Academic literature on the topic 'Serbian Christian literature'

The focus of the paper is on the eulogiae that Sava of Serbia, on his pilgrimage in the Holy Land, sent to the abbot of Studenica, Spyridon: a little cross, a little belt, a little towel and a little stone. In his letter accompanying the gifts, the earliest surviving work of Serbian epistolary literature, Sava points to their prayer and protective function. Sava?s eulogiae are looked at against the background of Eastern Christian devotional practices.

During the twentieth century Serbian poetry was in intensive dialogue with Christian religion, motives and symbols. In the first half of the century, the inspiration to the Christian religion is evident in the poetry of Jovan Ducic and Momcilo Nastasijevic. In the poetry of Momcilo Nastasijevic there are frequent motives from The Book of Revelation and the reference to Christian ethics. Jovan Ducic in the book Lirika (1943) gives a tragic and sublime vision of life, taking on numerous Christian motives. The renewal of the prayer tone in poetry after World War II will appear in Desanka Maksimovic?s collection Trazim pomilovanje (1964). The culmination of Christian religiosity in Serbian literature of the last century is found in the book Cetiri kanona (1996) by Ivan V. Lalic, in which the figure of the Virgin Mary is especially emphasized.

Since the Battle of Marica (1371), there has been in the Serbian literature an increasing tendency to recognize "signs" of the fulfillment of pristine prophecies that the Ismaelits would subdue the Christians, that all liturgy would come to an end and such suffering ensue that the living would envy the dead. Prophecies originating from the time of the spread of Islam regained topicality at the time of the spread of the Ottoman power and the breakdown of the Christian states headed by the Byzantine Empire. This pessimistic tenor was only intensified by the belief in the 84 "last years", the years of suffering and sorrow, between the thirteenth 532-year Great Paschal Cycle (6916 = 1st September 1407 ? 31st August 1408) and the year 7000 (1st September 1491 ? 31st August 1492). .

Medieval Serbian philosophy took shape mostly through the process of translating Byzantine texts and revising the Slavic translations. Apart from the Aristotelian terminological tradition, introduced via the translation of Damascene?s Dialectic, there also was, under the influence of the Corpus Areopagiticum and ascetic literature, notably of John Climacus? Ladder, another strain of thought originating from Christian Platonism. Damascene?s philosophical chapters, or Dialectic, translated into medieval Serbian in the third quarter of the fourteenth century, not only shows the high standards of translation technique developed in Serbian monastic scriptoria, but testifies to a highly educated readership interested in such a complex theologico-philosophical text with its nuanced terminology. A new theological debate about the impossibility of knowing God led to Gregory Palamas? complex text, The Exposition of the Orthodox Faith. Philosophical texts were frequently copied and much worked on in medieval Serbia, but it is difficult to infer about the actual scope of their influence on the formation and articulation of the worldview of medieval society. As a result of their demanding theoretical complexity, the study of philosophy was restricted to quite narrow monastic, court and urban circles. However, the strongest aspect of the influence of Byzantine thought on medieval society was the liturgy as the central social event of the community. It was through the liturgy that the wording of the translated texts influenced the life of medieval Serbian society.

Dimitrije Matic (1821-1884) was a philosopher, jurist, professor of public law at the Belgrade Lyceum and politician. He served as Serbia?s Minister of Education and Church Affairs, acting Foreign Minister, Speaker of the Parliament, and member of the State Council. He was president of the Serbian Society of Letters and member of the Serbian Learned Society. Matic belonged to Serbian liberal-minded intellectual circles. He believed that the rule of force was unacceptable and that governments should promote and support popular education. Matic studied philosophy and law in Serbia (Kragujevac, Belgrade), Germany (Berlin, Heidelberg) and France (Paris), and received his doctorial degree in philosophy in Leipzig. In Berlin Matic embraced Hegel?s speculative philosophy and theory of state (philosophy of law). Among his professors were Georg Andreas Gabler (Hegel`s immediate successor), Otto Friedrich Gruppe, Wilhelm Vatke etc. In Halle he listened to another Hegelian, Johann Eduard Erdmann. He had the opportunity to attend Friedrich Schelling?s lectures on the philosophy of mythology. If the Right Hegelians developed Hegel?s philosophy along the lines they considered to be in accordance with Christian theology, and the Left Hegelians laid the emphasis on the anti-Christian tendencies of Hegel?s system and pushed it in the direction of materialism and socialism, Matic would be closer to the first. Actually, he was mostly influenced by his professor Karl Ludwig Michelet, with whom he established a lifelong friendship. Matic?s doctorial thesis (Dissertatio de via qua Fichtii, Schellingii, Hegeliique philosophia e speculativa investigatione Kantiana exculta sit) addressed the question of how the philosophy of Fichte, Schelling and Hegel developed from Kantian speculative thought. The paper deals with the question whether Matic took a shift from Hegelianism to Positivism (Naturalism) in the 1860s, which is a claim that was taken for granted in the Yugoslav (Serbian) Marxist histories of Serbian philosophy after the Second World War and Communist revolution. In fact, it is rooted in Milan Kujundzic-Aberdar?s (1842-1893) periodization of the Serbian philosophical literature. Kujundzic, professor of Philosophy at the Belgrade Great School, classified Matic?s Science of Education into the latest period of natural philosophy. In order to answer the question, the paper looks into the evolution of Matic?s philosophical, legal and political views. Matic followed Hegelian philosophy in his: Short Review (according to Hegel?s ? Psychology in Encyclopaedia of the Philosophical Sciences); Principles of Rational [Vernunftrecht] State Law [Staatslehre] according to Heinrich Zepfel?s book on the philosophy of law (Grunds?tze des allgemeinen und des konstitutionell-monarchischen Staatsrechts and Hegel?s Philosophy of Law) and History of Philosophy (according to Albert Schwegler?s History of Philosophy). There is nothing in Matic?s Science of Education that would corroborate the claim that he shifted from Hegelianism to Positivism. Though he had to attune his views to the changed, anti- Hegelian, intellectual climate and influences on academic life, he remained a Hegelian. The paper deals with the reasons why the Marxist histories of Serbian philosophy insisted on his alleged conversion.

The reception of the classical book heritage in the Biography of Despot Stefan Lazarevic of Constantine the Philosopher (of Kostenec) is noticed through the conspicuous reminiscences on classical antiquity, but it is also manifested through the use of artistic procedures of classical literature and the author?s high estimate of the accomplishment of pre-Christian Greek thought. In the first two types of classicism Constantine surpasses other medieval Serbian writers, while in the third he is unique among them, so his relying on classical tradition in this work is the result both of literary conventions caused by the choice of the genre of secular biography and of his belonging to the most liberal section of medieval Christian intellectuals.

An apotheosis of old age.The motif’s functionality in the medieval Serbian literatureIn the paper, atheme of the old age is undertaken in order to present it as abroad plane of meanings, representing forms and imaginative constructions, which, inscribed in the concrete context that is, the realm of the medieval culture and literature of Serbia, establishes aspecific point of departure for considerations on the perception of the human age from the historical, ideological, theological perspective, etc. The principal problem of the reflection is aproblem regarding the form and function of the old age motif, its permanence and changeability in the sphere of the phenomenon’s examination, perceiving determined by many factors concerning above all the civilization type of culture, sum of its historical experiences, and the social integration level resulted from the whole of the general public and its world view comportments. There are many cultural and literary examples of realization and functionality of the old age motif in the medieval era, accompanied by their basic monographs, however, they mainly refer to the Latin, West Christian circle. In this accurate context, the output of the Eastern Christian world together with the Old Church Slavonic domain is rarely invoked and disputed. Undertaking the problems conjoined with the old age, it is therefore worth using the old writing of the Old Church Slavs, of which part is the Old Serbian literature. This literature may be interpreted as the motif’s representation, its widely usage and significant illustration.Апотеоза старости. Функционалност мотивау средњовековној српској књижевностиУ реферату се представља тема старости на примеру средњовековне српске књижевности. На темељу изабраних текстова, углавном житијних, указује се мотив позних година, његова адаптација, реализација и функција у књижевном и идејном простору. Овај мотив разматра се пре свега у односу на библијску традицију, али такође он се овде анализира у широм културном аспекту. Дакле, у раду пропитује се начин функционисања мотива, објашњава се његово присуство у конкретним књижевним сценама – у казивању о смрти или опису јуначког одласка у монашки живот. Преглед неких од најчешћих икарактеристичних остварења теме старости у српским кнјижевним текстовима средњега века, доноси закључак да се она појављује као разнолика и чврсто повезана са многим другим културним топосима, да је она снажно обележена библијским узором, и коначно да укњижевности њено присуство и реализација су одраз једног, у великој мери позитивног/апотеозног, менталног става средњовековног – религиозног човека према људској судбини у овом и оном свету.

The New Testament episode of the Last Supper has powerful images of the suffering Jesus; of Judas, the evil disciple who betrayed him; and of Peter, the good but fainthearted disciple, who—torn between his loyalty to Jesus and his self-preservation instinct—denied his master three times in the course of a few hours, only to re-emerge as one of Christ’s most faithful apostles. This episode does not only reflect the relation of the early Church to the Jews but was also used for centuries to construct and reconstruct the relations between the two religious communities. Symptomatically, the name of the disciple who plays a diabolical role in the scene, Judas, is an eminently Hebrew (Jewish) name. Even more interestingly, it ‘happens’ to be identical with the ethnonym of the Judeans, the descendants of the biblical tribe of Judah, the inhabitants of New Testament Judaea, the later Jews. The anti-Semitic potential of the New Testament’s Last Supper was often used in traditional Christian society for creation and nourishment of anti-Jewish sentiments; or, even worse, as a pretext for anti-Jewish actions on the part of the elites (legislation, mass expulsion, etc.) or the common masses (riots, pogroms, etc.).

The Zemun Hospital - "Zemun" Medical Center is the oldest medical institution in Serbia that has been operating without interruption throughout its existence. Different dates have been noted in the literature related to its opening, but the one most often mentioned is February 25, 1784, and this date has been confirmed by a document found in the Zemun Magistracy. The first sanitary institution formed in Zemun was the Kontumac, which opened as early as 1730. Shortly after that, two confessional hospitals were also opened. The Serbian (Orthodox Christian) Hospital, which started working before 1769, and the German (Catholic) Hospital opened in 1758. In order to improve the work of these hospitals, a decision was made to merge them into one - the Town Hospital, when the General Command ordered the Magistracy of the Town of Zemun to pool the funds of the existing hospitals and commence work on building a new hospital building. Although financially united, the hospitals continued, for a time, to work in separate buildings. The physical merging of the hospitals was finalized in 1795. From that time to this day the Zemun Hospital has been working without interruption, even in wartime. It has today grown into a modern clinical and teaching center.

The 1840 murder of a notable 19th century Bosnian dignitary Smail-aga Cengic immediately inspired strong artistic production in the South Slav literature and oral tradition. These narratives, comprising newspaper articles, oral epic songs, and particularly Ivan Mazuranic?s literary epics written in the manner of oral folk epic, presented and codified Smail-aga as a bloodthirsty tyrant whose ultimate aim was to terrorize and extinct his Christian subjects. In distinction, some marginalized local narratives and oral folk tradition, which will be examined in this article, remembered Smail-aga as a righteous and merciful lord, protector of his flock and a brave warrior. Thus, when we scrutinize several versions of oral songs about the death of Smail-aga recorded between 1845 and 1860, as well as later collected anecdotes from his native Herzegovina, it appears that his hostile portrayal in written literature was rather the contribution of the Serbian and Croatian Romantic nationalists around the mid- 19th-century than an actual popular perception of him among local people in the region that he lived with. In conclusion, the article advocates for a wider consideration of the overall polyphonic narrative tradition and the revitalization of traditional narratives that glorify values which transcend strict religious, ethnic and national divisions as a way of reimagining and revaluating relationship of the South Slavs towards the Ottoman heritage.