Old Church Slavonic appellatives denoting persons in power

Abstract

The article analyzes Old Church Slavonic appellatives referring to persons exercising authority and the directions of their semantic development. The purpose of the study is to explain the semantic evolution of terms such as cěsaŕь, cěsaŕ, król, and other names designating rulers in Old Church Slavonic. The author employs semantic and historical-linguistic analysis based on lexical material drawn from Old Church Slavonic texts and comparisons with Greek, Latin, Gothic, and other Slavic languages. The study demonstrates that the principal factor influencing semantic development was political-historical motivation, understood as the degree to which a word was associated with a particular system of power. The author argues that the term cěsaŕь originally had a broad meaning and referred to various types of rulers, both secular and sacred, whereas the form cěsaŕ was closely linked to the Roman imperial tradition. The analysis also reveals differences between the South Slavic cěsaŕь and the West Slavic cesarz, which differ in both origin and semantic development. The author further highlights the influence of biblical translations and Byzantine traditions on the formation of political terminology in the Slavic languages. The conclusions emphasize that the evolution of titles for rulers reflected both political transformations and the impact of different cultural spheres on Slavic state terminology.