Ekaterina Dikova

The article is focused, firstly, on a substantive that has remained outside the scope of study on the 9th-century Uchitel’noe evangelie – ал(ъ)кота. Its 6 appearances in this collection are observed together with their Greek corresponding words and direct respective contexts in the source and target texts. The derivatives of the same root are also traced in the monument together with their Greek counterparts. Then, a visual thesaurus is presented of the concurrent nouns with the root *alk- according to the main diachronic dictionaries. Finally, two synonymic roots – пост- and глад- are presented in terms of their distribution in the monument and their semantic peculiarities. The conclusions are that the words for hunger in Uchitel’noe evangelie are of three roots and that each of these roots has its exact Greek counterpart: глад- translates λιμ- and signifies ‘acute need for food’; пост- corresponds to νηστ- and is related to ‘voluntary deprivation of food’, and ал(ъ)к- is related to πεῖν- only in its more general meaning of ‘need for food’ (but not in its meaning related to ‘gluttony’). The word ал(ъ)кота is relatively rare in the older written monuments. Nevertheless, it completes the thesaurus of nouns with ал(ъ)к-/лак-, it is inherent in the Old Bulgarian literary language, and, in particular, in Constantine of Preslav’s language.

The paper measures the extent to which the most characteristic features related to the so-called Byzantine dodecasyllable are applied in one of the earliest Old-Bulgarian poems – Azbuchna molitva (‘Alphabetic Prayer’) noted to be written in dodecasyllabic verses. This alphabetic acrostic is dated back to the very end of the ninth century and is attributed to Constantine of Preslav. In this article its text is given after its earliest copy, MS Syn. 262, as it is the only representative of the version closest to the Glagolitic archetype, now lost. The piece is studied in comparison with St Gregory the Theologian’s alphabetic acrostic (as published in PG 37) which Constantine of Preslav quotes just after the end of his poem and which is considered its rhythmical model. The main conclusions are that the Alphabetic Prayer is an early replica of the Byzantine dodecasyllable, follows its rhythmical peculiarities to an extent similar to St Gregory’s alphabetic acrostic, all the previously s...

Christopher of Mytilene, a secular poet of the early 11th century, had embarked on a difficult task when creating his dodecasyllabic Christian Calendar, that is two-verse storytelling about saints and, mainly, about the tortures they died of. He accomplished it more than successfully, besides in quite a vivid and spectacular way, by means of various poetic and rhetorical techniques. Food and medicine imagery was just a minute aspect of his mastery, yet a powerful one, acquiring not only artistic and rhetorical, but also mnemonic functions. the poet used such images – just as he used e.g. Biblical allusions – as a way to convey a variety of details in succinct messages; the information thus compressed is unfolded by means of associations in the mind of the perceiver. These associations are related not only to Christianity, but also to many other aspects of the Byzantine cultured life, including certain elements from Antiquity. I will try to reveal this mechanism and to show the attem...

The paper is prompted by a calendar verse dedicated to the actor St Ardalion written by the Byzantine poet Christophoros of Mytilene (1000–1050). This verse is given in the Bulgarian translation of the Verse Prolog for the summer half of the year after its earliest copy in MS Zogr. 80 (dated to 1345–1360), where the Greek μῖμος is rendered with a derivative of the root мм-. Other Bulgarian counterparts of the Greek word are traced. Besides, a question is raised whether there was theatrical terminology and theatrical context in the Bulgarian Middle Ages. Attention is drawn to the fact that, from a semantic perspective, the medieval Bulgarian lexical correspondences of playing and players on stage are closer to those used even nowadays in the Germanic and, to a certain extent, in the other Slavonic languages, which, most probably, calque the Latin lud-, unlike the derivatives of act- in the Roman languages including Romanian.

The rhetorical figure of adnominatio – a phonetic or semantic wordplay related to proper names – is probably the most characteristic one in the dodecasyllabic calendar verses by Christophoros of Mytilene which became the basis of the synaxar/prolog verses also in the South Slavonic tradition. A linguistic classification of the subtypes of this figure is proposed and the poetic instances excerpted from the Byzantine Synaxar and the South Slavonic Verse Prolog for the summer half of the year follow it strictly. The notion of mental adnominatio is introduced, explained and exemplified.

The authorship of the sermon in consideration is disputable and, most probably, it is a compiled text. But this captivating piece of writing enters the Slavonic church tradition as a unit ascribed to St. Ephrem the Syrian and is kept there intact as such (at least up to the fifth edition of St. Ephrem’s works printed by The Holy Trinity – St. Sergius Lavra in 1908). There are two South Slavonic translations of this piece that are known to us so far in about ten copies. The purpose of my paper is to investigate the ways in which rhetorical rhythm of this sermon is rendered into Slavonic (actually Bulgarian) and the techniques to construct it in both the source language and the target language according to its two translations (the one with its earliest copy of the 13th and the other with its earliest copy of the 14th century). Since, from ancient times, rhythm is considered the result of word arrangement and phrase endings, I will be most interested in the interactions of cola in the periods and the figures related not only to word order (e.g. zeugma, antimetabole) and parallelism (especially homoiteleuton and homoioptoton) but also to spelling (i.e. metaplasm). The comparison of the two translations will hopefully give evidence on the level to which each interpreter was acquainted with Greek rhetoric.

The paper argues that the semantics of anthroponyms are multifaceted and
multilayered, and that the masters of the pen are able to activate any of these layers by rhetorical means and to use them for artistic purposes. The more skillful they are, the more difficult it is to translate adnominatio into another language. And when the source text is poetry, its rhythm should also be preserved. Christopher of Mytilene masterfully – and quite often – applied rhetorical figures based on personal names in his dodecasyllabic Orthodox calendar. This poetic cycle entered the tradition of the Verse Synaxarion, was translated in South Slavonic (twice in the 14th century),
and became part of the Slavonic Verse Prologue. The conclusion is that, when impossible to render, etymological fi gures based on names were either transformed into semantic repetitions (as the meanings of some of the Christian names were clear to the Slavonic Christians) or were compensated through the incorporation of etymological repetitions elsewhere in the target text. Whenever possible, names were also included in phonetic repetitions, much more frequently in the target texts than in their source – again as a means to compensate those lost in translation. The activations of the Biblical associations of names were successfully rendered, due to the competence of the audience in this regard, while the Ancient Greek, primarily mythological, layer, was ignored and interpreted in Christian terms.

The article proposes an analysis of the ways in which the rhythm is rendered in two South Slavonic translations of Christophoros of Mytilene’s calendar verses for April. The Greek text is given after its editions34 and the translations – after their oldest copies preserved: MS Zogr. 80 at the Monastery of Zograf (dated 1345–1360), as the oldest witness of the text by a Bulgarian bookman, and MS Wuk 29 at the Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin (dated to the fourteenth and fifteenth century), as the oldest witness of the translation made by a Serbian bookman – both, of course, only for April. The following peculiarities are observed: structuring in distichs; number of syllables and of accents in adjacent verses; accentual clausulae; main figures of rhythm. The analysis reveals that the structuring in distichs and the isotonism of the source text is strictly preserved in both target texts, while in terms of syllables and clausulae the target texts are looser – syllables are not always twelve, as in the source text, but there is a tendency to isosyllabism; the target verses do not always have the stress on the penultimate syllable, as is in the source verses, but there is
a tendency towards similar clausulae in the adjacent verses of a distich. Besides, other rhythm techniques are not always preserved in their original places but appear elsewhere in the translations, which shows that the Slavonic interpreters had a competent knowledge of them. And the deviations of the noted tendencies might be a result of the prosaic context of the translations placed in the Slavonic Verse Prolog, while the original was written as a unit of poetry by Christophoros of Mytilene.

Keywords: translation from Greek, poetry, Christophoros of Mytilene, Verse Prolog, rhythm techniques

The article deals mainly with the meaning of the scroll depicted on the icon. It discusses the possibility that it may well be the Testament of St. john of Rila. Also, it hypothesizes that both the legend about this testament and its visual representations can be dated back to the 14th century, which is confirmed by archaeological and philological data.

What mechanisms allow churches to later function as mosques, and
mosques likewise as churches? What factors lead to reuse (instead of
destruction) of the same temple? And what precisely is the metamorphosis they undergo? How can its signs be defined? Can a sacred place be “inherited?” To what extent is its metamorphosis accepted by the different social strata and religious/ethnic groups who make use of that place (not only worshipers, but also academics, visitors or locals)? Non-functioning churches are still accepted as churches by Christians, just as former mosques are perceived as mosques by Muslims. Despite all the transformations, a given locus remains unchanged in its consideration as numinous in different people’s perception. Sofia’s history, geographico-cultural position and ethno-religious mix make it an intriguing case study.

In the scholarly discourse concerning the Slavonic Orthodox literary style called pletenie sloves″ ('word weaving'), and, more concretely, the discussion of its frame of reference and its relation to other cultural phenomena, the problem of the meaning of the word pletenie and its Greek equivalent πλοκή, has never lacked scholarly attention. The fact is, however, that among the numerous interpretations , the idea of πλοκή as the name of a specific rhetorical device known, applied, and defined since ancient times, has received little regard. The article presents the modern scholarship on “pletenie sloves”, hints at its relation to the rhetorical figure πλοκή and exemplifies the application of this figure in St. Euthymius of Turnovo’s works. The conclusion is that the waving – and that is in the classical sense of the word πλοκή as the waving of figures of repletion – was well known to St. Euthymius and frequently used primarily in the introductions of his vitae and eulogies.

The article studies the origin and meaning of the term Pokrov Bogorodichen (rendered in English usually as Intercession/ Protection/ Care of Virgin Mary) as well as its translations in other European languages. It seeks to answer the following questions: What exactly is celebrated on the feast of Pokrov? Since when has it been commemorated? What are the sources related to it? How should it be translated into English and other Western European languages?

The article ( https://www.ezik-i-literatura.eu/2020/3-4/12-EiL_3_4_2020_Ekaterina_Dikova_web.pdf ) proposes a new perspective towards the etymology of the Slavonic root lud-. A possibility is examined that its origin is related to the Latin root lud-. In addition, attention is drawn to the fact that there is no written evidence for its use before the 14 th century which makes it probable that it is rather a loanword than an originally Slavonic one. Even though rare, Slavonic words deriving from lud-are more often without Greek correspondence in the monuments (i.e. found in marginal notes) which may well be considered, on the one hand, as a sign that their single use as Slavonic correspondences of ἀπόνοια and μωρός are rather occasional and related to context and, on the other, as a sign that they were alive in the language. Last but not least, the slight differences in its semantics in the different groups of Slavonic languages could mean different paths of its adoption: one of them led to the Western Slavonic group and Slovenian, another one – to the Balkan Slavonic languages and a third one – to the Eastern group (most probably indirect, only by means of texts, as its meaning is the narrowest one and the less related to the corresponding Latin root). The root lud-became most productive in the Balkan Slavonic languages where it has accumulated also positive connotations.