Andrey A. Winius (1641–1716), translator of fables

Abstract

Andrey A. Winius (1641–1716) was born in Moscow in the family of Andrey D. Winius (1605–1662), Dutch merchant and manufacturer who lived in Russia from 1632 until his death. Winius junior was a high-ranking statesman who contributed a lot to Peter the Great’s reforms, which made Russia a Europe-oriented power. In 1674 he translated Vondel’s Vorsteliicke warande der dieren (1617) into Russian, supplementing this collection of fables with several texts from the Theatrum Morum by Aegidius Sadeler (1608). The Russian text, entitled The Theatre of Human Life, was distributed in handwritten form. In 1712, The Theatre was published in Moscow. In this article we analyze the Russian version of four fables in order to identify similarities with the sources and the changes Winius made. Besides shortening the original, he also sometimes supplemented the fables with his own moralistic thoughts. In these additions he urged readers to live honestly, respect each other, and not drink too much alcohol. In this way he tried to transfer humanistic ethical values that were common in Western Europe to the Russian society of the 17th century.