Language and Literature Studies

Julian Petkov. Altslavische Eschatologie. Texte und Studien zur apokalyptischen Literatur in kirchenslavischer Überlieferung (Texte und Arbeiten zum neutestamentlichen Zeitalter, Bd. 59). Tübingen: Francke, 2016, 495 Seiten. ISBN-10: 3772085318

(Julian Petkov. Altslavic eschatology. Texts and Studies on Apocalyptic Literature in the Church of the Slavonic Tradition (Texts and Works on the New Testament Age, vol. 59). Tübingen: Francke, 2016, 495 pages. ISBN-10: 3772085318


Маргарет Димитрова. Средновековни молитви за родилки. Критическо издание [Margaret Dimitrova. Srednovekovni molitvi za rodilki. Kritičesko izdanie]. Sofia: Heron Press, 2014, 229 pp. ISBN 9789545803451

Margaret Dimitrova. Medieval prayers for new mothers. Critical Edition [Margaret Dimitrova. Srednovekovni molitvi za rodilki. Kritičesko izdanie]. Sofia: Heron Press, 2014, 229 pp. ISBN 9789545803451


Мария С. Мушинская. Изборник 1076 года: текстология и язык [Marija S. Mušinskaja. Izbornik 1076 goda: tekstologija i jazyk]. Sankt-Petersburg: Nestor-Istorija, 2015, 480 pp. ISBN 978-5-4469-0825-7

Maria S. Mushinskaya. The 1076 Miscellany: textology and language [Marija S. Mušinskaja. Izbornik 1076 goda: tekstologija i jazyk]. Sankt-Petersburg: Nestor-Istorija, 2015, 480 pp. ISBN 978-5-4469-0825-7


По пути славянской печатной книги на Балканах и в Юго-Восточной Европе

Along the way of the Slavic printed book in the Balkans and South-Eastern Europe

  • Summary/Abstract

    Ivan Petrov. Od inkunabułów do pierwszych gramatyk. Konteksty rozwoju bułgarskiego języka literackiego koniec XV – początek XVII wieka. Łódź: Wydawnictwo uniwersytetu Łódzkiego, 2015, 268 pp. ISBN 978-83-7969-792-2


Анета Димитрова. Златоструят в преводаческата дейност на старобългарските книжовници [Aneta Dimitrova. Zlatostrujat v prevodačeskata dejnost na starobălgarskite knižovnitsi]. Sofia: Avalon, 2016, 453 pp. ISBN 978-954-9704-36-5

Aneta Dimitrova. Zlatostruy in the translation activity of Old Bulgarian bookmen [Aneta Dimitrova. Zlatostrujat v prevodačeskata dejnost na starobălgarskite knižovnitsi]. Sofia: Avalon, 2016, 453 pp. ISBN 978-954-9704-36-5


Dan Zamfirescu. Marile Minee de lectură de la Tărnovo ale Patriarhului Eftimie. Ediţie facsimilată de pe manuscrisele de la Dragomirna şi Putna. Vol. 1. Bucureşti: Rosa Vânturilor, 2015, 858 pp. ISBN 978-973-1735-38-2

Dan Zamfirescu. Turnovo menologia of Patriarch Euthymius. Implicated edition of the Dragomirna and Putna manuscripts. Vol. 1. Bucharest: Rosa Vânturilor, 2015, 858 pp. ISBN 978-973-1735-38-2


Linguistics vs. Digital Editions: The Tromsø Old Russian and OCS Treebank

  • Summary/Abstract

    This article provides a description of the Tromsø Old Russian and OCS Treebank (TOROT), which, along with its parent treebank, the PROIEL corpus (built by members of the project Pragmatic Resources in Old Indo-European Languages), is the only existing treebank of Old Church Slavonic, Old East Slavic and Middle Russian texts. The TOROT is a part of a larger family of treebanks of ancient languages which all use the PROIEL open-source annotion web tool and annotation schemes. In this article we present principles and selected problems at several levels of analysis in the TOROT, and then briefly discuss ways that corpus linguists and edition philologists can fruitfully collaborate and complement each other.


Recycling the Metropolitan: Building an Electronic Corpus on the Basis of the Edition of the Velikie Minei Čet’i


Copies of Filip Stanislavov’s Abagar (Rome, 1651)

  • Summary/Abstract

    The article discusses the currently available information on the extant copies of Filip Stanislavov’s Abagar, printed in Rome by the Propaganda Fide in 1651. Starting from Božidar Rajkov’s 1979 edition, which lists fifteen known copies and their presumed location, the article offers information on several copies that are not reported by Rajkov. These include copies in London, Paris, and Uppsala, the latter in the form of a scroll. In addition, the current location of most of the earlier known copies has been verified, and new information on a number of copies is presented: for example, the copy formerly located in Brussels is currently preserved at the Bibliothèque Diderot in Lyon, whereas the two German copies seem to have been lost.


Writing Old Cyrillic and Glagolitic in GNU/Linux with the Bulgarian Phonetic Traditional Keyboard Layout


Re-Reading the Vita Constantini: the Philosopher in Constantinople


Scholia from Gregory of Nyssa’s Apologia in Hexaemeron in the Fourteenth-Century Slavonic Hexaemeron Collection


The Kievan Manuscript of Synopsis Basilicorum major


The Neapolitan Wall Calendar From a Medieval Slavic Perspective


The Fourteenth-Century Slavonic Version of the Longer and Shorter Rules of Saint Basil: Text of the Questions and Remarks

  • Summary/Abstract

    In this paper the text of the questions in the Longer Rules (Ὅροι κατὰ πλάτος, Regulae fusius tractatae, PG 31, 901–1052) and the text Shorter Rules (Ὅρoι κατ᾿ ἐπιτομήν, Regulae brevius tractatae, PG 31, 1052–1305, CPG II 2875 Asceticon magnum sive quaestiones) of St. Basil in their medieval Slavonic version are presented according to Zografou 3, a manuscript, dating from the 14th century. Some observations are made about the text of the questions on the basis of comparison on orthographical and lexical level between Zografou 3 and three other manuscripts: British Library Additional MS 27442, National Library in Sofia 1045 (Slepčenskij sbornik) and Zografou 126, dating from the same period. The quotations from the Scripture in the text of the questions are an object of special interest. The results of the comparative analysis give a good reason to suppose that Zografou 3 preserves the oldest text in comparison to the other three witnesses.


Motifs of Bulgarian History in Chronologia Magna and Satyrica Historia by Paulinus of Venice

  • Summary/Abstract

    This paper contains the first publication of printed excerpts related to Bulgarian history from two historical compilations by Paulinus of Venice. Chronologia Magna sive Compendium is presented according to lat. 4939, National library, Paris (14th c.) and Satyrica historia – according to Ms 445, Jagiellonian library, Cracow (15th c.). As the study and analysis of these manuscripts demonstrate, the compendia contain many accounts related to Bulgarian history – from the formation of the Bulgarian state in 681 up to the dynastic marriage of the Latin emperor of Constantinople Henry in 1213. All of the motifs from Bulgarian history, which Paulinus selected and included, are significant and fully aligned with the aims, which he had set himself in the prologue to Satyrica historia. These motifs are not merely a compilation of successes and failures, but are to form a body of well researched information, which will serve to edify posterity, based on the historical experience of the Roman and other kingdoms. Interpreting the evidence in Paulinus’ accounts in light of his stated approach, it appears that after their appearance on the European stage (681) the Bulgarians played the role of the defenders of Christian Europe (717) and the armament of God (811 г., 1205 г.). Their joining the Christian family of the European people is also recounted (865) through the example of the determination and beatitude of the Bulgarian ruler who defended the new faith even against his own son. Additionally, the Bulgarians are described as participants in events related to Byzantine history (705), as well as being adversely affected by the expansion of the unconverted Hungarians (907, 970, 1003). The accounts related by Paulinus are re-workings of earlier sources he was apparently well acquainted with. It can be argued that the present publication identified those sources with significant accuracy. The mistakes in the dating that occur in Paulinus’ compilations are often attributable to him connecting events to significant historical episodes or historical personalities, around which he builds a whole chapter or rubric of the narration. Sometimes the anachronisms are due to the sources he used. The study of the context, in which motifs related to Bulgarian history are placed allowed me to identify the sources of the material and the method of compilation employed by Paulinus of Venice. Last but not least, the analysis of the content of the motifs allowed me to establish that Dandolo mainly used information from Historia satyrica, but perhaps also consulted with Chronologia magna. He included in his chronicle almost all the motifs from the works of Paulinus, with the exception of the chronological note on the death of Nicephorus I Genik and the episode on Walter Senzavohir. Thus, the publication of the fragments from Historia satyrica and Chronologia magna clarified the origin of those passages in the chronicle of Andrea Dandolo about which D. Angelov wrote that they are connected to earlier historiographical sources but their origins are in need of further investigation.


Text and Context: Story about the Handsome Joseph in the Miscellanies with Mixed Content


Semantics of the Book’s Macro-Compositional Level? A Visualisation Method of Analysis

  • Summary/Abstract

    The publication opens for discussion an approach to macrostructural analysis of certain calendar miscellanies with selected readings which belong to the Medieval Balkan tradition. The author proposes that the selection of feasts and saints’ commemorations, as well as the order of the corresponding texts might be interpreted as determined by certain overall theme(s) / thematic fields and could be „read“ on the level of the book’s content. This approach was encouraged by the outcomes of a study on the calendar-thematic composition of Damaskenos Studites’s Thesauros and its transformations in Bulgarian literary tradition in the 16th-18th century. Aiming at a search for similar preceding models, the survey makes comparison on macro-compositional level between some panegyrica, such as Mihanović Homiliar and Jagić Zlatoust of the late 13th – early 14th century, the 1358/59 Miscellany of German, and the 16th-century Panegyricon No. 85 from the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences. In addition, the study explores the relevancy of a method for visualisation, which can be supportive of a thematic analysis.


A Short Note on the Glagolitic Ornament in Pamvo Berynda’s Triod Cvetnaya (Kiev 1631)

  • Summary/Abstract

    The article draws attention to two lesser known lines written in Glagolitic which are part of the Epilogue to Pamvo Berynda’s Triod Cvetnaja, printed in Kiev in 1631. Thanks to their typographic realisation, these two lines seem to have been mainly considered „an ornament“ or a „cryptographic“ element of the text in older literature. The article presents the Glagolitic text in standard Unicode encoding, so it becomes electronically searchable as such, along with a transliteration and a translation. It turns out that the Glagolitic text is nearly identical to the self-descriptions famout printer Pamvo Berynda had used before (although in Cyrillic). Another question put forth in the paper is the provenience of the actual printing types used in Kiev in 1631. A comparision shows that the letters look similar – but not identical – to printing type used around the same time Italy (Rome, Venice) or by Primož Trubar in the century before. The typographic quality of the Kievan types is, however, inferior.


Употребление причастий в Енинском апостоле

Use of Participles in the Eninski Apostol


Divine Chrysostom Liturgy from Manuscript D. Gr. 143 (AD 1368) in the Ivan Dujčev Centre for Slavo-Byzantine Studies


Hellenophilism in Georgian Literature as Cultural Orientation towards Byzantine Thought: Ephrem Mtsire‘s Cultural Orientation. Part I

  • Summary/Abstract

    This paper is part of a more extensive study on the medieval Georgian writer and translator Ephrem Mtsire who continued the traditions with his works that gradually acquired clearly Hellenophile character, thus beginning the formation of Hellenophilism as a trend in Georgian literature. Hellenophilism is not considered in this paper only in its narrower linguo-literary aspect which meant attaining the formal equivalence to the original. Hellenophilism is regarded here in its wider sense of special interest of non-Greek scholars towards the thinking processes of Byzantine culture of different periods. The study of both aspects reveals the positive influence of Hellenophilism on Georgian literature. Hellenophilism as cultural orientation begins with Ephrem Mtsire‘s literary activities.


Illuminated Manuscripts from the Family of the Hippiatrika Codex (Berlin, Staatsbibliothek, Phillipps 1538)

  • Summary/Abstract

    Two manuscripts discussed in this paper – the Homilies of Gregory the Theologian GIM Syn. gr. 63 (Vlad. 144) and the Four Gospels ÖNB Theol. gr. 240 – were examined for a special study, the results of which were published in 2009 and 2013. They both are unique examples of tenth-century Byzantine book illustration, remarkable for their unusual ornamental style. The study revealed the decoration, datable to the 940s, as a work of one and the same artist, conditionally referred to as the ‘Master of the Arabesque Style’. His ornamental style is unique in the history of the Byzantine manuscript book, only existing for a short period and evidently corresponding to the activity of this one illuminator. The manuscript Berlin, Phillipps 1538, which contains a Treatise on Horse Medicine, has appeared in many publications. However, its artistic decoration has not yet received the elucidation it merits. After a new research using colour reproductions it transpired that many of the Berlin codex folios were actually decorated by the same artist as the Vienna and Synodal manuscripts. The assumption that one artist devised the three manuscripts under scrutiny brings to the conclusion that the Vienna Gospels should be classed among manuscripts from the Imperial scriptorium and dated to the period from 945 to 959. With regard to the development of minuscule script, the scribe responsible for the Hippiatrika obviously was regarded as a distinguished calligrapher, whose earliest activities should be sought in the first quarter of the century. The archaic characteristics found in the codex are in accordance with the illumination. Therefore the Berlin manuscript should be used as a reference for the attribution of manuscripts from the second half of the tenth century.


Jan Stradomski. Rękopisy i teksty. Studia nad cerkiewnosłowiańską kulturą literacką Wielkiego Księstwa Litewskiego i Korony Polskiej do końca XVI wieku. [Krakowsko-Wileńskie studia slawistyczne. T. 10.] Kraków 2014

Jan Stradomski. Manuscripts and texts. Church Slavonic studies of the literary culture of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania and Polish crown to the end of the sixteenth century. [Cracow-Vilnius Slavic studies. T. 10.] Krakow 2014


Types of Books and Types of Records: A Short Presentation of the CGS Database of Cyrillic and Glagolitic Books and Manuscripts in Sweden

  • Summary/Abstract

    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.


Early Cyrillic Printed Books in Swedish Libraries: Investigation and New Data

  • Summary/Abstract

    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.


Early Modern Slovenian Manuscripts. Encoding and Presenting Descriptions, Genres, and Authors

  • Summary/Abstract

    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.


Gregory Tsamblak and Classical Antiquity

  • Summary/Abstract

    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.


On Bulgarian Historical Dialectology

  • Summary/Abstract

    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.


The Cyrillomethodian Tradition in the Slavic World

  • Summary/Abstract

    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.


Voskresenskaja Kormchaja: The Sources and the Scribes

  • Summary/Abstract

    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.


The Alphabetic Chapters Attributed to St. Neilos: an Edition

  • Summary/Abstract

    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.


Tracing the Greek Parallels to Acta Thomae in India as Witnessed in MS NBKM 1039

  • Summary/Abstract

    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.


The Quotations from the Psalter in the Pašman Rule and the Croatian Glagolitic Tradition of the Psalter

  • Summary/Abstract

    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 Virtues of the Ruler according to the Life of Stefan Lazarević by Constantine of Kostenets

  • Summary/Abstract

    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.


Constructing a Hagiographic “Canon” in the South Slavonic Literary Tradition. Stanislav’s Menologion: A Case Study

  • Summary/Abstract

    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 Slavonic Versions of Hippolytus of Rome’s Commentaries on the Book of Prophet Daniel

  • Summary/Abstract

    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.


Из материалов к Своду древнерусских надписей Новгорода Великого: 10 средневековых граффити из новгородской церкви Николы на Липне

Materials for the Corpus of Old Russian Epigraphy in Great Novgorod: Ten Medieval Graffiti in St. Nicholas in Lipno Church in Novgorod

  • Summary/Abstract

    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.


Три архива XVII века: Новгородский, Смоленский, Тихвинский

Three Archives of the Seventeenth Century (from Novgorod, Smolensk, and Tikhvin)

  • Summary/Abstract

    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.


Проблема рецепции средневековой южнославянской письменности – о переводах древнесербских текстов на польский язык

On the Reception of Medieval South Slavic Literature: Translations of Old Serbian Texts into Polish

  • Summary/Abstract

    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 Murals of Saint Petka Church in Svoge

  • Summary/Abstract

    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 Two Non-Canonical Prayers and the Glagolitic Abecedarium in Psalterium Demetrii Sinaitici

  • Summary/Abstract

    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.


Stories from the Conversion of the Bulgarians and the Russians in the Annals of Sarandapor

  • Summary/Abstract

    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.


Heinz Miklas and Jürgen Fuchsbauer. Die kirchenslavische Übersetzung der Dioptra des Philippos Monotropos. Bd. 1. Überlieferung Text der Programmata..

  • Summary/Abstract

    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


Gregory Palamas in Medieval Slavonic Manuscript Tradition: A Contemporary Glance Marco Scarpa. Gregorio Palamas Slavo. La tradizione manoscritta...

  • Summary/Abstract

    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.


Vasya Velinova. The Middle Bulgarian Translation of the Chronicle of Constantine Manasses and Its Literary Context. [History and Derivatives]. Sofia..

  • Summary/Abstract

    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.


Олга Младенова, Боряна Велчева. Ловешки дамаскин: новобългарски паметник от ХVII век. София, Национална библиотека „Св. Св. Кирил и Методий“, 2013

Olga Mladenova, Boryana Velcheva. Loveč Damaskin: A New-Bulgarian Manuscript of the Seventeenth Century. Sofia: SS Cyril and Methodius National...)

  • Summary/Abstract

    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


The Skalar Manuscript, a Long Forgotten Jewel of Slovenian Baroque Literature: a Digital Scholarly Critical Edition of the Manuscript Codex

  • Summary/Abstract

    This article considers an electronic edition of the Skalar Manuscript codex, which came into being around 1643. The original is held in the National and University Library in Ljubljana. The Manuscript codex contains four Slovene-language texts: three translations from German and a short, incomplete composition. In view of the fact that the Manuscript is from the territory of the so-called Western Slavs, it comes as no surprise that it features primarily Western and Central European themes and influences. The first part of the article briefly introduces the author, provides key information on the text’s contents, cites authors that Skalar used, and presents the critical textual background for his translation of the Pseudo-Bonaventure’s composition. The second part presents the electronic, scholarly critical edition of the Skalar Manuscript, which contains a facsimile of the text, and diplomatic and critical transcriptions, with substantial studies appended. The edition will be placed on the eZISS site, Elektronske znanstvenokritične izdaje slovenskega slovstva: http://nl.ijs.si/e-zrc/ (Scholarly Digital Editions of Slovenian Literature), along with other scholarly critical editions of Slovenian literature prepared by the Institute of Slovenian Literature and Literary Studies of the Research Center of the Slovenian Academy of Sciences and Arts (ZRC SAZU), in cooperation with the Jožef Stefan Institute’s Department of Knowledge Technologies (Inštitut Jožef Stefan, Odsek za tehnologije znanja).


Notes on the Date of the Tenth-Century Codex Suprasliensis

  • Summary/Abstract

    The proposed notes to the chronology of the Codex Suprasliensis were provoked by the "Rediscovery" of this manuscript in the project of UNESCO (2009-2011), Institute for Literature, BAS. The electronic edition of the codex gave grounds of a new analysis, and with much more sophisticated technology and expectation to create a new annotated dictionary. Most of the authors of the publications in anthology “Rediscovery: Bulgarian Codex Suprasliensis of 10th century” (Sofia, 2012) suggested an earlier composition and production of the Codex Suprasliensis ‒ about the 970s. The author argues that the model of the handwriting of the Codex Suprasliensis lies on the basis of both the high and the low Cyrillic uncial. Her analysis includes details of the outline of graphemes and decoration of the Codex Suprasliensis as compared to the most important early Cyrillic manuscripts. The author also seeks terminus ante quem / post quem for the character set compared with epigraphic materials. She emphasizes that the handwriting of the Codex Suprasliensis remains unique – until a model of the early Cyrillic script is reconstructed, a model that depends probably on the early Greek tradition/ canon of graphemes. There is a good prospect for future research, because of the study of the corpus of the Slavonic liturgical books (reading menaia, triodia, apostoloi and others) nowadays: this gives good grounds for further development of a Slavic Cyrillic paleography and codicology.


Patria Athonensia and Отьчьствиѥ ст҃ыѩ горы: a Sixteenth-Century Slavonic Source about the Zographou Monastery

  • Summary/Abstract

    The goal of this article is to analyze an early 16th - century Slavonic copy of the Legend of how the Bulgarian Zographou Monastery on Mount Athos was founded. This text represents an integral part of the sacred history of the Holy Mountain, known under the title Πάτρια (Patria Athonensia). In the beginning of the 16th century (1508), hieromonk Gabriel, at that time notary of the Protaton Church at Karyai, translated into Slavonic of Serbian recension a cycle of mutually connected texts on the foundation of Holy Mountain and some of its monasteries, which he found in the Greek written tradition of the Hagiorite Patria. The analysis in this paper is focused on the most archaic South Slavonic copy with Gabriel’s translation in miscellany № 733 from the middle of the 16th century, which makes part of Kovačević’s collection, held in the Serbian National Library in Belgrade. The Legend about the foundation of the Zographou Monastery is analyzed in the light of the concepts of “cultural memory”, “spiritual identity“, and “historical tradition”. The authors express a deep gratitude to their Serbian colleagues Vlada Stanković and Tatjana Subotin-Golubović for the given opportunity to use the digital copy of the manuscript, as well as to Dmitrij Bulanin, whose new research Афон в древнерусской письменности до конца XVI в. (Словарь книжников и книжности Древней Руси. Вып.2, части 1–2. М., 2012, 429–763), appeared at the same time as the deposition of the current article, represents a solid base for further investigations. 


Beloved Son-in-Law: Charters of Byzantine Emperors to the Hilandar Monastery after the Marriage of King Milutin to Symonis

  • Summary/Abstract

    The article discusses the events in the Balkans by the end of the 13th century when the Serbian ruler Milutin managed to get special status after marriage to a five-year-old daughter of the Byzantine Emperor Andronicus II, Simonis. The marriage of Emperor Milutin with the emperor’s daughter radically changes the position and policy of the Serbian king. After 1299, Milutin emerged as a strong opponent of the empire to be defeated by military force, but at the same time, potentially very valuable friend and ally, by whom Byzantine influence can be spread more and more widely in the Balkans. After that King Milutin becomes governance model for his successors, especially for her grandson Stefan Dušan, who ascend even higher in the hierarchy of Balkan rulers. Dušan declared himself emperor in 1345 at the height of the civil war in Byzantium, with claims to dominate both in Serbia and over Byzantium. Dušan managed to get from the nineteen-year-old emperor John the Fifth Palaeologus, the son of Andronicus III, recognition of his imperial status by formula (which follows closely the model prepared for Milutin): for John the Fifth Dušan was an emperor of Serbia and "favorite uncle", but this is not a temporary solution to the young and inexperienced emperor. This formula is forced under political pressure and is expression of Byzantine official position to the neighbor ally and confirms the evolution to the Serbian rulers by Byzantine emperors and the change, which is implemented earlier through Milutin’s policy.


Notes on Stefan the Hagiorite’s Narratio De Sancto Monte Athonensi Together with an Edition of the Text According to Ms. F.I.643 from the Russian ...

  • Summary/Abstract

    Notes on Stefan the Hagiorite’s Narratio De Sancto Monte Athonensi Together with an Edition of the Text According to Ms. F.I.643 from the Russian National Library in Saint Petersburg (olim St Paul Monastery on Mount Athos) / Narratio de sancto Monte Athonensi (Tale of the Holy Mount Athos) is one of the late medieval ancestors of the Bulgarian historical thought from the period of the National Revival. It is the most literate, well-structured and sophisticated South Slavic work on the history of Athonite sacredness and true orthodoxy. The author, Stefan the Hagiorite, a Bulgarian monk from the Zograph Monastery, proves himself a skillful compiler with aptitude for combining both sources and approaches. The paper offers an overview on the history of the text with special attention on its sources, witnesses, dissemination, and influence on other Slavic works. An edition of the most reliable and previously unpublished copy is also appended.


From the Old Literary Traditions to Hellenophilism in Georgian Literature: Euthymius the Athonite

  • Summary/Abstract

    This paper analyzes techniques of translation from Greek into Georgian and methods of interpolation and compilation used by the renowned Georgian translator and theologian Euthymius the Athonite of the end of the tenth and the beginning of the eleventh century, enlightener of Georgians, one of the leaders of the Athonite monastic center after Athanasius the Great, and founder of the Iviron Monastery on Mount Athos and of the Georgian theological school there. The paper discusses the corpus of translated works of Gregory the Theologian that was compiled by this Athonite monk. Two main methods of translation exploited by Euthymius the Athonite are analyzed in detail: a method of major compositional changes of the Greek original and a method of close adherence to the Greek text. Along with the analysis of Euthymius the Athonite’s conception of translation, Ketevan Bezarashvili comments the evidence in medieval Georgian manuscripts how his translation activities and production were viewed and evaluated by bookmen. In addition, she approaches the attitudes of this medieval author towards forms of medieval Christian exegesis and rhetoric written in Greek, towards the theology of Gregory of Nazianzus, secular education and knowledge.


Towards the History of Paraenetic Literature: Hilandar MS 382

  • Summary/Abstract

    An insufficiently studied monastic florilegium survives in the parchment manuscript No. 382 from the collection of the Hilandar Monastery on Mount Athos. The manuscript is dated to the end of the 13th– beginning of the 14th centu. It was written with Raška orthography, with traces of an earlier Old Church Slavonic protograph. The book was made up of two separate manuscripts (fols. 1–197 and fols. 198–259) with separate pagination of quires. The text of the first part was written in two columns by one scribe. The second manuscript (fol. 198 till the end) is a copy of the so-called Zlatostruj of Tsar Symeon. In the first part of the manuscript (on fols. 1–67) there are texts enumerated from 1 to 154 that are attributed to many authors (by name, if mentioned at all, as most are anonymous): John Chrysostom, Basil of Caesarea, Maximos the Confessor, Hypatios of Ephesus, Hippolytus of Rome, Аnastasios of Jerusalem, Gregory of Nyssa, Pseudo-Palladios, Ephrem the Syrian, Isidore of Pelousion, Theodore the Studite, and others. The article presents results from text-critical analysis of some translated into Old Church Slavonic works in the first part of this manuscript, the study of which is largely due to the kindly provided materials to the author in Hilandar Research Center (Columbus, Ohio, United States). In particular, the following texts are examined 1) Moscow florilegium (Florilegium Mosquense) (fols. 60c–64c); 2) A collection of admonitory aphorisms for moral perfection, in Greek alphabetic order (fols. 64C–66d); 3) Instruction on the gratitude to God and the prayer (fols. 66d–67b); 4) Instruction on the Ten Commandments, only fragments of which are found in Hilandar 382 (fols. 67b–67c-d, no ending); 5) A collection of wise sayings allegedly authored by Nilus of Sinai, a fragment in Hilandar 382 (fols. 59a–60c). The study identifies their Byzantine archetypes, characterizes translation techniques and traces back the transmission of the texts from the time of their creation (probably the middle or second half of the 10th century) to the end of the 16th century.


The Tropologion Sin. gr. NE/ΜΓ 56–5 of the Ninth Century: A New Source for Byzantine Hymnography

  • Summary/Abstract

    The Tropologion Sin. gr. NE/ΜΓ 56–5 of the 9th c. is a unique source for Byzantine hymnography. It was found in 1975 in Sinai and to this day remains unexplored. It contains the most complete to date collection of early-Palestinian Greek liturgical poetry. In addition, it is the only surviving Greek anthology of this type of hymnographic book which represents an early Palestinian liturgical poetry in Greek (from the 7th–9th centuries). The Tropologion analysed in this paper is earlier in comparison with the ancient Tropologion preserved in Georgian translation. In it survived 73 rites from the Forefeast Christmas until commemoration of the righteous Joseph of Arimathea (June 12), with incorporated services from Lent and Easter to Pentecost. This edition of the book was the basis for the creation and composition of other hymnographic books in Byzantium – Menaion and Triodion.


The Rite of Marriage in the Archimedes Euchology & Sinai gr. 973 (a. 1152/3)

  • Summary/Abstract

    Manuscript of the collection in the monastery “St Catherine” Sinai Gr . 973, 12th c., and Archimedes Palimpsest (copied in the 13th century on top of reused parchment) contain very similar features of the Palestinian rite of marriage. Each of these two euchologia preserved texts constituting evidence of combination between Constantinople liturgical tradition and local materials. However, along with this, even the local materials appear to be combinations of different sources. In other words, the local texts in these two euchologia cannot have originated from a single original of the wedding ritual. There is a combination of multiple components of alternative or variant practices, some of which are in the same euchologia. The variety of wedding practices spread along with variant practices for marriage in other sources of the region, Sinai Gr. 957 (10th c.), Sinai Gr. 958 (11th c.) - both in Palestine and in the Georgian euchologia. Because of the wide variety of wedding practices found in Palestinian sources and a relatively limited number of early texts for marriage ritual, it is difficult to establish the exact origin of many local traditions in these manuscripts. One thing is certain - there is a wide variety of texts for marriage among Orthodox Christians in the Middle East. Despite the variety of practices Sinai Gr. 973 and the text of the Archimedes Palimpsest in euchologia helped to understand common characteristics of the ritual of marriage in this specific region.


St Jerome’s Lives and the Formation of the Hagiographic Canon

  • Summary/Abstract

    This article approaches the question to what extent Jerome, as the first author who composed hagiographical works dedicated to hermits, constituted the hagiographical canon, to what extent he borrowed from the prior tradition and how he enriched Christian hagiography. Irina Kuzidova reconsiders the well-established opinion that his works Vita Pauli, Vita Malchi, and Vita Hilarionis, also known as Vitae Patrum eremitarum, are strongly influenced by the great example of Vita Anthonii by Athanasius of Alexandria. Without trying to deny the obvious effort and ambition of Jerome, the Bible’s translator into Latin, to surpass Athanasius of Alexandria’s hagiographic techniques and methods of glorifying an anchoret, St. Antonius, Kuzidova outlines the basic differences in Jerome’s and St. Athanasius of Alexandria’s narrative models. She focuses on innovative ideas and descriptions of important spiritual phenomena of the fourth century that were reflected for the first time in Jerome’s hagiography, such as anchoretic practices and regimes, formation of religious communities, shaping the Palestinian hierotopy, intellectual partnership between women and men and female activity in Christian societies.


Old Testament History: A Cathar Dilemma

  • Summary/Abstract

    ll Cathars accepted the New Testament as divinely inspired, and some of them also admitted the Wisdom Books and the Prophetical Books of the Old Testament to their scriptural canon; but (except for the school of John of Lugio) they all rejected the Pentateuch and the Historical Books. This created a two-fold problem for them. First, the writers of the Biblical books which they did accept regarded the Pentateuch and the Historical Books of the Old Testament as divinely inspired and frequently cited them as authoritative. Secondly, the Cathars lived in a society which considered that the Pentateuch and the Historical Books of the Old Testament were the most accurate factual record of human history. In this paper I have tried to explore how the Cathars responded to those challenges.


The Miracle of St Nicholas and the Three Generals in the Bojana Church (1259) – Miracle of Emperor Constantine the Great’s Dream

  • Summary/Abstract

    The Bojana Church of St Nicholas and St Panteleemon of 1259 is a comparatively well-preserved monument of Bulgarian mediaeval art which has attracted the interest of a number of experts from various disciplines in the arts and humanities above all with the portraits of two lay couples depicted in the narthex: of the Bulgarian Tsar Constantine Tich Asen (1257-1277) and his wife Irene, and of the donors (ktetors), Sebastocrator Kalojan and his wife Desislava. The experience of a number of Bulgarian scientists from the last century to seek a hint of fate donors of the Boyana Church in images of Miracle of St. Nicholas with three generals (one third of all or six of the 18 scenes), provoked the author of the article to draw a parallel with similar Byzantine monuments of the 11th-15th c. There is a preference to present the Miracle in several scenes in all of them - iconography of constituent scenes remains unsolved up to now in essence and variation in individual interpretations is depending on the selected number of stages and the order of their presentation. The choice of the first scene, the sequence in producing of six episodes, the shifted center of events compared to the Life of the saint and the overall context in which the story is showed in frescoes in the narthex warrants to determine the miracle with the three generals in the Boyana Church in parrallel with the Miracle with the dream of the Emperor Constantine the Great. Consequences of a new interpretation made there of one of the miracles of St. Nicholas is the realization that interpretation of the mural of The Miracle of St. Nicholas with three generals in the Boyana Church from 1259 should be viewed not only as a component of the total cycle about the saint in the narthex, but the illustration that corresponds to the religious motives of the founders of the temple Kaloyan and Desislava. The approach applied here – examining the wall paintings in the Bojana Church as a “text”, as a “narrative” that expects to be “deciphered” – shows the need for a more detailed study of the figure of the author of the iconographic program who has turned, with great skill and erudition, the visual interpretation of the hagiographical narrative of St. Nicholas into one of the merits of the monument in Bojana of 1259.


Загадка в одной рукописи

Mystery with One Manuscript

  • Summary/Abstract

    The article summarizes the information about the so-called Lovchanski sbornik, with unknown destination today, also called Nedelchev’s miscellany on behalf of its owner, collector and museum worker Michael Hadji Nedelchev. In the 1920s, the manuscript was presented to prominent researchers Jordan Ivanov and Benjo Tsonev, who considered it to be a valuable manuscript and offered to publish it, but this does not take place. After the Second World War Nedelchev’s miscellany was lost, leaving many open questions. The history of the manuscript was studied by Bonjo St. Angelov, Kujo Kuev and others. The author of the present article provides new data on the manuscript, found in the collection of the Archives of the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences. She supplements contents of some texts, such as “Story about the twelve dreams of king Shachinshahi” by unknown so far photocopy of a sheet of the text in the Archives mentioned.


Saint Parasceve’s Life by Patriarch Euthymius Translated into Latin by Rafael Levaković: A Bilingual Dictionary

  • Summary/Abstract

    The object of the article is the Latin translation of the Vita of St. Petka of Tărnovo made by Rafael Levaković from the version in Zbornik za Putnike published by Vicenzo Vuković in 1547 in Venice. This translation is precise, although the translator tends to use most eloquent style when writing in Latin. An interesting peculiarity of Levaković’s translation is probably the intentional aspiration to adhere to the gender of the words in Patriarch Euthymius’s original, to find a Latin word of the same gender as its counterpart in the original. Out of approximately 320 nouns translated, 180 have complete concurrence of gender. Moreover, there is a tendency to render consistently nouns which are of feminine gender and end in -ица with Latin nouns of feminine gender ending in -trix, -tricis, i.е. there is some consistency on the level of declension. Examples: застѫпьница f. – protectrix, cis f. In a similar way masculine nouns ending in –ьць (nomina auctoris) are translated with Latin words of masculine gender ending in –tor, -toris, for example самодрьжьць m. – imperator, oris m. In the translation there is no need of calques, because both the Slavonic and Latin were Christian literary languages in the 17th c. with a long tradition and well developed system of abstract nouns denoting Christian concepts. Rafael Levaković’s translation of the Vita of St. Petka is a precious source for the cultural connections in Europe in the 17th c. A rare attempt such as a translation from Slavonic into Latin undoubtedly is not only of interest for scholars, dealing with this material, but also a cultural fact of the Late Medieval times.


Radoslava Stankova. Cult and Hymnography. Offices for Local and South Slavic and Balkan Saints in Manuscripts of the ХІІІth and ХVth centuries

  • Summary/Abstract

    Reviews / Radoslava Stankova. Cult and Hymnography. Offices for Local and South Slavic and Balkan Saints in Manuscripts of the ХІІІth and ХVth centuries. Sofia: Marin Drinov Academic Press, 2012, 286 pp.


In Stolis Repromissions. Saints and Sainthood in Central and Eastern Europe. Edited by Adelina Angusheva-Tihanov, Margaret Dimitrova, Rossina Kostova

  • Summary/Abstract

    Reviews / In Stolis Repromissions. Saints and Sainthood in Central and Eastern Europe. Edited by Adelina Angusheva-Tihanov, Margaret Dimitrova, Rossina Kostova, and Rossen R. Malchev. Sofia: ROD, 2012, 520 pp.


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