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Gerasim Pavskii's Clandestine Old Testament: The Politics of Nineteenth-Century Russian Biblical Translation

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 July 2009

Stephen K. Batalden
Stephen K. Batalden
Affiliation:
associate professor of history inArizona State University, Tempe, Arizona. This essay is published in commemoration of the 1000th anniversary of Christianity in Russia.
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Extract

Gerasim Petrovich Pavskii (1787–1863) was arguably the brightest pupil of Russia's most-noted nineteenth-century prelate, Metropolitan of Moscow Filaret Drozdov. Pavskii's work under the tutelage of Filaret dated from the future Moscow metropolitan's rectorate at the St. Petersburg Theological Academy, 1812–1817. Yet in the subsequent twenty-five years following Filaret's appointment to the episcopate in 1817, the young theologian and philologist Pavskii would break decisively with his former rector. That break culminated in the celebrated Pavskii Affair of 1841–1844—the so-called Delo Pavskogo—a far-reaching synodal investigation that dramatized the deep divisions in the Orthodox church of Nicolaevan Russia. On one level, these divisions involved issues of modern biblical textology. It is the thesis of this work, however, that alongside the textological issues were deep-seated differences over Orthodox piety and church polity that conditioned the responses of the esteemed metropolitan and the erudite theologian. This fundamental divide within Russian Orthodoxy was never reconciled and, indeed, has continued to the present in modified form within religious circles of the Russian emigration.

Type
Research Article
Information
Church History , Volume 57 , Issue 4 , December 1988 , pp. 486 - 498
Copyright
Copyright © American Society of Church History 1988

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References

The author is indebted to the International Research and Exchanges Board, under whose support the research for this article was undertaken in Leningrad.

1. The historical literature on Pavskii is extensive. The most complete biographical works are those by Protopopov, S. V., “Gerasim Petrovich Pavskii,” Strannik (01–03 1876);Google Scholar and Barsov, N. I, “Protoierei Gerasim Petrovich Pavskii: Ocherk ego zhizni po novym materialam,” Russkaia Starina (1880):Google ScholarT. 27, kn. 1–4; T. 28, kn. 1–2 (discontinuous pagination). Barsov had access to the Pavskii autobiography, which was never published and is now no longer extant. Standard accounts of the translation of the Russian Bible also contain lengthy treatments of Pavskii (see, particularly, Chistovich, I. A., Istoriia perevoda Biblii na russkii iazyk [St. Petersburg, 1899]Google Scholar and Astaf'ev, N. A., Opyt istorii Biblii v Rossii [St. Petersburg, 1889]).Google Scholar For a published account of the Pavskii affair incorporating some of the Holy Synod archival holdings, see the relevant sections of Kotovich, A., Dukhovnaia tsenzura v Rossii, 1799–1855 gg. (St. Petersburg, 1909).Google Scholar

2. For the identification of Pavskii's translations, see Barsov, , “Protoierei Pavskii,” T. 27, kn. 3, pp. 505–507.Google Scholar

3. The early Filaret-Pavskii dispute anticipated the events of 1841–1844. Pavskii had been critical of Filaret's Catechism, and in turn Filaret openly criticized Pavskii's work in the pages of Khristianskoe Chtenie. For Pavskii's rejoinder to Filaret, see “Ob”iasnenie na primachaniia, sdelannyia protiv knizhek: Khristianskoe uchenie v kratkoi sisteme v Nachertaine tserkovnoi istorii,” in Chteniia v imp. obshchestve istorii i drevnosti pri Moskouskom Univ. (1870), kn. 2, otd. 5, pp. 175–208.Google Scholar The Pavskii proposal for instruction of the tsarevich—the occasion for Filaret's condemnation of Pavskii—was originally published posthumously as “Mysli zakonouchitelia protoiereia G. P. Pavskogo o religioznom uchenii i vospitanii e. i. v. gosudaria velikago kniazia … Aleksandra Nikolaevicha, izlozhenyia v 1826 godu,” in Sbornik imp. russkago istoricheskago obshchestva 30 (1881).Google Scholar

4. Pavskii formally left his post at the Academy upon becoming tutor to the grand prince and princess, although he apparently continued some informal work with academy students.

5. The Saltykov-Shchedrin Leningrad Public Library (GPB) contains five distinct sets of the lithographed collection under the following call numbers: no. 18.173.3.8; no. 18.296.1.11–19; no. V.P. 7256; no. V.P. 7257; and no. V.P. 7258. The most complete collection (no.18.173.3.8) contains only Job, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, Song of Songs, and the major and minor prophets. Because of the earlier publication of the Psalter and the “non-circulating” Octateuch, it is probable that the bulky lithographed editions remained incomplete and, as in the case of these collections, irregularly compiled. I have seen no published or unpublished account that documents precisely which books were lithographed. Because of the nature of the investigation that followed, the focus has always been on the prophetic books, which were lithographed in each of the three editions.

It should be noted that the collections of Pavskii's lecture notes point up a certain amount of ambiguity present in the title of this article. The Old Testament which circulated among the academy students, and which came to Filaret's attention, was compiled, printed, and distributed clandestinely by academy students. Thus in all actuality it was their clandestine Old Testament, and not Pavskii's, as Pavskii testified during his interrogation.

6. The documentary record of the synodal investigation is preserved in over 4000 leaves of a once-secret set of large files within the Holy Synod archive: TsGIA SSSR, fond. 796, opis' 205, dela 192–213 (citations will hereafter be only to the appropriate delo and leaf numbers [1.]). The opening delo, 192, bears the characteristic title, ‘O nelegal'nom [sic] izdanii i rasprostranenii studentami Peterburgskoi akademii litografirovannogo perevoda nekotorykh knig Biblii (Vetkhogo Zaveta) na russkii iazyk s ‘prevratnymi tolkovaniiami.’ For the calculation of total print runs, see delo 192, l. 59. For the register of recovered copies and notification of their burning, see delo 195, ll. 28–280b. and delo 213,1. 2.

7. Delo 192, ll. 2–9. The account of Agafangel, subsequently archbishop of Volynia, is standard in all the accounts listed in note 1 above. See also Florovsky, Georges, Ways of Russian Theology, trans. Nichols, Robert L., part 1 (Belmont, Mass., 1979), pp. 249–250.Google Scholar

8. Delo 192, 1. 1. Moscow Metropolitan Filaret referred to the translation already in early February 1842 as a “nepravoslavnyi perevod [non-Orthodox translation],” Filaret, Holy Synod, 11 February 1842, in delo 192, 11. 10–11.

9. Delo 192,11. 20–26.

10. For the transcript of the 20 March interrogation, see delo 192, 11. 283–301 ob.; for that of 24 April, see delo 192 11. 287–296; for 30 April, see delo 192 11. 297–300.

11. Delo 198, 11. 64–66.

12. Delo 192, 1. 286.

13. Delo 192, 11. 297–298ob.

14. Delo 192, 1. 300ob.

15. See, for example, the account in chistovich, Istorila.

16. Delo 192, 1. 301ob.

17. Pribavlenila k Tvoreniia sviatykh ottsov v russkom perevode, vol. 32 (1858), second pagination 452–484. Published long after its 1844–1845 date of preparation, the text served several functions, not the least of which was as a guide to the translation committee working on the synodal Old Testament from 1860.

18. On Protasov's effort to declare the Slavonic text inviolable, see delo 195, 11. 308–310. This text is a rough draft of a Protasov letter of May 1844, carrying out the synod's March 1844 request for inquiry into the possibility of securing the inviolability of the Slavonic and Greek texts. It is probable that the essay of Filaret in note 17 above was in response to this question.

19. See Chistovich, Istoriia. Particularly strong in his Filaret sympathies is Florovsky, Georges, Ways of Russian Theology, pp. 212–220.Google Scholar

20. For an account of Filaret's perception of this neologism, see Nichols, Robert L., “Metropolitan Filaret of Moscow and the Awakening of Orthodoxy” (Ph.D. diss., University of Washington, 1972), esp. pp. 122–130.Google Scholar Despite my admiration for his thesis, I disagree with some of the elements of Professor Nichols's account, including the discussion regarding the translatorship of the Psalter.

21. Pinkerton, Robert, Russia: Or, Miscellaneous Observations on the Past and Present State of That country and Its Inhabitants (London, 1833), p. 144.Google Scholar Pinkerton's use of the term dates from his actual travels, not the date of publication. Pinkerton's use of the term came to my attention from the entry under “neologian” in the Oxford English Dictionary, vol. 7 (Oxford, 1933), p. 89.Google Scholar

22. Henderson to Bishop Frederick Munter, 20 September 1822 O.S., “Ny Kgl. Samling,” fol. 1698, Royal Library of Copenhagen. I am indebted to the Reverend Felix Olafsson of Stenlose, Denmark, for sharing with me the Henderson correspondence.

23. Delo 194, 11. 292ob.-294.

24. The most complete account of Metropolitan Filaret's translation activities is that of Korsunskii, Ivan, “podvigakh Filareta, mitropolita Moskovskago, v dde perevoda Biblii na russkii iazyk,” Sbornik izdanyi Obshchestvom Liubitelei Dukhovnago Prosveshcheniia, po sluchaiu prazdnovaniia stoletnago iubileia so dnia rozhdeniia (1782–1882) Filareta, Mitropolita Moskovskago, vol. 2 (Moscow, 1883).Google Scholar

25. See note 17 above.

26. Pavskii's fundamental work from this later period, in addition to his translation of the Igortale, was his Filologicheskie nabliudeniia nad sostavom russkago iazyka, Tt. 1–4, 2d ed. (St. Petersburg, 1850).Google Scholar On the politics of the delay in Pavskii's admission to the Academy of Sciences, a matter not unrelated to the earlier conflicts with Filaret, see Barsov, , “Protoierei Pavskii,” T. 28, pp. 113–114.Google Scholar

27. In the Eastern Orthodox church, a “white” cleric is a parish clergyman. The parish clergy are obligatorily married. “Black” or monastic clergy are obligatorily celibate. Only “black” clergy may serve as bishops in the hierarchy. The office of “archpriest” that Gerasim Pavskii held is normally the highest church office for a white cleric in the Russian Orthodox church.

28. Internal quote in Barsov, “Protoierei Pavskii,” T. 27, kn. 3, p. 510.

29. The term “clerical liberalism” comes both from his work The Parish Clergy in Nineteenth- Century Russia (Princeton, 1983)Google Scholar and the introduction to his translation of Belliustin, I. S., Description of the Clergy in Rural Russia (Ithaca, 1985).Google Scholar

30. For examples of these interrogations, see delo 200, 11. 11–191 (“Materialy sledstvennogo komiteta po delu o nelegal'nom izdanii i rasprostranenii studentami Peterburgskoi dukhovnoi akademii perevoda nekotorykh knig perevoda Biblii [Vetkhogo Zaveta] na russkii iazyk s ‘prevratnymi tolkovaniiami’”).

31. Florovsky, Ways of Russian Theology, p. 232. Florovsky writes that “only S. K. Sabinin (1787–1863), a priest with the diplomatic mission in Copenhagen and then in Weimar, did any independent work.”

32. Delo 192, l. 294.

33. It is possible to trace the careers of students interrogated in the Pavskii affair with the assistance of the work by Rodosskii, Aleksei, Biograficheskii slovar” studentov Sanktpeterburgskoi Dukhovnoi Akademii (St. Petersburg, 1907).Google Scholar Many of those implicated in the distribution network during the Pavskii affair (graduates of the affected thirteenth and fourteenth classes) are listed by Rodosskii with placement in major parishes of the capital.

34. On the Biblical commission, see the series of articles in Bogoslovskie Trudy, vol. 14 (Moscow, 1975),Google Scholar including the published archival records of the Commission, “Dokumenty Bibleiskoi Komissii,” pp. 166–256.

35. Evseev, I. E., Sobor i Bibliia (Petrograd, 1917).Google Scholar

36. Fedotov, G. P., “Slavianskii ili russkii iazyk v bogosluzhenii?” Put' 57 (08–10 1938): 28.Google Scholar