Biblical Paradigms in the Novgorod Chronicle

A review of Ulrich Schweier's Paradigmatische Aspekte der Textstruktur. Textlinguistische Untersuchungen zu der intra- und der intertextuellen funktionalen Belastung von Strukturelementen der fruhen ostslavischen Chroniken ([Paradigmatic Aspects of Text Structure. Text-Linguistic Investigations of the Intra- and Intertextual Functional Load of Structural Elements in the Early East Slavic Chronicles] Munich, 1995). A section-by-section summary of the content of Schweier's work includes commendation for its theoretical achievement in the field of text linguistics of early Slavic monuments while regretting artificial simplifications in the presentation of Schweier's ideas due to a treatment of the Novgorod Chronicle as conditionally equivalent to the defective Synodal List & to selection of the anachronistic Ostroga Bible as a textual standard. Although the actual historical circumstances of the Russian chronicles & Bibles present obstacles to theoretical research, it is indispensible to take them into account for a historically adequate description of the texts' structures. 30 References. J. Hitchcock