Деспот Стефан Лазаревич, Птолемей Филаделф и кариерата на придворния философ Константин Костенечки
Stephen Lazarević, Ptolemy Philadelphos, and the Career of the Court Philosopher Constantine of Kostenec

Summary/Abstract: This text describes the biography and the career of Constantine of Kostenec according to the present state of the scholarly investigations and interprets his Skazanije iz’javlenno o pismenex as an important source for the literary life in Belgrade during the first quarter of the fifteenth century and for the active participation of the Serbian ruler Stephen Lazarević in it. The article pays special attention to Constantine’s position in the Serbian court and his conflict with the clergy because of their desire to control the production of books, the content of the texts, and the education of pupils. The author puts forward the hypothesis that the Skazanije could be regarded as a “project proposal” for the normalization of the Serbian orthography in order to guarantee the correct transmission of the meaning of the texts created in the frames of another project – the new translation of the Old Testament non-liturgical books, undertaken by Hilandar monks under the auspices of the Serbian despotes. All arguments supporting the existence of the “Old Testament project” of Stephen Lazarević are systematically presented. The suggestion is made that in Serbia the introduction of the Ressavian orthographic norm was connected to this particular initiative (in contrast, in Bulgaria the reforms in orthography and liturgy went hand in hand).

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