The Legacy of Cyril and Methodius to the Southern Slavs (Dumbarton Oaks Papers, Vol. 19)

Front Matter Source: Dumbarton Oaks Papers, Vol. 19, (1965), pp. i-229 Published by: Dumbarton Oaks, Trustees for Harvard University Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1291222 Accessed: 09/07/2008 11:09 Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use, available at http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp. JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use provides, in part, that unless you have obtained prior permission, you may not download an entire issue of a journal or multiple copies of articles, and you may use content in the JSTOR archive only for your personal, non-commercial use. Please contact the publisher regarding any further use of this work. Publisher contact information may be obtained at http://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=doaks. Each copy of any part of a JSTOR transmission must contain the same copyright notice that appears on the screen or printed page of such transmission.

JSTOR is a not-for-profit organization founded in 1995 to build trusted digital archives for scholarship. We work with the scholarly community to preserve their work and the materials they rely upon, and to build a common research platform that promotes the discovery and use of these resources. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected].

http://www.jstor.org

PAPERS OAKS DUMBARTON NUMBER NINETEEN

THE DUMBARTON OAKS CENTER FOR BYZANTINE STUDIES Trusteesfor HarvardUniversity Washington, District of Columbia

$12.00

DUMBARTON OAKS PAPERS NUMBERNINETEEN THE Dumbarton Oaks Papers were founded in I94I for the publication of articles concerning late classical, early mediaeval, and Byzantine civilization in the fields of Art and Architecture, History, Theology, Literature, and Law. Dumbarton Oaks Papers Number i9 contains the following studies and notes: George Ostrogorsky: The Byzantine Background of the Moravian Mission George C. Soulis: The Legacy of Cyril and Methodius to the SouthernSlavs Dimitri Obolensky: The Heritage of Cyril and Methodius in Russia Antonfn Dostal: The Origins of the Slavonic Liturgy Romilly J. H. Jenkins: The Chronological Accuracy of the"Logothete"for the Years A.D. 867-913

Cyril Mango and Ernest J. W. Hawkins: The Apse Mosaics of St. Sophia at Istanbul. Report on Work CarriedOut in I964 Sirarpie Der Nersessian: A Psalter and New TestamentManuscript at DumbartonOaks Alison Frantz: From Paganism to Christianity in the Temples of Athens Philip Grierson: Two Byzantine Coin Hoards of the Seventh and Eighth Centuries at DumbartonOaks

NOTES

R. Martin Harrison and Nezih Firatli: Excavations at Sarafhane in Istanbul: First Preliminary Report Carl D. Sheppard: A Radiocarbon Date for the Wooden Tie Beams in the West Gallery of St. Sophia, Istanbul Romilly J. H. Jenkins: A Note on Nicetas David Paphlago and the Vita Ignatii Donald M. Nicol: ConstantineAkropolites: A ProsopographicalNote Roman Jakobson: The Byzantine Mission to the Slavs. Report on the Dumbarton Oaks

DUMBARTON OAKS PAPERS ?NUMBER NINETEEN

Dumbarton Oaks

Papers

NUMBER NINETEEN

The Dumbarton Oaks Center for Byzantine Studies Trustees for Harvard University Washington,Districtof Columbia 1965

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED BY THE TRUSTEES FOR HARVARD UNIVERSITY THE DUMBARTON OAKS RESEARCH LIBRARY AND COLLECTION WASHINGTON, D. C.

Distributedby J. J. Augustin, Publisher Locust Valley, New York

Library of Congress Catalog Card Number 42-6499 Printed in Germany at J. J. Augustin, Gliickstadt

CONTENTS GEORGEOSTROGORSKY ........ The Byzantine Background of the Moravian Mission GEORGE C. SOULIS

? ??

............

I

?

.

19

*

*

45

.

67

.

89

The Legacy of Cyril and Methodius to the Southern Slavs DIMITRI OBOLENSKY

............

The Heritage of Cyril and Methodius in Russia ANTONiN DOSTAL

.............

The Origins of the Slavonic Liturgy ROMILLY J. H. JENKINS

......

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

The ChronologicalAccuracy of the "Logothete" for the Years A.D. 867-913 CYRIL MANGOand ERNEST J. W. HAWKINS ......... The Apse Mosaics of St. Sophia at Istanbul. Report on Work Carried Out in I964 SIRARPIE DER NERSESSIAN

II3

.............

I53

A Psalter and New Testament Manuscript at Dumbarton Oaks ALISON FRANTZ

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

i85

.

.

.

.

.

.

. 207

From Paganism to Christianity in the Temples of Athens PHILIP GRIERSON

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

Two Byzantine Coin Hoards of the Seventh and Eighth Centuries at Dumbarton Oaks

NOTES R. MARTIN HARRISON and NEZIH FIRATLI ...... Excavations at Saraghane in Istanbul: First Preliminary Report CARL D. SHEPPARD

............

.

.

. 230

.

.

.

* 237

.

.

A Radiocarbon Date for the Wooden Tie Beams in the West Gallery of St. Sophia, Istanbul ROMILLY J. H. JENKINS ........ A Note on Nicetas David Paphlago and the Vita Ignatii DONALD M. NICOL ........ Constantine Akropolites: A Prosopographical Note

. ..

. 241

. 249

ROMAN JAKOBSON .............. .257 The Byzantine Mission to the Slavs. Report on the Dumbarton Oaks Symposium of I964, and Concluding Remarks about Crucial Problems of Cyrillo-Methodian Studies

ILLUSTRATIONS (Following Page 152) and THE APSE MOSAICS W. Hawkins: Ernest Cyril Mango J.

OF ST. SOPHIA AT ISTANBUL.

REPORT

ON WORK CARRIED OUT IN I964

I. Istanbul, St. Sophia. General View of Apse and Bema Arch 2. Apse, Virgin and Child 3. Apse, Virgin and Child, with Indications of Sutures 4. Apse, Virgin and Child, Head of Virgin 5. Apse, Virgin and Child, Right Hand of Virgin and Right Hand of Child 6. Apse, Virgin and Child, Left Hand of Virgin 7. Apse, Virgin and Child, Lower Part of Figure 8. Apse, Virgin and Child, Head of Child 9. Apse, Virgin and Child, Feet of Child IO. Apse, Virgin and Child, North Side of Throne II. Apse, Virgin and Child, South Side of Throne 12. Apse, Virgin and Child I3. Face of Apse Semidome, Beginning of Inscription 14. Face of Apse Semidome, End of Inscription, with Indication of Suture I5. Gold Background of Apse Semidome, North Side I6. Gold Background of Apse Semidome, South Side 17. Apse Semidome, Window I (before Sill was lowered) I8. Apse Semidome, Windows 2 and 3 (before Sill of Window 2 was lowered) 19. Apse Semidome, Windows 3 and 4 (before Sill of Window 4 was lowered) 20. Apse Semidome, Window 5 (before Sill was lowered) 2I. Garland Border between Face of Apse Semidome and Window I 22. Garland Border below Window 2

23. Apse Semidome, Window 3 (after Sill was lowered) 24. Crown of Apse Semidome and Bema Arch 25. Window 3, South Soffit, Detail of

Geometric Border 26, 27. Window 3, Cutting showing Successive Sill Levels 28. Window 2, North Soffit (after Sill was lowered) 29. Window 4, South Soffit (after Sill was lowered) 30. Face of Apse Semidome, North Springing, Juncture between Inscription and Garland Border 3I. Area of Loss to North of Virgin and Child, with Indications of Sutures 32. Suture running into the Top of the Area of Loss to North of Virgin and Child 33. Same as Figure 32, with Black Line showing Underlap and Overlap of Second and Third Beds of Plaster onto Surface of First Bed. 34. Suture running into the Bottom of the Area of Loss to North of Virgin and Child 35. Same as Figure 34, with Black Line showing Underlap and Overlap of Plaster Beds 36. Area of Loss to South of Virgin and Child, with Indications of Sutures 37. Suture running into the Bottom of the Areaof Lossto South of Virginand Child 38. Same as Figure 37, with Black Line showing Underlap and Overlap of Second and Third Beds of Plaster onto Surface of First Bed 39. Northeast Exedra, Geometric Window Border

ILLUSTRATIONS

viii

40. Brickwork at Crown of Bema Arch 41. Bema Arch, South Archangel 42. South Archangel, with Indications of Sutures 43. South Archangel, Head 44. South Archangel, Right Hand 45. South Archangel, Left Hand 46. South Archangel, Right Wing 47. South Archangel, Left Wing 48. South Archangel, Left Foot 49. South Archangel, Toe of Left Foot

50. Bema Arch, North Archangel 5I. North Archangel, West Fragment 52. North Archangel, East Fragment 53. West Edge of Bema Arch, Fragment of Geometric Border 54. Soffit of Bema Arch at the Crown, looking up 55. West Edge of Bema Arch, Fragment of Geometric Border East Reveal of Main South Arch with 56. Partially Cleaned Mosaic Designs

(Illustrations in Text) Page 151. C. Section through Apse Semidome Page I34. A. Central Window of Apse, lookSouth and Bema Arch looking North. ing Areas of Phase i Mosaic are Page 150. B. Elevation of Apse Semidome. shown stippled Areas of Phase i Mosaic are shown stippled (Following Page I84)

SirarpieDer Nersessian:A

PSALTER AND NEW TESTAMENT MANUSCRIPT AT DUMBARTON OAKS

Dumbarton Oaks Manuscript 3: Fol. 8ov, Canticle of the Virgin; fol. 330oV, Epistle to Philemon, detail, enlarged: Christ, Paul, and Timothy (see also Fig. 54) i. Dumbarton Oaks MS 3, fol. 4. Cross I2. Paris, Bibl. Nat., suppl. gr. 6IO, fol. 249v. Canticle of Hannah (photo: Bibl. Nat.) (missing) (photo: Ecole des Hautes Etudes) I3. Dumbarton Oaks MS 3, fol. 76. Canticle of Habakkuk 2. Dumbarton Oaks MS 3, fol. 4V.Virgin and Saints (missing) (photo: Ecole des Hautes I4. Paris, Bibl. Nat., suppl. gr. 6IO, fol. 252v. Canticle of Habakkuk (photo: Bibl. Nat.) Etudes) Dumbarton Oaks MS 3, fol. 77. Canticle MS fol. Birth and Dumbarton Oaks I5. 3, 5. 3. of Isaiah Anointing of David I6. Paris, Bibl. Nat., suppl. gr. 6io, fol. 256V. 4. Dumbarton Oaks MS 3, fol. 5v. Portrait Canticle of Isaiah (photo: Bibl. Nat.) of David 17. Benaki Museum. Single Leaf Athens, fol. 6. of MS Portrait Oaks Dumbarton 3, 5. (fol. 78 of Dumbarton Oaks MS 3). David Canticle of Jonah (photo: Benaki Mus.) 6. Dumbarton Oaks MS 3, fol. 27. Repenti8. Benaki Museum. Single Leaf Athens, ance of David of Dumbarton Oaks MS 3). The 78V (fol. 7. Dumbarton Oaks MS 3, fol. 39. Christ Three in the Furnace (photo: Hebrews Pantokrator Benaki Mus.) 8. Dumbarton Oaks MS 3, fol. 7I. Combat 19. Dumbarton Oaks MS 3, fol. 79. Ananias of David and Goliath 20. Dumbarton Oaks MS 3, fol. 79V. Azarias 9. Dumbarton Oaks MS 3, fol. 72. Crossing 2I. Dumbarton Oaks MS 3, fol. 80. Misael of the Red Sea 22. Dumbarton Oaks MS 3, fol. 8oV.Canticle io. Dumbarton Oaks MS 3, fol. 73. Moses Reof the Virgin (see also Frontispiece) ceiving the Tablets of the Law II. Dumbarton Oaks MS 3, fol. 75. Canticle 23. Dumbarton Oaks MS 3, fol. 8I. Canticle of Zacharias of Hannah Frontispiece (facing p.

155).

ILLUSTRATIONS 24. Dumbarton Oaks MS 3, fol. 81V.Canticle of Hezekiah 25. Dumbarton Oaks MS 3, fol. 82V. Prayer of Manasseh 26. Dumbarton Oaks MS 3, fol. 86v. Portraits of Donors (missing) (photo: Ecole des Hautes Etudes) Dumbarton Oaks MS 3, fol. 87. Virgin and 27. Child (missing) (photo: Ecole des Hautes Etudes) 28. Dumbarton Oaks MS 3, fol. 95. Portrait of Matthew 29. Dumbarton Oaks MS 3, fol. I29. Portrait

of Mark 30. Dumbarton Oaks MS 3, fol. I5I. Portrait of Luke 3I. Dumbarton Oaks MS 3, fol. I87. Portrait of John and Prochoros (missing) (photo: Ecole des Hautes Etudes) 32 Dumbarton Oaks MS 3, fol. 215. Portrait

of Luke and the Eleven Apostles 33. Dumbarton Oaks MS 3, fol. 250. Epistle of James: Portrait of James 34. Dumbarton Oaks MS 3, fol. 253v. Preface to the Epistles of Peter: Portrait of Luke 35. Cleveland Museum of Art. Single Leaf (fol. 254 of Dumbarton Oaks MS 3). First Epistle of Peter: Portrait of Peter 36. Dumbarton Oaks MS 3, fol. 258. Second Epistle of Peter: Peert (see also fig. 59) 37. Dumbarton Oaks MS 3, fol. 260. Preface to the First Epistle of John: Luke and John (see also Fig. 60) 38. Dumbarton Oaks MS 3, fol. 26I. First Epistle of John: Portrait of John 39. Dumbarton Oaks MS 3, fol. 264V.Second Epistle of John 40. Dumbarton Oaks MS 3, fol. 265V. Third Epistle of John 4I. Dumbarton Oaks MS 3, fol. 266V.Epistle of Jude: Portrait of Jude 42. Dumbarton Oks MS 3, fol. 269V.Epistle to the Romans: Portrait of Paul 43. Dumbarton

Oaks MS 3, fol. 282v. First

Epistle to the Corinthians 44. Dumbarton Oaks MS 3, fol. 294v. Second

Epistle to the Corinthians(see also Fig. 6I)

ix

45. Dumbarton Oaks MS 3, fol. 303. Epistle to the Galatians 46. Dumbarton Oaks MS 3, fol. 307. Epistle to the Ephesians 47. Dumbarton Oaks MS 3, fol. 3IIV. Epistle to the Philippians (see also Fig. 62) 48. Dumbarton Oaks MS 3, fol. 315. Epistle to the Colossians 49. Dumbarton Oaks MS 3, fol. 318. First Epistle to the Thessalonians 50. Dumbarton Oaks MS 3, fol. 32I. Second

Epistle to the Thessalonians 5I. Dumbarton

Oaks MS 3, fol. 323. First

Epistle to Timothy 52. Dumbarton Oaks MS 3, fol. 326V. Second Epistle to Timothy 53. Dumbarton Oaks MS 3, fol. 329. Epistle to Titus Dumbarton Oaks MS 3, fol. 330V. Epistle 54. to Philemon (see also Frontispiece) 55. Dumbarton Oaks MS 3, fol. 33IV. Epistle to the Hebrews 56. Mount Athos, Vatopedi Monastery. Cod. 762, fol. I7. Virgin and Child between Archangels(photo: Archives Photographiques) Mount Athos, Vatopedi Monastery. Cod. 57. 762, fol. 88v. Gregory, Basil, and John Chrysostom (photo: Archives Photographiques) 58. Venice, Bibl. Marciana. Cod. gr. 565, fol. I9IV. Moses receiving the Tablets of the Law 59. Dumbarton Oaks MS 3, fol. 258, detail, (enlarged three times): Peter (see also Fig. 36) 60. Dumbarton Oaks MS 3, fol. 260, detail (enlarged three times): John (see also Fig. 37) 6I. Dumbarton Oaks MS 3, fol. 294V, detail (enlarged three times): Christ and Paul (see also Fig. 44) 62. Dumbarton Oaks MS 3, fol. 3IIv, detail (enlarged three times): Christ, Paul, and Timothy (see also Fig. 47)

x

ILLUSTRATIONS (Following Page 206)

Alison Frantz:

FROM PAGANISMTO CHRISTIANITY IN THE TEMPLES OF ATHENS

I. Athens, A.D. 267-408

12. Seventh-century Buckles from the

2. Late Roman Fortification in the Agora

Agora (selection) 13. Harness Ornament from the Agora I4. Templon Slab in the Erechtheion I5. The Temple of Hephaistos I6. The Hephaisteion as a Christian Church. (Plan and Sections) The Hephaisteion as a Christian 17. Church. Moulding in the Bema Arch, East Face, South Side I8. The Hephaisteion as a Christian Church. Moulding in the Bema Arch, Inner Face, South 19. The Hephaisteion as a Christian Church. Moulding in the Bema Arch, Inner Face, North 21, 22. Early Christian Mouldings from the Hephaisteion

3. Early Christian Lamp from the Agora 4. Early Christian Lamp from the Agora 5. Christian Tombstone from the Agora 6. The Agora in the Fifth Century A.D. 7. Pilaster Capital from the Gymnasium in the Agora 8. Silenus, from the Stage of Phaedrus in the Theater of Dionysos 9. Statue of a Magistrate, from the Agora 10. Acropolis Museum. Portrait of a Philosopher ii. Quatrefoil Building in the Library of Hadrian

20,

(Following Page 228) Philip Grierson: TWO

BYZANTINE COIN HOARDS OF THE SEVENTH AND EIGHTH CENTURIES AT DUMBARTON OAKS

I. The Second Aydin Hoard (I). Coins of

2.

Tiberius II (nos. I, 2), Maurice (nos. 3, 4), and Phocas (nos. 5-II5) The Second Aydin Hoard (2). Coins of Heraclius alone (nos. II6-140), and of Heraclius with Heraclius Constantine (nos. 14I-I96)

3. The Sicilian Hoard (i). Coins of Constantine IV (nos. 1-3), Justinian II (no. 4), Leontius (nos. 5-21), and Tiberius III (nos. 22, 23)

4. The Sicilian Hoard (2). Coins of Tiberius III (nos. 24-44) and Philippicus (nos. 45, 46)

(Following Page 236) R. Martin Harrison and Nezih Frath: EXCAVATIONSAT SARAPHANE

IN ISTANBUL: FIRST PRE-

LIMINARY REPORT

i. General View of Site from City Hall

6. Fragment of Marble Frieze

Roof, looking northwest 2. Underpass, East wall of Building B

7. Marble Fragment with Monogram

3. Underpass, Early Conduit between A and B, looking south 4. Building C, Cross Vault at West End of Long Chamber, looking southwest 5. General View of M/I5-I7, looking south

8-1. Pier Capital: 8. Side a, 9. Side b, Io. Side c, II. Side d 12. Upper Part of Inlaid Columnas found,

with some Green Glass and Amethyst intact I3. Middle Section of Inlaid Column Shaft

ILLUSTRATIONS

xi

(Illustrations in Text) Fifth Century. Almost half extant. Page 230. A. Saraghane, General Plan of Excavation 2. Late Fourth-Early Fifth Century. D. (estimated) 30 cm. 3. Late Fourth-Mid Fifth Century. D. 26 Page232. B. Sarashane, Plan of Structures in West Face of Excavation for cm. 4. Mid (?) Fifth Century. D. 22 cm. 5 and 6. Mid-Late Fifth Underpass Page 232. C. Sarashane,

Approximate

Century. D. 24 and 25 cm. 7. Late Fifth Century. D. 32 cm. 8. Ca. 520-

Sec-

tion of Building Ain Underpass, looking west

570. D. 22 cm.. 9Probably Early Sixth Century. D. 22 cm. 10. Very Pale Ware with Orange Slip; Stamped Decoration and Rouletting: Fifth Century (third quarter?). Examples

Page 235. D. Selected Pottery from Conduit between Buildings A andB (2:5): I-9. Late Roman C Ware. o1.

Unclassified.

of the same Ware have been found at

i. Second Half

Athens and Sardis (unpublished)

(Following Page 240) Carl D. Sheppard: I.

A RADIOCARBON

DATE FOR THE WOODEN TIE BEAMS IN THE WEST GALLERY OF ST. SOPHIA, ISTANBUL

Istanbul, St. Sophia, West Gallery.Wooden Tie Beam in South Arch, seen from the West

2. Istanbul, St. Sophia, West Gallery. Detail of Tie Beam shown in Figure i, from above, showing location of specimens 3. Istanbul, St. Sophia, West Gallery. Wooden Tie Beam in Central Arch, seen from the West

4. Istanbul, St. Sophia, West Gallery. Wooden Tie Beam in Central Arch, from below 5. Istanbul, St. Sophia, South Gallery. Wooden Tie Beam in East Bay 6. Istanbul, Church of Sts. Sergius and Bacchus, Bema, North Pier, Cornice 7. Istanbul, St. Sophia, Narthex. Intarsia Frieze beneath Plastic Cornice (photo: Byzantine Instutite, Paris)

(Following Page 256) Donald M. Nicol: I.

CONSTANTINE AKROPOLITES: A PROSOPOGRAPHICALNOTE

Moscow, Tretjakov Gallery. Icon of the Theotokos Hodegetria

2. Moscow, Tretjakov Gallery. Icon, of the Theotokos Hodegetria, detail of Lower Left Corer of Frame. Constantine Akropolites

3. Moscow, Tretjakov Gallery. Icon of the Theotokos Hodegetria, detail of Lower Right Corner of Frame. Maria Komnene Tornikina

NOTES

The Byzantine Background of the Moravian Mission Author(s): George Ostrogorsky Source: Dumbarton Oaks Papers, Vol. 19, (1965), pp. 1-18 Published by: Dumbarton Oaks, Trustees for Harvard University Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1291223 Accessed: 09/07/2008 11:09 Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use, available at http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp. JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use provides, in part, that unless you have obtained prior permission, you may not download an entire issue of a journal or multiple copies of articles, and you may use content in the JSTOR archive only for your personal, non-commercial use. Please contact the publisher regarding any further use of this work. Publisher contact information may be obtained at http://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=doaks. Each copy of any part of a JSTOR transmission must contain the same copyright notice that appears on the screen or printed page of such transmission.

JSTOR is a not-for-profit organization founded in 1995 to build trusted digital archives for scholarship. We work with the scholarly community to preserve their work and the materials they rely upon, and to build a common research platform that promotes the discovery and use of these resources. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected].

http://www.jstor.org

THE

OF

BYZANTINE THE

BACKGROUND

MORAVIAN

GEORGE OSTROGORSKY

MISSION

This paper was prepared for the Symposium on "The Byzantine Mission to the Slavs: St. Cyril and St. Methodius," held at Dumbarton Oaks May 7-9, I964. Owing to unforeseen circumstances, Professor Ostrogorsky was unable to participate in the Symposium, and we are most grateful to him for submitting his paper for publication here. The Publication Committee

culture, the most highly developed of its time, had a .B qYZANTINE great power of radiation. In its expansion it embraced the whole Mediterranean world, taking in the European, Asian, and African shores. It penetrated deep into the interior of the European continent. While the movement was on the whole a constant one, there were periods of conspicuous advances and also times of recession. The second half of the ninth century witnessed the most marked advance; in addition, it was a period of particularly intensive missionary activity-the most effective form of Byzantine cultural penetration. I should like to examine here the conditions and the causes of this development. The Moravian mission of Constantine and Methodius extended Byzantine religious and cultural influences to a remote Slavic country in the center of Europe. This is an impressive and spectacular manifestation of Byzantine religious and cultural expansion. The real and unique greatness of the Moravian mission, however, lies not so much in its achievements in Moravia proper, as in the outstanding nd far-reaching results achieved by the work of Constantine and Methodius beyond the Moravian border. By creating a Slavonic alphabet, which made possible the development of Slavic writing and literature, the brothers from Thessalonica opened up a new era in the cultural life of numerous Slavic peoples. This is why the whole civilized world is celebrating the eleven hundredth anniversary of the achievement of the "Apostles of the Slavs." However, except for the remarkable results it achieved, the Moravian mission viewed as a missionary enterprise, was not an uncommon activity at this time, much less an isolated one. It was only one link in a major historical process, one of a series of similar undertakings that were characteristic of the policy of the Byzantine Empire at the time. Byzantium was then consolidating her existing relations and establishing new relations with peoples in the extensive territory inhabited by the Slavs. In a short interval of time-a single decade-very important contacts were cemented between the Byzantine Empire and the various Slavic countries, southern, eastern, and western. These contacts had widespread consequences both for the Slavs and for Byzantium. After the Russian attack on Constantinople in 860, Byzantine missionary activity began in the young Russian state. In 863 the Moravian prince Rastislav requested Byzantium to send missionaries to his country. The next year saw Bulgaria officially accept Christianity. A few years later, the Serbian lands turned to Byzantine Orthodox Christianity. In 869-70 the problem of the Bulgarian Church was finally settled at the Council of Constantinople: Bulgaria together with Macedonia-which was soon to become the main center of Slavic culture-was included within the religious and cultural orbit of ByI*

3

4

GEORGE

OSTROGORSKY

zantium. All these events occurred in the course of a single decade, the sixties of the ninth century. It was indeed a great decade in the history of the Byzantine Empire. What were the reasons for the powerful influence exerted by Byzantine culture upon the Slavic world at that particular time? To answer this question we must carefully study the historical situation of this epoch, and, above all, examine the development of the previous centuries which led up to it. We shall undertake such an analysis and endeavor to discover the historical roots both of the Moravian mission and he other major achievements of this great decade. There are periods in the secular history of a state when a completely new and clearly perceptible trend takes shape. After a radical reorientation at the beginning otheh seventh century, the Byzantine Empire experienced the next turning point in its history in the middle of the ninth century. At the turn of the sixth century, its social and economic system-a survival from the late Roman Empire-underwent a deep crisis, followed by serious internal and external upheavals. In the seventh century (I discussed this problem at the Dumbarton Oaks symposium seven years ago) the economic and social foundations of the Empire were changing: the administrative and military organization was set up on a new basis; and the image of the Empire, both political and cultural, was recast. Thanks to this internal renovation, Byzantium succeeded in overcoming the crisis, but only after a long and strenuous struggle. Throughout the whole of the seventh and eighth centuries, Byzantium had to fight for her survival, defending herself against the invasions of enemies which threatened her very existence. Avars and Slavs flooded the Balkan Peninsula and, in 626, launched an assault against Constantinople, while from the other side the Persians appeared before the Byzantine capital. In the 670's the Arabs, after conquering nearer Asia and Egypt, besieged Constantinople for five long years during which time the existence of the Empire hung by a thread. In 7I7-I8 a new siege, which once more had led to a critical situation, ended with the defeat of the enemy.the Although the Byzantine Empire halted the Arab invasion at the walls wall of the capital and on the very threshold of Europe, it continued to be under almost constant pressure and threat from the Arabs. To this danger the menace of the young Bulgarian State in the Balkans was eventually added, and during the reign of Khan Krum, at the beginning of the ninth century, this menace became critical. A change, however, took place in the second half of the ninth century. In 863 Petronas, brother of Caesar Bardas, achieved a victory of far-reaching consequences over the Arabs in Asia Minor. To be sure, battles, fierce and varying in their outcome, continued to take place, but thenceforth the Byzantines more and more often took the initiative. Indeed, Petronas' victory of 863 represented a turn of the tide in the wars between Byzantium and the Arabs, and foreshadowed the subsequent triumphant expansion of the Byzantine Empire in the East. The struggle with the Arabs greatly influenced the situation in the European sectors, especially in the Balkan Peninsula, and they have had, therefore, to be

BYZANTINE

BACKGROUND

OF MORAVIAN

MISSION

taken into consideration here. The difficulties it encountered in the East paralyzed the Empire in the Balkans, while successes on the eastern front strengthened its position and facilitated its activities in the north. At a decisive moment, one year after Petronas' victory in eastern Asia Minor, Byzantium intervened in the Balkans with the utmost determination and effectiveness, and by means of her armed forces compelled Bulgaria to sever her alliance with the Franks and to accept Christianity from Constantinople. The situation in the Balkans is of special importance in dealing with our problem; we shall, henceforth, have to devote particular attention to the events that took place there, beginning with the migration of the Southern Slavs. A massive immigration of Slavic tribes into the entire Balkan Peninsula shook Byzantine power from the Danube to the southern extremity of Greece. Byzantium maintained her position only in a number of cities-mainly coastal ones. The full scope of the disaster suffered by Byzantium in the Balkans at that time is often overlooked because Byzantine administration there was not h e replaced by any other organized stat territories, until then under the control of the Byzantine Empire, fell into the hands of Slavic tribes. The Balkan peninsula was transformed into a number of Sclaviniae-as Byzantine sources call the regions occupied by the Slavs. These regions were actually seized by the Slavs and were, in fact, removed from Byzantine political control, but they were not endowed with their own state organization. The Balkan Peninsula was indeed lost to Byzantium, yet the fiction of Byzantine sovereignty could still be maintained. Constantine Porphyrogenitus, in his celebrated treatise on foreign policy, strongly insisted on the supreme right of the Byzantine Empire in the Balkan lands. Modern historians, too, devote much attention to the question of how far Byzantine sovereignty was accepted in those countries. This approach, however, does not provide the key to the true political relationships in the Balkans. Formal recognition of the Empire's supreme rights did not represent real subordination to Byzantine authority. Actual Byzantine control existed only in those localities where the military and administrative apparatus was functioning. In contemporary terms, this meant that it prevailed wherever themes were established: themes were the new military administrative system introduced by Byzantium in her provinces beginning with the seventh-century revival. I emphasized this view in one of my previous papers, delivered at the Dumbarton Oaks Symposium in 1957.1 I am compelled here to repeat certain points, this time in a different perspective, because they are essential to an understanding of the situation in the Balkan Peninsula after the migration of the Slavs. On the earlier occasion we were interested in the conditions created in the seventh century. Now we are concerned with their subsequent development. Formerly our primary task was to draw attention to the true extent of the disorganization of Byzantine power after the catastrophe that befell the Empire 1 G. Ostrogorsky, "The Byzantine Empire in the World of the Seventh Century," Dumbarton Oaks Papers, 13 (1959), I f.

GEORGE

6

OSTROGORSKY

in the Balkans during the transition from Antiquity to the Middle Ages. Now our main task is to consider when and how Byzantium succeeded in overcoming the crisis and in re-establishing her authority in certain Balkan regions. The development of the theme system in the Balkan Peninsula has been described in detail in important works by Dvomik, Kyriakides, and Lemerle.2 Continuing their research, I have tried to shed light on this problem from a new viewpoint. In my opinion, the establishment of themes in the Balkans was a process identical with that of the Byzantine reoccupation of certain areas in the peninsula.3 It is known-Constantine Porphyrogenitus stated so himself, and documentary sources confirm the fact-that the first theme in the Balkans was organized only about the year 68o, in the district closest to the capital, i.e., in Thrace.4 Some ten years later, the theme of Hellas was created, embracing central Greece.5These were the only two areas in which Byzantium at this time succeeded in reorganizing her administrative apparatus. What is more important is that the process of establishing Byzantine rule in the Balkans, which started withthe creation of these two themes, limited in area and situated far apart, was arrested for a long time. Not one new theme was set up in the Balkans during the next hundred years. Until almost the end of the eighth century Byzantium failed to bring any other Balkan region into her military-administrative system. Then, suddenly, a change took place. Slow and sluggish for two centuries following the Slavic immigration, the process of reorganizing Byzantine power in the Balkans now became intensive, vigorous, and effective. From the end of the eighth century-and, particularly during the first half of the ninth-Byzantium succeeded in reconstituting her authority in a considerable portion theof Balkan peninsula. It is, however, only at first glance that the chane seems sudden. In actual fact, it was the result of long and laborious struggles-mentioned sporadically in Byzantine chronicles -and of gradual, barely noticeable, internal shifts. The establishment of the different themes was only the final result of these shifts. At one extremity the process embraced Greek territory. Probably by the end of the eighth century the new theme of the Peloponnesus was created alongside the existing one of Hellas.6 The theme of Cephalonia, including the Ionian Islands, was organized in the first years of the ninth century at the latest.7 At the other extremity, between 789 and 802, the theme of Macedonia was established, more or less contemporaneously with the Greek themes to the south.8 The Macedonian theme, however, had nothing in common with either classical Macedonia or that of modern times: this point must be made 2

F. Dvornik, Les ligendes de Constantin et de Methode vues de Byzance (Prague, I933), 3ff.; St. Buavrival MerTai (Thessalonica, P. Lemerle, Philippes et la Macddoine 1939), 29ff.; orientale d l'dpoque chyetienne et byzantine (Paris, I945), Ii8ff. 3 G. Ostrogorsky, "Postanak tema Helada i Peloponez," Zbornik radova Vizantologkoginstituta, i (1952), 64ff.; Cf. Geschichtedes byzantinischen Staates (1963), i62ff. 4 See note 2 supra. 5 Cf. G. Ostrogorsky, "Postanak tema...," 65 ff. 6 Kyriakides,

Ibid.,

71 ff.

7 Cf. D. A. Zakythinos, "Le theme de C6phalonie et la defense de 1'Occident," L'hellenisme contemporain, 8 (1954), 303ff. 8 Cf. Lemerle, op. cit., I22ff.

BYZANTINE

BACKGROUND

OF MORAVIAN

MISSION

7

clear, particularly because the question of Macedonia is of especial importance to our problem. The Byzantine theme of Macedonia consisted of western Thrace, with its center at Adrianople. The name "Macedonia" was attached to this territory precisely because actual Macedonia was lost to Byzantium, and was occupied by Slavs and formed a conglomeration of Sclaviniae. In the first half of the ninth century-probably in its early years-the regions of Thessalonica and Dyrrachium were organized as themes. Both, along with the themes mentioned above, are cited in Uspenskij's Tacticon, compiled between 845 and 856.9 On the other hand, Dvornik has pointed out that the Life of St. Gregory Decapolites, which he edited, already mentions, about 836, the strategus of Thessalonica and his protocancellarius; from which Dvornik rightly concluded that the theme of Thessalonica originated at least before 836.10The establishment of a theme in the Dyrrachium region probably took place in the first quarter of the ninth century, as was recently shown by Jadran Ferluga, who relied on an item of information in the correspondence of Theodore the Studite.11 The institution of themes in the territories of Thessalonica and Dyrrachium was a particularly important step in strengthening the Byzantine position in the Balkans, since Dyrrachium was the main base of the Empire on the Adriatic coast, and Thessalonica was both the main stronghold on the Aegean Sea and, what is of particular importance in the present context, the Empire's principal gateway to the Slavic world. Hence, on the eve of the great mission of the brothers from Thessalonica, this city became the center of the most important theme of the Empire in the Balkans. Then Thessalonica was connected with the Thracian themes of Macedonia and Thrace by the creation of the theme of Strymon: this theme followed the coast between the rivers Strymon and Nestos, and its center was Serres.'2 At the other extremity, the formation of the Nicopolis theme, in Epirus, completed the network of the theme system on Greek territory. Finally, at the beginning of the reign of Basil I, the former archontia Dalmatia, which included the coastal cities and the nearby islands, acquired greater importance and was raised to the status of a theme.13 This was a decisive moment in the expansion of Byzantine influence in the western part of the Balkan Peninsula and in the Christianization of the Serbian lands. This completed the main phase in the process of restoring Byzantine power in the Balkans-a process of political reoccupation that made possible a gradual, often very slow, re-Hellenization of the regained regions. Later Byzantine reoccupation, which absorbed almost all of the Balkan Peninsula in the tenth and eleventh centuries, was temporary and had no deep roots. The process of reoccupation which we have followed here did, on the contrary, have lasting 9 G. Ostrogorsky, "Taktikon Uspenskog i Taktikon Benesevi6a," Zbornik radova Vizantoloskog

instituta, 2 (I953), 40ff.

10F. Dvornik, La vie de Saint Grdgoirele Ddcapolite (Paris, I926), pp. 36, 62. 11 J. Fergula, "La creation du theme de Dyrrachium," Actes du XIIe Congrgs d'dtudes byzantines, II

(1964), 83ff. 12 Cf. M. Rajkovic, "Oblast Strimona i tema Strimon," Zbornik radova VizantoloSkog instituta, 5 (I958), iff.

18J.

Ferluga, Vizantiska uprava u Dalmaciji (Belgrade, 1958, 68ff.

8

GEORGE

OSTROGORSKY

results. It divided the Balkan Peninsula forever into a Greek and a Slavic zone. By the second half of the ninth century, Byzantium had succeeded in strengthening her power not only in the entire southern part of the peninsula, but also in the more remote coastal regions accessible to her naval power. These regions included many old harbors and cities inhabited by the older Greek and Roman populations which the Slavic migration had driven there. The interior of the Balkan Peninsula, however, remained beyond the borders of Byzantium. Here, gradually, Slavic states arose: Bulgaria was formed and expanded, and new states were organized in the Serbian and Croatian regions. Thus ended the era of the Sclaviniae, which had marked the history of the Balkans from the seventh century to the ninmiddle middle the of theninth. Where Byzantine administrative power asserted itself, the Sclaviniae were eventually absorbed into the theme organization; in regions remaining outside Byzantine control they either merged into new Slavic states or joined existing ones. Numerous Macedonian Sclaviniae joined Bulgaria, and thus the Bulgarian State came to extend over those territories of Macedonia which were not included within the Byzantine theme organization, i.e., by far the greater part of that region. The incorporation of Macedonia-the main area of the later activity of Methodius' disciples, with Ohrid as the principal center of old Slavic culture and literature-is a particularly salient factor in our study. The date of this incorporation cannot be accurately determined. We know only, in connection with the activities of Methodius' disciples, that at the time of Prince Boris western Macedonia, including Ohrid, was situated within the borders of the Bulgarian State. In their efforts to determine when Bulgaria extended its hegemony over this territory, historians have resorted to a number of hypotheses-many of them fairly bold. The general pattern for the solution of this problem was proposed by the eminent Bulgarian historian Zlatarski.14Assuming that the annexation of Macedonia by Bulgaria resulted from wars between the Bulgarian State and Byzantium, Zlatarski went to great pains to search the sources for information about these wars. But since there is no evidence of any wars in western Macedonia at that time, he chose to rely on a brief notice in the Chronicle of Symeon Logothetes which states that a Bulgarian ruler marched is against Thessalonica. As this notice inserted in the the story of the return of Byzantine war prisoners deported in the time of Krum (among these prisoners were the later Emperor Basil I and his parents), Zlatarski dates the abovementioned expedition against Thessalonica to 837, and ascribes it to Khan Presiam. This would have been the operation needed to bring about the annexation of western Macedonia to Bulgaria. Bury accepts this chronology,15 although he observes-cautiously, as always-that to attribute such results to this expedition is "a hypothesis that cannot be proved.'16 S. Runciman also 14 V. N. Zlatarski, "Izvestija za Bulgarite v hronikata na Simeona Metafrasta i Logoteta," Sbornik za narodni umotvorenija i kniznina, 24 (1908), and Istorija na Bulgarskata DurSava prez srednite vekove I, i (Sofia, iqi8), 337ff. 15 J. B. Bury, A History of the Eastern Roman Empire (London, 1912), 370ff 16

Ibid.,

372.

BYZANTINE

BACKGROUND OF MORAVIAN MISSION

9

accepts Zlatarski's chronology and his basic hypothesis.17 This date, we are told, is particularly plausible, because the Byzantine Emperor Theophilus was at that time engaged in a major struggle against the Arabs and could not intervene. Mutafciev, in his turn, while also following Zlatarski's basic ideas, develops them in his own way. He does not mention the expedition against Thessalonica, but bases his conclusions on information provided by the wellknown Shumen inscription, according to which the Bulgarian ruler (and he also believes it was Presiam) sent the prominent Bulgarian army commander Kavhan Isbul into the district of Serres. Mutafciev infers from this piece of evidence that a Byzantine army was concentrated there, with the task of an in the West and forcing Slavic tribes in the area of the instigatingattack rivers Strymon and Vardar to submit again to Byzantium.'8 Mutafciev attributes the fact that at that to him-the had to defend themselves time-838, according Byzantines against a massive Arab attack in Asia Minorwhich compelled them to withdraw forces from the West.19However, according to Zlatarski and Bury, Isbul's expedition in the area of the Strymon and the Nestos did not take place until after the year 846.20

Let us not dwell any longer on these contradictions, or on the fact that, in view of Bulgaria's annexation of the Macedonian Sclaviniae, some scholars attribute great importance to the Bulgarian ruler's campaign against Thessalonica, while others do not mention it all; or on the fact that in this connection the latter authorities attach correspondingly great significance to the Shumen inscription, while the former completely disregard it. It is, nevertheless, strange that the Sclaviniae in western and central Macedonia should have been transferred from Byzantine to Bulgarian authority without the sources mentioning any military operations in those areas; while, faute de mieux, we are offered data on Bulgarian actions in the districts of Thessalonica and Serres-regions which, in fact, were not annexed to Bulgaria. It is important above all to realize how insufficient and vague is the available evidence. Information provided by the partially preserved Shumen inscription is not even entirely clear. Contrary to Jirecek and Uspenskij, who published it, and to Bury who referred to "'warlike action,' 21 Zlatarski, in his final judgement 17

S. Runciman, A History of the First Bulgarian Empire (London,

18 P. Mutafciev, Istorija na Bulgarskija narod, I (Sofia, 1943),

1930),

87.

i60. See also P. Nikov, Han Omortag

i Kavhan Isbul (Sofia [Bulg. Istor. Bibl.], n.d). 19The new history of Bulgaria published by the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences combines these two pieces of evidence, and claims that the Kavhan Isbul was sent to the district of Thessalonica and "at the same time Isbul or some other Bulgarian army leader occupied all of central Macedonia, including part of southern Albania, without encountering serious resistance from the Byzantines who ruled these conquered regions." Cf. Istorija na Bulgarija, I (Sofia, 1954), 93. However, contrary to Zlatarski, T. Cankova-Petkova, in her article, "0 territorii bolgarskogo gosudarstva v VII-IX vv.," Viz. Vrem., 17 (ig960), 143, note ii8, points out that there is no actual evidence of any Bulgarian conquest of Macedonian territories at the time of Presiam. She is inclined to accept the hypothesis that these regions were annexed peacefully after their Christianization. 20 Zlatarski, Izvestija, 52; Bury, op. cit., 372, note 3, and Appendix io. Later Zlatarski changed his opinion and assigned the Shumen inscription to 836-37 (Istorija, I 452 f.), in order to refute Bury's conclusion that Malomir and Presiam were the same person. 21 C. Jirecek in Archaol.-Epigr. Mitteilungen, 19 (1896), 242f.; F. I. Uspenskij inIzvestija russk. arheol. inst. v Konstantinopole, 10 (1905), 232f.; Bury, op. cit., App. io, p. 83.

GEORGE

10

OSTROGORSKY

on this inscription, did not believe that military operations were involved here.22 On the other hand, information supplied by Symeon Logothetes -which Zlatarski takes as a point of departure-is clear in its meaning. But Symeon says-and only in a subordinate clause-no more than thanthat prisoners of war, with whom the whole story deals and who were deported at the time of Krum, were leaving for home wi their belongings when Michael, prince of Bulgaria, moved against Thessalonica.23That is all. The most awkward riddle is the fact that t hi ch modern scholars date to the end of the thirties, was, according to Symeon Logothetes, undertaken by Michael, in 852 Zlatarski i.e., Boris, who ascendedone the athrulerclaims that in question was obviously Presiam, and that this event took place at the very beginning of his reign, after a recent change on the throne: for, in the same passage, two lines earlier, another Bulgarian ruler is mentioned: Symeon Logothetes calls him Vladimir and relates that he was Krum's grandson and the father of Symeon who reigned afterward.24 Zlatarski claims that this Vladimir was in fact Malomir, since Malomir was Krum's grandson-and Bury and Runciman agree with him.25 However, Symeon Logothetes states that this Bulgarian archon was not only Krum's grandson, but also the father and predecessor of the great Symeon. This cannot be reconciled at all with what we know of Malomir;atwhereas Vladimir was least actually Symeon's predecessor, although not his father but his elder brother. We may add that Bury adduced powerful arguments to show that Malomir and Presiam were one and the same person, who reigned from 83I to 852; in which case there was no change at all on the Bulgarian throne in 836.26 Is it not safer to accept the possibility that Symeon Logothetes simply confused the facts? He wrote about events that occurred a hundred years before his time, and he was obviously at sea in Bulgarian history of the first half of the ninth centh century, a period which baffles even the most authoritative modern historians. Is it not preferable to recognize his obvious ignorance than to construct extensive theories and complicated hypotheses on the basis of his confused evidence? The more involved hypotheses appear to be, the more arbitrary they usually are. In fact, they cannot be anything but arbitrary when they set out to prove assumptions that are inaccurate from the start. Hypotheses with which we have been dealing here were conceived on the assumption that the Macedonian Sclaviniae, before being annexed by Bulgaria, belonged to Byzantium; and they aimed to establish at what date and through what military actions Bulgaria won Macedonia from Byzantium. Scholars 22

Zlatarski, Istorija, I,

I,

457.

23 Sym. Log., Georg. Mon. Cont. 8i8, io. Old Church Slavonic translation ed. by Sreznevskij (1905),

101. 24 25 26

Sym. Log., Georg. Mon. Cont. 8i8, 7. Old Church Slavonic translation, ioi.

Bury, op. cit., 369, note 4. Runciman,

op. cit., 86, note 3.

Bury, op. cit., App. X. Zlatarski rejects this interpretation (Istorija, I, i, App. I4) and insists that Malomir and Presiam were two different rulers and that Presiam succeeded Malomir. Discussing in detail the arguments of both parties in this matter, Runciman (op. cit., App. VIII) adduces the hypothesis that Presiam was not a ruler, but a commander in the army of Malomir who, as Bury pointed out, was Omortag's successor and Boris' predecessor, and, therefore, reigned from 831 to 852.

BYZANTINE

BACKGROUND

OF MORAVIAN

MISSION

11

have taken pains to extract from the sources everything that, in their opinion, could shed light on these questions. But their quest has been in vain, because the Sclaviniae in upper Macedonia had long since ceased to be under Byzantine rule; hence Bulgaria had no need to wrest them from Byzantium. This is why we find no record of any such conquest in the sources. This fact only confirms what we stated above about conditions in the Balkans during the early Middle Ages. Byzantium lost control over the Balkan Peninsula after the migration of the Slavs. Later, up to the middle of the ninth century, the Byzantine Empire did succeed in gradually establishing its power over part of the Balkans, even over some districts of lower Macedonia-those adjoining the larger urban centers. However, the greater part of Macedonia and the greater portion of the Balkan Peninsula-the whole of the interior-remained outside its control. While the Sclaviniae within the territories reoccupied by Byzantium gradually submitted to her administrative apparatus and were slowly Hellenized, those that remained outside the Byzantine borders either gradually developed into independent Slavic states or joined the already existing Bulgarian State. This was a lengthy process which cannot be accurately dated. It can only be stated that it was largely completed by the reign of Boris, when the greater part of Macedonia was included within the Bulgarian State. I do not mean to imply that it all happened quietly and peacefully. Just as the subordination of the Sclaviniae to Byzantine rule in the southern part of the peninsula was preceded by actions of the Byzantine army, so it is probable that armed force was used in this case also-not to seize Macedonian Sclaviniae from Byzantium, but to subject them to the power of the Bulgarian State; and this is why Byzantine sources provide no information on the subject. Byzantine reoccupation of Balkan territories after an almost complete disaster at the time of the Slavic migration was certainly a great accomplishment, and demonstrates the extraordinary vitality of the Byzantine Empire. It not only created conditions for the gradual re-Hellenization of the reconquered regions, but also provided a solid foundation for the Empire's activities in other Balkan and non-Balkan territories. It is true that the Byzantine reoccupation went no further than the outer boundaries of homogeneous Slavic lands in the Balkan interior. The military and administrative power of Byzantium did not extend over these countries. However, by encircling them with Imperial themes and by strengthening the position of cities bordering on Slavic territories, Byzantium began, from these strongholds, vigorously to spread her influence over the Slavic interior. Changes in the ecclesiastical field which took place during this period of transition contributed to the effectiveness of this expansion. Constantinople was not the only center of diffusion of Byzantine religious and cultural influence among neighboring peoples. It shared this role with Thessalonica above all, and also with the cities of the Adriatic coast. Yet, almost all of the Balkan Peninsula-not just the western part, but its interior as well, that is, Illyricum with its center in Thessalonica-remained under the jurisdiction of the Roman

12

GEORGE

OSTROGORSKY

See until the middle of the eighth century. The age of Iconoclasm brought about vital changes in the relations between Byzantium and the Church of Rome. The Roman Church did not accept the Iconoclastic doctrine of the Byzantine imperial government. However, in the relations between Rome and Constantinople the ultimately decisive factor was, even more than the doctrinal element, the political situation in Italy created by the growing Lombard invasion. Pope Gregory II firmly repudiated the Iconoclastic doctrines of the Emperor Leo III, as did his successors. But, regardless of the conflict over the most sensitive religious issue of the time, Gregory II and his successors Gregory III and Zacharias remained politically loyal to the emperor as long as there theatwas hope Byzantium would be able to suppress the Lombard danger in Italy. This hope was finally dashed by the fall of Ravenna to the Lombards in 751. Rome turned her back on Byzantium and placed herself under the protection of the Frankish king. Pope Stephen II met King Pippin in Ponthion and entered into an alliance with him which marked a new direction in the development of the West. Byzantium was finally pushed back from northern and central Italy. In its turn, however, the Byzantine government removed the Hellenized regions of southern Italy and the Balkan Peninsula from Roman jurisdiction and placed them under the Church of Constantinople. Bearing in mind the development of Roman-Byzantine relations which we have briefly described, it seems to me that Grumel was right in concluding that this measure was taken not at the time of Leo III and Pope Gregory II, as has been generally thought until recently, but only after the fall of the exarchate of Ravenna, at the time of Stephen II and the Emperor Constantine V.27 In fact, Theophanes, describing with much exaggeration the conflict between Leo III and Gregory II, does not so much as mention the separation of the Balkan and southern Italian regions from Rome. I am sorry to disagree on this question with Anastos, the distinguished authority on the Iconoclastic period, who defends the old chronology.28 I am not convinced that Theophanes did not confuse events even when he ascribed the confiscation of the papal patrimonies in southern Italy to Leo III and presented this measure as the result of the conflict between Leo III and Gregory II on the issue of the cult of icons. Let us not forget how sketchy and confused were Theophanes' notions about everything regarding conditions in the West, particularly about the Roman pontiffs and their chronology. Theophanes mentions Pope Stephen II, and what he terms the Pope's "flight to Pippin," under the year 724-25; in other words, he antedates Stephen's pontificate by thirty years.29 But, whether this event occurred during the reign of Leo III or that of Constantine V, the fact is that the Balkan Peninsula, originally for the most part 27 V.

Grumel, "L'annexion de l'Illyricum oriental, de la Sicile et de la Calabre au patriarcat de Constantinople," Recherchesde science religieuse, 40 (1952), I9Iff. 28 M. V. Anastos, "The Transfer of Illyricum, Calabria and Sicily to the Jurisdiction of the Patri-

archate of Constantinople

in 732-33,"

in Silloge Bizantina

in onore di S. G. Mercati (Rome,

1957), i4ff. 29Cf. G. Ostrogorsky, "The Byzantine Empire in the World of the Seventh Century," Dumbarton

Oaks Papers, 13 (I959),

13, note 32.

BYZANTINE

BACKGROUND

OF MORAVIAN

MISSION

13

under the jurisdiction of Rome, fell, during the Iconoclastic period, together with the southern Italian regions, under the jurisdiction of Constantinople.30 Thus, the main Byzantine centers in the Balkans, and especially Thessalonica, whose bishops had until then been considered vicars of the Pope, entered the realm of the Byzantine Church. Thus, even those regions which Byzantium was able to reoccupy only at a later date came within the orbit of its Church. Furthermore, important territories which the Byzantine Empire was quite unable to subdue politically in the period which is of interest to us here, also entered the sphere of the patriarchate of Constantinople. In evaluating the importance of of Illyricum to the patrithe toof nexation the importannexatieon archate of Constantinople, almost everyone who has discussed the matter has stressed that by this measure the boundaries of the jurisdiction of the Constantinopolitan Church were made to correspond to the political borders of the Byzantine Empire. This, however, is not correct, even though it has been asserted by the leading authorities in the field of Byzantine political and Church history. At th time e of its annexation to the patriarchate of Constantinople, Illyricum indeed represented a congeries of Sclaviniae, whereas Byzantine sovereignty over these regions was at most only nominal. Even the successes of Byzantine reoccupation at the end of the eighth and the beginning of the ninth century were limited mainly to the southern part of this area. In other words, by the change of boundaries in the Roman and Byzantine ecclesiastical spheres, the domain of the patriarchate of Constantinople was extended considerably beyond the actual boundaries of the Empire, and encompassed lands which were out of reach of the Byzantine military and administrative authorities, and which were situated in partibus infidelium. The imnportanceof this expansion was demonstrated only in the post-Iconoclastic era, when the religious and cultural influences of Byzantium were vigorously spreading over these, as well as more remote, regions. How important a gain this measure of the Iconoclastic government represented for Byzantium, and how real was the ensuing loss for Rome, is evidenced by the strong protests of the Roman Church, especially bitter after the defeat of Iconoclasm. From the well-known letter which Pope Hadrian II wrote to the Byzantine emperors it can be clearly seen that the news of the restoration of the cult of icons was greeted in Rome with mixed feelings, since the other measures of the Iconoclastic era were not revoked: the former boundaries of Roman jurisdiction were not re-established, nor were the Papal patrimonies in southern Italy returned to Rome.31 The Iconoclastic epoch emphasized sharply the frontiers between the Byzantine and the Roman spheres of influence, and this is the main feature of that period in the relations between Rome and Constantinople. Thus clear 30 H. Gelzer ("Das Verhaltnis von Staat und Kirche in Byzanz," Hartmann (Geschichte Italiens im Mittelalter, II, 2 [1903], iiif.);

Hist. Z., 86 [i9Oi], 193ff.); L. M. and, especially, F. isiA (Povijest

Hrvata [Zagreb, 1925], 68i iff.), have already, and rightly, stressed that by this action of the Iconoclast Byzantine government not only the Prefecture of Illyricum, but also Dalmatia-particularly the cities-were placed under the jurisdiction of the patriarchate of Constantinople. 31 Mansi,

XII,

1055f.

14

GEORGE

OSTROGORSKY

expression was given to what had been previously foreshadowed. Political, cultural, and even linguistic developments were leading inginexorably to ever deeper differences between these two centers of the world and to ever greater mutual estrangement, and the clash between universalist ambitions on both sides was unavoidable. In the world of that time there were two powers, each with a strongly expressed belief in its own universal mission: one was secularthe Byzantine Empire, which claimed, as the only legal the empire empire, the right to rule over the world; the other was spiritual-the Roman Church, with its claim to supremacy over Christendom. The universalism of either side could have been maintained as long as the world, at least the Christian world, was united. When that unity disappeared, the universalism of both powers inevitably became open to question. Neither side ever retreated ideologically from its universalistic aspirations. In actual fact, Byzantine universalism was already condemned to extinction after the downfall of Justinian's empire. It was definitely doomed after the fall of the exarchate of Ravenna, when Italy broke away from Byzantine rule and the Roman Church turned to the Frankish Kingdom. In the year 8oo00,by crowning Charles the Great emperor, Rome created a second empire in the West. Meanwhile, as we have seen, the Roman Church was losing ground in the East. The emancipation of the West from the political sovereignty of Byzantium had its counterpart in the emancipation of the East from the supremacy of the Roman Church. The Iconoclastic age buried the universalism of the Byzantine State, but it also paved the way for the end of the universalism of the Roman Church. As the empire of Charles the Great rose up in the West as an opponent of Byzantine universalism, so also the impetus of the patriarchate of Constantinople emerged as a force that was soon to challenge the universalism of the Roman Church. Pope Hadrian protested in vain against the extension of the boundaries of Constantinople's jurisdiction for which previous events had prepared the way. Useless was his protest, in the letter mentioned above, against the title Oecumenical Patriarch heads the headsChurch the of the Church of of Constantinople had assumed long before. True, there were times when the ecclesiastical centers within the Eastern Church itself were engaged in bitter mutual struggles over church leadership. It had looked sometimes as if Constantinople would bow, if not to Antioch, then to powerful Alexandria. Unlike these rivals, famous for their great traditions, Constantinople had no Church tradition to speak of. But Constantinople was the capital of the Empire, and this fact decided the struggle in her favor. Her primacy in the Eastern Church was established in the canons of the oecumenical councils. And when the illustrious eastern patriarchal sees fell under the rule of the infidel Saracen, only the memory of their glory survived. The patriarch of Constantinople became in fact the sole head of the Byzantine Church, and this influenced his position also toward the see of Rome, particularly as his importance and authority continued to increase. The Iconoclastic crisis, which had placed the patriarchate of Constantinople in a difficult position of dependence upon a heretical government, was over. Now the Byzantine Church enjoyed the support of a strong and like-minded govern-

BYZANTINE

BACKGROUND OF MORAVIAN MISSION

15

ment which upheld her efforts to achieve a sovereign position in the Christian world and to expand her influence beyond that world. Great new perspectives opened up before her. The seventh and eighth centuries were a time of struggle for survival and of a marked contraction of the Byzantine horizon and cultural activities. From the middle of the ninth century, however, perspectives widened considerably: a new age had arrived, the age of a powerful upsurge of Byzantine culture and of the spread of its influence abroad. The decade of extraordinary achievement lay ahead. Historically, everything we have examined here represents conditions essential to the accomplishments of this great decade: the internal strengthening of the Byzantine state and the growth of its military power; the change which, in the sixties of the ninth century, gave a favorable turn to the wars with the Arabs; the reoccupation of the coastal regions of the Balkan Peninsula; the gradual restoration of order in the Balkans and the re-establishment of the formerly disturbed balance of power; the inclusion of the entire Balkan Peninsula within the jurisdiction of the patriarchate of Constantinople; the increase of influence and authority of Constantinople in the Christian Church. All these developments prepared the way for the outstanding achievements of the Byzantine State and Church, and also led to the powerful expansion of Byzantine religious and cultural influences that took place during the years of the remarkable activity of the Patriarch Photius, of Caesar Bardas, and of Constantine and Methodius, the "Apostles of the Slavs." The cultural development that took place at that time in Byzantium itself was, of course, necessary for the powerful radiation of Byzantine culture in the outside world. We should remember that cultural life in Byzantium in the middle of the ninth century became extremely active and reached a very high level. The enlightened regent Caesar Bardas founded a university at the Magnaura Palace, to which he brought the most eminent scholars. With astonishing boldness he entrusted the school's leadership to the great scholar and former Iconoclast, Leo the Mathematician. This university adorned with the names of the most illustrious scholars and teachers, Leo and Photius, and in which the young philosopher Constantine studied and taught, became the focal point of mediaeval Greek science and culture and the center of its powerful radiation. Constantine was one of the most remarkable personalities in this intellectual upsurge of the Byzantine Empire. Both philosopher and theologian, he was endowed with all the secular and theological knowledge of his day, and was the exponent of the highest aspirations of the Byzantine State and Church. He and his brother Methodius were at the same time typical of the ByzantineSlav symbiosis which existed at that time in the Balkans. Nowhere was this symbiosis as pronounced as in their native Thessalonica, the most important center on the fringe of the Slavic world. The population of Thessalonica was then practically bilingual, as often happens in border regions. According to a statement in the Life of Constantine (chap. 5), everyone in Thessalonica spoke Slavic.

16

GEORGE

OSTROGORSKY

It need hardly be emphasized how important the knowledge of the Slavic language was for the brothers' task. Had they not preached and celebrated the liturgy in Slavic, had they not created an alphabet and translated the Bible and the liturgical books into Slavic, their work would have remained an episode without further significance. Because they did these things, however, their mission, while in the end unsuccessful in Moravia itself, acquired great impetus and significance in other Slavic lands, and laid the foundation for Slavic literacy, literature, and culture. It is interesting to note that in the Balkan regions, which the Empire incorporated within its own boundaries by gradual submission of the Sclaviniae, the Byzantine Church was a powerful factor in the Hellenization of the Slavic population. Thus, for instance, after the famous siege of Patras by the Slavs in 805, the Emperor Nicephorus I ordered the defeated Slavs to be assigned as paroikoi to the church of St. Andrew in Patras because that Saint had saved the city from the great peril of the Slavic invasion.32 In Moravia, on the other hand, the Byzantines preached Christianity and celebrated Mass in the Slavic language: here the Byzantine State and Church administrations deliberately supported Slavic self-consciousness, thus intentionally opposing the influence of the neighboring Frankish kingdom. The Lives of Constantine and Methodius constantly emphasize the inherent value of the Slavic language and attack the "trilingual heresy," i.e., the theorythe that the revealed truth of the Christian Church can be expressed only in Hebrew, Greek, and Latin. This broadminded spirit characterized to a great extent the Church policy of Byzantium in other Slavic countries as well. To sum up, the circumstances which made possible the great Byzantine achievements in the Slavic world were numerous and diverse. We have had to follow through centuries the development of the Byzantine Empire to be able to understand the way in which these conditions matured. We have also had to observe in the earlier political, ecclesiastical, and cultural history of Byzantium those developments which prepared the Moravian mission and other similar phenomena. The Moravian mission is one of a series of like phenomena which with amazing rapidity succeeded one another in the seventh decade of the ninth century. The achievements of that time, forerunners of further similar accomplishments, originated in the years when the Byzantine Empire was led by Michael III and his uncle, the great Caesar Bardas; while the great Patriarch Photius was at the head of the Byzantine Church. Their personal part in these achievements obviously was not small, and Constantine and Methodius must share the credit for their great work with the Patriarch Photius and Ceasar Bardas, the inspirers and leaders of Byzantine policy at that time. However, in the realization of the historical interests and primordial stirrings of a great empire, there is something deeper and more powerful than personal will, initiative, and perseverance. The actions initiated at the time of Michael III, Bardas, and Photius were continued faithfully and with equal success under 82

De adm. imp., chap. 49, ed. by Moravcsik-Jenkins.

BYZANTINE

BACKGROUND

OF MORAVIAN

MISSION

17

Basil I, who seized supreme power after the assassination of Bardas and Michael, and immediately dismissed Photius. Basil's policy toward the Slavic world did not substantially differ from that of his predecessors and victims. The policies differed somewhat in their methods, but not in the goals they pursued. It was not my intention toto describe the events of the great decade, which, in the main, are fairly well known. My purpose, rather, was to point to their roots and to stress their historical inevitability. I shall mention only briefly a few facts which clearly illustrate this inevitability. After the Russian attack on Constantinople in 86o, Byzantium began missionary activities in Russia. A few years later, in 8his in famous encyclical letter to the eastern patri867, archs, Photius with justifiable pride-though also with obvious exaggerationemphasized the success of that endeavor.33Basil I continued this line of action. Constantine Porphyrogenitus was even inclined to give his grandfather credit for Christianizing the Russians. These, of course, are panegyrical exaggerations, but there is no reason to doubt the accuracy of his information that Basil I ordered his patriarch Ignatius, Photius' rival, to send an archbishop to the Russians.34 The conflict with the Russians in 860 was followed by the embassy which Byzantium dispatched to her old allies, the Khazars. The diplomatic mission was entrusted to the young philosopher Constantine, and this is when this greatest propagator of Byzantine culture made his first appearance on the stage of history. After that came the mission of the Thessalonican brothers to Moravia at the invitation of Prince Rastislav, who, threatened by the Frankish-Bulgarian alliance, sent his historical appeal to Byzantium. There followed the Christianization of the Bulgarians whom Byzantium forced to repudiate their alliance with the Frankish Kingdom and to accept Christianity from Constantinople. Shortly thereafter, however, Bulgaria turned her back on Byzantium and approached Rome. The struggle over the Bulgarian Church greatly increased the acuteness of the conflict between the Patriarch Photius and Pope Nicholas I, and led to a sharp split between Constantinople and Rome. At the very moment when this dramatic change occurred, a coup d'etat took place in Constantinople. Basil became the autocrator of Byzantium. It was he, the assassin of Michael and Bardas and the adversary of Photius, who finally won the struggle over the Bulgarian Church and brought into effect the decision in favor of Byzantium, accepted at the final session of the same council that confirmed Photius' deposition. Thus, a loss which would have been of immense consequence for Byzantium was avoided. Moreover, a base which was later to be used for the cultural activities of Methodius' disciples was thereby included in the sphere of the Byzantine Church, and the future of the Slavic liturgy and its dissemination throughout the sphere of the Byzantine Church were assured. Had things turned out differently; had Bulgaria and Macedonia-including the Ohrid district, the area of the activity of Clement and Naum-remained under the wing of the Roman Church, a successful 83Migne, PG, 102, cols. 736/7, Epist. " Vita Const., Theoph. Cont., 342. 2

13.

18

GEORGE

OSTROGORSKY

future for the Slavic liturgy would have been hardly imaginable. On the other hand, from the very beginning of Basil's reign, Byzantine influence penetrated in full strength to the western region of the Balkans, especially to the Serbian lands. Here its expansion took a peculiar turn. The consolidation of the Byzantine position on the Adriatic was of decisive importance. Besieged by the Arab fleet, Dubrovnik sent an appeal for help to Constantinople. Addressed to the Emperor Michael, this appeal reached the new Emperor, who had just ascended the throne after assassinating Michael. Basil did what his predecessor would most probably have done: he sent the fleet to assist Dubrovnik, forcing the Arabs to raise their siege and to leave the Adriatic waters. The reinforcement of Byzantine authority on the Adriatic shore facilitated the penetration of the political, religious, and cultural influences of the Empire into the Slavic lands of the West Balkans. In the ensuing years, the Serbian lands officially accepted the Byzantine religion, and the Slavic liturgy was definitely established after the arrival of Methodius' disciples and the diffusion of the Slavic liturgy from Clement's and Naum's Ohrid. To stress the important point once more, the Moravian mission was not an isolated phenomenon. It was one of a series of similar, contemporary phenomena resulting from the same historical conditions. The work of the "Apostles of the Slavs" which resulted from this mission acquired its true and deep significance in the events which occurred simultaneously in Bulgaria, Macedonia, and Serbia, and which later took place in the greatest of the Slavic countries-Russia.

The Legacy of Cyril and Methodius to the Southern Slavs Author(s): George C. Soulis Source: Dumbarton Oaks Papers, Vol. 19, (1965), pp. 19-43 Published by: Dumbarton Oaks, Trustees for Harvard University Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1291224 Accessed: 09/07/2008 11:09 Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use, available at http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp. JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use provides, in part, that unless you have obtained prior permission, you may not download an entire issue of a journal or multiple copies of articles, and you may use content in the JSTOR archive only for your personal, non-commercial use. Please contact the publisher regarding any further use of this work. Publisher contact information may be obtained at http://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=doaks. Each copy of any part of a JSTOR transmission must contain the same copyright notice that appears on the screen or printed page of such transmission.

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LEGACY

THE AND

TO

THE

OF

CYRIL

METHODIUS SOUTHERN GEORGE C. SOULIS

SLAVS

This study is in substance identical with a paper delivered at the Symposium on "The Byzantine Mission to the Slavs: St. Cyril and St. Methodius," held at Dumbarton Oaks in May I964.

The author would like to thank his former teacher Professor Roman Jakobson who read the manuscript and called to his attention a number of bibliographical references.

^F

OR the reflectivestudent of Slavic culturalhistory,the year 885marksa

turning point of great significance. The death of Methodius in Velehrad that year was followed by the collapse of the work of the Thessalonian brothers in Central Europe. This in turn led to the most important event in the formation of the character of the spiritual and cultural life of the Southern and Eastern Slavs; namely, the expulsion of the disciples of Cyril and Methodius from Moravia by order of Prince Svatopluk, and their eager reception on the part of the Bulgarian ruler Boris. Thus, Bulgaria saved the fruits of the labor of the two brothers both for the Slavs and for Europe. Had Boris denied protection and encouragement to these carriers of Slavic liturgy and letters who sought refuge in his land, the Moravian mission of the Slavic apostles would have remained a mere episode in the annals of history, and never would have assumed the importance which we attribute to it today. It is true that to the end of the eleventh century the Cyrillo-Methodian tradition continued to exist in Bohemia and Southern Poland, especially around the Czech Benedictine abbey of Sazava, and that it even witnessed a revival in the fourteenth century at the Monastery of Emmaus in Prague. But the tradition subsequently disappeared from the lands of the former Great Moravian Empire, leaving only a memory which served thereafter as a thread of inspiration, intimately interwoven with the cultural life and national consciousness of the Czechs and the Slovaks.' The same tradition also flourished in Croatia, where, in the form of Glagolism, it assumed the role of a national symbol in the age-old conflict between Slavic and Latin Christianity in the Dalmatian lands. The Glagolitic tradition became the strongest defense of the Croats against Romanization, and has survived to this day-albeit in a meager form-as living proof of the vitality and tenacity of the Cyrillo-Methodian precepts.2 If, however, we attach great significance to the Moravian mission today, it is not because of the two specific cases just cited. Rather, it is because of the reception, preservation, and further development of the Cyrillo-Methodian 1 R. Jakobson, "The Kernel of Comparative Slavic Literature," Harvard Slavic Studies, I (I953), 39-55; B. HavrAinek, "Po6atky slovansk6ho pisma a psan6 literatury v dob6 velkomoravsk6," Velkd Moravd: Tisiciletd tradice stdtu a kultury (Prague, 1963), 77-96, where all the important literature on the Cyrillo-Methodian tradition in Moravia and Bohemia is mentioned. Cf. R. Jakobson, "(Jvahy o bisnictvf dovy husitske," Slovo a slovesnost, 2 (1936), i ff.; 0. Odloiilfk, "Components of the Czechoslovak Tradition," The Slavonic and East European Review, 23 (I945), 97-106. For the same tradition in Poland, see the most recent study on the subject by K. LanckoroAska, Studies on the Roman-Slavonic Rite in Poland (Rome, 1961; cf. the review by J. Szymanski in Revue d'histoire decclesiastique,58 [1963], 911I-20). 2 J.

Hamm, "Glagolizam i njegovo zna6enie za Juine Slavene," Slavia, 25 (1956), 313-21. Cf. V. Novak, "The Slavonic-Latin Symbiosis in Dalmatia During the Middle Ages," The Slavonic and East European Review, 32 (I953-4), 8ff. 21

22

GEORGE

C. SOULIS

legacy by Bulgaria, which, in turn, passed it on to the neighboring Serbs and Rumanians, and finally to the Russians, who, from the end of the tenth century, became the main beneficiaries of this heritage. The story of the events following the death of Methodius in Moravia is far from clear. Our principal source remains the Greek Life of Saint Clement, probably written by the archbishop of Ohrid, Theophylactus, toward the end of the eleventh century, but definitely based on an older Slavic prototype, which is no longer extant.3 From this source we learn that, in the winter followthe , a small group of his disciples led by Clement, Nahum, ing Me and Angelarius was conducted, under guard, to the Moravian frontier at the Danube, where it was left to seek its own fortune. Clement and his companions came down the Danube, longing to reach Bulgaria, the country that seemed to them the promised land for the work of their teachers, the Slavic apostles.4 It is not surprising that they chose to go there, for Bulgaria, bordering on the Great Moravian Empire, was the nearest country in which Christianity was closely connected with Byzantium, from where their masters had originally been sent to evangelize the Slavs. Furthermore, there is every indication that Clement himself, and probably others too, were born in Macedonia.5 ofhad, together with thismany Boris, rulerstate, received from in subjects, baptism Byzantium 864.6 Finally, by 870, after a period of skillful vacillation between Rome and Constantinople daring his effort to obtain an independent Church, Boris firmly attached his country to the Eastern Church, thus placing it forever within the orbit of Byzantine culture. In recognizing the supremacy of the Patriarch of Constantinople the Bulgarian Church retained a measure of autonomy.7 Nevertheless, to Boris the clergy must have appeared as an instrument of Byzantine political domination, for these men were Byzantine in origin, and Greek became the official language of both Church and State. This situation may well explain why Boris gladly welcomed the experienced 3 The best edition of the Life of Saint Clement is by N. G. Tunickij, Materialy dlja istorii dizni i dejatel'nosti u6enikov svv. Kirilla i Mefodija. I. Gremeskoeprostrannoe litie sv. Klimenta Slovenshogo translatioand (Sergiev Posad, 1918). For the various versions, editions, es see Gy. editranslations, commentaries, Moravcsik, Byzantinoturcia, I (Berlin, 1957), 555-7, to which should be added A. Milev, titija na sveti Kliment Ochridski (Sofia, 1961). Recently I. Snegarov ("Les sources sur la vie et l'activite de Clement d'Ochrida," Byzantinobulgarica, i [i962], 79-119) has again raised the question of the authorship of the Life by claiming, unconvincingly in my opinion, that it cannot be the work of Theophylactus of Ochrid. Cf. M. Kusseff, "St. Clement of Ochrida," The Slavonic and East European Review, 27 (1948), I93-215; J. Stanislav, Osudy Cyrila a Metoda a ich u6enikov u sivote Klimentovom (Bratislava, I950): E. Georgiev, Razcvetutna bulgarskata literatura v IX-X v. (Sofia, 1962), 334-9; idem, "Kliment Ochrid-

ski," Istorija na builgarskata literatura, I (Sofia, i962), 96-I1, 428 (bibliography); P. Gautier, "Clement d'Ohrid, eveque de Dragvista," Revue des 6tudes byzantines, 22 (I964), 199-214. 4 Vita Clementis, XII-XV (Migne, PG, CXXVI, 1216-21). 5 Ibid., XXII (Migne, 1228-9), where it is explicitly stated that Clement knew Methodius from

early youth. In the shorter Life of Saint Clement, a work attributed to the archbishop of Ohrid, Deme-

trius Chomatianus

(1216-34),

we read that Clement

r6 pivyVvoS ETAKEV(K T-rV EupcoirailcovMuaav. (I.

Ivanov, Bilgarski starini iz Makedonija [Sofia, 1931], 3I16-7). Cf. F. Dvornik, Les Slaves, Byzance et

Rome aux IXe siecle (Paris, 1926), 314, note 2. 6 A. Vaillant and M. Lascaris, "La date de la conversion des Bulgares," Revue des 6tudes slaves, I3 (I933), 5ff. 7 V. Zlatarski, Istorija na bulgarskata Diuriava prez srednite vekove, II, pt. 2 (Sofia, 1927), 145-52. Cf. G. Ostrogorsky, History of the Byzantine State (New Brunswick, 1957), 208-9.

CYRIL AND METHODIUS

AND THE SOUTHERN

SLAVS

23

and distinguished Slavic missionaries to his court in Pliska, for these men would make him less dependent upon the Byzantine clergy. Whether he had ever met Methodius, as has so often been suggested, really does not matter.8 Boris had ample opportunity to become acquainted with the Cyrillo-Methodian ideology, which proclaimed the sacred principle of equality of all nations and languages and the right of each nation to share equally in spiritual benefits.9 Since this view implied sovereignty over one's own nation, language, and Church, nothing could have been better suited to his aspirations. Moreover, Slavic Christianity would produce a much desired internal harmony in the Bulgarian realm by completing the Slavicization of the Turkic Bulgar element, which had originally founded the state, but which was now in decline and often prone to oppose Boris' policies bitterly.10 Boris, however, did not keep Clement and his followers in the capital for long, but settled some, including Nahum, near Preslav, at the Monastery of Saint Panteleimon, which was destined to become an important center of Slavic culture. The remaining Sla ssionar , under the leadership of Clement, were sent to evangelize the outlying Macedonian provinces. Boris must have had several reasons for doing this. Had he introduced the Slavic liturgy into the capital and established a large educational center there, his action would have provoked immediate opposition among the Byzantine clergy and the followers of the "heresy" of the three tongues, which claimed that only Greek, Latin, and Hebrew were suitable for divine worship." Such an action would also have caused dissention among the Bulgar boyars at the court, who remained hostile to Slavic Christianity, as the events of 893 that led to the fall of Vladimir, son and successor of Boris, clearly illustrate.12 The exact location of the district known as Kutmichevitsa, which was selected for Clement's missionary work, still remains the subject of great controversy.13 It is certain, however, that it was a territory of considerable size, and that it included the regions of Ohrid, Glavinitsa, and Devol, because it was in these three regions that Boris granted Clement places of residence for his Slavic school and houses for rest and meditation.14 8 Such a meeting has been suggested by V. Zlatarski, among others. See Zlatarski, op. cit., 219ff., and "Vel'ka Morava a Bulharsko v IX storoci," Risa Vel'komoravska(Prague, 1933), 285. Cf. I. Dujcev, "Vriizki meedu cehi, slovaci i bulgari prez srednovekovieto," echoslovakija i Bgaija rez vekovete Blgarija (Sofia, 1963), 28. Well-founded doubts concerning such a meeting have been expressed by Dvornik,

op. cit., 279. 9 R. Jakobson, "The Beginnings of National Self-Determination in Europe," Review of Politics, 7 (I945), 33-9, and idem, "The Kernel," 52-5.

10Zlatarski, Istorija, 43 f Cf. S. Runciman, A History of the First Bulgarian Empire (London,

I05-6;

M. Spinka, A History of Christianity

in the Balkans (Chicago, 1933),

I930),

47-50.

11 I. Dujcev, "II problema delle lingue nazionali nel Medio Evo e gli Slavi," Ricerche slavistiche, 8 (1960), 39-60. Cf. I. Sev6enko, "Three Paradoxes of the Cyrillo-Methodian Mission," Slavic Review, 23 (1964), 226ff. 12 Zlatarski,

op. cit., 250ff.; Runciman, op. cit., 134. 13For a survey of the various theories, see Dvornik, op. cit., 315, note i. Cf. Zlatarski, op. cit., 226ff.; F. Grivec, Konstantin und Method, Lehrer der Slaven (Wiesbaden, 1960), I56; Gautier, loc. cit., 200-I. 14 Vita Clementis, XVII (Migne, 1224). Glavinitsa is located by K. Mijatev ("Gde se e namirala Glavinica," Archeologija, 4, fasc. i [1962], 5-6), supporting Dj. Stri6evic's thesis, near the present-day village of Zglavenica north of Ohrid, while by I. Snegarov ("Kuide se namiral srednovekovnjat grad Glavinica-Glavenica," ibid., 5, fasc. 3 [1963], 1-5) it is located in Southern Albania.

24

GEORGE

C. SOULIS

In his new mission, Clement faithfully followed the example of his teachers in Moravia. He first labored to create a great educational center, which would eventually provide trained priests and other clerics needed for a Slavic Bulgarian Church. During his seven-year activity as an apostolic teacher in Kutmichevitsa, Clement produced a large number of disciples-3500 we are toldwho, ordained as readers, subdeacons, deacons, and priests, were sent to their posts to spread the Slavic Word.15In this manner, the work of Cyril and Methodius was transplanted from Moravia to the fertile soil of Macedonia, which became the cradle of Slavic Christianity in the Balkans.16 The teaching activity of Clement is described by one of his disciples in glowing terms. He had never seen him idle, the disciple reports, but always engaged day and night either in teaching the alphabet or the art of writing, or in explaining the meaning of the Scriptures.17 He was a true continuator of the Cyrillo-Methodian tradition with its emphasis on the interpretation of the Divine Word. What remained of his time he devoted to praying, reading, or writing. Clement's work in Kutmichevitsa met with singular success. Just as his teacher Methodius had been elevated to the episcopal dignity after a fruitful missionary career, so Clement was made bishop when Symeon, the younger son of Boris, became the new Bulgarian ruler in 893. The reign of Symeon, the most glorious period of Bulgarian history, was of paramount importance for the future of the Slavic liturgy and letters in Bulgaria. Symeon had spent much of his youth in Constantinople, living, it seems, in the precincts of the palace, and probably studying not only at Photius' Slavic school but also at the University. There is every reason to assume that while in the imperial city he met the Slavic clergy left there by Methodius in 882,18 as well as the Slavic missionaries from Moravia, whom the Emperor's ambassadors had rescued from slavery in Venice four years later.19 Upon his return to Bulgaria, Symeon furthered his associations with the Cyrillo-Methodian tradition at the royal Monastery of Saint Panteleimon, where he remained until his father called him to the throne replae to replace his older brother, the victim 15

Ibid., XVIII (Migne, 1225). Under Boris Slavic Christianity had also spread in the region of Bregalnitsa in Macedonia. See Theophylactus, archbishop of Ohrid, Historia martyrii XV martyrum, in Migne, PG, CXXVI, 201-8. Cf. Zlatarski, op. cit., 236-9. 18V. Jagic, "Izgnanici iz Moravske posle smrti Metodijeve; Sirenje slovenske crkve i knjige medju Juz. Slovenima,"

Brastvo, 17 (1923),

19-37.

The theories by E. Georgiev that Cyril and Methodius did

missionary work among the Bulgarians before they went to Moravia and that the Moravian tradition and literature had penetrated Bulgaria before 885 are based on mere suppositions. See E. Georgiev, "Prenasjaneto na kirilometodievata knizovna tradicija ot Veliko Moravija v Bulgarija," Sbornik v 6est na akad. A. Teodorov-Balan (Sofia, i955), 203-12; idem, Razcvetut, 29-68; idem, "Kiril i Metodij i razvitieto na bulgarskata kultura," Chilijada i sto godini na slavjanska pismenost, 863-1963; Sbornik v cest na Kiril i Metodij (Sofia, 1963), 21-49. 17 Vita Clementis, XVIII (Migne, 1225). This part of the Life, which is in the form of an eyewitness' account, must definitely belong to the original Slavic version written by one of Clement's disciples. For a Panegyric of Saint Clement in verse, also written by one of his disciples, see Ivanov, Op.cit., 322-7. Cf. Dj. Sp. Radojicic, Razvojni luk stare srpske knjizevnosti (Novi Sad, 1962), 53-61. 18 Vita Methodii, XIII (F. Grivec and F. Tomsi6, eds., "Constantinus et Methodius Thessalonicenses Fontes," Radovi Staroslavenskoginstituta, 4 [1960], 163). Cf. Dvornik, op. cit., 271 ff.; idem, Les Legendes, de Constantin et MAlethode vue de Byzance (Prague, 1933), 276.

19 Vita Nahum, in Ivanov,

op. cit., 306.

CYRIL AND METHODIUS

AND THE SOUTHERN

SLAVS

25

of an attempted return to paganism. The royal power was entrusted to Symeon in 893 at a national assembly, which effected fundamental reforms for which Boris had striven throughout his reign.20First of all, Slavic was approved as the official language of the State and the Church. Furthermore, Preslav, the center of Slavic missionary and literary work, became not only the new Bulgarian capital, but also the seat of the archbishop. The acceptance of the new official language was followed by the introduction of a new script, the so-called Cyrillic alphabet, which came to replace the Glagolitic and served as the prototype of the modern Bulgarian, Serbian, and Russian alphabets. In this context, as Il'inskij has so convincingly demonstratKHHrk in the Bulgarian version of the Short Chronicle ed, the phrase np-ioAK6e"

by Patriarch Nicephorus should be understood to mean simply transliteration from one Slavic alphabet to the other.21 It is not my intention here enter theinto the endless discussion concerning intotion to enter the origin and character of the Slavic alphabets. I shall limit myself to a few remarks only, which are pertinent to the specific subject of my paper. Of the two existing Slavic alphabets, the Glagolitic and the Cyrillic, the former is an original creation apparently based on signs of Byzantine tachygraphy, cryptography, and alchemy,22 while the latter is a mere adaptation of the Greek uncial script of the ninth century, with a few additions to render sounds unknown to the Greek alphabet. That the two alphabets are closely interrelated cannot be doubted even by the most casual observer. They are not only phonetically identical, but also share, either in a completely unchanged or in an adapted form, most of the letters which represent Slavic phonetic peculiarities.23 Though in recent years new and daring theories have been advanced about the original Slavic alphabet, in particular by Professor Georgiev,24the philological observations of earlier scholars as to the prior origin of the Glagolitic 20 Zlatarski,

op. cit., 254ff.

21

G. A. Il'inskij, "Gde, kogda, kem i s kakoju celju Glagolica bylazamenena 'Kirillicej' ?", Byzantinoslavica, 3 (193I), 79-88. For the transition from the Glagolitic alphabet to the Cyrillic, see also F. Grivec, "Vprasanija o Konstantinu in Metodu," Slovo, 11-12 (1962), 131-47. 22 E. E. Granstrem, "0 proischozdenii glagoliceskoj azbuki," Trudy Otdela drevnerusskoj literatury, For a survey of other unconvincing theories concerning the origin of the Glagolitic II (I955), 300-13. script, see F. Zagiba, "Neue Probleme in der kyrillo-methodianischen Forschung," OstkirchlicheStudien, see also T. Eckhardt, "Theorien II (I962), 1I0-I2; den Ursprung der Glagolica," Slovo, 13 (1963), liber 87-118.

23N. S. Trubetzkoy, Altkirchenslavische Grammatik; Schrift-, Laut- und Formensystem (Vienna, 7-8; A. Dostal, "Die Widerspiegelung der byzantinischen Welt in der altesten Periode der slavischen Sprachen, besonders im Altkirchenslawischen," Aus der byzantinischen Arbeit der Tschechoslowakischen Republik (Berlin, 1957), 43. 24 The theory by E. Georgiev that the so-called Cyrillic alphabet had a gradual development in pagan Bulgaria before the invention of the Glagolitic by Cyril has been expressed in a number of publications, the most recent being his Razcvetuitna bulgarskata literatura v IX-X v. (Sofia, 1962). For a survey of Georgiev's papers on the subject, see I. Dujcev, A. Kirmagovo, and A. Paunova, "Biilgarska kirilometodievska bibliografija za perioda 1944-62," Chiljada i sto godini, 526-9. For a convincing refutation of Georgiev's theory, see K. Horalek, "Nacaloto na pismenostta u Slavjanite," Sbornik u 1954), 15ff. Cf. A. Vaillant, "L'alphabet vieux-slave," Revue des edtudes slaves, 32 (I955),

6est na akad. A. Teodorov-Balan (Sofia, I955), 417-24; idem, "K pocatku knizni uzdelanosti u Slovanfi," Slavia, 24 (I955), 169-78; idem, "Zum Verhaltnis der Kyrillica und Glagolica," Die Welt der Slaven, 3 (1958), 232-5. Cf. Zagiba, loc. cit., 110-12.

26

C. SOULIS

GEORGE

remain unshaken.25 Similarly, on the basis of the available data, the view that the Slavs possessed an alphabet of their own before Christianization seems equally unfounded. It is true that at times the Slavs used special signs of their own (that is, what Khrabr called q9KTkIand pksui),26 but these Slavic runes did not have the character of a coherent alphabet. The only alphabets which the Slavs used before Christianization were, again to Khrabr, Greek and according without any adaptation. The numerous so-called protoLatin, 3ST 0$OCT9pOFHHd, written in Greek or using the Greek script, clearly illustrate Bulgar inscriptions, what Khrabr had in mind when he wrote his treatise on the Slavic alphabet toward the end of the ninth or the very beginning of the tenth century.27 Furthermore, it should be emphasized that the alphabet which Cyril and Methodius created and brought to the Slavs with Christianity was a unique conception attributed to divine inspiration, as was stressed in contemporary sources, and quite different from the Greek.28One could hardly attach such originality to the alphabet which we call Cyrillic today. It is sufficient only to recall that the origin of the Cyrillic was so obvious to the editors of the preRevolutionary Encyclopedia of Slavic Philology that they simply asked the palaeographer Gardthausen to supply them with a chapter on the Greek script of the ninth and tenth centuries.29Only the Glagolitic alphabet then, with its elaborate and unique form, could correspond to the description given in contemporary evidence. What specific factors necessitated the introduction of the new alphabet, which in the course of time was to eclipse the Glagolitic, still remains a puzzling problem. Was it merely the result of special Bulgarian cultural conditions at the close of the ninth century, which arose primarily from the proximity of Constantinople, the Greek origin of Bulgarian Christianity, and the long acquaintance of that once classical territory with the Greek alphabet ? Or was it rather a compromise between the Slavic party, on the one hand, and the Byzantine clergy and their followers in Bulgaria on the other ?30For certainly, 25 V. Jagi6, "Grafika u Slavjan; Glagoliceskoe pismo," Enciklopedija slavjanskoj filologii, III, 2 "Doneski k vprasanju o postanku glagolice," Razprave (St. Petersburg, 1911), 5Iff.; R. Nahtigal, I Znam. drustva za humanisti6ne vede, i (1924), I35ff.; J. Vajs, Rukov6t hlaholskd paleografie (Prague, loc. cit., 43. Cf. V. Jagic, Entstehungsgeschichte der kirchenslavischen Sprache (Berlin, 1932), ff. DostAl, o p.cit., 172ff. I913), I94ff.; Grivec, 26 Khrabr, in Ivanov, op. cit., 442. 27 V. Besevliev, nadpisi; Uvod, tekst i komentar (Sofia, I934); idem, Purvobuugarski Purvobulgarski nadpisi; Dobavki i opravki (Sofia, 1936); V. Besevliev and H. Gr6goire, "Les inscriptions protobulgares," Byzantion, 25-7 (i955-7), 853-80, 28 (1958), 255-323; 29-30 (1959-6o), 477-500 (to be continued);

V. Be?evliev, Die cf. idem, "Die protobulgarischen InI963); protobulgarischen Inschriften (Berlin, schriften," Das Altertum, 6 (1960), 168-76. For the extensive literature on the subject, see Moravcsik, op. cit., 303-8. For two inscriptions in the Greek alphabet, but in the proto-Bulgar language, see I. Venedikov, "Trois inscriptions protobulgares," Razkopki i prou6vanija (Sofia, I950), 167-87. 28 Vita Constantini, XIV (Grivec and Tomsic, 129) and Vita Methodii, V (ibid., 155), where it is explicitly stated that Cyril had invented the Slavic alphabet by divine inspiration. The novelty of the Slavic alphabet is also stressed in the Panegyric oration (Slovo pochvalno) in honor of St. Cyril and St. Methodius,

composed

shortly after the latter's death in 885 (Grivec, op. cit., 173, 212, 251-2),

in Vita Clementis, II (Migne, 1196). 29V. Gardthausen, "Greceskoe pis'mo IX-X I. (St. Petersburg, 1911), 37-50. Cf. eevbenko, s History, ed. by C. E. Black (New York, 1962),

and

stoletij," Enciklopedija slavjanskoj filologii, III, 2 "Byzantine

174.

Cultural Influences,"

30B. Koneski, "Ohridska knjizevna kola," Slovo, 6-8 (1957), i88.

Rewriting Russian

CYRIL AND METHODIUS AND THE SOUTHERN SLAVS

27

even after the reforms of 893 the Byzantine party continued to exercise influence, and the "heresy" of the three tongues remained strong enough to prompt Khrabr's fierce attack, which strikingly echoes the very arguments Cyril had once used in his debate with the Latin clergy in Venice.31 The two alphabets lived for a long time side by side in Bulgaria, and this symbiosis is reflected in its two great cultural centers, Preslav and Ohrid. But the prevailing use of the one or the other eventually determined, to a large extent, the distinctive character of each of these two centers. Eastern Bulgaria, with the capital city of Preslav, became the home of the Cyrillic alphabet, while Macedonia, with its center at Ohrid, continued to adhere to the alphabet invented by Cyril and introduced there by Clement and his group. The new Bulgarian ruler, Symeon, recognized the successful missionary work of Clement by investing him with the bishopric of Devritsa (Dremvitsa) and Velitsa. This dual episcopal see seems to have been created especially for Clement and was probably located in central Macedonia, between the rivers Vardar and Bregalnitsa.32 His place, meanwhile, as the head of the Slavic school in Kutmichevitsa was taken by his co-disciple Nahum.33 In his new post, as the first Bulgarian bishop to celebrate the liturgy in Slavic, Clement continued his missionary and educational work with the same fervor and zeal as before. The hagiographer informs us that Clement always took the great Methodius as his ideal, and that his life was patterned with care after the teacher whom he had known so well since early youth. Clement's activity among the Bulgarians is likened by the same source to that of Saint Paul among the Corinthians. And we should recall that Saint Paul had emerged as the mainstay of the Moravian doctrine of the equality of the languages.34 Since Clement had noticed that many of the Bulgarian clergy were poorly acquainted with the Greek language and possessed no Slavic sermons, he undertook to prepare in clear and simple language a series of homilies for all the Church festivals. He also produced panegyrics, in a more ornate style, in honor of the Holy Virgin, the John the the Prophets and Apostles, and Baptist, several martyrs and Church Fathers. Furthermore, Clement composed many hymns and prayers, and shortly before his death in 916, at his monastery by 31 Vita Constatini, XVI (Grivec and Tomi, 34). Cf. D. Angelov, "Kiril i Metodij i vizantijskata kultura i politika," Chiljada i sto godini, 67ff.; I. Snegarev, "Cernorizec Chrabur," ibid., 305ff. 32 I. Snegarov, "De la question du diocese de Clement d'Ochride," XIIe Congres international des Itudes byzantines, Ochride 196I, Resumes des communications (Belgrade-Ohrid, I96I), 94-5; idem, "Po vuprosa za eparchijata na Kliment Kliment Ochridski Izvestijana Ochridski," Izvestija na Instituta za istorija, 10 (962), 205-23. For the hypothesis that Velikaja in Moravia is meant here by Velitsa and that Clement might have been a bishop of the Moravian Velikaja, see R. Jakobson, "Velikaja Moravija ili Velikaja nad Moravoj ?", Ezikovedsko-etnografiski izsledvanija v pamet na akad. Stojan Romanski (Sofia, 1960), 485-6. Since my paper was sent to the printer, P. Gautier's article, "Clement d'Ohrid, 6veque de Dragvista," (Revue des dtudes byzantines, 22 [1964], 199-214), has appeard, in which the author, on the basis of a reference to Clement as rfoxKoTros Apaypio-ras in a thirteenth-century manuscript (Cod. Vat. gr. 1409, fol. 352r), maintins that the correct form for the name of Clement's see is Dragvista, after a homonymous region located in southern Macedonia, in the area south of Ohrid and between Thessalonica and the Adriatic Sea. 33 Vita Nahum, in Ivanov, op. cit., 306. 34 Jakobson, "The Beginnings," 33; idem, "Minor Native Sources for the Early History of the Slavic Church," Harvard Slavic Studies, 2 (1954), 44; idem, "St. Constantine's Prologue to the Gospel,"

St. Vladimir's Seminary Quarterly, 7 (1963),

I5.

28

C. SOULIS

GEORGE

Lake Ohrid, he completed the translation of the Triodion, containing the hymns for the offices from Easter to Pentecost.35 To determine exactly the literary activity of Clement is almost an impossible task. He has enjoyed such great popularity through the ages, and his cult has spread so widely in Macedonia and in the entire Orthodox world that a great number of homilies and panegyrics have been ascribed to him even without evidence to prove his authorship.36 It is, however, safe to argue on the basis of striking similarities between the Second Freising Fragment and Clement's homily "On the Memory of an Apostle or a Martyr" that he had begun his literary activity before his arrival in Bulgaria.37There is also good reason to believe that, while in Moravia and Pannonia, he may have participated in the composition of the Lives of Saint Cyril and Saint Methodius, especially of the latter.38 As a missionary and literary figure in the Slavic vernacular, Clement was surpassed only by his masters, Cyril and Methodius. He has been the most prominent and the most direct continuator otheheir tradition in Bulgaria, where he becamethe not only spiritual father of the national Church, but also the founder of literature and of culture in general. His legacy became the cornerstone of the so-called School of Ohrid, that great spiritual and cultural center in Macedonia, which radiated a significant influence on Mount Athos, the Balkans, and far away Russia.39 Closely associated with Ohrid at the same time was Clement's friend and co-disciple, Nahum. The short Life of Saint Nahum, which we possess in a tenthcentury version, is in the pure tradition of Slavic hagiography begun by the Lives of the Slavic apostles.40 This source, however, fails to provide us with sufficient information about his life and work. As far as we know, Nahum has left no writings. Yet, we learn from contemporary evidence that while he was at the Monastery of Saint Panteleimon, near Preslav, he encouraged the younger scholars to create and develop a Slavic literature.41Later, in Macedonia, he humbly and quietly continued the vast educational activities of Clement, and thus carried on the living tradition of Cyril and Methodius until his death in 910, in the monastery he had founded on the southern shore of Lake Ohrid. Vita Clementis, XXII-XXVII (Migne, 1228-36). Jagic, Entstehungsgeschichte,i i8. Even the creation of the Cyrillic alphabet is sometimes attributed to Clement (Dujcev, "Vriizki medidu &echi," 36). Cf. the well-founded critical remarks on this theory by Jagic, op. cit., 120-I. 37V. Jagic, "Hat Bischof Klemens fur eine seiner Homilien den Text der Freisinger Denkmals vor 35 36

Augen gehabt ?", Archiv fiir slavische Philologie,

27

(1905),

395-412;

V. VondrAk, "Zur Frage nach dem

Verhaltnisse des Freisinger Denkmale zu einer Homelie von Klemens," Archiv fur slavische Philologie, Cf. Grivec, op. cit., i6o-i. Razcvetut, 124-31.

28 (19g06), 256-60.

98 Georgiev,

39P. Dinekov, "Knizovni sredisca v srednevekova Bulgarija," Istori6eski pregled, 3 (1946-7), Koneski, loc. cit., 177-94; idem, "Kulturnata uloga na Ohrid," Nar. Muzej vo Ohrid, Zbornik na trudovi, Posebno izdanie (Ohrid, ig96i), 3-5. 40 Vita Nahum in Ivanov, op. cit., Cf. M. Kusseff, "St. Nahum," The Slavonic and East 305-II. 403-6;

European Review,

29

(1950-5I),

139-52;

Georgiev,

op. cit., 156-60,

334-9.

See the preface to the Uitel'noe Evangelie by Constantine the Presbyter, conveniently reproduced in I. Dujcev, Iz starata bulgarska knisnina, I (Sofia, I943), 76. 41

CYRIL AND METHODIUS AND THE SOUTHERN SLAVS

29

Thanks to Clement and Nahum, the Ohrid school emerged as the most direct heir of the Moravian tradition, and this relationship is clearly illustrated in the basic features of its literature. The Glagolitic alphabet was used continuously in Ohrid and in Macedonia in general until the end of the twelfth century, or perhaps even into the thirteenth century, as has been suggested on the basis of the Bitolje Triodion.42Only at that time was it entirely replaced by the Cyrillic alphabet. The Cyrillic was used in Macedonia, it seems, only sporadically until Tsar Samuel established his headquarters in Ohrid in the latter part of the tenth century and subsequently brought there the seat of the Bulgarian patriarch. At that time the use of the Cyrillic expanded rapidly, and eventually prevailed completely. Concrete proof of this development is to be found in such epigraphical evidence as the inscription of Tsar Samuel (993), the inscription from Varosi (996), and the inscription recently discovered in Bitolje.43 The adherence of the Ohrid school to the Glagolitic script was the chief factor in the preservation of a strong Moravi a and Pannonian influence in Ohrid literary production, which, both in language and in spirit, is closest to the classical form of the Old Church Slavic of Cyril and Methodius. Thus, it is not at all surprising that the oldest and most important monuments of Slavic writing, namely, tenth- and eleventh-century Glagolitic codices such as the Zographensis, the Marianus, the Assemanianus, and the Sinaitic Psalter and Euchologium, are all of Macedonian origin.44 The place of their discovery n of cultural influence of the Ohrid reveals to us the i school. Mount Athos, which from an early period seems to have harbored Slavic monks, became an outpost of the Ohrid literary tradition, and from this literary repository of the Christian East, Slavic monks carried the tradition as far as Jerusalem and Mount Sinai.45 In the opposite direction, the influence of Ohrid penetrated into Serbia, where it remained predominant, and even reached Bosnia and Croatia.46 Contacts with the Ohrid school existed in Eastern Bulgaria too. Clement and Nahum both came to Macedonia from this region. Since Ohrid and Preslav were both children of the same spiritual family, there seems no reason to doubt their mutual literary ties. Unlike Ohrid, however, the Preslav school adopted 42

466.

Ivanov, op. cit., 452-67; J. Hamm, "Glagolica," Enciklopedija Jugoslavije, III (Zagreb, 1958),

48 Forthe Samuel inscription and the one from Varosi, see Ivanov, op. cit., 24, 27. For the Bitolje inscription, see V. Mosin, "0 periodizacii russko-juznoslavjanskich literaturnych svjazej X--XVvv., Trudy Otdela drevnerusskoj literatury, i9 (1963), 58. Cf. Dj. Sp. Radojicic, "(tirilica," Enciklopedija Jugoslavije, II (Zagreb, 1956), 627. 44 W. K. Matthews, "Sources of Old Slavonic," The Slavonic and East European Review, 28 (194950), 477ff. 45 G. A. Il'inskij, "Znacenie Afona v istorii slavjanskoj pis'mennosti," Zurnal Ministerstva narodnogo prosvesMenija,N.S., i8 (igo908), i-4i; V. Rozov, "Bolgarskie rukopisi Ierusalima i Sinaja," Minalo, 3,

no. 9 (1914), 16-36; idem, "Srpski rukopisi lerusalima i Sinaia," Julnoslovenski filolog, 5 (1925-6), 118-29; idem, "Serby v Palestine i na Sinaje," Trudy IV-go s"jezda russkich organizacij za granicej

M. N. Speranskij, "Slavjanskaja pis'mennost' XI-XIV vv. na Sinae i v (Belgrade, 1929), 195-200; N. N. Rozov, "JuinoPalestine," Izvestija Otdelenija russkogo jazyka i slovesnosti, 32 (1927), 43-Ii8; slavjanskie rukopisi Sinajskog monastyrja," Filologi6eskie nauki, Nau6nye doklady vysgej skoly, 2 K. W. Clark, "Research Resources in St. Catherine's Monastery in $ipai," Trudy XXV {i96i), 129-38; Mnedunarodnogokongressa vostokovedov,Moskva 9-i6 avgusta 1960, I (Moscow, 1962), 5 17-22. 46 Koneski,

loc. cit., 193.

30

GEORGE

C. SOULIS

the Cyrillic script, an act which strengthened the growing differences between the two schools, and eventually became very important for the subsequent development of the Cyrillo-Methodian tradition. This tradition was exposed to two particular influences in Eastern Bulgaria. The first was the primitive proto-Bulgar literature, part of which has survived in the proto-Bulgar inscriptions.47 Recent theories notwithstanding, however, the importance of this influence was rather negligible. Its traces can be discerned clearly only in the List of the Bulgar princes, preserved in the Russian Ellinskij Letopisec.48It is thus a fallacy to credit this proto-Bulgar literature with an influence on Slavic writing in Bulgaria equivalent to the role played the development of the Czech and Polish verby Latin in the formation and nacular literatures.49 On the other hand, the second influence, the direct Byzantine impact, was of paramount importance in the development of the Cyrillo-Methodian tradition in Eastern Bulgaria. It is true that the Slavic liturgy and letters which Cyril and Methodius brought to the Great Moravian Empire were of Byzantine origin and inspiration, but in time the strong Latin influences present in Moravia forced important adoptions and adaptations, thus creating a composite tradition of Byzantine and Latin elements, a true bridge between East and West. In Preslav, none of these special conditions existed, and the Byzantine influence, strengthened by the proximity of Constantinople and by the Byzantine tutelage of the Bulgarian Church, reigned supreme. It is not surprising, therefore, that the Slavic liturgy quickly and completely adapted itself in Bulgaria to the Byzantine rite,50just as it is natural to expect that the literary output of Eastern Bulgaria would bear traces of this strong Byzantine influence. Unlike that of Ohrid, the language of this literature displays a marked deviation from Moravisms and Pannonisms, which were here gradually replaced by new lexical elements directly borrowed or translated from the Greek.51

In spite of the early predominance of the Cyrillic alphabet in Eastern Bulgaria, we notice here, as in Macedonia, a symbiosis of the two scripts. A number of Glagolitic inscriptions have been found in Symeon's Round Church at Preslav and on tablets recently discovered in Patlejna.52 Furthermore, the 47 See supra, note 27.

48 See the most recent edition of this text, accompanied by extensive bibliography, in Moravcsik,

op. cit., II (Berlin, I958), 352-4. Cf. V. Begeliev's remarks in Izvest. na Archeol. inst., 24 (1961), i-8. 49 The Bulgarian scholars P. Dinekov and V. Begevliev attribute a significant role to the proto-

Bulgar literature in this respect. See P. Dinekov, "tber die Anfange der bulgarischen Literatur," International Journal of Slavic Linguistics and Poetics, 3 (i960), 109-2I, and V. Be?evliev, "Die Anflonge der bulgarischen Literatur," ibid., 4 (I96I), 116-45. Cf. the critical remarks on the Bulgarian thesisdrevnejlie by N. Gudzij, "Literatura Kievskoj Rusi i inoslavjanski literatury," Issledovanija po slavjanskomu literaturovedeniju i fol'kloristike (Moscow, 1960), 59-60. 0 I. Go?ev, "Starobilgarskata liturgija spored bulgarski i vizantijski izvori ot IX-XI vv.," Godisnik na Sof. Universitet, Bog. Fak., 9 (1932), 79pp. 61 Jagi6, Entstehungsgeschichte, 267; Koneski, loc. cit., 194. 52 K.

Mijatev,

"Epigrafieskie

materialy

iz Preslava,"

Byzantinoslavica,

3 (193I),

383-403;

idem,

Kruiglatacirkva v Preslav (Sofia, 1932); V. Ivanova, "Sledite ot Glagolica v isto6na Bulgarija," Byzantinoslavica, 4 (1932), 227-33; S. Stan6ev, "Pliska und Preslav: Ihre archaologischen Denkmaler und deren Erforschung," Antike und Mittelalter in Bulgarien (Berlin, 1960), 260; I. Gosev, Starobulgarski galgoli6eski i kirilski nadpisi ot IX i X v. (Sofia, 1961).

CYRIL AND METHODIUS AND THE SOUTHERN SLAVS

31

use of Glagolitic can also be traced, to a certain degree, in a number of literary works of purely Eastern Bulgarian origin, for example, the Hexaemeron by John the Exarch.53 But we can surmise from epigraphical evidence in the Round Church at Preslav and from the Mostic inscription that in the course of the tenth century the Cyrillic script must have eclipsed the Glagolitic in Eastern Bulgaria.54 The Dobrudja inscription of 943, if we consider it to be authentic, also supports this conclusion, and provides us not only with the earliest dated monument of Slavic writing, but also with the evidence that, in the first half of the tenth century, the Cyrillic alphabet had spread as far north as the Danubian Delta.55 The early extinction of the use of the Glagolitic alphabet in Eastern Bulgaria explains quite convincingly the absence of Glagolism in Russia, save for a very few disputed traces in Russian manuscripts and for the Novgorod graffiti from the eleventh century.56 Under Symeon's protection the Preslav center grew and flourished rapidly, and soon overshadowed the Ohrid school. Symeon's desire to rival the Byzantine Emperor politically is evident from his efforts to obtain the imperial crown, and thereby to claim the leading position in the Byzantine hierarchy of states. But it is equally clear that he definitely had ambitions to foster a great literature in his realm. Thus, on the basis of the Cyrillo-Methodian heritage, brought to Bulgaria by Clement and his associates, a rich literature developed in Preslav, the effects of which were soon to be widely and permanently felt.57 Symeon, himself, one of the best educated men of his age, organized and 95 H. Jaksche, "Glagolitische Spuren im gestodnev des Exarchen Johannes," Die Welt der Slaven, 4 (i959), 258-301. 5

Mijatev, op. cit., 153ff.; S. Stancev, "Nadpisut na curgubilja Mostic ot Preslav," in Nadpisu na W6rgubiljaMostie (Sofia, I955), 3 ff.; idem, "Pliska und Preslav," 249, 259-60; St. Michailova, "Archeg.," Izvestija na Archeologieeskija institut, 20 (I955), 49-181; ologineski materiali ot Pliska, I948-5I V. Besevliev, "Novi otkuisleci ot puirvobilgarski i drugi srednovekovni nadpisi ot Pliska i Preslav," ibid., 282-3; Goev, op. cit., iff.; idem, "Razvitie na negruckite kirilometodievski bukveni znaci v t. nar. Kirilica," Chiljada i sto godini, 275-86. 5 D. Bogdan, "Dobrudlanskaja nadpis' 943 g.," Romanoslavica, i (I958), 88-I04; M. N. Tichomirov, "Nacalo slavjanskoj pis'mennosti v svete novejsich otkrytij," Voprosy istorii (I959), no. 4, Cf. Cthe observations by F. V. Mares, "Dva objevy starych slovanskfch nApisfi (v SSSR u 98-05. Smolenska a v Rumunsku)," Slavia, 20 (1951), 497-514. Professor R. Jakobson has expressed doubts about the authenticity of this inscription in his article "Vestiges the of Earliest Russian Vernacular," Word, 8 (I952), 350-2. The inscription is considered spurious by G. Nandrie, "A Spurious Slavonic Inscription from the Danube Canal," The Slavonic and East European Review, 38 (I959-60), 530-4. For other early Slavic graffiti and inscriptions discovered in Dobrudja, see D. Bogdan, "Grafitele de la Basarabi," Analele Universitdaii C. 1. Parhon, Seria stiinte sociale, Istorie, 9 (1960), 31-49. 56 M. Murko, Geschichteder dalterensudslavischen Literaturen (Leipzig, 1908), 60; J. Vajs, "Hlaholice na Rusi - Novgorodsk6 sgrafity," Byzantinoslavica, 7 (1937-8), 184-8; Mosin, loc. cit., 55; cf. Jagi6, Op. cit., 125-6. 57 For a

general survey of the Golden Age of mediaeval Bulgarian literature, see Murko, op. cit., 57ff.; M. Weingart, Bulhari a Cafihrad pred tisiciletim; List z dejin byzantskych vlivA na osv6tu slovanskou (Prague, 1915); F. Trograncic, Letteratura medioevale degli Slavi meridionali (Rome, 1950), 83ff.; R. Bernard, "Tableau de la litterature vieux-slave et de la litt6rature ancienne de la Bulgarie," Histoire ginerale des littdratures, I (Paris, 1961), 407ff. The most recent Bulgarian works on the subject are Georgiev, Razcvetit, and the Istorija na biilgarskata literatura, I (Sofia, 1962), 77ff., where all the important earlier Bulgarian contributions are mentioned. For a recent discussion of the Byzantine impact on mediaeval Bulgarian literature, see I. P. Eremin, "0 vizantijskom vlijanii v bolgarskoj i drevnerusskoj literaturach IX-XII vv.," Slavjanskie literatury; Doklady sovetskoj delegacii V meSdun. s"ezd slavistov (Moscow,

I963), 5-13.

32

GEORGE

C. SOULIS

sponsored a lively activity in translations and compilations.58The "Orthodox Tsar," as he was called, admired above all the other Fathers of the Church, John Chrysostom, who subsequently became a great favorite in mediaeval Slavic literature. Symeon prepared, either alone or with the help of an assistant, an anthology of excerpts from John Chrysostom's writings, to which he characteristically gave the name Zlatostruj, the Goldstream.59The Tsar further supervised a collection of explanatory extracts from the Church Fathers, as well as other Byzantine writings, including Choeroboscus' treatise on the tropes and figures of speech. The Izbornik of I073, as this collection is known to us from a Russian copy prepared for the Kievan prince Sviatoslav, contains a preface with a flattering tribute to the patronage of Symeon, "the new Ptolemy, who, like the industrious bee, gathers the juice of all the flowers."60 But Constantine the Presbyter and John the Exarch were the pride and the glory of the Preslav school. Constantine had been a disciple of Methodius and n his Didactic Gospel (Ucitel'noe evidently composed the office for him.6hiIn he translated several or sections thereof, by John Chrysohomilies, Evangelie) stom and other Fathers of the Church, to which he added some parts of his own.62Later, in 907, at the request of Symeon himself, Constantine, as bishop of Preslav, translated the sermons of Athanasius the Great against the Arians.63 He seems also to have been responsible for the Slavic version of the Short Chronicle of Patriarch Nicephorus, which he extended to the year 894.64 58 Georgiev, op.cit., 271-98; I. Dujcev,"Prevodna knisnina,"Istorija na bulgarshata literatura, I, 158-63. 59 V. M. Malinin, Zlatostruj, Desjat' slov Zlatostruja XII (St. Petersburg, 1910); G. A. Il'inskij, Zlatostruj A. F. By-kova XI v. (Sofia, i929). Cf. A. I. Sobolevskij, "Ioann Zlatoust v russkoj pis'mennosti," Bogoslovskaja enciklopedija, VI (St. Petersburg, I905), 94Iff. 60 Dujcev, Iz starata bulg. kniknina, I, 77, where the preface to the Izbornik is conveniently reproduced. For the complete text, see Izbornik Velikogo Knjazja Svjatoslava Jaroslavica 1073 g. (St. Petersburg, 88o) CfL. Masing, "Studien zur Kenntnis des Izbornik 1073 nebst Bemerkungen zu den Archiv fur slavische Philologie, 8 (I885), 357-95 (cf. 549-72), 9 (i886), juiingeren Handschriften," 77-112. A. A. Sachmatov ("Drevnebolgarskaja enciklopedija X v.," Vizantijskij vremennik, 7 [1900], that under Symeon an extensive encyclopedia of I-35) has suggested, but rather unconvincingly, translations was composed in three or four volumes, part of which was the Izbornik of 1073. For the Slavic version of the treatise by George Choiroboscus, see J. Besharov, Imagery of the Igor's Tale in the Light of Byzantino-Slavic Poetic Theory (Leiden, 1956), I-50. 61 J. Pavic, "Staroslavenski pjesnicki kanon u cast sv. Metodija i njegov autor," Bogoslovska smotra, 24 (1936), 59-86; D. Kostic, "Bulgarski episkop Konstantin-pisac sluobe sv. Metodiju," On Constantine Byzantinoslavica, 7 (I938), 189-211. Presbyter in general, see A. I. Sobolevskij, aodi umotvoa Sbornik za nai 8 (I901), 68-73; Georgiev, op. "Episkop Konstantin," kninina, cit., 161-201; idem, "Konstantin Preslavski," Istorija na bulgarskata literatura, I, 112-26, 428-9. 62 Of the fifty-one homilies included in the Uitel'noe Evangelie, nineteen have been published by Archbishop Antonij, Iz istorii christianskoj propov6di (St. Petersburg, 1895), 174ff., ten by A. V. Michajlov, "K voprosu ob Ucitel'nom evangelii Konstantina, episkopa Bolgarskogo," Trudy Slavjanskoj komissii Imper. Moskovskogo archeologi6eskogo ob96estva, I (i895), 111-33, and one by V. Jagi6, Konstantina Prezvitera Bulgarskoga "Nedjeljna propovjedanja rukopisu XIII po starosrpskom vjeka," Starine Jugosl. Akademije znanosti i umjetnosti, 5 (1873), 28-42, while the rest remain still unpublished. For the date of their composition, see Ju. Trifonov, "Koga sa pisani Ucitelnoto evangelie na episkop Konstantin i Besedata na Kozma Presbiter," Spisanie na Bulgarskata A kademija na naukite, 58 (1939), 4ff. 6 A. Vaillant, Discours contre les Ariens de Saint Athanase; Version slave et traduction en fran&ais (Sofia, 1954); idem, "Notes sur l'aspect dans la traduction de saint Athanase de Constantin le Pr6tre," Slavia, 25 (1956), 234-40. 64 M. Weingart, Byzantskd kroniky v literature cirkevn6-slovansked, I (Bratislava, 1922), 55-62 cf. Moravcsik, op. cit., I, 456-9; V. Zlatarski, "Naj-starijat istori6eski trud v starobulgarskata kniinina," Spisanie na Builgarskata Akademija na naukite, 27 (1923), 132-82; A. Vaillant, "Les dates dans' 1A chronologie de Constantin le Pr6tre," Byzantinoslavica, 9 (I948), i86ff.

CYRIL AND METHODIUS

AND THE SOUTHERN

SLAVS

33

Constantine also distinguished himself as a poet. As a prologue to his Didactic Gospel, an alphabetical prayer (Azbucnajamolitva) often appears in the manuscripts. The work was probably written in 893, for it states that thirty years had passed since the Christianization of the Slavs. This prayer was undoubtedly one of the first Slavic attempts at poetry of a non-musical ecclesiastic nature, and it displayed a certain originality in the adaptation of the Byzantine dodecasyllabic verse to a totally new verbal material.65 Ivan Franko called it 'a poem of exquisitely pure and artistic form, of high poetic value, and the product of an intense religious feeling."66 The poem is entirely conceived in the spirit of the famous Prologue (Proglas) attributed to Cyril himself.67 It glorifies national letters, faithfully echoing the ideology of Cyril and Methodius, whom the poet recalls in order to assure themt t heir names and their work have been his guiding stars. The other great luminary of Preslav, John the Exarch, was the first to produce a Slavic translation of John of Damascus, who remained for the Slavs, as for the Byzantines, a source of inspiration for hymnography and the classical exponent of Eastern Orthodoxy.68 John the Exarch translated the most important parts of the "Exposition of the Orthodox Faith" from the Source of Knowledge, and he wrote a cosmological commentary on Genesis. The latter, known as Sestodnev,the Hexaemeron, is an enormous composition, based on an adaptation of the homonymous work of Basil the Great, to which John the Exarch added translations from the writings of other Church Fathers and Byzantine authors.69The philosophical and scientific lore found in John's Hexaemeron was a novel element in Slavic literature, but it did not disturb in any way the religious and ecclesiastical outlook of this polyhistor. John the Exarch compared himself to a poor builder who has brought to an already finished construction merely a few stones and a little wood and straw.70 And he said that he would have preferred to refuse the task of translating John of Damascus, lest his feeble powers distort the literary tradition begun by Cyril and Methodius in such a masterly fashion, had he not been asked to 65 See the latest critical edition in R. Nahtigal, "Rekonstrukcija treh starocerkvenoslov. izvirnih pesnitev," Razprave Slovanske Akademije znanosti in umetnosti, i (i943), 45-73; cf. A. I. Sobolevskij, "Terkovno-slavjanskite stichotvorenija v IX-X vek i t6chnoto znacenie za 9erkovno-slav6nskija

ezik," Sbornik za narodni umotvorenija i knilnina, 16-I7 66 I. Franko, "Kleine Beitrage zur Geschichte der kirc Philologie, 67 R.

35 (1914),

(I900), 314-24;

Grivec, op. cit., 215-7.

henslavishenLitteratur," Archiv fur slavische

151-

Jakobson, "The Slavic Response to Byzantine Poetry," XIIe Congres international des 4tudes byzantines, Ochride 1961, Rapports (Belgrade-Ohrid, 1961), 264; idem, "St. Constantine's Prologue to the Gospel," 14-19. Cf. A. Vaillant, "Une po6sie vieux-slave: La Preface de l'lvangile," Revue des etudes slaves, 33 (1956), 7-25; Grivec, op. cit., 217-21. 68 Bogoslovie sv. Ioanna Damaskina v perevode Ioanna Eksarcha Bolgarskogo po charatejnomu spisku

Mosk. Sinod. biblioteki (Moscow, 1878). On the Slavic version of John of Damascus, see A. S. Archangel'skij, K izucheniju drevne-russkojliteratury: Tvorenija otcov Cerkvi v drevne-russkojpis'mennosti, I (Kazan', 1888), 98-126; B. Kotter, Die Oberlieferungder Pege Gnoseos des hl. Johannes von Damaskos (Ettal,

i959),

I93, 2I9,

232. On John the Exarch

in general, see Georgiev, op. cit., 202-70;

I. Duj6ev,

"Ioan Eksarch," Istorija na blgarskata literatura, I, 127-40, 429; extensive bibliography in C. Kristanov and I. Dujcev, Estestvoznanieto v srednovekovna Bilgarija (Sofia, 1954), 54-6. 69 See the recent edition by R. Aitzetmuiiller,Das Hexaemeron des Exarchen Johannes, I-III (Graz, 1958-61). Cf. A. Leskien, "Zum Sestodnev des Exarchen Johannes," Archiv fur slavische Philologie, 26 (1904),

I-70.

70Aitzetmuiiller, Das Hexaemeron, I, 45ff.

3

34

GEORGE

C. SOULIS

do it by the royal monk Doks (Duks).71 Despite his modest self-depreciation, however, the contribution of John the Exarch to Slavic letters remains important indeed. Although his art of translation was deficient and mechanical, John, nevertheless, did widen the horizon of Slavic literature and greatly contribute to the enrichment of the Slavic vocabulary.72 In the original parts of his work, such as the preface to his translation of John of Damascus and the epilogue to his Hexaemeron in praise of the glories of Symeon's court at Preslav, he displays considerable literary talent.73 Of the remaining Preslav authors who can be identified by name, Presbyter Gregory is credited with the translation of the Octateuch, which, he informs us, was done for Symeon, the "book-loving prince."74Theodore (Tudor), son of Doks (Duks) and a cousin of the ruler himself, is also represented, although only by a small prologue of his own.75On the other hand, an author of considerable originality was the monk Khrabr the Courageous, whom scholars have thus far unconvincingly attempted to identify as Clement, Nahum, John the Exarch, or even Symeon himself.76Khrabr's spirited apology of the Slavic alphabet and letters, already mentioned in another context, is a remarkable document springing directly from the Slavic ideology of Cyril and Methodius. Like the Slavic apostles,Khrabr, Khrabr, in his defense of the Slavic insists that Slavic is to Greek, Latin, and Hebrew, languages language, equal which appeared on the Saviour's cross and were sanctified by use in the Scriptures and the writings of the Fathers of the Church. He also preaches the equality of all languages, and argues that if Slavic has no ancient alphabet, it is all the better, because it was created by a single holy man, whereas the Greek script was the work of many heathen persons. It is interesting to note that Khrabr's treatise is obviously addressed to the sophisticated reader, thus indicating the existence of such an audience in Symeon's Bulgaria. Furthermore, the author reveals an impressive knowledge of Byzantine literature and classical lore. His knowledge is especially evident in the account of the develop71

Bogoslovie sv. loanna Damaskina, i. Vondrak, 0 mluv6 Jana Exarcha Bulgarsk,ho (Prague, i896); A. Leskien, "Die tbersetzungskunst des Exarchen Johannes," Archiv fur slavische Philologie, 25 (1903), 48ff.; idem, "ZumSestodnev 72 V.

des Exarchen

Johannes,'" ibid., 26 (1904), Iff. 73 For the original parts in the translation of John of Damascus, see V. Jagic, "Rassuzdenija juo-

noslavjanskoj i russkoj stariny o cerkovno-slavjanskom jazyke," Issledovanija po russkomu jazyku, I (St. Petersburg, 1885-95), 320-4. For the epiloge to the Hexaemeron, see N. Mavrodinov, "Opisanieto na Preslav v Sestodneva na Ioan Ekzarch," Istori6eski pregled, ii (1955), 95ff.; K. Mijatev, "Dva poeticeski fragmenta i loan Ekzarch kato istoriceski izvori," Archeologija, i (1959), 1I-2. 74 I. E. Evseev, "Grigorij Presviter, perevodcik vremeni bolgarskoto cara Simeona," Izvestija Otdelenija russkogo jazyka i slovesnosti Imper. Akademii nauk, 7 (1902), 356-66; Georgiev, op. cit., 299-303. 75

V. Zlatarski, "Koj e bil Tudor cernorizec Doksov?", Bullgarski pregled, 4, no. 3 (1897), 42-63; Georgiev, op. cit., 330-3. 76 On Khrabr and his treatise on the Slavic letters (0 pismen6ch,), there is an extensive bibliography.

The most recent studies are: Georgiev, op. cit., bulgar. literatura, I, 141-53,

429-30;

304-29;

V. Velcev, "Cernorizec Chrabuir,"Istorija na

K. Kuev, "Dva novi prepisa na Chrabrovo sucinenie,"

Izvestija

na Institut za istorija, io (1962), 225-44; idem, "K istorii izdanija P. J. gafarikom skazanija cernorizca Chrabra '0 pis'menach,"' Trudy Otdela drevnerusskoj literatury, 19 (1963), 448-51; A. Dostal, "Les origines de l'apologie slave par Chrabr," Byzantinoslavica, 24 (1963), 236-46; I. I. Snegarev, "Cernorizec Chrabur," Chiljada i sto godini na slavjanska pismenost, 305-19; F. Tkadlcik, "Le moine Chrabr et l'origine de l'6criture slave," Byzantinoslavica, 25 (1964), 75-92.

CYRIL AND METHODIUS AND THE SOUTHERN SLAVS

35

ment of the Greek alphabet, so strikingly similar, as Professor Dostal has demonstrated, to Byzantine scholia on the Ars Grammatica by Dionysius of Thrace.77 The work of known authors constitutes only a very small portion of the enormous Bulgarian literary output stemming from the time of Symeon and the other tsars of the First Empire. The rest of the literature, drawn exclusively from Greek prototypes, consists of numerous anonymous translations and compilations in the true Byzantine fashion of the tenth century.78 And the guiding principles in the choice of the Slav translators were the needs of the recently converted Bulgarian people. It was natural, therefore, that works of a liturgical and theological nature would occupy the most prominent position among these translations and compilations. The new faith also required for its confirmation and defense collections of canonical acts,79 as well as exegetic commentaries on the Bible and the works of the Church Fathers.80Within the patristic literature there is a marked preference for the Fathers of the great period of the fourth and fifth centuries. Their works appeared time and again in a variety of forms: translations of complete works, excerpts and fragments, or simply free adaptations. It is in this manner that works such as the ascetic treatises of Basil the Great,81 the homilies of John Chrysostom and Gregory of Nazianzus,82 the Catechetical Lectures of Cyril of Jerusalem,83 and the writings of a pleiad of lesser stars, found their way into the common Orthodox Slavic literary patrimony. To this

77 Dostal, loc. cit., 24I ff. 78 Murko, op. cit., 72ff.; I. Dujcev, "Medieval Slavic Literature and its Byzantine Background," XIIe Congres international des etudes byzantines, Ochride i96i; Rapports complementaires resumes (Belgrade-Ohrid, I96I), 83 ff.; idem, "Prevodna kniznina," 154-63, 430. 79 On the legal treatises known to mediaeval Bulgaria, see A. Soloviev, "L'influence du droit byzantin dans les pays orthodoxes," Relazioni del X Congresso internazionale di scienze storiche, VI (Rome, Rechts auf die V6olker Osteuropas," Zeitschrift I955), 599-650; idem, "Der EinfluB des byzantinischen der Savigny-Stiftung fur Rechtsgeschichte, Romanische Abteilung, 67 (I959), 432-79; idem, "Ostromisches Vulgarrecht, byzantinisches, balkanisches und slavisches Recht," XIIe Congres international des etudes byzantines, Ochride i96i, Rapports complementaires resumes (Belgrade-Ohrid, I96I), 107-8. Cf. Dujcev, loc. cit., 96; Mosin, loc. cit., 40; M. Andreev, "V Makedonija li e bil suzdaden Zakon Sudnyj Ljud'm i slavjanskijat piurvoucitel Metodij ?," Chiljada i sto godini na slavjanska pismenost, 321-37, where the various theories of the origin of the Zakon Sudnyj Ljudem are reviewed. 80 For the Slavic versions of exegetic commentaries and the works of the Church Fathers in general, see Archangel'skij, op. cit., I-IV (Kazan', I888-90); M. Heppel, "Slavonic Translations of Early Byzantine Ascetical Literature; A Bibliographical Note," Journal of Ecclesiastical History, 5 (I954), 86-ioo; Dujcev, "Medieval Slavic Literature," 86ff. 81 p. A. Lavrov and A. Vaillant, "Les Regles de saint Basile en vieux slave: les Feuillets du Zograph," Revue des etudes slaves, I0 (1930), 5-35; A. Vaillant, De Virginitate de saint Basile; Texte vieux slave et traduction francaise (Paris, 1943). Some scholars, however, consider the latter treatise to be the work of Basil of Ancyra. See J. Quasten, Patrology, III (Utrecht, I960), 203. 82 A. S. Budilovic, XIII slov Grigorija Bogoslova v drevneslavjanskom perevode (St. Petersburg, z r. o1073," I875); A. Konir, "Homilie Jana Zlatoiisteho o Herodiade ve Sborniku Svjatoslavove Byzantinoslavica, i (1929), I82-206, where further bibliography is given. Cf. supra, note 59. 83A. Vaillant, "La traduction vieux-slave des Catecheses de Cyrille de Jerusalem," Byzantinoslavica, 4 (I932), 253ff. 84 Idem, "Le Saint Ephrem slave," ibid., 19 (I958), 279-86; cf. Archangel'skij, op. cit., I, 46-53; D. Hemmerdinger-Iliadou, "L'Ephrem grec et la litterature slave," XIIe Congres international des 6tudes byzantines, Ochride i96i, Actes, II (Belgrade, I964), 343-6. 3*

36

GEORGE

C. SOULIS

From the classics of Byzantine the spirituality the Ladder of Paradise by John Climacus85and the Spiritual Meadow of John Moschus86enjoyed wide popularity, while an abundant hagiographical literature reached Bulgaria in the form of menologia and simple synaxaria.87 Byzantine apocryphal literature enjoyed a unique popularity in Bulgaria from the tenth century on, and it soon spread widely among the other Orthodox Slavs; as if this literature answered Slavic longing for mythology in Christian disguise rather than for dogma. In Bulgaria, this literature played a peculiar role, for it became associated with the heretical Bogomils and served as a source for the literature of their movement.88 It was this movement which provoked the Bulgarian apologetic Discourse Against the Recent Heresy of Bogomil by Cosmas the Presbyter.89 Far less numerous were the works translated from Byzantine secular literature. In contrast to the works of an ecclesiastical and theological character, the amount of secular literature, as far as we can judge on the basis of the surviving manuscripts, was very small indeed. Popular romances and tales were translated,90 and there also appeared works of scientific or pseudo-scientific content, such as the Physiologus,91 various astrological texts,92 and Meletius' Treatise on Human Nature, included in the Hexaemeron of John the Exarch.93 85 Archangel'skij, op. cit., 88-90o; M. Heppel, "Some Slavonic Manuscripts of the 'Scala Paradisi' i8 (I957), 233-70. ('Lestvica')," Byzantinoslavica, 86 N. van Wijk, "Die slavische Redaktion des M^ya Aeswcov&piov," Byzantinoslavica, 4 (1932), 236-

52; idem, "Einige Kapitel aus Joannes Moschos in zwei kirchenslavischen tbersetzungen," Zeitschrift fur slavische Philologie, I0 (I933), 6o-6. 87 Murko, op. cit., 73; I. Dujcev, "Les rapports entre l'hagiographie bulgare et l'hagiographie byzantine au moyen age," Sixieme Congres international d'dtudesbyzantines, Alger, 2-7 octobreI939, Resumds des rapports et communications

(Paris, I940),

152-3;

idem, "Perevodna

kniznina,"

I56.

See also R.

Aitzemiiller, "Die altbulgarische Ubersetzung der Vita s. Pauli Simplicis," Die Welt der Slaven, 5 (1960), 225-32. 88 I. Ivanov, Bogomilski knigi i legendi (Sofia, I925). Cf. A. I. Jacimirskij, Bibliografiteskij obzor apokrifov v juSnoslavjanskoj i russkoj pis'mennosti; Spisi pamjatnikov, I (Petrograd, 1921), 1-75; E. Turdeanu, "Apocryphes bogomiles et apocryphes pseudo-bogomiles," Revue de l'histoire des religions, 138 (I949),

22-52;

139 (I950),

I76-2I8;

idem, "Les apocryphes

slaves et roumaines:

leur apport 'a la

connaissance des apocryphes grecs," Studi bizantini e neollenici, 8 (I953), 47-52; B. Angelov, "Apokrifi," Istorija na bulg. literatura, I78-92, 431-2; V. Velcev, "Bogomilskata kniinina," ibid., 208-20, 432-3. 89

H. Ch. Puech and A. Vaillant, Le traite contre les Bogomiles de Cosmas le Pretre (Paris, 1945). Cf.

V. Vel?cev, "Prezviter

Kozma,"

Istorija na bu.lgarskata literatura, I, 22I-40,

433-4;

Cl. Backvis,

"Un

t6moignage bulgare du xe siecle sur les Bogomiles: le 'Slovo' de Cosmas le Pretre," Annuaire de l'Institut de philologie et d'histoire orientales et slaves, i6 (1963), 75-100. 90For bibliographical information on the Slavic versions of the romance 'Barlaam and Josaphat,' see A. A. Nazarevskij, Bibliografija drevnerusskoj povesti (Moscow-Leningrad, 1955), 6I-85. For the Alexander romance, the Stephanites and Ichnilates romance, and the Tale of Aesop, see Ju. Ivanov,

Starobulgarski razkazi (Sofia, 1935), I49-74,

273-89;

I34-43,

289-97;

103-7, 245-9. Cf. Murko,

op. cit., 95-I00; P. Dinekov, "Razkazi i povesti," Istorija na bulgar. literatura, I, i64-71, 430-1. A. Dostal ("N6kolik poznimek k jazyku slovansk6; Starorusk6 verze byzantskeho eposu o Digenisovi Akritovi," Rusko-6eskd studie, Jazyk a literature, II [I960], 39I-404) has detected South Slavic elements also in the Slavic version of Digenes Acrites, but he dates them from the twelfth century. 91 Dujcev, Estestvoznanieto, I58-8I, 572-4. Cf. M. N. Speranskij, "K istorii 'Fiziologa' v staroj bolgarskoj pis'mennosti," in his Iz istorii russko-slavjanskich literaturnych svjazej (Moscow, 1960), 148-59. 92

I. Dujcev, "Gadaene po knigi v srednovekovieto," Izvestija na Narodinija etnografski muzej, 14

(I943), 49-55;

idem, Estestvoznanieto,

390-437,

93A. Leskien, "Der aristotelische Abschnitt 496. in Hexaemeron des Exarchen Johannes," Jagi6-Festschrift (Berlin, I908), 97-III; Ju. Trifonov, "Ioan Ekzarch Biulgarski i opisanieto mu na .ovegkoto tjalo," Bulgarski pregled, i (1929),

I74ff. Cf. Dujcev,

Estestvozanieto,

I38ff., 570ff.

CYRIL AND METHODIUS

AND THE SOUTHERN

SLAVS

37

One could add here also the Christian Topography of Cosmas Indicopleustes which apparently was translated into Slavic for the first time in Bulgaria learned literature of Byzanthe on the whole, during the tenth century.94But tium remained inaccessible to mediaeval Bulgaria. From the rich historical literature of the Byzantines, only the chronicles attracted the attention of the Slav translators.95Thus, we possess versions of the chronicles of John Malalas,96 Patriarch Nicephorus,97and George Syncellus,98dating from the period of the First Bulgarian Empire. But as far as we know, none of the numerous historians of the learned tradition were ever rendered into Slavic, even though authors such as Procopius, Constantine Porphyrogenitus, and Leo the Deacon dealt directly with the history of the Slavs. Responsibility for this situation must be placed upon the exclusively churchattitude oriented of the Bulgarian literary circles. This attitude also explains attitude Bulgarientedan the absence of translations from, or commentaries on, classical Greek literature, which witnessed a revival in Byzantium at that time, and was known not only in the literatures of the other neighboring Christian peoples, but also in that of the Moslems.99 Moreover, the case of Bulgaria appears somewhat paradoxical if we recall Liudprand of Cremona, who informs us that Symeon, during his long sojourn in Photius' Byzantium, became a proficient Greek scholar with a taste for the rhetoric of Demosthenes and the syllogisms of Aristotle.100Thus, Symeon was sometimes known as the Hemi-Argus, the half-Greek, and his three surviving letters to Leo Choerosphactes are written in Greek and in the best tradition of Byzantine epistolography.101Yet, as far as we can ascertain, Bulgaria's knowledge of the classical world and its literature was not acquired at first hand, but rather through the channels of patristic and Byzantine literature. The literature which developed in Bulgaria in the course of the ninth and tenth centuries, limited though it was with regard to originality and secular 94 Dujcev, Estestvoznanieto, 438-95; idem, "Medieval Slavic Literature," go90.For scientific knowl-

edge in mediaeval Bulgaria in general, see Kristanov and Dujcev, Estestvoznanieto, passim; I. Duj6ev, "Zaraidane na naucnata misul u svednovekovna Bulgarija," Archeologija, 5, no. 2 (1963), 10-15; idem, "Racionalisti6eski probljasuci u slavjanskoto srednovekovie," Istor. pregled, 19, no. 5 (1963), 86-ioo. 95 M. Weingart, Byzantske kroniky v literatu?e cirkevn6slovansk6, I-II (Bratislava, 1922-3). Cf. I. Duj6ev, "Ftbersicht fiber die bulgarische Geschichtsschreibung," Antike und Mittelalter in Bulgarien (Berlin, 1960), 53-6. 96 The Slavic version is based on a better Greek manuscript, not extant today. See Weingart, op. cit., 18-51. Cf. Moravcsik, 97 See supra, note 64.

op. cit., 329-34.

98 Weingart, op. cit., I, 52-55; Ju. Trifonov, "Vizantijskite chroniki v curkovno-slavjanskata knignina," Izvestija na Istor. druzestvo, 6 (1924), 169-70, where it is argued that the Slavic version was made in Bulgaria during the tenth or eleventh century. 99 Attempts to prove that, besides the Russian version, there existed a Bulgarian translation of Josephus Flavius' De bello judaico, and also of his Jewish Antiquities, have not been convincing so far. See I. Dujcev, "Odno nejasno mesto v drevnerusskom perevode losifa Flavija," Trudy Otdela drevnerusskojliteratury, i6 (1960), 420ff.; B. Angelov, "Iosif Flavij u juinoslavjanskich literaturach,"

ibid., 19 (1963),

256.

100Liudprandus, Antapodosis, III, 29, 6-7; MGH, SS., III, 309; cf. I. Dujcev, "Klassisches Altertum im mittelalterlichen Bulgarien," Renaissance und Humanismus in Mittel- und Osteuropa, I (Berlin, 1 962),

349-50.

101See the letters of Symeon in G. Kolias, Leon Choerosphactes,magistre, proconsul et patrice (Athens, I939), 76ff. Cf. V. Besevliev, "Fragmente aus der Korrespondenz eines bulgarischen Humanisten im 9. und 10. Jahrhundert," Renaissance und Humanismus in Mittel- und Osteuropa, I, 335-42.

38

GEORGE

C. SOULIS

outlook, nevertheless served as the foundation for Bulgarian national culture throughout the centuries, and also contributed greatly to the cultural life of other peoples. By enriching and developing the language created by the Slavic apostles, so that it could express even the most subtle thoughts, the Bulgarian authors and translators secured for it a privileged position beside Greek and Latin as a literary language in mediaeval Europe.102This Old Church Slavic language (or as it is sometimes termed with certain justice, Old Bulgarian) became the vehicle of literary expression for all the Orthodox Slavs. It remained such in a revised form until the end of the eighteenth century, and has survived as the liturgical language of the Slavic Orthodox Church. And when the vernacular idioms of the Southern and Eastern Slavs emerged, it was under the direct influence of Old Church Slavic that they attained literary maturity. A still greater achievement of the Bulgarians consisted in preserving intact the Cyrillo-Methodian precepts, while at the same time freely assimilating the culture of Byzantium, and subsequently disseminating the resulting synthesis among the Serbs, the Rumanians, and the Russians. By their example as well as by their activity, the Bulgarians fostered the growth of other national cultures along similar lines. The Serbs were the first to feel the effects of the Slavic vernacular culture emanating from the Bulgarian lands. The partial evangelization of the Serbs under the Emperor Heraclius hadhad had no lasting effects,03 and Christianity reached this people in permanent form only in the second half of the ninth century. It was during the reign of the Emperor Basil I, when Byzantine Christianity had triumphed in Bulgaria, that it also began to penetrate other Southern Slavic regions. The imperial fleet's liberation of Dubrovnik (Ragusa) from an Arab blockade in 867 re-established Byzantine authority on the Dalmatian coast. Political influence was soon followed by a rapid spread of from Byzantium, and Byzantine influence even won a temporary Christianity Byzantianity victory over the ascendency of the Frankish kingdom and the Roman Church in Croatia.104 102 Dostil, "Die Widerspiegelung," 36ff.; idem, "Staroslovensky jazyk, jeho strukturni charakteristika a lokalnf typy," Geskoslovenskepredndsky po V. mezindrodni sjezd slavisth v Sofii (Prague, I963), i ff. Cf. M. Weingart, "Le vocabulaire du vieux-slave dans ses relations avec le vocabulaire grec," Studi bizantini e neoellenici, 5 (I939), 645-77; K. Schumann, Die griechischen Lehnbildungen und Lehnbedeutungen im Altbulgarischen (Wiesbaden, 1958); I. Dujcev, "Les Slaves et Byzance," Etudes historiques a l'occasion de XIe Congres international des sciences historiques, Stockholm - A out ig960 (Sofia, 1960), 55-6. 103Constantine Porphyrogenitus, De administrando imperio, XXII, 27ff. (ed. and tr. by Gy. Morav-

csik and R. J. H. Jenkins [Budapest, 1949], 155). Cf. B. Ferjancic, Vizantiski izvori za istoriju naroda Jugoslavije, II (Belgrade, 1959), 40 ff.; F. Dvornik, in Constantine Porphyrogenitus, De administrando impeyio; Commentary (London, 1962), 133; P. I. Ramureanu, "tnceptul crestinarii Sarbilor sub imparatul bizantin Heraclius," Studii teologice, S. II, II (1959), 164-81. 104 Constantine Porphyrogenitus, op. cit., XXIX, 70ff. (Moravcsik and Jenkins, 126). Cf. G. Sp. Radojicic, "La date de la conversion des Serbes," Byzantion, 22 (1952), 253-6, where it is argued that the Christianization occurred between 867 and 874; Ferjancic, op. cit., i6; Dvornik, loc. cit., 103; Dujcev, loc. cit., 44; idem, "Une ambassade byzantine aupres des Serbes au IXe siecle," Zbornik radova Vizantologkoginstituta, 7 (i96i), 53-60; P. I. Ramureanu, "La conversion des Serbes sous l'empereur Basil I le Macedonien" (in Rumanian), Studii teologice, S. II, 12 (1960), 13-28 (known to me only from a reference in Byzantinische Zeitschrift, 54 [1961], 204).

CYRIL AND METHODIUS

AND THE SOUTHERN

SLAVS

39

Slavic Christianity, however, came from Bulgaria to Serbia only in a later period, and must have grown in influence during the reign of Symeon of Bulgaria, whose supremacy had been recognized by the Serbian prince Mutimir.'05 Theories about an earlier and more direct penetration of Slavic Christianity from Moravia or Pannonia remain mere suppositions.106The introduction of the Slavic liturgy in Serbian lands was followed by the appearance of the Oexistence of independent local literary activity in Serbian lands in the early period, although one should not exclude the possibility that it could have existed.107 Slavic literature did witness a great flowering in Serbia, but this was during the later Middle Ages, when Serbian political power grew under the Nemanja dynasty. Having assimilated Latin influences from the Dalmatian coast, this literature emerged with a more original form and content than that found in the literary monuments of Bulgaria, although it remained equally faithful to the principles of the Cyrillo-Methodiantradition.108The most striking example of this originality is the series of biographies we possess of secular Serbian personalities. In Bosnia and Croatia, meanwhile, the influence of the Ohrid school met a sister Cyrillo-Methodian tradition. The place of the Croatian lands in the Cyrillo-Methodian tradition is both peculiar and complex.109The view that an indigenous Slavic liturgy had developed here before the Moravian mission is an ingenious theory which, however, lacks substantial proof.110The Slavic liturgy most probably had spread widely from Moravia and Pannonia into Croatia before the death of Methodius. Following the events of 885 and the destruction of the Great Moravian Empirem by the Magyars, the position of this liturgy was strengthened in Croatia with the arrival of the persecuted disciples of Cyril and Methodius.11" 105Zlatarski, Istorija, 12-13. 106

Dj. Sp. Radojicic, "Medieval Slavic Literature and Its Byzantine Background," XII6 Congres international des Itudes byzantines, Ochride ig96i, Rapports complidmentairesresumes (Belgrade-Ohrid, Ioi; idem, "Knizevnost vizantijska i knjizevnosti slovenske," Glas Srpske Akademije nauka 1961), i umetnosti, 250 (1961), i6iff.; idem, Razvojni luk stare srpske knjiSevnosti (Novi Sad, 1962), II; idem, "Jugoslovenska srednjevekovna knjigevnost," Zbornik Matice Srpske za knjiz. i jezik, II (1963), 17ff.

107The view that a literary school existed in the territory between Kossovo and Rila is held by Dj. Sp. Radojici6, Antologija stare srpske knjiSevnosti (Belgrade, I960), 5; idem, Razvojini luk, I2ff. 108 Murko, op. cit., I33ff.; cf. idem, "Vtber Werke okzidentaler Herkunft in der mittelalterlichen Litteratur der Sudslaven," Deuxieme Congres international des dtudes byzantines, Belgrade 1927 (BelA. Schmaus, "Zur Frage der Kulturorientierung der Serben im Mittelalter," grade, 1929), I50-2; Suiidost-Forschungen,I5 (1956), 194-201; N. Banasevic, "Odjeci Zapada u srpskoj knjizevnosti srednjega veka," Zivi jezici, 1-2 (i957), 5-I4; Radojicic, "Knjizevnost," i6iff.; idem, "Istocna i zapadna komponenta starih juznoslovenskih knjizevnosti," Glas, 256 (1963), I-20. 109 V. Jagic, "Hrvatska glagoljska knjizevnost," in B. Vodnik, Povijest hrvatske knjizevnosti, I (Zagreb, 1913), 9-64; K. Horalek, "Koreny charvatsko-hlaholsk6ho pismnictvi," Slavia, 19 (1950), 285-92;

P. Skok, "Uslovi

zivota glagoljice,"

Slovo, 3 (i953),

50-63;

A. Cronia, "Delle cosi detta let-

teratura glagolitica e del periodo della sua maggiore floridezza," Ricerche slavistiche, 3 (I954), 123-32; J. Hamm, "Der Glagolismus in mittlerem Balkanraum," Die Welt der Slaven, i (1956), 265-75; idem, idem, "Glagolica," 462-8; St. Smrzik, The Glagolitic or Roman-Slavonic "Glagolizam," 313-21; Liturgy (Cleveland, Ohio-Rome, 1959); Mosin, "0 periodizacii," 56; V. Stefanic, "Tisucu i sto godina

od moravske

misije,"

Slovo, 13 (1963),

5-42.

110This unsubstantiated view has been recently advocated anew by D. Mandic, Rasprave i prilozi

iz stare hrvatske povijesti (Rome, 1963),

390ff.

111 Vita Nahum, in Ivanov, op. cit., 307; Constantine Porphyrogenitus, op. cit., XLI (Moravcsik and Jenkins, i81).

GEORGE

40

C. SOULIS

Thus, one finds in Croatia a situation analogous to that in Bulgaria. In Croatia, however, the tradition of Cyril and Methodius came into direct contact with Latin Christianity, whereas in Bulgaria it met with its Byzantine counterpart. This difference was the basis for subsequent divergent development. Furthermore, in Bulgaria it was the desire of the ruler to create a national Church that facilitated the growth of Slavic liturgy and letters. The Croat rulers had recently recovered their independence and already possessed a Slavic bishopric at Nin; so one would have expected them to favor the Slavic liturgy-if for no other reason than that the liturgy would serve as a means of national appeal to the Croats living between the Drava and Sava rivers, who were still under Frankish rule. Motivated, rather, by their ambition to control thewealthy commercial cities on the Dalmatian coast, they acted otherwise.112 When hard pressed by the armies of Symeon of Bulgaria, the Byzantines, masters of this littoral, found an eager ally in Tomislav, the first king of the Croats. In exchange, Tomislav was entrusted with the administration of the Dalmatian coast, which was, however, ecclesiastically under the jurisdiction of Rome. In order to win the support of the new territories, then, the Croat ruler sided with Rome and the Latin bishop of Split. I n to the latter's attempts to bring the Slavic bishopric of Nin under his direct jurisdiction and to stamp out the Slavic liturgy, Gregory, the great bishop of Nin, raised he of the strong objections. Thus, whether or not we accept t authenticity tenth canon of the Synod of Split, held in 925, forbidding the ordination of new priests for the Slavic liturgy, the fact remains that neither Rome nor the Croat princes favored the Slavic liturgy. Rome apparently had no use for this liturgy once the Byzantine danger was over.113 But what assured the survival of the Slavic liturgy in Croatia was the force and vitality of the Cyrillo-Methodian ideology, which transformed it into a symbol of national identity and resistance to Latinization. The position of this liturgy was further strengthened by the timely intervention of a legend that Saint Jerome, a Roman Church Father and a son of Dalmatia, had created the Glagolitic alphabet and had introduced the Slavic tongue into the liturgy.114

The Slavic liturgy and letters in Croatia retained through the centuries the use of the Glagolitic alphabet, although in a more angular form, apparently under the influence of the Beneventan script.115Traces of Croatian contacts with the Ohrid tradition are evident, but in the early centuries the main contacts of Croatian Glagolism were with Bohemia, as is indicated by the 112 F. gisic, Geschichte der Kroaten, I (Zagreb, 1917), I08 ff.; F. Dvornik, The Slavs: Their Early History and Civilization (Boston, 1956), 134, 174-6. 118 J. Srebrni6, "Odnosaji pape Ivana X prema Bizantu i Slavenima na Balkanu," Zbornik Kralja Tomislava (Zagreb, 1925), 128-64.

114 See the Croatian Life of Saint Jerome in Starine Jugosl. Akademije znanisto i umjetnosti, i (1869), 236. Cf. Jagic, Entstehungsgeschichte,130-1; V. Novak, "Jeronim," Narodna enciklopedija, II (Belgrade,

n. d.), 155-6. 115 V.

Novak, Scriptura beneventanas osobitim obziromna tip dalmatinske beneventane (Zagreb, 1920),

62, 66; idem, "Slavonic-Latin Symbiosis," 9.

CYRIL AND METHODIUS AND THE SOUTHERN SLAVS

41

reception of the Life of Saint Wenceslas, and the introduction of the first Czech saints into the Croatian Church calendar.116This debt was partially repaid in the fourteenth century, when Croatian glagoljasi brought the interrupted tradition of the Slavic liturgy back to Bohemia under Charles IV, and established it in the "Slavic Monastery" of Emmaus which he had founded in the New City of Prague."7 In spite of the fact that it had a continuous struggle for existence, Glagolism in Croatia did not remain restricted to liturgical usage alone. It was also used in everyday life, as we can ascertain from a number of eleventh-century Glagolitic inscriptions found on the Dalmatian coast and islands.118Glagolism also produced a considerable literature, which became the basis of subsequent Croatian vernacular literary development.119The Croatian Glagolitic tradition with its Roman orientation has sustained a meager life to this day in the Dalmatian territory, retaining the spirit of the ideology of the Slavic apostles, but otherwise completely separated from the course which the Cyrillo-Methodian tradition took in the other Southern Slavic countries. The Cyrillo-Methodian tradition in its Bulgarian form crossed the Danube river in the eastern part of the Balkan peninsula and spread Slavic Christianity to the territory that was later to be formed into the Rumanian principalities. Thus, Rumania made its spiritual and literary beginnings as a province of Slavic vernacular culture.120Determining the exact date of these beginnings is as difficult a problem as ascertaining the enigmatic origin of the Rumanians themselves. We find no traces of Slavic literary activity north of the Danube until the latter part of the fourt eenth century, and yet we are convinced that Slavic Christianity must have spread there at a much earlier date. This conclusion is dictated by philological and archaeological evidence, and by the strong possibility that at times the Bulgarian frontier in the ninth and tenth centuries extended north of the Danube.121Furthermore, the penetration of 116

HorAlek, "Kofeny,"

Wiener Slavistisches 117

285-92;

J. Hamm, "Vom kroatischen Typus des Kirchenslavischen,"

Jahrbuch, io (1963),

15-18.

Cf. Dvornik,

op. cit., 174.

M. Kosti6, "Zasto je osnovan slovensko-glagoljaski manastir Emaus u Pragu," Glasnik Skopskog M. Paulovla, "L'idee Cyrillo-M6thodienne dans la politique de nau6nog drustva, 2 (I927), 159-65; Charles IV et la fondation du monastre slave de Prague," Byzantinoslavica, II (I950), I74-86; cf. Jakobson, "The Kernel," 54; Fr. Dvornik, The Slavs in European History and Civilization (New Brunswick, N.J., 1962), i6o. 118 J. Hamm, "Datiranje glagoljskih tekstova," Radovi Staroslavenskog instituta, I (1952), 5-72. 119Jagic, "Hrvatska glagoljska knjizevnost," 3-5; A. Vaillant, "Les origines de la langue litt6raire ragusaine," Revue des 6tudes slaves, 4 (1924), 23 Iff. 120 I. Barbulescu, "L'origine des plus anciens mots et institutions slaves des Roumains," Jubileen sbornik v 6est' na S. S. Bob6ev (Sofia, 1921), 207-19; G. Nandri?, "The Beginnings of Slavonic Culture in the Rumanian Countries," The Slavonic and East European Review, 24 (I946), I60-7I; E. Turdeanu, Les Principautes Roumaines et les Slaves du Sud: Rapports litt6raires et religieux (Munich, 1959); St. Stefanescu, "Rumynobolgarskie svjazi v IX-XIV vv. i stanovlenie rumynskoj gosudarstvennosti," Romanoslavica, 9 (I963), 53I-42. For the penetration of the Slavic vernacular tradition in Transylvania, see P. Olteanu, "Origines de la culture slave dans la Transylvanie du Nord et le Maramurea," Romanoslavica, i (1958), 169-97; cf. C. Nicolescu, "Considerations sur l'anciennete des monuments roumains de Transylvanie," Revue roumaine d'histoire, i (1962), 411-26. 121 G. Nandri?, "The Earliest Contacts Between Slavs and Rumanians," The Slavonic and East European Review, 19 (1939-40), idem, "The Development and Structure of Rumanian," ibid., 142-5; 30 (1951-2), 7-39; A. Rosetti, Influenta limbilor slave meridionale asupre limbii romine (sec. VI-XII)

(Bucharest,

1954).

See also A. Grecu (P. P. Panaitescu), "Bulgaria in nordul Dunarii in veacurile al

42

GEORGE

C. SOULIS

Slavic Christianity during the period of the First Bulgarian Empire seems particularly likely if we recall the lively intercourse which existed during the tenth and eleventh centuries between Bulgaria and Kievan Russia.122 The Second Bulgarian Empire with its large Vlach element must definitely have strengthened Slavic Christianity in the trans-Danubian region, but its systematic organization probably dates from the fourteenth century, when the independent principalities of Wallachia and Moldavia were formed.123Only then are we informed that the Slavic tongue was used not only for liturgical purposes, but also as the official language of the state. The influence of Bulgarian literature was so deeply rooted in the Rumanian lands that local literary activity continued to foster Slavic letters long after they had declined among the Balkan Slavs under Ottoman rule. Wallachia and Moldavia thereby became important centers of an adopted Slavic culture, and, in turn, they made both the Southern and the Eastern Slavs their debtors by returning to them Slavic literature, both in manuscript and printed form, as late as the seventeenth century.124 Slavic literaturete and the Cyrillo-Methodian ideology were so thoroughly assimilated in Rumania that they became the foundation of the national tradition and the basis for later cultural development. In this connection it is significant that when Phanariote influence penetrated these lands in the seventeenth century as a kind of prelude to its later rule, Cyrillic letters emerged as a symbol of opposition to the foreigners.125 Not until the national revival in

the nineteenth century, with its Latin inspiration, were the concrete manifestations of the Cyrillo-Methodian tradition lost. And even then, when the Cyrillic alphabet had been completely replaced by the Latin, the spirit of the legacy of the Slavic apostles remained intact. The last, but nevertheless the greatest, beneficiaries of the tradition of Cyril and Methodius in its Bulgarian form were the Russians. Following the IX-lera X-lea," Studi qi cercetdri de istorie medie, i (I950), 223-36; M. Comia, "Die bulgarische Herrschaft des Donau wahrend des X Jh. im Lichte der archaologischen Forschungen," Dacia, N. S., 4 Istoia Romiiei II (Buchaest ) 395-422; 962), (I 279-87. 122 M. N. Tichomirov, "Istoriceskie svjazi russkogo naroda s juznymi slavjanami s drevnejsich vremen do poloviny XVII v.," Slavjanskij sbornik ([Moscow] 1947), I36ff.; G. Vernadsky, Kievan Russia (New Haven, 1948), 318ff.; V. Nikolaev, Slavjanobuilgarskijat faktor v christijanizacijata na Kievska Rusija (Sofia, 1949), 139ff.; I. Snegarov, Duchovno-kulturni vrufzkimezdu Buigarija i Rusija prez srednite vekova (X-XVv.) 123 N.

(Sofia, 1950),

iff.

Banescu, L'ancien Etat bulgare et les pays roumains (Bucharest, 1947), 69-88; E. Turdeanu, La littgrature bulgare du XIVe siecle et sa diffusion dans les pays roumains (Paris, 1947), passim; idem, Les Principaut6s, 2. Cf. R. L. Wolff, "The 'Second Bulgarian Empire': Its Origin and History to 1204," Speculum, 24 (1949), 124 A.

167-206.

I. Jacimirskij, Iz istorii slavjanskoj pis'mennosti v Moldavii i Valachii (Moscow, 1906); P. P. Panaitescu, "La litterature slavo-roumaine (XVe-XVIIe siecles) et son importance pour l'histoire des litteratures slaves," Sbornik praci I. sjezdu slovanskych filologuiv Praze I929, II (Prague, 1932), E. Turdeanu, "Din vechile schimburi culturale dintre Romani si Jugoslavi," Cercetdriliterare, 206-17; 3 (i939), 141-218; Dj. Sp. Radojicic, "Srpsko-rumunski odnosi XIV-XVII v.," Godignjak Filozofskog Fakulteta u Novom Sadu, i (1956), 13-29; St. Ciobanu, "Din legaturile culturale romano-ucrainene," Academia Romadnda, Memoriile Sectiunii literare, S. III, 8 (1938), 35ff.; Relafii romino-ruse din trecut (Bucharest, 1957); Studii privind relatiite romino-ruse ?i romino-sovietice (Bucharest, 1958); V. Ciobanu, "Relatii literare romino-ruse in epoca feudala," Studii qi cercetdri de istorie literard fi folklor, 9 (1960), 294ff. 125

Nandri?, "The Beginnings," i60.

CYRIL AND METHODIUS AND THE SOUTHERN SLAVS

43

conversion of Prince Vladimir about 988, Christianity and the Slavic liturgy were officially established in the lands of Kiev. The Slavic language and letters which Kiev received from Bulgaria became the cornerstone of a rich literature and culture, and when Rus' lay broken under the Tatar yoke, this culture acted as a unifying force. Eventually, strengthened by a new wave of South Slavic influence in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, the Cyrillo-Methodian tradition helped to inspire Muscovy in its task of "gathering" the Russian lands. And as Muscovy expanded in every direction, Slavic liturgy and Slavic letters, conceived originally for Moravia, found their way in Russian hands to the distant shores of the Pacific Ocean.126 126 Tichomirov, loc. cit., 162ff.; Gudzij, "Literatura Kievskoj Rusi," 7-60; B. Angelov, "K voprosu o nacale russko-bolgarskich literaturnych svjazej," Trudy Otdela drevnerusskoj literatury, 14 (1958),

132-8.

The Heritage of Cyril and Methodius in Russia Author(s): Dimitri Obolensky Source: Dumbarton Oaks Papers, Vol. 19, (1965), pp. 45-65 Published by: Dumbarton Oaks, Trustees for Harvard University Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1291225 Accessed: 09/07/2008 11:09 Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use, available at http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp. JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use provides, in part, that unless you have obtained prior permission, you may not download an entire issue of a journal or multiple copies of articles, and you may use content in the JSTOR archive only for your personal, non-commercial use. Please contact the publisher regarding any further use of this work. Publisher contact information may be obtained at http://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=doaks. Each copy of any part of a JSTOR transmission must contain the same copyright notice that appears on the screen or printed page of such transmission.

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THE

AND

HERITAGE METHODIUS

OF

CYRIL IN

DIMITRI OBOLENSKY

RUSSIA

This paper was read at a Symposium on "The Byzantine Mission to the Slavs: St. Cyril and St. Methodius," held at Dumbarton Oaks in May I964. Except for the notes, it is printed here in substantially the same form in which it was delivered.

I HT

HE Russian Primary Chronicle,in a passage describingthe measures

taken in 1037 by the Russian sovereign Yaroslav to provide his subjects with Slavonic translations of Byzantine books-a passage written in the eleventh or early twelfth century-makes the following observation: "Great is the profit obtained from book learning: for through books we are taught the way of repentance, and from the written word we gain wisdom and selfcontrol. Books are rivers which water the entire world; they are the springs of wisdom; in books there is an unfathomable depth; by them we are consoled in sorrow; they are the bridle of self-control.... He who reads books often converses with God, or with holy men."'1 Such statements are no doubt a commonplace of mediaeval literature; yet their conventional character cannot, even today, wholly obscure the genuine emotion with which the chronicler, who was probably a Russian monk, affirms that the life of men can be greatly enriched by the reading of books. And, as the context of this passage plainly shows, the chronicler's emotion is heightened by his knowledge that his compatriots have now been provided with books in their own Slavonic language. This he gratefully attributes to the ented action of the rulers of his own of land-Yaroslav, Prince Kiev, and his father Vladimir who converted Russia to Christianity in the late tenth century. So concerned is the chronicler to extol the virtues of these two Russian sovereigns in promoting the Slav vernacular culture that he fails, in this passage, to mention the fountainhead of this culture-the work of Cyril and Methodius. Yet, as we shall see, the Russians of the Middle Ages were well aware of the true origins of their vernacular literature, and cherished with gratitude and veneration the memory of the two Byzantine apostles of the Slavs; and the same Russian Primary Chronicle contains other passages which clearly acknowledge that the Russians owe their alphabet, their literature, and their scholarly tradition, to the Moravian mission of Constantine and Methodius. One of the aims of this paper is to demonstrate that the importance of this mission, and its relevance to the cultural history of the Eastern Slavs, were appreciated in mediaeval Russia; the second aim is to outline the history of the Cyrillo-Methodian tradition in mediaeval Russia and to assess the role it played in the culture and thoughtworld of the Eastern Slavs: I would emphasize the word "outline"; for it is clear to me that the "Heritage of Cyril and Methodius in Russia" is a problem too vast and complex to be treated, within the scope of a single lecture, in any but a fragmentary and tentative manner. 1 Povest' vremennykh let, ed. by V. P. Adrianova-Peretts and D. S. Likhachev (Moscow-Leningrad, I, pp. 102-3; English translation by S. H. Cross and 0. P. Sherbowitz-Wetzor (Cambridge, Mass., 1953), p. 137. In subsequent references to this document the original will be cited as "Povest'," and the translation as "Cross." 1950),

47

48

DIMITRI

OBOLENSKY

I propose to approach my subject chronologically. I shall concentrate mainly on the period which begins with the official acceptance of Christianity in the late tenth century and ends in the early twelfth. It was then, notably in the eleventh century, that Russian literature was born; it was then, too, that Russian national consciousness found its first articulate expression. The central part of my theme-the heritage of Cyril and Methodius in eleventhcentury Russia-will be introduced by a brief sketch of its antecedents on Russian soil, and will be followed by an epilogue illustrating its impact on late mediaeval Russia. II Our story begins with a puzzle, which has taxed the ingenuity of many a scholar. The first recorded conversion of the Russians to Christianity took place in the sixties of the ninth century: contemporary Byzantine sources inform us that this conversion closely followed the Russian attack on Constantinople in 86o0;2that by 867 the Russians had accepted a bishop from Byzantium;3 and that about 874 an archbishop was sent to them by the Patriarch Ignatius.4 This first ecclesiastical organization on Russian soil seems to have been submerged, later in the century, by a wave of paganism which swept away the pro-Christian rulers of Kiev and replaced them by a rival group of Scandinavians from North Russia. Yet there is little doubt that a Christian community survived, at least in Kiev, attracting a growing number of converts throughout the tenth century, until Russia's final conversion in the reign of St. Vladimir, in 988 or 989. Some of the Russian envoys who ratified the treaty with the Empire in Constantinople in 944 were Christians, and a Christian church, ministering to a numerous community, existed in Kiev at that time;5 in 957 Princess Olga, regent of the Russian realm, was baptized in Constantinople;6 and in 983, a few years before Vladimir's conversion, two Christian Varangians were martyred in Kiev for their faith.7 It is apparent from these facts that the beginnings of Russian Christianity coincide in time with the Moravian mission of Constantine and Methodius and with the conversion of Bulgaria to the Christian faith; and that a Christian community existed in Kiev, continuously or with brief interruptions, for I25 years before Vladimir's baptism. Moreover, the comparatively rapid establishment of a diocesan organization at the end of the tenth century, the perceptive and mature understanding of the Christian life revealed by Russian writers of the next two generations, and the high literary standards attained by some of 2 Theophanes Continuatus (Bonn), p. I96. 3 Photius, Epistolae, PG, I02, cols. 736-7.

4 Theoph. Contin., pp. 342-3. Cf. F. Dolger, Regesten der Kaiserurkunden des ostromischen Reiches,

I (Munich-Berlin, 1924), p. 60. 5 Povest', I, p. 39; Cross, p. 77. The Russo-Byzantine treaty, dated by the chronicler to 945, was in

fact concluded in the previous year. See Povest', II, p. 289; Dolger, op. cit., I, p. 80. 6 Povest', I, pp. 44-5; Cross, pp. 82-3. For the date and place of Olga's baptism, see G. Laehr, Die Anfdnge des russischen Reiches (Berlin, 1930), pp. 103-6; F. Dvornik, The Slavs, Their Early History

and Civilization

(Boston,

1956),

pp. 200-I.

7 Povest', I, pp. 58-9; Cross, pp. 95-6.

THE CYRILLO-METHODIAN

HERITAGE

IN RUSSIA

49

them in the Slavonic language strongly suggest that the Russian ecclesiastical leaders and intellectual elite of that time were building on earlier foundations; and it is only natural to suppose that these older foundations were such as to ensure the survival of the Christian community in Kiev as a going concern for more than a century before Vladimir; that this community, in other words, was provided with an effective clergy, intelligible Scriptures, and a liturgy capable of satisfying the spiritual needs of the Slav and Varangian converts to the Christian religion. We would expect, in brief, to find traces in Russia, between 860 and 988, of the Cyrillo-Methodian tradition of Slavonic vernacular Christianity. These traces, however, are singularly insubstantial. The evidence which scholars have extracted from the sources, or dug out from the ground, amount to a few meagre crumbs: it has been maintained, for instance, that the Slavonic texts of the Russo-Byzantine peace treaties of the tenth century, preserved in the Primary Chronicle, prove that the Russians could by that time read and write in Slavonic, although we do not know for certain when or where these documents were translated from the Greek;8 the observation that Princess Olga, at the time of her baptism and visit to Constantinople in 957, knew no Greek and relied on the service of interpreters has led to the suggestion that the liturgy may have been celebrated in Slavonic for her benefit in Kiev;9 the fact that in the eleventh century the Russians had some acquaintance with the Glagolitic script has been taken to mean that they imported, not later than the middle of the tenth century, the Slavonic liturgy and books from Macedonia, where the Glagolitic tradition was still in existence;10 a Cyrillic inscription, consisting of a single word, was discovered on a clay vessel during excavations near Smolensk in 1949, and was dated by its discoverer, D. A. Avdusin, to the first quarter of the tenth century:" all this, in terms of direct evidence, does not amount to very much. And yet it seems likely enough that well before Vladimir's conversion, by the mid-tenth century at the latest, the Christian community in Kiev was familiar with the Slavonic liturgy, with Slavonic translations of parts of the Scriptures, and with Slav-speaking priests. It is permissible to speculate where 8 See D. S. Likhachev, in Povest', II, pp. 257, 278. For the text of these treaties, see Povest', I, pp. 24-9, 34-9, 52; Cross, pp. 64-8, 73-7, 89-g90. Cf. S. Mikucki, "1?tudes sur la diplomatique russe la plus ancienne. I. Les traites byzantino-russes du Xe si6cle," Bulletin international de l'AcadedmiePolonaise des Sciences et des Lettres, cl. de philol., d'hist. et de philos., no. 7 (Cracow, 1953), pp. I-40; I. Sorlin, "Les traites de Byzance avec la Russie au Xe si6cle," Cahiers du monde russe et sovietique, II (1961), 3, pp. 3I3-60,

4, pp. 447-75.

9 Constantine Porphyrogenitus, De Cerimoniis (Bonn), I, p. 597. Cf. P. A. Lavrovsky, "Issledovanie o Letopisi Yakimovskoy," Uchenye Zapiski Vtorogo Otdeleniya Imper. Akademii Nauk, II, i (i856),

p. 149.

10 See M. Speransky, "Otkuda idut stareishie pamyatniki russkoy pis'mennosti i literatury ?", Slavia, VII, 3 (1928), pp. 516-35; B. S. Angelov, "K voprosu o nachale russko-bolgarskikh literaturnykh svyazey," Trudy Otdela Drevnerusskoy Literatury, XIV (1958), pp. 136-8. On the Glagolitic tradition in mediaeval Russia, see V. N. Shchepkin, "Novgorodskie nadpisi Graffiti," Drevnosti. Trudy Imper. Moskovskogo ArkheologicheskogoObshchestva, XIX, 3 (1902), pp. 26-46; G. Il'insky, "Pogodinskie kirillovsko-glagolicheskie listki," Byzantinoslavica, i (1929), p. 102. 11 D. A. Avdusin and M. N. Tikhomirov, "Drevneishaya russkaya nadpis'," Vestnik Akademii Nauk SSSR

4

(1950),

4, pp. 71-9.

50

DIMITRI

OBOLENSKY

these may have come from. Common linguistic and ethnic ties, and the political relations which existed in the tenth century between the Eastern Slavs on the one hand, and the Western and Southern Slavs on the other, may well have facilitated, or even provoked, the spread of Slav priests and books to Russia either from the former territories of Great Moravia, or else from Bulgaria.12 Some of these priests and books may even have come from Constantinople where, at least in the second half of the ninth century, the Byzantine authorities assembled Slav-speaking priests and stockpiled Slavonic books for the needs of missionary enterprises beyond the Empire's northern borders. We have no direct evidence to show how far, before or after the time of Vladimir, the Byzantine missionaries in Russia deliberately encouraged the Slavonic vernacular as a means of evangelizing the country; however, the rapid establishment of this tradition in Russia after Vladimir's conversion, to the virtual exclusion of the Greek language from the liturgy at a time when the Russian Church was governed by prelates appointed by Constantinople, strongly suggests that the East Roman authorities acknowledged that the tradition of vernacular lavic Christianity, which had already yielded rich dividends in Bulgaria, was the only one that could reasonably be imposed on the numerous population of their powerful and distant northern proselyte.13 This introductory survey has rested less on direct information-which is fragmentary and equivocal-than on circumstantial evidence and on later material derived from the eleventh century. It is customary to blame the Russian Primary Chronicle for our inadequate knowledge of the beginnings of the Cyrillo-Methodian tradition in Russia. It is indeed at first sight surprising that this document, compiled in the eleventh and early twelfth centuries, which treats in such detail of the earliest hist history of the Russian people and is so plainly concerned with the fate of Russian letters and learning, has nothing precise to say about the channels through which the Slav vernacular tradition came to Russia. It attributes, as we have seen, the introduction of book learning to Vladimir and his son Yaroslav. Are we then to conclude that the author, or authors, of the Chronicle knew nothing of any earlier beginning, and that they believed that the Christian community in Kiev before Vladimir's time celebrated the liturgy in Greek? Different answers have been given to this question. The Russian scholar N. K. Nikol'sky, in a study of the Russian Primary Chronicle, published in 1930, argued that its compilers were perfectly 12

On Russia's relations with Bohemia in the tenth century, see A. V. Florovsky, Chekhi i vostochnye slavyane, I (Prague, 1935), pp. 1-44. On Russia's relations with Bulgaria in the same period, see M. N. Tikhomirov, "Istoricheskie svyazi russkogo naroda s yuzhnymi slavyanami s drevneishikh vremen do poloviny XVII veka," Slavyansky Sbornik (Moscow, 1947), pp. 132-52. 13 For the Byzantine attitude toward the tradition of Slavonic vernacular Christianity, see F. Dvornik, Les Slaves, Byzance et Rome au IXe siecle (Paris, 1926), pp. 298-301; I. Dujcev, "II problema delle lingue nazionali nel medio evo e gli Slavi," Ricerche Slavistiche, VIII (1960), pp. 39-60; I. Sevcenko, "Three Paradoxes of the Cyrillo-Methodian Mission," The Slavic Review, XXIII (1964), pp. 226-32. The problem is complex and requires further investigation; in the meantime, it may be tentatively suggested that the farther a given Slavonic country was situated from Constantinople, and the less chance there consequently was of Hellenizing its culture, the more ready the Byzantine authorities generally were to consolidate its Christianity and to ensure its loyalty to the Empire by encouraging it to acquire and develop the Slav vernacular tradition.

THE CYRILLO-METHODIAN HERITAGE IN RUSSIA

51

aware of the Slavonic origin of Russian Christianity, but deliberately avoided of prominence to the story ordeVladiany mention of it, in or ger mir's baptism by Byzantine missionaries, to present the conversion as an exclusively Greek achievement, and thus to justify the claims of the Byzantine clergy to ecclesiastical hegemony over Russia.14 This thesis should be considered in a broader context: for the past fifty years it has been fashionable to regard th authors e of the Primary Chronicle as men moved by political passions and factional loyalties, propagandists not averse to suppressing, twisting, or inventing evidence to gratify their prejudices or to flatter their ecclesiastical or secular patrons. This view is best epitomized in the well known history of Kievan Russia by M. D. Priselkov, published in 1913, who carried to extreme, and sometimes absurd, lengths the more bala a nd cautious conclusions of his teacher Shakhmatov, that unrivalled authority on Russian chronicles.15 The problem of the reliability of the Primary Chronicle is too large and too complex to be discussed here. I can only express my personal belief that, although the compilers of the Chronicle did at times show a personal bias in the selectionpresentation of their material, to maintain or imply that they were wholesale forgers, playing an elaborate game of hide-and-seek with their mediaeval readers (and with modern scholars as well), is to overestimate their ingenuity, to degrade their sense of history, and to ascribe to them motives which are, to say the least, anachronistic. What Nikol'sky called "the mysterious silence" of the chronicler about the early introduction of Slavonic letters into Russia can, it seems to me, be explained more satisfactorily if we suppose that he was ignorant of the facts, rather than that he took part in a conspiracy to suppress them. He had, as we shall see, precise and detailed information on the Moravian mission of Constantine and Methodius; but the circumstances in which the fruits of this mission were first acquired by the Russians must have remained unknown to him. The Soviet scholar V. M. Istrin has plausibly suggested that this ignorance may be explained by the gradual, sporadic, and undramatic way in which the Slav vernacular tradition filtered in to Russia in the tenth century; and by the fact that among its carriers-Slav-speaking priests from the Balkans or the West Slavonic area-no memorable personality emerged of the calibre of Cyril and Methodius and their immediate disciples.16 III It is scarcely possible to doubt that elements of the Cyrillo-Methodian tradition-priests, books, and the liturgy-came to Russia before the time of Vladimir. It would, however, be unwise to exaggerate the extent and import14N. K. Nikol'sky, "Povest' vremennykh let, kak istochnik dlya istorii nachal'nogo perioda russkoy pis'mennosti i kul'tury," Sbornik po Russkomu Yazyku i Slovesnosti Akademii Nauk SSSR, II, i (Leningrad,

1930).

See the review of this work by G. Il'insky,

Byzantinoslavica,

pp.

(1930), 432-6. 15 M. D. Priselkov, "Ocherki po tserkovno-politicheskoy istorii Kievskoy Rusi X-XII vv.," Zapiski fak. Imperat. Sankt-Peterburgskogo Universiteta, CXVI (1913). ist.-filol. 16 V. M. Istrin, "Moravskaya istoriya slavyan i istoriya polyano-rusi, kak predpolagaemye istoch-

niki nachal'noy

4*

russkoy letopisi,"

Byzantinoslavica,

3 (193I),

pp. 327-32,

4

2, 2

(1932),

pp. 51-7.

52

DIMITRI

OBOLENSKY

ance of this penetration. It was only after Russia's official conversion to Christianity in 988 or 989, which led to the strengthening of the links with Byzantium and the establishment of a nation-wide ecclesiastical structure under the authority of the Patriarch of Constantinople, that the problem of building a Slav vernacular Church became really urgent.17For this new period, which spans and slightly overlaps the eleventh century, we have considerably more inorrmation; and much of it comes from the Russian Primary Chronicle. In an entry dated 898, the Chronicle gives a fairly detailed account of the Moravian mission of Constantine and Methodius; this is preceded by a brief note describing the invasion of Moravia by the Magyars; the introductory section of the Chronicle has a further entry which refers to the earliest history of the Slavs and to their dispersal from their primeval European home.18This introductory entry is linked with the later note on the conquest of Moravia by a common emphasis on the ethnic and linguistic unity of the Slav peoples; and both the entry and the note ae connected with the account of the Moravian mission by the importance they all ascribe to "Slavonic letters" (gramota slovenbskaja)as a force expressive of Slav unity. The scholars who have studied these various entries in the Chronicle-A. Shakhmatov, P. Lavrov, N. Nikol'sky, V. Istrin, and, most recently, Professor Jakobson-are agreed that they are all fragments of a single work, stemming from a Cyrillo-Methodian environRussia the West Slavonic area.19 Shakhmatov, ment, and brought to from who called it The Tale about the Translation of Books into the Slav language (Skazanie o prelozhenii knig na slovensky yazyk)-the name has stuckplausibly suggested that it came to Russia in the eleventh century; and Professor Jakobson has described it as "a Moravian apologetic writing of the very end of the ninth century."20 For our present purpose, the most interesting of these suriving fragments is the account of the Moravian mission. It has long been known to contain four separate quotations from the Vita Methodii, and to be generally based on this work, with several borrowings from the Vita Constantini.21On several points, however, the version of the Russian Chronicle deviates from the vitae of the apostles of the Slavs: ononnone of them is the Russian version reliable; most of the divergences may be ascribed to error or confusion on the chronicler's part: for instance, he states quite wrongly that Kocel, as well as Rastislav and 17

For Russia's conversion to Christianity in the reign of Vladimir, see Povest', I, pp. 59-81; Cross,

pp. 96-I17,

244-8;

Die Anfdnge

Laehr,

des russischen

Reiches, pp.

110-15;

G. Vernadsky,

Kievan

Russia (New Haven, 1948), pp. 60-5. For the establishment of a Byzantine hierarchy in Russia, see D. Obolensky, "Byzantium, Kiev, and Moscow. A Study in Ecclesiastical Relations," Dumbarton Oaks Papers, ii (1957), pp. 23-5; L. Muiiller,Zum Problem des hierarchischen Status und der jurisdiktionellen Abhangigkeit der russischen Kirche vor 1039 (Cologne, 1959) (Osteuropaund der deutscheOsten, III,6). 18

Povest', I, pp.

II,

21-3;

Cross, pp. 52-3,

62-3.

19A. Shakhmatov, "Povest' vremennykh let i ee istochniki," Trudy Otdela Drevne-Russkoy LiteraP. Lavrov, "Kirilo ta Metodiy v davn'o-slov'yans'komu pis'menstvi," tury, IV (1940), pp. 80-92; Zbirnik Ist.-Filol. Viddilu, Ukrains'ka Akademiya Nauk, 78 (1928), pp. 129-136; Nikol'sky, op. cit.; Istrin, op. cit.; R. Jakobson, "Minor Native Sources for the Early History of the Slavic Church," Harvard Slavic Studies, 20

ii

(1954),

pp. 39-47.

R. Jakobson, "Comparative Slavic Studies," The Review of Politics, XVI, i (1954), p. 79. 21 See Shakhmatov, "Povest'vremennykh let i ee istochniki," op. cit., pp. 87-9; Jakobson, "Minor Native Sources," op. cit., p. 40.

THE CYRILLO-METHODIAN

HERITAGE

IN RUSSIA

53

Svatopluk, requested a teacher from Byzantium, that the Slavonic alphabet was invented in Moravia, and that toward the end of his life Constantine taught in Bulgaria; in one case, however, the Russian chronicler can be suspected of deliberately deviating from his sources: he acknowledges that the work of Constantine and Methodius was supported by the Papacy, but makes no mention of their stay in Rome; this omission, probably due to anti-Roman censorship, suggests the hand of a revisor of the late eleventh or early twelfth century, when hostility to the Latin Church was beginning to gain ground in Russia.22

As source material on the Moravian mission, the Tale about the Translation of Books is wholly derivative and of no great value to the historian. Yet in other respects document is of considerable interest: it proves that the Russian chronicler was familiar with the written Lives of Constantine and Methodius; it shows how a West Slavonic work, breathing the authentic spirit of the Cyrillo-Methodian tradition, could be adapted to a specifically Russian situation; and, whether in its original or adapted form, it made, as I shall presently suggest, a small but not insignificant contribution to that tradition. The emphasis which the Tale repeatedly lays on the unity of the Slavonic language; its manifest pride in the "power" and "intelligibility"23 of the Slavonic letters created by Constantine and Methodius which, it tells us explicitly, are a common patrimony of the Moravians, theeand Bulgarians, the Russians; its critical attitude to the "trilingual heresy," that bete noire of the Slavonic apostles and of their disciples:24 these are familiar and characteristic ingredients of the Cyrillo-Methodian thought-world. But in its concluding part, which obviously bears the mark of a Russian revision, the Tale breaks new ground, and claims that the heritage of Cyril and Methodius has been acquired by the Russian people; it bases this claim on a series of syllogistic arguments: the Slavonic letters were brought by Constantine and Methodius to the Moravians; the Russians, like the Moravians, are Slavs, and speak the same Slav language; the conclusion is implied that the Russians, too, are pupils of the Slavonic apostles; furthermore, Moravia and Pannonia, the lands of Methodius' spiritual jurisdiction, had once been evangelized by St. Andronicus, one of Christ's seventy disciples; but St. Andronicus was the disciple of St. Paul, who himself preached in Moravia. Therefore St. Paul is the teacher 22

See Jakobson, ibid., p. 41. use of sila and razumb in the Cyrillo-Methodian vocabulary, see Jakobson, ibid., p. 41, note. 24 Povest', I, p. 22: "Certain men rose up against them [i.e. against Cyril and Methodius], murmuring and saying: 'It is not right for any people to have its own alphabet, except for the Jews, the Greeks, and the Latins, according to Pilate's inscription, which he caused to be inscribed on the Lord's cross'." Cf. Cross, 63. The "trilingual heresy," based on the view that Hebrew, Greek, and Latin are the only legitimate liturgical languages, is ascribed by Constantine's biographer to the Latin clerics who opposed Constantine and Methodius in Moravia and who disputed with the former in Venice. See Vita Constantini, XV, 5-9, XVI, 1-5, XVIII, 9: Constantinus et Methodius Thessalonicenses. Fontes, ed. by 23 For the

F. Grivec and F. Tomsic (Zagreb, 1960) (Radovi Staroslavenskog Instituta, 4), pp. 131, 134, 141. Cf. Vita Methodii, VI, 3-4, ibid., p. 156. On the "trilingual heresy," see Dujcev, "II problema delle lingue

nazionali nel medio evo e gli Slavi," op. cit.; id., "L'activite de Constantin Philosophe-Cyrille en Moravie," Byzantinoslavica, 24 (1963), pp. 221-3.

54

DIMITRI

OBOLENSKY

of the Slavs, and the Russians, by virtue of being Slavs and pupils of St. Methodius, are likewise disciples of St. Paul.25 By means of these complicated constructions, and by appealing to the current though legendary tradition that Paul and Andronicus preached in northern Illyricum and Pannonia, the Russian chronicler traces the spiritual ancestry of his people back to Cyril and Methodius on the one hand, and to St. Paul on the other. The conjunction of names is significant, for the veneration of St. Paul, the apostle of the Gentiles, is an essential feature of the Cyrillo-Methodian tradition.26 There is clearly something artificial in these putative spiritual genealogies; even the syntax of this passage in the Chronicle is awkward: there are eleven causal conjunctions in nine lines. The chronicler's patent embarrassment doubtless stems from his inability to identify the historical channels through which the Cyrillo-Methodian heritage penetrated from Moravia to Russia; and it confirms the view I expressed earlier that his silence on this point comes from ignorance, not from bad faith. At the same time he is conscious, and rightly so, that the Slav vernacular tradition which flourished in Russia in his day has its roots in the Moravian mission of Constantine and Methodius. Two Scriptural quotations inserted in the Tale seem to me of special interest, and suggest that the chronicler,ororhis hissource, did more than just reiterate the classic themes of the Cyrillo-Methodian tradition. The first of them is embedded in the phrase: "The Slavs rejoiced to hear the mighty works of God in their own tongue"; and in a later passage the Pope is made to declare: "All nations shall tell the mighty works of God, as the Holy Spirit will give them utterance."27 The latter citation is taken from Pope Hadrian II's letter to Rastislav, Svatopluk, and Kocel, as quoted in the eighth chapter of the Vita Methodii;28 and both of these quotations in the Chronicle are also derived, practically verbatim, from the second chapter of the Acts of the Apostles, verses four and eleven, which describes the descent of tongues of fire upon the Apostles at Pentecost. So far we are on familiar Cyrillo-Methodian ground, for the gift of tongues is a theme closely related to that of vernacular languages, and the Pope's citation of Acts II in the Vita Methodii implies that the appearance of the Slavonic liturgy and books can be regarded as a second Pentecost. However, these two Pentecostal quotations acquire an added significance if we relate them to the introductory part of the Primary Chronicle, which immediately precedes the first fragment of the Tale: this introduction, based largely, though not exclusively, on the Slavonic translation of the Byzantine chronicle of George Hamartolos,29 begins with the story of the division of the earth among the sons of Noah after the Flood, and ends with a brief account of the building of the Tower of Babel. The Russian version of the latter episode, based, it would seem, on a Slavonic version of a lost historical compendium 25

Povest', I, p. 23; Cross, p. 63.

26Cf. Jakobson, "Minor Native Sources," op. cit., pp. 43-4. 27 "I radi bysa sloveni, jako slysisa velicbja Boz,ja svoimi jazykomb .... Vsi vbz%glagoljutbjazyki velicija Bozbja, jako ze dastb imb Svjatyi Duchi otvescevati": Povest', I, p. 22; Cross, p. 63. 28 Vita Methodii, VIII, I3 (Grivec-Tomsic, p. 158). 29 Povest', I, pp. 9-ii; Cross, pp. 5 1-2. Cf. Shakhmatov, "Povest' vremennykh let i ee istochniki," op. cit., pp. 41-5; Povest', II, pp. 203-13; Cross, p. 231.

THE CYRILLO-METHODIAN

HERITAGE

IN RUSSIA

55

mainly derived from the chronicles of John Malalas and George Hamartolos,30 states that when the Lord scattered His people over the face of the earth, the pristine linguistic and ethnic unity of mankind gave way to a multiplicity of languages and nations. The Russian chronicler deliberately links this Biblical introduction to his account, which follows immediately, of the early history and dispersal of the Slavs, by placing them both among the heirs of Japheth and among the seventy-two nations which were scattered from the Tower of Babel. The conclusion seems inescapable that the chronicler wished to suggest a contrast between the former multiplicity of tongues and the present unity of the Slavonic languages, a unity to which Cyril and Methodius gave a new significance; and that he did so by implying that the Slavonic letters are an extension of the miracle of Pentecost whereby the Holy Spirit rescinded the confusion of tongues which sprang from the Tower of Babel. This contrast between Pentecost and Babel, which gives a new and more universal dimension to the work of Cyril and Methodius, is not, as far as I know, explicitly drawn in any other work of the mediaeval Cyrillo-Methodian tradition. One or the other of the two contrasting themes is touched upon occasionally: the Tower of Babel and the confusion of languages are mentioned in Khrabr's celebrated defence of the Slavonic letters, written in Bulgaria in the late ninth or the early tenth century;31 and, as Professor Jakobson has shown, the Pentecostal miracle is alluded to in a troparion of a canon to Cyril and Methodius, dating from the same period, which states that Cyril "received the grace of the Holy Spirit equal to that of the Apostles."32 It is true that the Prologue to the Holy Gospels, an Old Church Slavonic poem attributed by many scholars to Constantine himself, seems to go some way toward implying a contrast between Babel and Pentecost: its third line reads: "Christ comes to gather the nations and tongues" ;33 but only in the Russian Primary Chronicle are the two terms of the contrasting parallel clearly brought out. The origin of this idea is not hard to find: the contrast between Babel and Pentecost, and the belief that the latter has cancelled the former, are repeatedly emphasized in the Byzantine offices for Whitsunday. The kondakion of the feast makes the point with particular clarity: "When the Most High went down and confused the tongues, he divided the nations: but when He distrib80 Shakhmatov,

ibid., pp. 44-5, 72-7.

For the text of Khrabr's treatise 0 pismenechb, see P. A. Lavrov, Materialy po istorii vozniknoveniya drevneishey slavyanskoy pis'mennosti (Leningrad, 1930) (Trudy Slavyanskoy Komissii Akademii 31

Nauk SSSR), pp. 162-4;

I. Ivanov,

Bulgarski Starini iz Makedoniya,

2nd ed. (Sofia, 1931), pp. 442-6.

On Khrabr, see I. Snegarov, "Chernorizets Khrabur," Khilyada i sto godini: slavyanska pismenost, 863-1963. Sbornik v chest na Kiril i Metody (Sofia, 1963), pp. 305-19; A. DostAil, "Les origines de l'Apologie slave par Chrabr," Byzantinoslavica, 24 (1963), pp. 236-46; V. Tkadlcik, "Le moine Chrabr

et l'origine de 1'6criture slave,"

Byzantinoslavica,

25 (1964),

pp. 75-92.

The older literature

on the

subject is listed in G. A. Il'insky, Opyt sistematicheskoy Kirillo-Mefod'evskoy bibliografii (Sofia, I934), pp. 27-8; M. Popruzhenko and St. Romanski, Kirilometodievska bibliografiya za I934-I940 god (Sofia, 1942), pp. 30-I. 32

R. Jakobson, "St. Constantine's Prologue to the Gospel," St. Vladimir's Seminary Quarterly,

VII, i (1963),

p. I5. Cf. Lavrov,

see Jakobson,

op. cit., pp.

Materialy,

p. 113 (no. 22).

8 "Christosb gredetb jezyki sbbrati": Lavrov, ibid., p. 196; cf. R. Nahtigal, "Rekonstrukcija treh starocerkvenoslovanskih izvirnih pesnitev," Razprave Akademije Znanosti in Umetnosti v Ljubljani, filozofsko-filologko-histori6nirazred, I (i943), pp. 76-122; for an English translation of the Prologue, 16-19.

56

DIMITRI

OBOLENSKY

uted the tongues of fire, He called all men to unity."34We do not know whether this idea, which is so succinctly expressed in the Greek and Slavonic service of Pentecost and is also to be found in the writings of several Greek Fathers,35 was directly applied to the Slavs by the Russian chronicler, or whether he found it in his source, the Tale about the Translation of Books; be that as it may, the notion that the Slavonic peoples share in the Pentecostal abrogation of Babel can be regarded as a significant addition to the storehouse of CyrilloMethodian ideas. The chronicler's adaptation of the Tale about the Translation of Books shows how close was the connection in his mind between the conversion of the Russians to Christianity and their acquisition of the Cyrillo-Methodian vernacular tradition; by contrast, as we have seen, he did not know when and how this tradition first came to Russia. He is not much more informative on this point when he comes totothe reign of Vladimir. Yet common sense suggests that the establishment of Christianity as the state religion in his reign would have been impossible had not a Slav-speaking clergy preached the Gospel and celebrated the liturgy in the vernacular on a wide scale. But of this we know next to nothing. It is true that the so-called "Chronicle of Joachim," a seventeenth-century compilation, no longer extant, based on mediaeval sources, and discovered and quoted in part by the eighteenth-century historian Tatishchev, contains several statements which, if true, would give us just the facts we need. After Vladimir's conversion to Christianity, we are told in this source, Symeon, tsar of Bulgaria, sent to Russia "learned priests and sufficient books."36 The view that the "Chronicle of Joachim" is a fabrication by Tatishchev has been abandoned by historians generally,37and this particular piece of evidence is accepted as as genuine by a number of scholars.. . LavrovA. sky attempted to explain away the anachronistic connection between Vladimir 84 OTE Kcrapas -rasySXcbocas aVV?X?, E8sEpptaev ?Qvri6 YICTTOSOT?S TOU Tvp6Os Tas yXC'ocas si4veinEv, EIS vOTnTraTr&vTrasKx&eaE(TTevriKOCT-r&piov Xapp6ovuvov [Rome, 1883], p. 400). 35The idea that the Pentecostal miracle, by reuniting the languages of the earth, repealed the

confusion of tongues which followed the building of the Tower of Babel, implied by Origen (In Genesim, PG, XII, col. 112), was explicitly formulated by Gregory Nazianzen (Oratio XLI: in Pentecosten, PG, XXXVI, col. 449), John Chrysostom (De Sancta Pentecoste, Homilia II, PG, L, col. 467; In epistolam I ad Cor. Homilia XXXV, i, PG, LXI, col. 296), Cyril of Alexandria (Glaphyra in Genesim, II, PG, LXIX, cols. 77, 80), Cosmas Indicopleustes (The Christian Topography, ed. by E. 0. Winstedt (Cambridge, I909), bk. III, pp. 95-7), and the Emperor Leo VI (Oratio XII: in Pentecosten, PG, CVII, col. 128). Cf. A. Borst, Der Turmbau von Babel. Geschichte der Meinungen uber Ursprung und Vielfalt der Sprachen und Volker, I (Stuttgart, I957), pp. 236-9, 246, 249-50, 252, 262-3, 302. Gregory Nazi-

anzen expressed the contrast between Babel and Pentecost in the following terms: nTiTv rraivVET-ri pv rra;\ati& aipEles -rCav q*c)vwv T6OV 0O KaCi (fhv'Ka CpKO8O, UOVV TrCpYov KaKCOS Kal d&eECoS O6poCOVOVVTE, coarrEp CO vGv TpTcoaii TIVs) TNy&p TjS qcovis SiaacrTElt avv5ia?veiv 6TO oIoyvcoilov, -rTV Ey)Eip1iciv XaUCEV 8 f vUv eaupa-raToupyoup&v.'A-rr6 yap &vosHTvnu,ia-roseis -roXAois xveSiaa, E\Spiav appoviav &dISTraiVeTCOTipa col. 449). An Old Church Slavonic translation of this sermon by TrrAv Uavv&yeT-rai (PG, XXXVI, St. Gregory on Pentecost, preserved in an eleventh-century manuscript in Russia, existed there in the Kal

thirteenth century at the latest. See XIII slov Grigoriya Bogoslova v drevneslavyanskom perevodepo rukopisi Imper. Publichnoy Biblioteki XI veka, ed. by A. Budilovich (St. Petersburg, 1875), pp. iv, 270-82, esp. p. 281. For an English

translation

of this sermon, see A Select Library of Nicene and Post-

Nicene Fathers of the Christian Church, ed. by P. Schaff and H. Wace, VII (Grand Rapids, Michigan, 1955),

pp. 378-85.

36V. N. Tatishchev, Istoriya Rossiiskaya, I (Moscow-Leningrad, I962), p. 112. 37See S. K. Shambinago, "Ioakimovskaya Letopis'," Istoricheskie Zapiski, XXI (I947), pp. 254-70; M. N. Tikhomirov, in Tatishchev, ibid., p. 50.

THE CYRILLO-METHODIAN

HERITAGE

IN RUSSIA

57

and Symeon (who died half a century before the former's accession) by referring to the statement of the Byzantine chronicler Cedrenus that Romanus, son of the Bulgarian Tsar Peter, assumed the name of his grandfather Symeon.38 Romanus is believed by some historians to have been tsar of Bulgaria between about 979 and 997. However, though Romanus was undoubtedly a contemporary of Vladimir, it is far from clear that he ever reigned in Bulgaria.39A further statement in the "Chronicle of Joachim" seems to confirm that Vladimir's clergy was partly of Slavonic origin: the Byzantine authorities, it asserts, sent to Vladimir the Metropolitan Michael, a Bulgarian by nationality, to head the Russian Church.40This Michael, we may note, is mentioned as the first primate of Russia in several sixteenth-century sources.41However, tempting though it is to accept the statements of the "Chronicle of Joachim" on the penetration of a Slavonic clergy and books into Russia in the late tenth century, there are, in my opinion, too many uncertainties connected with this text to make it possible to regard it as reliable evidence. The earliest trustworthy account relating to the use of Slavonic in the Russian Church does, however, come from the reign of Vladimir; and it is supplied by the Primary Chronicle. In an entry dated 988, the chronicler tells us that after the Russians had been baptized Vladimir sent round to assemble the children of noble families, and gave thembeto benstructed instructed in book learning."42 It is prima facie highly improbable that the teaching in these earliest known Russian schools was conducted in Greek; some knowledge of the Greek language was doubtless imparted to the members of Vladimir's jeunesse doreaewho were destined for high office in the Russian Church; but there is every reason to believe that by "book learning" (ucenbekniznoe) the chronicler meant literary instruction in Slavonic. Evidence that this was so is provided by the chronicler's comment on Vladimir's schools, in a passage which immediately follows the account of their foundation: "When these children 38Cedrenus, Historiarum Compendium, II (Bonn), p. 455; P. A. Lavrovsky, "Issledovanie o Letopisi . 47-8. Cf. V. Nikolaev, Slavyanobulgarskiyat faktor v khristiyanizatsiyata . Yakimovskoy," op cit., na Kievska Rusiya (Sofia, 1949), pp. 80-8; V. Moshin, "Poslanie russkogo mitropolita Leona ob opresnokakh v Okhridskoy rukopisi," Byzantinoslavica, 24 (I963), p. 95. 39 Romanus, together with his brother Boris (the former tsar of Bulgaria) fled from Constantinople to Bulgaria about 979. Boris was killed on the way, but Romanus succeeded in joining the Comitopulus Samuel, who led the anti-Byzantine revolt in Macedonia. The statement of the eleventh-century Arab historian Yahya of Antioch that Romanus was proclaimed tsar of Bulgaria was accepted by V. N. Zlatarski (Istoriya na BiulgarskataDurzhava, I, 2 [Sofia, 1927], pp. 647-59) and by N. Adontz ("Samuel I'Arm6nien, roi des Bulgares," M6moires de l'Acad6mie Royale de Belgique, classe des lettres, XXXIX [I1938], p. i6). However, S. Runciman (A History of the First Bulgarian Empire [London, 1930], p. 221) and G. Ostrogorsky (History of the Byzantine State [Oxford, 1956], p. 267) point out, probably with better reason, that Romanus, being a eunuch, was disqualified from occupying the throne. 40 Tatishchev, Istoriya Rossiiskaya, I, p. 112. 41 Nikonovskaya Letopis', s. a. 988: Polnoe Sobranie Russkikh Letopisey, IX (St. Petersburg, i862), p. 57; Kniga Stepennaya Tsarskogo Rodosloviya, ibid., XXI, i (St. Petersburg, I908), p. 102. Both these sources describe Michael as a Syrian. Michael is also mentioned as the first metropolitan of Russia in several fifteenth-century manuscripts of the Church Statute of Vladimir: See Pamyatniki drevne-russkogokanonicheskogoprava, pt. 2, fasc. i, ed. by V. N. Beneshevich: Russkaya Istoricheskaya Biblioteka, XXXVI (Petrograd, I920), p. 4; cf. E. Golubinsky, Istoriya russkoy tserkvi, I, i, 2nd ed. 621, note 5. 190I), (Moscow, pp. 277-8I, 42 "Poslav%naca poimati u narocitye cadi deti, i dajati naca na ucenbe kniznoe." Povest', I, p. 8I; Cross, p. 117.

58

DIMITRI

OBOLENSKY

were assigned to study books in various places, there was fulfilled in the land of Russia the prophecy which says: 'In that day shall the deaf hear the words of a book, and the tongue of the dumb shall be clearly heard."'43There is, I submit, much significance in this Biblical quotation. It is a composite one, and is drawn from two different chapters of the Septuagint version of the Book of Isaiah, the first half from Isaiah 29: i8, the second half from Isaiah 35:6.44 In its original context it describes the change in Israel's relation to Jahweh, by which the people's blindness and stupidity will give way to knowledge and joy. "The words of a book" (XoyousPi[pAiov)are the commands of Jahweh, and these will be accepted when the book is unsealed45.These words of Isaiah are in the Primary Chronicle adapted to the Russian people's new relationship to God after their conversion to Christianity; and "the words of a book" (?o6yol PipXiou), by a translation both semantically accurate and creatively fitted to a new situation, are rendered in Slavonic as slovesa kniznaja, an expression which refers to the Christian Scriptures, but is also a technical term for the Scriptures and liturgy translated into the Slavonic tongue. The idea of applying the words of Isaiah to the Slav vernacular tradition was not an invention of the Russian chronicler. It has not, so far as I know, been observed that his conflation of the two quotations from Isaiah 29: 8 and Isaiah 35:6 has an exact parallel in the fifteenth chapter of the Vita Constantini, where they are likewise combined and placed in a similar context. This chapter, which describes Constantine's work in Moravia, opens with the following words: "When Constantine arrived in Moravia Rastislav received him with great honour and, having assembled some disciples, he gave them to him to be instructed. He soon translated the whole of the ecclesiastical office, and taught them the services of matins, the canonical hours, vespers, compline, and the sacred liturgy. And, according to the words of the prophet, the ears of the deaf were unstopped, and they heard the words of a book (kniz'naa slovesa), and the tongue of the dumb was clearly heard. 46The similarity between these two passages in the Primary Chronicle and in the Vita Constantini is striking: both contain the same composite quotation drawn from two different chapters of the Book of Isaiah; both apply the prophet's XoyousPhAiMXou to the Slavonic and there is an obvious vernacular; analogy between Rastislav's and Vladimir's educational measures: both are said to have assembled pupils and to have assigned them for instruction. There can be little doubt that the passage in 43 "Sim Me razdajanomL na ucenie knigam%,snbystbsja prorocestvo na rusbst6i zemli, glagoljusee: 'Vo ony dnii uslysati glusii slovesa kniznaja, i jasns- budetb jazykL gugnivych'," ibid. 44Kal dKoUaovrTalv T-ri pipa KEiVNI Kcocpol 6yous ip3X(ov(Is. 29: i8) ... Kai Tpav) r [oal yAcaaa voyiAaAcov(Is. 35 : 6). 45 See The Book of Isaiah, translated from a critically revised Hebrew text with commentary, by E. J. Kissane, I (Dublin, I960), p. 320. Cf. Is. 29: ii. 46 "DOSbdbSu {ejemu Moravy, STvelikoju cbstiju prijetb jego Rastislavb i uceniky sibravb i vsdastL i uciti. Vbskorb Me vrsb crbkovnyi cinb priimb nauci je utrbnici i casovomb i vecer'nii i pavecer'nici i tain6i slu'b6. I otvrLzose se prorocbskomu slovese usesa gluchyichib i uslysase knil'naa slovesa i jezykb jasbnib bystb gugnivyichb:" Vita Constantini, XV, 1-3 (Grivec-Tomsic, p. 131). In their translation of this passage Grivec and Tomsic erroneously derive the citations et apertae sunt ... aures surdorum and et lingua plana facta est balborumfrom Is. 35 : 5 and Is. 32 : 4, respectively (ibid, p. 202). They have also failed to observe that the words ut audirent verba scripturae are a quotation from

Is. 29 : i8.

THE CYRILLO-METHODIAN

HERITAGE

IN RUSSIA

59

the Russian Primary Chronicle is directly based on the opening section of the fifteenth chapter of Constantine's Life. And this leads to the following conclusions: firstly, borrowings by the Russian chronicler from the Vita Constantini are not confined to the early sections of the chronicle which go back to the Tale about the Translation of Books; secondly, the Russian chronicler, by making use of the fifteenth chapter of the Vita Constantini and quoting from it, implied a parallel between the introduction of the Slavonic liturgy and Scriptures into Moravia throughthe combined efforts of Constantine and Rastislav, and their transmission to Russia on the initiative of Vladimir; and thirdly, the chronicler was convinced that Vladimir's educational measures really marked the beginning of the vernacular Slav tradition in Russia: in which belief, as we have seen, he was not altogether correct. We know regrettably little about Vladimir's Slavonic schools; their beginth , to judge from the chronicler's nings cannot have been altoge ironic statement that the mothers of these conscripted pupils "wept over them, as though they were dead."47The brighter of these alumni, who must have become adults by the year iooo at the latest, doubtless formed the nucleus of that educated elite which produced the earliest works of Russian literature in the first half of the eleventh century.48 This and the following generation of scholars must have taken an active part in the second of Russia's educational reforms, promoted by Vladimir's son Yaroslav and to which I alluded at the beginning of this paper. This reform is described in the Primary Chronicle under the year 1037. Yaroslav, repeatedly termed a "lover of books," which he is said to have read frequently night and day, "assembled many scribes and had them translate from Greek into the Slavonic language. And they wrote many books." These books, we are told in a subsequent passage, were deposited by Yaroslav in the newly built church of St. Sophia in Kiev, the principal cathedral in the land.49 The origin and nationality of Yaroslav's translators are unknown. That some of them were Russians can scarcely be doubted. Others may have been Greeks or Slavs from Byzantium. It is very probable that the group included Bulgarian priests and scholars, some of them perhaps refugees who had fled their land after the Byzantine conquest in ioi8. It is not impossible that some were Czechs. It has been suggested that the traces of various Slav languages found in some translations current in Russia at the time indicate that Yaroslav's 47 Povest', I, p. 8i; Cross, p. 117.

48

On the Russian literature of the eleventh century, see M. N. Speransky, Istoriya drevney russkoy literatury, 3rd ed., I (Moscow, 1920), pp. 113-345; V. M. Istrin, Ocherk istorii drevnerusskoy literatury domoskovskogo perioda (Petrograd, 1922), pp. 118-57; A. S. Orlov, Drevnyaya russkaya literatura (Moscow-Leningrad, 1945), pp. I-93; N. K. Gudzy, Istoriya drevney russkoy literatury, 6th ed. (Moscow, I956), pp. 45-89, 96-104: English translation: History of Early Russian Literature (New York, 1949), pp. 84-146; D. Tschizewskij (Chyzhevsky), Geschichte der altrussischen Literatur im ii., 12. und 13. Jahrhundert (Frankfurt am Main, 1948), pp. 105-57, 174-99; id., History of Russian Literature from the Eleventh Century to the End of the Baroque (The Hague, 1960), pp. 20-81. The masterpiece of this literature, the Sermon on Law and Grace by Hilarion, metropolitan of Kiev, is the subject of an excellent critical edition and study by L. Muiller, Des Metropoliten Ilarion Lobrede auf Vladimir den Heiligen und Glaubensbekenntnis (Wiesbaden, 1962). 49 Povest', I, pp. 102-3;

Cross, pp. 137-8.

DIMITRI

60

OBOLENSKY

translators formed a kind of international commission.50 Here, however, the historian finds himself on peculiarly slippery ground: he cannot safely venture over it before he has an answer to three questions: What writings of Greek religious and secular literature were available in Russia in the early Middle Ages ? Which of these translations can with reasonable certainty be attributed to Russian hands ? And of these Russian translations, which were executed in the reign of Yaroslav, that is, between IOI9 and Io054? On none of these questions do philologists appear to have reached a consensus of opinion. A. I. Sobolevsky supposed that nearly all the extant translations made in Bulgaria in the ninth and tenth centuries were available in Russia during the first centuries after Russia's conversion.51 The same scholar drew up a tentative list of thirty-four of these translations which, in his opinion, were done by Russians in the pre-Mongol period. These include the Life of St. Andrew Salos, the Life of St. Theodore the Studite,the he Monastic Rule of Studios, the Christian Topography of Cosmas Indicopleustes, Josephus Flavius' History of the the Physiologus, Jewish War, the Romance of Alexander, the Bee (MEAiaaa), and the Devgenievo deyanie, generally regarded as a fragmentary Russian translation of an early version of Digenis Akritas.52V. M. Istrin, in his monumental edition and study of the Slavonic version of the Chronicle of Hamartolos, has argued that this work was translated in Kiev in the forties of the eleventh century, by a Russian member of Yaroslav's pool of translators.53 But this view has been disputed, or at least modified, by several scholars.54 Philologists are always reminding us how difficult it is to distinguish on linguistic grounds an Old Church Slavonic text written in Russia from one composed in Bulgaria or Bohemia, so homogeneous, until the end of the eleventh century, was the common Slavonic written tradition.55 And the historian who seeks to avoid the dangers of overemphasizing the cultural achievements of Kievan Russia must surely heed these words of caution. He will admit the contribution made by Russian scholars, in the eleventh century and later, to the available store of Old Church Slavonic translations from Greek; he will acknowledge that many, perhaps most, of the translations available in the Kievan period came from Bulgaria; and, to complete the picture, he will also recognize that some literary works stemming from the very area where Constantine and Methodius had worked-Moravia and Bohemia-were brought to Russia in the eleventh century. Among these works, written in the Czech recension of Old Church Slavonic and available in 50 51

See Chyzhevsky, Geschichte der altrussischen Literatur, pp. 69-70, 84. A. I. Sobolevsky, Perevodnaya literatura Moskovskoy Rusi XIV-XVII

vekov (St. Petersburg,

1903), p. v. 52 A. I. Sobolevsky,

"Materialy i issledovaniya v oblasti slavyanskoy filologii i arkheologii," Sbornik Otdeleniya Russkogo Yazyka i Slovesnosti Imp. Akademii Nauk, LXXXVIII (1910), no. 3, pp. i62-77. 53 V. M. Istrin, Khronika Georgiya Amartola v drevnem slavyanorusskom perevode, 3 vols. (Petrograd,

1920-2,

Leningrad,

54

1930),

esp. vol. II, pp. 268-309.

See N. Durnovo, "K voprosu o natsional'nosti slavyanskogo perevodchika Khroniki Georgiya Amartola," Slavia, IV (1925), pp. 446-60; P. A. Lavrov, "Georgy Amartol v izdanii V. M. Istrina," ibid., pp. 461-84, 55

(I953),

657-83.

See R. Jakobson, "The Kernel of Comparative Slavic Literature," Harvard Slavic Studies, I pp. 37-41.

HERITAGE

THE CYRILLO-METHODIAN

IN RUSSIA

61

the Kievan period, were the Martyrdom of St. Vitus, the Martyrdom of St. Wenceslas of Life of St. Wenceslas of BohemiaAppolinarius of Ravenna, and Gumpold's all translations from the Latin; and the original Slavonic Lives of St. Wenceslas and St. Ludmila.56 The cult of these two Czech saints in Kievan Russia is a striking but by no means isolated example of the close cultural and religious links which existed between Russia and Bohemia in the late tenth and in the eleventh century, atata time when Bohemia was still a living repository of the Cyrillo-Methodian tradition.57 Evidence of the Cyrillo-Methodian tradition in eleventh-century Russian literature is not confined to Old Church Slavonic writings imported into Russia from the Balkans and Bohemia. Significant traces of this tradition can also be found in the earliest products of native literature, composed in the Russian recension of Old Church Slavonic. In an anonymous Tale (Skazanie), written in the late eleventh or early twelfth century, describing the murder of the saintly princes Boris and Gleb, a parallel is drawn between their martyrdom and that of St. Wenceslas of Bohemia;58 and, as Professor Chyzhevsky has pointed out, the influence of Gumpold's Life of St. Wenceslas can probably be detected in the approximately contemporary Vita (Chtenie) of Boris and Gleb by the monk Nestor, and in the Vita of St. Theodosius of the Kiev a author.59 uthor.59 The The connection between the Monastery of the Caves by the same cult of St. Wenceslas and that of Boris and Gleb acquires added significance if we recall that relics of these two Russian saints were deposited inside the altar of the Abbey of Sazava in Bohemia, that important center of the Slavonic liturgy and literature in the eleventh century.60 It has been suggested by several scholars that the influence of the CyrilloMethodian tradition can also be detected in the attempts of some early Russian writers to define the place occupied by their nation within the Christian community. Professor Jakobson, in an essay entitled "The Beginnings of National Self-Determination in Europe," has argued that a distinctive feature of the Cyrillo-Methodian heritage was the idea that a language used for the celebration of the liturgy acquires a sacred character, which is then assumed by the people which speaks it; and the cognate notion that every nation has its own particular gifts and its own legitimate calling within the universal family of Christian peoples. This concept of national self-determination, he suggests, shaped the outlook of the early writers of Kievan Russia;61 and with this 66 On these and other works brought from Bohemia to Kievan Russia, see R. Jakobson, "Some Russian Echoes of the Czech Hagiography," Annuaire de l'Institut de Philologie et d'Histoire orientales

et slaves, VII

(1939-44),

pp. 155-80;

Central and Eastern Europe (London, Literature, pp. 41-8. 57 See Florovsky,

Chyzhevsky, 1949),

F. Dvornik, The Making of op. cit., pp. 100-i; Jakobson, The Kernel of Comparative Slavic

pp. 242-7;

Chekhi i vostochnye slavyane, I, pp. 11-58,

99-151,

158-99.

58Zhitiya svyatykh muchenikov Borisa i Gleba, ed. by D. I. Abramovich (Petrograd, 1916), p. 33. 59 D. Cyzevikyj (Chyzhevsky) "Anklange an die Gumpoldslegende des hi. Vaclav in der altrussischen Legende des hi. Feodosij und das Problem der 'Originalitat' der slavischen mittelalterlichen Werke," Wiener Slavistisches Jahrbuch, I (I950), pp. 71-86. 60 Ibid., p. 84; cf. Florovsky, op. cit., pp. 106-7, 128. 61 R. Jakobson, "The Beginnings of National Self-Determination in Europe," The Review of Politics, VII, i (1945), pp. 29-42.

DIMITRI OBOLENSKY

62

view the late George Fedotov, to judge from his book The Russian Religious Mind, would have concurred.62If the ideological basis of the Cyrillo-Methodian movement be thus defined, the theme of this paper could legitimately be widened to include a discussion of national and patriotic motifs in early Russian literature; and of the attitude of its writers to the Byzantine Empire and to its claims to world supremacy. But these are problems too large and complex to be discussed here. Enough, I think, has been said to show that the Cyrillo-Methodian inheritance was a vital force in eleventh-century Russia. IV We cannot, for lack of information, trace the continuous history of the Cyrillo-Methodian tradition in Russia after the early twelfth century. It is evidence becomes clearer and more only in the late Middle Ages that theevidene abundant. And this evidence suggests that in the late fourteenth and in the fifteenth century interest in the work of Cyril and Methodius, which may have flagged somewhat after the early twelfth century,63began to revive, and that attempts were made in that period to claim that their missionary activity, and particularly that of Constantine, had been directly connected with Russia. The motive forces behind these unhistorical constructions were probably a renewed interest in Russia's past history and international connections, a nationalistic desire of the Russians to claim some of the brothers' achievement for themselves, and, doubtless, genuine error. Thus, the anonymous Greek "philosopher," who in the Primary Chronicle delivers a speech of inordinate length, and dubious orthodoxy, to persuade Vladimir to accept Byzantine Christianity, is in two fifteenth-century chronicles given the name Cyril;64a Greek account of Russia's conversion to Christianity, the so-called Banduri Legend, preserved in a fifteenth-century manuscript and partly based on a lost Slavonic source, contains the colorful story of the dispatch by the Emperor Basil I to Russia of two missionaries, Cyril and Athanasius, who baptized the Russians and taught them the Slavonic alphabet;65 finally a Russian text, found in a manuscript of the Tolkovaya Paleya, copied in I494 and subsequently inserted in an account of the death of Cyril and the conversion of Vladimir, contains these words: "Be it known to all nations and all men ... that the Russian alphabet was by God made manifest to a Russian in the city of Cherson; from it Constantine the philosopher learned, and with its help he composed and

62 G. P. Fedotov, The Russian Religious Mind (New York, I960), pp. 405-I2. 63 See N. K. Nikol'sky, "K voprosu o sochineniyakh, pripisyvaemykh Kirillu Filosofu," Izvestiya po Russkomu Yazyku i Slovesnosti Akademii Nauk SSSR (1928), I, 2, pp. 400-2. 64 Povest', I, pp. 60-74, II, pp. 330-5; Cross, pp. 97-110; Novgorodskaya Chetvertaya Letopis', s.a. 986: Polnoe Sobranie Russkikh Letopisey, IV, i (Petrograd, I9I5), p. 6i; Sofiiskaya Pervaya

Letopis', s.a. 986: ibid., V (St. Petersburg, I85I) p.

15.

Cf. A. A. Shakhmatov, Razyskaniya o drev-

neishikh russkikh letopisnykh svodakh (St. Petersburg, I908), 65 The complete text of the "Banduri was

pp. 152-3, 23I, 558.

Legend" published by V. Regel (Analecta ByzantinoRussica [St. Petersburg, I891], pp. 44-5I; cf. ibid., pp. xix-xxxii) and by I. Sakkelion (Atlyrnais

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