The Charter of Ban Kulin (
Bosnian-Serbian-Croatian: Povelja Kulina bana / Повеља Кулина бана) was a trade agreement between the
Banate of Bosnia
The Banate of Bosnia ( sh, Banovina Bosna / Бановина Босна), or Bosnian Banate (''Bosanska banovina'' / Босанска бановина), was a medieval state based in what is today Bosnia and Herzegovina. Although Hungarian kings ...
and the
Republic of Ragusa
hr, Sloboda se ne prodaje za sve zlato svijeta it, La libertà non si vende nemmeno per tutto l'oro del mondo"Liberty is not sold for all the gold in the world"
, population_estimate = 90 000 in the XVI Century
, currency = ...
that effectively regulated Ragusan trade rights in Bosnia, written on 29 August 1189. It is one of the oldest written state documents in the region.
According to the charter, Bosnian
Ban Kulin
Kulin ( sh-Cyrl, Кулин; d. November 1204) was the Banate of Bosnia, Ban of Bosnia from 1180 to 1204, first as a vassal of the Byzantine Empire and then of the Kingdom of Hungary, although his state was de facto independent. He was one of B ...
promises to ''
knez'' Krvaš and all the people of Dubrovnik full freedom of movement and trading across his country. The charter is written in two languages:
Latin
Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through the power of the ...
and an old form of
Shtokavian dialect
Shtokavian or Štokavian (; sh-Latn, štokavski / sh-Cyrl, italics=no, штокавски, ) is the prestige dialect of the pluricentric Serbo-Croatian language and the basis of its Serbian, Croatian, Bosnian and Montenegrin standards. It ...
, with the Shtokavian part being a loose translation of the Latin original. The scribe was named as Radoje, and the script is
Bosnian Cyrillic
Bosnian Cyrillic, widely known as Bosančica is a variant of the Cyrillic alphabet that originated in medieval Bosnia. The term was coined at the end of the 19th century by Ćiro Truhelka. It was widely used in modern-day Bosnia and Herzegovina ...
(''Bosančica'').
Language
The Charter is the first diplomatic document written in the old Bosnian language and represents the oldest work written in the
Bosnian Cyrillic
Bosnian Cyrillic, widely known as Bosančica is a variant of the Cyrillic alphabet that originated in medieval Bosnia. The term was coined at the end of the 19th century by Ćiro Truhelka. It was widely used in modern-day Bosnia and Herzegovina ...
script (''Bosančica''). As such, it is of particular interest to both linguists and historians.
Apart from the
trinitarian invocation (''U ime oca i sina i svetago duha''), which characterizes all charters of the period, the language of the charter is completely free of
Church Slavonic
Church Slavonic (, , literally "Church-Slavonic language"), also known as Church Slavic, New Church Slavonic or New Church Slavic, is the conservative Slavic liturgical language used by the Eastern Orthodox Church in Belarus, Bosnia and Herzeg ...
influence. The language of the charter reflects several important phonological changes that have occurred in
Bosnian until the 12th century:
* loss of Common Slavic nasal vowels /ę/ > /e/ and /ǫ/ > /u/
* loss of weak ''jers'' (occurred during the 10th century; ceased to be spoken in the 11th century). Scribal tradition preserved them word-finally but they were not actually uttered.
* The vowel ''yeri'' /y/ never occurs word-initially, and turns to /u/ after /k, g, x/. In the 12th century it has a very limited usage, and starts being replaced with the vowel /i/, a change also attested in
Humac tablet
The Humac tablet ( sh-Cyrl-Latn, Хумачка плоча, Хумска плоча, separator=" / ", Humačka ploča, Humska ploča) is an Old Slavic epigraph in Bosnian Cyrillic script in the form of a stone tablet, believed to be variously da ...
.
* change of word-initial cluster vь- to /u/
History
The first to bring the charter to the public eye was Serbian émigrée
Jeremija Gagić
Jeremija Gagić ( sr, Јеремија Гагић; also spelled Jeremij Gagich; 1783 – 1859) was a secretary of the Serbian State Council (''Pravoteljstvujušči soviet serbski'') in the First Serbian Uprising and later became a Russian diplomat, ...
(1783–1859), the former
Russian
Russian(s) refers to anything related to Russia, including:
*Russians (, ''russkiye''), an ethnic group of the East Slavic peoples, primarily living in Russia and neighboring countries
*Rossiyane (), Russian language term for all citizens and peo ...
consul in Dubrovnik, who claimed to have saved the document in 1817. It was later known that the document was held in the
Dubrovnik Archive
Dubrovnik Archive or State Archive in Dubrovnik or Dubrovnik State Archive ( hr, Dubrovački arhiv, Državni arhiv u Dubrovniku) is the national archive in Dubrovnik, Croatia. Today archive is located in the Sponza palace, and holds materials cre ...
until at least 1832, when it was copied by
Đorđe Nikolajević and published in ''
Monumenta Serbica''. Nikolajević was entrusted with copying Cyrillic manuscripts from the Dubrovnik Archive (in the
Kingdom of Dalmatia
The Kingdom of Dalmatia ( hr, Kraljevina Dalmacija; german: Königreich Dalmatien; it, Regno di Dalmazia) was a crown land of the Austrian Empire (1815–1867) and the Cisleithanian half of Austria-Hungary (1867–1918). It encompassed the entir ...
) in 1832 for scholarly publication, at which time he stole the manuscripts, along with other manuscripts such as the 1249 charter of Bosnian Ban
Matej Ninoslav
Matej Ninoslav ( sr-cyr, Матеј Нинослав; died 1250) was the Ban of Bosnia in the period of 1232–50. Most of Bosnia was under the Kingdom of Hungary from 1235 to 1241. Ninoslav was also a Prince of Split in 1242–1244 during the loc ...
, the 1254 charter of Serbian King
Stefan Uroš I
Stefan Uroš I ( sr-cyr, Стефан Урош I; 1223 – May 1, 1277), known as Uroš the Great (Урош Велики) was the King of Serbia from 1243 to 1276, succeeding his brother Stefan Vladislav. He was one of the most important rulers ...
and ''župan'' Radoslav, the 1265 letters of Stefan Uroš I and the 1385 letters of
King Tvrtko I. Jeremija Gagić obtained the charter that Nikolajević stole, and sold or donated it to the Academy of Sciences 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 ...
, where it is held today. Dubrovnik Archive preserves another two copies of the charter.
Analysis
![Povelja bana Kulina](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/46/Povelja_bana_Kulina.gif)
The Saint Petersburg copy is in the literature usually called "the original" (or copy ''A''), and copies stored in the Dubrovnik Archive as "younger copy" (or copy ''B'') and "older copy" (or copy ''C''). At first it was thought that the Saint Petersburg copy, which was the first one to be published and studied, was the original and others were much younger copies (for example,
Milan Rešetar
Milan Rešetar (February 1, 1860 – January 14, 1942) was a linguist, historian and literary critic from Dubrovnik.
Biography
Rešetar was born in Dubrovnik. After the gymnasium in Dubrovnik, he studied classical philology and Slavic languages i ...
dated the copies B and C into the latter half of the 13th century) but that was called into question by later analyses. According to a study by
Josip Vrana Josip () is a male given name found among Croats and Slovenes, a cognate of Joseph.
In Croatia, the name Josip was the second most common masculine given name in the decades up to 1959, and has stayed among the top ten most common ones throughout 2 ...
, evidence that copy A represents the original remains inconclusive at best, and according to a comparative analysis that copy represents only a conceptual draft of the charter according to which the real original was written. Copies B and C are independent copies of the real original, which was different from the copy A.
Palaeographic analysis indicates that all three copies of the charter were written in approximately the same period at the turn of the 12th century, and that their scribes originate from the same milieu, representing the same scribal tradition. Their handwriting on the one hand relates to the contemporary Cyrillic monuments, and on the other hand it reflects an influence of the Western, Latin culture. Such cultural and literary opportunities have existed in the
Travunia
Travunia ( sh-Latn-Cyrl, separator=" / ", Travunija, Травунија; el, Τερβουνία, Tervounía; grc, Τερβουνία, Terbounía; la, Tribunia) was a South Slavic medieval principality that was part of Medieval Serbia (850–13 ...
–
Zeta
Zeta (, ; uppercase Ζ, lowercase ζ; grc, ζῆτα, el, ζήτα, label= Demotic Greek, classical or ''zē̂ta''; ''zíta'') is the sixth letter of the Greek alphabet. In the system of Greek numerals, it has a value of 7. It was derived f ...
area which encompassed the Dubrovnik region at the period.
Copy A probably, and copies B and C with certainty, originate from the scribe who lived and was educated in Dubrovnik and its surroundings.
Linguistic analysis however does not point to any specific characteristics of the Dubrovnikan speech, but it does show that the language of the charter has common traits with Ragusan documents from the first half of the 13th century, or those in which Ragusan scribal offices participated.
Given that Ragusan delegates participated in the drafting of their copy, everything points that a scribe from Dubrovnik area must have participated in the formulation of the text of the copy A.
However, that the final text was written at the court of Ban Kulin is proved by how the date was written: using ''odь rožьstva xristova'', and not the typical first-half-of-the-13th-century Dubrovnikan ''lěto uplьšteniě''.
Legacy
It is regarded part of Bosnian, Serbian and Croatian literature. According to Bosnian author Rusmir Mahmutćehajić, the charter is of great significance in Bosnian national pride and historical heritage.
Notes
References
*
*Fejzić, Fahira. "Povelja Kulina bana–međunarodna zakletva, diplomatsko-trgovinski ugovor i svjedok vremena." Godišnjak Bošnjačke zajednice kulture» Preporod « 1 (2009): 143-148.
*Sivrić, Ivan. "POVELJA KULINA BANA DUBROVNIKU." Suvremena pitanja 6 (2008): 174-177.
*Jalimam, Salih. "O LATINSKOM TEKSTU U POVELJI BANA KULINA." Istrazivanja: Casopis Fakulteta Humanistickih Nauka 11 (2016).
*Peco, Asim. "Povelja Kulina bana u svjetlosti štokavskih govora XII i XIII vijeka–u." Osamsto godina Povelje bosanskog bana Kulina, 1189-1989 (1989).
*Vukomanović, S. "Leksika i gramatička značenja u Povelji Kulina bana, u: Osamsto godina Povelje bosanskog bana Kulina 1189–1989." Posebna izdanja ANUBiH, knj 23 (1989): 77-97.
*Karavdić, Zenaida. "O Povelji Kulina bana–“Bez’v’sega z’loga primysla”."
*
*{{cite web, title=The Charter of Kulin Ban, 1189, url=https://ecommons.cornell.edu/bitstream/handle/1813/2235/kulin_ban_1189.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y
Links
Bosnia Yearns for Return of Its ‘Birth Certificate’ Balkan Insight, 07 SEP 17
Medieval documents of Bosnia and Herzegovina
Republic of Ragusa
1189 in Europe
12th century in Bosnia
12th-century documents
Cyrillic manuscripts
Bosnian Cyrillic texts