Illyrico Caractere, Ac Idiomate: Философската и богословската лексика в Огледало на истината (1716) на Кръстьо Пейкич
Illyrico caractere, ac idiomate: the Philosophical and Theological Vocabulary in Krastyo Peykich’s Zarcalo istine (1716)

Summary/Abstract: Krastyo Peykich’s Zarcalo istine med Carkve Istočne i Zapadnje [“The Mirror of Truth between the Eastern and Western Churches”], published in Venice in 1716, was the first book on Orthodox-Catholic theological controversy ever written in a Southern Slavic (“Illyrian”) language. In the present study, we have tried to disclose its historical relevance by means of analysis of the text and defining of its cultural and political context. Within the perspective of the eighteenth-century centralisation policies of the Habsburgs, Peykich’s books had to serve the cause of the consolidation of Catholicism as the “state religion” in the Empire. Both Zarcalo istine and its enlarged version in Latin, Speculum veritatis (Venice, 1725) were aimed to promote the reunification of the Eastern Church with the Western one. Still in the same context was Peykich’s attempt to reach a broader audience among diverse, and not necessarily highly or “classically” educated, social strata by writing his Zarcalo istine in a variant of a Southern Slavic idiom. In his eyes, this language had to be an instrument for religious unification, which in turn was interpreted as the necessary basis for the political unification of Southern Slavs with other Catholic nations under the Catholic Emperor. Our contribution to the study of this topic is principally a table of the equivalences of theological, philosophical and ecclesiological lexemes and syntagmata in Zarcalo and in Speculum. In this connection, we defend the thesis that, although Peykich was not able to elaborate “Illyrian” counterparts for the whole range of technical terms applied in the theological controversis he was dealing with, his attempt to create a theological and philosophical “Illyrian” terminology is still memorable.

• Details
• Contents