Scripta & e-Scripta vol. 13, 2014

Table of Contents of the issue Scripta 13 (2014)

The article presents some of the results of the project Digitalised Descriptions of Slavic Cyrillic Manuscripts and Early Printed Books in Swedish Libraries and Archives (2010–2013), focussing on the online database Cyrillic and Glagolitic Books and Manuscripts in Sweden (CGS), which contains descriptions of more than 600 items (manuscripts, manuscript fragments, and printed books) located in over twenty different repositories in sixteen Swedish cities. Mainly, the article discusses the description structure of the c. 400 printed books, belonging to some 300 different editions. Most of the books are printed or written in the Cyrillic script, but there are also several Glagolitic printed books. The collections also include a few biscriptal editions, as well as a number of “non-Slavic” books with certain sections printed in the Cyrillic or Glagolitic script: Leonhard Thurneysser’s Melitsah (1583), Adam Bohorič’s Arcticæ horulæ succisivæ (1584), the book presented to the Swedish king Gustav III at his visit to Rome in 1784, etc. The majority of the described books are printed in Moscow, Kiev and other Slavic cultural centers, but the database also includes books printed in areas not dominated by Cyrillic or Glagolitic printing such as, for example, Stockholm (the Lutheran Catechisms in Church Slavonic [1628] and Finnish [1644]), Rome (Filip Stanislavov’s Abagar [1651]), and Tübingen (the first Glagolitic Croatian translations of the New Testament [1562–63]). A particularly important feature of the CGS database is the possibility to provide its records with links to other online catalogues and projects: the National Union Catalogue of Sweden LIBRIS, the Worldcat catalogue, the ProBok and Repertorium projects—in addition, the database includes a substantial number of links to online available digital surrogates of the described books. Thus, the CGS database will, it is hoped, serve as a continuously growing hub for information on the collections of early Cyrillic and Glagolitic manuscripts and printed books in Sweden.

The article presents the background, the implementation and part of the results of the project Digitalized Descriptions of Slavic Cyrillic Manuscripts and Early Printed Books in Swedish Libraries and Archives (2010–2013). Earlier Swedish catalogues (Glubokovskij 1918, Kjellberg 1951, Gawryś, Jansson 1956, Gawryś 1960 and 1961, Armand 1970 and Granberg, Varpio 2009) are commented on and their contribution to the building of a national catalogue is highlighted. The article presents new data on the book exchange in 1938 between Uppsala University Library Carolina Rediviva and the Russian State Library. As a result of this exchange the collection of early Cyrillic prints in Carolina Rediviva increased by about 60 copies. The article further presents new data on editions of early printed books and their copies, with references to the entries in the database Cyrillic and Glagolitic Books and Manuscripts in Sweden (CGS), https://130.241.37.191/cgs/. The project resulted in several descriptions of editions that have not been recorded in the bibliographies, which have been studied within the project, e.g. Calendar (Moscow, 1678) and Calendar (Moscow, 1679). Other editions presented in the article have so far only been known through notes in different documents, for example Horologion (Moscow, 1734). Further, the article enlightens cases where the only preserved copy of an edition is kept in Sweden, such as Daily Prayers (Vilna, 1609) and Horologion (Univ. 1686). A list of all the editions mentioned is added at the end of the article.

The contribution aims to outline the goals, the methodological framework and the encoding practices, used in the project Unknown Early Modern Manuscripts of Slovenian Literature. Our research of primary sources focused on those manuscripts that remained unknown or left out of research until recently. The study indicated that the majority of manuscripts remained out of the scholarly evidence mostly because of their pre-modern characteristics. This applies especially to the content of these manuscripts, originating from mystical and pseudo-mystical currents of baroque culture, which has been later rejected by rationalistic enlightenment paradigm. In literary studies, this state of art remained in force until recently. The main results of the research up to date are embodied in the on-line portal <http://ezb.ijs.si/nrss/&gt; with the Register of the manuscripts and the bibliographic resources. Each manuscript is presented by means of structured TEI-encoded description and by digital facsimile. To date, the first hundred manuscripts are published here as the beginning of a systematic long-term research – and as a venue to a more broad and more varied readers' reception of the older Slovenian, mostly unknown, literary and religious texts.

The author disusses the possible sources of the the sermon On Cheesefare Saturday. A Sermon by the Humble Monk and Presbyter Gregory Dedicated to the Reverend Fathers who shined in Lent, and more precisely she seeks sources of Gregory Tsamblak’s mentioning of ancient philosophers, authorities, stories, aphorisms, images, motifs. She finds parallels in Suidas and in the so-called Serbian Alexandria. Donka Petkanova concludes that Gregory Tsamblak borrowed mostly facts and images from the ancient sources but interpreted them in his own way demonstrating the superiority of Christian spirituality and Christian holy men.

The Bulgarian historical dialectology is still an underdeveloped part of Bulgarian language studies. The author poses some of the most important and yet unsolved problems: the changes of the front vowel ѣ, the so-called „mixture of nasals“, the changes of nasals and jers in the Rhodope Mountain dialects. She also considers results of migrassion processes.

Eastern Roman Empire had an important role in the spiritual and cultural development of the Slavic world, which inhabited vast areas north of its borders in the ninth century AD. Two brothers from Thessaloniki, St. Constantine-Cyril and St. Methodius, launched this active work in which cultural and religious traditions of the Christian East are clearly reflected and embodied and defined the terms of the relationship between the Slavic world and the Empire of New Rome. In the article the author tries to give a theological evaluation of the cultural and spiritual progress of the Slavic world in connection with Byzantium. He considers the activities of the Thessalonian brothers as developed in two critical axes that affect the consolidation of ecclesiastical tradition of the Christian East by spreading the Christian hagiographic tradition and the tradition of the Fathers, on the one hand, and the spread of the tradition of the laws of Constantinople, on the other. These two axes ensured the establishment of institutions, models and structures in the Slavic world that were similar to the Byzantine ones. All this not only sets guidelines for development of the Slavic cultures, but also determines the characteristics of these cultures connected to the Empire of New Rome with the inseparable and indestructible ties.

The paper is devoted to the sources and paleographic features of Voskresenskaja Kormchaja (Nomocanon). This is one of the oldest Russian canonical manuscripts, dated to the end of the 13th or the beginning of the 14th century. The study of its texts makes obvious that Voskresenskaja Kormchaja is based on three versions of Nomocanon. Its compilers used the Old Slavonic version of Nomocanon, the Serbian and the Russian versions as well. Probably they had only a fragment of Russian version of Nomocanon. In all likelihood, four scribes contributed to the completion of Voscresenskaja Kornchaja.

This a critical editio princeps of a Byzantine ascetic work composed of twenty-four short Christian moral teachings in prose, each beginning with a letter of the Greek alphabet. The four known manuscript witnesses for the Alphabetic Chapters have been processed philologically to yield a stemma codicum and a significant number of variant readings. The complex question of authorship is discussed briefly. This article adds to the edited specimina of a minor, yet popular, genre of Byzantine theological literature – the monastic chapters.

The paper discusses the possible Greek version of Acts and Martirdom of St. Apostle Thoma in India that was translated relatively early in the Slavic tradition. The author makes a new edition of the Greek text based on the critical edition by Bonnet 1903. His aim is to find the Greek text that is closer to the Slavic version.

This paper analysesthe quotations from the Psalter in the Pašman Rule. The Pašman Rule is a Croatian Glagolitic manuscript from the XIV century, containing the oldest Slavonic translation of the Rule of the Benedictine order. The quotations are compared with the corresponding verses in Croatian Glagolitic manuscripts: Psaters (Psalterium Vindobonense, codex Parisiensis, codex Lobkowiczianus-Pragensis, codex Zagrabiensis, codex Pasmanensis and codex Parisiensis 73) and the edition princeps the Croatian Glagolitic Breviary from 1491. The aim is to show some of the symptomatic cases of resemblance and difference between the sources examined. The results of the analysis suggests that the quotations correspond sometimes to the most archaic Psalterium Vindobonense. More frequently they are similar to the other manuscripts and to the Editio princeps of 1491. Still, in most cases they are close to the text in codex Parisiensis 73. On the other hand, the Psalter quotations in the Pašman Rule deviate from the sources examined in several cases. This happens when there are differences between the text in the Vulgate and the Benedictine Rule. The differences are due to individual choices of the translator of the Benedictine rule, incorrect or a free translation.

The author discusses the image of the Serbian ruler Stefan Lazarević in his Life by Constantine of Kostenets and in particular, the role of the Old Testament allusions, citations and models. She finds out that the verbal royal iconography created by Constantine of Kostenets is supported by biblical, historical and mythological characters, referred to in a similar context also in the Manasses Chronicle and in the Alexander Romance. Elena Kotseva analyzes the image of Stefan Lazarević in the context of the trend in the 14th-15th literature to draw comparisons with Joshua, Moses, Samson and David, with Alexander the Great, Constantine the Great, Darius and Croesus. At the same time she finds parallels to the image of the Serbian ruler in the oral tradition, in epics and balladic motifs. She analyzes the image of the Serbian ruler created by Constantine of Kostenets in the context of the Balkan culture of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries and of the cultural memory for the apocalypse of the war in the epoch of the death and lamentation of Prince Lazar, the death of Vladislav Varnentchik and the fall of Constantinople.

Stanislav’s Menologion (NBKM 1039) is dated to the fourteenth century but it is believed that it preserves much earlier translations originating in the early period of Bulgarian literature. Thus Stanislav’s Menologion is viewed in scholarship as a key codex to the history of the early medieval Slavic hagiographic texts. It represents what we can call medieval hagiographic "canon", a compendium of works disseminated until a later period (until around the 17th c.) among South Slavs. The article addresses issues related to the composition of the manuscript and cultural conventions proved to be important for its formation. Since Stanislav’s Menologion does not reproduce Byzantine pre-Metafrastov menologia (at least not from those described in the capital work of A. Erhard), the reasons for the formation and the reasons for the relative stability of the composition are sought elsewhere. One hypothesis of the study is that the prescriptive-legislative nature of its contents is connected with Typikon. Therefore, the composition of the manuscript is compared to the Typikon that was authoritative in the fourteenth century. Also, the contents of this manuscript is compared to the contents of Service Menaia. The study traces the links of the prescriptions of Typika, institutionalized reading and the formation of a significant corpus of Church feasts that led to the codification of the corpus of texts which were copied and disseminated in Slavic milieux in the late Middle Ages.

The article traces the dissemination of the Slavonic version of Commentaries on The Book of Daniel by St. Hippolytus of Rome. All known Slavonic copies of the Commentary are examined, the transmission of the text and the translation itself. For the first time the macrostructure of the known copies is fully examined and the differences in them are shown. The connection demonstrated between the Pogodin Folia of the 11th–12th century and other witnesses containing the text of the Commentaries is discussed. It is proved that they have a common archetype. Also, preliminary conclusions on the language of the translation are made.

The author publishes a catalog of 43 graffito-inscriptions from the church of St. Nicholas in Lipno in Novgorod, built in 1292. Their paleographic, orthographic, historical and cultural descriptions are presented. The publication inculdes reproduced photographs and diplomatic edition of the texts. The inscriptions are dated within the turn of the 13th–15th centuries. Most of the inscriptions are memorial and mention the names of Novgorod rulers and inhabitants of the monastery. The place of these sources in the overall system of written culture of medieval Novgorod is discussed.

The article discusses three Russian archives which are shared between the Swedish National Archives in Stockholm and the Archives of the Institute of Russian History (Russian Academy of Sciences) in St Petersburg. Specifically, it outlines the history of the archives, which traces back to the 17th century and the reasons for why these documents have been divided between Sweden and Russia. The first two archives provide insights into the day-to-day administration of the municipalities in Smolensk and Novgorod during the Time of Troubles (early 17th century). The third body of Stockholm documents, the Tichvin Archives, outlines the management of the Tikhvin Assumption Monastery. This archive forms merely a fraction of the vast materials located in St Petersburg.

The article discusses aspects of the reception of the old literature of Slavia Orthodoxa in Poland. This is a complex and multifaceted issue directly connected with the specifics of the two cultural spaces: albeit they seem peculiar and distant, it turns out that they are not so different in their traditions. The question of the translation of the medieval literature of Orthodox Slavs is discussed on the basis of Serbian medieval texts. The article surveys the presence of translations of medieval Serbian texts in Polish anthologies.

The main subject of this article is the history and iconographical program of St Petka’s church in Svoge near Sofia. In the years of the Bulgarian National Revival, in spite of the significant upswing in the construction and decoration of public and church buildings, opportunities for expression of the painters were limited. In this period we have a number of changes in the iconographical programs that included introduction of new topics and saints. The description of the iconographical program of the church and the analysis of new historical materials about this temple and of the stylistic peculiarities of the murals contributes to the study of the Northern part (the less studied one) of the so-called Sofia Holy Mountain.

The author analyzes two non-canonical prayers and Glagolitic Abecedarium in that the newly found Glagolitic manuscript Psalterium Demetrii Sinaitic. The Glagolitic Abecedarium is a very important for Glagolitic writing, especially when compared to other Abecedaria. Orthographical and morphological features of the two prayers are analyzed in this paper to test the hypothesis that the manuscript had older Serbian or Croatian archetypes. The analysis of the linguistic features suggests an Old Bulgarian origin.

In the National Museum in Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina, a Liturgikon (Book of Divine Services) is preserved under No. E 543. It was written in the monastery of St. Joachim of Osogovo (Sarandapor) near Kriva Palanka, Republic of Macedonia. On ff. 319r-325v a chronicle was written that is known as Sarandaporski letopis (Annals of Sarandapor). These annals tell the world history from the creation of the world to 1512. The events are presented in a concise manner, with the exception of two short stories of the conversion of the Bulgarians and Russians. This is the only conscious change of the text in the first part of the chronicle. Links with Paralipomen of John Zonaras are identified in this paper. Comparisons with the Useful Tale about the Latins are made. The conclusion of the author is that as juxtaposed with other sources on the conversions of the Bulgarians and Russians, the stories in the Annals of Sarandapor contain new information.

Personalia

Personalia

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Reviews

Reviews / Heinz Miklas and Jürgen Fuchsbauer. Die kirchenslavische Übersetzung der Dioptra des Philippos Monotropos. Bd. 1. Überlieferung Text der Programmata und des ersten Buches. Wien: Verlag Holzhausen, 2013, 409 p. ISBN: 978-3-902868-79-4

Reviews / Gregory Palamas in Medieval Slavonic Manuscript Tradition: A Contemporary Glance Marco Scarpa. Gregorio Palamas Slavo. La tradizione manoscritta delle opera. Recensione dei codici. Milano: BIBLION, 2012, 218 pp.

Reviews / Vasya Velinova. The Middle Bulgarian Translation of the Chronicle of Constantine Manasses and Its Literary Context. [History and Derivatives]. Sofia, St. Kliment Ohridski Publishing House, 2013, 276 pages.

Reviews

Reviews / Olga Mladenova, Boryana Velcheva. Loveč Damaskin: A New-Bulgarian Manuscript of the Seventeenth Century. Sofia: SS Cyril and Methodius National Library, 2013. 536 pp. ISBN 978-954-523-136-0

Reviews

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