Izvod (Recension)

An izvod (recension) is, in the textology of early monuments, a variety of text that took shape as a result of its circulation in a certain local or national milieu and bears the characteristic linguistic (orthographic, lexical, phonetic) features of that milieu. The term is used above all with regard to Church Slavonic texts: one distinguishes, in particular, the Bulgarian, Serbian, and Rus' (Ukrainian, or Kyiv-Rus') recensions of the Church Slavonic language. An izvod arises when copyists, in transcribing a text, unconsciously introduce into it features of their own living language and local written tradition. Unlike a redaction, which implies the conscious reworking of content, an izvod is chiefly a linguistic-orthographic 'redaction' conditioned by the milieu of circulation. The study of recensions is important for the history of language and the localization of monuments. The Rus' recension of Church Slavonic, in which Kyivan Rus' wrote, was studied by medievalist linguists.