vDHd2021- Presentation: Presenting “The Corpus of Russian Translations of Social and Political Works”

Organized by: Vladislav Rjéoutski (presentation), Birte Kohtz (chair) (DHI Moskau)

In the history of Russia, the eighteenth century was a turning point in the formation of secular culture. At the time, a new political vocabulary was being formed, reflecting the rational perception of society and personality. This data base project of the German Historical Institute in Moscow explores the process of the transfer, adaptation and reception of the main European political ideas and concepts in Russia during the eighteenth century. The starting point of the project – which  continues the research of the GHIM in the field of the history of concepts, especially in regard to methodology, but using new data – is the assumption that Russian political terminology was invented in the process of translation, when political concepts acquired their precise meaning in specific social and political contexts. The protagonists of this process are translators, commissioners of translations and readers who used and interpreted the new political vocabulary that transformed the semantic field of the Russian language.

The database presents samples of original texts alongside their Russian translations. The comparison helps not only to see the translator’s methods and principles, but also to get an idea of how Russian readers understood and interpreted European political treatises throughout the “long” eighteenth century. The database will provide scholars with a basis for further research in the history of language and political thought in Russia and will help to expand the understanding of the political discourse of eighteenth-century Russia.

• Date: 08.04.2021, 16h00-18h00
• Organized by: Vladislav Rjéoutski (presentation), Birte Kohtz (chair) (DHI Moskau)
• Registration: https://forms.gle/KYpL6jEYkiPdzBsg7

This event is part of the contribution „Virtuelle Reise: Digital Humanities in der Max Weber Stiftung„, organized by the Max Weber Foundation’s Digital Humanities Working Group for vDHd 2021.