David Frick
Terminus, Tom XII zeszyt 23 2010, 2010, s. 15 - 35
‘Biting words’, ‘dishonestwords’. The language of litigation and the ruthenian polemic
This is a Polish translation of an article by David Frick entitled: “Słowa uszczypliwe, słowa nieuczciwe: Th e Language of Litigation and the Ruthenian Polemic” published in: ΧΡΥΣΑΙ ΠΥΛΑΙ — ЗЛАТАЯ ВРАТА. Essays presented to Ihor Ševčenko on his eightieth birthday by his colleagues and students [P. Schreiner, O. Strakhov (ed.), Cambridge, Mass. 2002, „Palaeoslavica” vol. 10, no. 1, pp. 122–138]. The author – an eminent expert in the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth culture and literature – analyses the protestations of the citizens of seventeenth-century Vilnius and explores thoroughly the language of litigation of the time. Frick focuses also on the writings of Meletij Smotryc’kyj – the most outstanding seventeenth-century Orthodox polemicist. The autor’s analyses lead to the conclusion that special formulas and rhetorical strategies typical of the language of litigation were familiar to the Orthodox polemicist (after the Union of Brest of 1596) as well as widely used in their writings.