Likhachóv, Dmitrij Sergeevich (Лихачёв, Дмитрий Сергеевич) (15/28.11.1906 – 30.09.1999) – a Russian philologist, one of the best specialists in the area of Russian mediaeval culture in the 20th century. Born in St. Petersburg. He graduated from Leningrad State University in 1928 (Romano-Germanic and Slavic-Russian section of the Department of Linguistics and Literature at the Faculty of Social Sciences). In 1928 he was sentenced to 5 years in prison and spent the time until 1932 in the first concentration camps on Solovetski Islands (archipelago in the White Sea) and in the camp near Lake Onega, working on the construction of the White Sea Channel ("Беломорканал"). From 1938 until his death he worked in the Sector on Old Russian Literature of the Institute of Russian Literature (Pushkin House) in St. Petersburg. He was member of the Russian Academy of Sciences (1970), Foreign Member of the Austrian (1968), British (1976), Bulgarian (1963), Serbian (1971) and Hungarian (1973) Academies of Sciences. Honorary Doctor of the University in Toruń (1964), Oxford (1967), Edinburgh (1971), Bordeaux (1982), Zurich (1982), Budapest (1985), Sofia (1988), Prague (1991), Siena (1992). The term "textology", which is very close but not identical in content to the term "Textual criticism", was introduced in the science of philology through his work in the second half of the 20th century.
This term "текстология" (textology) was created by the Russian formalist (OPOJaZ, i.e. the "Society for the Study of Poetic Language") Boris Tomachevski (17 (29).11.1890, Saint Petersburg - 24.08.1957, Gurzuf). "Textology" was used for the first time by this scholar, but it was Dmitrij Likhachov who built a comprehensive new theory of textology (mainly based on materials from Russian mediaeval literature). The term was created by combining the Latin word textus 'construction, combination, connection, context' and the Greek word λόγος 'word etc.'.
A new theory of textology by Likhachov was published for the first time in his book Лихачёв 1962 (2nd ed. 1983, 3rd edition 2001), and two years later – only the main theoretical points – in a short book Лихачёв 1964. The term textology is the only one used since the second half of the 20th century until today in the study of the texts of the mediaeval works created in the Eastern Orthodox region of Europe, as well as the texts written in Cyrillic and Latin, Slavic and non-Slavic, in Central Europe. After the 1970s it began to be also used in the study of texts created outside that region. The term textologie was used for the first time in Western scholarship by Roger Laufer (1972). It was through this book of his that the term was spread among Western scholars, with its content being expanded and changed in a number of cases and also applied for research outside the area of textual criticism (for example, terms such as 'contrastive textology' and 'semiotic textology' are used in the field of linguistics and semiotics).
Among the mediaevalists from Central and Eastern Europe the term "textology" was distributed mainly in the meaning assigned to it by Likhachov, and it also experienced some development, but this development remained almost always within the framework of the field of textual criticism. Thus today, as far as the research on Slavic mediaeval texts is concerned, 'textology' is a philological discipline whose object is to study the text of the original and translated works from the moment of their creation to their final manuscript or printed version. It has two tasks: (i) To reveal the history of the text of the work; (ii) to fix the results of this study in a scientific edition. In connection with the implementation of these tasks, textology deals with the search of all preserved texts of the work, with their comprehensive philological study separately and compared with each other, their connection with the original text (author’s text or original of the translation), and their publication. Besides its own methods, textology also uses the methods of a number of other scientific disciplines: linguistics, theory of literature, history, palaeography, codicology etc.
Unlike textual criticism, with which it shares almost everything, it may attach less importance to errors and more attention to linguistic features and their modification over time, as well as to the evidence outside the text. So it may be synonym to textual scholarship in general. This said, most Russian dictionaries translate "textual criticism" simply by текстология.
Works on textology
– Laufer, Roger. 1972. Introduction à la textologie: Verification, établisement, édition des textes. Paris: Librarie Larousse.
– Томашевский, Борис. 1928. Писатель и книга. Очерк текстологии. Ленинград: Прибой; 2nd ed. Москва: Искусство 1959. (Tomachevski, Boris. 1928. The Writer and the Book: An Outline of Textology. Leningrad: Priboj, 2nd ed. Moscow: Iskusstvo, 1959.)
Works on Likhachov
– Лихачёв, Дмитрий Сергеевич. 1989. Издание третье, дополненное. Вступительная статья В. П. Адриановой-Перетц и М. А. Салминой. Библиография составлена М. А. Салминой и Г.Н. Финашиной. Москва: Наука. (Dmitrij Sergeevich Likhachov. Third supplemented edition. Introduction by V. P. Adrianova-Peretz and M. A. Salmina. Bibliography by M. A.Salmina and G. N. Finashina. Moscow: Nauka.)
– Салмина, Марина Алексеевна. 2009. Дмитрий Сергеевич Лихачев: Библиография. 1988 – 2007; Сост., вступ. статья М. А. Салминой. Санкт-Петербург: Турусел. (Salmina, Marina Alekseevna. 2009. Dmitrij Sergeevich Likhachov. Bibliography. 1988–2007. Introduction and preparation by Marina A. Salmina. Saint-Petersburg: Tursel.)
Works by Likhachov
– Лихачёв, Дмитрий Сергеевич. 1962. Текстология. На материале русской литературы X–XVII вв. Москва–Ленинград: Изд-во Акад. наук СССР. (Textology. On the basis of material from Russian literature 10–17 centuries. Moscow–Leningrad: USSR Academy of the Sciences.)
– ———. 1964. Текстология: Краткий очерк. Москва – Ленинград: Наука. (Textology. Short essay. Moscow–Leningrad: Nauka.)
– ———. 1983. Текстология: На материале русской литературы X–XVII вeков. Издание второе, переработенное и дополненное. Ленинград: Изд-во Акад. наук СССР. (Textology. On the basis of material from Russian literature, X–XVII centuries. Second edition, revised and supplemented. Leningrad: USSR Academy of the Sciences)
– ———. 2001. При участии А. А. Алексеева и А. Г. Боброва. Текстология. На материале русской литературы X–XVII веков. Издание третье, переработенное и дополненное. Санкт–Петербург: Алетейя. (With the participation of A. A. Alekseev and A.G. Bobrov. Textology: On the basis of material from Russian literature, X–XVII centuries, Third edition, revised and supplemented. Saint-Petersburg: Aletejja).
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