Извън границите на средновековното общество

Author(s): Desislava Naydenova / Language(s): Bulgarian,Old Slavonic,Old Bulgarian Issue: 63-64/2021

Recently, the question of shaping identity and the perception of “the other” (by this term are commonly embraced not only foreigners, but also individuals, social groups and minorities, characterised by a certain degree of abnormality, marginality and exclusion) has become an increasingly popular topic for the researchers of the Middle Ages. This paper seeks to present translations of some Slavonic texts included in the so-called Nomokanon of Pseudo-Zonaras, a canon-law compilation from the beginning of the fourteenth century, that change, through the imposition of penances, the social status of groups and individuals, placing them in a marginal, intermediate, isolated position. The study shows that heretics and members of other religions such as Latins, Armenians, Jews, Muslims most clearly stand out as a group that could be defined as “the others”. Unambiguous and strictly regulated red lines were drawn between them and the Orthodox Christians that should not be violated, since those, who crossed them, were othered, marginalised, seen as outsiders to society. These were conditioned by rules that can be divided thematically into three groups: 1) applying to those who accept another’s faith, 2) relating to food prohibitions, and 3) governing mixed-faith marriages.

Кратко историческо описание на cветата Велеградска митрополия от Антим Алексудис и сведенията за св. Седмочисленици в него

Author(s): Evgeni Zashev / Language(s): Bulgarian,Greek, Modern (1453-) Issue: 63-64/2021

This paper seeks to present the notes and references to the Seven Slavic Saints in the work by Anthimos Alexoudis, Bishop of Berat, published in 1868 under the title “Σύντομος ἱστορικὴ περιγραφὴ τῆς Ίερᾶς Μητροπόλεως Βελεγραδῶν καὶ τῆς ὑπὸ τὴν πνευματικὴν αὐτῆς δικαιοδοσίαν ὑπαγομένης χώρας”. A short biography of the author is provided to trace his education and career as a clergyman close to the Oecumenical Patriarchate. Particular attention is paid to his research interests in the fields of palaeography, epigraphy and church history by offering a bibliographic description of his most important works. In order to reveal the genesis of bishop Anthimos’s interest in the life’s work of the Holy Heptarithmoi (the Seven Slavic Saints), an attempt is made to reconstruct various aspects of the spiritual atmosphere in the diocese of Berat relating to the Slavic enlighteners: oral tradition, religious services and church representations. A brief overview of the contents of Anthimos Alexoudis’ book is placed within that cultural-historical context. It is noted that in his work the clergyman mentions the Seven Saints three times – in the seventh, eighth and tenth chapters – and the relevant excerpts are translated into Bulgarian. Attention is also paid to the fact that the bishop has committed himself to the preservation of the relics believed to have belonged to Sts Gorazd and Angelarius: a reliquary was made for the purpose with the costs covered by the metropolitan church. In conclusion, it is emphasised that the book by Anthimos Alexoudis testifies to the fact that one century after abolishing the autocephaly of the Archbishopric of Ochrid and placing its diocese under the jurisdiction of the Oecumenical Patriarchate, the memory of the life’s work of the Seven Saints was infallibly kept alive in the furthermost south-western regions. In the diocese of Berat there were two traditions of commemorating and celebrating these saints in the eighteenth and the ninetenth centuries: in Berat their feast day fell on 26 November; and in Moscopole their feast day fell on 17 July. Influenced by the then available Greek sources, by the oral tradition and by his own impressions, Anthimos Alexoudis composed a “Beratocentric” narrative about the life’s work of the Seven Saints, where he showed himself to be sympathetic both to the facts of the Bulgarian history and toward the contemporary Bulgarians, whom he called “our brethren in Christ”.

The Eucharistic Dove: Considerations on the Meaning of Two Balkan Examples

Author(s): Anita Paolicchi / Language(s): English Issue: 63-64/2021

This essay presents two bird-shaped Eucharistic containers (“doves”), originally belonging to Orthodox foundations in South-Eastern Europe. In Western Europe, the use of eucharistic doves is confirmed by the conspicuous number of examples, survived to the passing of time and preserved in various medieval art collections, both in Europe and in the United States. On the other hand, the scarcity of attestations of objects with this form in use in Eastern-rite churches has not so far allowed to verify their diffusion, nor to define a possible evolution in comparison to the Western examples: despite the ancient sources offering interesting starting points for the research, their use in the Eastern Orthodoxy has not been the subject of intense investigation until now. These two examples possibly mark the two ends of a presumably long tradition of bird-shaped Eucharistic containers in the Orthodox world, and their introduction in the art historical literature represents a starting point for future investigations.

Красимир Станчев. Исследования в области средневековой литературы православного славянства. Kraków, 2012 (Krakowsko-Wileńskie Studia Slawistyczne, 7). 325 p. ISBN 978-83-60163-88-7

Author(s): Maria Yovcheva / Language(s): Bulgarian Issue: 63-64/2021

Службата за св. Петка Търновска (Параскева Епиватска) с неизвестен канон за четвърти глас в ръкописи от ХVІ–ХVІІ в. от Народната библиотека във Варшава

Author(s): Radoslava Stankova / Language(s): Bulgarian,Old Bulgarian Issue: 65-66/2022

This article examines a version of the office for St Petka of Tarnovo (Paraskeve of Epibatai) in Cyrillic manuscripts of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries kept in the National Library of Poland, which contains a canon in the fourth tone that is unknown in South Slavic manuscripts of previous centuries. In the manuscripts with copies of the office under review, one finds hymnographic components of the earliest office in Dragan’s Menaion (the kathisma, kontakion, oikos and photagogikon, the stichera for Great Vespers and the three stichera of the Lauds), but the canons in this office are different from the canon in Dragan’s Menaion. The first canon in this office is from the so-called Vidin (Bdin) office for St Petka of Tarnovo and the motif of the translation of her relics is mentioned in it for the first time, while the second canon is in the fourth tone. In structural and textological terms, the office under review here contains new hymnographic components that are not known in South Slavic copies. The present study is based on ten manuscripts in the National Library in Warsaw. For the time being, it is difficult to determine when and where this office for St Petka was written and translated, and how it reached the Kingdom of Poland. One can only assume that it was written on the occasion of the deposition of the saint’s relics in a church dedicated to her in the sixteenth century (perhaps in Constantinople) and subsequently translated, I believe, most probably in Romania, in connection with the final deposition of her relics. There is no doubt that the canon in the fourth tone and the whole office were written specifically for a church dedicated to the venerable saint. An Appendix presents the text of the office as copied in a sixteenth-century manuscript, Akc. 2855, in the National Library in Warsaw.

Места на паметта за св. Горазд и св. Ангеларий в гр. Берат (Албания)

Author(s): Evgeni Zashev / Language(s): Bulgarian Issue: 65-66/2022

This article examines various lieux de mémoire associated with St Gorazd and St Angelarius in the city of Berat (Belograd, Velagrad, Velegrad or Albanian Belgrade), in order to highlight the place and role of the memory of these two disciples of Cyril and Methodius in the process of the emergence and institutionalization of the cult of the Holy Heptarithmoi (the Seven Slavic Saints). Its objects of study are oral lore about the relics of St Gorazd and St Angelarius, and the artefacts and written monuments attesting to the veneration of these saints. The various sources presented here categorically attest that in the eighteenth–nineteenth centuries, and perhaps quite earlier, the memory of St Gorazd and St Angelarius was venerated in Berat. This memory was most probably entirely post-biographical and had mixed (folk and literary) origins, based on their supposed relics. It is the connection with these relics that unites a series of lieux de mémoire which, arranged in chronological order, look like this: Berat (Venetian) office for the Seven Slavic Saints with a canon dedicated to St Gorazd and St Angelarius (1720); an icon of the Seven Slavic Saints representing the assumption of St Gorazd and St Angelarius (1812–1814); two reliquaries in the shape of shoes, one of them dedicated to St Angelarius (1823); A Brief Historical Overview of the Holy Metropolitanate of Velehrad by Anthimos Alexoudis, indicating the church of the Dormition of the Theotokos in Berat as the place where the relics of St Gorazd and St Angelarius were preserved (1868); a second icon of the Seven Slavic Saints representing the assumption of St Gorazd and St Angelarius (1873); a silver-plated reliquary from the church of the Dormition of the Theotokos in Berat. The hypothesis is presented that the meaningful framework uniting those lieux de mémoire is a local oral narrative that is partially reconstructed. The interpretation of the sources listed and of the links between them points to the conclusion that the “relics” of St Gorazd and St Angelarius were the material basis for the construction of a local tradition of veneration which, in turn, formed the core of the cult of the Seven Slavic Saints that was institutionalized in the early eighteenth century. These relics are the sacred centre around which the memory of the seven Slavic enlighteners was organized in Berat and its surroundings – a cult that was to be gradually freed from this dependence, as the chronologically second Moscopole office for the Seven Saints shows, and to become part of Bulgarian Revival culture.

Покръстването на българите в една барокова музикална драма от Виена

Author(s): Slavia Barlieva / Language(s): Bulgarian Issue: 65-66/2022

From the Middle Ages to the Modern Age and its Age of Enlightenment, the conversion to Christianity is the most common motif in Western historical sources about Bulgarian history. Baroque literature does not deviate from this tradition and frequently uses this motif – in hagiographic, homiletic, and very often in dramatic works performed in educational institutions of the Jesuit Order. This article presents a musical drama titled The Fruitful, Free and Wonderful Baptism by God’s Providence of Bogor, King of the Moesians that was performed on an uncertain date in 1716 at the Royal Academic Jesuit College in Vienna. Twenty-three dramatic works of the eighteenth century, dedicated to the Bulgarian Christianization, were known until now. They have been investigated and published by Nadezhda. Andreeva in 2004. The play introduced here is another one, the earliest drama on the subject. It is a musical work composed by Johann Georg Reinhart, a well-known court musician in Vienna. The author of the text is unknown. The play has come down to us in the form of a booklet, called in the Baroque theatrical tradition periocha, containing a bilingual Latin-German summary of the drama. The booklet contains nineteen pages: an Argumentum in Latin with parallel content (Geschichts-Inhalt) in German, as well as a bilingual prologue, three acts, and an epilogue. Between the acts are two chorus parts, also bilingual. The narrative is indicated as being based on the Chronicles of Sigebert of Gembloux and Skylitzes–Kedrenos. The periocha presented here does not list all dramatis personae, noting only some of them. Still, the number of participants in the performance speaks of a monumental spectacle: 187 participants are listed by name in the cast list, along with their nationality, status, and profession or faculty. Through participation in the musical drama about the Bulgarian conversion to Christianity, the educated Baroque public acquired knowledge, albeit with quite a few historical errors, that represented the Bulgarians as bearers of the values of Christian Europe. The article concludes with an Appendix containing a Bulgarian translation of the Latin text of the periocha.

Psalterium Demetrii Sinaitici (Monasterii Sanctae Catharinae Codex Slav. 3/N) Adiectis Foliis Medicinalibus. Wien, 2012; Psalterium Demetrii Sinaitici et Folia Medicinalia (Monasterii Sanctae Catharinae Codex Slavicus NF 3). Wien, 2021.

Author(s): Lora Taseva / Language(s): Bulgarian Issue: 65-66/2022

В. Б. Крысько, В. Хок. Мучение Ирины. Византийское житие в старославянском переводе. Издание. Исследование. Указатели. Москва–Санкт-Петербург: Нестор-История, 2021. 344 с., 87 фотокопии. ISBN 978-5-4469-2024-2

Author(s): Tatyana Slavova / Language(s): Bulgarian Issue: 65-66/2022

Dorotei Getov. Capita Ascetica Serdicensia (an Early Byzantine Anthology of Christian Precepts): a Critical Edition of the Greek Text with an Introduction and English Translation. Leuven: Peeters, 2021. 212 рр. (Spicilegium Sacrum Lovaniense: Études

Author(s): Tsvetan Vasilev / Language(s): Bulgarian Issue: 65-66/2022

Бойка Мирчева. Славянски кирило-методиевски извори. Интерфейс и графичен дизайн: Alike Studio. София: Кирило-Методиевски научен център, 2021. https://www.kmnc.bg/издания/е-книги/; https://cyrmet-sl.kmnc.bg/. ISBN 978-954-9787-51-1

Author(s): Neli Gancheva / Language(s): Bulgarian Issue: 65-66/2022

Публикации по старобългарска литература и култура, излезли в България през 2021 г.

Author(s): Adelina Germanova / Language(s): Bulgarian Issue: 65-66/2022

The 25 September Commemoration of Martyr Romanus in Slavic Menologies

Author(s): Cynthia M. Vakareliyska / Language(s): English,Greek, Ancient (to 1453),Old Slavonic Issue: 67-68/2023

The subject of the article is a menology commemoration on 25 September for a St. Romanus who is identified only as a martyr. The commemoration appears in the earliest extant Slavic menologies, and in a number of later South and East Slavic menologies up through the 14th century. The article traces the commemoration back to its earliest extant Slavic witnesses, looking at earlier Greek witnesses and Latin and Syriac sources, and examines the implications of its careful preservation for our understanding of the compilation and preservation of calendars of saints, not only in the Slavic tradition, but in the Greek, Latin, and Syriac traditions also.

Още един фрагмент от Жеравненския постен и цветен триод

Author(s): Elissaveta Moussakova / Language(s): Bulgarian Issue: 67-68/2023

The Zheravna Triodion is a late thirteenth- or early fourteenth-century fragmented manuscript well known to scholarship. Three of its fragments, those kept in the National Library in Sofia – NBKM 574, NBKM 935, NBKM 1379 – make up a total of 20 folios. Another five fragments have found their way to the libraries in St Petersburg: three of them are in the Library of the Russian Academy of Sciences and two in the National Library of Russia. A search in the digital library of the Ivan Vazov National Library in Plovdiv has led to the discovery of yet another fragment of the manuscript, apparently previously unidentified by researchers. This article provides a brief description of the new fragment whose history remains obscure. In addition, an attempt is made to shed a little more light on the history of the fragments and, in particular, of the Sofia fragment NBKM 1379, in which an inscription of 1839 has not been the subject of much attention until now. The author offers some observations, on the basis of which it is assumed that the fragment was in the possession of Father Neophyte of Rila, or that it was at his disposal at least for some time.

The Slavonic Translation of the Introduction to Isaac of Nineveh’s Sermones Ascetici (The Epigramma on Silence, Stillness, and the Quiet Life)

Author(s): Ivan P. Petrov / Language(s): English,Greek, Ancient (to 1453),Old Slavonic,Old Bulgarian Issue: 67-68/2023

This article introduces into scientific circulation the Homily on Silence, Stillness, and the Quiet Life, an anonymous text that appeared around the mid-fourteenth century in part of the codices containing the Greek translation of the ascetical homilies (Sermones ascetici) of Isaac the Syrian, Bishop of Nineveh. In a Slavonic environment, this homily began to be used as an introduction in all the lists of the so-called Second Translation of the works of Isaac the Syrian. The Slavonic translation itself, Middle Bulgarian, demonstrates the literal adherence to the Greek original that is typical of the period. Its text is published as a diplomatic edition based on the copy dated 1381 and kept at the Holy Trinity-St Sergius Lavra, collated with another nine of the twelve known copies of the homily. The cases in which the Slavonic text differs from the Greek are presented and commented upon, assuming that the translation was made from a Greek Vorlage differing from the Greek text we know today (which has no critical edition, since the Greek tradition of this homily has not been studied). On the basis of the lexical variants between the Slavonic copies, some preliminary relationships within the Slavonic tradition are formulated that can be used in further work with the witnesses of the Second Slavonic Translation of Isaac the Syrian.

Един щрих към книжовния живот на Сер в 60-те г. на ХІV в.: съчинението на придворният философ кир Теодор Педиасим за нимбовете

Author(s): Nina Gagova / Language(s): Bulgarian Issue: 67-68/2023

In the first part of the article, the extant scarce, and mostly indirect data about literary life in Serres during the Serbian domination in the region between 1345 and 1371 are collected and analyzed. An overview of the administrative policy of the Serbian rulers and the dynamics of the ecclesiastical subordination of the dioceses of the Serres region is offered, as well as of the donation activity of the important families and the influence of the proximity to Mount Athos and of the spread of Hesychasm. The importance is shown of Serres as a political and spiritual centre in the period under review – a centre where a lively exchange of theological ideas, cultural models, and texts took place, and where the paths of some of the most prominent representatives of the political and cultural elite of the Balkans in the fourteenth century crossed. The possibility that there was a Slavic literary centre in Serres is discussed through an analysis of the connections with other manuscripts and centres of several manuscripts certainly or presumably produced in Serres: The Four Gospels of metropolitan Jacob of Serres, 1354 (British Library, Add. MS 39626), and two autographs of the Slavonic translations prepared in the same literary circle – the Corpus of Pseudo-Dionysios Aeropagite with the commentaries by Maximos the Confessor, 1371, made by the elder Isaiah on commission of metropolitan Theodosios of Serres (RNB, Gilf. 46), and the Homilies of Gregory Palamas and Barlaam of Calabria, made by two anonymous translators (Deč. 88). The conclusion is drawn on the basis of the analysis, that at least two literary phenomena representative of the fourteenth century were very probably related to Serres (without being precisely localized): 1) the group of luxurious Bulgarian and Serbian manuscripts of the 1340s–1360s, related to the Four Gospels of metropolitan Jacob of Serres; 2) the translation circle of the elder Isaiah and his colleagues in which Gilf. 46 and Deč. 88 were produced, each of them containing the Slavonic translation of a work by a contemporary Byzantine author associated with Serres (Theodore Pediasimos and George Glabas).The second part of the article is dedicated to the text of one Byzantine philosopher working in Serres about the mid-fourteenth century – Theodore Pediasimos’s Theorems on the Nimbi of the Saints, whose translation (an excerpt from the Greek text) is a unique example of the Byzantine genre for the Slavonic repertoire, and whose presence as an appendix to the Areopagite Corpus raises interesting questions regarding the adaptation of Byzantine philosophical concepts relevant to it in a South Slavic environment. The content of the complete Greek text is presented together with some of its commentaries in the scholarly literature and a brief analysis of the Slavonic translator’s selection. The Appendix offers a translation of the Slavonic text into modern Bulgarian, based on its earliest copy (RGB, f. 173, No. 144), together with a digital copy of the manuscript text.

Проекции на старобългарската преводна проза: За злите жени в Хилендарския сборник 466 от XV в.

Author(s): Mariyana Tsibranska-Kostova / Language(s): Bulgarian,Old Slavonic Issue: 67-68/2023

This article examines and offers a typeset edition of the Sermon against Evil Women in Hilandar monastic miscellany HM. SMS 466 of the 1420s. The copy shows a textual proximity to the earliest textual prototype in the eleventh-century Miscellany of Tsar Simeon (Izbornik of 1073), and linguistic changes at least some of which can be linked to the literary trends on Mount Athos or in the contact areas in the Balkans under the direct influence of Mount Athos in the early fifteenth century. A range of lexical variants between the two main sources is analyzed in the article. On the threshold of the changing cultural and historical context on the Balkans under Ottoman rule, miscellanies such as HM. SMS 466 became anthologies of South Slavic literature. Zones of strong Athonite influence were formed around Kratovo, Kosovo, Morava, the lands north of Skopje, and the dioceses of the Archbishopric of Ohrid, which sustained Slavic-Byzantine literary interactions. The author attempts to answer the question of what place the Sermon against Evil Women had in the overall compiling conception of miscellany HM. SMS 466.

Още веднъж за култа към св. Еразъм Охридски (Формийски) в източната и западната християнска традиция

Author(s): Boyka Mircheva / Language(s): Bulgarian Issue: 67-68/2023

Международна научна конференция „Учителното евангелие на Константин Преславски и южнославянските преводи на хомилетични текстове (IX–XIII в.): Филологически и интердисциплинарни ракурси“. София, 25–27 април 2023 г.

Author(s): Ivan P. Petrov / Language(s): Bulgarian Issue: 67-68/2023

Живот на богоозарен откривател: проф. д.ф.н. Георги Попов (1943–2023)

Author(s): Regina Koycheva / Language(s): Bulgarian Issue: 67-68/2023