Slovo o polku Igoreve

[Robert Orr]

Although I find the arguments that the Slovo is an 18th century (Masonic)
fabrication food for thought, very interesting, and ... great fun, there's
one piece of evidence in favour of authenticity which I'd like to cite:

Not only Slavists with the most varying interests, but also Turcologists
have commented extensively on the Slovo, and found it a useful source of
material, some of which occurs nowhere else.  The thought of  soemone in
the late eighteenth century being able to produce a fabrication that
could fool both Slavists and Turcologists is really stretching credulity.

Other roughly coeval fabrications (one of these is controversial, so
if anyone is interested, please reply off list) were revealed as such
precisely because the authors kept on mixing 18th/19th century forms with
medieval forms, did not have too great a knowledge of the idiom, or had
simply made wild guesses as to the nature of the material.

Robert Orr

On Fri, 1 May 1998, Marlene Thibault wrote:

> Dear fellow slavists
>
> I'm interested in opinions on the authenticity of the 'Slovo o polku
> Igoreve'.
> Do you believe it dates from around 1190 as originally supposed, or are you
> rather of the opinion it is a falsificate from the 18th century? And what
> are the arguments?
>
> Dorogiye 'so-slavisty'
>
> Mne interesuyut raznye mneniya o podlinnosti 'Slova o polku Igoreve'.
> Dumaete li Vy, chto ono napisano bylo okolo 1190, ili chto eto poddelka
> 18ogo veka? Kakimi argumentami osnovyvaete Vy Vashe mneniye?
>