by Ukrainian: the middle of the 16th up to the middle of the 17th century, which will be investigated by Juliane Besters-Dilger on the basis of the language situation in Ostrih/Ostrog, one of the most important Ukrainian cultural centres in early modern history, and the period of Ukrainian national rebirth in Galicia from 1772 to 1861, discussed by Michael Moser. According to the state of affairs, two studies will deal with the 20th century. Vasyl` Nimcuk will show the development of Ukrainian as the language of Church during the 20th century, Manuela Buchmayer will study the actual contemporary use of Ukrainian in the Ukrainian churches. Finally, Svetlana Bibla and Natal`ja Purjajeva will present two studies on the inner history of language, showing the development of Ukrainian church terminology from the beginning to the 21st century. The project susbumes different studies that will elucidate the topic from various perspectives. It will contribute to the understanding of a subject that is in fact one of the traditional topics of philology, but was put under taboo in the Ukraine until 1989. The diachronic and synchronic view will be joined here in a sample of segments that intend to give a concise survey of the history and present of Ukrainian as the language of Church.

The project`s most important result is a book with the title "Ukrainian as a Language of Church(es)" (ed. by M. Moser), which is going to appear in the first half of 2005. The volume contains six studies on the topic, each of them with a length of 40-80 pages in print: a historical survey of the use of Ukrainian in the Ukrainian churches (Vasyl` Nimcuk), a detailed study on the language practice in Ostrih, one of the most important Ukrainian cultural centers in early modern times (Juliane Besters-Dilger), an analysis of the language behaviour within the Greek- Catholic church in 19th century Austrian Galicia (Michael Moser), two onomasiologically orientated articles on different topics of Ukrainian church terminology (Svitlana Sablina: names for the members of monastery communities in the course of time, Natalija Purjajeva: historical Ukrainian terminology of church rites) and a sociolinguistic study on the contemporary use of Ukrainian in the Ukrainian churches and the different attitudes towards language use in the churches (Manuela Buchmayer). Vasyl` Nimcuks general study constitutes the framework of the five other detailed studies that are dealing with crucial partial issues of the topic. The book will shed new light on a subject that has widely been neglected so far - in the Soviet Ukraine it was strictly tabooed for well-known reasons. Together with the books "Chrystyjanstvo j ukrajins`ka mova" (2000) and "Sucasna ukrajins`ka bohoslovs`ka terminolohija" (1998) and in addition to them it will contribute a lot to the achievement of new knowledge in this field. The history and present time of Ukrainian as a language of churches are analyzed in the issue from a functional view as well as from the view of intrinsic linguistic developments. First there had to emerge the need to use Ukrainian for communication in the sphere of the churches, then the Ukrainian language itself had to be adapted to the newly created needs with regard to all functional styles and terminological spheres - this process has continued up to now. Both problems prove to be of particular complexity with respect to Ukrainian, as, on the one hand, Church Slavonic as the traditional language of liturgy and, on the other hand, the most important neighbouring languages Russian and Polish have always played a crucial role both as interfering and as competing languages. The use of Ukrainian in Ukrainian churches is an important factor for its language "prestige". The project`s results will have applications and implications not only for linguistics and philology, but also for the fields of history, theology and sociology and related disciplines.