Codex Suprasliensis 070811 PDF
Codex Suprasliensis 070811 PDF
Codex Suprasliensis 070811 PDF
The Tenth-Century
Old Bulgarian
Manuscript
Codex
Suprasliensis
in the Context
of Byzantine-
Slavonic
Relationships
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Contents
of Codex
Suprasliensis
On the orders of the Roman Emperor Maximian
(c.250-310) St Paul and his sister St Juliana
were beaten with red-hot bars, their bodies
were burnt with candles, their wounds were
salted, they were also thrown in ice-cold water
and burnt at the stake. Angels deprived those
who dared to violate Juliana of their sight
(Martyrdom of SS Paul and Juliana, 4 March).
St Basiliscus was forced to wear boots full of
nails and the soil under his feet was soaked
with blood. Fire from heaven burnt the temple
of Apollo and the tree that was revived by the
saint began to heal the people (Martyrdom of
St Basiliscus, 5 March).
The Arabs tortured the Forty-two martyrs for
their Christian faith and threw their bodies into
the river Euphrates. God reunited the martyrs’
heads and bodies and the Christians buried
them with honour (Martyrdom of SS Forty-Two
Martyrs of Amorium, 7 March).
The Roman emperor Licinius I (308-324)
The Holy 40 Martyrs cruelly punished forty of his brave soldiers
martyred of Sebaste because they refused to worship the pagan
Staatliche Museen. Berlin, gods and to renounce their faith in Jesus Christ.
10th c. During the night they were thrown into an ice-
cold lake beside which the torturers build a
warm bath to tempt the Christians. After the
prayers of the victims the water of the lake
warmed up and forty haloes descended from
the sky. The next morning all the soldiers died
at the stake and their bones and their ashes
were thrown in the river. Three days later
the martyrs appeared to Peter, the bishop of
Sebaste, who came to the river together with
all the believers. Then the bones of the martyrs
began shining in the water and the Christians
buried them with great honour.
The vitae of the monastic saints recount
miracles telling about their trials and about
their healing powers. These are the stories
about St Jacob the Monk (without date), St
Gregory the Great (11 March), St Aninas the
The martyrs’ vitae have a dramatic plot Wonderworker (bearing no date), St Paul
revealing the devotion of the first Christians. the Simple (19 March), St John Climacus
They were mercilessly tortured by the (30 March). Representative of the genre is
heathen rulers and stood up for the Christian the miracle with St Gregory and the invisible
faith sacrificing their lives. Typically of the mendicant who put the saint’s philanthropy
hagiographic genre, the vitae abound with and generosity to the test and proclaimed to
miracles made by the saints or by their him God’s will to honour him with the papal
relics. There are plenty of episodes in which throne (Acts of our Holy Father Gregory, Pope
Most of the hagiographic works are vitae of
God eases the sufferings of the martyrs or of Rome).
martyrs from the 3rd-4th centuries, like SS Paul
and Juliana, St Basiliscus, the Forty Martyrs punishes their torturers.
of Sebaste, St Pionius, presbyter of Smyrna,
and some others. Several vitae tell the lives
of saints who lived in the 1st-2nd centuries,
such as St Conon of Isauria, in the 6th-7th
centuries, such as St Gregory the Great, Pope
of Rome, or in the 9th century, like the Forty-
two Martyrs of Amorium. Geographically, the
stories took place in various regions- the
Roman Empire, Asia Minor, Palestine, Egypt,
the present-day Tunisia.
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Contents
of Codex
Suprasliensis
The homilies for the movable feats found in
the Codex Suprasliensis belong to famous
Byzantine authors like St John Chrysostom
(the majority of the texts, only some of
which are really his), St Basil the Great
and Patriarch Photius. Most of the vitae
and homilies for the feasts from Lazarus
Saturday to Good Friday were translated
from Greek in Preslav, but at different times.
Some of the translations retain traces of
earlier periods (Dobrev, Ivan. The Greek
words in the Codex Suprasliensis and the
second revision of the Old Bulgarian liturgical
books // Bălgarski ezik, 28, 1978, 2).
St John Chrysostom (c.340-407) is one of the
Three Holy Hierarchs of the Church, together
with St Gregory Nazianzen and St Basil the
Great. He is the most renowned Christian
St Jonh Chrysostom. St. Basil the Great.
author, orator and preacher. He composed
Wall-painting in the cloister Wall-painting in the church
over 800 works reflecting all aspects of
“Orlitsa”, Rila monastery, “St Demetrios of Thessaloniki”,
theological thought.
1491 Boboshevo, 1487/88
Palaeographic,
Orthographic,
and Linguistic
Features
The Codex Suprasliensis was copied by three
scribes. The main part of the manuscript was
made by Retko. The second copyist wrote
f.129.30 and f.139.9-20. It is supposed that
the text on f.218.8-16 was copied by a third
scribe and was afterwards corrected by Retko.
The manuscript reflects a developed Cyrillic
script system that is characterized by four
letters for nasals (ѧ, ѩ and ѭ after vowels,
® and © after consonants), two jers, special
letters for the jotated vowels ¬, я and ю, and
for the palatal sonorants л† and н†. The most
significant orthographic features are: the
regular etymological use of the letters for the
front and back nasals, an inconsistent norm
for the jer vowels with instances of loss of the
weak jers, the use of е instead of a front jer
(in both roots and suffixes) and of о instead
of a back jer in suffixes only. There are many
instances of omission of l-epentheticum.
After the soft м† and н† either я or э may
be used, and after the soft р† either а, э, or Hand of Retъko
я and either у or ю. The morphology of the
Codex Suprasliensis is characterized by a
high frequency of forms that are typical of
the later stage of the Old Bulgarian literary
language and reflect peculiarities of the
Eastern Bulgarian dialects.
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Editions of
Codex Suprasliensis
Sergej Nikolaevič Sever’janov (1840s–1918) Alfons Marguliés (1897–1928) Thomas A. Lysaght (1928–2010)
Russian palaeographer and specialist in German slavists, a specialist in a comparative A New Zealand palaeoslavist and a specialist
the Old Bulgarian language. Sever’janov Indoeuropean linguistics, in Baltic languages, in Bulgarian studies. He published Codex
made a complete critical edition of the and in Byzantine studies. Zographensis, Evangeliarium Assemani, Codex
Codex Suprasliensis. It contains a detailed A. Marguliés studied the language, the Marianus, an Anthology of the oldest Bulgarian
palaeographical analysis, linguistic orthography and the composition of the texts (Monumenta minora palaeobulgaricae. A
commentaries, a comparison with the Greek Codex Suprasliensis. He considered that the selection of ancient Slav literary monuments:
texts, with Miklosich’s edition, and with other manuscript was copied by Retko c.1010 incorporating monumenta minora
Old Bulgarian sources- Evangeliarium Assemani, somewhere near Panagjurište. According to palaeobulgaricae. 1982), as well as an Old
Codex Marianus, Glagolita Clozianus, the 1073 him the codex was compiled from various Bulgarian dictionary.
Izbornik, and some others. He intended to translations from Greek and had a Cyrillic He is also the author of the Modern English
publish a second volume of the edition with antigraph, which was derived from several translation of the Greek and the Latin sources
a dictionary of the Codex Suprasliensis and protographs, including Glagolitic ones. He of Codex Suprasliensis (English translation of
probably with an index of the Biblical references. also concluded that the dialect of the copyist Greek and Latin source material used in the
The dictionary card-index was once deposited at was Eastern Bulgarian. This scholar made a compilation of Codex Suprasliensis. 1988).
the Rumjancev Museum in Moscow, but was lost considerable contribution to the study of the
and has not been found so far. manuscript.
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The Preslav
Civilisation
in the
Golden Age
Veliki Preslav was the second capital (893-971)
of the Mediaeval Bulgarian state. The town was
founded in the first half of the 9th century during
the reign of Khan Omurtag. In 893 Prince Simeon
I (863/864-913) moved the capital of the First
Bulgarian State to Veliki Preslav.
The written sources describe the magnificent
architecture of Preslav palaces, churches,
monasteries and fortifications, witnessing to
the high level of the city’s material culture. The
Preslav culture and art had their flowering during
the reign of prince Simeon I the Great (893-927)
and it has been proved by archaeological findings
and epigraphic materials discovered after 1897
through the researches of B. Zlatarski, K. Škorpil,
F. Uspenskij, J. Gospodinov, Kr. Mijatev, V. Ivanova-
Mavrodinova, St Vaklinov, T. Totev, P. Georgiev, D.
Ovčarov, K. Popkonstantinov and others.
Prayer in Hippolytus
The Preslav Literary School arose as a result
alphabetical order of Rome.
of important historical events in the second
by Konstantine of Treatise On Christ
half of the 9th century: the Conversion of
Preslav and Antichrist
the Bulgarians to Christianity (864), the
establishment of an independent Bulgarian
bishopric (870), the arrival of SS Cyril and
Methodius’ disciples SS. Clement of Ohrid,
Naum of Ohrid, Gorazd, Sava and Angelarius
in Bulgaria after they were expelled from
Great Moravia. In 893 during the Preslav
Ecclesiastical Council the Old Bulgarian
language was proclaimed an official liturgical
and administrative language. Its role became Miniature of king
comparable with those of Latin in the West and Boris-Michael in
with Greek in the East (Picchio, R. 1981). Učitel’noe evangelie,
In the Preslav monasteries worked the copy of 12th c.
most talented Old Bulgarian authors, like
Constantine of Preslav, Gregory the Presbyter,
John the Presbyter, John the Exarch,
Černorizec Hrabăr and Tudor Doksov. The
Preslav men of letters created an extensive
written heritage that was various in genre and
subject: a) translated literature, embracing
works like St Basil the Great’s Hexaemeron Russian copy of
and St John of Damascus’ On the Orthodox Simeon’s florilegium,
Faith, both translated by John the Exarch, The Izbornik of 1073,
Erotapokriseis of Pseudo-Caesarius, some the images of
florilegia, such as the Izbornik of 1073 and the constellations
Izbornik of 1076, works of the Church Fathers Bulgaria achieved the glory of being the home
Gregory the Theologian, John Chrysostom, of classical Slavonic letters and the Preslav
Ephraem the Syrian, the Gospel commentaries literary centre played a significant role in
in the Učitel’noe evangelie compiled by the history of Slavia Orthodoxa and in the
Constantine of Preslav, some historiographic formation of the Byzantine-Slavonic political,
works, like John Malalas’ Chronicle, monastic religious and cultural commonwealth. The
literature, including The Ladder of Paradise Preslav literary heritage found its way to
by John Climacus, and plenty of hagiographic Kievan Rus’, where the tradition continued
works, some of which can be found in the and the works were copied until up the 15th-
Codex Suprasliensis; b) original writings, like 16th century.
The Alphabetical Prayer, Černorizec Hrabăr’s
treatise On the Letters, the Encomium for Tsar
Simeon in the Izbornik of 1073, the Service for
St Methodius (with an acrostic in the Canon), Russian copy of
the hymnographic works of Constantine of Simeon’s florilegium,
Preslav and many others. Izbornik of 1073
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Further copies
of the Codex The Codex Suprasliensis
Suprasliensis
was a source for further
copies and it was reproduced
in whole or part.
Cheti-Minei (Menologion) for March, 16th Homilies and Sermons by John Chrysostom
c. (Kiev, Central Scientific Library of the (Lenten Zlatoust), 16th c., the first quarter
Ukrainian Academy of Sciences, Institute of (Vilnius, Library of the Lithuanian Academy
Manuscripts, № 117). The manuscript contains of Sciences, F. 19, № 257). The manuscript
texts from the Codex Suprasliensis, though came to the Vilnius Public Library from the
here they are rearranged, as the menaion Monastery of Supraśl. It contains homiletic
part precedes the homiletic one. The copyist works from the Codex Suprasliensis. It forms
archaized the lexis and introduced some the second volume of a Lenten Zlatoust,
orthographic and grammatical changes typical embracing homilies for the period from the
of the Second South Slavonic Influence. It Third Sunday of the Lent to the Sunday of
contains text fragments lost in the Codex St Thomas. The great similarity between
Suprasliensis. (Aitzetmüller R. Eine russisch- the texts in the Vilnius copy and in Codex
kirchenslavische Parallelhandschrift zum aksl. Suprasliensis suggests a direct connection
Codex Suprasliensis: Materialen zu dessen between the two manuscripts or the existence
Textgestalt//Anzeiger für Slavische Philologie. of an intermediary copy (Dobrjanskij F. 1882).
1967-1974).
A Partial manuscript copy from the 19th
century (Vilnius, Library of Lithuanian
Academy of Sciences, F. 19, № 271). It was
made directly from the original manuscript
by its discoverer M. Bobrowski. The copy was
deposited in the Library unbound and together
with the manuscripts from the Monastery of
Homilies and Sermons Supraśl. It originally consisted of 128 leaves,
by John Chrysostom of which 42 were later lost. (Dobrjanskij F.
(Lenten Zlatoust), 16th c. A Catalogue of Manuscripts from the Vilnius
A Partial manuscriptcopy Public Library. Vilnius, 1882).
from the 19th century
Kopitar’s Copy of the Codex Suprasliensis,
1838-1840 (Ljubljana, National and
University Library, Cod. Kop.1). B. Kopitar
copied the entire manuscript together with
the ornamented borders and initials and left
Cheti-Minei (Menologion) his notes in the margins. He also put in his
for March, 16th c. copy blank leaves in place of the missing ones
in the original. F. Miklosich made his edition of
Kopitar’s Copy of the the Codex Suprasliensis (1851) after Kopitar’s
Codex Suprasliensis, copy (Mošin, V. The Kopitar Collection of
1838–1840 Slavonic Manuscripts. Ljubljana, 1971).
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History
of the Text Greek homiliarium,
Church Historical and Archival
Institute No 803, f. 60v, 10th c.
Uspenskij sbornik
from the 12th–13th c.
German’s Miscellany
(1358-59)
When the Codex Suprasliensis was compiled,
all the works included were edited according
to the principles of translation followed by
the Preslav men of letters. For instance, it is
supposed that the Homily for the Annunciation Great Chet’i Menei
was previously translated by St. Clement of of Metropolitan Macarius,
Ohrid. The text in Codex Suprasliensis presents the Freiburg edition
a later version of his translation which
The Codex Suprasliensis is thus a source of
displays features typical of the so-called
primary importance for the development both
Preslav redaction. A more archaic version is to
of the techniques of translation and of the
be found in German’s Miscellany (1358-59).
norms of the Old Bulgarian language of the
The latter became a base for a new (Middle
late 10th century.
Bulgarian) version of the Homily, created by
the Tărnovo men of letters in the 14th century.
Later this version was included in the Great
Chet’i Menei of Metropolitan Macarius.
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Manuscripts indirectly
derived from
the Codex Suprasliensis
The Codex Suprasliensis preserves Byzantine
works, each of which has its own history in the
Slavonic letters. Some of them had a limited
distribution or are known only from the Codex
Suprasliensis. For instance, the Codex contains
the only copy of one of the three Slavonic
translations of the Vita of Gregory the Great.
The second translation dates back to the
same early period. It was made in a monastic
milieu together with the translation of St.
Gregory’s Dialogues, known also as The Roman
Paterikon. The third translation was made by
the Tărnovo men of letters in the 14th century. Glagolita Clozianus,
10th c.
Uspenskij sbornik
from the
12th–13th c.
Grigorović
Homiliarion,
13th c.
St. John Chrysostom’s Homily for Palm The Codex Suprasliensis is a valuable witness
Sunday also has two Old Bulgarian versions. for the history of the large Slavonic calendrical
The earlier is partly preserved in Glagolita collections of vitae and homilies in both the
Clozianus and in two Cyrillic copies – in the Slavonic and Byzantine traditions. Side by side
Bulgarian Grigorović Homiliarion from the with the classical works of the famous writers,
13th century (Russian National Library, f. 87, like St. John Chrysostom, Epiphanius of Cyprus,
18.I), and in a Russian manuscript from the Patriarch Photius, St. Basil the Great, etc. the
first quarter of the 15th century (The Trinity Codex contains separate vitae, some of which
St Sergius Lavra of collection, № 9). A newer have no exact Greek prototypes. Therefore
revision of this translation is included in the the manuscript is a potential source for texts
Codex Suprasliensis and in the Uspenskij that were lost or were not very popular in the
sbornik. Byzantine tradition.
Decoration
of the Codex
Suprasliensis
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’
Suprasl Monastery
The Supraśl Monastery of the
Annunciation is situated on the
River Supraśl near Białystok,
Podlachia, and is one of the six
Orthodox monasteries in Poland.
Old lithograph of
Supraśl monastery,
author K. Konopka
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Izmail I. Sreznevskij Vratoslav Jagic Reihold Trautmann Vaclav Vondrak Nicolaas Van Wijk Emilie Blahova
(1812–1880) (1838 – 1923) (1883–1951) (1859–1925) (1880–1941) (1931–
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The History
of the Codex Suprasliensis
in Slovenia
The Lubljana The appearance of part of the Codex
Suprasliensis in Slovenia is closely connected
part of the Codex with the name of the renowned Slovenian
philologist Bartholomaeus Kopitar. He
Suprasliensis requested M. Bobrowski, the discoverer of the
Codex, to send it to him for studying. Kopitar
initially received the second part of the Codex,
which he copied and returned to Bobrowski.
Later he received the first 118 folia and had
copied them by 1840. For one reason or
another, the Slovenian scholar did not send
back this part of the manuscript. After his
death in 1845 his archives together with the
Codex Suprasliensis were transferred to the
Library of the Ljubljana Lyceum.
Today it is kept at the Manuscript Department
of the National and University Library in
Ljubljana in the Kopitar collection of Slavonic
manuscripts (Cod. Kop. 2). The Ljubljana part
of the Codex was published by F. Miklosich
according to Kopitar’s copy (1851).
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The History
of the Codex Suprasliensis
in Lithuania
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The History
of the Codex Suprasliensis
in Russia The History of the Manuscript in Russia
Codex Suprasliensis,
St Petersburg part
Russian National Library,
St Petersburg, Q.п.I.72
The History
of the Codex Suprasliensis
in Poland
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The Tenth-
Century
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The Tenth-Century
Old Bulgarian Manuscript
Codex Suprasliensis
in The
the Context of was
exhibition
Byzantine-Slavonic
organized with the
Relationships
support of:
United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization
Authors:
Elena Tomova, Maria Yovcheva, Anissava Miltenova
Designer:
Milena Valnarova
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