How the Russians came up with their own word for ‘art’
There are quite a lot of borrowed words in the Russian language and, often, these loaned translations from foreign languages have seamlessly fit into Russian, defining a variety of notions (especially in the spheres of education and science). Many Russians even forget that these words are not originally Russian.
But, there are also successful examples when Russian equivalents were found or invented for foreign words.
This is exactly what happened with the word ‘art’. A replacement for it was invented in the 18th century by poet Vasily Trediakovsky and this word is ‘iskusstvo’ (‘искусство’).
As Gramota.ru (Грамота.ру) explains, the word ‘iskusstvo’ is a derivative of ‘iskus’. Until the 18th century, it had only two meanings: 1) skill, knowledge, 2) experience, experiment.
And it was Trediakovsky who first used it in the meaning of "creativity" and it ended up fitting so well that it entered and stayed in the Russian language.
