Slovo o polku Igoreve

[Jason Pontius]

>The text, regardless of its source, is universally considered a brilliant
>work. If someone can identify an author of the late 18th century who was
>capable of writing at this level, then I would accept the forgery theory.

So far I don't think anyone has mentioned the theory (promoted by Edward
Keenan of Yale in a memorable debate here at the U of C) that the author is
the great Czech theologian and philologist Josef Dobrovsky.

It's been a while, but as I understand it the argument relies on three
basic points: (1) that Dobrovsky had the opportunity to see the manuscript
of Zadonshchina before it was made public in the 1790's; (2) that JD,
without question one of the great linguistic minds of his time, had the
requisite philological knowledge to write the Igor Tale, or to provide
linguistic advice to the manuscript's author; and (3) that no mention of
the IT occurs _anywhere_ before around 1790.  I'm a bit unclear as to what
Dobrovsky's motive for forging an Old Russian document would be; but the
argument is intriguing.


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Jason Pontius
Slavic Languages and Literatures
University of Chicago
japontiu at midway.uchicago.edu

The Slavic Dungeon:  http://humanities.uchicago.edu/orgs/slavgrad