Demonstratives sei and onyi in P. Tolstoy’s translation of “The History of the Present State of the Ottoman Empire”

The paper considers the use of demonstrative pronouns sei and onyi in the treatise “The History of the Present State of the Ottoman Empire” (the manuscript of the Academy of Sciences Library, No. 31.3.22), translated from Italian into Russian by P. Tolstoy at the beginning of the 18th century. The purpose of the study is to determine the principles Tolstoy was guided by when choosing a particular pronoun and the facts that could have influenced his translation technique.We have determined that some regularities could be found: for instance, Tolstoy preferred to translate Italian proximal deictic pronouns ( questo and etymologically proximal ciò ) using sei , while quello , a distal deictic pronoun, was translated using onyi , which indicates that the pronouns retain their ancient meaning, although they are not opposed as a means of anaphora either in the Russian or in the Italian text. However, when there is no demonstrative pronoun in the original text, of the two pronouns Tolstoy preferred to add onyi in the anaphoric function and sei in the common deictic expressions preže sego ‘before’, vyše sego ‘above’ and niže sego ‘below’.While the manuscript was being prepared for publication, some grammatical corrections were made; in general, it did not concern the pronouns sei and onyi , except for one fact: the inconsistent replacements of onyi with tot when the pronoun related to a subordinate clause. The change, in our opinion, could be explained by the features of the Russian demonstrative pronouns system: since at least the 14th century up to the present time, this function has been performed by tot . Having appeared in this role under the influence of the Italian pronoun quello , the pronoun onyi , which consistently performs this function in Italian, in the eyes of the editor, was to be replaced.