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- Title
THE SUPRASL' MID-16TH C. OCS MANUSCRIPT COPY OF GEORGE HAMARTOLUS' CHRONICON BREVE AND ITS ANTIGRAPH OF 1494.
- Authors
Temčinas, Sergejus
- Abstract
The Orthodox (Uniat in 1614-1839) Suprasl' Monastery, established in the western part of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania (now in Poland) by Aleksandr Chodkiewicz in 1498, once possessed a manuscript copy of the Old Church Slavonic translation of George Hamartolus' Chronicon breve, which is now kept in the St.-Petersburg Branch of the Russian History Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences (F. 115, Nr. 80). This mid-16th c. manuscript, written in the same monastery, is unique by having 80 marginal notes which comment on the slightly abridged text of the Chronicle and correspond to some ideas, advanced by Novgorod-Moscovite Jewish-thinking heretics ca. 1470-1505. These marginal notes stem from an (unextant) antigraph, which is to be dated to 1494 according to the chronological calculations presented in one of the marginal notes. The mid-16th c. Suprasl' copy of this antigraph shows some linguistic features characteristic of the region in Southern Byelorussia/Northern Ukraine. The author argues for a more precise localization of the antigraph of 1494. Firstly, in mid-16th c. it was copied in Suprasl' Monastery, whose library at that time consisted of Slavonic manuscripts which had originated in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania or in the Balkans. There is no trace of South Slavic linguistic features in this later copy, so it is safe to assume that its antigraph was written in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. This conclusion is not contradicted by the fact that the marginal notes of the Suprasl' copy correspond to some ideas advanced by the Novgorod movement of Jewish-thinking Orthodox believers. It is a well-known fact that it was initiated by Scharia (identified with Zacharia ben Aaron ha-Kohen of Kiev), a learned Jew who had arrived in Novgorod from the Grand Duchy of Lithuania in 1471. Other marginal notes of the Suprasl' copy are in closer conformity with the historical context of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, than that of Novgorod or Pskov. Secondly, it seems quite plausible that the scribe of the antigraph of 1494, who was also the author of its marginal notes, was working in a church dedicated to the feast of Transfiguration, since one of his marginal comments is not correct in interpreting the text of the Chronicle, but shows the author's strong interest in Transfiguration and in the Transfiguration church of Rome. In the whole territory of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania there was a single Transfiguration church where the process of writing or copying Slavonic manuscripts could have taken place, and it was that of Turov. We can assume that the unextant antigraph of 1949 was written there. In the Transfiguration church of Turov the famous Turov Gospel, written on parchment in the 11th c. (Vilnius, The Library of the Lithuanian Academy of Sciences, F 19-1), was kept in early 16th c., since two charters issued by Constantine of Ostrog to the same Turov church in 1508 and 1513 were written on its margins. This localisation proposed for the antigraph of 1494 fits perfectly the linguistic features of the later Suprasl' copy. A comparative study of the catalogues of the Suprasl' monastery library, compiled on different occasions from 1557 to 1836, allow us to conclude that the Slavonic antigraph, written in the Transfiguration church of Turov in 1494, reached Suprasl' monastery prior to 1532. It must have been donated personally by Constantine of Ostrog in 1508-1530. It was still there in Suprasl' in 1674, but its later fate remains unknown. Its copy, made in Suprasl' in mid-16th c., was taken away from the monastery in 1830-1836. In 1899 it was already kept in the Archaeographical Commission in St.- Petersburg.
- Subjects
LITHUANIA; BALKAN Peninsula; MONASTERIES; HAMARTOLUS, George; CHODKIEWICZ, Aleksandr; COMPARATIVE studies
- Publication
Knygotyra, 2007, Issue 49, p68
- ISSN
0204-2061
- Publication type
Article