Academic literature on the topic 'Inscriptions, Church Slavic'

The founder's inscription situated at the foot of the tambour in the Church of the Virgin in Studenica originating from 1208/9, is one of the oldest dated specimens of Serbian literacy. It was uncovered in 1951, during the conservation works in the monastery. Former research (conducted by Dj. Trifunovic), has ascertained that inscriptions on the scrolls, books and frescoes in the monastery were written by the Greek artists who decorated the church. Scribal errors indicate beyond any doubt that Slavic was not the mother tongue of the scribes, and that they were not, or at least not sufficiently, familiar with the orthography of this language. In this paper the main focus has been directed at the founder's inscription, which has been put under detailed orthographic and palaeographic scrutiny. The morphology of some letters ? the Greek "K", non-distinguishing between izica (ippsilon) and the Cyrillic "C" ? clearly indicates that in all probability the author of the inscription was a Greek, perhaps the very painter who signed his name in the Greek language on the Mandelion beneath the large founder's inscription.

В XVIII в. на основании общего интереса к святыням Востока, а также единой тенденции для крупных монастырей изготавливать гравюры на память для паломников, многие греческие гравюры свидетели русско-афонских отношений попадают на территорию Российской Империи. Сохранились такие гравюры и в Церковноархеологического кабинете Московской духовной академии, собрание которых насчитывает 29 эстампов. Пять гравюр из этого собрания имеют надписи на греческом и на славянском языке. Надписи свидетельствуют о месте и времени создания гравюры, о граверах и заказчиках, являются источниками кратких исторических сведений. В статье приведены выявленные дополнительные факты об этих гравюрах, которые свидетельствуют о наличии церковных, экономических и политических отношений на базе культурных связей между Российской Империей и странами православного Востока. The Russ has always been supporting the relationship with the Orthodox Church of the East. As a result of these connections, we have a lot of icons and other gifts from The Mount Athos, The Saint Catherine’s Monastery and others holy places. There are five Greek engravings in the collection of The Museum of Church Archaeology at the Moscow Theological Academy, which have inscriptions in Greek and Slavic. These engravings were to be spread in Slavic countries. They are dated from the 17th to the 19th century. Some of them were made in Moscow. The images and the inscriptions of the engravings are the subject of a research presented in this article.

The paper presents an analysis of personal and place names on the tombstones of necropolises surveyed during a three-year fieldwork in Podlasie province (Hajnówka region), the area of high concentration of Orthodox East Slavic population. Apart from reflecting local dialect features specific to the East Slavic language situation on the Polish-East Slavic borderland, these epigraphic inscriptions made in Cyrillic are also a confessional marker that is highly relevant to the regional Orthodox population’s self-identification. Tombstone inscriptions evidence to the overlapping of Belarusian, Ukrainian, Russian (Church Slavonic), and Polish language contexts. Graphics (Cyrillic) and spelling features of different types of tombstone onyms not only give a picture of ethno-confessional and ethno-linguistic contacts, but also reflect live pronunciation captured in writing. Regarding personal name as a core component of the epitaph and analyzing specific examples, the authors address the following questions: 1) what do graphics and spelling convey in each particular case — the sound form of a name or toponym, writing traditions, focus on a particular spelling norm? 2) what is the reason for the variability in the spelling of the same name, surname, toponym? 3) can we trace the general trends in personal and place names rendering in the local tradition under study? 4) what effect does the Polish (state) language have in the texts that do not aim to comply with Belarusian, Ukrainian or Russian literary spelling norm? In the epigraphy of the studied region, there is a clear preference for using different spelling systems (not necessarily consistent), as reflected in the use of the letters и, ы, i in different combinations. Hence, the Polish spelling sometimes affects the Cyrillic transliteration of some names and surnames.

The present paper deals with a long inscription which was uncovered in the autumn of 2015 on the external wall of the southern apse of the 12th century Transfiguration Cathedral in Pereslavl-Zalessky. It contains an almost fully legible list of assassins of the Vladimir-Suzdal prince Andrey Yuryevich, who was murdered in Bogolyubovo on June 29th, 1174. The writer places a curse on the murderers and wishes eternal memory to the prince. The graffito probably dates from 1175–1176 when Andrey’s younger brother Vsevolod Yuryevich ruled in Pereyaslavl. It is the oldest inscription from the North-Eastern Rus’ to have a fairly precise dating. The discovery corroborates the general accuracy of the chronicles in respect to the murder and serves as a source for the study of Old Russian princely titles and other terms of social hierarchy. Andrey Yuryevich is called the grand prince and his murderers are collectively given the pejorative name of parobki (servants) despite the high social status of at least some of them. As the first example of anathematising state criminals in Rus’, the inscription has relevance for church history as well. Valuable new information is provided by the list of assassins. It includes the names of 11–13 individuals. The list indicates that the main conspirator, the boyar Kuchcko's son-in-law named Peter was the son of someone named Frol. That Frol may have been the founder of the Church of Saints Florus and Laurus in the Moscow Kremlin. The patronymic of the third of the murderers Yakim Kuckovičь is spelled with a c., which may be an indication of Kuchko's Novgorodian origin. The fourth on the list is Ofrem Moizich. The authors accept the Arabic origins of Ofrem’s patronymic suggested by V. S. Kuleshov. The latter traces it back to the name Muʕizz which could have belonged to a Muslim from Volga Bulgaria. The fifth conspirator Dobryna Mikitich is tentatively identified as the Rostov boyar Dobryna the Tall. He played a prominent role in the feud triggered by the assassination of Andrey Yuryevich and perished in the Battle of Yuryev Field on June 27th, 1176. The last person on the list bears the rare Slavic name Styrjata which elsewhere is attested only in the 12th century graffiti inscriptions from the Annunciation Church at Gorodische near Novgorod. From the standpoint of linguistics the inscription demonstrates an advanced stage of the yer-shift. In this respect it is similar to the Novgorod birchbark letter No. 724 which dates from the same period. The inscription was read with the help of a three-dimensional model created by the RSSDA Lab. (https://rssda.su/ep-rus).

This paper analyses the single Greek inscription in the 12th century Holy Transfiguration Church of Nereditsa (Veliky Novgorod, Northern Russia). A mysterious text is reproduced on the scroll in the hand of John the Baptist on the fresco in the conch of diaconicon. Nowadays one can see the following sequence of letters and signs: + ΕVΡΗΚ‖ĀŌΜ. . .:; the photograph made before the destructions of the World War II allows to reconstruct the inscription as follows: + ΕVΡΗΚ‖ĀŌΜĒÌᾱ: (with a cross at the beginning and a final sign) which I will tentatively interprete as + ΕVΡΗΚA[μεν] [τ]O[ν] ΜE[σ]IA[ν]: “we have found the Messiah.” For a long time the epigraph was considered corrupt and there is no published interpretation of it. I will give a description of the epigraph (especially of some remarkable features in the usage of supralinear signs), identify the text as a citation from Jn 1:41, and I will also interpret the inscription in its historical and iconographic context. Not only the language is remarkable (other epigraphs in the church are Slavic), but also the text chosen (Jn 1:41) and the iconographic type of the Baptist (as a prophet). I will argue that there is a semantic connection between the text choice and the commemorative motives in the overall iconographic program of the church, and that the We of the Gospel citation can be associated with the two sons of the church founder (Prince Yaroslav) — both of them died one year before the church was decorated.

The panels of the baptismal font in the Split baptistery are in secondary use; they originally functioned as plutei – sections of the altar screen. All the panels are covered by abstract interlaced patterns except for one, which depicts three human figures, one of them a king on a throne. One of the panels, incompletely preserved, broken into two pieces, and embedded into the step in front of the altar of the baptistery most probably originated from the cathedral of Split. One fragment of a panel - pluteus from the Split cathedral would connect to the fragment of the panel from the step in front of the baptistery altar, so they most likely were part of the same unit. The origin of the panels for the baptismal font is unknown (they could be from different places). Nor is it known when they were secondarily used to build the baptismal font. It can be hypothesized with certainty only for one, the fragment built into in the step, that it originally came from the Split cathedral. The greatest attention is drawn to the relief depicting a king. Analysis of this relief has shown that an inscription was removed. It was also noted that the figure next to the king originally held an object in his hands, probably a scroll, which was also subsequently chipped off. The figure of the ruler has been variously identified as a Croatian king (Petar Krešimir IV, Zvonimir…), as a Byzantine emperor, as Charlemagne… The hypothesis seems particularly possible that King Zvonimir was depicted, considering his coronation in Solin in 1075, when he received his royal insignia from the pope. Conjectures are also frequent that this represents the Savior in glory, the figure of Christ, or even some Christian symbolism. A hypothesis was also suggested that the image of a ruler was in fact an illustration of an analogy from the Gospels about a cruel debtor who did not forgive his debtor (Mt. 18, 23-35), so that this would depict a king with the merciless debtor kneeling in front of him. The figure of the king from the story would, however, be an allusion to Christ as the heavenly king. Hence the relief with the figure of a king would not depict some specific secular ruler. Different hypotheses exist about the provenience of the panels: they would originally have been plutei of the altar screens of the Coronation Basilica in Solin (the Church of SS. Peter and Moses, at the site of the Hollow Church), from the monastery church of St. Euphemia in Split, from the Split cathedral … A new hypothesis is presented in this article. Some of the panels from the Split baptistery may have come from the demolished monastery church of St. Peter in Jesenice (sanctus Petrus in Sello/Selle, sanctus Petrus de Gumai, de Gumag…), which was founded by the magnate Petar Črnjin called Gumaj (Petrus Zerni qui et Gumai filus). The monastery church was quite large and three-aisled; many panels could have been in its altar screen. On one of these panels, which originally would have stood in the most prominent place in the church, by the entrance in the altar screen, it is possible that Petar Črnjin, King Zvonimir, and an individual (Streza) who had lost a dispute would have been represented. In fact, Petar Črnjin had a dispute in 1078 documented in Šibenik that was to be decided by King Zvonimir; the quarrel was with Streza – the king’s uncle, who had attempted to grab some land. But it is also possible that it is King Slavac who is depicted, and the prostrated individual could perhaps have been one of the Neretva tribe who had also lost a dispute with Petar Črnjin. After the monastery was closed in the 13th century, when the monastery estates were acquired by the archdiocese of Split, a new church was built at the same place in the 14th century, but to a much smaller scale. It is possible that some of the altar screen panels were then transported to Split, to be used as the panels of the baptismal font. On that occasion, the inscription that may have mentioned a king was probably removed.

The Glagolitic space refers to the area where in the Middle Ages or the Early Modern Period the Glagolitic script was used in texts of different genres and on different surfaces, and/or where the liturgy was held in Croatian Church Slavonic, adopting a positive and affirmative attitude towards Glagolitism. In line with known historical and social circumstances, Glagolitism developed on Croatian soil, more intensely on its southern, especially south-western part (Istria, Northern Croatian Littoral, Lika, northern Dalmatia and adjacent islands). Glagolitism was also thriving in the western periphery of that space, in today’s Slovenia and Italy, leading to the discovery and description of different Glagolitic works. It is the latter, their structure and language, that will be the subject of this paper. Starting from the thesis that innovations in language develop radially, i.e. starting from the center and spreading towards the periphery, it is possible to assume that in the western Glagolitic periphery some more archaic dialectal features will be confirmed among the elements of the vernacular. It is important that these monuments were created and used in an area where the majority language is not Croatian, so the influence of foreign language elements or other ways of expressing multilingualism can be expected. The paper will outline the Glagolitic activity in the abovementioned space and the works preserved therein. In order to determine the differences between Glagolitic works originating from the peripheral and central Glagolitic space, the type and structure of Glagolitic inscriptions and manuscripts from Slovenia and Italy will also be analysed, especially with respect to potential periphery-specific linguistic features. Special attention is paid to the analysis of selected isoglosses in the Notebook or Register of the Brotherhood of St. Anthony the Abbot from San Dorligo della Valle.

The paper analyses the linguistic aspect of biblical and liturgical quotations in the wall-inscriptions (graffi ti) of the 12th–15th centuries in the Churches of Old Rus’. Paleografic, orthographic and textual features of the liturgical graffiti characterize them as texts, reflecting both the norms of the Church Slavonic language in Russia and its regional variants, as well as features associated with the oral form of their existence.