Why Wish Away Glagolitic - William Veder

Ricerche slavistiche 12 (58) 2014: 373-385

WILLIAM R. VEDER

WHY WISH AWAY GLAGOLITIC?

Malum nascens facile opprimitur,

inveteratum fit plerumque robustius

Ovidius

Scholarship guided by wishful thinking cannot yield reliable results.

Take the assumption in Slavic studies that Slavonic was a language

of the people and, consequently, subject to chronological and topo-

logical change: it wilfully ignores the fact that the language was de-

stined to express Gods Word, which will not pass away (Mt 24:35).

Let me present two examples of such wishful thinking, one of which

has stunted the study of Slavonic for almost eighty years.

Wishing a Synod at Preslav in 893/4

Regino of Prm ( 915) in his Chronicon inserted sub anno 868 a

notice on Bulgarian affairs, which mentions the baptism of the peo-

ple (864) and goes on to say that the king deinde, convocato omni

regno suo, filium iuniorem regem constituit1 afterwards, having con-

vened all his realm, he appointed his younger son king (evidently

not in 868, but we are left to guess when).

Patriarch Nikephoros I ( 828) in his Chronographikon does not

mention this event, but the anonymous continuation (only partially

known in Greek) states sub anno 893/4 that from the baptism of the

Bulgarians to the !"#$%&'()* +,()-, [it is] 30 years, and from the

(1) F. Kurze (ed.), Reginensis abbatis Prumiensis Chronicon. Hannover 1890, p.

95 (= Scriptores rerum germanicarum, 50). On Regino, see W. Hartmann in Neue

Deutsche Biographie, 21 (2003), pp. 269-270.

William R. Veder 374

Seventh Council to the !"#$%&'()* +,()-, 77 years, and from Adam 6405 or 6.2 There is an event, but we are left to guess which.

In 1925, Vasil Zlatarski had no doubt that the dates could be

equated and the events related. He saw !"#$%&'()* +,()-, as the first official act of the new prince in his new capital city, Preslav

(which may have been no more than a construction site by 894), and

interpreted the Slavonic to refer to either transfer or replacement,

and to Scripture, books, and the collocation to mean either trans-

lation of Scripture (i.c. scriptural commentaries) or replacement of

books (i.c. Greek by Slavonic for divine service).3

Out of convocato omni regno suo + !"#$%&'()* +,()-, + 6405 or 6 by sheer wishful thinking was born an event: The Synod of

Preslav of 893/4. German historians would call such arbitrary con-

flation Geschichtsklitterung making a hotchpotch of history.

Wishing the Synod to Take Action

Six years later, Grigorij A. Ilinskij wholeheartedly embraced Zla-

tarskijs conflation, taking issue only with his interpretation of the

collocation !"#$%&'()* +,()-,. He pointed out that +,()-. can refer not only to book or books, but also to letters, and proposed to

read !"#$%&'()* +,()-, as replacement of letters and to refer to the replacement of the Glagolitic alphabet by the Cyrillic. He even sup-

plied an author of the new letters, Constantine the Younger of Pre-

slav (Zlatarski had simply asked whether a name might have been

omitted after +,()-,), as well as a reason for the replacement: the

(2) On patriarch Nikephoros I, see Alexander P. Ka!dan in Oxford Dictionary of

Byzantium. New York - Oxford 1991, p. 1477; on the Chronographikon and its Sla-

vonic translation, see Elena K. Piotrovskaja in Slovar kni!nikov i kni!nosti Drevnej

Rusi, t. 1. Leningrad 1987, pp. 231-234; for more recent editions of the translation,

see Dmitrij M. Bulanin, Katalog pamjatnikov drevnerusskoj pismennosti XI-XIV vv.

(Rukopisnye knigi). S. - Pb. 2014, p. 360; for misreadings of numerals in the Glago-

litic translation (like the 5 or 6 shown), see Maria Spasova, K"m v"prosa za slavjan-

skija prevod na L#topis$c$ v% krat$c# na patriarx &ikifor, Die slawischen Sprach-

en, 33 (1993), pp. 81-91.

(3) V. Zlatarski, Stranica iz starata kulturna istorija na b"lgarite, in Sbornik v

'est i v pamet na Lui Le!e. Sofia 1925, pp. 279-302, repr. in Istorija na b"lgarskata

d"r!ava, t. 1, ". 2. Sofia 1927, repr. Sofia 1971.

Why Wish Away Glagolitic? 375

behest of the new prince, who strove to facilitate and speed the pro-

cess of slavicisation of the Bulgarian church and state.4

The Synod of Preslav of 893/4 had now been wishfully sup-

plied with an agenda and at least one of its executors. More import-

antly, Slavonic studies had been streamlined, the cumbersome Gla-

golitic writing confined to the initial fourty years of literacy. All of

this appealed to the common sense of the community of slavists:

many of the articles in the Kirilo-Metodievska enciklopedija (Sofia

1985-2003) show its pervasiveness.5

This is wishful thinking on a grand scale: Ilinskij, in fact, postu-

lated a model of text production and transmission without having any

relevant study to rely on.6 Like his teachers over the previous cen-

tury and a half, he assumed that, Slavonic being a language of the

people, every scribe was free to write how he wanted, i.e. that text

production and transmission in Slavonic did not differ from that in

Western European vernaculars.7 He even ignored Mixail N. Speran-

skijs paper of three years earlier on the Glagolitic ancestry of the Ev-

genievskaja and Tolstovskaja Psalters (11th c.) and other early Nov-

gorod manuscripts.8 So he could not know that, while !"#$%& can in-

(4) G. A. Ilinskij, Gde, kogda, kem i s kakoju celju glagolica byla zamenena ki-

rillicej, Byzantinoslavica, 3 (1931), pp. 79-88.

(5) It is to the credit of the editors of the Enciklopedija that they avoided devot-

ing an entry to the Synod of Preslav.

(6) The first pertinent study belongs to Josif Popovski. Najstariji par antigrafa i

apografa u slovenskoj pismenosti, destined to be published in Palographie et di-

plomatique slaves, 3 (1987), but vanished with its archive in Sofia (Viktor M. !i-

vov, Vosto!noslavjanskoe pravopisanie XI-XIII veka. Moskva 2006, pp. 9-75, per-

used a manuscript copy); it will be published in Polata knigopisnaja, 41 (2015).

(7) The idea that scribes must have written in their own tongue was first expres-

sed by Mixail M. "#erbatov, Istorija rosskijskaja ot drevnej"ix vremen, 1. S. - Pb.

1770, p. iv, in reference to his Izbornik of 1076; it was given semblance of fact by

the work of Nicolaas van Wijk, who could rely on extensive experience in Middle-

Dutch text transmission (see my Kirchenslavische Handschriften und Texte im Werk

#icolaas van Wijks, in W. R. Veder, Hiljada godini kato edin den. Sofia 2005, pp.

59-62).

(8) M. N. Speranskij, Otkuda idut starej"ie pamjatniki russkoj pismennosti i lite-

ratury?, Slavi$, 7 (1927-28), pp. 516-535; the paper is also ignored in the edition

of Viktor V. Kolesov, Evgenievskaja Psaltyr, Dissertationes Slavicae, 8 (1972),

pp. 58-69 + 40 pp. facsimile.


deed refer to letters (as can !"#$% writ, writing, "'() speech and *+%,% word), it invariably does so in replacing -.*$/0#.9 And he could not know that Constantine the Younger of Preslav did not prod-

uce texts written in Cyrillic.10 Finally, he could not know that the use

of Glagolitic in text production can be traced up to the 12th c. and in

text transmission well into the 17th c.

Glagolitic Features in Text Transmission

Manuscript transmission of texts, like any data processing, is an in-

terface of three components: 1 input ! 2 processing ! 3 output, 3

being the copy, 2 the copyist, or more precisely his language and text

competence, and 1 the antigraph which provides the data for the out-

put. Processing and output are largely determined by the features of

the input:11 if copies from different regions and different times show

the same pattern in their variation, its source should be sought in 1,

not in 2.12 Cyrillic antigraphs yield variation patterns different from

Glagolitic antigraphs.13 The eight components of the latter variation

pattern will be summarily reviewed below.

1 The presence of Glagolitic writing in a copy, be it entire lines

(e.g. 1*2345#| 6789:;< =:>:?


f. 43), incidental letters (e.g. !"#$%&%'( )( "*+,)$-. Scala Paradisi Moscow RGB F.304 nr. 161, f. 26v, from f. 33v on ! more frequent-ly) or single signs (e.g. /0+, # '*1,2"3'456, Izmaragd Moscow RGB F.304 nr. 203, f. 147v), constitutes proof of its direct contact

with Glagolitic.14

2 Numerical values of Glagolitic and Cyrillic letters are not equal:

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80

7 8 9 : ; < = > ? @ A B C D E 6 F * 2 G + % H I # J K L 1 ' 5 M , 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 20 30 40 50 60 70

Typical variant readings are:


confusion has nothing to do with regional variety,16 nor is it limited

to the nasal vowels themselves (see e.g. Lk 24:22 !"#$ %&"'$ (&) #*+) ,!*+-./ [! ,!*+-." Zog] #$). Typical variant readings are: 01-2317 ! 45&- (transliteration) : 4/&- (mistransliteration, see also the hybrid 46&-) : 4,&- (transcription) : 4)7-&- (transcription with m from internal dictation); 389:; ! -7)." (transliteration + tran-scription) : /." (mistranscription with im telescoped by internal dic-tation); ?:? ! #*@/./ (transliteration) : #*@*.* (transcription) : #*@/.5 (transliteration + mistranscription) : #*@A#)." (mistranscrip-tion with n from internal dictation) : #*@A#)."7) (mistranscription with n and m from internal dictation).

5 Confusion of consonants is rife in copies from Glagolitic anti-

graphs.18 Most frequent are the following types: (a) B " C e.g. (D*@" : - E*@", E'F7F#- : D'F7"#-; (b) G " 0 " H " 2 e.g. +)I)J* : +)IA4*, I)J*J) : I)J*K), E(L#"&"#) : E(L#"J"#), 4FK( : KF&(: &FK(; (c) M " N " O (Greek #19) e.g. L+* : P+*, P'-+&-Q#) : R'A+&-Q#), E(R,4-&- : E(P,-K-&-; (d) 8 " S (Slavic !19) e.g. 7(K-&- : PJ*K-&-, -7FP) : -7*7A; (e) T " > $ E(+FU"#-% : E(+F@"#-%, E(+F@"#) : E(+FU"#). Here, too, belong three Cyrillic graphs V, W and X not included in original Gla-golitic: Y;Z=[\89 ! +"'*]-7) (transliteration) : +"'*V-7) (transcrip-tion); =H;NY=


!"#$%&'("), !"#*+),(-) : !"(*+#,(-), -( : -# : -), ./-#-) : ./-0-), 12340 : 1234), 5( %6*#2# : 5)%6*#2). (b) They are joined by a, which can be written similar to e:20 e.g. 7,( : 8,(, / 23,/ : 820,(. (c) Further a 9, y : and ! ; have features, which allow them to be confused: e.g. 26?@. (d) The letter " A does not only alternate with ), in tense position it alter-nates with 1 and =: e.g. BACDAEAF : 52"G'H : 52"G'


Production of Glagolitic Texts up to the 12th Century

Below I list in chronological order datable texts or versions, the trans-

mission of which exhibits features 2-8:

898-899 antigraph of the Clozianus and the homiliary part of the Suprasliensis;22

before 900 revision of the Scala Paradisi and the Quaestiones ad Antiochum;23

before 927 protograph of the Izbornik of 1073;24

before 930 protograph of the Scaliger Patericon;25

ca. 930 protograph of the Knja!ij Izbornik;26

before 935 protograph of O Pismenex;27

ca. 960 protograph of the Izbornik of John the Sinner;26

after 992 protograph of the Synaxarium and its enhancement to the Prolog;28

996 first update of the Chronograph;29

after 1097 protograph of the Dioptra of Philippos Monotropos.30

my Der glagolitische Archetyp des Paterik Skitskij, in Dutch Contributions to the Eighth International Congress of Slavists. Lisse 1979, pp. 339-346.

(22) See M. Spasova, W. R. Veder, Copying, Copy-Editing, Editing and Recol-lating Three Chrysostomian Lenten Homilies in Slavonic, Polata knigopisnaja, 38 (2010), pp. 97-144; Bulgarian: Prepisvane, popravjane, redaktirane i sverka na sla-vjanskija prevod na tri Zlatoustovi velikopostni slova, Preslavska kni!ovna "kola, 9 (2006), pp. 53-107.

(23) See my Psevdo-Atanasij Aleksandrijski. V"prosi i otgovori k"m knjaz An-tioh, tt. 1-2. Veliko T#rnovo, forthcoming.

(24) See my Preslu#vajki edna poxvala, in M. Jov$eva et al. (eds.), P$nie malo Georgiju. Sbornik v %est na 65-godi#ninata na prof. dfn Georgi Popov. Sofia 2010, pp. 358-366.

(25) See my Der Stein, den die Bauleute verworfen haben, Die Welt der Sla-ven, 57 (2012) 2, pp. 293-305.

(26) See my Knja!ij Izbornik za v"zpitanie na kanartikina, tt. 1-2. Veliko T#rno-vo 2008.

(27) See my Utrum in alterum, cit., pp. 58, 88-152.

(28) See my Markup in the Prolog, Polata knigopisnaja, 39, forthcoming.

(29) See my Ot edin prevod, cit.

(30) See the splendidly documented edition Heinz Miklas, Jrgen Fuchsbauer, Die kirchenslavische bersetzung der Dioptra des Pilippos Monotropos, Bd. 1. Wien


To these should most probably be added the protograph of the Cate-

cheses of Symeon the New Theologian ( 1022). The copy of the

Glagolitic Scala Paradisi Moscow RGB F.304 nr. 161, f. 6-8v, inter-

2013. It attests the following variants (small numbers refer to pages): 1 Glagolitic

339 !"#. 3 Confusion of nasals is ubiquitous (esp. in L), incl. confusion with oral vowels, e.g. 331 $%&'()*+, ! $&'()*-, (# ! .), 341 */*0!$12 ! /*0!$13, (. ! #), 351 45,6,% ! 4573,8 (9 ! #). 4 Confusion in jotation is ubiquitous in hiatus; in addition e.g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` " a " .) 349 ='1;5+ ! ='5;5+, 351 ,)5'Y1 ! ,D)L'YL, 355 )%$4(73/!- ! )%$4!-73/>+, 355 @?!B% ! @?!B1, 357 !7H0*/! : ,!HD0/!; (. ! b) 341 *HA0,'* ! =!f0*,D'*, 355 1-:B)P*4< ! 1:BD)?:41. 8 Anagrams: 351 )%$05H!/**4< ! )8$05H3/14, 359 ,PH% ! ,DHP, 361 !$0(,*-,8 ! !$0(,16,D, 401 0'6=3/!: ! 0'3=*/g:. Tautogram: 351 -/(6 ! -/8/(3.


rupts the Epistle of John of Raithou to insert 2 ff. of a catechesis of

Symeon, which the copyist could not recognise as a foreign text be-

cause it must have been written in Glagolitic as well.

Transmission of Glagolitic Texts into the 17th Century

Below I list in chronologial order texts, the copies of which indivi-

dually show the features 2-8:

before 1050 the Pandect of Antioch;31

before 1100 the codex Suprasliensis;32

1175-1450 9 copies of the Scala Paradisi version a;33

1175-1500 6 copies of the Quaestiones ad Antiochum;34

1200-1394 8 South Slavic copies of the Scete Paterikon;35

1275-1520 3 copies of the Scaliger Patericon;36

1275-1600 25 copies of the Chronicle of George Hamartolos;37

1300-1600 39 copies of the Tale of Aphroditian;38

1348 the Ivan-Aleksandrov Sbornik;39

(31) See the edition by Josif Popovski in Polata knigopisnaja, 23-24 (1989), and

his forms index in Polata knigopisnaja, 30-31 (1999). Part of the Cyrillic copy was

copied ca. 1175-1200 into the Troickij Sbornik !r. 12 (ed. Polata knigopisnaja,

21-22 (1988), see Popovski, !ajstariji par, cit.), but f. 1-64 and 158-202 of that

sbornik are copied from Glagolitic.

(32) See Spasova, Veder, Copying, cit.

(33) See my Ploskaja tradicija tekstov, Palaeobulgarica, 36 (2012) 4, pp. 98-

109 (codd. Moskva RGB F.256 nr. 198 and 199, F.304 nr. 10). From the same Gla-

golitic antigraph are copied codd. Moskva RGADA MGAMID 452, GIM Sin. 105,

!ud. 218, Uvar. 865 and S.-Pb. RNB Sof. 1214.

(34) Copied in the Trinity-St Sergius Laura from 4 Glagolitic antigraphs, see my

Der Zweite sdslavische Einfluss aus der Sicht der Textberlieferung, Die Welt der

Slaven, 59 (2014) 1, pp. 95-110.

(35) Copied from the protograph at Ohrid, see my Metodievata zla hiena, Kiri-

lo-Metodievski studii, 17 (2007), pp. 783-798.

(36) Copied from the protograph in Volhynia, see my Der Stein, cit.

(37) See my The Trouble with Middle Bulgarian, Polata knigopisnaja, 40, forth-

coming.

(38) See my The Slavonic Tale of Aphroditian, T"rnovska kni#ovna $kola, 9

(2011), pp. 344-358.

(39) See my The Trouble, cit.


1350-1600 16 copies of the works of Dorotheus of Gaza;40

1380-1620 10 copies of the Scala Paradisi version b;41

1390-1550 5 copies of Esther;42

1390-1700 7 copies of the P!ela;43

1400-1526 6 copies of the Scala Paradisi version c;41

1400-1700 3 copies of the Izmaragd in 164 Chapters;44

1500-1650 8 copies of the Epistle of patriarch Photius;37

1590-1650 3 copies of 4-6 Sborniki;45

before 1653 ch. 69 of the printed Korm!aja.46

Glagolitic Just Faded Away

The 28 texts and their 149 copies listed above are not numerous

compared to the corpus of ca. 8,000 Slavonic texts preserved in ca.

800,000 manuscript books and fragments of the 10th through 20th

centuries. The study of text transmission, even if aiming at no more

than to identify the direct antigraphs of copies, progresses slowly.

Yet they do offer evidence of a type of text tradition foreign to

the postulated Western European vernacular model: a flat tradition,

(40) Of these, 12 were copied in the Trinity-St Sergius Laura from a single anti-

graph, see my The Trouble, cit. The 3 known South Slavic copies probably depend

from a different antigraph.

(41) Copied in the Trinity-St Sergius Laura from a single antigraph, see my Plo-

skaja tradicija, cit.

(42) See my Esthers Glagolitic Ancestry, Ricerche slavistiche, Nuova serie 8

(2010), pp. 213-223.

(43) See my A Retrial for the P!ela, Polata knigopisnaja, 38 (2010), pp. 145-

154.

(44) See my Psevdo-Atanasij, cit., and Gennadius Slavicus in Srednovekovijat

!ovek i negovijat svjat. Veliko T"rnovo, forthcoming.

(45) See my Meleckij sbornik i istorija drevnebolgarskoj literatury, Palaeobul-

garica, 6 (1982) 3, pp. 154-165, and Literature as a Kaleidoscope, in W. R. Veder,

Hiljada godini, cit., pp. 102-109. The readings adduced by Marija S. Mu#inskaja

et al. (eds.), Izbornik 1076 goda. Vtoroe izdanie. Moskva 2009, prove that the Lvov-

skij Sbornik nr. 134 is not copied from the Meleckij Sbornik, but from its Glagolitic

antigraphs; the same will surely hold true for the Uvarovskij Sbornik nr. 157.

(46) See my Avva Anastasij Sinajski. V"prosi i otgovori, t. 1. Veliko T"rnovo

2011, p. 22.


in which all copies belong to the same, the second generation (with

respect to their antigraph). And they do offer evidence of the full va-

lidity of Giorgio Pasqualis recentiores non deteriores in the Slavia

slavonica:47 of the 12 copies of the works of Dorotheus of Gaza and

the 16 copies of the Scala Paradisi versions b and c made in the Tri-

nity-St Sergius Laura, the older usually render the antigraph less re-

liably than the younger.48 Further, they offer a solution to a problem

brought to the fore by the grand master of Slavonic archaeography,

Anatolij A. Turilov, viz. the near-total lack of pairs of antigraph and

apograph:49 after six or more centuries of wear and tear from multi-

ple copying, the Glagolitic antigraphs just faded away. Finally, they

offer evidence that the language of the texts had little in common

with the language of the people: the choice for antigraphs of great

age and the cumulation of copies of the same texts in the library of

the Trinity-St Sergius Laura suggest that they were made for learn-

ing (both of the text and its language), rather than for dissemination.

Is it conceivable that the Prague historian and philologist Josef

Karsek (1868-1916) was right when he claimed that Slavonic was a

theoretical, artificial language?50

(47) The overdue reformulation of the dichotomy Slavia orthodoxa ~ Slavia ro-

mana (Riccardo Picchio, Questione della lingua e Slavia cirillomethodiana, in Stu-

di sulla questione della lingua presso gli slavi. Roma 1972) in non-confessional

terms as Slavia slavonica ~ Slavia latina belongs to Sante Graciotti, Le due slavie:

problemi di terminologia e problemi di idee, Ricerche slavistiche, 45-46 (1998-

1999), pp. 5-86.

(48) An exception is the youngest copy of the Izmaragd, which suffers from haste.

(49) He complained that this lack impedes the study of the so-called Second

South Slavic Influence (sse my Der Zweite, cit.) in Russian letters: !"-"# $%&'(

$%)*%+% %',-','.(/ *0%12%3(452 3)/ (,,)03%.#*(/ $#6 %6(+(*#)-7%$(/

6080*(0 .%$6%,# -$(6#0',/ . ,%$%,'#.)0*(0 1%)98%+% &(,)# .%,'%&*%- ( :;*%-

,)#./*,7(2 ,$(,7%. %3*%+% ( '%+% ;0 '07,'#, A. A. Turilov, Vosto!noslavjan-

skaja kni"naja kultura konca XIV-XV vv. i vtoroe ju"noslavjanskoe vlijanie, in his

Slavia Cyrillomethodiana: Isto!nikovedenie istorii i kultury ju"nyx slavjan i Drev-

nej Rusi. Moskva 2010, p. 239. It should be noted that the lack of extant anti-graphs

exceeds the time frame given.

(50) Josef Karsek, Slavische Literaturgeschichte, Bd. 1. Leipzig 1906, p. 13, repr.

on demand Bd. 1-2 by Bibliobazaar: Charleston, SC (via ).


!"#$%"

&. '. ()*+,-.+/ 1931 0. ,12314+) ,1 )56,7/ 289* -)14+-9+.8, 894:3;+4, ?5@53: 893/4 0. 0)105)+A1 @7)1 B1>:,:,1 .+3+))+A:/. C,+-

>19:)*,5: +B8+--++ 28 -)14D,-.+E 9:.-954 25 149 -2+-.1> 47-

D4)D:9 1.9+4,5: +-25)*B54,+: 0)105)+1 ;5 ,1

Why Wish Away Glagolitic - William Veder

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