VERBALIZATION OF THE CONCEPT WOMAN IN THE ODESSA COPY OF THE “WOMEN'S COLLECTION” BY JOSIF BRADATI (MANUSCRIPT NO. 1/154 (38/64), ODESA NATIONAL SCIENTIFIC LIBRARY)

The purpose of the study is to explore the ways of verbalizing the concept WOMAN in the Odesa copy of Women’s Collection by J. Bradati of the 18th century (MS No. 1/154 (38/64) kept in Odesa National Scientific Library). Women’s Collection includes the didactic and admonitory sermons against witches sorceresses, women`s vanity. The subject of the research is the linguistic means of embodying the concept WOMAN in The Women’s Collection. The study takes into account the peculiarities of the religious mindset, which still dominated Bulgarian literature and culture during the period preceding the Bulgarian National Revival. Christian notions about women, through whom humanity received both the curse and salvation, are reflected in the opposition of two subconcepts: the EVIL woman and the GOOD woman. The linguistic representations that reveal the semantic structure of the EVIL WOMAN subconcept are rich and diverse: specialized terms for practitioners of forbidden ritual practices and magical manipulations; names of the actions themselves; designations of attributes and tools necessary for performing the rituals; lexemes denoting the spiritual status of evil women before God and their spiritual condition; attributive characteristics; and linguistic units of various levels and stylistic figures to objectify relationships such as participant–agent in the ritual, God–evil woman–Satan. To articulate the concept of GOOD WOMAN, female symbolic names are predominantly used to provide examples of pious and God-pleasing lives, as well as a series of verb forms denoting actions expected of a righteous woman. Cognitive metaphors like ornament = spiritual virtue are also employed. The results of the study suggest that such universal elements of the WOMAN concept as “life,” “birth,” “mother,” and “fertility” are weakly represented in The Women’s Collection. At the core of the concept lie semantic dominants derived from spiritual disobedience to the new Christian God, reflecting the spiritual condition of the society of that time.