The Codex Suprasliensis is a 10th-century

Cyrillic The Cyrillic script ( ), Slavonic script or the Slavic script, is a writing system used for various languages across Eurasia. It is the designated national script in various Slavic, Turkic, Mongolic, Uralic, Caucasian and Iranic-speaking co ...

literary monument, the largest extant

Old Church Slavonic Old Church Slavonic or Old Slavonic () was the first Slavic literary language. Historians credit the 9th-century Byzantine missionaries Saints Cyril and Methodius with standardizing the language and using it in translating the Bible and othe ...

canon Canon or Canons may refer to: Arts and entertainment * Canon (fiction), the conceptual material accepted as official in a fictional universe by its fan base * Literary canon, an accepted body of works considered as high culture ** Western ca ...

manuscript A manuscript (abbreviated MS for singular and MSS for plural) was, traditionally, any document written by hand – or, once practical typewriters became available, typewritten – as opposed to mechanically printed or reproduced i ...

and the oldest Slavic literary work in

Poland Poland, officially the Republic of Poland, is a country in Central Europe. It is divided into 16 administrative provinces called voivodeships, covering an area of . Poland has a population of over 38 million and is the fifth-most populou ...

. As of September 20, 2007, it is on

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Memory of the World Memory is the faculty of the mind by which data or information is encoded, stored, and retrieved when needed. It is the retention of information over time for the purpose of influencing future action. If past events could not be remembered, ...

list. The codex, written at the end or even in the middle of the 10th century, contains a

menaion The Menaion ( el, Μηναῖον; Slavonic: Минїѧ, ''Miniya'', "of the month") is the liturgical book used by the Eastern Orthodox Churchand those Eastern Catholic Churches which follow the Byzantine Rite containing the propers for fixed ...

for the month of March, intersecting with the movable cycle of Easter. It also contains 24 lives of saints, 23

homilies A homily (from Greek ὁμιλία, ''homilía'') is a commentary that follows a reading of scripture, giving the "public explanation of a sacred doctrine" or text. The works of Origen and John Chrysostom (known as Paschal Homily) are considered ex ...

and one prayer, most of which were written by or are attributed to

John Chrysostom John Chrysostom (; gr, Ἰωάννης ὁ Χρυσόστομος; 14 September 407) was an important Early Church Father who served as archbishop of Constantinople. He is known for his preaching and public speaking, his denunciation of ...

. The 284-folio (or 285-folio, according to some sources) codex was "discovered" in 1823 by Canon Michał Bobrowski in the Uniate Basilian monastery in Supraśl. In 1838, Bobrowski sent the last part of the manuscript in two pieces to Slovene philologist

Jernej Kopitar Jernej Kopitar, also known as Bartholomeus Kopitar (21 August 1780 – 11 August 1844), was a Slovene linguist and philologist working in Vienna. He also worked as the Imperial censor for Slovene literature in Vienna. He is perhaps best known ...

so that he could transcribe it. After Kopitar returned it, Bobrowski sent him the first part (118

folio The term "folio" (), has three interconnected but distinct meanings in the world of books and printing: first, it is a term for a common method of arranging sheets of paper into book form, folding the sheet only once, and a term for a book ma ...

s), however for unknown reason it was never returned to Bobrowski and was found in 1845 among the documents of the deceased Kopitar. It was later kept by the

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and now by the

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in Ljubljana. The largest part was bought for the private library of the

Zamoyski The House of Zamoyski (plural: Zamoyscy) is the name of an important Polish noble ( szlachta) family, which used the Jelita coat of arms. It is the Polish term for "de Zamość" (Polish "z Zamościa"), the name they originally held as lords of Z ...

family in

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. This part of the codex disappeared during

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, but later resurfaced in the

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and was returned by Herbert Moeller to Poland in 1968, where it has been held by the

National Library of Poland The National Library ( pl, Biblioteka Narodowa) is the central Polish library, subject directly to the Ministry of Culture and National Heritage of the Republic of Poland. The library collects books, journals, electronic and audiovisual publica ...

in Warsaw until the present day. The third part, consisting of 16 folios, is held by the Russian National Library in

Saint Petersburg Saint Petersburg ( rus, links=no, Санкт-Петербург, a=Ru-Sankt Peterburg Leningrad Petrograd Piter.ogg, r=Sankt-Peterburg, p=ˈsankt pʲɪtʲɪrˈburk), formerly known as Petrograd (1914–1924) and later Leningrad (1924–1991), i ...

. The codex was published by

Franz Miklosich Franz Miklosich (german: Franz Ritter von Miklosich, also known in Slovene as ; 20 November 1813 – 7 March 1891) was a Slovene philologist. Early life Miklosich was born in the small village of Radomerščak near the Lower Styrian town of Lju ...

(Vienna, 1851), Sergej Severjanov (''Suprasalьskaja rukopisь'', Saint Petersburg, 1904), and Jordan Zaimov and Mario Capaldo (Sophia, 1982–1983). Alfons Margulies produced a significant volume on the codex titled ''Der altkirchenslavische Codex Suprasliensis'' (Heidelberg, 1927). Folio 260 of the manuscript contains the note ''g(ospod)i pomilui retъka amin''. Some experts think retъka represents the name of a scribe (hence the occasional name ''Codex of Retko'') and that the text was copied from several sources. Research indicates that at least one of the sources may have Glagolitic (for Epiphanius' ''Homily on the Entombment''). Vocalizations of yers, rarely occurring epenthesis, change of ''ъ'' to ''ь'' behind hardened ''č'', ''ž'', ''š'' and some other linguistic traits point to its (Eastern) Bulgarian linguistic provenance.

References

* Заимов, Й., М. Капалдо, „Супрасълски или Ретков сборник“, том. 1, София, 1982, том. 2, София, 1983. * *

External links

{{commonscat, Codex Suprasliensis
Codex Suprasliensis manuscript - UNESCO - Memory of the World
at the Institute for Literature, Bulgarian Academy of Sciences

at the Corpus Cyrillo-Methodianum Helsingiense

at TITUS project Church Slavonic manuscripts Cultural history of Poland Eastern Orthodox liturgical books Memory of the World Register Suprasliensis, Codex Medieval Bulgarian literature Christian manuscripts 10th-century manuscripts South Slavic manuscripts Cyrillo-Methodian studies

See also

References

External links