Multilingualism of Ukrainian Elites in the Seventeenth Century: The Case of Lazar Baranovych

The article examines the multilingual practice of Lazar Baranovych in the context of the sociolinguistic situation of Ukraine in the early modern period. Multilingualism is inherent in border societies, including Ukrainian society in the seventeenth century, and the choice of language in each case depends on a combination of factors – religious, pragmatic, communicative, cultural, and artistic/stylistic. The study analyzes the phenomenon of codeswitching on the example of Baranovych’s own marginal notes, made in Polish, Ruthenian (prosta mova) and Church Slavonic. The Ukrainian recension of Church Slavonic reflects the influence of spoken Ukrainian, which can be traced in texts from the cultural centers in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth and later the Russian Empire. This is illustrated by the language of the collection of sermons Трубы на дни нарочитыя праздникɷвъ [Trumpets for Major Feast Days] (1674), which Lazar Baranovych could not publish in Moscow not only for political reasons but also because of the peculiarity of the language.