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The literature on the Constantinian documents in Eusebius’ Vita Constantini ha been mostly concerned with the question of their authenticity. The relation of their language and style to the whole of the text has not received comparable attention. The stylistic analysis of these documents must rely on rare and irregular traits prone to scribal emendations. The ideal way of minimizing the impact these have on the textual tradition is to have an alternative source, or to be able to rely on the quotations of other authors. Luckily, there are three letters of Constantine (V. C) quoted by the later Church historians, Theodoretus of Cyrrhus and Sokrates Scholasticus. Comparing the text of these three authors also gives us a much needed means to check which linguistic traits were perceived as abnormalities by the scribes. By doing so, we can identify some traits typical of letters translated from Latin. In addition, these letters also exhibit some traits peculiar to Eusebius. Although there is no way of knowing in which language these letters were distributed in the East, their style was certainly retouched by Eusebius, which makes any reconstruction of a “Constantinian style” using them as a basis tentative at best.
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In a number of Serbian manuscripts, mainly from the Serbian Athonite monastery of Chilandary, there are some Canons that are ascribed to Gregory of Sinai (1255–1346). The oldest one of them was copied at the end of the 14th century (No. 640). In an older manuscript (No. 342, dating from 1364/74) there are three Canons (dedicated to the Holy Cross, to the Holy Fathers and to the Virgin/Theotokos) however, this one is not of the Serbian, but Macedonian recension. In the Serbian manuscript (Hil.87) there are five Canons considered to be composed by Gregory. The Canon dedicated to the Christ is composed in the 5th tone, and it is also thought to be written by Gregory. In the manuscript Dečani 136 it is clearly noted that Canon dedicated to the Christ is Gregory’s. In the Canon dedicated to the Holy Fathers (Hil. 342) there is even an acrostic containing Gregory’s name. Out of the number of eight Canons registered among the Serbian manuscripts, only three can be considered Gregory’s compositions with a great probability: Canon (suplicatory) to our Lord Jesus Christ, Canon to the Holy Cross and Canon to the Holy Fatrhers. A major impediment to the study of this hymnographic material presents the absence of Greek originals of these texts. There are widespread doubts regarding Gregory’s authorship of the hymnographic texts ascribed to him. Published as a supplement to this paper there is the Canon to the Christ (mss Dečani 136, which is the oldest serbian transcript of this canon) and the Canon of the Holy Cross (mss PMH 59).
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Evidence of the existence of the cult of St. Ioanikkios of Devi~, the Serbian hermit who lived in the first half of the 15th century, can be found in the texts written several centuries after his death and in his rise to sainthood. These texts were preserved in the 18th century manuscripts — one sinaxar life of the saint and two completely independent church services — the first copied in the Devi~ monastery in 1757, and the second one, written by Antonije, a monk from the Grabovac monastery in Hungary, in 1759. Antonije’s Grabovac service was written, as it were, in a ‘new’ spirit. It portrays a rather generalized character, a saint devoid of individual characteristics and who has very little in common with Ioanikkios’ real personality, not even to the degree that is customary in this type of poetry. The Grabovac service has very little to do with the saint it was dedicated to, both in terms of time and its essence. On the other hand, the text written in the Devi~ monastery is the copy of an older text which may date back to the time when the service was created. For this reason, the Devi~ text is analyzed more closely in this paper and within the context of old Serbian liturgical poetry. The paper examines the structure of the Devi~ service (and sinaxar life of the saint in it) and tries to determine, on the basis of text analysis, the time when the service was written. Judging by the immediate poetic images used to describe the saint, which are indicative of the period in which he lived, as well as by the predominantly hesychast atmosphere of the text — the period when this work was written may have been the fourth decade of the 15th century at the latest. This was the period when hesychasm was strong, and poetry emanated hope and peacefulness. The next decade already marked the unfolding of unfortunate historical events: the fall of Constantinople (1453), the death of Despot Djuradj Brankovi} (1456), the fall of Smederevo (1459) and the Turkish massacre of the Orthodox population, such as the one in Novo Brdo in 1477. Such events added to Serbian literature a tone of sincere desperation, a painful doomsday feeling and expectations of the ‘end times’ that were non-existent in the church service dedicated to St. Ioanikkios. The Appendix contains the issue of the sinaxar life of St. Ioanikkios from the Devi~ service, according to the manuscript written in 1757, which is kept in the Serbian Academy of Arts and Sciences Archive, No. 71.
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Although veneration of holy hermits was a well-known practice in medieval Serbia, hermits are few among the Serbian saints. The most prominent place belongs to Saint Peter of Koriša (late 12th century), whose cult was programmatically created in emulation of the best models of the hagiographic genre. There is only one more fully and consistently shaped cult of a local hermit, St. Ioannikios of Devič. It is attested in the 15th century, the last period of Serbia’s independence prior to the final Ottoman conquest. This saintly cult emerged in the reign of Despot Djuradj Brankovi} (1427–1456), when eremitism saw a strong expansion. It originated in the area of Kosovo and Metohija, where anchoritism had deep roots and well-developed forms. The historical figure of St Ioannikios is difficult to discern through later layers of legend. Our main source is the saint’s Service with a short Life, preserved as an 18th-century transcript (Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts, 71). The Life tells us that he was a native of Metohija who began his ascetic path at Crna Reka (Ibarski Kolašin), and then moved to the Desert of Devič (Kosovska Drenica). The Life, built upon standard, time-hallowed topoi of eremitic hagiography specifying all phases of the eremitic endeavour, accords an important place to the motif of the encounter between ruler and hermit — Ioannikios and Despot Djuradj, and their joint ktetorship of the Devič monastery church dedicated to the Dormition of the Virgin. This piece of information documents the practice, characteristic of the late medieval Serbian environment, of joint patronage of temporal rulers and their spiritual mentors, distinguished hesychast abbas. An integral part of the practice was the holy hermit’s burial in the church, which was also the case with Ioannikios. The holy founder’s grave was central to the status of the monastery as a source of miraculous cures and a focus for pilgrimage. The first written reference to the church of the Dormition of the Virgin at Devič can be found in the 1455 Ottoman tax register for the realm of the Brankovi}s. As the present-day structure is the result of repeated demolitions, alterations and additions over the centuries, its original appearance is difficult to reconstruct, even more so as the monastery suffered heavy damage even in the 20th century — in 1915, 1941 and 2004. The sacred focus of the monastery complex is the small room with the tomb of St Ioannikios, abutting to the eastern wall of the church. Above the tomb, the depiction of the saint’s death is encircled with an inscription of 1578, which, apart from identifying the buried person, informs about the renovation of the shrine through the effort of hegoumenos Pachomios and hieromonk Longinos. A relatively large number of surviving notes made in manuscripts from the late 16th century until the end of the 18th attest to the reverence that Devič enjoyed as the keeper of the saint’s holy relics. The Service being highly important to understanding the nature and function of the cult of St Ioannikios of Devič, the paper offers detailed considerations of the carefully selected topoi describing stages in the hermit’s ascetic endeavour, his saintly attributes and the properties of his relics. It also analyzes the verses relevant to the notions of desert and mountain as anchoritic abodes, defined as sacred spaces where the practice of ascetic discipline leads to the mortification of passions and union with God. The Service is a major source for understanding the theological notions and spiritual aspirations of its times. One of the central topics addressed by the paper is the distinctly hesychast character of the Service, hitherto simply noted by scholars. Among the recognizable hesychast elements are hesychia, joy-bearing tears, mystical visions and the radiance of the light from within. A very important element of the Service is the verses programmatically illustrating the Orthodox notion of the Holy Trinity. As a rule expounded polemically in relation to the Western Trinitarian notions, it constitutes an essential feature of hesychast theology in the late middle ages.
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The paper presents an analysis of the impact that the apocalyptic texts had in the Serbian environment in the 15th and 16th centuries, a period which saw an increasingly important re-actualization of prophetic texts—most of all those attributed to Methodius of Patara and Leo the Wise—characteristic of the time of the fall of the Byzantine Empire and the subsequent Venetian plans for the colonization of the late medieval Mediterranean. In view of the changed historical situation as a result of Ottoman expansion, the purpose of the new versions of prophetic texts, particularly popular in the 16th century, was to foretell the future or second coming of the last liberator king who would re-establish the empire of the Rhomaioi. It was at that time that Byzantine apocalyptic literature rode a new wave of popularity, and that illuminated prophetic manuscripts were created in monastic scriptoria in the conquered Serbian lands. It was no accident that one such manuscript could be found at the monastery of Mileševa, just as it is not surprising that this particular milieu, where the tomb of St. Sava of Serbia was enshrined and which, consequently, was the focus of his cult, attributed the authorship of the prophecy to St. Sava. The paper offers the analysis of a report of Cornelius Duplicius Schepper, the imperial secretary and envoy of the Viennese court, claiming that he saw an illuminated Slavic manuscript of prophecies attributed to St. Sava at Mileševa in 1533. There is no doubt that the manuscript related the prophecy of the fall of Constantinople, because it contained the illustration of a city with seven towers (“seven hills”) and an iron gate. The chancellor also mentions illuminations depicting a fox, an eagle, a crowned lion, and a ship carrying the emperor and soldiers. This incidental information about the now lost manuscript suggests echoes of Pseudo-Methodius’s prophecies or the Oracles of Leo the Wise, whose Slavic translations are known to have appeared quite early. The Mileševa apocalyptic manuscript arose against the background of an already developed literary and genre tradition of prophecy and related writings such as “lamentations” and prayers which contained prophetic elements, possibly in emulation of popular Byzantine models. The earliest illustrations of prophetic texts about the end of the world do not appear until the second half of the 15th century, usually in Late Byzantine manuscripts. The best example is a rare 16th century manuscript kept at the Biblioteca Marciana (gr. VII, 22), a singular compilation of various Byzantine apocalyptic narratives. The text contains 410 illuminations, which are relevant to the topic discussed here insofar as they may shed some light on the enigmatic manuscript referred to by Schepper. Namely, the surviving compilations of Byzantine prophetic texts show that illustrated texts of this type are rare and relatively late, or not earlier than the time of Schepper’s visit to Mileševa. For several reasons, the centre of their origin was certainly Venice, with which Mileševa maintained special relations. As early as the 1530s, which is the time of Schepper’s visit, Božidar Vuković, a publisher and printer who had started his Venetian printing house in 1519, was in close contact with the monastery through its monks. The manuscript known to us only from Schepper’s report may have been the result of direct contact with Venetian models, which, by the way, were widespread in the Venetian colonies in Greece, notably Crete and Cyprus. The 16th century saw the emergence of a number of pseudo-prophetic texts accommodated to the political plans of the Habsburg and Hungarian courts. One of them, known as the Prognosticon, penned by the court astrologer of Matthias Corvinus at about the time of Schepper’s visit to Mileševa (1534), was focused on recent events such as the Ottoman conquest of Belgrade and Rhodes, the fall of Hungary and the failed siege of Vienna. An inevitable subject matter of the illustrations of prophecies created at the scriptoria such as that at Mileševa is the Pseudo-Methodian theme of the fall of the “city of seven hills”, which assumed layered meanings in the given context. Essentially, it is the archetypal Christian fortress which, in the reality of the 1530s, seemed increasingly close to the popular apocalyptic vision
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In this article, we deal with the poetry of M. Divković, which was published in Nauk krstjanski (1616). Divković’s poetry is closely related to the Croatian mediaeval literary and linguistic heritage, because Divković adapted many texts from the earlier Croatian literature into the Bosnian enviroment: it is possible to fi nd exact or approximate sources. Divković’s sources of mediaeval texts originated from the South-Čakavian area (from Zadar to Split), which was literary less active than the North-Čakavian area in the Middle Age. The Cyrillic orthography in Divković’s poetry was heavily infl uenced by the Latin script, and the language of mediaeval Čakavian texts was adapted to the Štokavian literary language by Divković.
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Proper names are among oldest language monuments. Divković’s work represents a suitable corpus for onomastic research since, being a part of Franciscan production, it had its share in the process of standardization of the Croatian language to the Stokavian base. Since the texts of the Divković’s work are mostly translational and compilatory, proper names – mostly hagionym – are elaborated from the language –in- contact point of view, while the foreign name, that is a Croatianized name, is called a model, i.e. a replica. The analysis results demonstrate limitation in the adjustment of foreign names while an advance towards writer’s freedom diverts to the possibility of adopting Italian reading in phonological adjustment of proper names.
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Bosanski franjevac fra Matija Divković (1563.-1631.) tiskao je svoja djela u Veneciji (Mlecima) i to, kako se tvrdi u naslovu Nauka karstianskoga iz 1611. “za narod slovinski”. Veneciju stoga prepoznajemo kao produkcijski kontekst njegovih djela u tiskarskom smislu, dok se recepcija tih djela događa uglavnom na istočnoj obali Jadrana i pripadajućem kontinentu, kako među ondašnjim običnim vjernicima u tom prostoru kao krajnjim recipijentima njegovih tekstova, tako i među današnjim proučavateljima i čitateljima. Recepcijski vid i kontekst Divkovićeva rada dosad je zadobio bitno više pozornosti proučavatelja raznih profi la od tiskarskog do produkcijskog. Ovaj rad stoga želi biti prinos istraživanju produkcijskoga konteksta Divkovićevih djela i to u bibliografskom smislu. Venecija je u Divkovićevo doba bila međunarodno tiskarsko središte. Stoga se najprije promatra stanje u venecijanskom tiskarstvu, a potom se u vidu uzorka izlučuju bibliografski podaci o hrvatskim knjigama tiskanim u Veneciji te promatraju kao izabrani bibliografski nacionalni kontekst Divkovićevih tiskanih knjiga u razdoblju 1596.-1653. Primjenjuju se kriteriji za odabir građe hrvatske retrospektivne bibliografije: autor, jezik teritorij. Izabrana zbirka knjiga popisuje se i analizira s gledišta prinosa pojedinih venecijanskih tiskara njezinu nastanku, potom s obzirom na njihov sadržaj i naposljetku imajući u vidu prinos pojedinih autora. Pri tom se nastoji odrediti i vrednovati Divkovićevo mjesto u tom kontekstu.
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Na znanstvenom skupu u povodu 350. obljetnice smrti Matije Divkovićeva 1981., govorili smo o temi “Provincija Bosna Srebrena u vrijeme Matije Divkovića (1563.-1631.).”1 Pripremajući Povijest kršćanstva u Bosni i Hercegovini,2 došli smo do svih relevantnih izvora o toj temi, pa ćemo ovdje nešto više govoriti o pisanim i tiskanim izvorima s kraja XVI. i početka XVII. stoljeća. Naime, mišljenja smo da, dok u Bosni i Hercegovini obilježavamo četiristotu obljetnicu Nauku krstjanskog prvotiska na narodnom jeziku i bosanici, korisno je predstaviti, barem informativno, one kojima je to djelo poglavito bilo namijenjeno.
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The frequently asked question about the start of the Czech underground movement can’t be answered without a definition of what the “underground” actually is. The discussion of this definition, however, still hasn’t concluded. I recently criticized Ivan Martin Jirous (Magor) for stressing too much in his Report on the Third Czech Musical Revival – probably under the influence of the Knights of the Cross School – the role of artists as an element forming the underground community. I had prepared an argument that the underground community, as evidenced by time, was (is) rather composed of individuals who didn’t (don’t) have artistic ambitions. But Magor disarmed me before I could use them by saying: Alright, I was wrong. I wrote it in 1975. So it is quite obvious that any definition will have to assume that there is no underground without freaks.
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Bosna Srebrena u XVIII. stoljeću proživljava put nove prilagodbe nakon dubokih promjena izazvanih austrijsko-osmanskim ratom 1683-1699. Demografske promjene zahvatile širok prostor od Bosne preko Slavonije do Ugarske. Na poseban način to je pogodilo katoličko stanovništvo i franjevce, odnosno onaj dio Bosne Srebrene što se prostirao u granicama današnje Bosne i Hercegovine. Veći dio katolika, više desetaka tisuća, izbjegao je iz Bosne u Prekosavlje ili Dalmaciju, brojne župe su nestale kao što je iščeznuo i niz samostana. Od onih brojnih franjevačkih samostana iz sredine XV. stoljeća (njih više desetaka), u osmanskoj Bosni ostala su na vidiku samo tri s tridesetak franjevaca: u Kraljevoj Sutjesci, Fojnici i Kreševu. Broj se katolika smanjio na dvadesetak tisuća, što je bio njihov najveći demografski pad od osmanskog osvojenja Bosne. No, slijedi vrijeme njihova ponovnog oživljavanja. Cijelo XVIII. stoljeće bit će zapravo stoljeće relativno uspješnog demografskog oporavka katolika, uglavnom prirodnim priraštajem ali i doseljavanjem. Zapravo bilo je to izdizanje iz pepela. Tako će se od onih dvadesetak tisuća katolika s početka stoljeća, njihov broj, u vrijeme službovanja fra Marka Dobretića šezdesetih i sedamdesetih godina, u osmanskoj Bosni povećati više od tri puta, a i broj će se bosanskih franjevaca višestruko uvećati. Demografski oporavak, koji se pokazao samo u tijeku nekoliko desetljeća, u svakom je pogledu respektabilan.
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Kronike ili ljetopisi čine jednu od najkarakterističnijih formi očuvane historiografske literature katoličke provenijencije. One nastaju kronološkim zapisivanjem važnih događaja iz godine u godinu, i sistematiziranjem izlaganja prema strogoj kronološkoj maniri bez obaveze da se opisani događaji vezuju na uzročno posljedičan način. Iako se razlikuju po namjeni ipak se generalno mogu podijeliti na opće, lokalne i lične, a informacije koje nude uglavnom su šture i kratke, i to prvenstveno zbog toga što im osnovni zadatak u biti i nije da daju iscrpan, nego tek uopćen pregled svjetske ili regionalne povijesti.
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Nakon vrlo burnih povijesnih zbivanja krajem 17. stoljeća, posebno nakon austrijsko-turskoga rata (1683-1699), prodora princa Eugena Savojskoga sve do Sarajeva (1697) te karlovačkoga mira (1699) franjevačka redodržava Bosna Srebrena iznenada se našla u trima državama: u Mletačkoj Republici (veći dio Dalmacije), u Habsburškoj Monarhiji (krajevi sjeverno od Save) i u Turskoj Carevini (Bosna i Hercegovina). Posljedica je toga da se od Bosne Srebrene odcjepljuju najprije samostani koji su se našli u Mletačkoj Republici (1735), a zatim i samostani sjeverno od Save (1757). I situacija u samoj Bosni i Hercegovini tragična je. Većina je samostana porušena, spaljena i/ili iseljena tako da njihov broj u samoj Bosni naglo pada sa deset na tri (Kraljeva Sutjeska, Kreševo i Fojnica), i tako će uglavnom ostati sve do polovice 19. stoljeća.
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Besides Bishop fra Marijan Šunjić, the central figure in the Travnik region in the 19th century was fra Jako Baltić (1813-1887). He spent two years in Istanbul, but the whole rest of his life he spent in the region of the Fojnica Monastery: in Fojnica, Brestovsko, Kotor Varoš, Vitez, Dolac and Ovčarevo. When it was possible for him, in addition to his other obligations, for some forty years took notes on the area life and so he created most important annals in the 19th century. The Annals reflect how he was well educated, talented and an engaged Franciscan. In his Annals he follows the life of the Franciscan community, political and social occurrences. There are many data on the life of the common people, important persons, economy, education, and cultural monuments. Baltić wrote his Annals without fear of public opinion, but courageously and decisively he represented his experiences and views. He did it to enable to his co-friars to have broader insights in local history and to learn from these experiences. Many writings in his Annals are related to the last decades of Ottoman rule in Bosnia and Herzegovina, but the life and behavior of the people in the region Travnik over and above all was preferred.
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In the following text I’ll try to do the impossible: review Yugoslavia from the perspective of “memory studies” – currently a very invigorating interdisciplinary branch at the productive intersection of historical anthropology, the sociology of time, cultural studies and transition studies. Already at the outset, one encounters a series of problems. Namely, which Yugoslavia to review? The Yugoslavia from the time of the Karađorđević dynasty (1918–1941)? Tito’s (1945–1991) or Milosevi ’s (1992–2006) Yugoslavia? Should all three be reviewed at once? What kind of memory will be considered: collective or personal? Cultural or political? Or memory based on memoirs – that much-loved but factually unreliable literary form? Will the subject-matter be based on offcial, that is, institutionalized memory, or unoffcial, minority memory: established or subversive? Oral, written, recorded, engraved in monuments and memorials, or memory on the Internet, in the social media? Memory from first-hand or second-hand accounts or those passed-on, retrieved, “inherited”? And should these include the subjects of nostalgia and anti-nostalgia, bitter-sweet, heavy and traumatic memories? Retro and reproductive cultures, which in current cultural forms elicit traces of memory of previous times? Spontaneous amnesia or its opposite – contrived and systematic amnesia? Memories as a means of emancipation?
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In this paper the author discusses Sufi authors in the period from 10thto 12th centuries. He considers that this period in the history of Sufi literature is a turning point in history of Islamic spiritual culture, a period of change and a time of the ‘’authorization’’ of Sufism. In this aspect,he mentions Sufi chronicles that were crucial for the mentioned period,such as: Al-Saraj’s Kitab al-Luma’, Kalabadi’s Al-Ta’arruf li-madhab al-Tasawwuf, Al-Makki’s Qut al-Qulub, Al-Hujwiri’s Kashf al-Mahjub, etc. These and some other works that were not mentioned, written as Sufi chronicles,are considered by the author as the fundamental literature of Sufi literature of the mentioned period. The author then compares the authors of the mentioned Sufi chronicles with biographies written about them in the Mamluk period. He especially points out biography under the title Tabaqatal-Awliya’ al-Kubra by ‘Abd al-Wahhab al-Sha’rani.
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