I am professor at the Institute for Bulgarian Language of the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences. I have published three books ("The Erotapokriseis of Pseudo-Caesarius in the Slavonic Manuscript Tradition"; "Zlatostruy: Old Slavonic Homiletic Collection Commissioned by the Bulgarian Tsar Symeon. Text-Critical and Source Study"; "Homilies from the Chrysorrhoas Collection With Unidentified Greek Original") and over seventy articles on the history of certain medieval Slavic texts and manuscripts, their linguistic peculiarities and their cultural and literary importance.
Проучването е посветено на десет произведения, попаднали в поръчаната от цар Симеон (893–927) пре... more Проучването е посветено на десет произведения, попаднали в поръчаната от цар Симеон (893–927) преводна сбирка Златоструй, за които (за разлика от останалите над 150 текста от сбирката) досега не е открит съответен гръцки текст.
В увода към монографията е представена сложната история на Златоструй и разпространението му в средновековната книжнина. Специално са разгледани източниците за съставянето на сбирката, състоящи се преди всичко в преводни хомилии от най-известния византийски писател Йоан Златоуст.
След това в десет отделни дяла са разгледани текстовете, които са обект на изследване. За всеки един от тях е приложен един и същ методологически подход, целящ комплексно и изчерпателно изследване: издирени са и съпоставени значителен брой преписи, идентифицирани са версии на текстовете и вторични редакционни промени в тях, извършен е езиков анализ, извършено е издание с критически апарат.
В процеса на работа се установява, че за повечето от десетте произведения може да се твърди, че не са преводни, а оригинални старобългарски съчинения. Това е съществен принос за историята на българската литература и култура от времето на Златния век, откогато всъщност имаме съвсем не много на брой достигнали до нас непреводни текстове, дело на български автори.
Нещо повече, внимателният анализ на стиловите и езиковите им характеристики на изследваните произведения насочва към извода, че значителна част от тях са създадени от Климент Охридски или негови последователи, а едно представлява преработка на слово от старобългарския писател черноризец Петър. Повечето от тези текстове се изследват и издават за пръв път в настоящата монография.
Заключението на книгата всъщност е посветено на събиране на едно място на доказателствения материал, върху който се базира идентификацията на Климент Охридски като автор и на съдържанието на изследваните поучения, на определени характерни теми и стилови черти, засвидетелствани в тях. По този начин резултат от изследването е не само откриването, реконструирането на текста и издаването на нови произведения от старобългарски автори – комплексният подход позволява също достигането до нови сведения за ежедневието и духовните потребности на българското общество малко след Покръстването, за стила и езика българските книжовници от това време, показва нови посоки за осмисляне на културните процеси през българския Златен век.
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The study is devoted to ten works included in the Zlatostruy collection translated by the commission of Tsar Simeon (893–927), for which (unlike the other over 150 texts from the collection) no corresponding Greek text has been found so far.
The introduction to the monograph presents the complex history of Zlatostruy and its distribution in medieval literature. Special attention is paid to the sources for compiling the collection, consisting primarily of translated homilies by the most famous Byzantine writer, John Chrysostom.
Then, in ten separate sections, the texts that are the subject of research are examined. For each of them, one and the same methodological approach was applied, aiming at a complex and comprehensive study: a significant number of copies were searched and compared, versions of the texts and secondary editorial changes in them were identified, a linguistic analysis was carried out, and an edition with a critical apparatus was elaborated.
In the process of work, it appeared that most of the ten works can be claimed to be original Old Bulgarian works, not translations. This is a significant contribution to the history of Bulgarian literature and culture from the time of the Golden Age, since we actually have very few untranslated texts written by medieval Bulgarian authors that have reached us.
Moreover, the careful analysis of the stylistic and linguistic characteristics of the works studied leads to the conclusion that a significant part of them were created by Kliment of Ohrid or his followers, and one is a reworking of a sermon attributed to the Old Bulgarian writer monk (chernorizets) Petar. Most of these texts are explored and published for the first time in the present monograph.
The conclusion is actually devoted to collecting in one place the evidence on which the identification of Kliment of Ohrid as an author is based. In most of the cases it is certain characteristic themes and stylistic features in the content of the texts that support such an assumption. In this way, the results of the research consist not only in the discovery, reconstruction of the texts and publication of new works by old Bulgarian authors, but the complex approach also allows reaching new information about the daily life and spiritual needs of the Bulgarian society shortly after the Conversion, about the style and language of the Bulgarian writers from this time, shows new directions for understanding the cultural processes during the Bulgarian Golden Age.
"Zlatostruy (Chrysorrhoas) is the name of an Old Slavonic collection of Chrysostomian homilies, w... more "Zlatostruy (Chrysorrhoas) is the name of an Old Slavonic collection of Chrysostomian homilies, which was compiled in the first quarter of the 10th c. by the commission of the Bulgarian Tsar Simeon (893-927). It had a huge importance for recently baptized Bulgarian people; moreover the Slavic compilers have selected primarily works and excerpts concerning universal principles of human relations and way of life. Thus listeners in church or readers in monasteries received through it instructions on issues related to Christian virtues, which comprised not only of sophisticated dogmatic and rhetorical mastery, but mostly of examples from everyday life and basic topics such as mercy, sympathy, continence, repentance, denial of material goods and pursuit of spiritual values. The content of the initial collection and its influence on literature from the tenth century may be determined - because it has not reached us in its original entirety - by comparing collections that have used it as a source. This is precisely one of the objectives of the study of Y. Miltenov. The author combines several approaches, which are complementary to one another - working with manuscript sources, their text-critical juxtaposition, study of the history of each of the nearly 200 texts, which constitute the corpus, comparison with their Byzantine sources. In this sense, the book represents an innovative and, at the same time, complex and complete investigation. Its results would be used by scholars from several disciplines (Slavic studies, Byzantine studies, linguistics, medieval literature, history, cultural anthropology), and by wide range of non-academics, who are interested in the Preslav civilization. The Slavonic Chrysostomian corpus, as Miltenov’s study demostrates, records an important information on both the adoption of centuries-long Christian philosophical tradition among the Bulgarians and on the transformation of this heritage into a different, independent tradition of its own through the compiling of new texts and new collections. All these processes are bound up with the state policy in the field of culture, which includes personal commitment and initiative of the ruler, formation of authoritative royal book collection as source for the monastery libraries, gathering together highly educated men of letters, intentional collection and selection of Byzantine literary monuments. The repercussions of this cultural policy reach - through miscellanies of stable content or copies of individual texts - Athos, Serbia, Ukraine, Russia, and cover 10th-18th c. The analysis of these processes, examined in their development, details and wider context, is one of the great merits of Miltenov’s research." (Scripta & e-Scripta, 12, 2013) ///////////////////////////////////////// Достатъчно е да споменем делото на св. св. Кирил и Методий, приемането и дейността на техните ученици в България, т.нар. Златен вен, периодите на разцвет на атонската и търновската, сръбската и руската книжовни традиции, за да установим, че днес окачествяваме като най-знакови онези явления в средновековната славянска писмена култура, които са обвързани с подкрепата на държавна или църковна власт, имат ясно изразен дългосрочен план и се характеризират с продължително въздействие, чийто резонанс се усеща с векове напред. Точно такъв е и случаят със създаването на старобългарската колекция със слова на Йоан Златоуст, наречена Златоструй: това е една от най-значимите инициативи в сферата на книжовността и усвояването на византийските модели през X в., а резултатите от нейното осъществяване се възпроизвеждат по един или друг начин във всички литератури на Slavia orthodoxa през цялото Средновековие. Монографията разкрива историята на сбирката, характеристиките на нейните извори, заложените в нея преводачески и съставителски принципи. Чрез анализ на наследниците на Златоструй в средновековната славянска писмена култура (въз основа на около 180 хомилии, засвидетелствани в над 270 версии, съхранили се в над 40 славянски ръкописа), авторът извежда съставянето на преводни и компилативни антологии, на „изборници", като основна и може би най-важна линия в прехода от възпроизвеждане на византийските образци към изграждането на собствена старобългарска книжнина.
The Erotapokriseis of Pseudo-Caesarius (PsK), which originated in the mid-6th c., is one of the m... more The Erotapokriseis of Pseudo-Caesarius (PsK), which originated in the mid-6th c., is one of the most interesting Byzantine works intended for individual reading: the main problem range of the work, consisting of 220 questions and answers, is theological and dogmatic, but the argumentative material includes explanations of natural phenomena, observations concerning human physiology, medicine, astrology, astronomy, geography, customs of different tribes and peoples, etc.
In the Slavonic manuscript tradition PsK is known under different title, which ascribes the work to St. Sylvester and the Reverend Anthony. The witnesses of the text are late, from the 15th–17th c., all without exception being Russian by origin and orthography, but numerous linguistic features prove that the translation was made in East Bulgaria in the first half of the 10th c. The text provides abundant lexical material, which is important for Preslav texts future research and for developing a clearer notion about the training, education and the technique of the bookmen, worked in 9th–10th c. at the Preslav literary center. The PsK Slavonic version is one of the most significant works from the Golden Age of Bulgarian literature.
Slověne = Словѣне. International Journal of Slavic Studies. 11, 2022, 1, 7–36., 2022
The paper aims at studying five medieval Slavonic historiolae concerning nezhit in comparison to ... more The paper aims at studying five medieval Slavonic historiolae concerning nezhit in comparison to ancient and Byzantine Greek texts. The author brings together evidence from both tablets and manuscripts. The study reveals several important textual, linguistic and cultural aspects concerning the significance of the Slavonic text versions.
Известия на Института за български език „Проф. Любомир Андрейчин“, 35, 2022, 217–256., 2022
At the beginning of this publication, a brief introduction presents the outlines of the history o... more At the beginning of this publication, a brief introduction presents the outlines of the history of the medieval Narration of Father Agapius’ text, its Old Bulgarian translation and its distribution in Slavic medieval literature. The Narration is interesting both in terms of its content, describing paradise and the miraculous journey of the protagonist there and back, and in terms of the language of the translation. Attached is a dictionary and index of word forms according to the earliest transcript, corrected and supplemented according to other witnesses. /// В началото на настоящата публикация чрез кратко въведение се представя историята на текста на средновековното Сказание за отец Агапий, неговия старобългарски превод и разпространението му в славянските средновековни литератури. Съчинението е интересно както с оглед на своето съдържание, описващо рая и чудесното пътуване на главния герой дотам и обратно, така и с езика на превода. Приложен е речник и индекс на словоформите според най-ранния препис, коригиран и допълнен според можество други свидетели.
As it is well known, the five classical questions to be posed to any subject of research are: who... more As it is well known, the five classical questions to be posed to any subject of research are: who - what - when - where - why. After conducting research on the possible answers of these questions as regards the famous Codex Zographensis (Miltenov 2019) author turns now his attention to the three Glagolitic quaternions inserted in the original manuscript in order to replace lost folia. The article intends to gather the information available in one place and to revisit the history of these quaternions in the light of the practices and habits of medieval scribes.
Манастирски библиотеки в южнославянските земи и Русия през XIV–XVI век. Доклади от международната научна конференция 26–28 април 2021 г. Отг. ред. М. Скарпа, Е. В. Белякова, Т. В. Пентковска. [Кирило-Методиевски студии, 23]. София, 2022, 93–116., 2022
The article is an overview of the information about Slavic manuscripts written on Mount Athos and... more The article is an overview of the information about Slavic manuscripts written on Mount Athos and found in the library of the Sinai monastery “St. Catherine”. Issues about the formation of the Sinai collection, the characteristic features of the books probably created in the monastery and the intensity of contacts with other centers are discussed.
Доклади от Международната годишна конференция на Института за български език „Проф. Любомир Андрейчин“ (София, 2022 година). , 2022
В статията се разглеждат няколко редки думи, засвидетелствани в бележки, оставени а) от ръцете на... more В статията се разглеждат няколко редки думи, засвидетелствани в бележки, оставени а) от ръцете на преписвачите на старобългарски ръкописи от X-XI в., и б) в епиграфски паметници от същия период. В някои случаи се извършва нова интерпретация на анализирания материал, а в други такава се предлага за пръв път. (The article aims at examining several rare words, attested in a) notes left by the copyists of Old Bulgarian manuscripts from the 10th-11th c., and b) in inscriptions from the same period. In some cases a new interpretation of the analyzed material is performed, and in other such is offered for the first time.)
Труды Института русского языка. Лингвистическое источниковедение. № 1, 2021, 233–245., 2021
The article aims at analysis of some of the linguistic features of the earliest Slavic manuscript... more The article aims at analysis of some of the linguistic features of the earliest Slavic manuscripts, which in scholarly tradition are considered not only as means for grouping some of these written monuments, but also as evidence of the region they originate from. On the basis of a critical review of studies carried out to date and after taking into consideration some lesser known and lesser used data, it is concluded that examples of changes of ъ into о, ѫ into ѹ and ѫ into о have different values, but none of them is indisputable and may be recognized as a decisive argument. /// Статья содержит анализ некоторых языковых особенностей древнейших славянских рукописей, которые в научной литературе рассматриваются не только как средство группировки памятников, но и как свидетельство о месте их возникновения. На основании критического обзора проведенных к настоящему времени исследований и некоторых новых данных делается вывод, что примеры изменения ъ в о, ѫ в ѹ и ѫ в о имеют разную ценность, но ни один из них не является бесспорным и не может быть признан решающим признаком.
The article deals with methodological problems concerning the identification and study of the lex... more The article deals with methodological problems concerning the identification and study of the lexicon, that is characteristic of the translated and original literary works created in East Bulgaria from the late 9th till the last quarter of the 10th centuries. Issues related to some inaccurate and unclear claims are discussed, as well as those concerning our knowledge of translation techniques, the synonymous variation, and the implementation of the so-called “Preslav redaction”. An attempt is made to clarify the criteria according to which certain lexemes could be considered of differentiating value (“markers”). The purpose of the present study is to serve as a guide for extracting a reliable corpus of linguistic evidence, for classifying the lexical markers and for possibly grouping the texts from which they are extracted.
Доклади от Международната годишна конференция на Института за български език „Проф. Любомир Андрейчин“ (София, 2020). София, 2020, 210–215., 2020
The article deals with the examples of writing о instead of etymological big jus in the earliest ... more The article deals with the examples of writing о instead of etymological big jus in the earliest written monuments. After examining the interpretations in the scientific literature as to whether it is a transcriptional error or a dialect feature, the fact that such examples occur with greater frequency in a group of Glagolitic manuscripts, which otherwise have rather heterogeneous characteristics, is particularly emphasized. The importance of this peculiarity for localizing the manuscripts and for our understanding of writing practice in the X-XI centuries is analyzed.
В статията се разглеждат примерите за писане на о на мястото на етимологична голяма носовка в най-ранните книжовни паметници. След като се дискутират интерпретациите в научната литература относно това за преписваческа грешка ли става въпрос или за диалектна особеност, специално се подчертава, че примерите се срещат с по-голяма честота в група глаголически ръкописи, които иначе имат доста разнородни характеристики. Анализира се значението на тази особеност за локализиране на ръкописите и за разбирането ни за преписваческата практика през X-XI в.
Sapere aude. Сборник в чест на проф. Искра Христова-Шомова, София, 2020, 390–403.
The article offers preliminary observations on the composition and content of three unstudied Rus... more The article offers preliminary observations on the composition and content of three unstudied Russian miscellanies, which contain selected Slavonic translations of Chrysostomian homilies. It aims at establishing their relationship with the witnesses and text families of the Zlatostruy (Chrysorrhoas) collection by means of (yet partial and inexhaustive) text-critical juxtaposition.
Digital and Analytical Approaches to the Written Heritage. Proceedings of the 7th international conference El'Manuscript “Heritage and Information Technologies”, 2018. Sofia, 2019, 169–187.
Ever since the famous Glagolitic-Old Church Slavonic Codex Zographensis was discovered some 175 y... more Ever since the famous Glagolitic-Old Church Slavonic Codex Zographensis was discovered some 175 years ago, its features have been subject to comprehensive research. Naturally, they have also become a major source for the reconstruction of the Old Church Slavonic grammar and for the research of various aspects of the Slavonic written culture in the 9th – 11th c. However, the critical question remains, whether the accumulation of this large amount of scholarly literature leads to answers to the five classical questions to be posed to any such historical source: who - what - when - where - why? The present article intends to gather the information available in one place and to critically revisit the different opinions. The focus will be on studies conducted over the last thirty years which offer new approaches and new answers.
С тех пор как был открыт знаменитый древнеславянский Codex Zographensis (Зографское евангелие) 175 лет назад, он стал предметом всесторонних исследований. Одновременно он является одним из самых важных источников для реконструкции древнеславянской грамматики и изучения различных аспектов славянской письменной культуры IX-XI вв. Тем не менее, остается вопрос: приводит ли накопление такого большого количества научной литературы к ответам на пять классических вопросов, которые нужно задать к любому важному источнику: кто - что - когда - где - почему? Статья содержит обзор возможных ответов, а также критический пересмотр различных мнений. Основное внимание уделяеться исследованиям, проведенным за последние тридцать лет, которые предлагают новые подходы, решения и гипотезы.
The study aims to address selected key issues concerning the characteristics and classification o... more The study aims to address selected key issues concerning the characteristics and classification of the oldest Slavic manuscripts: what are the reasons for defining them as a corpus and canon, what new approaches could be used to retrieve previously unknown information from them, is it possible to objectively group them according to reliable criteria, to establish their relative chronology, provenance and the scribal practices that reproduced them. Scholars presume definitive answers to most of these questions, but the picture is actually much more complicated. This study offers a critical reassessment of the arguments underpinning shared assumptions in the field and the conventions on which our knowledge relies. It proposes new approaches to exploring manuscript peculiarities which have received little attention so far, but which could expand and enrich our understanding of the particular monuments and of medieval Slavic written culture more broadly.
Slověne = Словѣне. International Journal of Slavic Studies. 2019, 1, 12–24.
The article aims to examine Cyrillic and Glagolitic glosses in the OCS Codex Zographensis, insert... more The article aims to examine Cyrillic and Glagolitic glosses in the OCS Codex Zographensis, inserted by the scribe himself. These notes in the margins are among the earliest examples of editorial work in a Slavonic written monument ever, hence they are an important evidence about the way the lexical editing in the 9th – 10th century was applied and about its essence. The study on the glosses was put in the context of previous research on 1) the lexical variants with which the text of Codex Zographensis is opposed to that of Codex Marianus, Assemanianus and Liber Sabbae, and 2) the lexical alterations which in scholarly literature are treated as East Bulgarian. The analysis leads to the conclusion that the Cyrillic alphabet was copyst’s usual, daily writing routine might have been in Cyrillic, and that his intention was to replace or explain certain foreign, non-Slavic words. Most synonyms and interpretations he offers are not influenced by the tradition and are probably due to his own initiative, which typologically corresponds to already established processes of lexical editing in 10th century Bulgaria.
Целью статьи является изучение кириллических и глаголических глосс на полях Зографского евангелия, которые добавлены писцом рукописи и представляют собой одно из древнейших свидетельств лексического редактирования X–XI веков. Глоссы рассматриваются в контексте 1) лексических разночтений, в которых текст Зографского евангелия противопоставляется Мариинскому и Ассеманиевому евангелию и Саввиной книге и 2) синонимичных замен, которые в научной литературе считаются восточноболгарскими. Анализ приводит к выводу, что основной азбукой писца Зографского евангелия была кириллица, а его цель заключалась в замене или объяснении некоторых неславянских слов. Большинство синонимов и толкований он включил, как кажется, не под влиянием традиции, а, скорее всего, по собственной инициативе. Типологические характеристики его работы сходны с уже известными особенностями лексического редактирования в Болгарии десятого века.
В статията се изследват кирилските и глаголическите глоси в полетата на Зографското евангелие, които са оставени от преписвача на ръкописа. Те са едно от най-ранните свидетелства за начина, по който през Х–ХI век се е извършвало лексикалното редактиране на текстовете и за същността на този процес. Проучването на глосите е поставено в контекста на предходни проучвания върху други два пласта: лексикалните варианти, с които текстът на Зографското евангелие се противопоставя на този в Мариинското евангелие, Асеманиевото евангелие и Савината книга, и синонимните замени, които в научната литература се третират като източнобългарски. Направеният анализ води към извода, че ежедневното писмо на преписвача е кирилицата, а стремежът му е да замени или обясни определени чужди, неславянски думи. Повечето синоними и тълкувания, които той предлага в полетата, не са повлияни от традицията и най-вероятно са негова собствена инициатива, която се вписва типологически във вече установени процеси на лексикална редакция през българския Х век.
Български език и литература, 61, 4, 2019, 407–418.
Bulgarian Golden Age is, on the one hand, a time of territorial expansion and significant presenc... more Bulgarian Golden Age is, on the one hand, a time of territorial expansion and significant presence on the political map of Europe; on the other hand, it is the period of the first major peaks in Slavic literature, and, probably, in arts and architecture. At its core, the Golden Age is joining the spirituality and mentality of the Byzantine world and adoption of the achievements of its centuries-old philosophical tradition. The Byzantine models in literature were borrowed by using two co-existing principles: copying and adaptation. The former might be observed in most of the works intended for non-liturgical individual or monastic reading, which were translated in full. The latter is found in miscellanies compiled from partial translations and excerpts, or in Old Bulgarian translations that were abridged, edited, or reworked. The article aims at examining the most important examples of such adaptation and its features, pointing out the role of the aristocracy and the ruler himself in guiding these processes.
Българският Златен век е, от една страна, време на териториални разширения и значимо присъствие на политическата карта на Европа. От друга страна, това е епохата на първите големи върхове в областта на славянската писмена култура, и, вероятно, на изобразителните изкуства и архитектурата. В същността си Златният век е присъединяване към духовността и менталността на византийския свят и усвояване на достиженията на една многовековна философска традиция. Възприемането на византийските модели се осъществява посредством два съсъществуващи принципа: препредаване на образците и адаптиране на образците. Първият е водещ за много от произведенията за индивидуално или монашеско четене, които били превеждани изцяло като огледално отражение на своите оригинали. Що се отнася до втория принцип, той може да се открие в преводни сбирки, съставени от извлечения от византийски патристични съчинения или от съкратени, редактирани или преработени готови старобългарски преводи. Статията си поставя за цел да изследва най-важните примери за подобен тип адаптиране и техните характерни особености, като особено внимание се отделя на ролята на аристокрацията и владетеля за инициирането и насочването на тези процеси.
ORIENTALIA LOVANIENSIA ANALECTA Editing Mediaeval Texts from a Different Angle: Slavonic and Mult... more ORIENTALIA LOVANIENSIA ANALECTA Editing Mediaeval Texts from a Different Angle: Slavonic and Multilingual Traditions Together with Francis J. Thomson's Bibliography and Checklist of Slavonic Translations Front matter, the table of contents and the general introduction to the volume.
Известия на Института за български език „Проф. Любомир Андрейчин”, кн. 31, 2018, 162–175.
In medieval sermons and homilies, ascribed to Clement of Ochrida in textu or in scholarly traditi... more In medieval sermons and homilies, ascribed to Clement of Ochrida in textu or in scholarly tradition, certain themes and motifs are developed by using identical frases and ideas. The paper aims at gathering the most typical common passages and examining their role and function as well as their significance as markers of style and authorship. / В средновековните слова и поучения, приписвани на Климент Охридски от ръкописната или от научната традиция, се срещат определени теми и мотиви, развити по сходен начин и с идентични изразни средства. Целта на изследването е да се съберат на едно място част от най-типичните общи места, да се коментира тяхната роля и функция и да се обгледа още веднъж значимостта им като маркери за авторовия стил.
Проучването е посветено на десет произведения, попаднали в поръчаната от цар Симеон (893–927) пре... more Проучването е посветено на десет произведения, попаднали в поръчаната от цар Симеон (893–927) преводна сбирка Златоструй, за които (за разлика от останалите над 150 текста от сбирката) досега не е открит съответен гръцки текст.
В увода към монографията е представена сложната история на Златоструй и разпространението му в средновековната книжнина. Специално са разгледани източниците за съставянето на сбирката, състоящи се преди всичко в преводни хомилии от най-известния византийски писател Йоан Златоуст.
След това в десет отделни дяла са разгледани текстовете, които са обект на изследване. За всеки един от тях е приложен един и същ методологически подход, целящ комплексно и изчерпателно изследване: издирени са и съпоставени значителен брой преписи, идентифицирани са версии на текстовете и вторични редакционни промени в тях, извършен е езиков анализ, извършено е издание с критически апарат.
В процеса на работа се установява, че за повечето от десетте произведения може да се твърди, че не са преводни, а оригинални старобългарски съчинения. Това е съществен принос за историята на българската литература и култура от времето на Златния век, откогато всъщност имаме съвсем не много на брой достигнали до нас непреводни текстове, дело на български автори.
Нещо повече, внимателният анализ на стиловите и езиковите им характеристики на изследваните произведения насочва към извода, че значителна част от тях са създадени от Климент Охридски или негови последователи, а едно представлява преработка на слово от старобългарския писател черноризец Петър. Повечето от тези текстове се изследват и издават за пръв път в настоящата монография.
Заключението на книгата всъщност е посветено на събиране на едно място на доказателствения материал, върху който се базира идентификацията на Климент Охридски като автор и на съдържанието на изследваните поучения, на определени характерни теми и стилови черти, засвидетелствани в тях. По този начин резултат от изследването е не само откриването, реконструирането на текста и издаването на нови произведения от старобългарски автори – комплексният подход позволява също достигането до нови сведения за ежедневието и духовните потребности на българското общество малко след Покръстването, за стила и езика българските книжовници от това време, показва нови посоки за осмисляне на културните процеси през българския Златен век.
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The study is devoted to ten works included in the Zlatostruy collection translated by the commission of Tsar Simeon (893–927), for which (unlike the other over 150 texts from the collection) no corresponding Greek text has been found so far.
The introduction to the monograph presents the complex history of Zlatostruy and its distribution in medieval literature. Special attention is paid to the sources for compiling the collection, consisting primarily of translated homilies by the most famous Byzantine writer, John Chrysostom.
Then, in ten separate sections, the texts that are the subject of research are examined. For each of them, one and the same methodological approach was applied, aiming at a complex and comprehensive study: a significant number of copies were searched and compared, versions of the texts and secondary editorial changes in them were identified, a linguistic analysis was carried out, and an edition with a critical apparatus was elaborated.
In the process of work, it appeared that most of the ten works can be claimed to be original Old Bulgarian works, not translations. This is a significant contribution to the history of Bulgarian literature and culture from the time of the Golden Age, since we actually have very few untranslated texts written by medieval Bulgarian authors that have reached us.
Moreover, the careful analysis of the stylistic and linguistic characteristics of the works studied leads to the conclusion that a significant part of them were created by Kliment of Ohrid or his followers, and one is a reworking of a sermon attributed to the Old Bulgarian writer monk (chernorizets) Petar. Most of these texts are explored and published for the first time in the present monograph.
The conclusion is actually devoted to collecting in one place the evidence on which the identification of Kliment of Ohrid as an author is based. In most of the cases it is certain characteristic themes and stylistic features in the content of the texts that support such an assumption. In this way, the results of the research consist not only in the discovery, reconstruction of the texts and publication of new works by old Bulgarian authors, but the complex approach also allows reaching new information about the daily life and spiritual needs of the Bulgarian society shortly after the Conversion, about the style and language of the Bulgarian writers from this time, shows new directions for understanding the cultural processes during the Bulgarian Golden Age.
"Zlatostruy (Chrysorrhoas) is the name of an Old Slavonic collection of Chrysostomian homilies, w... more "Zlatostruy (Chrysorrhoas) is the name of an Old Slavonic collection of Chrysostomian homilies, which was compiled in the first quarter of the 10th c. by the commission of the Bulgarian Tsar Simeon (893-927). It had a huge importance for recently baptized Bulgarian people; moreover the Slavic compilers have selected primarily works and excerpts concerning universal principles of human relations and way of life. Thus listeners in church or readers in monasteries received through it instructions on issues related to Christian virtues, which comprised not only of sophisticated dogmatic and rhetorical mastery, but mostly of examples from everyday life and basic topics such as mercy, sympathy, continence, repentance, denial of material goods and pursuit of spiritual values. The content of the initial collection and its influence on literature from the tenth century may be determined - because it has not reached us in its original entirety - by comparing collections that have used it as a source. This is precisely one of the objectives of the study of Y. Miltenov. The author combines several approaches, which are complementary to one another - working with manuscript sources, their text-critical juxtaposition, study of the history of each of the nearly 200 texts, which constitute the corpus, comparison with their Byzantine sources. In this sense, the book represents an innovative and, at the same time, complex and complete investigation. Its results would be used by scholars from several disciplines (Slavic studies, Byzantine studies, linguistics, medieval literature, history, cultural anthropology), and by wide range of non-academics, who are interested in the Preslav civilization. The Slavonic Chrysostomian corpus, as Miltenov’s study demostrates, records an important information on both the adoption of centuries-long Christian philosophical tradition among the Bulgarians and on the transformation of this heritage into a different, independent tradition of its own through the compiling of new texts and new collections. All these processes are bound up with the state policy in the field of culture, which includes personal commitment and initiative of the ruler, formation of authoritative royal book collection as source for the monastery libraries, gathering together highly educated men of letters, intentional collection and selection of Byzantine literary monuments. The repercussions of this cultural policy reach - through miscellanies of stable content or copies of individual texts - Athos, Serbia, Ukraine, Russia, and cover 10th-18th c. The analysis of these processes, examined in their development, details and wider context, is one of the great merits of Miltenov’s research." (Scripta & e-Scripta, 12, 2013) ///////////////////////////////////////// Достатъчно е да споменем делото на св. св. Кирил и Методий, приемането и дейността на техните ученици в България, т.нар. Златен вен, периодите на разцвет на атонската и търновската, сръбската и руската книжовни традиции, за да установим, че днес окачествяваме като най-знакови онези явления в средновековната славянска писмена култура, които са обвързани с подкрепата на държавна или църковна власт, имат ясно изразен дългосрочен план и се характеризират с продължително въздействие, чийто резонанс се усеща с векове напред. Точно такъв е и случаят със създаването на старобългарската колекция със слова на Йоан Златоуст, наречена Златоструй: това е една от най-значимите инициативи в сферата на книжовността и усвояването на византийските модели през X в., а резултатите от нейното осъществяване се възпроизвеждат по един или друг начин във всички литератури на Slavia orthodoxa през цялото Средновековие. Монографията разкрива историята на сбирката, характеристиките на нейните извори, заложените в нея преводачески и съставителски принципи. Чрез анализ на наследниците на Златоструй в средновековната славянска писмена култура (въз основа на около 180 хомилии, засвидетелствани в над 270 версии, съхранили се в над 40 славянски ръкописа), авторът извежда съставянето на преводни и компилативни антологии, на „изборници", като основна и може би най-важна линия в прехода от възпроизвеждане на византийските образци към изграждането на собствена старобългарска книжнина.
The Erotapokriseis of Pseudo-Caesarius (PsK), which originated in the mid-6th c., is one of the m... more The Erotapokriseis of Pseudo-Caesarius (PsK), which originated in the mid-6th c., is one of the most interesting Byzantine works intended for individual reading: the main problem range of the work, consisting of 220 questions and answers, is theological and dogmatic, but the argumentative material includes explanations of natural phenomena, observations concerning human physiology, medicine, astrology, astronomy, geography, customs of different tribes and peoples, etc.
In the Slavonic manuscript tradition PsK is known under different title, which ascribes the work to St. Sylvester and the Reverend Anthony. The witnesses of the text are late, from the 15th–17th c., all without exception being Russian by origin and orthography, but numerous linguistic features prove that the translation was made in East Bulgaria in the first half of the 10th c. The text provides abundant lexical material, which is important for Preslav texts future research and for developing a clearer notion about the training, education and the technique of the bookmen, worked in 9th–10th c. at the Preslav literary center. The PsK Slavonic version is one of the most significant works from the Golden Age of Bulgarian literature.
Slověne = Словѣне. International Journal of Slavic Studies. 11, 2022, 1, 7–36., 2022
The paper aims at studying five medieval Slavonic historiolae concerning nezhit in comparison to ... more The paper aims at studying five medieval Slavonic historiolae concerning nezhit in comparison to ancient and Byzantine Greek texts. The author brings together evidence from both tablets and manuscripts. The study reveals several important textual, linguistic and cultural aspects concerning the significance of the Slavonic text versions.
Известия на Института за български език „Проф. Любомир Андрейчин“, 35, 2022, 217–256., 2022
At the beginning of this publication, a brief introduction presents the outlines of the history o... more At the beginning of this publication, a brief introduction presents the outlines of the history of the medieval Narration of Father Agapius’ text, its Old Bulgarian translation and its distribution in Slavic medieval literature. The Narration is interesting both in terms of its content, describing paradise and the miraculous journey of the protagonist there and back, and in terms of the language of the translation. Attached is a dictionary and index of word forms according to the earliest transcript, corrected and supplemented according to other witnesses. /// В началото на настоящата публикация чрез кратко въведение се представя историята на текста на средновековното Сказание за отец Агапий, неговия старобългарски превод и разпространението му в славянските средновековни литератури. Съчинението е интересно както с оглед на своето съдържание, описващо рая и чудесното пътуване на главния герой дотам и обратно, така и с езика на превода. Приложен е речник и индекс на словоформите според най-ранния препис, коригиран и допълнен според можество други свидетели.
As it is well known, the five classical questions to be posed to any subject of research are: who... more As it is well known, the five classical questions to be posed to any subject of research are: who - what - when - where - why. After conducting research on the possible answers of these questions as regards the famous Codex Zographensis (Miltenov 2019) author turns now his attention to the three Glagolitic quaternions inserted in the original manuscript in order to replace lost folia. The article intends to gather the information available in one place and to revisit the history of these quaternions in the light of the practices and habits of medieval scribes.
Манастирски библиотеки в южнославянските земи и Русия през XIV–XVI век. Доклади от международната научна конференция 26–28 април 2021 г. Отг. ред. М. Скарпа, Е. В. Белякова, Т. В. Пентковска. [Кирило-Методиевски студии, 23]. София, 2022, 93–116., 2022
The article is an overview of the information about Slavic manuscripts written on Mount Athos and... more The article is an overview of the information about Slavic manuscripts written on Mount Athos and found in the library of the Sinai monastery “St. Catherine”. Issues about the formation of the Sinai collection, the characteristic features of the books probably created in the monastery and the intensity of contacts with other centers are discussed.
Доклади от Международната годишна конференция на Института за български език „Проф. Любомир Андрейчин“ (София, 2022 година). , 2022
В статията се разглеждат няколко редки думи, засвидетелствани в бележки, оставени а) от ръцете на... more В статията се разглеждат няколко редки думи, засвидетелствани в бележки, оставени а) от ръцете на преписвачите на старобългарски ръкописи от X-XI в., и б) в епиграфски паметници от същия период. В някои случаи се извършва нова интерпретация на анализирания материал, а в други такава се предлага за пръв път. (The article aims at examining several rare words, attested in a) notes left by the copyists of Old Bulgarian manuscripts from the 10th-11th c., and b) in inscriptions from the same period. In some cases a new interpretation of the analyzed material is performed, and in other such is offered for the first time.)
Труды Института русского языка. Лингвистическое источниковедение. № 1, 2021, 233–245., 2021
The article aims at analysis of some of the linguistic features of the earliest Slavic manuscript... more The article aims at analysis of some of the linguistic features of the earliest Slavic manuscripts, which in scholarly tradition are considered not only as means for grouping some of these written monuments, but also as evidence of the region they originate from. On the basis of a critical review of studies carried out to date and after taking into consideration some lesser known and lesser used data, it is concluded that examples of changes of ъ into о, ѫ into ѹ and ѫ into о have different values, but none of them is indisputable and may be recognized as a decisive argument. /// Статья содержит анализ некоторых языковых особенностей древнейших славянских рукописей, которые в научной литературе рассматриваются не только как средство группировки памятников, но и как свидетельство о месте их возникновения. На основании критического обзора проведенных к настоящему времени исследований и некоторых новых данных делается вывод, что примеры изменения ъ в о, ѫ в ѹ и ѫ в о имеют разную ценность, но ни один из них не является бесспорным и не может быть признан решающим признаком.
The article deals with methodological problems concerning the identification and study of the lex... more The article deals with methodological problems concerning the identification and study of the lexicon, that is characteristic of the translated and original literary works created in East Bulgaria from the late 9th till the last quarter of the 10th centuries. Issues related to some inaccurate and unclear claims are discussed, as well as those concerning our knowledge of translation techniques, the synonymous variation, and the implementation of the so-called “Preslav redaction”. An attempt is made to clarify the criteria according to which certain lexemes could be considered of differentiating value (“markers”). The purpose of the present study is to serve as a guide for extracting a reliable corpus of linguistic evidence, for classifying the lexical markers and for possibly grouping the texts from which they are extracted.
Доклади от Международната годишна конференция на Института за български език „Проф. Любомир Андрейчин“ (София, 2020). София, 2020, 210–215., 2020
The article deals with the examples of writing о instead of etymological big jus in the earliest ... more The article deals with the examples of writing о instead of etymological big jus in the earliest written monuments. After examining the interpretations in the scientific literature as to whether it is a transcriptional error or a dialect feature, the fact that such examples occur with greater frequency in a group of Glagolitic manuscripts, which otherwise have rather heterogeneous characteristics, is particularly emphasized. The importance of this peculiarity for localizing the manuscripts and for our understanding of writing practice in the X-XI centuries is analyzed.
В статията се разглеждат примерите за писане на о на мястото на етимологична голяма носовка в най-ранните книжовни паметници. След като се дискутират интерпретациите в научната литература относно това за преписваческа грешка ли става въпрос или за диалектна особеност, специално се подчертава, че примерите се срещат с по-голяма честота в група глаголически ръкописи, които иначе имат доста разнородни характеристики. Анализира се значението на тази особеност за локализиране на ръкописите и за разбирането ни за преписваческата практика през X-XI в.
Sapere aude. Сборник в чест на проф. Искра Христова-Шомова, София, 2020, 390–403.
The article offers preliminary observations on the composition and content of three unstudied Rus... more The article offers preliminary observations on the composition and content of three unstudied Russian miscellanies, which contain selected Slavonic translations of Chrysostomian homilies. It aims at establishing their relationship with the witnesses and text families of the Zlatostruy (Chrysorrhoas) collection by means of (yet partial and inexhaustive) text-critical juxtaposition.
Digital and Analytical Approaches to the Written Heritage. Proceedings of the 7th international conference El'Manuscript “Heritage and Information Technologies”, 2018. Sofia, 2019, 169–187.
Ever since the famous Glagolitic-Old Church Slavonic Codex Zographensis was discovered some 175 y... more Ever since the famous Glagolitic-Old Church Slavonic Codex Zographensis was discovered some 175 years ago, its features have been subject to comprehensive research. Naturally, they have also become a major source for the reconstruction of the Old Church Slavonic grammar and for the research of various aspects of the Slavonic written culture in the 9th – 11th c. However, the critical question remains, whether the accumulation of this large amount of scholarly literature leads to answers to the five classical questions to be posed to any such historical source: who - what - when - where - why? The present article intends to gather the information available in one place and to critically revisit the different opinions. The focus will be on studies conducted over the last thirty years which offer new approaches and new answers.
С тех пор как был открыт знаменитый древнеславянский Codex Zographensis (Зографское евангелие) 175 лет назад, он стал предметом всесторонних исследований. Одновременно он является одним из самых важных источников для реконструкции древнеславянской грамматики и изучения различных аспектов славянской письменной культуры IX-XI вв. Тем не менее, остается вопрос: приводит ли накопление такого большого количества научной литературы к ответам на пять классических вопросов, которые нужно задать к любому важному источнику: кто - что - когда - где - почему? Статья содержит обзор возможных ответов, а также критический пересмотр различных мнений. Основное внимание уделяеться исследованиям, проведенным за последние тридцать лет, которые предлагают новые подходы, решения и гипотезы.
The study aims to address selected key issues concerning the characteristics and classification o... more The study aims to address selected key issues concerning the characteristics and classification of the oldest Slavic manuscripts: what are the reasons for defining them as a corpus and canon, what new approaches could be used to retrieve previously unknown information from them, is it possible to objectively group them according to reliable criteria, to establish their relative chronology, provenance and the scribal practices that reproduced them. Scholars presume definitive answers to most of these questions, but the picture is actually much more complicated. This study offers a critical reassessment of the arguments underpinning shared assumptions in the field and the conventions on which our knowledge relies. It proposes new approaches to exploring manuscript peculiarities which have received little attention so far, but which could expand and enrich our understanding of the particular monuments and of medieval Slavic written culture more broadly.
Slověne = Словѣне. International Journal of Slavic Studies. 2019, 1, 12–24.
The article aims to examine Cyrillic and Glagolitic glosses in the OCS Codex Zographensis, insert... more The article aims to examine Cyrillic and Glagolitic glosses in the OCS Codex Zographensis, inserted by the scribe himself. These notes in the margins are among the earliest examples of editorial work in a Slavonic written monument ever, hence they are an important evidence about the way the lexical editing in the 9th – 10th century was applied and about its essence. The study on the glosses was put in the context of previous research on 1) the lexical variants with which the text of Codex Zographensis is opposed to that of Codex Marianus, Assemanianus and Liber Sabbae, and 2) the lexical alterations which in scholarly literature are treated as East Bulgarian. The analysis leads to the conclusion that the Cyrillic alphabet was copyst’s usual, daily writing routine might have been in Cyrillic, and that his intention was to replace or explain certain foreign, non-Slavic words. Most synonyms and interpretations he offers are not influenced by the tradition and are probably due to his own initiative, which typologically corresponds to already established processes of lexical editing in 10th century Bulgaria.
Целью статьи является изучение кириллических и глаголических глосс на полях Зографского евангелия, которые добавлены писцом рукописи и представляют собой одно из древнейших свидетельств лексического редактирования X–XI веков. Глоссы рассматриваются в контексте 1) лексических разночтений, в которых текст Зографского евангелия противопоставляется Мариинскому и Ассеманиевому евангелию и Саввиной книге и 2) синонимичных замен, которые в научной литературе считаются восточноболгарскими. Анализ приводит к выводу, что основной азбукой писца Зографского евангелия была кириллица, а его цель заключалась в замене или объяснении некоторых неславянских слов. Большинство синонимов и толкований он включил, как кажется, не под влиянием традиции, а, скорее всего, по собственной инициативе. Типологические характеристики его работы сходны с уже известными особенностями лексического редактирования в Болгарии десятого века.
В статията се изследват кирилските и глаголическите глоси в полетата на Зографското евангелие, които са оставени от преписвача на ръкописа. Те са едно от най-ранните свидетелства за начина, по който през Х–ХI век се е извършвало лексикалното редактиране на текстовете и за същността на този процес. Проучването на глосите е поставено в контекста на предходни проучвания върху други два пласта: лексикалните варианти, с които текстът на Зографското евангелие се противопоставя на този в Мариинското евангелие, Асеманиевото евангелие и Савината книга, и синонимните замени, които в научната литература се третират като източнобългарски. Направеният анализ води към извода, че ежедневното писмо на преписвача е кирилицата, а стремежът му е да замени или обясни определени чужди, неславянски думи. Повечето синоними и тълкувания, които той предлага в полетата, не са повлияни от традицията и най-вероятно са негова собствена инициатива, която се вписва типологически във вече установени процеси на лексикална редакция през българския Х век.
Български език и литература, 61, 4, 2019, 407–418.
Bulgarian Golden Age is, on the one hand, a time of territorial expansion and significant presenc... more Bulgarian Golden Age is, on the one hand, a time of territorial expansion and significant presence on the political map of Europe; on the other hand, it is the period of the first major peaks in Slavic literature, and, probably, in arts and architecture. At its core, the Golden Age is joining the spirituality and mentality of the Byzantine world and adoption of the achievements of its centuries-old philosophical tradition. The Byzantine models in literature were borrowed by using two co-existing principles: copying and adaptation. The former might be observed in most of the works intended for non-liturgical individual or monastic reading, which were translated in full. The latter is found in miscellanies compiled from partial translations and excerpts, or in Old Bulgarian translations that were abridged, edited, or reworked. The article aims at examining the most important examples of such adaptation and its features, pointing out the role of the aristocracy and the ruler himself in guiding these processes.
Българският Златен век е, от една страна, време на териториални разширения и значимо присъствие на политическата карта на Европа. От друга страна, това е епохата на първите големи върхове в областта на славянската писмена култура, и, вероятно, на изобразителните изкуства и архитектурата. В същността си Златният век е присъединяване към духовността и менталността на византийския свят и усвояване на достиженията на една многовековна философска традиция. Възприемането на византийските модели се осъществява посредством два съсъществуващи принципа: препредаване на образците и адаптиране на образците. Първият е водещ за много от произведенията за индивидуално или монашеско четене, които били превеждани изцяло като огледално отражение на своите оригинали. Що се отнася до втория принцип, той може да се открие в преводни сбирки, съставени от извлечения от византийски патристични съчинения или от съкратени, редактирани или преработени готови старобългарски преводи. Статията си поставя за цел да изследва най-важните примери за подобен тип адаптиране и техните характерни особености, като особено внимание се отделя на ролята на аристокрацията и владетеля за инициирането и насочването на тези процеси.
ORIENTALIA LOVANIENSIA ANALECTA Editing Mediaeval Texts from a Different Angle: Slavonic and Mult... more ORIENTALIA LOVANIENSIA ANALECTA Editing Mediaeval Texts from a Different Angle: Slavonic and Multilingual Traditions Together with Francis J. Thomson's Bibliography and Checklist of Slavonic Translations Front matter, the table of contents and the general introduction to the volume.
Известия на Института за български език „Проф. Любомир Андрейчин”, кн. 31, 2018, 162–175.
In medieval sermons and homilies, ascribed to Clement of Ochrida in textu or in scholarly traditi... more In medieval sermons and homilies, ascribed to Clement of Ochrida in textu or in scholarly tradition, certain themes and motifs are developed by using identical frases and ideas. The paper aims at gathering the most typical common passages and examining their role and function as well as their significance as markers of style and authorship. / В средновековните слова и поучения, приписвани на Климент Охридски от ръкописната или от научната традиция, се срещат определени теми и мотиви, развити по сходен начин и с идентични изразни средства. Целта на изследването е да се съберат на едно място част от най-типичните общи места, да се коментира тяхната роля и функция и да се обгледа още веднъж значимостта им като маркери за авторовия стил.
In: The Oldest Linguistic Attestations and Texts in the Slavic Languages. Wien, 2018, 167–175.
[The rights to the individual articles in the volume remain with the authors. The rights to repro... more [The rights to the individual articles in the volume remain with the authors. The rights to reproduction and distribution are reserved by the publisher. Uncorrected draft version of the article uploaded here]. This paper presents a preliminary survey of some types of scribal errors in the earliest Slavic manuscripts. The data analysed include omissions, additions, or substitutions of letters, which lead to a loss of or change in meaning. Why do such errors appear? What do they tell us about the training of the scribes or about the way they transcribed their texts? Here are some possible answers to these questions: 1) Although most 10th-11th century codices were presumably written in a multilingual environment (Sinai, Athos), it seems that scribes did not have a great deal of experience with spoken/written Greek; 2) Some of the errors under consideration seem to have resulted from transcribing character by character or syllable by syllable; 3) Most of the graphic errors and deviations are due to the text having been perceived by sight or ear by certain scribes, however, one frequent reason for their occurrence is the failure (or the lack of an attempt) to understand the meaning of the text; 4) Some of the Sinai manuscripts show evidence that the copyists frequently interrupted their work and failed to begin transcribing from the same place when they returned to it, failing to read prior text and not knowing the text by heart (Psalters for example). Some of these men of letters were likely still apprentices, and were thus prone to careless errors simply because these were among the first manuscripts they had to copy.
In the first quarter of the 10 c. the first Slavic collection of homilies of John Chrysostom was ... more In the first quarter of the 10 c. the first Slavic collection of homilies of John Chrysostom was compiled. It was called Zlatostruy, which means Chrysorrhoas or Golden Stream. In previous studies the Zlatostruy was noted mostly for its Preface, whereby the Bulgarian Tsar Symeon (893-927) is named initiator of the gathering the initial Corpus Chrysostomicum and author of its name. The importance of the Zlatostruy collection is supported not only by the Preface, which may be considered of more or less ideological value. It is substantiated by means of a comprehensive text-critical and comparative analysis that endeavors to reconstruct the history of the collection and reveal further detail about the textual history of the homilies from the Byzantine originals to the later Slavic copies. In this paper I shift the focus to those features that are related to the flourishing of the 10 c. Bulgarian literary tradition and the successful adoption of Byzantine literary models.
Известия на Института за български език „Проф. Любомир Андрейчин”, кн. 30, 2017, 214–261.
The paper aims at examining the Sermon on the Drought and the Punishments Inflicted by God, a med... more The paper aims at examining the Sermon on the Drought and the Punishments Inflicted by God, a medieval Slavic text which has no traced Greek original. The branches of the manuscript tradition are identified by the means of text critical juxtaposition, the intertextual relations, structure and lexical features of the archetype are explored, as well as the grounds for attributing the sermon to Clement of Ochrida or his follower. An edition of the text is appended at the end of the article.
Студията е посветена на проучване на историята на Слово за засухата и за Божиите наказания, средновековно поучение без открит конкретен гръцки източник. Изследва се групирането на привлечените за изследване славянски преписи, лексикалните особености, междутекстовите връзки и принципите на изграждане на архетипа, основанията за включването му към вероятните произведения на Климент Охридски или неговите ученици. В приложение е публикувано издание на поучението с критически апарат.
The Slavonic Translation of Pseudo-Kaisarios’ Erotapokriseis
Yavor Miltenov, Institute for Bulgar... more The Slavonic Translation of Pseudo-Kaisarios’ Erotapokriseis Yavor Miltenov, Institute for Bulgarian language, Sofia, Bulgaria
[slide1] The arrival of the disciples of Cyril and Methodius in Bulgaria fulfilled the most important conditions for the preservation and propagation of Christianity: literacy and education. Undoubtedly, the priority task in the first decades of literary activity was copying and translating the New Testament books and the texts that were required for celebration of the liturgy. At the same time, however, the late 9th and early 10th century saw the beginning of translation and compilation of non-liturgical works intended for individual reading and for private and monastic libraries. These were texts with horizons and worldview to be perceived by selected readers capable of understanding the complicated discourse and the centuries-old tradition of Byzantine theological thought.
One of the most interesting monuments of this type is the so-called Erotapokriseis allegedly composed by Kaisarios, the brother of St. Gregory of Nazianzus. The Slavic translation of this work was made in East Bulgaria, most probably in the first quarter of the 10th century. [slide2] The Erotapokriseis consists of questions and answers that deal mainly with theological and dogmatic problems, but its uniqueness lies in the argumentation – it includes examples from what we would call today natural sciences and significant fragments from works of authoritative theologians. These features of the Greek original, along with the considerable volume of the text, set the Slavic translation in a unique position – it is the largest translated encyclopedic work from the earliest period of Slavic literacy. Its overall characteristics place it side by side to the famous compilations of John the Exarch, namely Hexaemeron and Nebessa. Furthermore, the Slavic version of the Erotapokriseis provides valuable evidence about the rich vocabulary of Old Bulgarian and the principles of translation that were dominant in the period, as well as an opportunity to study important processes in 10th-century Bulgarian and 15th-century Russian literature. In the present paper I will attempt at presenting an overview of the history of Slavic translation, the stages and peculiarities in its transmission in medieval Bulgaria and Russia. The observations below are based on extensive research, published in 2006 along with an exhaustive review of the previous studies, text critical comparison of the Slavic copies, linguistic analysis, and a new edition of the text. In this paper, it is not possible to give even a small fraction of the numerous details and examples that lead to the constitution of the history of the text. Therefore, my aim here is to summarize and highlight the results of my previous research with an emphasis on the place and role of this type of texts intended for individual reading in medieval Bulgaria and Russia.
The Erotapokriseis of Pseudo-Kaisarios is known in three versions: Greek, Arabic and Slavic. [slide3] The Greek original has been studied thoroughly by the German scholar Rudolf Riedinger in a monograph, published in 1969. Riedinger established that the author of the Erotapokriseis lived in the middle of the 6th century and was, most probably, a monk at the Akoimeton monastery in Constantinople during the reign of Emperor Justinian I (527–565). Perhaps the reason for the false attribution to Kaisarios was that the real author shared certain monophysite views. [slide4] Sixteen Byzantine manuscripts constitute the textual tradition of the work. Three of them are most reliable with respect to the reconstruction of the archetype: Mosquensis 113, Patmiacus 103 and Patmiacus 161 . All remaining thirteen manuscripts are proved to be codices descripti. The critical edition of the Erotapokriseis published by Riedinger in 1989 is based on the Moscow codex No. 113 and includes readings from the two copies from Patmos mentioned above.
[slide5] Having examined all the witnesses of the Greek original, Riedinger came to conclusion, that the two translations – the Slavic (made in the 10th century) and the Arabic one (from the middle of 11th century) – do not originate from any of the preserved Greek copies and text families but rather are an independent branches, which stem directly from the archetype. We can now fill out these observations in accordance with the text critical research of the Slavic version. The comparison between the reconstructed Slavic archetype and the Riedinger’s critical edition of the original proves that, on the one hand, the Greek source of the translation shared some secondary readings and errors that are found in both Moscow manuscript № 113 and Patmos № 103; however, in other cases it avoided some secondary readings, attested in these witnesses. [slide6] Thus, the Greek prototype of the Slavic Erotapokriseis should have been placed in-between these two most reliable Byzantine copies and the archetype. These observations confirm Riedinger’s opinion, that the Slavic version is based on a rather early witness of the text, which holds the closest position to the archetype in the stemma codicum.
But to what extent does this position of the Slavic version reflect the text itself? [slide7] In a study, published in 1968, Ivan Dujčev argued that the Slavic version is a very important source for the reconstruction of the Greek archetype and highlighted numerous examples showing that the translation had transmitted the original text better . Rudolf Riedinger rightly rejected the reliability of most of the examples applied, since Dujčev had made the comparison against the considerably edited witness published by Jacques Paul Migne in Patrologia Graeca, while, as already said above, there are other witnesses of the Greek original that preserve the correct readings. Surprisingly, Riedinger allowed the same methodological inaccuracy to slip in. He attributed a number of omissions and mistakes to the Slavic translation, because he made the comparison against the single published Slavic copy that contains quite a number of innovations, although there were unpublished copies that keep the primary readings. To sum up, thanks to mixing the terms „text” and „copy of a text” Dujčev attributed to the Slavic version fictitious superiority, and Riedinger erroneously assigned to it a number of errors and omissions. In fact, the Slavic text follows literally its Greek analogue, and while in certain cases it could be drawn as an arbitrator for some questionable readings, in general it doesn’t contribute significantly to the reconstruction of the Greek archetype.
Another feature that may be attributed to this particular Greek copy, from which the Slavic translation was made, is the segmentation of the text. [slide8] In all reliable Greek witnesses, the text of the Erotapokriseis is divided into 218 questions and answers; therefore, this is the number of text units supposed for the archetype as well. Unlike that, the Slavic version consists of 220 questions and answers. The different number of questions and answers concerns the segmentation only, and no additions or omissions of text are attested as compared to the Greek original. The interesting thing here is that this number, namely 220, coincides with the only early evidence, mentioning the Erotapokriseis of Pseudo-Kaisarios. It is found in the famous Myriobiblion of Patriarch Photios. Within the brief description of content and style of Pseudo-Kaisarios’ work Photios states that it is composed of 220 questions and answers. These data can be interpreted in two ways: either the Greek source of the Slavic translation had contained the same number of text units as the copy known to Photios, or this is only a coincidence that has no relevance to the Byzantine textual tradition. In my opinion the arguments in favor of the former should not be neglected having in mind the position of the Slavic translation in the stemma. [slide9] The translation of the Erotapokriseis itself has very interesting features, which provide trustworthy information about where the translation was made. For instance, the translator changed several geographical and ethnic names – once he transmitted Ρωμαίων Ιλλύρια as “the area of Sirmium”, then Ιλλυρίοι as “natives of Sirmium”, Ριπιανοί as “Slavs” and, notably, he transformed παρα δε Γόθθοις into блъгарскыи “in Bulgarian language”. These intentional changes were made in order to replace outdated, obscure concepts with known, contemporary, widely used terms. By the way, the Erotapokriseis seems to be one of the earliest Slavic texts, in which the name “Bulgarians” is used as a term for self designation.
The linguistic features of the Slavic version point to East Bulgaria as place and the early 10th c. as time of origin. The translation attests for typical synonym techniques and certain lexical layer, used only in East Bulgarian texts from the 9th-10th century. Above 70 hapax legomena and rare words are used in it, and most of them are found today in East Bulgarian dialects only. The most extraordinary characteristic is that there are above 50 words of Proto-Bulgarian origin, some of which are found in limited number of texts of Bulgarian origin, and some are hapaxes. [slide10] On the basis of all that evidence, we can assume that the translation of the Erotapokriseis was assigned to a specially chosen person, who had a Proto-Bulgarian background, and accomplished his work according to the translation principles implemented in other works, emerged in the area of the Bulgarian capital Preslav during the reign of king Symeon. In the 10th century Bulgaria there could hardly have been many men of letters who possessed such encyclopedic knowledge, in all likelihood acquired after special education.
We don’t know much about the Old Bulgarian tradition and transmission of the Erotapokriseis. Apparently, the work was distributed in few copies, since none South Slavic witness had reached us. However, some clues regarding the Old Bulgarian tradition are available after the examination of the sources of the Palaea interpretata – an extensive Slavic compilation, which includes about 20 passages from the Erotapokriseis Slavic version. The compiler of the Palaea had access to impressive number of Slavic translations. He had extracted exact quotations and included them in his work, applying a mosaic principle of arranging the borrowed passages – sometimes following, sometimes disregarding their original sequence. This could only mean that, firstly, the Erotapokriseis was part of a rich private or monastery collection, which was used by the Palaea compiler de visu, and, secondly, that the Erotapokriseis was considered equal in value and importance with some of the most prominent Old Bulgarian works dating from the Golden Age.
As already mentioned, no South Slavic copy of the Erotapokriseis had reached us. All the twelve witnesses of the text known today are late, dating from 15 c. on, and all without exception are Russian by origin. What was the fate of this work from its “Bulgarian period” onwards? Let us briefly trace the history of the Russian tradition of the text. [slide11] Under unclear circumstances, one Bulgarian copy of the Erotapokriseis made its way to Russia. Some orthographic features, preserved in the later manuscript tradition, show that this copy was very ancient, may be from the 10th century. For a long time, perhaps even as long as several centuries, the surviving copy was either forgotten or there was no interest in this type of works. Due to poor storage conditions or for other reasons this Bulgarian manuscript became a codex defectus – two big portions of it were lost, namely the beginning and the end. An unknown Russian copyist, probably in the 15th century added (in this particular codex or in his own transcript) a new title, ascribing it to “St. Sylvester and Reverend Antony”. This is why the Erotapokriseis of Pseudo-Kaisarios is known in the manuscripts and among the paleoslavists, as Questions and Answers of Sylvester and Anthony, and this is why all the copies attest for 36 missing questions and answers in the beginning and for a lack of proper ending of the text.
But what was the reason for the interest of the 15th century Russian bookmen in this work and why did they start copying it despite the lost portions? [slide12] The answer lies in the correspondence of the Russian higher clergy. In a letter dated February 1489, Gennady, the Archbishop of Novgorod wrote to Joasaph, the Archbishop of Rostov, to share his utmost concern about the rapid spread of heretical teachings, and asked inter alia:
"Are there at your disposal – in St. Cyril’s, St. Ferapont’s or in the Stone monastery – the books Sylvester, Pope of Rome, Athanasius of Alexandria, the Treatise of Presbyter Kozma against the Bogomils, the Epistle of Patriarch Photios to Bulgarian Prince Boris, the Books of Prophets, Genesis, Kings, Proverbs, Menander, Logic, Dionysius the Areopagite? Because the heretics have all these books…"
The work, mentioned first in this list as the book “Sylvester”, undoubtedly is to be identified as the Erotapokriseis of Pseudo-Kaisarios. It becomes clear that before 1489 the text of the Erotapokriseis was already known and widely distributed among the heretics in Novgorod, who apparently obtained from it the necessary theological interpretations for the construction of their concepts. Therefore it became mandatory for the church officials to take care of the study of these texts that heretics drew in their favor, to derive dogmatic arguments in order to refute heretical interpretations and spread these works in the Russian monasteries. The stages of this process are perfectly attested by the text history of the Erotapokriseis. [slide13] First, in many witnesses there are linguistic traces due to transcribing the text by Novgorod copyists, and these traces are typical feature of the most correct copies. Secondly, some written documents evidence that copies of the Erotapokriseis were sent from Novgorod to the largest monasteries in a short period of time (1489, 1493) together with other important works, mentioned in the list above. Thirdly, the manuscript tradition of the Erotapokriseis keeps evidence of how these circumstances had affected the texts themselves. The situation in the late 15th and early 16th century, described above, undoubtedly required both maintaining the authoritative Old Bulgarian originals and editing them in order to facilitate their understanding. As a consequence, in one group of witnesses of the Erotapokriseis the text was transmitted without changes, while in another group the unclear vocabulary was glossed by synonyms in the margins of the manuscripts, and in a third group most of the unclear vocabulary was replaced by words used in spoken Russian. [slide14] As the stemma of the Slavic version shows, at least three contemporary protographs attest for these different methods of approach to the text.
Paradoxically, the preservation, distribution and actual functioning of the Erotapokriseis Slavic translation are largely due to the interest of Russian heretics to ancient texts of theological content. So, precisely at this moment of intense theological debates and discontent – and not in the times of elitist literature in tenth-century Bulgaria – the Erotapokriseis was engaged in the active literary and religious life. Thus, the history of this very important work combines two main driving forces in the cultural development: on the one hand the ancient tradition gets new life thanks to the practical needs, on the other hand – the practical needs could not be met without the existence of an authoritative ancient tradition. [slide15]
A review of Christova - Šomova, Iskra, Heinz Miklas, Daniel Jordanov,
Simon Brenner, Federica Cap... more A review of Christova - Šomova, Iskra, Heinz Miklas, Daniel Jordanov, Simon Brenner, Federica Cappa, Bernadette Frühmann, Wilfried Vetter, Manfred Schreiner. Apostolus Eninensis. Bibliothecae Nationalis Bulgaricae Codex 1144. Editio Nova. Sofia – Wien: Университетско издателство „Св. Климент Охридски“; Verlag Holzhausen, 2022. 280 S. ISBN: 978-954-07-5305-8.
This is a review of seven books from the series "История и книжнина": Минчев, Г. Слово и обред. Т... more This is a review of seven books from the series "История и книжнина": Минчев, Г. Слово и обред. Тълкуванията на литургията в контекста на други културно близки текстове на славянското Средновековие. София, 2011; Велинова, В. Среднобългарският превод на Хрониката на Константин Манасий и неговият литературен контекст. София, 2013; Славова, Т. Славянският превод на Посланието на патриарх Фотий до княз Борис. София, 2013; Билярски, Ив. Палеологовият Синодик в славянски превод. София, 2013; Билярски, Ив. Сказание на Исайя пророка и формирането на политическата идеология на ранносредновековна България. София, 2011; Николов, А. Повест полезна за латините. Паметник на средновековната славянска полемика срещу католицизма. София, 2011; Спасова, М. 16 слова на Св. Григорий Богослов (фототипно издание на ръкопис НБКМ 674). София, 2014
This is a review of „Среднобългарският превод на Хрониката на Константин Манасий” by Vasya Velino... more This is a review of „Среднобългарският превод на Хрониката на Константин Манасий” by Vasya Velinova,„Славянският превод на посланието на патриарх Фотий до Княз Борис-Михаил” by Tatyana Slavova, "Палеологовият синодик в славянски превод" by Ivan Bilyarski.
Review of prof. Lora Taseva's new book. It's in English. My own draft version, not a scan from th... more Review of prof. Lora Taseva's new book. It's in English. My own draft version, not a scan from the journal.
The article is a study and a bilingual edition of the pseudo-Chrysostomian homily Exiit qui semin... more The article is a study and a bilingual edition of the pseudo-Chrysostomian homily Exiit qui seminat (CPG 4660).
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Books by Yavor Miltenov
В увода към монографията е представена сложната история на Златоструй и разпространението му в средновековната книжнина. Специално са разгледани източниците за съставянето на сбирката, състоящи се преди всичко в преводни хомилии от най-известния византийски писател Йоан Златоуст.
След това в десет отделни дяла са разгледани текстовете, които са обект на изследване. За всеки един от тях е приложен един и същ методологически подход, целящ комплексно и изчерпателно изследване: издирени са и съпоставени значителен брой преписи, идентифицирани са версии на текстовете и вторични редакционни промени в тях, извършен е езиков анализ, извършено е издание с критически апарат.
В процеса на работа се установява, че за повечето от десетте произведения може да се твърди, че не са преводни, а оригинални старобългарски съчинения. Това е съществен принос за историята на българската литература и култура от времето на Златния век, откогато всъщност имаме съвсем не много на брой достигнали до нас непреводни текстове, дело на български автори.
Нещо повече, внимателният анализ на стиловите и езиковите им характеристики на изследваните произведения насочва към извода, че значителна част от тях са създадени от Климент Охридски или негови последователи, а едно представлява преработка на слово от старобългарския писател черноризец Петър. Повечето от тези текстове се изследват и издават за пръв път в настоящата монография.
Заключението на книгата всъщност е посветено на събиране на едно място на доказателствения материал, върху който се базира идентификацията на Климент Охридски като автор и на съдържанието на изследваните поучения, на определени характерни теми и стилови черти, засвидетелствани в тях. По този начин резултат от изследването е не само откриването, реконструирането на текста и издаването на нови произведения от старобългарски автори – комплексният подход позволява също достигането до нови сведения за ежедневието и духовните потребности на българското общество малко след Покръстването, за стила и езика българските книжовници от това време, показва нови посоки за осмисляне на културните процеси през българския Златен век.
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The study is devoted to ten works included in the Zlatostruy collection translated by the commission of Tsar Simeon (893–927), for which (unlike the other over 150 texts from the collection) no corresponding Greek text has been found so far.
The introduction to the monograph presents the complex history of Zlatostruy and its distribution in medieval literature. Special attention is paid to the sources for compiling the collection, consisting primarily of translated homilies by the most famous Byzantine writer, John Chrysostom.
Then, in ten separate sections, the texts that are the subject of research are examined. For each of them, one and the same methodological approach was applied, aiming at a complex and comprehensive study: a significant number of copies were searched and compared, versions of the texts and secondary editorial changes in them were identified, a linguistic analysis was carried out, and an edition with a critical apparatus was elaborated.
In the process of work, it appeared that most of the ten works can be claimed to be original Old Bulgarian works, not translations. This is a significant contribution to the history of Bulgarian literature and culture from the time of the Golden Age, since we actually have very few untranslated texts written by medieval Bulgarian authors that have reached us.
Moreover, the careful analysis of the stylistic and linguistic characteristics of the works studied leads to the conclusion that a significant part of them were created by Kliment of Ohrid or his followers, and one is a reworking of a sermon attributed to the Old Bulgarian writer monk (chernorizets) Petar. Most of these texts are explored and published for the first time in the present monograph.
The conclusion is actually devoted to collecting in one place the evidence on which the identification of Kliment of Ohrid as an author is based. In most of the cases it is certain characteristic themes and stylistic features in the content of the texts that support such an assumption. In this way, the results of the research consist not only in the discovery, reconstruction of the texts and publication of new works by old Bulgarian authors, but the complex approach also allows reaching new information about the daily life and spiritual needs of the Bulgarian society shortly after the Conversion, about the style and language of the Bulgarian writers from this time, shows new directions for understanding the cultural processes during the Bulgarian Golden Age.
The content of the initial collection and its influence on literature from the tenth century may be determined - because it has not reached us in its original entirety - by comparing collections that have used it as a source. This is precisely one of the objectives of the study of Y. Miltenov. The author combines several approaches, which are complementary to one another - working with manuscript sources, their text-critical juxtaposition, study of the history of each of the nearly 200 texts, which constitute the corpus, comparison with their Byzantine sources. In this sense, the book represents an innovative and, at the same time, complex and complete investigation. Its results would be used by scholars from several disciplines (Slavic studies, Byzantine studies, linguistics, medieval literature, history, cultural anthropology), and by wide range of non-academics, who are interested in the Preslav civilization.
The Slavonic Chrysostomian corpus, as Miltenov’s study demostrates, records an important information on both the adoption of centuries-long Christian philosophical tradition among the Bulgarians and on the transformation of this heritage into a different, independent tradition of its own through the compiling of new texts and new collections. All these processes are bound up with the state policy in the field of culture, which includes personal commitment and initiative of the ruler, formation of authoritative royal book collection as source for the monastery libraries, gathering together highly educated men of letters, intentional collection and selection of Byzantine literary monuments. The repercussions of this cultural policy reach - through miscellanies of stable content or copies of individual texts - Athos, Serbia, Ukraine, Russia, and cover 10th-18th c. The analysis of these processes, examined in their development, details and wider context, is one of the great merits of Miltenov’s research." (Scripta & e-Scripta, 12, 2013) ///////////////////////////////////////// Достатъчно е да споменем делото на св. св. Кирил и Методий, приемането и дейността на техните ученици в България, т.нар. Златен вен, периодите на разцвет на атонската и търновската, сръбската и руската книжовни традиции, за да установим, че днес окачествяваме като най-знакови онези явления в средновековната славянска писмена култура, които са обвързани с подкрепата на държавна или църковна власт, имат ясно изразен дългосрочен план и се характеризират с продължително въздействие, чийто резонанс се усеща с векове напред. Точно такъв е и случаят със създаването на старобългарската колекция със слова на Йоан Златоуст, наречена Златоструй: това е една от най-значимите инициативи в сферата на книжовността и усвояването на византийските модели през X в., а резултатите от нейното осъществяване се възпроизвеждат по един или друг начин във всички литератури на Slavia orthodoxa през цялото Средновековие. Монографията разкрива историята на сбирката, характеристиките на нейните извори, заложените в нея преводачески и съставителски принципи. Чрез анализ на наследниците на Златоструй в средновековната славянска писмена култура (въз основа на около 180 хомилии, засвидетелствани в над 270 версии, съхранили се в над 40 славянски ръкописа), авторът извежда съставянето на преводни и компилативни антологии, на „изборници", като основна и може би най-важна линия в прехода от възпроизвеждане на византийските образци към изграждането на собствена старобългарска книжнина.
In the Slavonic manuscript tradition PsK is known under different title, which ascribes the work to St. Sylvester and the Reverend Anthony. The witnesses of the text are late, from the 15th–17th c., all without exception being Russian by origin and orthography, but numerous linguistic features prove that the translation was made in East Bulgaria in the first half of the 10th c. The text provides abundant lexical material, which is important for Preslav texts future research and for developing a clearer notion about the training, education and the technique of the bookmen, worked in 9th–10th c. at the Preslav literary center. The PsK Slavonic version is one of the most significant works from the Golden Age of Bulgarian literature.
Papers by Yavor Miltenov
В статията се разглеждат примерите за писане на о на мястото на етимологична голяма носовка в най-ранните книжовни паметници. След като се дискутират интерпретациите в научната литература относно това за преписваческа грешка ли става въпрос или за диалектна особеност, специално се подчертава, че примерите се срещат с по-голяма честота в група глаголически ръкописи, които иначе имат доста разнородни характеристики. Анализира се значението на тази особеност за локализиране на ръкописите и за разбирането ни за преписваческата практика през X-XI в.
С тех пор как был открыт знаменитый древнеславянский Codex Zographensis (Зографское евангелие) 175 лет назад, он стал предметом всесторонних исследований. Одновременно он является одним из самых важных источников для реконструкции древнеславянской грамматики и изучения различных аспектов славянской письменной культуры IX-XI вв. Тем не менее, остается вопрос: приводит ли накопление такого большого количества научной литературы к ответам на пять классических вопросов, которые нужно задать к любому важному источнику: кто - что - когда - где - почему? Статья содержит обзор возможных ответов, а также критический пересмотр различных мнений. Основное внимание уделяеться исследованиям, проведенным за последние тридцать лет, которые предлагают новые подходы, решения и гипотезы.
Целью статьи является изучение кириллических и глаголических глосс на полях Зографского евангелия, которые добавлены писцом рукописи и представляют собой одно из древнейших свидетельств лексического редактирования X–XI веков. Глоссы рассматриваются в контексте 1) лексических разночтений, в которых текст Зографского евангелия противопоставляется Мариинскому и Ассеманиевому евангелию и Саввиной книге и 2) синонимичных замен, которые в научной литературе считаются восточноболгарскими. Анализ приводит к выводу, что основной азбукой писца Зографского евангелия была кириллица, а его цель заключалась в замене или объяснении некоторых неславянских слов. Большинство синонимов и толкований он включил, как кажется, не под влиянием традиции, а, скорее всего, по собственной инициативе. Типологические характеристики его работы сходны с уже известными особенностями лексического редактирования в Болгарии десятого века.
В статията се изследват кирилските и глаголическите глоси в полетата на Зографското евангелие, които са оставени от преписвача на ръкописа. Те са едно от най-ранните свидетелства за начина, по който през Х–ХI век се е извършвало лексикалното редактиране на текстовете и за същността на този процес. Проучването на глосите е поставено в контекста на предходни проучвания върху други два пласта: лексикалните варианти, с които текстът на Зографското евангелие се противопоставя на този в Мариинското евангелие, Асеманиевото евангелие и Савината книга, и синонимните замени, които в научната литература се третират като източнобългарски. Направеният анализ води към извода, че ежедневното писмо на преписвача е кирилицата, а стремежът му е да замени или обясни определени чужди, неславянски думи. Повечето синоними и тълкувания, които той предлага в полетата, не са повлияни от традицията и най-вероятно са негова собствена инициатива, която се вписва типологически във вече установени процеси на лексикална редакция през българския Х век.
At its core, the Golden Age is joining the spirituality and mentality of the Byzantine world and adoption of the achievements of its centuries-old philosophical tradition.
The Byzantine models in literature were borrowed by using two co-existing principles: copying and adaptation. The former might be observed in most of the works intended for non-liturgical individual or monastic reading, which were translated in full. The latter is found in miscellanies compiled from partial translations and excerpts, or in Old Bulgarian translations that were abridged, edited, or reworked. The article aims at examining the most important examples of such adaptation and its features, pointing out the role of the aristocracy and the ruler himself in guiding these processes.
Българският Златен век е, от една страна, време на териториални разширения и значимо присъствие на политическата карта на Европа. От друга страна, това е епохата на първите големи върхове в областта на славянската писмена култура, и, вероятно, на изобразителните изкуства и архитектурата. В същността си Златният век е присъединяване към духовността и менталността на византийския свят и усвояване на достиженията на една многовековна философска традиция. Възприемането на византийските модели се осъществява посредством два съсъществуващи принципа: препредаване на образците и адаптиране на образците. Първият е водещ за много от произведенията за индивидуално или монашеско четене, които били превеждани изцяло като огледално отражение на своите оригинали. Що се отнася до втория принцип, той може да се открие в преводни сбирки, съставени от извлечения от византийски патристични съчинения или от съкратени, редактирани или преработени готови старобългарски преводи. Статията си поставя за цел да изследва най-важните примери за подобен тип адаптиране и техните характерни особености, като особено внимание се отделя на ролята на аристокрацията и владетеля за инициирането и насочването на тези процеси.
Front matter, the table of contents and the general introduction to the volume.
/ В средновековните слова и поучения, приписвани на Климент Охридски от ръкописната или от научната традиция, се срещат определени теми и мотиви, развити по сходен начин и с идентични изразни средства. Целта на изследването е да се съберат на едно място част от най-типичните общи места, да се коментира тяхната роля и функция и да се обгледа още веднъж значимостта им като маркери за авторовия стил.
В увода към монографията е представена сложната история на Златоструй и разпространението му в средновековната книжнина. Специално са разгледани източниците за съставянето на сбирката, състоящи се преди всичко в преводни хомилии от най-известния византийски писател Йоан Златоуст.
След това в десет отделни дяла са разгледани текстовете, които са обект на изследване. За всеки един от тях е приложен един и същ методологически подход, целящ комплексно и изчерпателно изследване: издирени са и съпоставени значителен брой преписи, идентифицирани са версии на текстовете и вторични редакционни промени в тях, извършен е езиков анализ, извършено е издание с критически апарат.
В процеса на работа се установява, че за повечето от десетте произведения може да се твърди, че не са преводни, а оригинални старобългарски съчинения. Това е съществен принос за историята на българската литература и култура от времето на Златния век, откогато всъщност имаме съвсем не много на брой достигнали до нас непреводни текстове, дело на български автори.
Нещо повече, внимателният анализ на стиловите и езиковите им характеристики на изследваните произведения насочва към извода, че значителна част от тях са създадени от Климент Охридски или негови последователи, а едно представлява преработка на слово от старобългарския писател черноризец Петър. Повечето от тези текстове се изследват и издават за пръв път в настоящата монография.
Заключението на книгата всъщност е посветено на събиране на едно място на доказателствения материал, върху който се базира идентификацията на Климент Охридски като автор и на съдържанието на изследваните поучения, на определени характерни теми и стилови черти, засвидетелствани в тях. По този начин резултат от изследването е не само откриването, реконструирането на текста и издаването на нови произведения от старобългарски автори – комплексният подход позволява също достигането до нови сведения за ежедневието и духовните потребности на българското общество малко след Покръстването, за стила и езика българските книжовници от това време, показва нови посоки за осмисляне на културните процеси през българския Златен век.
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The study is devoted to ten works included in the Zlatostruy collection translated by the commission of Tsar Simeon (893–927), for which (unlike the other over 150 texts from the collection) no corresponding Greek text has been found so far.
The introduction to the monograph presents the complex history of Zlatostruy and its distribution in medieval literature. Special attention is paid to the sources for compiling the collection, consisting primarily of translated homilies by the most famous Byzantine writer, John Chrysostom.
Then, in ten separate sections, the texts that are the subject of research are examined. For each of them, one and the same methodological approach was applied, aiming at a complex and comprehensive study: a significant number of copies were searched and compared, versions of the texts and secondary editorial changes in them were identified, a linguistic analysis was carried out, and an edition with a critical apparatus was elaborated.
In the process of work, it appeared that most of the ten works can be claimed to be original Old Bulgarian works, not translations. This is a significant contribution to the history of Bulgarian literature and culture from the time of the Golden Age, since we actually have very few untranslated texts written by medieval Bulgarian authors that have reached us.
Moreover, the careful analysis of the stylistic and linguistic characteristics of the works studied leads to the conclusion that a significant part of them were created by Kliment of Ohrid or his followers, and one is a reworking of a sermon attributed to the Old Bulgarian writer monk (chernorizets) Petar. Most of these texts are explored and published for the first time in the present monograph.
The conclusion is actually devoted to collecting in one place the evidence on which the identification of Kliment of Ohrid as an author is based. In most of the cases it is certain characteristic themes and stylistic features in the content of the texts that support such an assumption. In this way, the results of the research consist not only in the discovery, reconstruction of the texts and publication of new works by old Bulgarian authors, but the complex approach also allows reaching new information about the daily life and spiritual needs of the Bulgarian society shortly after the Conversion, about the style and language of the Bulgarian writers from this time, shows new directions for understanding the cultural processes during the Bulgarian Golden Age.
The content of the initial collection and its influence on literature from the tenth century may be determined - because it has not reached us in its original entirety - by comparing collections that have used it as a source. This is precisely one of the objectives of the study of Y. Miltenov. The author combines several approaches, which are complementary to one another - working with manuscript sources, their text-critical juxtaposition, study of the history of each of the nearly 200 texts, which constitute the corpus, comparison with their Byzantine sources. In this sense, the book represents an innovative and, at the same time, complex and complete investigation. Its results would be used by scholars from several disciplines (Slavic studies, Byzantine studies, linguistics, medieval literature, history, cultural anthropology), and by wide range of non-academics, who are interested in the Preslav civilization.
The Slavonic Chrysostomian corpus, as Miltenov’s study demostrates, records an important information on both the adoption of centuries-long Christian philosophical tradition among the Bulgarians and on the transformation of this heritage into a different, independent tradition of its own through the compiling of new texts and new collections. All these processes are bound up with the state policy in the field of culture, which includes personal commitment and initiative of the ruler, formation of authoritative royal book collection as source for the monastery libraries, gathering together highly educated men of letters, intentional collection and selection of Byzantine literary monuments. The repercussions of this cultural policy reach - through miscellanies of stable content or copies of individual texts - Athos, Serbia, Ukraine, Russia, and cover 10th-18th c. The analysis of these processes, examined in their development, details and wider context, is one of the great merits of Miltenov’s research." (Scripta & e-Scripta, 12, 2013) ///////////////////////////////////////// Достатъчно е да споменем делото на св. св. Кирил и Методий, приемането и дейността на техните ученици в България, т.нар. Златен вен, периодите на разцвет на атонската и търновската, сръбската и руската книжовни традиции, за да установим, че днес окачествяваме като най-знакови онези явления в средновековната славянска писмена култура, които са обвързани с подкрепата на държавна или църковна власт, имат ясно изразен дългосрочен план и се характеризират с продължително въздействие, чийто резонанс се усеща с векове напред. Точно такъв е и случаят със създаването на старобългарската колекция със слова на Йоан Златоуст, наречена Златоструй: това е една от най-значимите инициативи в сферата на книжовността и усвояването на византийските модели през X в., а резултатите от нейното осъществяване се възпроизвеждат по един или друг начин във всички литератури на Slavia orthodoxa през цялото Средновековие. Монографията разкрива историята на сбирката, характеристиките на нейните извори, заложените в нея преводачески и съставителски принципи. Чрез анализ на наследниците на Златоструй в средновековната славянска писмена култура (въз основа на около 180 хомилии, засвидетелствани в над 270 версии, съхранили се в над 40 славянски ръкописа), авторът извежда съставянето на преводни и компилативни антологии, на „изборници", като основна и може би най-важна линия в прехода от възпроизвеждане на византийските образци към изграждането на собствена старобългарска книжнина.
In the Slavonic manuscript tradition PsK is known under different title, which ascribes the work to St. Sylvester and the Reverend Anthony. The witnesses of the text are late, from the 15th–17th c., all without exception being Russian by origin and orthography, but numerous linguistic features prove that the translation was made in East Bulgaria in the first half of the 10th c. The text provides abundant lexical material, which is important for Preslav texts future research and for developing a clearer notion about the training, education and the technique of the bookmen, worked in 9th–10th c. at the Preslav literary center. The PsK Slavonic version is one of the most significant works from the Golden Age of Bulgarian literature.
В статията се разглеждат примерите за писане на о на мястото на етимологична голяма носовка в най-ранните книжовни паметници. След като се дискутират интерпретациите в научната литература относно това за преписваческа грешка ли става въпрос или за диалектна особеност, специално се подчертава, че примерите се срещат с по-голяма честота в група глаголически ръкописи, които иначе имат доста разнородни характеристики. Анализира се значението на тази особеност за локализиране на ръкописите и за разбирането ни за преписваческата практика през X-XI в.
С тех пор как был открыт знаменитый древнеславянский Codex Zographensis (Зографское евангелие) 175 лет назад, он стал предметом всесторонних исследований. Одновременно он является одним из самых важных источников для реконструкции древнеславянской грамматики и изучения различных аспектов славянской письменной культуры IX-XI вв. Тем не менее, остается вопрос: приводит ли накопление такого большого количества научной литературы к ответам на пять классических вопросов, которые нужно задать к любому важному источнику: кто - что - когда - где - почему? Статья содержит обзор возможных ответов, а также критический пересмотр различных мнений. Основное внимание уделяеться исследованиям, проведенным за последние тридцать лет, которые предлагают новые подходы, решения и гипотезы.
Целью статьи является изучение кириллических и глаголических глосс на полях Зографского евангелия, которые добавлены писцом рукописи и представляют собой одно из древнейших свидетельств лексического редактирования X–XI веков. Глоссы рассматриваются в контексте 1) лексических разночтений, в которых текст Зографского евангелия противопоставляется Мариинскому и Ассеманиевому евангелию и Саввиной книге и 2) синонимичных замен, которые в научной литературе считаются восточноболгарскими. Анализ приводит к выводу, что основной азбукой писца Зографского евангелия была кириллица, а его цель заключалась в замене или объяснении некоторых неславянских слов. Большинство синонимов и толкований он включил, как кажется, не под влиянием традиции, а, скорее всего, по собственной инициативе. Типологические характеристики его работы сходны с уже известными особенностями лексического редактирования в Болгарии десятого века.
В статията се изследват кирилските и глаголическите глоси в полетата на Зографското евангелие, които са оставени от преписвача на ръкописа. Те са едно от най-ранните свидетелства за начина, по който през Х–ХI век се е извършвало лексикалното редактиране на текстовете и за същността на този процес. Проучването на глосите е поставено в контекста на предходни проучвания върху други два пласта: лексикалните варианти, с които текстът на Зографското евангелие се противопоставя на този в Мариинското евангелие, Асеманиевото евангелие и Савината книга, и синонимните замени, които в научната литература се третират като източнобългарски. Направеният анализ води към извода, че ежедневното писмо на преписвача е кирилицата, а стремежът му е да замени или обясни определени чужди, неславянски думи. Повечето синоними и тълкувания, които той предлага в полетата, не са повлияни от традицията и най-вероятно са негова собствена инициатива, която се вписва типологически във вече установени процеси на лексикална редакция през българския Х век.
At its core, the Golden Age is joining the spirituality and mentality of the Byzantine world and adoption of the achievements of its centuries-old philosophical tradition.
The Byzantine models in literature were borrowed by using two co-existing principles: copying and adaptation. The former might be observed in most of the works intended for non-liturgical individual or monastic reading, which were translated in full. The latter is found in miscellanies compiled from partial translations and excerpts, or in Old Bulgarian translations that were abridged, edited, or reworked. The article aims at examining the most important examples of such adaptation and its features, pointing out the role of the aristocracy and the ruler himself in guiding these processes.
Българският Златен век е, от една страна, време на териториални разширения и значимо присъствие на политическата карта на Европа. От друга страна, това е епохата на първите големи върхове в областта на славянската писмена култура, и, вероятно, на изобразителните изкуства и архитектурата. В същността си Златният век е присъединяване към духовността и менталността на византийския свят и усвояване на достиженията на една многовековна философска традиция. Възприемането на византийските модели се осъществява посредством два съсъществуващи принципа: препредаване на образците и адаптиране на образците. Първият е водещ за много от произведенията за индивидуално или монашеско четене, които били превеждани изцяло като огледално отражение на своите оригинали. Що се отнася до втория принцип, той може да се открие в преводни сбирки, съставени от извлечения от византийски патристични съчинения или от съкратени, редактирани или преработени готови старобългарски преводи. Статията си поставя за цел да изследва най-важните примери за подобен тип адаптиране и техните характерни особености, като особено внимание се отделя на ролята на аристокрацията и владетеля за инициирането и насочването на тези процеси.
Front matter, the table of contents and the general introduction to the volume.
/ В средновековните слова и поучения, приписвани на Климент Охридски от ръкописната или от научната традиция, се срещат определени теми и мотиви, развити по сходен начин и с идентични изразни средства. Целта на изследването е да се съберат на едно място част от най-типичните общи места, да се коментира тяхната роля и функция и да се обгледа още веднъж значимостта им като маркери за авторовия стил.
The importance of the Zlatostruy collection is supported not only by the Preface, which may be considered of more or less ideological value. It is substantiated by means of a comprehensive text-critical and comparative analysis that endeavors to reconstruct the history of the collection and reveal further detail about the textual history of the homilies from the Byzantine originals to the later Slavic copies.
In this paper I shift the focus to those features that are related to the flourishing of the 10 c. Bulgarian literary tradition and the successful adoption of Byzantine literary models.
Студията е посветена на проучване на историята на Слово за засухата и за Божиите наказания, средновековно поучение без открит конкретен гръцки източник. Изследва се групирането на привлечените за изследване славянски преписи, лексикалните особености, междутекстовите връзки и принципите на изграждане на архетипа, основанията за включването му към вероятните произведения на Климент Охридски или неговите ученици. В приложение е публикувано издание на поучението с критически апарат.
Yavor Miltenov, Institute for Bulgarian language, Sofia, Bulgaria
[slide1] The arrival of the disciples of Cyril and Methodius in Bulgaria fulfilled the most important conditions for the preservation and propagation of Christianity: literacy and education. Undoubtedly, the priority task in the first decades of literary activity was copying and translating the New Testament books and the texts that were required for celebration of the liturgy. At the same time, however, the late 9th and early 10th century saw the beginning of translation and compilation of non-liturgical works intended for individual reading and for private and monastic libraries. These were texts with horizons and worldview to be perceived by selected readers capable of understanding the complicated discourse and the centuries-old tradition of Byzantine theological thought.
One of the most interesting monuments of this type is the so-called Erotapokriseis allegedly composed by Kaisarios, the brother of St. Gregory of Nazianzus. The Slavic translation of this work was made in East Bulgaria, most probably in the first quarter of the 10th century. [slide2] The Erotapokriseis consists of questions and answers that deal mainly with theological and dogmatic problems, but its uniqueness lies in the argumentation – it includes examples from what we would call today natural sciences and significant fragments from works of authoritative theologians. These features of the Greek original, along with the considerable volume of the text, set the Slavic translation in a unique position – it is the largest translated encyclopedic work from the earliest period of Slavic literacy. Its overall characteristics place it side by side to the famous compilations of John the Exarch, namely Hexaemeron and Nebessa. Furthermore, the Slavic version of the Erotapokriseis provides valuable evidence about the rich vocabulary of Old Bulgarian and the principles of translation that were dominant in the period, as well as an opportunity to study important processes in 10th-century Bulgarian and 15th-century Russian literature. In the present paper I will attempt at presenting an overview of the history of Slavic translation, the stages and peculiarities in its transmission in medieval Bulgaria and Russia. The observations below are based on extensive research, published in 2006 along with an exhaustive review of the previous studies, text critical comparison of the Slavic copies, linguistic analysis, and a new edition of the text. In this paper, it is not possible to give even a small fraction of the numerous details and examples that lead to the constitution of the history of the text. Therefore, my aim here is to summarize and highlight the results of my previous research with an emphasis on the place and role of this type of texts intended for individual reading in medieval Bulgaria and Russia.
The Erotapokriseis of Pseudo-Kaisarios is known in three versions: Greek, Arabic and Slavic. [slide3] The Greek original has been studied thoroughly by the German scholar Rudolf Riedinger in a monograph, published in 1969. Riedinger established that the author of the Erotapokriseis lived in the middle of the 6th century and was, most probably, a monk at the Akoimeton monastery in Constantinople during the reign of Emperor Justinian I (527–565). Perhaps the reason for the false attribution to Kaisarios was that the real author shared certain monophysite views. [slide4] Sixteen Byzantine manuscripts constitute the textual tradition of the work. Three of them are most reliable with respect to the reconstruction of the archetype: Mosquensis 113, Patmiacus 103 and Patmiacus 161 . All remaining thirteen manuscripts are proved to be codices descripti. The critical edition of the Erotapokriseis published by Riedinger in 1989 is based on the Moscow codex No. 113 and includes readings from the two copies from Patmos mentioned above.
[slide5] Having examined all the witnesses of the Greek original, Riedinger came to conclusion, that the two translations – the Slavic (made in the 10th century) and the Arabic one (from the middle of 11th century) – do not originate from any of the preserved Greek copies and text families but rather are an independent branches, which stem directly from the archetype. We can now fill out these observations in accordance with the text critical research of the Slavic version. The comparison between the reconstructed Slavic archetype and the Riedinger’s critical edition of the original proves that, on the one hand, the Greek source of the translation shared some secondary readings and errors that are found in both Moscow manuscript № 113 and Patmos № 103; however, in other cases it avoided some secondary readings, attested in these witnesses. [slide6] Thus, the Greek prototype of the Slavic Erotapokriseis should have been placed in-between these two most reliable Byzantine copies and the archetype. These observations confirm Riedinger’s opinion, that the Slavic version is based on a rather early witness of the text, which holds the closest position to the archetype in the stemma codicum.
But to what extent does this position of the Slavic version reflect the text itself? [slide7] In a study, published in 1968, Ivan Dujčev argued that the Slavic version is a very important source for the reconstruction of the Greek archetype and highlighted numerous examples showing that the translation had transmitted the original text better . Rudolf Riedinger rightly rejected the reliability of most of the examples applied, since Dujčev had made the comparison against the considerably edited witness published by Jacques Paul Migne in Patrologia Graeca, while, as already said above, there are other witnesses of the Greek original that preserve the correct readings. Surprisingly, Riedinger allowed the same methodological inaccuracy to slip in. He attributed a number of omissions and mistakes to the Slavic translation, because he made the comparison against the single published Slavic copy that contains quite a number of innovations, although there were unpublished copies that keep the primary readings. To sum up, thanks to mixing the terms „text” and „copy of a text” Dujčev attributed to the Slavic version fictitious superiority, and Riedinger erroneously assigned to it a number of errors and omissions. In fact, the Slavic text follows literally its Greek analogue, and while in certain cases it could be drawn as an arbitrator for some questionable readings, in general it doesn’t contribute significantly to the reconstruction of the Greek archetype.
Another feature that may be attributed to this particular Greek copy, from which the Slavic translation was made, is the segmentation of the text. [slide8] In all reliable Greek witnesses, the text of the Erotapokriseis is divided into 218 questions and answers; therefore, this is the number of text units supposed for the archetype as well. Unlike that, the Slavic version consists of 220 questions and answers. The different number of questions and answers concerns the segmentation only, and no additions or omissions of text are attested as compared to the Greek original. The interesting thing here is that this number, namely 220, coincides with the only early evidence, mentioning the Erotapokriseis of Pseudo-Kaisarios. It is found in the famous Myriobiblion of Patriarch Photios. Within the brief description of content and style of Pseudo-Kaisarios’ work Photios states that it is composed of 220 questions and answers. These data can be interpreted in two ways: either the Greek source of the Slavic translation had contained the same number of text units as the copy known to Photios, or this is only a coincidence that has no relevance to the Byzantine textual tradition. In my opinion the arguments in favor of the former should not be neglected having in mind the position of the Slavic translation in the stemma.
[slide9] The translation of the Erotapokriseis itself has very interesting features, which provide trustworthy information about where the translation was made. For instance, the translator changed several geographical and ethnic names – once he transmitted Ρωμαίων Ιλλύρια as “the area of Sirmium”, then Ιλλυρίοι as “natives of Sirmium”, Ριπιανοί as “Slavs” and, notably, he transformed παρα δε Γόθθοις into блъгарскыи “in Bulgarian language”. These intentional changes were made in order to replace outdated, obscure concepts with known, contemporary, widely used terms. By the way, the Erotapokriseis seems to be one of the earliest Slavic texts, in which the name “Bulgarians” is used as a term for self designation.
The linguistic features of the Slavic version point to East Bulgaria as place and the early 10th c. as time of origin. The translation attests for typical synonym techniques and certain lexical layer, used only in East Bulgarian texts from the 9th-10th century. Above 70 hapax legomena and rare words are used in it, and most of them are found today in East Bulgarian dialects only. The most extraordinary characteristic is that there are above 50 words of Proto-Bulgarian origin, some of which are found in limited number of texts of Bulgarian origin, and some are hapaxes.
[slide10] On the basis of all that evidence, we can assume that the translation of the Erotapokriseis was assigned to a specially chosen person, who had a Proto-Bulgarian background, and accomplished his work according to the translation principles implemented in other works, emerged in the area of the Bulgarian capital Preslav during the reign of king Symeon. In the 10th century Bulgaria there could hardly have been many men of letters who possessed such encyclopedic knowledge, in all likelihood acquired after special education.
We don’t know much about the Old Bulgarian tradition and transmission of the Erotapokriseis. Apparently, the work was distributed in few copies, since none South Slavic witness had reached us. However, some clues regarding the Old Bulgarian tradition are available after the examination of the sources of the Palaea interpretata – an extensive Slavic compilation, which includes about 20 passages from the Erotapokriseis Slavic version. The compiler of the Palaea had access to impressive number of Slavic translations. He had extracted exact quotations and included them in his work, applying a mosaic principle of arranging the borrowed passages – sometimes following, sometimes disregarding their original sequence. This could only mean that, firstly, the Erotapokriseis was part of a rich private or monastery collection, which was used by the Palaea compiler de visu, and, secondly, that the Erotapokriseis was considered equal in value and importance with some of the most prominent Old Bulgarian works dating from the Golden Age.
As already mentioned, no South Slavic copy of the Erotapokriseis had reached us. All the twelve witnesses of the text known today are late, dating from 15 c. on, and all without exception are Russian by origin. What was the fate of this work from its “Bulgarian period” onwards? Let us briefly trace the history of the Russian tradition of the text. [slide11] Under unclear circumstances, one Bulgarian copy of the Erotapokriseis made its way to Russia. Some orthographic features, preserved in the later manuscript tradition, show that this copy was very ancient, may be from the 10th century. For a long time, perhaps even as long as several centuries, the surviving copy was either forgotten or there was no interest in this type of works. Due to poor storage conditions or for other reasons this Bulgarian manuscript became a codex defectus – two big portions of it were lost, namely the beginning and the end. An unknown Russian copyist, probably in the 15th century added (in this particular codex or in his own transcript) a new title, ascribing it to “St. Sylvester and Reverend Antony”. This is why the Erotapokriseis of Pseudo-Kaisarios is known in the manuscripts and among the paleoslavists, as Questions and Answers of Sylvester and Anthony, and this is why all the copies attest for 36 missing questions and answers in the beginning and for a lack of proper ending of the text.
But what was the reason for the interest of the 15th century Russian bookmen in this work and why did they start copying it despite the lost portions? [slide12] The answer lies in the correspondence of the Russian higher clergy. In a letter dated February 1489, Gennady, the Archbishop of Novgorod wrote to Joasaph, the Archbishop of Rostov, to share his utmost concern about the rapid spread of heretical teachings, and asked inter alia:
"Are there at your disposal – in St. Cyril’s, St. Ferapont’s or in the Stone monastery – the books Sylvester, Pope of Rome, Athanasius of Alexandria, the Treatise of Presbyter Kozma against the Bogomils, the Epistle of Patriarch Photios to Bulgarian Prince Boris, the Books of Prophets, Genesis, Kings, Proverbs, Menander, Logic, Dionysius the Areopagite? Because the heretics have all these books…"
The work, mentioned first in this list as the book “Sylvester”, undoubtedly is to be identified as the Erotapokriseis of Pseudo-Kaisarios. It becomes clear that before 1489 the text of the Erotapokriseis was already known and widely distributed among the heretics in Novgorod, who apparently obtained from it the necessary theological interpretations for the construction of their concepts. Therefore it became mandatory for the church officials to take care of the study of these texts that heretics drew in their favor, to derive dogmatic arguments in order to refute heretical interpretations and spread these works in the Russian monasteries. The stages of this process are perfectly attested by the text history of the Erotapokriseis. [slide13] First, in many witnesses there are linguistic traces due to transcribing the text by Novgorod copyists, and these traces are typical feature of the most correct copies. Secondly, some written documents evidence that copies of the Erotapokriseis were sent from Novgorod to the largest monasteries in a short period of time (1489, 1493) together with other important works, mentioned in the list above. Thirdly, the manuscript tradition of the Erotapokriseis keeps evidence of how these circumstances had affected the texts themselves. The situation in the late 15th and early 16th century, described above, undoubtedly required both maintaining the authoritative Old Bulgarian originals and editing them in order to facilitate their understanding. As a consequence, in one group of witnesses of the Erotapokriseis the text was transmitted without changes, while in another group the unclear vocabulary was glossed by synonyms in the margins of the manuscripts, and in a third group most of the unclear vocabulary was replaced by words used in spoken Russian. [slide14] As the stemma of the Slavic version shows, at least three contemporary protographs attest for these different methods of approach to the text.
Paradoxically, the preservation, distribution and actual functioning of the Erotapokriseis Slavic translation are largely due to the interest of Russian heretics to ancient texts of theological content. So, precisely at this moment of intense theological debates and discontent – and not in the times of elitist literature in tenth-century Bulgaria – the Erotapokriseis was engaged in the active literary and religious life. Thus, the history of this very important work combines two main driving forces in the cultural development: on the one hand the ancient tradition gets new life thanks to the practical needs, on the other hand – the practical needs could not be met without the existence of an authoritative ancient tradition. [slide15]
Simon Brenner, Federica Cappa, Bernadette Frühmann,
Wilfried Vetter, Manfred Schreiner. Apostolus Eninensis. Bibliothecae Nationalis Bulgaricae Codex 1144. Editio Nova. Sofia – Wien: Университетско издателство „Св. Климент Охридски“; Verlag Holzhausen, 2022. 280 S. ISBN: 978-954-07-5305-8.