Before the October Revolution of 1917, peddlers who traveled through the villages and towns of the Russian Empire selling all sorts of haberdashery and manufactured goods, books, popular prints, and other trinkets were called “ofen” (also known as “afeni” or “korobeyniki”).
There are several hypotheses regarding the origin of this word. Some researchers trace the word “ofenya” back to the name of the Greek city of Athens. Others trace it back to the Hungarian city of Ofen. Still others believe it is a variant of the word “Finns.”
Since the 19th century, traveling merchants have often been featured as characters in children’s fairy tales and literary works.
“Our library consisted of classics, and—alas!—there wasn’t a single children’s book in it… In my early childhood, I had never even seen such a book. Books were obtained through the lengthy process of ordering them from the capital or happened to turn up by chance through itinerant book peddlers.” (D. N. Mamin-Sibiryak, “A Picture Book”).
Businessmen, too, did not shy away from the services of the “ofeny.” For example, Ivan Dmitrievich Sytin, who eventually became one of the largest book publishers in the Russian Empire and opened his own store in 1903 on Torgovaya Square in Kharkiv, achieved success largely because he distributed his products through the ofeny. However, Sytin did not simply supply them with merchandise; he also managed to use them to establish feedback with customers and find out what people were more willing to buy and what they showed particular interest in.
And the merchants of Kharkiv also made use of the services of the ofeny. In the book *Kharkiv of Old: From the Memoirs of a Watchman (1830–1860)*, published in 1900, Vasily Parfentyevich Karpov writes:
“…Among these prominent moneylenders was the wealthy merchant Igolnikov. He traded in the “lord’s” row in inexpensive red goods, which were primarily sold to the common people through peddlers who walked and rode through the villages and hamlets with their wares. But since the brisk sale of goods by peddlers in villages and hamlets was closely dependent on the grain harvest, Igolnikov often had to sell goods to the peddlers on credit, as well as to grant them payment extensions for goods they had already purchased from him but had not yet sold due to sluggish demand…”
Linguists and ethnographers have often taken an interest in the Ofenians—all because these itinerant merchants considered themselves a secret society and communicated with one another in a special professional language. However, even as far back as the 19th century, scholars did not really know what the Ofen language was all about. Izmail Sreznevsky, a scholar from Kharkiv, devoted considerable effort to its study and popularization. It was he who, in 1839, published an article in the August issue of the journal *Otechestvennye Zapiski*, in which, for the first time in the history of linguistics, the Ofen language was examined as a unique linguistic, historical, and cultural phenomenon. Izmail Sreznevsky himself wrote the following on this subject:
“The Athenian language currently attracts almost no attention from our writers. And yet it is well worth knowing—the more, the better—and is very worthy of attention and reflection… I will be happy if I can satisfy the curiosity of even a few, and if I can provide an incentive for others to write about this intriguing subject.”
Before we get into the content of this unique article, I’d like to mention that our favorite city is directly related to it, and here’s why.
1) Sreznevsky begins his story about the first time he heard songs in an unfamiliar language with the words: “One day I was sitting once again in front of the open window in my study when I saw a peddler walking by with a basket on his shoulder. He walked past, turned into the house, and began offering paintings, patterns, lipstick, paper, books, and all sorts of odds and ends. I went out to meet him, bought some paper from him very cheaply—the very paper on which I am writing these lines—and struck up a conversation with him… That is how my acquaintance with the Athenian language began…”
And then Izmail Sreznevsky asks the merchant how certain words sound in Offen, including… the city of Kharkiv.
2) In 1837, after defending his master’s thesis, Izmail Ivanovich was appointed assistant professor at the Kharkiv Imperial University in the Department of Political Economy and Statistics, in the First Division of the Faculty of Philosophy. At the end of the year, on behalf of the Kharkiv University Council, he was asked whether he would agree to travel to the Slavic lands to prepare for a chair in Slavic Studies, on the condition that upon his return he serve as a lecturer for at least 12 years. Sreznevsky did not inform the university of his full agreement to this until January 7, 1839, and he left Kharkiv on September 17.
3) As I mentioned above, the article on the Ofen language appeared in the August issue of the journal *Otechestvennye Zapiski*.
4) On the title page of the manuscript of the “Ofen Dictionary,” which Sreznevsky never published, there is a note: “A Dictionary of the Athenian or Afen Dialect, compiled by I. Sreznevsky in Kharkiv, on the way from Kharkiv to St. Petersburg, 1839.”
It can be concluded that it was during his time in Kharkiv that Sreznevsky first encountered the Ofenians, began to take an interest in their secret language, and started collecting information about it. This culminated in an article sent to the editorial office of *Otechestvennye Zapiski*, most likely also from our city, in 1839.
Now let’s move on to the article itself. In total, the author has compiled and listed about 249 Ofen words and phrases. This significantly exceeds everything that had been compiled by scholars who had previously attempted to study the Ofen language. A number of these words are still in use today. You might be surprised to learn that, in Offen, for example:
An adult is a sucker;
to sleep — to doze;
“Good” — “awesome.”
It was Izmail Sreznevsky who, in an article from 1839, first recorded the lyrics of songs in the secret Ofen language. This is the kind of verse that residents of Kharkiv might well have heard in the 1830s.
Oh, and it’s not twilight, but lamonkaryuk.
According to the turlukhandyr, I’m steaming the korobey.
I’m steaming the korobey, finishing the karyuchk.
Karyuchk-lsvenyok, tudoshny-verbushok,
Skvozhenka-krasimka-galm—so beautiful.
I’ll hunch my back, I’ll wrap it up with a cloth;
Maslamonkarukrahol, neither tall nor short.
I’ll wrap the cloth around my back behind the hump,
I’ll patch up the gap—the cloth will cover the hump.
Oh, Lamonkarokrahol! Don’t hunch over, Basva!
With masy khrut’snyryak, and masyagirukha,
Without masy, it’s loose and crumbly
—it won’t hold together. Don’t roll it with a little bit of basva,
But knead it in the flour with khrut’ and masy.
I wonder what the peddlers sang about, don’t you? Sreznevsky has kindly provided a translation for those who are interested:
Ten years later, by which time he had become a renowned scholar, Sreznevsky returned to the topic of the secret language, and in one of his works he not only wrote about it but also spoke out in its defense:
“…Among the most remarkable phenomena in the history of the vernacular is the formation of the so-called Athenian, or Ofen, dialect, which is almost entirely incomprehensible in its composition yet perfectly correct in its structure. Used by peddlers, traveling salesmen, artisans, and cab drivers, it is regarded among us as a language deliberately devised to conceal one’s thoughts and intentions—the language of robbers, swindlers, and the like.”
“It is hardly entirely accurate to say that. Undoubtedly, it is sometimes used for that purpose, but any unknown language, whatever its origin, might be used in that way…”
Today in Kharkiv, on the wall of the Central Scientific Library building on Universytets’ka Street, among the many commemorative plaques, there is one dedicated to Izmail Ivanovich Sreznevsky, a professor at Kharkiv University.
The text is rather modest and cannot possibly encompass everything that this outstanding Slavic scholar, ethnographer, and writer accomplished. However, it occurs to me that, in memory of the colossal contribution our great fellow countryman made to the study of the secret language of the Ofeans, it might have been worth writing this text in that very language.
