BULGARIAN-SERBIAN LITERARY AND CULTURAL RELATIONS IN THE CONTEXT OF BYZANTINE CIVILIZATION

У тексту су изнета нека основна запажања о политичким оквирима српско-бугарске културне узајамности тј. хипотетички је сагледана могућа улога политичких односа као чиниоца културног распростирања у оквирима византијске цивилизације, с обзиром на променљиву црквену јурисдикцију и праксу одређеног богослужбеног обреда, римског или византијског. Као начелно повољни оквири за процесе српско-бугарског културног распростирања – тј. деловању кирилометодијевске традиције у ширем смислу – сагледавају се: – у раној фази односа (приближно од 870. до 1019. године) примери духовног и брачног сродства (Петар и Симеон, Самуило и Владимир), кратак период могуће црквене јурисдикције Бугарске над делом српских области (после 923. године), постојање контакне зоне као што је област града Раса (од краја 9. века), посебно после установљења епископије; у међуфази (од 1019. до 1235. године) то се углавном своди на деловање српског владара у Расу као ктитора и покровитеља Цркве у оквирима Охридске архиепископије (последња трећина 12. века); у каснијој фази (после 1219. односно 1235. године) основни повољан оквир представља црквена реорганизација у заједницу помесних православних аутокефалних Цркава која укључује Српску и Бугарску цркву, као и релативно бројни примери брачног сродства српских и бугарских владара, који се интензивирају почев од краја 13. века и задржавају своју важност до времена турских освајања (посебно значајна је епоха Стефана Душана и Ивана Александра), када политички оквир српско-бугарске узајамности нестаје.

The South Slavic translation of the complete version of the Capita de temperantia et virtute (CPG 7862) is attested in more than 40 Bulgarian, Serbian, Russian and Moldavian-Wallachian manuscripts, the earliest from the opening decades of the 14th century. Text-critical research shows two translations (Middle Bulgarian and Serbian from Mount Athos) and one revision of the first translation. Translations circulate from Paroria and Veliko Tarnovo to Mount Athos, to the monasteries of Manasia and Ravanitsa. The ascetic collections in which it is placed are composed of works by Mark the Hermit (4th–5th c.), John the Carpathian (5th c.), John of the Ladder (579–649), Evagrius of Pontus, Nile of Sinai (345–430), and later in compositions together with Diadochus of Photiki (c. 400–c. 486), Thalassius of Libya (c. 590–660), Simeon the New Theologian (949–1022), Nikitas Stetates (1005 – c. 1090), Maximus the Confessor (580–662); after 1340 works by Gregory the Sinaite (c. 1275–1347) are included. The history of the Capita de temperantia in Slavic translation is largely connected with the history of Balkan ascetic literature. I am very grateful for the cooperation of the Hilandar Research Library at The Ohio State University and to the Monks of Hilandar Monastery for giving me the opportunity to work with manuscript copies.

The study examines the model of the establishment of a Serbian political, spiritual and scriptural center in Serres during three decades of Serbian rule (1345–1371). The model is considered against two circumstances: historical – the anathema of the Serbian ruler, patriarch and archbishops, and geographical – the proximity of Serres to Mount Athos and the Bulgarian Empire. There are three important focuses of the work: the Four Gospels of Metropolitan Jacob, the books donated to the Sinai monks and the activity of monk Isai in the circle of secular and ecclesiastical aristocracy in Serres. By pointing out certain characteristics of the book of Metropolitan Jacob, the unique program of the Serbian ruler and the Serbian church is sketched. Although exceptional individuals dedicated to literature stayed in Serres, the connection with the scriptoria on Mount Athos and those in the central part of the Serbian Empire raises the question to what extent we can speak of the existence of a developed Slavic scriptorium in Serres.

The article systematizes and compares the copiеs of two versions of the offices for Petka of Tarnovo (Paraskeve of Epibatai) in Bulgarian and Serbian literature from the 15th to the 17th century. The different editions of the two offices are presented, and based on a study of their composition and structure, it is concluded that their editions are clearly distinguished from each other, and may be to be defined as separate offices. The Vidin office is preserved in copies and editions that occurred in the Vlachian-Moldovan principality, in the Kingdom of Poland and in Russia, while the Serbian office is missing from the manuscripts in the repositories of these lands (i.e. outside the territory of Bulgaria and Serbia). This leads to the assumption that Gregory Tsamblak, who established the cult of the Saint in the northeastern Slavic lands with an Orthodox Christian population, introduced the Vidin office into the liturgy, and it is much more likely that he was the author of the Vidin office for St. Petka of Tarnovo, than the Serbian office.

This article aims at interpreting important features of various literary works by Gregory Tsamblak, from the point of view of rhetorical criticism. Informed by contemporary theories of rhetoric, our interpretation of the selected fragments of thematically and generically diverse Tsamblak’s works indicates the key characteristics of his immensely “rhetorical” poetics.

В статията е направена съпоставката между съдържанието на ръкопис ЦИАИ 182 – Панигирика на дяк Андрей от 1425 г., и още 6 ръкописа, разделени в 3 групи. При съпоставянето на съдържанията на ръкописите, включени в първата група и на тези във втора и трета група се разкриват особеностите на състава на ръкописи, писани с ресавски правопис на Света гора по времето, по което е създаден и Панегирикът на дяк Андрей в Белград при управлението на деспот Стефан Лазаревич (1402–1427) и по нареждане на патриарх Никон, което е отбелязано в приписката към ръкописа.

This article analyzes a text with a list of non-working days of the year published in the Goraždе Psalter with Appendices in 1521. The text consists of three parts. The first and second parts contain the immovable and movable holidays of the year, while the third contains sanctions for believers who do not observe the prescribed holidays. The list includes 102 non-working days per year, including Sundays. Sanctions are both spiritual and secular in nature, and they are formulated differently depending on the social class and status of the offenders. A list of non-working days with sanctions is not commonly a part of a Psalter with Appendices. It is a penitential, not a liturgical feature and has its origins in the Middle Ages. There is a copy of it in an Euchologion with the penitential texts from the early 15th century. We recognize the presence of the list in the Goražde book as part of the editorial work of the printer and hieromonk Teodor Ljubavić. Thanks to the fact that the Goražde printed book was soon afterwards transcribed into a manuscript, we know of two more copies of the Goražde-type lists of non-working days in different liturgical books.

The article offers possible answers to the question of whether the dietary calendars disseminated among the South Slavs in the Late Middle Ages were actually practised or served only for reading. In this connection, it highlights the main specificities in the Byzantine and Slavic cultural contexts within which interest in dieteticons unfolded. On the basis of this comparison, it is suggested that, on Slavic soil, this applied genre may have had mostly symbolic value and that, although it provided a model of a concrete modus vivendi, it was primarily a sign of prestige, a marker of readers’ attitudes and cultural needs. Evidence is drawn from sources that demonstrate that the dietary prescriptions given in these calendars were entirely feasible. At the same time, considering the extant manuscripts, the copyists and, more generally, the spiritual changes that took place in the Late Middle Ages, the reading of dietetic works in this period is interpreted as a socio-cultural phenomenon, as part of a wider self-reflection of the emerging new reader and user.

A Serbian manuscript from the beginning of the 16th century with unique content contains a formulary with templates of letters to high clergy and rulers, which is the earliest known Serbian epistolary. The manuscript is kept at RGADA, Obolensky fund, op. 1, No. 88, ff. 211r–218r. The comparison with other Serbian formularies shows that it has a unique composition and most of the texts in it have no parallels. Similarities are noticeable between some of the samples in RGADA 88 and another manuscript which is kept in the Archive of Bulgarian Academy of Sciences 31, which probably have a common provenance, based on a Byzantine sample. The formulary collection in RGADA 88 reflects the emergence of the genre in Serbian literature, but also its enrichment with texts characteristic of Serbian reality.

The article offers a critical review of B. St. Angelov’s statement that there was a Serbian translation into Church Slavonic of the Modern Greek anthology Thesaouros of Damaskenos Stoudites (Venice, 1557/58). The outcomes of the current inquiry confirm the view that the Serbian tradition was resistant to the work. The account also presents new found data on the manuscript copying activity of Rila men-of-letters of the literary circle of Yosif Bradati in the 18th c., on the archaeographic history of the 17th-c. Belgrade damaskin that in the 1740s was owned by an upstanding Serbian clergyman in the metropolitanate of Sremski Karlovci. In addition, the author identifies the source of the only unquestionable Serbian copy of a Thesauros item – the “Sermon for the Third Sunday of the Holy Lent” included in the Hilandar set of cheti-menaia compiled in 1623-1626.