TRANSLATORS’ PREFACES IN GERMANIC AND SLAVIC DOMAINS OF THE NINTH CENTURY: TRADITIONAL TOPOI AND NEW ELEMENTS

Despite the numerous statements about the cultural backwardness of Slavic people (and Russians in particular) compared to their Western contemporaries, which are still voiced by both foreign and domestic scholars, the extant documents of the ninth and tenth centuries (translators’ prefaces being the most interesting case) show that at this early stage of Slavic Christianity the worldview and «cultural literacy» of those Slavs who carried out early translations were very close to those of their Western European counterparts. The prefaces to literary works and translations completed among Germanic (Teutonic and Anglo-Saxon) and Slavic people in the ninth century demonstrate similar concerns of their authors (translators) and similar approaches to addressing these issues. The alleged author of the Macedonian Cyrillic Folio (MCF) (Cyril Constantine), his younger contemporary Constantine of Preslav, Otfrid von Weissenburg and King Alfred in their prefaces (both prosaic and poetic) assert the necessity to translate into or compose religious texts in vernacular and place their work in a wider cultural context. In order to achieve this they refer to previous or contemporary missionary projects (Otfrid), existing translations of sacred texts (King Alfred) or religious authorities that seem to have endorsed vernacular translations of certain, if not all, religious messages (MCF). The latter also contains references (sometimes preserved in the text itself, sometimes reconstructed by researchers) to St. Paul, his alleged disciple (Pseudo)-Dionysius the Areopagite and Cyril of Alexandria. In this way the translators appropriate the cultural and symbolic capital associated with these texts and figures, whose Christian history was in some cases as old as Christianity itself. The prefacesэ’ authors also give more or less detailed descriptions of the procedure (Otfrid) and/or formulate the principles of their translation (MCL, King Alfred) and specify particular problems, for example, dealing with the difference in grammatical gender between a Greek or Latin noun and their Slavic or Teutonic equivalents, which might have been important in biblical discourse where words had both direct and symbolic meanings and referents. The prefaces also contain traditional topoi of this type of paratext, such as captatio benevolentiae and humility topos, as well as some reflections upon the moral and ethical significance of their enterprise. The prefaces reveal the formation of national identities and even the nascent national pride of Slavic and Germanic peoples.

translator’s preface, topoi, early Slavic and Germanic translations (9^th century), Macedonian Cyrillic Folio, Constantinr of Preslav, Otfrid von Weissenburg, King Alfred

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