Authors

Discussion

One of the greatest Russian Slavists of the 20th century, Nikita Il’ič Tolstoj made a significant contribution to the study of the development of South Slavic standard languages. Although he started his career as a specialist in Macedonian (cf. Nomachi 2023), among his numerous studies on the topic, the history of literary Macedonian occupies a modest place, because from this field Tolstoj published only one article entitled Страничка из истории македонского литературного языка "A page from the history of Macedonian literary language" (1965), in which Tolstoj analyzed the idiolect of Rajko Žinzifov. This article, “with a different perspective on a literary language that appeared in the new times” according to Stojan Žarev (1979), was severely criticized in Bulgaria, because Žinzifov is regarded as a Bulgarian writer of the mid-19^th century. A close look at unpublished archival materials left by Nikita Tolstoj reveals that he was familiar with Žinzifov’s idioletct much earlier than Bulgarian linguists and Tolstoj was one of the first Slavists to make a serious attempt to analyze Žinzifov's idiolect in general as early as 1949. In doing so, Tolstoj appeared to establish a certain view of the history of Macedonian literary language much earlier than in 1965.

              In this paper, the author analyzes the above-mentioned unpublished 1949 article by Tolstoj, considering the political context of the time, and shows Tolstoj's possible, but unrealized contributions to the history of South Slavic standard languages in today's scholarly context, which should have been properly evaluated if the article had seen the light of day.

Literature

Nomachi, Motoki. 2023. “The Early Nikita Il’ič Tolstoj as a Macedonist,” In: Svetlana Tolstaja (ed.). Slovo i čelovek akademika Nikity Il'iča Tolstogo, pp. 258–274, Moscow: Indrik.

Tolstoj, Nikita I. 1949. Lingvističeskij analyz jazyka R. K. Žinzifova. Unpublished manuscript.

Tolstoj, Nikita I. 1965. “Stranička iz istorii makedonskogo literaturnogo jazyka,” In: B. D. Koroljuk et al. (eds.). Kratkie soobščenija Instituta slavjanovedenija, pp. 17–34, Moscow: Izdatelstvo Nauka.

Žarev, Stojan. 1979. Ezikъt na Rajko Žinzifov. Sofia: Izdatelstvo na bъlgarskata akademija na naukite.