The Codex Suprasliensis is a 10th-century

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literary monument, the largest extant

Old Church Slavonic Old Church Slavonic or Old Slavonic ( ) is the first Slavic languages, Slavic literary language and the oldest extant written Slavonic language attested in literary sources. It belongs to the South Slavic languages, South Slavic subgroup of the ...

canon Canon or Canons may refer to: Arts and entertainment * Canon (fiction), the material accepted as officially written by an author or an ascribed author * Literary canon, an accepted body of works considered as high culture ** Western canon, th ...

manuscript A manuscript (abbreviated MS for singular and MSS for plural) was, traditionally, any document written by hand or typewritten, as opposed to mechanically printed or reproduced in some indirect or automated way. More recently, the term has ...

and the oldest Slavic literary work located in

Poland Poland, officially the Republic of Poland, is a country in Central Europe. It extends from the Baltic Sea in the north to the Sudetes and Carpathian Mountains in the south, bordered by Lithuania and Russia to the northeast, Belarus and Ukrai ...

. As of September 20, 2007, it is on

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Memory of the World UNESCO's Memory of the World (MoW) Programme is an international initiative to safeguard the documentary heritage of humanity against collective amnesia, neglect, decay over time and climatic conditions, as well as deliberate destruction. It ca ...

list.

Description

The codex, written in Medieval Bulgaria(https://iztok-zapad.eu/image/catalog/materials/Suprasylski_sbornik.pdf) at the end or even in the middle of the 10th century, contains a menaion for the month of March, intersecting with the movable cycle of Easter. It also contains 24 lives of saints, 23 homilies and one prayer, most of which were written by or are attributed to

John Chrysostom John Chrysostom (; ; – 14 September 407) was an important Church Father who served as archbishop of Constantinople. He is known for his preaching and public speaking, his denunciation of abuse of authority by both ecclesiastical and p ...

. 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 Paper size, sheets of paper into book form, folding the sheet only once, and a term for ...

s), however for unknown reasons it was never returned to Bobrowski and was found in 1845 among the documents of the deceased Kopitar. It was later kept by the Ljubljana Lyceum and now by the National and University Library of Slovenia in Ljubljana. The largest part was bought for the private library of the Zamoyski family in

Warsaw Warsaw, officially the Capital City of Warsaw, is the capital and List of cities and towns in Poland, largest city of Poland. The metropolis stands on the Vistula, River Vistula in east-central Poland. Its population is officially estimated at ...

. 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 (, ''BN'') is the national library of Poland, subject directly to the Polish Ministry of Culture and National Heritage. The main seat of the National Library is located in the Ochota district of Warsaw, adjacent to the Mo ...

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

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. The codex was published by

Franz Miklosich Franz Miklosich (, also known in Slovene as ; 20 November 1813 – 7 March 1891) was a Slovenian philologist and rector of the University of Vienna. Early life Miklosich was born in the small village of Radomerščak near the Lower Styrian town ...

(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. From May 2024, the part held by National Library of Poland is presented at the permanent exhibition in the Palace of the Commonwealth in Warsaw.

References

Sources

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External links

{{commons category, Codex Suprasliensis
The Codex Suprasliensis Project
at Obdurodon
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 biblical manuscripts Cultural history of Poland Eastern Orthodox liturgical books Memory of the World Register Suprasliensis, Codex Medieval Bulgarian literature Bulgarian manuscripts 10th-century manuscripts South Slavic manuscripts Cyrillo-Methodian studies Manuscripts in the National Library of Poland

Description

See also

References

Sources

External links