Slovo o polku Igoreve

Mon May 4 17:00:29 UTC 1998

On 04.05.1998 19:42 Uhr ABoguslawski at rollins.edu wrote:
>I am happy that the list found another fascinating topic to discuss,
>but...  It is hard for me to understand (and believe) that even today
>there are scholars who doubt the authenticity of the Slovo.

Yes, there are, and not the most ignorant: the late John L.I. Fennell
(Oxford, see his Early Russian Literature. London 1974), or Walter
Schamschula (Berkeley). The debate is still on. I recommend reading in
particular the works by A. A. Zimin, V. P. Kozlov's brilliant study
"Kruzhok A.I. Musina-Pushkina i Slovo o polku Igoreve", Moskva 1988, and
Ernst Trost: "Entwicklung und Stand der Kontroverse um die Echtheit des
Igorliedes". Symposium Slavicum. Ed. Erich Wedel, Innsbruck 1980, p.
149-162.

> I am not
>Russian and cannot be blamed for exaggerated patriotism, but I think
>that enough was written about Igor to put to rest Mazon's inventions.

Inventions? Did you read Mazon's book ???

>First of all, there is linguistic evidence.  Slovo is an authentic
>12th-century work and nobody in the 18th-century Russia had enough
>knowledge of linguistics to write a forgery of this kind.  Secondly,
>Robert Mann, if I am not mistaken, wrote a convincing study of folk
>background of Slovo, again proving that it is original and fits in the
>literary and folklore tradition.
>Third, Likhachev showed very clearly
>that Zadonshchina is a secondary work which used Slovo as its basis, but
>failed to understand the cultural layers of the original and thus
>appears as an anachronistic work (Likhachev uses the term literary
>etiquette and proves that Zadonshchina, by using Slovo without all the
>necessary scholarly apparatus, violates the literary etiquette).

No wonder that Zadonshchina "failed to understand" the cultural layers of
the "original", for they *don't fit* into the religious, cultural and
political context of pre-Mongolian Rus' after the sack of Kiev by Andrej
Bogoljubskij (they neither fit before).
With all respect for Lixachev, but you have to consider that before 1986,
there was an "official thesis" concerning "drevnerusskij narod" and the
like, with a special preference for "pagan", pre-Christian "Russian
elements" as fundaments of "nationbuilding" and "statefounding". You
could name Rybakov as well. Cf. D. Ostrowski: The Christianization of
Rus' in Soviet Historiography: Attitudes and Interpretations, 1920-1960.
In: Harvard Ukrainian Studies 11 (1987), 444-461.

>Finally, the message of the work is simple -- a call to unity (again,
>appropriate for the 12th century) and obedience to the grand prince.  In
>the 14th-15th centuries, such a call is no longer valid because of the
>leading role of Moscow in the Russians' fight with the Mongols.

Yes, but this exactly is the point: it is not so simple, at least for
historians, once you don't stick to "official" historiography. Have a
start with these titles: A.N. Nasonov: Russkaja zemlja i obrazovanie
territorii drevnerusskogo gosudarstva. Moskva 1951; J. Pelenski: The Sack
of Kiev of 1169: Its Significance for the Succession to Kievan Rus'. In:
Harvard Ukrainian Studies 11 (1987), 303-316; H. Paszkiewicz: The Making
of the Russian Nation. London 1963; C.J. Halperin: The Concept of the
Russian Land from the 9th to the 14th Century. In: Russian History 2
(1975), 29-38, and: The Concept of the Ruskaia Zemlia and Medieval
Russian National Consciousness. In: Nationalities Papers 8:1 (1980),
75-94; P. Bushkovitch: Rus' in the Ethnic Nomenclature of the PVL. In:
Cahiers du Monde Russe et Sovietique 12 (1971), 296-306, and: The
Formation of a National Conciousness in Early Modern Russia. In: Harvard
Ukrainian Studies 10 (1986), 355-376; maybe my own modest contribution as
well: Von der Sakralgemeinschaft zur modernen Nation. Die Entstehung
eines Nationalbewusstseins unter Russen, Ukrainern, Weissruthenen im
Lichte der Thesen Benedict Andersons. In: Formen des nationalen
Bewusstseins im Lichte zeitgenoessischer Nationalismustheorien. Ed. Eva
Schmidt-Hartmann. Muenchen 1994, 197-232.

>As far
>as the pagan elements are concerned, they all fit quite well into the
>overal poetic/folkloric spirit of the work.

But don't you agree that it is one thing that they "fit" into the spirit
of the work, and another thing whether they actually represent medieval
spirituality?

Or is this just a quantite negligeable, because the sense for the
spiritual doesn't mean anything to us (well, to some of us)? Why is this
artistic use of pagan Gods unique to early East Slav literature and
thinking? Or did the writer read the works by Alanus ab Insulis or
Bernardus Silvestris from the School of Chartres who, in their works,
used Greek Gods as metaphoric representations of Christian virtues? One
must remember that the author uses names that are known from folk-lore,
but *the way* he uses them is *not folk-lore at all*, but "bookish",
learned. Where did the author learn about Greek mythology and its
attributions? To compare with authentic "christian-pagan", dvoeverie
popular spirituality, just read A. Afanas'ev: Poeticeskie vozzrenija
slavjan na prirodu. 3 vol., Reprint Moskva 1994, or G. Fedotov: Stixi
duxovnye: Russkaja narodnaja vera po duxovnym stixam. Reprint Moskva
1991.

>All this has been analyzed
>and elucidated much better by countless specialists who did extensive
>research of chronicles, folklore, and primary and secondary sources.

I bow to the specialists and their authority, yet there are other (maybe
not "countless") specialists with differing opinions as well, and
"Authority" (with a big "A") should never be the convincing factor in
scholarship, even if the name is Lixachev. Accuracy is much better.
Besides, I do research on my own, so I don't speak just from hearsay.

>Ascribing the work to some Masonic individual is, pardon my indignation,
>senseless.  If such an individual (genius) existed, he would have given
>us some other proofs of his incredible talents.

The author is unknown, it would be pure speculation to identify "some
Masonic individual" or any other individual as such. But the kruzhok of
the "discoverers" *had* a Masonic background, and there *were* political
goals going hand in hand with the edition. This is *fact*. And it would
contribute to a better understanding of the genesis of the Slovo, if this
wouldn't be ignored.

Regards,

Markus Osterrieder

*************************************************

Markus Osterrieder, M.A.

u9511bw at mail.lrz-muenchen.de

CeltoSlavica - where East meets West
<http://www.geocities.com/~celtoslavica>

********************************************************