Mariya Yovcheva

The paper presents an hitherto unknown Slavic codex from the 16th century, which is preserved today under the signature No. MIET 64 in the Paleographical Archive of the National Bank of Greece. This paper codex represents a convolute consisting of two parts, which can be distinguished mainly relying on the different old pagination of the quires (‘tetradia’). They contain hymnographic works and liturgical texts. In an inscription on f. 70v the scribe gives his name as “Diak Ioan” and indicates the date of the copy (1549). Because of this and of certain palaeographical features we propose that the second MS is the work of the well-known copyist Ioan Kratovski. His scribal activity lasted from 1526 to 1583. This MS thus belonged to the earlier period of his career. As the copyist mentions, the first part of the manuscript was produced for a monastery named after the St Archangel Michael and since the two parts of the second MS contain texts devoted to this Archangel, it seems likely that this MS was produced for the Archangel Michael monastery in Lesnovo. It is located near the town of Kratovo, to which it had close connections especially in the 15th and 16th century. The first part, ff. 1–30, was created by an unknown copyist in the first half of the 16th century, as can be inferred from the characteristics of the style of the script and from the watermark ‘crossbow ‘ (closest type in Briquet, No. 748, year 1505).

Неизвестен ръкопис от XVI в. от Палеографския архив на Националната банка на Гърция
Мария Йовчева
(Софийски университет „Св. Климент Охридски“, България)
Евелина Минева
(Национален и Каподистрийски университет в Атина, Гърция)

Статията въвежда в научно обращение неизвестен славянски кодекс от ХVІ в., който се съхранява днес в Палеографския архив на Националната банка на Гърция, № MIET 64. Написан е на хартия и е конволут: състои се от два различни ръкописа, които съдържат химнографски произведения и богослужебни текстове. Въз основа на приписката на л. 70v, където стои името „дяк Йоан“ и датата 1549 г., както и поради характеристиките на писмото, се предлага хипотезата, че вторият ръкопис е дело на известния преписвач Йоан Кратовски. Неговата писаческа дейност е продължила от 1526 г. до 1583 г. и така този кодекс принадлежи към по-ранния период от творчеството му. Както се споменава в бележката на преписвача, първата част от ръкописа е предназначена за манастир, наречен „Св. Архангел“. Най-вероятно става въпрос за посветения на св. архангел Михаил Лесновски манастир, който се намира в близост до град Кратово и е имал тесни връзки с града, особено през ХV и ХVІ в. Първият ръкопис – до л. 30, е създаден от неизвестен преписвач през първата или втората четвърт на ХVІ в., както може да се съди от характеристиките на писмото и от съдържанието, но и от водния знак „арбалет“ (най-близкият тип в Briquet, № 748 от 1505 г.).

Language studies, Language and Literature Studies, Review, General Reference Works, Theoretical Linguistics, Studies of Literature, Philology, Translation Studies

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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.

The study reviews the Medieval Bulgarian translations from Greek as a multi-centennial process, preconditioned by the constant contacts between Byzantium and its Slavonic neighbor and dependant on the historical and cultural circumstances in Medieval Bulgaria. The facts are discussed from the prospective of two basic determining factors: social and cultural environment (spiritual needs of the age, political and cultural ideology, translationsʼ initiator, centers of translation activities, degree of education/literacy). The chronological and typological analysis of the thematic and genre range of the translated literature enables the outlining of five main stages: (1) Cyrillo-Methodian period (the middle of the 9th centuty – 885) – reception of the corpus needed for missionary purposes; (2) The First Bulgarian Tsardom period (885–1018) – intensive translation activities, founding the Christian literature in Bulgaria; (3) The period of The Byzantine rule (1018–1185) – a standstill in the translation activities and single translations of low-level literature texts; (4) The Second Bulgarian Tsardom – the period of Asenevtsi dynasty (the late 12th and the 13th centuries) – a partial revision of the liturgical and paraliturgical books; (5) The Second Bulgarian Tsardom – the Athonite-Tarnovo period (the 14th – early 15th century) – extensive relations with Byzantium and alignment to the then-current Byzantine models, intensifications of the translations flow and a broad range of the translation stream.

The objective of the study is to clarify the issue the origin of the source, used for the Slavonic translation of the Vita of Stephen I the Pope of Rome (VS). The five known Slavonic copies – GIM, Undolksij 232 (15th c.), GIM, Synodal collecton No. 997 (1552–1553) and No.183 (1554), RGB, Holy Trinity Lavra of Sergiev Posad No. 680 (16th c.), RNB, No. 1376 of the Hagia Sofia Cathedral in Novgorod (16th c.), both Greek versions (issued by Latyšev 1916) and the Latin text (according to Acta Sanctorum) have been compared. The study showed that most arguments, supporting the Latin origin of the Slavonic translation, as indicated by A. Sobolevsky and V. Mareš, are disputable or even invalid. A part of the so-called traces of a Latin source are errors, occurring in Slavonic environment, which can be found only in Und. 232, or Und. 232 and single other copies, while the other manuscripts keep the correct readings. A number of errors, due to paronymy or omonymy of the Latin words, have parallels in the Greek versions, and therefore they may appear in the Slavonic VS from a Byzantine origin. Other arguments, supporting the hypothesis of a Greek origin of the Slavonic translation of the VS, have also been provided: semantic equivalence of the Slavonic and Greek words, when the respective Latin word shows a partial or complete difference; presence of rare Greek loan-words; Graecisized phonetic form of a number of Latin borrowings.

The article traces the earliest history of the Slavonic Menaion for December, based on the textological research of a wide range of manuscripts of East Slav, Serbian and Bulgarian origin, dating from the 11th and until the 14th century. The multiple layers of the contents of South-Slavonic codices of the 13th - 14th century are outlined, proving, at the same time, the unconvincingness of the hypothesis for the significant influence of Old Russian originals in their formation. The study confirms the textological connection of the non-standard Russian menaia (RGADA, Synod. Typ. 98; RGADA, Synod. Typ. 130; RGADA, Synod. Typ. 131) to the Old-Bulgarian protographs. The article discloses also the unhomogeneousness of a number of offices in the East Slav menaia for December, where a more archaic layer is incorporated. The data show that the formation of the 12-volume East Slav collection is the result not of a single translation, but of a longer and gradual process of reception of the Byzantine hymnographic repertoire, starting as early as the 9th - 10th century at the literary centres of the First Bulgarian Kingdom. Therefore the Old Russian menaia reflect not the opening stage of that liturgical book in the Slavonic environment, but an older, comparatively established stage, marked by its unification, backed by approximately a century and a half of tradition.