Ivan P. Petrov

Isaac of Nineveh, best known in the Slavic tradition as Isaac the Syrian, was a prominent figure in Eastern Christianity whose works were quickly translated into other languages. The two known medieval South Slavic translations were accomplished from Greek; the second one became particularly popular among the East Slavs and spread widely in that region. Isaac’s teachings found a large audience in monastic circles and were often included in miscellanies. This paper aims to analyse the language used to address the intellectual and noetic realms in the Slavonic translations of Isaac’s works. To this end, sections of the unedited Slavonic text have been prepared for comparison with the original Greek. This terminology is then be compared with translation equivalents found in other ascetic works in Slavonic. Apart from the linguistic aspect, the study also attempts to trace the influence of language on the transmission of ideas through translation. As an appendix, an edition of one sermon is presented for the first time, with the two known Slavonic versions printed side by side alongside the Greek text with critical apparatus and comments on the translation features.

The papers in the sections Scripta and Debuts were presented at the international conference “Transfer and Adaptation: languages and Cultures in Dialogue (the Balkans from Late Antiquity to the Early Modern Times)”, held from 24-26 January 2024 in the Sofia University ‘St. Kliment Ohridski’. Participants were from Austria, Bulgaria, Italy, Germany, Czech Republic and Romania. The conference was organised at the Institute of Balkan Studies and Centre of Thracology, Bulgarian Academy of Scienc- es within the reintegration program of the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation. The financial support of the Bulgarian National Scientific Fund (contract Nr. ФНИ КП-06-МНФ/21 of 08.08.2023) was provided following the Memorandum of August 2020 between the Foundation and the Fund. No financial means received through the framework of this contract were planned or used for the publication of the articles in the present journal issue.

In the palaeoslavic studies, it is known that the perfective aspect is used to render the Greek future and various forms of the conjunctive and optative, for the most part – in the aorist. On some occasions, though, Constantine of Preslav used more specific (vis. lexical) ways of rendering the Greek optative. The paper aims at systemising and commenting on the material excerpted from Constantine’s Didactic Gospel Greek sources. Such an approach, oriented towards the Greek as a starting point, might bring a better understanding of how these grammatical forms were perceived in the 9th century when they were no longer active in the spoken Greek language of the epoch. Furthermore, it will elaborate our understanding of Constantine of Preslav’s translation technique.

Iskra Hristova-Šomova at 65