HENRIK BIRNBAUM
BYZANTINE TRADITION TRANSFORMED: THE OLD SERBIAN VITA
It
goes without saying that only a few of the many intriguing facets of the
particular literary form of biography or life-writing as pursued with
remarkable zeal and success in medieval Serbia, can be discussed within the
limits of a conference paper. In particular, after a few preliminary remarks
concerning the historical background of Old Serbian biography, its general
literary and stylistic characteristics, and the shifting appreciation it has
met among historians and literary scholars, I would like to focus on the
relationship of this genre (if indeed it can be defined as constituting an
autonomous literary genre) to its nearest Byzantine models and counterparts
which fall largely within the well-established, traditional kinds of
hagiography and historiography. [1] Furthermore, I will
endeavor
1. Generally on Byzantine hagiography (including certain
kinds of religious panegyric) and historiography, see K. Krumbacher,
Geschichte der byzantinischen Litteratur, 2nd ed., vol. I (Munich, 1897),
160-205 and 219-408. Specifically on Byzantine hagiography, cf. also H.-G.
Beck, Kirche und theologische Literatur im byzantinischen Reich
(Munich, 1959), 267-275, 402-413, 459-467, 506-514, 557-582, 638-642, 697-701,
and 793-796. See further, for example, Xr. Loparev, "Vizantijskija Žitija
Svjatyx VIII-IX věkov", Viz. Vrěm. XVII (1910 [1911]), 1-224. On Slavic
saints in Byzantine hagiography, cf. esp. I. Dujčev, "Slawische Heilige in der
byzantinischen Hagiographie", Südost-Forschungen XIX (1960), 71-86; see
further id., "Les rapports hagiographiques entre Byzance et les
Slaves", Proceedings of the XIIIth International Congress of Byzantine
Studies (Oxford, 1966), (London, 1967), 363-370. On historical data in
Byzantine hagiography, see recently F. Halkin, "L'hagiographie byzantine au
service de l'histoire", ibid., 345-354; and on Byzantine-West European
hagiographic relations, E. Follieri, "I rapporti fra Bisanzio e l'Occidente
nel campo dell'agiografia", ibid., 355-362. For a discussion of the
independent genre of secular (or 'historical') biography, not recognized as
such by K. Krumbacher, but, in fact, revived in Byzantium in the 10th century
(with the Life of Emperor Basilius I, written by his grandson Constantine VII
Porphyrogenitus, a work paralleling such Western secular biographies as those
of Charlemagne by Einhart or of King Alfred by Asser) and emerging from
'semi-secular' hagiography and biography (including panegyric), see P. J.
Alexander, "Secular Biography at Byzantium", Speculum XV (1940),
194-209.
244
to
comment briefly on the parallels and interrelations obtaining between the Old
Serbian variety of life-writing and its other Slavic (that is to say, Church
Slavic) predecessors and contemporaries which include, in addition to the Old
Church Slavic prototypes, its Old Russian and, to a lesser extent, Old Czech
equivalents or near-equivalents. These, too, were ultimately patterned on
Byzantine examples. By comparing, quantitatively and qualitatively, the Old
Serbian Lives (žitija) of rulers and princes of the Church to what can
be thought of as their closest Slavic correspondences, and by making reference
to recent discussions as to the possibility (or impossibility) of assuming an
independent genre, as elsewhere in medieval Slavic writing, of secular
biography (having its roots in hagiography, but in some respects essentially
different from it), [2] I will attempt to set forth some of
the particular characteristics of the Old Serbian Vita. (Outside the
Byzantine-Slavic sphere the Latin biographies of St. Stephen of Hungary in
particular seem to have had some impact on medieval Serbian life-writing.)
[3] Throughout my presentation the texts under discussion
will be viewed primarily as works of literature, i.e., in terms of their
artistic qualities, rather than as — more or less reliable — historical
documents, designed largely for the purpose of legitimating the twinned
dynastic and ecclesiastic claims of the Serbian rulers and archbishops of the
Middle Ages. This is not to say, however, that a reappraisal of the Old
Serbian Lives as testimonies of by-gone events and long-deceased personalities
(which in modern times have provided a rich source of inspiration for the
upsurge of Serbian national consciousness) could not also be arrived at if we
were to adopt an approach different from the one suggested here.
I
There
can be no doubt that the emerging Old Serbian literature of the 12th and early
13th centuries was largely patterned on Byzantine models in terms of thematic
range and conceptual framework, as well as in respect
2. Cf. most recently N. W. Ingham, "The Limits of Secular
Biography in Medieval Slavic Literature, Particularly Old Russian",
American Contributions to the Sixth International Congress of Slavists
(Prague, 1968), vol. II: Literary Contributions (The Hague and Paris,
1968), 181-199.
3. On the two Vitae of St. Stephen, written in the
late 11th century and subsequently combined into one 'legend' by bishop
Hartwig (Hartvic) early in the 12th century, see J. L. Csóka, A latin nyelvü
történeti irodalom kialakulása Magyarországon a XI-XIV. században (Budapest,
1967), esp. 105-199 and 623-646.
245
to
the various forms of specific literary genres as realized by the use of their
particular sets of stylistic devices. In this sense, then, medieval Serbian
writing formed part of the literary output produced by what has been referred
to as the Slavic Orthodox community of the Middle Ages. This community, at
certain levels of education and literacy, may be viewed as an integrated whole
(if only an extension of Byzantine civilization), sharing, among other things,
a common literary language with only minor local variations — Church Slavic.
[4] More immediately, at the peak of the Middle Ages, the
literary activity of the Slavs (including the Serbs) can be regarded as a
continuation of the work of the Slavic 'apostles' or, rather, 'teachers',
Constantine and Methodius, and their disciples. [5] As is
well known, after Methodius' death in 885 and the subsequent suppression of
the Slavic liturgy in Moravia and Pannonia, several followers of the
Thessalonian brothers found refuge in Bulgaria where Old Church Slavic writing
could continue to develop and flourish, first in its western, Macedonian
region (in and around Ohrid) and soon thereafter also in the new capital of
Preslav. The other Orthodox Slavs, namely, the Eastern Slavs of Kievan Russia
and the Serbs (after some hesitancy between Byzantium and Rome) could thus
draw on the foundations provided by Old Bulgarian writing when creating their
own national varieties of literature. It has long been established that, as a
result of the political and cultural setting of Bulgaria in the 10th-12th
centuries (Bulgaria forming a part of the Byzantine Empire from 972 and 1018,
respectively, to 1185-1186 when the Second Bulgarian Empire came into being),
Byzantine elements thoroughly permeated this early Bulgarian literature on all
levels.
It is
in the development of the specific kind of biography, unmatched elsewhere in
Slavic writing, that Serbia made its unique contribution to
4. For the concept of the Slavia orthodoxa as a
unified cultural-linguistic whole, see esp. R. Picchio, "Die
historisch-philologische Bedeutung der kirchenslavischen Tradition", WdSl
VII (1962), 1-26; id., "O cerkiewnosłowiańskiej wspólnocie
kulturalno-językowej", Sprawozd. z posiedzeń Kom., Lipiec-Grudzień 1962
(PAN, Oddział w Krakowie, 1963), 449-454; id., "A proposito
della Salvia ortodossa e délia communità linguistica slava ecclesiastica",
Ricerche Slavistiche XI (1963), 105-127. For an overall view of Church
Slavic literature, cf. R. Jakobson, Harvard Slavic Studies I (1953),
37-55 ("The Common Slavic Written Tradition", in: "The Kernel of Comparative
Slavic Literature"); H. Birnbaum, "Grundkonzept und Aufgabenkreis einer
vergleichenden kirchenslavischen Literaturforschung", Das heidnische und
christliche Slaventum, 2 (Wiesbaden, 1970), 127-147.
5. For a comprehensive treatment of the life and work of
Constantine and Methodius and their literary legacy, see F. Grivec,
Konstantin und Method, Lehrer der Slaven (Wiesbaden, 1960) (commenting on
the preference for the term "teachers" over "apostles", 66-67).
246
medieval Slavic literature. While based on traditional genres and styles, Old
Serbian life-writing combined these with some new, original ingredients. Even
F. Dölger, an ardent advocate of the superiority of Byzantine civilization
over its neighboring Balkan sub-cultures had to single out some of the Old
Serbian biographies as literary works which, in his words, "zum erstenmal von
der byzantinischen Schablone loskommen und einen frischeren und lebendigeren
Zug aufweisen". [6]
Old
Serbian life-writing, along with the monuments of monasterial architecture,
the most impressive achievement of medieval Serbian culture, follows a rather
consistent line of development. [7] Starting with hagiography
(both in its popular-narrative as well as in its rhetorical-learned varieties)
Serbian biography opens with the two Vitae of Stephan Nemanja (d.
1200), the first independent ruler of a united Serbia, written by his sons,
Rastko (St. Sava, d. 1235), the first archbishop of Serbia and
6. Cf. F. Dölger, Byzanz und die europäische
Staatenwelt (Ettal, 1953), 276 (in: "Die mittelalterliche Kultur auf dem
Balkan als byzantinisches Erbe", 261-281, where also a gradation of the
Byzantine influence on the Balkans is suggested); see further id., "Byzanz
und Südosteuropa", in: Völker und Kulturen Südosteuropas. Kulturhistorische
Beiträge (Munich, 1959), 57-67 and 270-271 (references). For some negative
aspects of the Byzantine impact (and partly contradicting Dölger), see J. Matl,
Die Kultur der Südslawen (Frankfurt a/M, 1966), 25-26. Cf. further also
several papers by I. Dujčev, among them, "Les Slaves et Byzance", Études
historiques à l'occasion du XIe Congrès international des sciences historiques
(Stockholm, 1960) (Sofia, 1960), 31-77; id., "Les rapports littéraires
byzantino-slaves", Actes du XIIe Congrès international d'études byzantines
(Ohrid, 1961), I (Belgrade, 1963), 411-429; id., "Bisanzio e il mondo
slavo", in: I. Dujčev, medioevo bizantino-stavo, I (Rome, 1965), 3-22.
On Byzantine-South Slavic literary relations, see id., "La littérature
des Slaves méridionaux au XIIIe siècle et ses rapports avec la littérature
byzantine", in : L'art byzantin du XIIIe siècle (Symposium de Sopoćani,
1965), (Belgrade, 1967), 103-115. On Byzantine-Serbian relations, particularly
in the 14th century, see, for example, G. Ostrogorsky, "Problèmes des
relations byzantino-serbes au XIVe siècle", Proceedings of the XIIIth
International Congress of Byzantine Studies, 41-55; with a supplementary
contribution by G. C. Soulis, ibid., 57-61.
7. Cf. J. Matl, Die Kultur der Südslawen, 15 ; see
also id., Südslawische Studien (Munich, 1965), 15-16. For a general
survey of Old Serbian biography in its cultural and literary context, see, for
example, A. Schmaus, "Zur Frage der Kulturonentierung der Serben im
Mittelalter", Südost-Forschungen XV (1956), 179-201, esp. 195-201; S.
Hafner, Serbisches Mittelalter: Altserbische Herrscherbiographien, vol.
I: Stefan Nemanja nach den Viten des hl.
Sava und Stefans des Erstgekrönten,
übersetzt, eingeleitet und erklärt
(Graz-Vienna-Cologne, 1962), 13-18; DJ. Sp. Radojičić, Razvojni luk stare
srpske književnosti: Tekstovi i komentari (Novi Sad, 1962), esp. 21-39
(the introductory essay first appeared in Letopis Matice srpske, knj.
385, sv. 3/4, 1960, 189-205, 328-346, and was again reprinted in Stara
književnost, Dj. Trifunović, ed., [Belgrade, 1965], 15-52). See also the
older, to be sure, strongly biased presentation by V. Jagić, AfslPh II
(1876), 31-47 (in his study "Ein Beitrag zur serbischen Annalistik mit
literaturgeschichtlicher Einleitung"), and M. Murko, Geschichte der älteren
südslawischen Literaturen (Leipzig, 1908), 155-164.
247
head
of its newly established autocephalic
Church, and King Stephan the First-Crowned (Stefan Prvovenčani, d. 1227 or
1228). [8] To be sure, in addition to their purely
hagiographic origins, supplemented by elements of annalistic historiography
(chronicle-writing), a significant tie can be shown to exist between these
biographies, particularly the less secular though stylistically more popular
Vita of Stephan Nemanja by St. Sava, and the two Charters (chrysobulla)
for the Serbian monastery of Hilandar on Mt. Athos, issued by Stephan Nemanja
(aided by St. Sava, in 1198-1199) and Stephan the First-Crowned (in
1200-1201), respectively. These Charters were patterned on corresponding
Byzantine imperial documents. As was convincingly and in great detail
demonstrated in a recent study by S. Hafner, a self-contained ideology,
unequivocally making reference to the Nemanja dynasty and characterized by an
all-pervasive religious motivation as well as by political realism, is already
evident in the first of the two Charters for the Hilandar Monastery. This
ideology, with some further literary embellishment, was then incorporated by
Stephan the First-Crowned into his, the second Charter and subsequently by St.
Sava (probably the co-author of the original Charter of 1198-1199) into his
Life of Stephan Nemanja. The fusion by St. Sava of large portions of a charter
text (prooemium and narratio) with components of a different
nature and origin (monastic legend, laudatio, translatio, i.e.,
account of the transfer of the remains of a saint or a holy man not yet
canonized — here of Stephan Nemanja from the Athonite monastery of Hilandar to
the Studenica Monastery in Serbia — historical family or clan tradition, etc.)
into an integrated whole was an achievement unprecedented in Slavic writing.
[9]
8. On Stephan Nemanja and St. Sava, see most recently I.
Dujčev, Bibliotheca Sanctorum, XI (Rome, 1968 [1969]), coll. 522-529
and 1163-1165 (s. vv. SABA and SIMEONE STEFANO NEMANJA, with
bibliographical references).
9. See S. Hafner, Studien zur altserbischen
dynastischen Historiographie (Munich, 1964), 54-77 ("Herrscherurkunden als
Ausgangspunkt und ideeller Kern der altserbischen Herrscherbiographien"); cf.
also id., Serbisches Mittelalter, 16 and 31-32. On St. Sava's role in
church and cultural history, see, for example, J. Matl, "Der heilige Sawa als
Begründer der serbischen Nationalkirche. Seine Leistung und Bedeutung für den
Kulturaufbau Europas", in: Südslawische Studien, 32-44. On the artistic
motif of Paradise as represented in the Hilandar Charter of Stephan the
First-Crowned, St. Sava's Life of Stephan Nemanja, and medieval Serbian
miniature painting, see, by way of example, S. Radojčić, "Hilandarska povelja
Stefana Prvovenčanog i motiv raja u srpskom minijaturnom slikarstvu",
Hilandarski zbornik, 1, G. Ostrogorsky, ed. (Belgrade, 1966), 41-50 (with
French résumé). On Sava and his Life of Simeon (Nemanja), see further Stara
književnost, 271-305 (articles by P. Popović, M. Panić-Surep, B. Kovačević,
and M. Crnjanski, published previously elsewhere). Cf. also D. Pavlović, Iz
naše starije književnosti (Sarajevo, 1964), 17-42 ("Sava Nemanjić [Sv.
Sava I").
248
The
Life of Prince Vladimir of the Zeta region (by and large corresponding to
present-day Montenegro) has until quite recently also been mentioned among the
sources of Old Serbian life-writing. This biography is contained in the Latin
version of the so-called Chronicle of the Priest of Dioclitia (or Dioclia,
Serbian Duklja, an earlier name for Zeta), Letopis popa Dukljanina
(also known as Barski rodoslov), which was hitherto believed to
represent a translation of a Slavic original written in the 12th century; the
part containing the Life of Vladimir allegedly dated even further back, to the
11th century. [10] However, the newest edition of this text
by S. Mijušković suggests that we have to do here with a purely fictional
literary product rather than with an historical account, that its historical
trustworthiness therefore is virtually nil, and that this belletristic piece
actually belongs to the late 14th or early 15th, rather than to the 12th
century. It is further believed to be the work of only one and not two (or
even more) authors as was previously assumed. (Usually one distinguished at
least two authors, both referred to as Dukljanin iz Bara : one, supposedly
living in the 11th century, also called Zećanin, and the author of the
original Life of Prince Vladimir; and a later one, the 12th century writer of
the Letopis.) The author of the original Chronicle of the Priest of
Dioclitia was, according to Mijušković, definitely a Serb and not a speaker of
a Romance dialect writing in Latin. The preserved Latin version must therefore
indeed be considered a translation. [11] Thus, if this
reversal in chronology and the reassessment of the Letopis popa Dukljanina
as an historical document and a work of literature turn out to be correct, it
should be eliminated from among the texts considered for the prehistory of Old
Serbian biography and rather be viewed as paralleling, in some respects,
certain of the late medieval representatives of this genre. The preserved text
not being in the vernacular and its origin highly controversial to say the
least, it will here be excluded from any further consideration.
10. For a discussion of the Letopis as a possible
source for Old Serbian life-writing and of the more advanced culture of
littoral Zeta (Diocletia, Duklja) as compared to that of less developed inland
Rascia (Raška), see S. Hafner, Studien, 19-20,40-53, and 58. See
further also Dj. Sp. Radojičić, Südost-Forschungen XIX (1960), 87-89
and 91-92 (in the paper "Die politischen Bestrebungen in der serbischen
mittelalterlichen Geschichtsschreibung", Serbo-Croatian version in
Književnost XXXII, 1961,150-161, reprinted in the volume of the author's
essays, Tvorci i delà stare srpske književnosti [Titograd, 1963],
317-335).
11. Cf. Letopis popa Dukljanina. Uvod, prevod i
komentar: S. Mijušković (Titograd, 1967), esp. 7-120. For the two authors
referred to as Dukljanin iz Bara, see further, e.g. Stara književnost,
557.
249
St.
Sava's Žitije of Stephan Nemanja (who assumed the monastic name Simeon,
hence also Vita Simeonis), designed to preface the Typicon (tipik)
of the Serbian monastery of Studenica, can perhaps still be considered to fall
largely within, or at least be closely related to, the genre of hagiography in
its popular-narrative variety, in spite of its heterogeneous constituents, its
implied dynastic claim, and the fact that Nemanja here — contrary to what is
the case in King Stephan's Life of his father — is never referred to as a
saint (thus suggesting a pre-canonization date for its recording). By
contrast, his older brother's biography of their father, though framed in a
heavy, ornate hagiographic-rhetorical style, served primarily a secular
purpose, focusing on Stephan Nemanja's worldly rather than on his monastic
life. Hagiographic elements and literary devices, among them frequent
quotations from the Scriptures and, though more rarely, from the Apocrypha,
are abundantly present in the far more elaborate Life of Nemanja by Stephan
the First-Crowned and, indeed, play a more prominent role here than in St.
Sava's stylistically somewhat more unassuming account of his father's life
(cf. also, for example, the enumeration of miracles, partly patterned on those
ascribed to St. Demetrius, the patron saint of Thessalonica, and an
established hagiographic device). Nonetheless, the first Serbian king's
biography of his parental predecessor, with its close-to-life realism and
deliberate political historicism very much in the foreground and only
superficially veiled by the abstract spiritual wording of hagiography, can,
generally speaking, be said to mark the introduction of a more pronounced
secular note into Old Serbian biography. Though King Stephan's Vita was
probably written a few years later than St. Sava's parallel work, little
direct influence of Sava's Vita Simeonis on Stephan's biography could,
strange as it may seem, be ascertained. Where such influence exists, it is
limited primarily to common elements from the Hilandar Charters, to some
shared loci communes, etc. [12]
12.
St. Sava's
Life of Simeon is believed to have been written, along with the Typicon
of the Studenica Monastery, sometime between 1208 and 1217; King Stephan's
biography of his father is known to have been completed no later than by June,
1216. On the relationship between the two earlier Vitae of Stephan
Nemanja (a third one was subsequently authored by Domentijan, cf. below), see
V. Ćorović, "Medjusobni odnošaj biografija Stevana Nemanje", in Svetosavski
zbornik, 1 (Belgrade, 1936), 1-40, esp. 8-13. On Stephan the First-Crowned
and his Life of Nemanja, see also Stara književnost, 309-315 (reprintings
of articles by M. Savković and D. Kostić). For some historical and literary
commentaries to Sava's and Stephan's Lives of Nemanja (Simeon), cf. further S.
Hafner, Serbisches Mittelalter, 31-34, 68-71, and 131-170.
250
II
Subsequently, a third Life of Stephan Nemanja was written by the Hilandar monk
Domentijan (completed ca. 1264). In terms of actual biographical data,
Domentijan's Life of St. Simeon does not go beyond the Žitije svetoga
Simeona by Stephan the First-Crowned, his primary source. However,
Domentijan's Vita of the founder of the Nemanja dynasty is considerably
longer. The reason for this is that, while King Stephan's biography of his
father was also characterized by an ornate style (thus contrasting with Sava's
Vita Simeonis), Domentijan's Life of Stephan Nemanja is not only
distinguished by the same heavy, ornamental style as its model, but in
addition is abounding in a vast number of inserted panegyrical-rhetorical,
allegorical, and lyrical passages and amplifications, not to mention the
numerous, often lengthy quotations from the Bible. While no doubt having a
well-defined stylistic function within medieval learned hagiography (of which
this work must essentially be considered a specimen, cf. below), they
nevertheless distract the reader (or listener) from the main narrative. Among
the biographically irrelevant theological amplifications is the long passage
which Domentijan had taken verbatim from the 11th century Kievan Metropolitan
Ilarion's famous Slovo o zakoně i blagodati, a panegyrical oration
(sermon) in commemoration of St. Vladimir of Kiev. [13] The
judgment of the literary qualities of Domentijan's work has, therefore, varied
among scholars, ranging from severely critical, so particularly in earlier
times, to fairly appreciative, mostly in recent years when the aesthetic as
well as theological role of these seemingly extraneous elements of
Domentijan's Vita Simeonis has become better understood in the light of
their historical context.
More
controversial is another biography by Domentijan, a Vita of St. Sava,
his teacher (written in 1242-1243 or possibly in 1253-1254; even the dating is
uncertain). The learned, ornate style (with many digressions) of this Life is
largely the same as in his later Vita Simeonis. In addition to
Domentijan's Life of Sava there exists a second biography of the Serbian
archbishop by another Hilandar monk, Teodosije, of whom virtually nothing is
known. Teodosije's Vita of St. Sava is stylistically quite different
from Domentijan's. It is simple and straightforward, without much elaborate
amplification and as such continues in Old Serbian biography the other —
popular-narrative — vein of Byzantine hagiography, more akin to St. Sava's own
Life of his father, Stephan
13. Cf. L. Müller, Des Metropoliten llarion Lobrede
auf Vladimir den Heiligen und Glaubensbekenntnis (Wiesbaden, 1962), 39,
49-50, and 104.
251
Nemanja. While Domentijan's Life of St. Sava, designed,
one may surmise, for reading in the sophisticated milieu of the Serbian court,
does not seem to have been widely read in subsequent years and centuries,
Teodosije's more realistic and naïve account of the chief Serbian saint's life
came to enjoy great popularity. In spite of the vastly different styles (and,
presumably, underlying theological and political concepts) in the two Lives of
St. Sava, a certain number of common features as regards factual information
and interpretation can nonetheless be ascertained so that, contrary to what
was the case with the two Lives of Stephan Nemanja by St. Sava and Stephan the
First-Crowned, it has been assumed that one of the Lives of St. Sava must have
served as a model for the other one. Thus the question of priority arose.
Against the generally held view that Domentijan's Life predates Teodosije's,
objections were raised, for example, by M. Murko as early as in 1908.
[14] In recent years a reversal in chronology was suggested
by N. Radojčić, and A. Schmaus, too, seemed at one point inclined toward the
arguments advocated by Radojčić. [15] However, Dj. Sp.
Radojičić and M. Dinić have vigorously argued for the traditional order of
priority and Schmaus now seems convinced by their reasoning.
[16]
III
Old
Serbian biography enters a new — historiographic, or even chronographic —
phase with the appearance of the Lives of Serbian Kings and Archbishops (known
also as Carostavnik or Rodoslov, as they were mislabeled in
later copies) by Archbishop Danilo II (formerly Abbot of the Hilandar
Monastery on Mt. Athos, d. 1337) and his successors. Foremost among these were
the anonymous so-called Disciple of Danilo
14. Cf. M. Murko, op. cit., 159.
15. Cf. N. Radojčić, "Dva Teodosija Hilandarca", Glas
SAN CCXVIII (1956), 1-27; A. Schmaus, Südost-Forschungen XV (1956),
196.
16. Cf. Dj. Sp. Radojičić, "O starom srpskom književniku
Teodosiju", Istor. časopis (SAN), knj. IV (1952-1953), 13-42; M.
J. Dinić, "Domentijan i Teodosije", Prilozi za književnost XXV (1959),
5-12; A. Schmaus, "Die literaturhistorische Problematik von Domentijans Sava-Vita",
Opera Slavica IV (Vorträge auf dem V. Internationalen
Slawistenkongress, Sofia, 1963), (Göttingen, 1963), 121-142, esp. 123. On
Domentijan and Teodosije, see further also Stara književnost, 319-380
(articles, partly reprinted, by V. Corović, Dj. Trifunović, G. Subotić; M.
Savković, S. Vulović, G. Subotić, D. Kostić). On some parallels between
Domentijan's literary style and certain features of medieval Serbian murals,
see further also G. Subotić, "Aperçus sur certains traits stylistiques de
l'œuvre de Domentijan et de la peinture monumentale du XIIIe siècle", in:
L'art byzantin du XIIIe siècle, 125-130.
252
(author of some additional Vitae, including Danilo's, and compiler of
the first Zbornik žitija kraljeva i arhiepiskopa srpskih) and Patriarch
Danilo III (also called Danilo the Younger, d. between 1396 and 1399). The
literary attitudes of the individual authors of this collection of Lives show
considerable variation. Thus, for example, Archbishop Danilo's style,
resembling Teodosije's in many respects, generally displays a clear poetic,
not to say, lyrical, talent (brought to fruition in his religious poetry) ;
the strength of artistic concept and style of his Disciple, on the other hand,
lies rather in an ability to render dramatic scenes and in the employment of
an even, chronicle-like narrative style. As a whole these Lives of Serbian
Kings and Archbishops have been analyzed and discussed most notably by N.
Radojčić in the foreword to his 1935 edition of this gallery of Old Serbian
portraits. [17] Radojčić has suggested — and his idea has
been taken up again by A. Schmaus [18] — that the Lives of
Serbian Kings and Archbishops were originally conceived as a consistent whole,
that is to say, that they were not combined into a larger unit only at some
later date. According to Radojčić, Danilo's Vitae are patterned on an
established, largely inflexible design: a theological introduction, followed
by the main body, or exposition, containing the historical presentation with
some further theological and rhetorical insertions (amplifications), and,
finally, a rhetorical conclusion, usually with an account of the miracles
ascribed to the protagonist. However, a rigorous definition, in literary
terms, of the stylistic and compositional elements making up this specific
sub-type of the Old Serbian vita genre has not yet been formulated.
Radojćić argues that, while containing components of each : hagiography,
historiography, and panegyrical rhetoric (the last perhaps the most stressed,
but actually the relatively least important one), the Lives of Danilo and his
school cannot reasonably be assigned to any of these three kinds of
literature. Though Danilo (for reasons not quite clear) did not include among
his Lives those of the founder of the dynasty, Stephan Nemanja, or his sons,
it appears that the last Serbian archbishop in writing his series of
portrayals of Serbian lay and church
17. Cf. N. Radojčić, "O arhiepiskopu Danilu II i njegovim
nastavljačima", foreword to: Arhiepiskop Danilo, Životi kraljeva i
arhiepiskopa srpskih (transl. L. Mirković), (Belgrade, 1935), V-XXVIII
(reprinted as "Životopisački rad arhiepiskopa Danila II i njegovih nastavljača",
in: Stara književnost, 383-401). See further Dj. Sp. Radqjičić, "Arhiepiskop
srpski Danilo II" and "Danilov učenik i Danilo Mladji", in : Tvorci i delà
stare srpske književnosti, 113-122 (the original versions appeared in
Braničevo VI, 1960, 1-7, and Prilozi za književnost jezik, istoriju I
folklor XXV, 1959, 80-81, respectively).
18. Cf. N. Radojčić, op. cit., XX-XXII; A. Schmaus,
Südost-Forschungen XV (1956), 196-197.
253
rulers attempted to resume the biographical-dynastic tradition initiated by
St. Sava and Stephan the First-Crowned — a tradition from which Domentijan's
and even Teodosije's life-writing must be considered a slight deviation
(designed as their work was for more purely theological and edificatory
purposes). [19]
If
Radojčić's interpretation is correct (and it stands to reason that it is),
Danilo's and his successors' Lives would mark a gradual withdrawing from
hagiography proper and a moving toward secular biography. The overall
historiographic-chronological alignment of Serbian princes of State and Church
— a duality paralleled in Byzantium by its Emperor-Patriarch relationship
subordinated to the concept of 'Caesaropapism' [20] — must
have been alien to the essence of hagiography in view of this genre's
preference for typification rather than individualization of characters.
IV
In
the Lives of Serbian Kings and Archbishops by Danilo II and his successors,
Old Serbian biography had reached a point in its development where this
medieval Slavic genre, being, as it were, at a crossroads, could turn in one
of two directions: either back to its origins (i.e., to hagiography, the
paraphernalia of which it had been carrying along, to a large extent, through
its gradual secularization) or into wholly secular life-writing serving purely
political and historical, but no longer any truly religious purposes. The next
major representatives of Old Serbian biography to appear in Serbian literature
after a temporary pause were Grigorije (Grigorij) Camblak and Constantine of
Kostenec (Konstantin Kostenecki or Kostenečki, also known as "the
Philosopher"). Both foreigners to Serbia, victims of the Turkish inundation of
the Balkan Slavs (having far-reaching ramifications also in Russia and causing
there
19. Generally on the genealogy of the Nemanja dynasty,
see, for example, J. Matl, Südslawische Studien, 46-57 ("Genealogie und
geschichtliche Leistung des serbischen Königshauses der Nemanjiden"). On the
political tendencies in medieval Serbian historiography, see also the above
(note 10) quoted article by Dj. Sp. Radojičić, "Die politischen Bestrebungen
in der serbischen mittelalterlichen Geschichtsschreibung" and, in particular,
the previously mentioned monograph by S. Hafner, Studien zur altserbischen
dynastischen Historiographie (cf. note 9).
20. This duality had, with some qualifications, its
counterpart also in the West with its shifting balance of power and authority
between the Emperor and the Pope within the Holy Roman Empire; cf., in this
context, the Catalogus brevispontificum Romanorum et imperatorum, written by
the Dominican Bernardus Guidonus, a contemporary of the Serbian Archbishop
Danilo II.
254
a
cultural revival known as the Second South Slavic Influence), they mark the
turning of medieval Serbian life-writing in precisely the two aforementioned
directions: Camblak returned to hagiography, now cast in the spirit of
Hesychasm, and Constantine the Philosopher turned toward secular biography
(while retaining some of the outward, purely stylistic apparatus of
hagiography). [21] Whereas Camblak, however, must be
considered an isolated phenomenon without any immediate followers in the
biographical genre (at least in his time and in Serbia), [22]
Constantine's Vita represents at once the peak and a temporary closing
of the fairly consistent line of development (from panegyrical hagiography
toward historical, secularized biography) of Old Serbian life-writing. (Subse-
21. On the Second South Slavic Influence in Russia, see,
in particular, D. S. Lixačev, "Nekotorye zadači izučenija vtorogo
južnoslavjanskogo vlijanija v Rossii", Issledovanija po slavjanskomu
literaturovedeniju i fol'kloristike (Moscow, 1960), 95-151; id.,
Kul'tura Rusi vremeni Andreja Rubleva i Epifanija Premudrogo (Moscow and
Leningrad, 1962). Both Camblak and Constantine were spiritual offspring of the
neo-Byzantine so-called Trnovo School, headed by the last Bulgarian Patriarch
Evtimij (Euthymius, d. ca. 1401-1402). The religious-literary-linguistic
doctrine propagated by the Trnovo School made a great impact not only in
Bulgaria, but also in Serbia, Walachia-Moldavia, and Russia. It is in this
supranational Church-Slavic context that one has to view the hagiographic and
homiletic writings of men such as Camblak (Dzamblak, Camvlach), probably a
Bulgarized Walachian, active in Bulgaria, Serbia, Russia (where he for a short
time became Metropolitan of Kiev and as such attended the Council of
Constance!), and Moldavia-Walachia, of Constantine of Kostenec, a Bulgarian
who had fled to Serbia, of Kiprian (Kiprijan, Cyprianus), a Bulgarian,
Serbianized during an extended stay at Mt. Athos, and a relative of Camblak
who had come to Russia (where he, too, became Metropolitan of Kiev), of
Paxomij Logofet (Pachomius Logothetes, also called "the Serb"), a Serbian
working and writing in Russia. Cf. on some of these writers' role in Old
Russian — of, rather, Russian Church-Slavic — literature, for example, D.
Čiževskij, History of Russian Literature: From the Eleventh Century to the
End of the Baroque (The Hague, 1960), 162-165 and 180-185; A. Stender-Petersen,
Geschichte der russischen Literatur, I (Munich, 1957), 172-174 and
179-184. On the residual hagiographic characteristics in Constantine's
biography, see K. M. Kujew (Kuev), Konstantyn Kostenecki w literaturze
bułgarskiej i serbskiej (Cracow, 1950), 107-109. For an assessment of
Kuev's work, see I. Dujčev, Byzsl XIII (1952-1953), 328-334, esp.
332-333 (on the Biography of Stephan Lazarević). Generally on Athonite
Hesychasm and its theological (dogmatic) foundation (primarily by Gregory
Palamas), cf., for example, S. Vryonis, Byzantium and Europe (London,
1967), 170; for details (with further references), see H.-G. Beck, op. cit.
322-332, 364-368 and 712-798. See Addendum on p. 284.
22. Hagiography being vigorously revived in Russia,
Camblak soon had many followers there, foremost among them Epifanij Premudryj
(Epiphanius "the Wise"), the author of two masterly Lives of Saints; cf. D.
Ciževskij, History, 167-180; A. Stender- Petersen, op. cit.,
174-179. In Serbia, Camblak's delayed influence can be traced in hagiography
and iconography of subsequent centuries, so, for example, in the work of
Zograf Longin (Zographus Longinus, 16th c.) who, inspired by Camblak's Vita,
painted a famous icon with scenes from the life of Stephan Dečanski; cf. M.
Šakota, "Zograf Longin, slikar i književnik XVI veka", Stara književnost,
533-540.
255
quent,
post-medieval žitija — with the possible exception of the works by the
17th century Patriarch Pajsije Janjevac, especially his Žitije cara Uroša
[23] — being less significant both as historical documents
and in terms of literary quality, will not be discussed in this paper.) Though
differently oriented, worldly rulers appear as heroes both in Camblak's
contribution to medieval Serbian life-writing, the Vita of Stephan
Dečanski (the father of the famed Serbian king and subsequent 'tsar' Stephan
Dušan — never himself the subject of any complete panegyrical biography),
[24] and in Constantine's Life of the 'despot' Stephan
Lazarević, a ruler of one of the semi-independent Serbian petty states which
resulted from the defeat of the Serbs in the battle of Kosovo and a great
Maecenas and outstanding man of letters in his own right.
Camblak's Vita of King Stephan Uroš III Dečanski
does not rank high as an historical document in comparison with other Old
Serbian biographies. The information provided by Camblak, especially
concerning the spiritual strife in Constantinople, is not only biased but also
inaccurate. On the other hand, his biography is characterized by outstanding
literary qualities. It is marked by an almost intimate lyricism
23. On the biographical writing of Pajsije Janjevac,
showing an admixture of popular elements, see, for example, Stara
književnost, 543-554 (articles by P. Popović and N. Radojčić, previously
published elsewhere).
24. There exists only a very incomplete Žitije kralja
Dušana by his contemporary, Danilo's anonymous Disciple (incorporated,
sometime between 1337 and 1340, in his Zbornik žitija kraljeva i
arhiepiskopa srpskih) which covers merely the first few years of Dušan's
rule. The fact that no full-length biography of Stephan Dušan was subsequently
written can be partly explained by his elevating, in 1346, the Serbian
archbishop to the rank of patriarch and proclaiming himself "Tsar (i.e.,
emperor) of the Serbs and 'Romaians' (Romaioi, i.e., Greeks), of
Bulgars and Albanians". Both of these clearly anti-Byzantine acts were
resented by the pro-Byzantine Athonite monks, including those of the Serbian
Hilandar Monastery, who were located in the sphere of influence of Byzantium
and subordinated directly to the Patriarch of Constantinople. Thus, while the
political goals and aspirations of the Serbian kings and archbishops from St.
Sava to Danilo II had largely coincided with those of the monastic community
of the Holy Mountain and the Hilandar Monastery in particular, the latter for
all practical purposes being the mouthpiece of the Serbian court in its
dynastic and other claims or at least serving in an advisory capacity to the
court, this situation suddenly changed when Stephan Dušan challenged Byzantium
and prepared to turn against it. As a result, and for some additional, less
transparent reasons, the greatest ruler of medieval Serbia has been left
without a full-scale panegyrical elaboration of his biography. It should be
noted, in this context, that most of the Old Serbian biographers were, at
least at some stage of their life, monks at Hilandar (St. Sava, Domentijan,
Teodosije, Danilo II). The two last important representatives of this genre,
Camblak and Constantine, both foreigners, also spent some time on Mt. Athos.
On a beginning theological-political polarization between the Serbian court
and the Athonite monks, as possibly reflected in Domentijan's and Teodosije's
writings, see below.
256
and
religious feeling rarely encountered in other works of medieval Serbian
literature. Moreover, its overall structure and composition testify to its
author's thorough literary, indeed, artistic schooling acquired in the
Hesychast circles of Trnovo and its new form of Church Slavic literature, now
heavily ornate. Camblak's Vita is full of panegyrical rhetoric in the
Byzantine vein for his hero, the founder of the Decani Monastery, while it
shows rancor toward his son, Stephan Dušan. Here the author's mood seems to
reveal his sympathy with the Athonite monks and their superior, the Patriarch
of Constantinople (cf. note 24). In addition, it may reflect his attitude
toward Dušan's role in the dethroning and later assassination of his father.
The Vita also contains a picturesque description of the Decani region
and of the construction of the local church, one of the pearls of medieval
Serbian architecture. [25]
In
contrast, the Life of Stephan Lazarević by Constantine of Kostenec must be
considered an historical source of primary importance. These were the times
when — after the battle of Kosovo — the Ottoman Turks swamped the Balkans and
Constantine's work, therefore, focuses on the history of the Turkish expansion
(and on Turkish history in general) while only mentioning in passing Stephan's
dealings with his western and northern neighbors, especially Hungary. Since
Byzantine history between 1360 and 1420 is rather obscure, the information
contained in Constantine's Vita is of particular interest. By and
large, Constantine's account is reliable while showing a certain bias for his
hero who, as previously mentioned, was not only a skillful political and
military leader, successfully maneuvering to achieve a certain degree of
independence from his Turkish overlord, but also a personality of great
culture and education. As opposed to many previous Serbian rulers, however, he
was never canonized, and Constantine's attempts to trace his genealogy back to
Emperor Constantine the Great are among the few fantastic, historically
unfounded passages in his Life.
Whereas we meet a true dogmatic in Constantine's other major work, his
treatise on orthography (Skazanie) interpreting Patriarch Evtimij's
teaching in a narrow, formalistic, almost fanatic fashion and urging the
25. For some discussion of the Serbian phase of Camblak's
life and work, see, for example, Dj. Sp. Radojičić, "O Grigoriju Camblaku",
Glasnik Srp. akad. nauka I (1949), 172-175 (reprinted in his volume
Tvorci i dela, 175-182); P. Popović, '"Žitije Stefana Dečanskog' Grigorija
Camblaka", a section of the Introduction to: Stare srpske biografije XV i
XVII veka. Camblak, Konstantin i Pajsije (transi. L. Mirković), (Belgrade,
1936), XII-XXXVI; and Dj. Trifunović, "Emocionalni mehanizam Camblakovih
ličnosti", Delo, knj. VII, sv. 10 (1961), 1214-1222 (both reprinted in:
Stara Književnost, 423-446).
257
fighting of moral decay and heresy by a slavish imitation of Byzantine models,
Constantine's Life of Stephan Lazarević shows a mature, balanced and generous
man at work. This difference in approach may be only partially explained by
the different subject matter and, accordingly, the choice of literary genre.
More important, it seems, is the fact that Constantine wrote his orthographic
treatise as a young man, while the biography of his patron is the
accomplishment of a mature man, experienced in court life and accustomed to
associating with political leaders. Thus, as pointed out by Schmaus,
[26] we can distinguish two components in Constantine's
writings (disregarding in this context his short travel account from the Holy
Land): a Bulgarian one, following and reinterpreting the tradition of the
Trnovo School, ultimately inspired by Hesychasm, and pleading (in a humanistic
spirit, as it were) for a return to the sources of Orthodox Christianity, its
Greek originals and the earliest Slavic (Old Church Slavic) texts; and, a
Serbian one, a product of his mature political thinking and historical realism
for which he could not draw on any examples in the Hesychast, world-renouncing
literature of Bulgaria. Though he may have been influenced in this respect by
Byzantine secular historiography — a possibility quite plausible in view of
Constantine's Greek erudition — his main source of inspiration for the
biography of Stephan Lazarević came from his new Serbian milieu: the tradition
of Old Serbian life-writing which culminated in his own Vita. Some
aspects of Constantine's style and literary technique will be briefly
discussed below (see section VIII). [27]
26. Cf. Südost-Forschungen XV (1956), 200-201.
27. On Constantine the Philosopher's life and work
(including his treatise on orthography, a narrowly conceived continuation of
the linguistic endeavors of the Trnovo School giving rise to its Serbian
offshoot, the so-called Resava School), see in particular K. M. Kujew (Kuev),
op. cit.; on the Life of Stephan Lazarević, cf. esp. 86-112. Of
references listed by Kuev (122-126), see in particular St. Stanojević, "Die
Biographie Stefan Lazarević's von Konstantin dem Philosophen als
Geschichtsquelle", AfslPh XVIII (1896), 409-472, and Ju. Trifonov, "Život
i dejnost na Konstantina Kostenecki", Spisanie BAN LXVI (Sofia, 1943),
223-285. Constantine's Vita is also available in an abridged bilingual
(Old Serbian-German) edition: M. Braun, Lebensbeschreibung des Despoten
Stefan Lazarević von Konstantin dem Philosophen im Auszug herausgegeben und
übersetzt (The Hague and Wiesbaden, 1956). The best modern translation of
the Life of Stephan Lazarević is still the one into contemporary Serbocroatian
by L. Mirković, in Stare srpske biografije XV i XVII veka (Belgrade,
1936), 43-125, including many new, well-founded interpretations of difficult
passages. See further also Stara književnost, 449-479 (articles by P.
Popović, Dj. Trifunović, O Nedeljković, I. Grickat-Radulović, published
previously elsewhere). On the use of acrostics by Constantine, see Dj. Sp.
Radojičić, Südost-Forschungen XVII (1958), 145-146 (in his study "Das
Akrostichon in der altserbischen Literatur", Serbian version: "Akrostih u
staroj srpskoj književnosti", in Tvorci i dela, 95-101, esp. 96-97);
and id., "Završni akrostih kod Konstantina Filozofa, 'prevodnika' i 'učitelja
srpskog' ", Letopis Matice srpske 388, 1961, 479-485 (reprinted in:
Tvorci i dela, 239-245).
258
V
Reference has already been made here to the varying attitudes which historians
and literary scholars have held regarding the works of Old Serbian biography.
The founder of modern scholarship in the field of South Slavic literature, the
Slovak Slavist P. J. Šafarik, was fairly appreciative of St. Sava's and
Domentijan's Vitae. On the other hand, he found little literary or
historical merit in the biographical portraits by Danilo II and his
successors. The general appraisal of medieval Serbian life-writing soon
dropped to an all-time low in the estimation of the Russian Slavophiles of the
second half of the last century. Their view reflected their own romantic
thinking about the Slavic Middle Ages rather than any attempt to gain a deeper
understanding of medieval Serbia in the framework of its historical,
Byzantine-Balkan context. Typical of this attitude were, for example, the
statements of A. F. Gil'ferding, a well-known Slavist and folklorist, who as
Russian consul in Sarajevo had an opportunity to study medieval Serbian
writings at first hand. Using his own moral standards, Gil'ferding condemned
as hypocritical the religious zeal of the Old Serbian biographers when they
praised as saints many a cold-blooded criminal whose frightful deeds they did
not hesitate to describe, stunning their readers (and listeners) with
information such as the following: "And after this pious King Uroš [viz.,
Stephan Uroš II Milutin] had blinded his beloved son Stephan..." or "This
pious King Uroš [viz., Stephan Uroš III Dečanski] felt hatred for his beloved
son and instead of surrounding him with great love he began to hate him unto
death", etc.
A
change of attitude toward a more positive appraisal of the Old Serbian vitae
can first be found in the History of Serbian Literature (Istorija sprske
književnosti, 1871) by St. Novaković. Approaching medieval historical
consciousness from the position of European Late Romanticism, this scholar
recognized in Old Serbian biography a rare (for the Middle Ages) instance of
individualized historiography. It is worth noting here that the great Serbian
philologist Dj. Daničić, the first to publish a number of medieval Serbian
texts in scholarly editions of highest quality by contemporary standards,
refrained — following the example of his teacher F. Miklosich — from any
lengthy comments regarding the overall level of Old Serbian literature. Still,
it is known
259
that
Daničić was of the opinion that the quality of Old Serbian writing (and, for
that matter, of the moral fiber of the Nemanja state) declined as the power of
medieval Serbia increased and its territory expanded.
By
and large a rather reserved, if not negative, view of Old Serbian biography
was taken by another of Miklosich's students, the internationally renowned
Croatian Slavist V. Jagić. While initially favoring St. Sava's simple,
unassuming language as compared to the ornate style of subsequent biographers,
he later preferred the Life of Simeon (Nemanja) by Stephan the First-Crowned
to Sava's because of the longer biography's greater wealth of data and its
relatively lucid presentation. Jagić considered Domentijan's Vitae
vastly overrated by Šafarik but saw at least some historical merit in Danilo's
and his Disciple's work, and recognized Camblak's style as more vivid and
flowery. He showed little appreciation for Constantine of Kostenec, finding
his Life of Stephan Lazarević overly stilted and burdened with learning. In
general, Jagić felt that Old Serbian literature was much too heavily dependent
on Byzantine models and that, in this respect, it compared poorly with Old
Russian writing, especially with the kind of historiography found in the
so-called Nestor Chronicle.
In
the beginning of this century, yet another of Miklosich's former students, the
Slovene M. Murko, in his History of Early South Slavic Literature (Geschichte
der älteren südslawischen Litteraturen, 1908) went a step further in
depreciating the value and significance of the "original religious and secular
literature" of medieval Serbia, echoing and, indeed, quoting the pertinent
views of Russian Slavophiles (Golubinskij, Gil'ferding). In addition to
reproaching the Old Serbian panegyrical writers for their monastic
exclusiveness, their lack of historicism, and their verbosity — all closely
following Byzantine patterns — Murko, like Gil'ferding before him, decried
their hypocrisy as one of the worst outgrowths of Byzantinism among the Slavs.
The
definite turning point, marking a new and more just assessment of Old Serbian
biography, came in 1910 when the outstanding Serbian literary historian P.
Popović, taking up some of Novaković's earlier ideas, first published his
Survey of Old Serbian Literature (Pregled stare srpske književnosti,
with many subsequent editions). In this work the hagiographic-historiographic
vitae — along with their companions, the panegyrical encomia (Serbian
pohvale) — were singled out as occupying a special place in Old Serbian
writing and their particular literary merits as well as their importance as
historical documents were emphasized. Only now, inspired by Popović's work and
the writings of K. Jireček in the field of Serbian history, did one begin to
fully realize the necessity
260
for a
close philological and literary scrutiny of the Old Serbian texts based on new
critical editions. The numerous studies of Old Serbian biography by scholars
such as V. Corović, N. Radojčić, V. Mošin, Dj. Sp. Radojičić, D. Pavlović, I.
Dujčev, and others, supplemented in more recent years by some important
contributions from West European, particularly Austrian and German,
specialists such as A. Schmaus, D. Tschižewskij, J. Matl, and S. Hafner, have
shed new light and brought about a better understanding not only of many of
the intricate details of Old Serbian life-writing, but also of its overall
significance and place in early Serbian history and civilization as these
relate both to Byzantium and the rest of the Slavic world. [28]
Of
literature published after 1960, Hafner's two books, his dissertation
Studien and his annotated translation Serbisches Mittelalter (both
quoted above), are of considerable significance. In particular, focusing on
St. Sava, Stephan the First-Crowned, and Danilo II and his successors while
paying less attention to Domentijan and Teodosije and virtually ignoring
Camblak and Constantine of Kostenec, his dissertation seeks to elucidate the
intellectual and historical background of the genesis of the Old Serbian
Lives. It traces their ideological core to the Charters issued by the Serbian
rulers for the foundation of various monasteries (Hilandar, Studenica, Decani,
etc.), and elaborates subsequently on the stereotyped themes (topoi)
and motifs of the investigated texts. Important also among more recent studies
is an article by M. I. Mulić, examining primarily the style of Domentijan,
Teodosije, and Danilo and his school. [29] Mulić's attempt
to explain, at least in part, the abundant use of quotations from the
Scriptures in Domentijan as an expression of the medieval Serbian monk's
presumed wish to influence the Serbian King Uroš I toward closer ties with
Byzantium and the Patriarch of Constantinple rather than with Hungary, Venice,
and the Pope may seem less con-
28. For a detailed account, with bibliographical
documentation, of the appraisal of Old Serbian biography by modern scholarship
(beginning with Šafarik and until ca. 1960), see S. Hafner, Studien,
1-9, on which the preceding brief survey is based. Cf. now also the integrated
treatment of South Slavic literature of the Late Middle Ages by D.
Tschižewskij (Čiževskij), Vergleichende Geschichte der slavischen
Literaturen, I (Berlin, 1968), 62, 66-69, 81-85 (with, unfortunately, some
factual errors: listing Paxomij under Bulgaria, 62; giving incorrect death
dates for Sava and Stephan the First-Crowned, 67; and attributing the passage
from Ilarion to the Life of Nemanja by Stephan the First-Crowned instead of to
the one by Domentijan, 69). Of other work on Old Serbian life-writing by
scholars mentioned here, cf. above.
29. See M. I. Mulič (Mulić), "Serbskie agiografy X1II-XIV
vv. i osobennosti ix stilja", in: Literaturnye svjazi drevnix slavjan
(Leningrad, 1968) (= TODRL XX111), 127-142.
261
vincing. [30] Similar reservations
could be voiced against his emphasis on a political-ideological motivation for
Teodosije's writings, among them his Vita of Sava.
In the bulk of his paper, however, Mulić persuasively argues the reasons for
choosing a seemingly stilted style (including the frequent recourse to
biblical parallels and associations), suggestive of symbolical and equivocal
interpretations and raising the level of discourse from the concrete and
earth-bound to the abstract, general, and eternal — a characteristic of
medieval literature (and folklore) previously pointed out in respect to the
Byzantine-Slavic domain, for example, by V. P. Adrianova-Peretc.
[31] Moreover, Mulić sees the biographers' use of panegyrical devices when
describing their largely "negative heroes", as a means of overcoming or at
least mollifying — by the formal beauty and loftiness of presentation — the
shocking impact their frequently criminal acts would otherwise have on the
reader (or listener). The obscure language of these biographies, full of
allegories, implied similes, and circumlocutions (not unlike the kenningar
of Icelandic literature, but, naturally, having their immediate models in
Byzantine rhetoric as seen also in the many direct loan translations,
particularly of complex notions and terms), added to the emotional-religious
charge intended by their authors. Perhaps the most important result of Mulić's
study, however, is the realization that the much-discussed stylistic device of
so-called word-weaving (pletenie sloves), extremely popular in Russia
during the Second South Slavic Influence (cf., for example its sophisticated
utilization by Epifanij Premudryj) and generally believed to have originated,
on Slavic soil, in Bulgaria — specifically, in the Hesychast Trnovo School of
Patriarch Evtimij — actually can be found in full bloom already some hundred
years earlier in Serbia where, of course, it had developed by imitation of
Byzantine examples. [32] In this connection, one should not
30. Mulić has counted a total of 482 such quotations in
Domentijan, whereof 268 instances in the Life of Sava, as compared to
Teodosije's 139 and a total of 463 in the Zbornik by Danilo II et al. All
these figures are unmatched in the preceding as well as following course of
Old Serbian biography. For further details on biblical quotations in Old
Serbian literature, see St. Stanojević and D. Glumac, Sv. Pismo u našim
starim spomenicima (Belgrade, 1932).
31. See V. P. Adrianova-Peretc, Očerki poetičeskogo
stilja drevnej Rusi (Moscow, 1947), 9 and 11. Cf., for West and Central
European literature, also E. R. Curtius, Europäische Literatur und
lateinisches Mittelalter. 3rd ed. (Bern, 1961), 469-470 ("Dichtung als
Verewigung").
32. On the direct influence of Serbian hagiography
(biography) on Old Russian literature, cf. also A. V. Solov'ev, TODRL
XVII (1961), 94-95, where the Slovo o žitii i prestavlenii velikago knjazja
Dimitrija Ivanoviča, carja rusьskago is ascribed to Epifanij Premudryj and
considered to be patterned on the Vita of Simeon (Nemanja) by Stephan
the First-Crowned. On the Old Russian work, sec also D. Čiževskij, History,
191-192, and, in particular, A. Stender-Petersen, op. cit., 160,
177-179, and 191, where, too, Epifanij is conjectured to be the author of the
biography of Dmitrij Donskoj.
262
underestimate the influence in Russia of the Serbian component of the Athonite
monastic community (that is, primarily of the Hilandar Monastery), in addition
to the influence coming from Serbia directly. [33] It ought
to be added that a similar re-evaluation of Domentijan's style as that offered
by Mulić was also suggested somewhat earlier by A. Schmaus. [34]
VI
While
it is easy to point to Byzantine models in general as sources for the
language, style, structure, and compositional makeup of the Old Serbian
biographies (not to speak of their underlying dynastic-dogmatic ideology), it
is difficult, if not impossible, to single out any particular works of
Byzantine hagiography or historiography which have been directly imitated in,
or can be considered more closely related to, individual vitae, written
in medieval Serbia or at the Hilandar Monastery. This should not surprise us,
however, if we recall that, while continuing the literary traditions of
Byzantine hagiography and historiography (the latter especially in its smaller
formats), the Old Serbian Lives of rulers and princes of the Church are not
merely reworked Byzantine literary patterns but ORIGINAL works of art. (The
meaning of 'original' in its medieval context, as we have seen, was less
rigidly interpreted than it is in its modern sense and cannot be equated with
'fully independent'.) [35]
33. Notice the fact that of the South Slavs winding up in
Russia some, like Paxomij Logofet, were Serbians while others, being
Bulgarians (or, in the case of Camblak, probably a Bulgarized Walachian), had
been exposed to strong Serbian influences (so, for example, Kiprian). On the
role of Mt. Athos among the Orthodox Slavs, see, in particular, I. Dujčev, "Le
Mont Athos et les Slaves au Moyen âge", in: Le millénaire du Mont Athos
(963-1962). Études et mélanges, II (Venice-Chevetogne, 1964), 121-144
(reprinted in: Medioevo bizantino-slavo, I, 487-510); id., "Centry
vizantijsko-slavjanskogo obščenija i sotrudničestva", in : Russkaja
literatura XI-XVII vekov sredi slavjanskix literatur (Moscow-Leningrad,
1963) (= TODRL XIX), 107-129, esp. 121-126. For the early relations
between Mt. Athos, Kievan Russia, and Serbia, see also V. Mošin, "Russkie na
Afone i russko-vizantijskie otnošenija v XI-XII vv.", Byzsl IX (1947),
55-85; XI (1950), 32-60; id., "O periodizacii russko-južnoslavjanskix
literaturnyx svjazej X-XV vv.", in: Russkaja literatura... (= TODRL
XIX), 28-106, esp. 62-63 and 73-74 (Serbo-Croatian version in Slovo
11/12, 1962, 13-130).
34. Cf. A. Schmaus, "Die literaturhistorische Problematik...",
loc. cit., esp. 129-138 (for full reference, see note 16).
35. On the common use of 'borrowing' and 'echoing' in
medieval Slavic hagiography, cf., for example, D. Čyževskyj (Čiževskij), "Anklänge
an die Gumpoldlegcnde des hl. Vaclav in der altrussischen Legende des hl.
Feodosij und das Problem der 'Originalität' der slavischen mittelalterlichen
Werke", WslJb 1 (1950), 71-86, esp. 75-76 and 80.
263
Also,
the further Old Serbian biography moves away from typified hagiography toward
individualized secular biography (while subliming the individual traits of its
heroes) the more remote were the possibilities of simply taking over — mostly
from Byzantine literature — stereotyped themes and motifs (topoi,
loci communes). Since, however, a certain amount of hagiographic
paraphernalia followed Old Serbian life-writing throughout its development,
there was always an opportunity of resorting to some such clichés in the same
way as the medieval author would usually amplify his vita with
quotations from the Holy Writ, particularly the Psalter. [36]
Perhaps most apparent is the connection between the early phase of Old Serbian
biography and certain kinds of Byzantine literature. Thus, as was mentioned
above, St. Sava's Vita Simeonis, written as an introduction to the
Typicon of the Studenica Monastery, in its ideological core and stylistic
wording can be traced back to the first Charter of the Hilandar Monastery,
co-authored by Sava. With some qualifications this can also be said to apply
to the Nemanja biography by Stephan the First-Crowned. The first Hilandar
Charter (as well as its revision, the second Charter of 1200-1201, issued by
Stephan the First-Crowned), while generally referring to the particulars of
the Serbian monastic foundation on Mt. Athos, is patterned on the Byzantine
imperial documents (chrysobulla) serving the same purpose.
[37] Notice, incidentally, that the Typica for
Hilandar and Studenica also followed a Byzantine model, namely the Typicon
of the Euergetis (Benefactress) Monastery in Constantinople.
[38]
In a
stimulating study, I. P. Eremin has argued that the Byzantine impact on Early
Bulgarian (9th-11th c.) and Old Russian (11th-12th c.) literature was largely
limited to the writings of Early Christian Byzantine authors, primarily to the
patristic literature of the 2nd through 6th centuries, and at any rate to the
pre-Metaphrastic period in Byzantine hagio-
36. Cf. V. Mošin, Russkaja literatura... (=
TODRL XIX), 87-91 (in his study "O periodizacii russko-južnoslavjanskix
literaturnyx svjazej X-XV vv."); M. I. Mulić, op. cit., 136-137 (with
references).
37. Cf. A. Solovjev, Hilandarska povelja velikog
župana Stefana (Prvovenčanog) iz godine 1200-1202, in: Prilozi za knjiž.,
jez., ist. i folkl. 5 (1925), 62-89; V. Mošin and A. Solovjev, Grčke
povelje srpskih vladara (Belgrade, 1936). See further S. Hafner,
Studien, 54-77.
38. See S. Hafner, op. cit., 65 (with note 73). On
the Byzantine Typica, cf. K. Krumbacher, op. cit., 314-319. See further
in particular also A. Dmitrievskij, Opisanie liturgičeskix rukopisej,
xranjaščixsja v bibliotekah pravoslavnago Vostoka. T. I : Τυπικά. Č. 1-ja
(Kiev, 1895); T. III (1-ja polovina): Τυπικά, Č. II. (Petrograd, 1917) (photomechanic
reprint: Hildesheim, 1965).
264
graphy. [39] While not necessarily
true for all genres of Old Russian literature, Eremin's contention seems, in
fact, to be accurate as regards hagiography. [40] It applies
also to Early Bulgarian, i.e., to Old Church Slavic, writing of the 9th-11th
centuries. Byzantine hagiography of the Metaphrastic and post-Metaphrastic
kind seems to have flourished in Bulgaria only in the Second Bulgarian Empire,
in other words from the end of the 12th century, after a period of intensive
Byzantinization. In Russia the new hagiography of Byzantium made headway only
during the Second South Slavic Influence, primarily through Bulgarian and
Serbian literati and their Russian followers (cf. notes 21 and 22,
above).
Compared to this, medieval Serbian biography of the 13th-15th centuries, with
its roots in hagiography and largely retaining the characteristics of this
genre, was, no doubt, influenced by earlier, pre-Metaphrastic as well as
recent (11th-12th c.) and contemporary (13th-15th a), post-Metaphrastic
Byzantine hagiography. [41] Moreover, the historiographic
component of Old Serbian life-writing could draw on the chronographic
tradition of Byzantine literature. Thus, many of the much-read Byzantine
chronicles, both older ones (such as those by John Malalas, 6th c.,
representing the popular monastic chronicle genre; Georgius Monachus, called "Hamartolus",
9th c. ; Symeon Magistrus and Logothetes, most probably identical with
Metaphrastes, 10th c.) or more recent ones (e.g., the chronicles by
Constantine Manasses or John Zonaras, both 12th c.) were or soon became
available in Church Slavic translations and adaptations, some of which are
also preserved in Serbian recensions (Hamartolus, Zonaras). [42]
It can be shown that parallels for
39. Cf. "O vizantijskom vlijanii v bolgarskoj i
drevnerusskoj literaturax IX-XII w." (1963), reprinted in: I. P. Eremin,
Literatura drevnej Rusi (Étjudy i xarakteristiki) (Moscow-Leningrad,
1966), 9-17. For some criticism of Eremin's views, see esp. D. S. Lixačev,
Oxford Slavonic Papers, XIII (1967), 21-23 (in his paper "The Type and
Character of the Byzantine Influence on Old Russian Literature", loc. cit.,
14-32, containing many other important observations and considerations as
well). On Symeon Metaphrastes, (active, as we now know, in the 10th century)
and his reform of hagiography, see K. Krumbacher, op. cit., 200-203;
H.-G. Beck, op. cit., 570-575.
40.
Echoes of
Symeon Metaphrastes can be found, for example, as early as in the homiletic
writings of the 12th century Russian preacher and poet Cyril of Turov (Kiril
Turovskij); see A. Stender-Petersen, op. cit., 56. On Early Old Russian
hagiography, not yet influenced by Metaphrastes, see ibid., 65-67.
41. For some exemplification of Metaphrastes' influence
on medieval Serbian life- writing, see M. I. Mulić, op. cit., 135-136.
42. For a discussion of the Byzantine chroniclers and
their works, see K. Krumbacher, op. cit., 319-408. Generally, on the
Church Slavic versions of Byzantine chronicles, see M. Weingart, Byzanské
kroniky v literatuře církevneslovanské, I-II (Bratislava, 1922-1923). Cf.
also Ju. Trifonov, "Vizantijskite xroniki v cărkovnoslavjanskata knižnina",
Izv. na Istor. druž. v Sofija, VI (1924), 163-181.
265
some
semantic nuances, encountered in Old Serbian biographies and reflecting an
historical-political differentiation of concepts, exist in such Church Slavic
versions of Byzantine chronicles. [43]
In
addition to chronicle-writing, another kind of Byzantine historiography can
also be assumed to have influenced Old Serbian biography. The genre of secular
biography was resumed in Byzantium in the 10th century after a long eclipse
suffered in the beginning of the medieval period when the Christian saint
became the only hero deserving of a panegyrical treatment. As was mentioned
above (see note 1), Constantine VII Porphyrogenitus with the biography of his
grandfather, Emperor Basilius I, revived and set the pattern for a genre which
in the West had been reintroduced — resuming the tradition of Suetonius'
biographies of Roman emperors — more than a century earlier by Einhart's
Vita Karoli Magni. [44] The Byzantine Lives of Emperors,
full, to be sure, of Christian connotations and mostly integrated into larger
historiographic works (and therefore not identified by Krumbacher as a
separate genre), were bound to have considerable impact also on the
development of historical-biographical writing in medieval Serbia (including
Hilandar). Among such works should be mentioned, for example, the biographical
accounts found in the History of Byzantine Emperors known as Theophanes
Continuatus (or Scriptores post Theophanem) covering the period 813
to 961-963, where the literary characteristics of life-writing, however, are
not particularly prominent. More clearly biographical features can be
ascertained in Anna Comnena's work Alexias, the life story of her
father, Emperor Alexius Comnenus (d. 1118), supplementing her husband's,
Nicephorus Bryennius', "historical material" (ὕλη ἱστορίας) on largely the
same subject matter (accounting for the time up to 1079). [45]
A
43. Cf., for example, the stereotyped "peace and quiet"
theme in Sava's Life of Nemanja: mirь i tišinu vъsprïem'šu vl[a]d[i]čistvu
ego (similarly already in the two Hilandar Charters, with tixost
instead of tišina in the earlier Charter), corresponding to the same
formula in Hamartolus: vъ mirě i tixosti = ἐν εἰρήνῃ καὶ γαλήνῃ; see S.
Hafner, Studien, 89-93.
44. On Constantine's Life of Basilius, see K. Krumbacher,
op. cit., 253, and, in particular, P. J. Alexander, op. cit. See
further Gy. Moravcsik, Byzantinoturcica, I, 2nd ed. (Berlin, 1958),
380. In general on the revival of secular biography, see also N. W. Ingham,
op. cit., 181-182 (with references to further literature). For information
on Einhart and his Life of Charlemagne, cf., for example, K. Langosch, Die
deutsche Literatur des lateinischen Mittelalters in ihrer geschichtlichen
Entwicklung (Berlin, 1964), 16-17.
45. On Theophanes Continuatus, see K. Krumbacher,
op. cit., 347-349 ; cf. further also, e.g., Gy. Moravcsik, op. cit.,
540-544 (with references). On the models of this historiographic work, see R.
J. H. Jenkins, "The Classical Background of the Scriptores post Theophanem",
Dumbarton Oaks Papers, 8 (1954), 11-30. On Nicephorus Bryennius' and
Anna Comnena's writings, cf. K. Krumbacher, op. cit., 271-279.
266
detailed study of these Byzantine-Serbian influences is, however, yet to be
undertaken.
Finally, when discussing Byzantine influences on Old Serbian biography, it
should also be stressed that this literary genre be viewed in the framework of
its specific Balkan cultural setting which, in turn, was largely determined by
a Byzantine popular tradition as regards the worship of saints.
[46] As opposed to the Serbs and to some other Slavic peoples (Czechs,
Russians) as well as to the nearby Hungarians, the Bulgarians — the most
Byzantinized of all the Slavs — did not have a tradition of worshiping any of
their rulers (or members of the ruling house) as Christian saints.
Consequently, medieval Bulgarian literature does not have any dynastic
hagiographies or legends. [47]
VII
Byzantine literature was not the only source to provide Old Serbian
life-writing with patterns, thematic as well as stylistic, to be translated
and embodied or imitated by the Serbian biographers. The Bible and, though to
a lesser degree, the Apocrypha of the Eastern Church have already been
mentioned as widely used reservoirs of quotations and metaphors. No less
important as a model for the Old Serbian Lives was the tradition of the
vita genre as it already existed in Slavic literature at the time of the
beginnings of Serbian biography. In this context, it must
46. Cf. S. Hafner, Studien, 27-40. Among elements
of such a Balkan-Byzantine popular tradition connected with the worship of
saints (and its literary expression in hagiography) Hafner mentions in
particular the so-called translatio (i.e., transfer of the remains of a
saint, usually preceded by the elevatio; cf. the transfer of Nemanja's
remains from Hilandar to Studenica) and the specification of important saints
as being so-called 'oil saints'. Examples of these are St. Demetrius of
Thessalonica, Stephan Nemanja (cf. the account of the first miracle after his
death in the Vita by Stephan the First-Crowned), St. John (Ivan) of
Rila, and also St. Stephen of Hungary. To be sure, many of these religious
patterns, while occurring in the Balkans and in Byzantium, were not limited to
this particular area or only to the Eastern Church.
47. Cf. S. Hafner, Studien, 26; N. K. Gudzij,
Issledovanija po slavjanskomu literaturovedeniju i fol’kloristike, 30-31
(in his 1958 Moscow Congress paper "Literature Kievskoj Rusi i drevnejšie
inoslavjanskie literatury"). That the Bulgarian tsar Peter (d. 969) was not
made the subject of a panegyrical vita in spite of his canonization may
have to do with his poor political-military performance and the approaching
end of the First Bulgarian Empire. Addendum : I am indebted to Prof. I. Dujčev
for drawing my attention to some traces in Early Bulgarian writing of a cult
of Tsar Peter which could suggest the existence of a vita, now lost, of
this canonized ruler. Likewise, there may perhaps have existed a vita of St.
David, the martyred brother of the West Bulgarian (Macedonian) tsar Samuil (d.
1014). Cf. I. Dujčev, Medioevo bizantino-slavo, II (Rome, 1968),
207-223 ( = Südost-Forschungen XIX 119601, 71-86), esp. 217-218.
267
again
be emphasized that in the Middle Ages the literary — or, rather, literate —
segment of the Slavs, to the extent it was oriented toward religion and its
institutions, was unified, as it were, in one large, supranational community,
using Church Slavic in only slightly varying adaptations. And when the local
recensions of Church Slavic threatened to grow apart too much, as a result of
increasing adaptation to the various Slavic vernaculars, the linguistic reform
of Patriarch Evtimij's Trnovo School (carried to its extreme, in Serbia, by
Constantine the Philosopher's Resava School) was designed to 'purify' and, in
fact, reunify and standardize the literary vehicle of all the Orthodox Slavs.
[47a] Thus, it is not by accident that Church Slavic
writers such as Kiprian, Camblak, Constantine of Kostenec, or Paxomij Logofet
were able to continue their literary activities virtually unhampered by any
linguistic barrier when moving from one Slavic country to another. (Cf. the
similar international role of Latin literature in the Roman Catholic part of
medieval Europe). As pointed out by R. Jakobson, Constantine of Kostenec
"grasped perfectly the international nature of his tongue which could not be
identified with either the Bulgarian or Serbian vernaculars".
[48] Under such circumstances, it was only natural if medieval Serbian
biographers would turn for models to the body of existing Church Slavic
vitae, themselves largely patterned on Byzantine writing.
Highest among the Church Slavic vitae rank, no doubt, the so-called
Pannonian legends of Constantine and Methodius. While earlier held to be
translations of Greek originals, they are today considered by most scholars
(including the present writer) original works of early Slavic literature.
[49] Although the two Vitae technically can be
classified as hagiographic works (since both brothers were canonized), they
are more correctly labeled semi-secular biographies. For while praising the
Thessalonian brothers in the panegyric vein and siding with them in relating
cases of controversy (cf. Constantine's disputations and Methodius' conflict
with the German clergy), they contain a wealth of factual, historical
information without any attempt at typification. [50] A
sizable amount of research has already gone into analyzing the Lives of
Constantine and Methodius, in particular regarding their literary and
stylistic
47a. Cf., however, the recent reassessment of Evtimij's
reform referred to in the Addendum to note 21, below.
48. Cf. Harvard Slavic Studies I (1953), 49.
49. Cf. F. Grivec, op. cit., 246-251; H. Birnbaum,
Cyrillo-Methodiana. Zur Frühgeschichte des Christentums hei den Slaven,
863-1963, M. Hellmann et al., ed. (Cologne- Graz, 1964), 331-332 (in: "Zur
Sprache der Methodvita", 329-361).
50. Cf. H. Birnbaum, op. cit., 333 (with note 7).
268
quality as well as their historical background. [51] Of the
two, the Vita Constantini, ascribed by some to Methodius (earlier also
to Clement of Ohrid), is the longer — in spite of the much shorter life span
of Constantine compared to that of his brother — and contains a great number
of amplifications, and stylistically and theologically, but not
biographically, motivated digressions. While there is every indication that
the anonymous author of the Vita Methodii knew the Vita Constantini
and utilized it for his own account of the older brother's accomplishments,
the Life of Methodius is marked by greater terseness, thus bringing it one
step closer to secular biography. Some scholars, R. Picchio for example, have
been disturbed by the heavy hagiographic apparatus of the Vita Constantini
and therefore, from a literary viewpoint, placed the shorter of the two
Pannonian legends above the longer one. However, there can be no doubt that
the more learned and complex Vita Constantini, too, has great artistic
merit and deserves to be ranked among the most precious pieces of early Slavic
literature.
It is
not merely a theoretical assumption but can indeed by substantiated that the
Old Church Slavic prototypes of the vita genre have actually influenced
Old Serbian biography. [52] Thus, to give just one example,
God's plan of salvation for mankind, mentioned at the beginning of the Vita
Constantini (ch. 1) and also early in the Vita Methodii (ch. 2), is
paraphrased in the introduction to St. Sava's Vita Simeonis, as is
already the case in the second Hilandar Charter by Stephan the First-Crowned.
Further, the translatio account in the so-called Chersonese legend,
51. Cf., in addition to previous references and adducing
only a selection of some of the more important contributions, N. v. Wijk, "Zur
sprachlichen und stilistischen Würdigung der altkirchenslavischen Vita
Constantini", Südost-Forschungen VI (1941), 74-102; id., "Zur
Rekonstruktion des Urtextes der altkirchenslavischen Vita Constantini",
ZfslPh XVII (1941), 268-284; I. Dujčev, "Zur literarischen Tätigkeit
Konstantins des Philosophen", BZ XLIV (1951, Dölger Festschrift),
105-110; R. Picchio, "Compilazione e trama narrativa nelle 'Vite' di
Costantino e Metodio", Ricerche Slavistiche VIII (1960), 61-95; P.
Lytwyn, Die literarische Gattung der Vita Methodii. Eine Untersuchung zur
altchristlichen Literaturgeschichte (Vienna, 1961); V. Vavřinek, "Staroslověnské
životy Konstantina a Metoděje a panegyriky Rehoře z Nazianzu", LF LXXXV
(1962), 96-122; id., Staroslověnské životy Konstantina a Metoděje
(Prague, 1963) (with a detailed analysis of the relationship of the two
Vitae to Byzantine hagiography, 15-29); B. Panzer, "Die Disputationen in
der aksl. Vita Constantini", ZfslPh XXXIV (1968), 66-88 (with a
discussion of its hagiographic background, 67-70); G. Wytrzens, "Zum Stil der
Vita Constantini", Cyrillo-Methodianische Fragen, Slavische Philologie und
Altertumskunde, F. Zagiba, ed. (Wiesbaden, 1968), 43-50. Cf. also the new
edition by F. Grivec and F. Tomšič, Constantinus et Methodius. Fontes
(Zagreb, 1960).
52. Cf. S. Hafner, Serbisches Mittelalter, 132, n.
9; id., Studien, 29, n. 58, 58-59 (with note 31), 79.
269
written by St. Constantino in Greek, but soon rendered into Old Church Slavic
[53] and reflected in the account of the transfer of the
remains of St. Clement in the Vita Constantini, seems to have
influenced the Vitae of Stephan Nemanja by St. Sava and Stephan the
First-Crowned. [54]
The
Old Church Slavic literary tradition, originally centered in the Slavic West
(Moravia, Pannonia), was carried on in Bulgarian Macedonia, with its focal
point in Ohrid from where, in all probability, it radiated into the nearby
Serbian territories (Zeta, Rascia). Some residue of it existed perhaps also in
Serbia proper; cf. the vestiges of linguistic Serbisms in some 'classical' Old
Church Slavic texts (Glagolita Clozianus, Codex Marianus), conceivably
suggesting that these manuscripts were copied somewhere in the
Macedonian-Serbian border area. An early offshoot of this tradition, not
without significance for Serbian Church Slavic writing, can also be found in
littoral Croatia (Dalmatia) where it subsequently rallied in what has become
known as Croatian Glagolitism. [55] Also in Bohemia, Church
Slavic liturgy and letters seem to have survived until the closing of the
Sázava Monastery in 1097, possibly without any interruption of the
Cyrillo-Methodian tradition. [56] Having been firmly rooted
in the Ohrid Center, Church Slavic writing was soon introduced also in the
eastern part of Bulgaria, primarily in Preslav. From Bulgaria, as well as from
Bohemia-Moravia, Church Slavic literature spread to Kievan Russia where the
Cave Monastery (Kievo-Pečerskaja Lavra) became its first stronghold.
53. The two extant Slavic copies are late, dating from
the 16th c.
54. Cf. S. Hafner, Studien, 31-34. On the
"Chersonese legend", see F. Grivec, op. cit., 223 and 253. The relevant
information of the "Chersonese legend" was incorporated also in the Latin
account of St. Constantine's life, the so-called Italic legend (Vita cum
translatione S. Clementis); on this source, see F. Grivec, op. cit.,
254-255. In addition to drawing on the "Chersonese legend", the translatio
account of the Nemanja Vitae has also introduced material from a
similar Balkan Slavic account, that of John of Rila (Ivan Rilski), extant in
several variants.
55. Cf., of recent treatments, for example, J. Hamm, "Vom
kroatischen Typus des Kirchenslavischen", WsUb, Österr. Beitr. z. V.
Internat. Slavistenkongr. (Sofia, 1963) (Graz-Cologne, 1963),
11-39; S. Graciotti, "Un episodio dell'incontro tra Oriente e Occidente: la
letteratura e il rito glagolitico croato", Gesch. d. Ost- u Westkirche in
ihren wechselseit. Beziehungen, F. Zagiba, ed. (Wiesbaden, 1967), 67-79.
56. Cf. M. Weingart, Československý typ cirkevnej
slovančiny (Bratislava, 1949); F. Grivec, op. cit., 185-191; D.
Tschižewskij, "Kirchenslavische Literatur bei den Westslaven",
Cyrillo-Methodianische Fragen..., 13-28; J. Kadlec, "Das Vermächtnis der
Slavenapostel Cyrill und Method im böhmischen Mittelalter", ibid.,
103-137. Against the supposition of an uninterrupted Cyrillo-Methodian
tradition in Bohemia and favoring, rather, an assumption of close ties between
the Sázava Monastery and Kievan Russia, see I. Boba, "The Monastery of Sázava:
The Problem of Methodian Continuity in Bohemia" (chapter in a forthcoming
book). Cf. now also id., Moravia's History Reconsidered: A
Reinterpretation of Medieval Sources (The Hague, 1971), 152-153.
270
Hagiography was practiced, though probably not very intensely, in Macedonia
and East Bulgaria. There exists a Slavic Life of St. Naum (in several textual
variants) and we can also assume that a Vita of St. Clement of Ohrid
was originally written in Slavic, though only a Greek version of his Life
(known as the "Bulgarian legend") has been preserved. [57]
However, the Bulgarian type of Lives of Saints seems in general not to have
set the pattern for Old Serbian life-writing, presumably because, as was
already mentioned, we know of no early Bulgarian vitae combining the
purely hagiographic aspect with a dynastic-political (and hence, secular)
message. Still, as we have seen, individual, stereotyped features may have
been borrowed, for example, from the Life of St. John (Ivan) of Rila by the
Serbian biographers of Stephan Nemanja (cf. the translatio account or
the 'oil saint' motif); or it is conceivable that such popular elements, while
found also in Bulgarian hagiography, but being commonly encountered throughout
the Byzantine-Balkan area (and, in fact, not limited to that particular region
of Christianity), may have found their way into medieval Serbian life-writing.
For examples of a fusion of hagiographic (or homiletic) and dynastic-political
components, however, the authors of the Serbian vitae had to turn,
within the Slavic domain, to works of Old Czech and, in particular, Old
Russian literature, written in the respective recensions of Church Slavic.
In
Bohemia of the 10th-11th centuries, hagiography seems to have been flourishing
both in Latin and in the Czech recension of Church Slavic. Of particular
interest for us are the Lives of Prince Wenceslaus (Václav, martyred 929). Two
Slavic versions of the Vita of this saint, the Czech national patron,
are known. The older and shorter one ("First Old Slavic Legend of St. Václav")
was written in the 10th century; the second, more elaborate one ("Second Old
Slavic Legend of St. Václav"), composed in the early 11th century, is a
reworking of a Latin Vita by Bishop Gumpold of Mantua (ca. 975-980). In
addition, there existed a host of Latin legends of the same saint (Crescente
fide, Christian's legend, 10th c.; Oriente iam sole, 13th c.,
etc.). [58] Whereas much research has been
57. The Greek Vita Clementis was written by the
Bulgarian Archbishop Theophylactus at the end of the 11th or the beginning of
the 12th c., presumably on the basis of a Slavic original, now lost. In
addition to this longer Life of St. Clement there exists also a shorter Greek
version of his Life (Legenda Ochridica) by Demetrius Chomatianus (early
13th c.) of which a Church Slavic translation (13th c.) is known. Cf. H.-G.
Beck, op. cit., 649-651 and 708-710; F. Grivec, op. cit.,
253-254; for details see also the articles by A. Milev, I. Dujčev, and I.
Snegarov in the volume Kliment Oxridski (Sofia, 1966), 143-219.
58. Cf. F. Grivec, op. cit., 186-187; J. Vajs
(ed.), Sbornik staroslovanských literárnich památek o sv. Václavu a sv.
Lidmile (Prague, 1929); Svatováclavský sbornik, I-II: 1-3 (Prague,
1934-1937); M. Weingart, op. cit., 47-60; J. Hrabák et al., Dějiny
české literatury, I, Starší česká literatura (Prague, 1959), 51-54;
R. Večerka, Slovanské počátky české knižní vzdělanosti (Prague, 1963),
45-48.
271
done,
particularly in recent years, on the relationship between these Bohemian
(Church Slavic as well as Latin) legends of St. Wenceslaus and Old Russian
hagiography, revealing some striking connections, [59] the
conceivable influence that the Church Slavic Vita of St. Wenceslaus may
have had on Old Serbian life-writing — possibly via Russia — is as yet largely
unexplored. Only the general fact that we have to do here with another
instance of the dynastic legend genre, as represented also by such works as
the Life of St. Stephen of Hungary, the Lives of the first Russian martyrs
Boris and Gleb, or the semi-legendary Life of Vladimir of Zeta (contained in
the Letopis popa Dukljanina whose significance as a source for Old
Serbian life-writing, however, now is in doubt, cf. above), has been
acknowledged. [60] But other possibly suggestive
circumstances also deserve attention. Thus, the fact that the older of the two
Czech Church Slavic Vitae of St. Wenceslaus, a semi-secular work of
less stylistic sophistication than the Lives of Constantine and Methodius
(whose tradition it continues), [61] is best preserved in
four Croatian-Glagolitic breviaries, i.e., in manuscripts from a region not
far from Dioclitia (Zeta), may be of some significance. (Cf., in this context,
also the title "rex Dalmatiae et Diocliae", held, among others, by Vukan, the
oldest son of Stephan Nemanja.) As regards the contents, it should be noted
that the Life of St. Wenceslaus contains an account of the translatio
of the remains of the saint to Prague, a theme popular in hagiographic (and
semi-hagiographic) writing and encountered also in the Old Serbian Vitae
of Stephan Nemanja. Finally, it should be remembered that while medieval
Serbia, though generally oriented toward Byzantium, held, to some extent, an
intermediary position between East and West, Christianity as practiced in 10th
century Bohemia, on the other hand, retained some ties with the Eastern Church
as shown by the liturgy (služba) for St. Wenceslaus, following the
Byzantine rite. [62] Geographic, thematic,
59. See F. Grivec, op. cit., 187; D. Čyževśkyj, "Anklänge
an die Gumpoldslegende des hl. Václav in der altrussischen Legende des hl.
Feodosij..."; N. W. Ingham, "Czech Hagiography in Kiev: The Prisoner Miracles
of Boris and Gleb", WdSl X (1965), 166-182. See further also R.
Jakobson, Harvard Slavic Studies I (1953), 41-48.
60. See S. Hafner, Studien, 16, 40, 44, and 59.
61. Cf., in addition to literature quoted in note 58,
also B. Havránek, Cyrillo-Methodianische Fragen..., 9 (in his paper
"Die Bedeutung Konstantins und Methods für die Anfänge der geschriebenen
Literatur in Grossmähren").
62. Serbia's vacillating political stand between East and
West is perhaps best illustrated
by some of
the policies of Stephan the First-Crowned. Married to a daughter of the
Byzantine Emperor Alexius III, he divorced her shortly before the fall of
Constantinople in 1203 and later married a granddaughter of the Venetian Doge
Dandolo. In 1217 he was crowned by a legate of Pope Honorius III, only to
secure, in 1219, by mediation of his brother Sava, autocephaly for the Serbian
Orthodox Church from the Patriarch of Constantinople (then residing in Nicaea).
On medieval Serbia's middle position between East (Byzantium) and West (Rome),
see, for example: A. Schmaus, Südost-Forschungen XV (1956), 182-190; B.
Krekić, "La Serbie entre Byzance et l'Occident au XIVe Siècle", Proceedings
of the XIIIth International Congress of Byzantine Studies..., 62-65. See
also S. Hafner, Studien, 20 and 50, on some political and cultural
aspects of this intermediate position of medieval Serbia, spanning, as it
were, a bridge between Byzantium and Rome, a role which Serbia had inherited
from one of its constituent parts, Zeta (Diocletia) where in 1077 Prince
Michael was granted the title of king by Pope Gregory VII. On some presumed
Greek Orthodox reactions to political moves on the part of Serbian kings
(aimed at closer relations with the West — Hungary, Venice, the Pope) as
expressed in Old Serbian biography, cf. M. I. Mulić, op. cit., 128-130.
On the Greek Orthodox liturgy for St. Wenceslaus, see F. Grivec, op. cit.,
184 and 186.
272
and
religious-ideological considerations make it therefore quite conceivable that
the Life of St. Wenceslaus could have played a role as a model not only in
medieval Russian hagiography but also in Serbian biography. Whether the latter
actually was the case, only a close comparative scrutiny of the pertinent Old
Czech and Old Serbian texts can reveal.
While
it is possible, but not proven, that dynastic hagiography of the Old Czech
brand served as an example for Old Serbian life-writing, it is positively
evident that Old Russian hagiography and homiletic literature with a
political-dynastic content has made an impact on the Old Serbian vita and
related genres just as medieval Serbian biography subsequently exerted
considerable influence on Russian hagiography and semi-secular biography of
the Mongolian and early post-Mongolian period. Thus, the long passage from
Metropolitan Ilarion's Sermon on Law and Grace, found in Domentijan's Life of
Stephan Nemanja (cf. above), is not an altogether isolated instance of the
liberal and quite customary borrowing (by medieval standards) of insertable
material that would find its way from medieval Russia to Serbia. Often the
place of such literary contact would be Constantinople or the Slavic
monasteries on Mt. Athos where close ties seem to have existed between the
Russian Monastery of Panteleimon and the Serbian Hilandar Monastery. It has
been assumed that not only Ilarion's work but also, for example, the elegant
sermons of Bishop Cyril of Turov were known and read by Serbian monks on Mt.
Athos, among them Domentijan. [63] St. Sava, prior to
Domentijan, had
63. On these sermons and their style, cf., inter alia, D.
Čiževskij, History, 86-88; A. Stender-Petersen, op. cit., 53-63
(there also on Cyril's religious poetry); and, in particular, I. P. Eremin, "Oratorskoe
iskusstvo Kirilla Turovskogo", TODRL XVIII (1962), 50-58 (reprinted in
the same author's Literatura drevnej Rusi, 132-143). On Ilarion, see
esp. L. Müller, op. cit. (with references).
273
spent
some time in the Russian Panteleimon Monastery. Not only are Kievan dynastic
historiography and hagiography (including religious-historical rhetoric such
as Ilarion's Slovo) reflected in the political ideology of Sava's and
his brother's Lives of Stephan Nemanja, but also Russian influence has been
ascertained on Sava's orthography, reinforced some two hundred years later by
Constantine of Kostenec. [64] The many complexities of the
intricate literary and other cultural interrelations between Russia and the
Balkan Slavs in the Middle Ages have in recent years received renewed
attention. [65] Here we can only briefly digress to give a
summary account of Old Russian hagio-biographical literature, as this
literature relates to Old Serbian life-writing or as it points up theoretical
problems of definition and classification encountered, mutatis mutandis,
also in its Serbian counterpart.
Of
all medieval Slavic literatures, that of Kievan Russia, and the principalities
succeeding it, is perhaps the one most thoroughly studied. In this context,
much interest has focused, particularly in the last two decades, on the
problem of the Old Russian literary genres and the specific stylistic devices
utilized in each of them. [66] A central place among the
various kinds of Old Russian literature was held by the Lives of
64. Cf. A. Belić, "Učešće sv. Save i njegove škole u
stvaranju nove redakcije srpskih ćirilskih spomenika", Svetosavski zbornik,
1, 211-276, esp. 236-237. Constantine of Kostenec, in his fantastic linguistic
theories (contained in his treatise on orthography), stresses the importance
of Russian as the alleged main component of the "mixed" language of Cyril and
Methodius; cf. K. M. Kujew (Kuev), op. cit., 48; see also R. Jakobson,
Harvard Slavic Studies, I (1953), 49.
65. Cf., in addition to the important studies by D. S.
Lixačev, I. Dujčev, and V. Mošin quoted in notes 21 and 33, V. P.
Adrianova-Peretc, "Drevnerusskie literaturnye pamjatniki v jugoslavjanskoj
pis'mennosti", in: Russkaja literatura... (= TODRL XIX), 5-27.
See further also Dj. Sp. Radojičić, Juinoslovensko-ruske kulturne veze do
početka XVIII veka (Kruševac, 1967), esp. 33-71 ; and S. Hafner,
Studien, 24-26.
66. An overall view of medieval Russian writing, largely
based on formal (structural) considerations of genre and style, can be found
in such Western reference works of Old Russian literature as those quoted
above — D. Čiževskij and A. Stender-Petersen, or R. Picchio's Storia delta
letteratura russa antica, 2nd ed. (Florence-Milan, 1968). Of specialized
work on the Old Russian literary genres, see in particular D. Ciževsky, "On
the Question of Genres in Old Russian Literature", Harvard Slavic Studies
II (1954), 105-115; R. Jagoditsch, "Zum Begriff der 'Gattungen' in der
altrussischen Literatur", WslJb VI (1957-1958), 113137; and several
studies by D. S. Lixačev, esp. "Sistema literaturnyx žanrov drevnej Rusi", in
: Slavjanskie literatury. V Meždunar. s'ezd slavistov (Sofia, 1963).
Dokl. sov. deleg. (Moscow, 1963), 47-70; in revised form, also as a
chapter ("Otnošenija literaturnyx žanrov meždu soboj") in his book
Poe̊tika
drevnerusskoj literatury
(Leningrad, 1967), 40-66. For some general information on the genres in
medieval Slavic literature, see also his "Drevneslavjanskie lteratury kak
sistema", in: Slavjanskie literatury. VI Meždunar. s'ezd slavistov
(Prague, 1968). Dokl. sov. deleg. (Moscow, 1968), 5-48, esp. 28-34 ("Žanry
i vidy drevneslavjanskix literatur").
274
Saints, as was the case in Byzantine literature on which medieval Russian
letters was largely patterned. The gradual, though only partial secularization
of this genre, noticeable in the branching off from it of a new kind of
literature, often referred to as "Princely Lives" (knjažeskie žitija),
has been the subject of much discussion centering around the issue whether, at
a certain point in the development of this integrated literature (mixing
elements of hagiography, panegyrical oration, historiography, and military
tale), these Lives can be established as having achieved the status of an
autonomous, self-contained genre of secular biography.
In
its earliest, not yet fully developed phase of semi-hagiographic literature
(to use a descriptive term), the beginnings of secular biography manifested
itself in Russia, according to A. Stender-Petersen, in two basic variants: the
apostolic and the martyrological sub-genres. While the former can be said to
be closely related to, or even derived from, the obituary and cognate
encomiastic genres (poxvala or pamjat' i poxvala) first
encountered on Russian soil in Ilarion's panegyrical sermon but rooted also in
the Old Church Slavic tradition of the Lives of Constantine and Methodius, the
latter has its first Russian representatives in the various versions of the
Lives of the martyred brothers Boris and Gleb, echoing in more than one
respect the Czech Church Slavic Vita of St. Wenceslaus.
[67] Both Ilarion's Slovo and the legends of Boris and Gleb
express, in addition to true religious fervor, the political interests of the
ruling Rurik dynasty of which all three of the subsequently canonized princes
were members. No doubt, the combination of religious and political (dynastic)
motivation underlying these works of early Russian literature bears a striking
resemblance to the ideological background against which Old Serbian biography
made its appearance.
Whereas another work of Old Russian hagiography, Nestor's Life of Feodosij,
was to set the pattern for all purely hagiographic writing in Russia,
culminating in Epifanij's Lives of Stephan of Perm' and Sergij of Radonež, the
legends of Boris and Gleb became the model for the semi-secularized,
dynastic-historical biography, framed, to be sure, in the traditional form of
hagiography. This is true of many of the 13th-14th century Lives of Russian
princes and, in particular, of the Life of Prince Alexander Nevskij who was
later canonized by the Church and
67. Cf. A. Stender-Petersen, op. cit., 76-84. On
the various versions of the Boris and Gleb theme (anonymous Tale, Nestor's
Lection, Chronicle entry, liturgical poetry, etc.), see L. Müller, Die
altrussischen hagiographischen Erzählungen und liturgischen Dichtungen über
die Heiligen Boris und Gleb (Munich, 1967) (with references, XXIII-XXIV);
cf. further N. N. Il'in, Letopisnaja stat’ja 6523 goda i ee istočnik (Opyt
analiza) (Moscow, 1957), and the article by N. W. Ingham, WdSl X
(1965), 166-182 (cf. note 59).
275
in
whose Vita some experts have believed to find reminiscences of a
presumed biography of the Galician 13th century Prince Daniil Romanovič,
reworked into the cohesive historiographic narrative contained in the
Galician-Volynian Chronicle. Here, further worldly, even chivalrous, elements
were introduced. Whereas some literary scholars have assumed Western
influences in certain of these new traits of Old Russian biography, others
have pointed to parallels with the doubtless non-Orthodox setting of the
controversial Igor Tale. [68] It is worth noting, in this
context, that the particular situation of Prince Daniil's Galicia, attempting
to balance between the Tatars of the Golden Horde in the East and Poles and
Hungarians in the West bears some resemblance to the temporarily more
fortunate Serbian state, maneuvering between East and West, of the
contemporary rulers of the Nemanja dynasty. Symptomatically, Daniil's
coronation, too, was approved by the Pope. A double production of pure
hagiography and of hagiographically interpreted and accordingly embellished
biography of a secular ruler (to whom, however, no posthumous miracles were
attributed) may possibly be found in the work of Epifanij Premudryj. This
would be so if, as there might at least be some reason to believe, Epifanij
were the author not only of the two previously mentioned Lives of Saints, but
also of the Life of Dmitrij Ivanovič ("Donskoj"), by far the most ornate of
the several works of Old Russian literature relevant to the battle of Kulikovo.
[69] Epifanij's dependence on stylistic devices brought to
Russia from the Slavic South, particularly Serbia, was already mentioned. It
must be remembered, though, that regardless of any parallelism on the
stylistic and ideological
68. Cf. A. Stender-Petersen, op. cit., 146-150.
See also D. Čiževskij, History, 104-107 and 138-142. N. W. Ingham
argues strongly against the assumption of an underlying biography of Daniil
Romanovič in the Galician-Volynian Chronicle. As he points out, the section on
the reign of Daniil has, at best, the cohesion of historiography; see
American Contributions..., 186 and 188-189. Cf., however, also D. S.
Lixačev, "Galickaja literaturnaja tradicija v žitii Aleksandra Nevskogo",
TODRL V (1947), 36-56. Ingham's argumentation against the largely
biographical character of the ORIGINAL historical narrative, analistically
reworked in the Chronicle, does not seem cogent. That the literary
characteristics of life-writing could be obscured by the very nature of the
larger work into which they were integrated can be exemplified also by some of
the Lives contained in Archbishop Danilo's and his Disciple's Zbornik;
cf. also the Life of Vladimir in the (probably, to be sure, pseudo-historiographic)
Letopis popa Dukljanina.
69. Cf. A. Stender-Petersen, op. cit., 160,
176-179, and 191; D. Čiževskij, History, 191-192. See further also, V.
P. Adrianova-Peretc, "Slovo o žitii i o prestavlenii velikogo knjazja Dmitrija
Ivanoviča, carja Rusьskago", TODRL V (1947), 73-96. However, Professor
John Fennell, Oxford, now informs me that his comparative stylistic analysis
does not corroborate the view that Epifanij was the author also of the Life of
Dmitrij Donskoj.
276
levels between Old Russian and Old Serbian life-writing of the time, the
political outlook at the close of the 14th and the beginning of the 15th
century was vastly different in the two countries: Serbia, defeated at Kosovo
(1389), was about to be overrun by the Turks, and the trend in biography, with
the notable exception of Camblak, was toward secularization; emerging
Muscovite Russia, after the victory at Kulikovo (1380), on the other hand, was
gradually embarking on the road to achieving complete freedom. Here, the trend
in biography (or what can be subsumed thereunder) was now toward a reassertion
of Orthodox Christianity — that is to say, toward 'purified' hagiography.
Thus, while in Serbia we can observe a largely consistent development toward
increased secularization of life-writing, in Russia only a temporary and
partial deviation (reaching its peak in the Life of Alexander Nevskij and
possibly in an unpreserved biography of Daniil of Galič) from the
fundamentally hagiographic course of the Old Russian žitie can be
noted.
It is
therefore perhaps an overschematization of the actual development of Old
Russian biographical writing (although in line with the general tendency) when
D. Čiževskij, in discussing "the Age of Ornamental Style" (12th-13th c.) and
"the Period of Spiritual Struggle" (14th-15th c.) in Russian literature,
devotes special sections to "Secular Biography", along with others on
"Hagiographic Literature" and "Lives of Saints". For "the Period of Stylistic
Simplicity" (11th c.) and "Muscovite Literature" (16th a), however, he
acknowledges the existence of "Hagiographic Literature" but not of any
"Secular Biography". [70] Rather, N. W. Ingham's view
appears to be well-founded when he, on the basis of a scrupulous (if
selective) and insightful analysis of some vitae and comparable pieces
in Old Russian literature, concludes "that not one of the Old Russian works
... can meaningfully be called a secular biography. They neither correspond to
the international genre nor show enough internal uniformity for an indigenous
literary kind... The majority of the works in fact defy definition as
life-writing in the first place; and the few which may fit it are still bound
too closely to the practices of hagiography. At the most, transitional forms
occur, as in the Life of Aleksandr Nevski." And Ingham goes on to say
that "even if a somewhat broader definition of secular or historical biography
were applied, there would still not be enough examples of it in Old Russian
literature to constitute a genre". But he also suggests that "this situation
is probably not typical of the Slavic literatures generally. New dimensions
70. Cf. D. Čiževskij, History, 40-47, 94-100,
165-184 and 184-192, and 238-250.
277
to
early Slavic lilc-wi iting are added by such works as the earliest žitie
of the Czech Prince Wenceslaus (Václav) and the lives of Bulgarian and Serbian
rulers." While it is not clear (at least to the present writer) what precisely
ingham had in mind when referring to Lives of Bulgarian rulers, his surmise is
certainly borne out by the Vita of St. Wenceslaus and, even more so, by
the Old Serbian biographies. [71]
VIII
Before summing up the preceding considerations in some tentative conclusions,
a few observations regarding the composition and style, the choice of motifs
and stereotyped formulae (topoi) characteristic of Old Serbian
life-writing may be appropriate. Needless to say, this is not the place for
any thorough analysis of these and other literary devices of medieval Serbian
biography; nor can a recapitulation of previous — significant, but by no means
exhaustive — research on style and themes of Old Serbian life-writing be
offered here. [72] Rather, only a handful of illustrative
examples will be adduced and briefly commented upon. They are taken from two
Vitae which in many ways represent diametric opposites : St. Sava's
Life of Simeon (Stephan Nemanja) and the Life of Stephan Lazarević by
Constantine of Kostenec. The first one opens the series of medieval Serbian
biographies ; the second one marks the perfection of the genre, while
transgressing in some respects its established limits. One is basically an
hagiography although it never refers to Nemanja as a saint (as opposed to the
Nemanja Vita by Stephan the First-Crowned) and is couched in a
relatively simple, unassuming language; the other, perhaps farthest removed
from hagiography (in contents as well as intent of its author), is nonetheless
characterized by an ornate, frequently obscure style and is, to some extent,
disguised in
71. Cf. N. W. Ingham, American Contributions...,
197-198 (in the conclusion of his paper "The Limits of Secular Biography in
Medieval Slavic Literature, Particularly Old Russian"; cf. note 2).
72. Of important relevant work cf., in addition to the
article by M. I. Mulić already quoted (note 29), for example also the section
on "Topos und Gedankengefüge in den altserbischen Herrscherbiographien" in S.
Hafner's Studien, 78-123. See further some of the papers, partly
republished, in the volume Stara književnost, esp. Dj. Trifunović, "Pripovedanje
i simboli srednjovekovne naše umetničke proze" (142-180); V. Mošin, "Stil
stare srpske proze" (181-196); M. Mulić, "Stil srpskih srednjovekovnih
životo-pisaca XIII i XIV veka" (197-204, abridged version of his longer paper
in Russian). Cf. on Constantino of Kostenec also K. M. Kujew (Kuev), op.
cit., 101-112; and the sties, quoted in note 27.
278
the
superficial appearance of a vita of hagiographic kind (despite the fact
that its hero was never canonized). Thus, being maximally polarized, these two
žitija span, as it were, the whole stylistic range of Old Serbian
life-writing, while lacking only in the mutual reinforcement by approach and
style, content and form, found, say, in Domentijan's Life of St. Sava.
The
theme of divine right by which Stephan Nemanja is said to rule his land, found
already in the Hilandar Charters, comes up also in the prooemium of the
Vita Simeonis and is subsequently once more referred to in Nemanja's
abdication speech. [73] The same or a slightly modified
motif is later often found in medieval Serbian biography and is attested also
in Constantine's Life of Stephan Lazarević. [74] The mention
of the many monastic foundations at the outset of Sava's Vita, while
presumably reflecting historical reality, was to become a fixed ingredient of
most biographies of Serbian princes, usually in connection with the
stereotyped eulogy of the ruler (combining a liturgical-hagiographic
laudatio with the classic βασιλικὸς λόγος). [75] The
system of virtues ascribed to the ruler or other protagonist played an
important role in medieval Europe. We find it in its chivalrous-religious form
in the West, but it is also well represented in the literature of the
Byzantine sphere of civilization, including Kievan Russia. In Sava's Vita,
the emphasis is on charity and asceticism — in other words, the virtue system
has been given its purest Christian interpretation, coupled with the ideal of
monastic life. It also includes the motif of veneration and formidableness of
the monarch. This forbidding aspect of the ruler is eloquently described in
the biography of Stephan Lazarević by Constantine as well. [76]
Two
topoi frequently encountered in medieval literature, particularly in
panegyrical writing, are the related stylistic devices of 'unspeakableness' (Curtius'
Unsagbarkeitstopos), of which the brevity formula pauca e multis
represents a sub-type, and that of 'surpassing' or 'outcomparing'
73. Cf. S. Hafner, Studien, 70-80; id.,
Serbisches Mittelalter, 132 and 137 (n. 11 and n.64).
74. Cf. S. Hafner, Studien, 81-82.
75. Cf. S. Hafner, Studien, 100-101 and 113-118.
On ancient origins and West European parallels, see E. R. Curtius, op. cit.,
184-186.
76. Cf. S. Hafner, Studien, 93-109, esp. 97-99 (on
Sava's two eulogies of his father, introduced by the common dubitatio
formula), 103-104 (on filial obedience), and 108-109 (on veneration and
formidableness of the ruler, as expressed in Sava's and Constantine's Lives);
id., Serbisches Mittelalter, 134-135 (n. 33, with reference to
the virtue system in Old Russian literature). An expression of the medieval
notion of the ruler's inapproachable standing among his people can be found
also, for example, in the epithet given the Russian 16th century ruler Ivan IV
– Groznyj, best rendered, perhaps, as "the Awesome" (rather than the
traditional "the Terrible"). On the system of "chivalrous virtues" in the
West, see E. R. Curtius, op. cit., 506-521.
279
(ὑπεροχή),
Curtius' Überbietungstopos) where one can distinguish, among others,
between what has been referred to as the cedat and taceat
formulae, respectively. [77] Both these common types of
topoi are represented in Sava's Life of Nemanja and, by the example of his
work, became a regular feature of subsequent Old Serbian biographies.
[78]
Part
of medieval, Latin as well as Byzantine, imagery was the 'ideal landscape',
particularly when narrowed down to the locus amoenus and interpreted
allegorically as referring to monastic life. In Sava's Vita Simeonis
there is a fairly long passage describing the Hilandar Monastery, just founded
by Nemanja, as the pleasure-grounds or 'meadow' (corresponding to the specific
Christian-Byzantine connotation of λειμών) to which St. Simeon was retiring in
his old age. [79]
The
use of pleonasms, hendiadys phrases, and repetitions was not uncommon in
medieval rhetoric. The use of these devices can also be found in
Sava's Life. Thus, in the translatio
account following the biography proper (praxeis), Sava resorts to repeated
rhetorical pleonasms to underscore the gratification felt by the brothers
Stephan (the First-Crowned) and Vukan as well as the assembled clergy upon
receiving the news that Sava had safely reached the Hvostno region (i.e.,
present-day Metohija) with the remains of Stephan Nemanja. [80]
Sometimes, however, what at first sight may seem a pleonasm turns out to be a
meaningful differentiation, charged with political, often contrasting
implications. [81]
The
common motif of death by falling from a horse (believed to be a sign from
heaven) occurs a few times in Old Serbian biographies. At least two such
episodes are found in Danilo's and his successors' work. The same motif occurs
also in Constantine's Life of Stephan Lazarević
77. Cf. E. R. Curtius, op. cit., 168-174.
78. Cf. S. Hafner, Studien, 113, 114-115; id.,
Serbisches Mittelalter, 135 (n. 35), 136 (n. 55 and n. 57, pauca e
multis formula), 138 (n. 96, "unspeakableness"; n. 97, panegyrical loci
communes), 141 (n. 122, "unspeakableness"; n. 123 "surpassing"), 143 (n.
148, "surpassing").
79. Cf. S. Hafner, Serbisches Mittelalter, 141-142
(nn. 129, 131, 132). On the "ideal landscape" and, particularly, the locus
amoenus in ancient and medieval literature, see E. R. Curtius, op. cit.,
191-209, esp. 202-206. See further also O. Schissel, Der byzantinische
Garten (Vienna, 1942).
80. Cf. S. Hafner, Serbisches Mittelalter, 144 (nn.
166 and 168).
81. This applies, for example, to the "peace and quiet"
theme discussed above (note 43). Apparently, mirь refers to inner peace
(including spiritual harmony) while tišina rather implies "quiet at the
borders" but perhaps also within the state (at the political level). See S.
Hafner, Studien, 89-93. Cf. also the differentiated use of such near-
synonyms as ozьlobiti and oskrьbiti in some of the Old Serbian
biographies; see ibid., 118-121.
280
who
died during a hunting party. Possibly, this belief had older,
biblical-folkloristic sources. [82]
Sava's Life of Stephan Nemanja is largely designed as an
hagiographic vita (prooemium, praxeis, translatio, curriculum vitae,
admonitio), lacking only the traditional miracula owing to the fact
that Nemanja had not yet been canonized at the time this Vita was
written; cf., on the other hand, his Vita by Stephan the First-Crowned
where he is repeatedly referred to as a saint and where a number of miracle
accounts are appended. In contradistinction, the compositional makeup of
Constantine's biography of the 'despot' Stephan Lazarević follows another
pattern. It opens with a relatively short section eulogizing Stephan by
comparing him with the great men of biblical and Christian history. Next
follows a description of Serbia and, in particular, its monks, including St.
Simeon (Nemanja) and St. Sava. A short, fantastic, and largely incorrect
genealogy of the Nemanja dynasty precedes the tale about Prince Lazar,
Stephan's father and the tragic hero of Kosovo, and a statement of the
situation in Serbia after the defeat is given before the author turns to a
brief characterization of his hero and his early years. Only then begins a
detailed account of the historical events, political and military, in which
Stephan participates as one (but not the sole) protagonist. (Other important
personalities are the Turkish sultans with whom Stephan concludes treaties or
against whom he wages war.) Inserted in this account is, among other things, a
famous description of the city of Belgrade which is compared in beauty and
importance to Jerusalem. Another city, Resava, is duly praised as well. In a
following chapter, Constantine talks about Stephan's generosity and sees all
the manifold characteristics of Serbia represented in his hero's personality
and noble qualities. In the section reporting Stephan's death, the author not
only speaks of the grief of the Serbian people, but also mentions the disaster
which befell Serbia after his death. He goes on to describe miraculous
happenings occasioned by his passing away (obviously meant as a substitute of
sorts for the obligatory miracles ascribed to a saint after his death).
Constantine's biography ends on a very personal note, telling of how Stephan
after his death had appeared before
82. See S. Hafner, Studien, 121-123. The
death-by-one's-horse theme is known, in a somewhat different variant, also in
Old Russian literature, with a parallel in an Old Norse anecdote (the ultimate
source of both probably being Byzantine); cf. the tale about Prince Oleg's
death from his horse (entered in the Nestor Chronicle sub anno 912).
For details, see D. Čiževskij, History, 14 and 17-18; A. Stender-Petersen,
op. cit., 101; and now also F. Sielicki, ed., Powieść minionych lat
(Wroclaw-Warsaw-Cracow, 1968), 112-113.
281
the
author urging him to write (or complete) the Vita. A last eulogy of
Stephan concludes Constantine's work.
Already this short summary of the contents of Constantine's Life reveals some
basic differences between this biography and all preceding Old Serbian
vitae. Here we encounter a memoir-like account by an observant
contemporary with a deep involvement in the events he is relating. What we
have before us is a piece of personal interpretation of history in its broader
context, focusing, understandably, on the Ottoman Empire and its rapidly
expanding power. While subjectively colored, most of Constantine's information
has proven accurate. In addition, however, a personal, almost intimtae tone
used by someone close to the chief protagonist comes through. Despite all
attempts at subliming Stephan's individual features to the abstract level of
hagiography, the reader — once he overcomes the ornate style and many
biographically irrelevant amplifications — preceives a live personality drawn
against the backdrop of Serbia, its nature and its cities. Also in these
descriptions of the Serbian scenery, especially of Belgrade, there is a note
of personal, one might say, individual, experience. No doubt, there is an
affinity between the style of Constantine of Kostenec and that of his emigrant
contemporary, Camblak, even though the purpose of writing their respective
biographies was different. Only Constantine, the naturalized Serbian, was an
ardent patriot. As was mentioned before, Constantine's language, frequently
obscure (and, in some instances, actually resisting definitive interpretation)
and not without some studied mannerism (cf. also his use of symbolic
acrostics) and hagiographic accessories, especially the many biblical quotes
and references, is not apt to further the appreciation which this work no
doubt deserves, in terms of its ideology and understanding of history.
[83]
IX
Summing up, then, some of the points made in this paper and adding a few
considerations not discussed here for lack of space, a number of conclusions
can be tentatively formulated :
83. For an appraisal of Constantine's Life of Stephan
Lazarević, see, in particular, K. M. Kujew (Kuev), op. cit., 86-112,
esp. 101-112; and the relevant section in P. Popović's Introduction to
Stare srpske biografije XV i XVII veka, XLIV-LIII. On the acrostics, see
Dj. Sp. Radojičić's previously (note 27) mentioned studies. Generally on
Stephan Lazarević, see now also N. D. Pavlović, Despot Stefan Lazarević
(Subotica & Belgrade, 1968). Cf. further also Dj. Trifunović, Srpski
srednjovekovni spisi o knezu Lazaru i Kosovskom boju (Kruševac, 1968), and
I. Dujčev, "La conquête turque et la prise de Constantinople dans la
littérature slave contemporaine", Byzsl XIV (1953), 14-54, esp. 38-42
(on Constantine's Life of Stephan Lazarević).
282
1)
Accepting the current medievalist view of the High Middle Ages (11th-12th c.)
as a period of great intellectual vigor and creativity in Central Europe, this
interpretation can be extended to include medieval Serbia of the 13th through
early 15th centuries, given the well-understood factor of "cultural
retardation" in this area. [84] The literary genre of
biography, developed to a level of high sophistication, can be considered
perhaps the most eloquent expression of medieval Serbian civilization.
2)
Three different, though interrelated traditions merge in Old Serbian
life-writing: (a) the predominantly learned Byzantine tradition of hagiography
and historiography; (b) the solidly learned Church Slavic tradition of
hagiography (including semi-hagiography) and panegyrical homiletics,
themselves representing a modification of Byzantine prototypes ; and (c) a set
of pre- and sub-literary, orally transmitted themes, motifs, and legends
encountered in the Balkans and largely characteristic of a popular Christian
tradition, particularly in its Eastern variety. More specifically, it is
possible to make a distinction in the Byzantine hagiographic tradition between
several chronological layers (primarily, pre-Metaphrastic versus post-Metaphrastic)
and between two major components — the elaborate and ornate, learned tradition
and a more popular vein in Byzantine hagiography whose nucleus was the simple
narrative relating the life-story of a monk (or hermit). In Byzantine
historiography two separate kinds can be identified: chronicle-writing (chronography)
and secular biography (primarily the Lives of Emperors), with the latter genre
largely submerged in the broader framework of non-annalistic historiography.
In its rudimentary form, the Old Serbian vita (in its earliest phase,
represented by Sava and Stephan the First-Crowned) is prefigured in the
Charter texts of the Hilandar Monastery.
3) Of
dynastic historiography and Orthodox hagiography, the two basic components
combined in Old Serbian biography, the first is more closely bound up with
Serbia proper, embodied in the person of the Serbian ruler and his court, and
the second with the Serbian monastic community, in particular, its
extraterritorial focal point at Mt. Athos
84. Cf. S. Hafner Studien, VII. On some aspects of
the phenomenon of "cultural retardation" in another peripheral part of
medieval Europe, see E. R. Curtius, op. cit., 524-526 ("Spaniens
kulturelle 'Verspätung' "). Notice further that just as Serbia was culturally
gravitating in the Middle Ages in two directions — toward Orthodox Byzantium
and (if to a lesser extent) toward Catholic Europe (Rome, Venice, Hungary) —
Spain, too, during the Reconquista lay at the intersection of two cultures :
European (Latin as well as Spanish national) Catholicism and Arabic Islam. In
neither case, medieval Serbia or Spain, is the term "cultural retardation" to
be understood in the derogatory sense of backwardness.
283
(Hilandar).
While the religious-political interests and goals of these two institutions
usually coincided (cf. Sava,
Stephan the First-Crowned, Danilo), this was not always the case, particularly
not in times when Serbia's political stand was vacillating between East and
West. In such situations, the monastic community would take a pro-Byzantine
position as reflected in literary and ideological expressions found in some
vitae (particularly those by the Athonite monks Domentijan and Teodosije;
also, e.g., by Camblak). Eventually, in the face of the Turkish peril, the
Byzantine and Serbian national interests were again in full agreement
(Constantine of Kostenec).
4) In
spite of a certain typological amplitude and chronological development within
it, biography can be said to constitute a separate, unified genre in Old
Serbian literature. This genre is marked by a number of fundamental
characteristics compared to which the shift in emphasis from hagiography to
secular biography is of secondary import. It should also be noted that, while
the overall tendency in Old Serbian life-writing was away from pure
hagiography and toward secular biography, this tendency is by no means without
exception as shown by the work of Camblak, marking, in this respect, a reverse
trend. On the stylistic side, many of the hagiographic accessories are
retained throughout the entire development of this literary genre, i.e., also
in those biographies with a more pronounced secular content (cf. Stephan the
First-Crowned and Constantine of Kostenec). In terms of ideology, most of Old
Serbian life-writing is characterized by a combination of religious (Orthodox)
and political (dynastic) objects in view. In depicting their heroes — largely
secular rulers — the Old Serbian vitae achieve a high degree of
individ-ualization rather than typification (characteristic of hagiography
proper as well as of its pictorial counterpart — iconography). This
individuali-zation, however, is to be understood as aiming at sublimation,
abstracting, as it were, from the individual features and characteristics of
the protagonists for the purpose of immortalization and religious "eternalization".
Little evidence can be found in the medieval Serbian Lives that would suggest
an ability for, or interest in, concretization and psychological
objectivization. [85]
5)
The Old Serbian vita genre was firmly grounded in the Byzantine tradition of
Lives of Saints and, to a lesser degree, in other forms of Byzantine
literature (chrysobulla, typica, chronicles, Lives of Emperors), while
forming an integral part of a supranational literature, modifying
85. Cf. S. Hafner, Studien, 75 and 96.
284
these
Byzantine models throughout the Slavic Orthodox community of the Middle Ages.
By further developing and in an original manner refining the literary art of
life-writing, the Old Serbian biographers can be credited with having indeed
transformed this Byzantine tradition into a new and unique genre of its own.
Thus,
assessing Old Serbian life-writing in terms of its sources and parallels, the
following observations can be made: In Byzantine literature, hagiography, with
its rich tradition, and historical secular biography, re-emerging in the 10th
century, cannot be considered merely varieties of one unified biographic
genre. Similarly, in Old Russian literature, we can hardly speak of a truly
autonomous genre of secular biography, independent of hagiography (or other
related kinds of literature). Also in medieval Bohemia, life-writing was
practiced far too short a time in the Czech recension of Church Slavic to
yield (by blending hagiographic and historiographic elements) a new genre of
biography. The elaboration of this integrated literary genre was accomplished
only in Serbia whose many extant vitae must therefore be assigned a
particularly prominent place in the overall near-millennial course of Church
Slavic literature.
Addendum to note 21: An important reassessment of the Second South Slavic
Influence de-emphasizing the role of Patriarch Euthymius (Evtimij) as a
literary-linguistic reformer and contending that the Turkish invasion and
domination of the Balkans neither brought the Christian Slavic literary
activities to a halt nor caused any mass immigration of South Slavic
literati to late-medieval Russia can be found in the well-documented
unpublished doctoral dissertation of I. Talev, The Impact of Middle
Bulgarian on the Russian Literary Language (post-Kievan period), UCLA,
J972.
