Why Hieromonk Alexei Vinogradov was (not) a scholar? A late 19th century example of translatio studii

Abstract

The main subject if this article deals with the scholarly value of the works published by Alexander Nikolaevich (Hieromonk Alexei) Vinogradov (1845-1919/20). The author provides a list of Vinogradov’s principal published works and explains what made them different in comparison with the Russian literature of his time. Analysis shows that Vinogradov, who had received no systematical higher education on ecclesiastical subjects, was able to assess his subject matter freely and widely. His desire to do scholarly research in any form available at the time, his enchantment with China, and official assignment to supervise Bible translations from Church Slavonic into Chinese brought him to notice the difference between the Slavonic and the English Bible. So he produced a three-volume work on the history of biblical translations into English. It is the only treatment of this subject that has ever been written by a Russian scholar. The work is based mainly on the English treatises of the time, and open (i.e., not hindered by any confessional Orthodox anti-Western or anti-critical attitude) reception of the English literature made this work special. So far as Vinogradov was mainly translating, copying and pasting the English sources into his Russian text, he worked along the medieval fashion of ‘translatio studii’. Yet, as he is slavishly copying the critical literature of the 19th century, the outcome of his work stimulates and encourages the reception of critical scholarship. Refs 7.