OXYMORAL

 

 

 

The OXYMORAL project is pleased to present the Online Material Bank of Moral Words, a research resource devoted to the history, semantics and development of selected moral vocabulary in the Slavic languages.

The Material Bank brings together the results of collaborative research conducted within the project Inverted Morality: Reversed Semantics in Old Church Slavic Moral Words (OXYMORAL). Rather than functioning as a conventional dictionary, it offers a structured collection of linguistic material that traces the meanings and development of selected words from Proto-Slavic and Old Church Slavonic to their continuations in individual Slavic languages.

The material is divided into several thematic groups:

• General moral concepts: nravъ, študь, obyčajь, obrazъ
• Words associated with good: blagъ, dobrъ, prisnъ, jędrъ, krěpъ(kъ)
• Words associated with evil: bui, zъlъ, lǫkavъ, ljutъ, lichъ, grъdъ
• The first element of a name expressing good repute or virtue: 22 groups of personal names drawn from the Etymological Dictionary of the Slavic Inherited Lexicon (ESJS), including Boljeslavъ, Borivoi, Bratislavъ, Čьsta, Dragomira, Gněvisa, Gorazdъ, Ispytigněvъ, Izbraslavъ, Izęslavъ, Jaroslavъ, Ljudьmila, Mьstina, Ostromirъ, Rastislavъ, Ratislavъ, Retъko, Rętislavъ, Rostislavъ, Spytigněvъ, Stanъ, Svętoplъkъ, Tuža, Vęšteslavъ, Vladimirъ, Voitěchъ and Vratislavъ.

The entries document relevant forms in Old Church Slavonic and across the South, West and East Slavic language areas. They also provide semantic explanations and bibliographical references, creating a comparative basis for the study of moral concepts, semantic change and the relationship between common vocabulary and personal names.

The Material Bank was compiled by Martin Diweg-Pukanec, with contributions from Metod Čepar, Ján Gallo, Renáta Hlavatá, Petra Kaizerová, Alena Kalechyts, Milan Kolesík, Silvia Lauková, Vlastimil Pulčár, Martina Taneski, Zvonko Taneski, Dušan Teplan, Dominik Vančo, Svetlana Žeňuchová, Dominika Bednáriková, Andrej Horváth, Bohdana Kravchenko, Fedor Miliaev and Štefan Riška.

The resource is hosted by the Department of Slavic Philologies at Constantine the Philosopher University in Nitra and will remain permanently accessible online as an enduring outcome of the project.

Explore the Online Material Bank

The Online Material Bank was developed in Nitra in 2026.

This work was funded by the European Union’s NextGenerationEU programme through the Recovery and Resilience Plan of the Slovak Republic under project No. 09I03-03-V04-00670, Inverted Morality: Reversed Semantics in Old Church Slavic Moral Words (OXYMORAL).