scholarly journals The Acrostic Version of the Slavonic Translation of Two George Skylitzes’ Canons for St. John of Rila

2021 ◽  
pp. 232-250
Author(s):  
Sergejus Temčinas ◽  

The modern liturgical “Green Menaia”, published by the Moscow Patriarchate in 1978–1989 and reprinted with additions in 2002, as part of the Service of St. John of Rilа (August 18) includes a Slavonic translation of the complete Octoechos cycle of canons for this Bulgarian saint, composed in Greek by George Skylitzes in the second half of the 12th century (the canon of the 1st tone is included in the service, and the rest are given in the appendix to it). In addition, the same canon of the 8th tone, but without the rest of the canons of the cycle, is contained in the service to the Transfer of the relics of St. John of Rila (October 19) of the same Menaia. The Greek original of this cycle remains unknown, and its medieval Slavonic translation (originated in Bulgaria) is known from merely two complete manuscript copies of the Rila Monastery, although individual canons are read in more manuscripts. The scholarly edition of the cycle was produced by L. Nenova in 2012, therefore the “Green Menaia” should be considered their first (although not scholarly, a liturgical) publication. Here, the text of the Slavonic translation is edited, and in the first and last canons arbitrary Slavonic acrostics are additionally inscribed, which have nothing to do with the textual history of these canons: ДИВЕН БОГ ВО СВЯТИХ СВОИХ БОГ ИСРАИЛЕВ (the canon of the 1st tone); РАДУИСЯ ИОАННЕ СВЕТИЛНИЧЕ ПРЕСВЕТЛИИ (the canon of the 8th tone). The acrostics were composed by rearranging words and making short additions at the beginning of the troparia, therefore this version should be considered a separate (acrostic) edition of the Slavonic translation of George Skylitzes’ canons for St. John of Rila. At least one of the two Rila manuscripts must have served as a basis for this version, created specifically for the “Green Menaia”. Despite its late origin, it clearly demonstrates the possibility of a secondary introduction of a Slavic acrostic into the Slavonic translation of a Byzantine canon, which is to be considered when studying the earliest Slavic hymnography.

2013 ◽  
Vol 22 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-34 ◽  
Author(s):  
D. K. Alsop

The article argues for a scholarly approach to editions of Beckett, taking the radio play Cascando as its example. Since the first English editions of this play, there have been two distinct and different translations from Beckett's original French. Though the Faber edition (originally with a series of obvious errors) has become the more established of the two, there remain fascinating variants between editions. The French original offers a basis for comparison between the translations. Readers should at least have access to the textual history of the play, and to its variants. There should also be a commitment to making the original music available.


Textus ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 30 (1) ◽  
pp. 64-85
Author(s):  
Stefan Schorch

Abstract The Samaritan Aramaic Targum presents an extremely literal translation of SP, but the measure of literalness varies between different manuscripts. Further textual differences between these manuscripts can be related to different Hebrew Vorlagen, or to different interpretations of one and the same Hebrew Vorlage. It can thus be concluded that the Samaritan Targum tradition does not represent a single Aramaic translation of SP, but rather consists of several translations, based on different Hebrew Vorlagen. SAT and also the Samaritan Arabic translation are therefore important witnesses for the textual history of SP, relating to the written transmission of SP in the period before the 12th century CE, for which no Hebrew manuscripts are extant, and also to the Samaritan vocalization. This evidence demonstrates that the textual variety found in the Hebrew manuscripts of SP was already present in the transmission of SP between the 1st and the 11th century CE.


Author(s):  
Paul Goldin

This book provides an unmatched introduction to eight of the most important works of classical Chinese philosophy—the Analects of Confucius, Mozi, Mencius, Laozi, Zhuangzi, Sunzi, Xunzi, and Han Feizi. The book places these works in rich context that explains the origin and meaning of their compelling ideas. Because none of these classics was written in its current form by the author to whom it is attributed, the book begins by asking, “What are we reading?” and showing that understanding the textual history of the works enriches our appreciation of them. A chapter is devoted to each of the eight works, and the chapters are organized into three sections: “Philosophy of Heaven,” which looks at how the Analects, Mozi, and Mencius discuss, often skeptically, Heaven (tian) as a source of philosophical values; “Philosophy of the Way,” which addresses how Laozi, Zhuangzi, and Sunzi introduce the new concept of the Way (dao) to transcend the older paradigms; and “Two Titans at the End of an Age,” which examines how Xunzi and Han Feizi adapt the best ideas of the earlier thinkers for a coming imperial age. In addition, the book presents explanations of the protean and frequently misunderstood concept of qi—and of a crucial characteristic of Chinese philosophy, nondeductive reasoning. The result is an invaluable account of an endlessly fascinating and influential philosophical tradition.


2020 ◽  
Vol 113 (3) ◽  
pp. 837-852
Author(s):  
Eirini-Sophia Kiapidou

AbstractThis paper focuses on the 12th-century Byzantine scholar Michael Glykas and the two main pillars of his multifarious literary production, Biblos Chronike and Letters, thoroughly exploring for the first time the nature of their interconnection. In addition to the primary goal, i. e. clarifying as far as possible the conditions in which these two works were written, taking into account their intertextuality, it extends the discussion to the mixture of features in texts of different literary genre, written in parallel, by the same author, based on the same material. By presenting the evidence drawn from the case of Michael Glykas, the paper attempts to stress the need to abandon the strictly applied taxonomical logic in approaching Byzantine Literature, as it ultimately prevents us from constitute the full mark of each author in the history of Byzantine culture.


Author(s):  
Simeon Dekker

AbstractThe ‘diatribe’ is a dialogical mode of exposition, originating in Hellenistic Greek, where the author dramatically performs different voices in a polemical-didactic discourse. The voice of a fictitious opponent is often disambiguated by means of parenthetical verba dicendi, especially φησί(ν). Although diatribal texts were widely translated into Slavic in the Middle Ages, the textual history of the Zlatostruj collection of Chrysostomic homilies especially suits an investigation not only of how Greek ‘diatribal’ verbs were translated, but also how the Slavic verbs were transmitted or developed in different textual traditions. Over time, Slavic redactional activity led to a homogenization of verb forms. The initial variety of the original translation was partly eliminated, and the verb forms "Equation missing" and "Equation missing" became more firmly established as prototypical diatribal formulae. Especially the (increased) use of the 2sg form "Equation missing" has theoretical consequences for the text’s dialogical structure. Thus, an important dialogical component of the diatribe was reinforced in the Zlatostruj’s textual history on Slavic soil.


Istoriya ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (9 (107)) ◽  
pp. 0
Author(s):  
Galina Popova

The article is devoted to the legal history of the lands of the Kingdom of Toledo in the first two hundred years after the Christian reconquest. The assimilation of the conquered lands by the new political power, preserving the border position, leads to the emergence of a special legal tradition, typical for other similar territories, which received the general name “extremadura” — “borderland”. The Fueros, created in the Kingdom of Toledo, from the very beginning, firmly linked the territorial and personal nature of the legal norms included in their texts. The formation of local legal traditions took place with the active participation of the local elite, which was reflected in the editing of Fuero texts. The inhabitants of Toledo were supposed to use the Visigothic "Liber iudiciorum" as a normative basis for legal proceedings, but at the same time maintained the legitimate possibility of resorting to norms of a different origin, the so-called “Fuero of Castilians”. The lack of a strict systematization in the legal framework of the proceedings was reflected in the organization of judicial officials in Toledo. The good preservation of the local act material allows us to consider in more detail the practical implementation of the legal norm in the process of judicial proceedings, recorded in Arabic in the protocol of the end of the 8th century.


2020 ◽  
Vol 15 (3-4) ◽  
pp. 197-206
Author(s):  
Alexander Al. Pivovarenko

This review is dedicated to the monograph by Filip Škiljan, а Researcher from the Institute for Migration and Ethnic Studies (Zagreb), whose area of interest includes the position of ethnic minorities in contemporary Croatia. The book is an extremely detailed and scrupulous piece of research on the origins and history of the Italian community in Zagreb from the 12th Century to the present day. A significant part of the work is devoted to the results of field research conducted by the author, including interviews with different representatives of the Italian diaspora. As a result, this work creates a very comprehensive picture of the Italian presence in Zagreb with a broad historical perspective, which makes it a great contribution to the question of the position of the Italian minority in Croatia as a whole. It is worth emphasizing that this work is not free from different theoretical and methodological limitations which reveal a great deal about the historical and national psychology of Croatia. In this respect, it is quite interesting to look in particular at the chapter devoted to the Middle Ages regarding the methods, evaluations, and approaches used by author. According to F. Škiljan the Ottoman conquest of the Balkan peninsula led to the divide between Croatia and the Italian (and, consequently, European) civilizational space, which had a serious impact on Croatian identity.


Author(s):  
Anneli Aejmelaeus

The textual history of the books of Samuel, both in Greek and in Hebrew, is laden with problems that the researcher needs to be acquainted with, whatever the focus of textual research. The Septuagint translation shows a close word-for-word correspondence to its Hebrew Vorlage, however, not without occasional freedom of translation, especially in lexical choices and grammatical forms, as well as erroneous translation due to defective knowledge of Hebrew. The Hebrew Vorlage used by the translator differed at times substantially from the later Masoretic Text, used for comparison during the early textual history of the Septuagint text as well as in research today. Not only is the Masoretic Text corrupted but it underwent editorial changes until the turn of the era. Textual differences caused by both the translator and the editors of the Hebrew text must have occasioned the repeated revisions of the Greek text by Jewish and Christian scribes.


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