Gesta ili žitije o Jovanu Vladimiru
Geste Or Jovan Vladimir's Biography

Summary/Abstract: The Chronicle of the Priest of Doclea included, among other things, the life of St Jovan Vladimir. The Chronicle itself indicates that there was a geste, a story of heroic deed of Jovan Vladimir, where the information about him was taken from. On the other hand, the writing style indicated a biography. The very part describing his life, in the literature, was called an epic, a deed, a myth, an oral legend or a novel. It was this sort of curiosity that led us to resolve whether it was a geste or biography. Literature prescribes which parts a biography has to have, so a piece of text talking about Jovan Vladimir was compared with the elements of a biography, and the following was found: nine of the elements are present in their totality, two in their summarized form while four are missing. Two of the missing four were not even significant enough to be included - one where the author of a biography was supposed to talk about himself in a humble way and another that was supposed to state the source of the information. The celebration of the saint's homeland is not given in its direct form, but the entire Chronicle could be taken as an honor to Doclea, i.e. his homeland. The only element which could not even be assumed to have existed is the question of Vladimir's name. On these grounds, therefore, we are of the opinion that there was a regular biography whose shortened version was included in the Chronicle. A scribe introduced it under the term geste, as his cult had more of a local character and the saint was not even canonized by either the Pope or the Patriarch. The fact that he occurs as a motif in literature indicates that there must have been some secular works about his.

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