Owning the Byzantine Literary Tradition: Balkan Adaptation and Transformation
- Author(s): Anissava Miltenova Lilly Stammler
- Subject(s): Literary Texts // Rethinking of the Byzantine tradition // Historical and apocalyptic literature // Life of St Andrew the Fool for Christ’s sake //
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Published by: Institute for Literature BAS
- Print ISSN: 1312-238X
- Summary/Abstract:
The process of Byzantine intellectual influence on the newly baptized Slavic states has attracted considerable scholarly attention. However, the question of the remodelling of Byzantine literary traditions in the course of their transmission to the Slavs awaits a comprehensive study. Our paper focuses on literary genres and particular texts which undergo changes in their generic characteristics and function when translated into Slavonic. We analyse the appearance of hybrid literary forms unknown in Byzantium as well as the refashioning of the cults of certain saints and the texts related to them. Special attention is paid to historical-apocalyptic literature, to some short narrative forms, and apocrypha (translations and compilations). Observations are also made regarding the tradition of Holy Foolery, which undergoes a variety of transformations in different cultures. A key illustration is St Andrew the Fool for Christ’s sake, whose Byzantine Life is not only translated several times into Slavonic but is also remodelled into a constellation of texts: didactic, apocalyptic, questions and answers, etc. Our principal goal is to trace the causes of the rethinking of the well-established and authoritative Byzantine tradition, looking into inter-textual and extra-textual reasons for the transformations.
Journal: Scripta & e-Scripta vol. 10-11, 2012
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Page Range: 247-267
No. of Pages: 23
Language: English - LINK CEEOL: https://www.ceeol.com/search/article-detail?id=180814
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Anissava MiltenovaBulgariaProf., Dsc. Institute for Literature, Bulgarian Academy of Sciences, Sofia, BulgariaDescription
Anissava Miltenova is Professor, Dr. Habil. and Chair of the Department of Old Bulgarian Literature in the Institute of literature, Bulgarian Academy of Sciences. Recent and current research areas: text transmission in the Slavia Orthodoxa; typology of the macrostructure of Medieval Slavic Miscellanies; florilegia; apocrypha, Repertorium of the Balkan Cyrillic Manuscripts (encoding with computer tools). Since 1994 she coordinated several projects on computer processing of medieval Slavic manuscripts (joint with Pittsburgh University, USA; University of Gothenburg, Sweden; British Library, London, England; Institute of Russian language, Moscow, etc.).
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SUBJECT: Literary Texts // Rethinking of the Byzantine tradition // Historical and apocalyptic literature // Life of St Andrew the Fool for Christ’s sake //KEYWORDS:
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