Slovo o Polku Igorove Online?

[Alina Israeli]

If "Slovo" is a hoax, in other words a literary crime, there must be (if I
remember my Agatha Christie correctly) means, motif and opportunity. The
monk might have had the means (knowledge etc.), but what was his motif? Why
would he provide another culture with an epic work?

In the history of literary hoaxes and mistifications (Mérimée, for example)
there was some reason, but then there was also a desire to take credit for
it. Why would a Catholic(?) monk write a Russian epic? Why would one show
such a tour de force and not claim credit for it? At least eventually.

Opportunity should include the absence of witnesses. Even if composing took
no time at all (which is doubtful), writing it by hand surely took a lot of
time. Other monks should have gotten suspicious as to what is being
written. Not to mention the cost of paper in such quantities. Is it
possible that absolutely no one knew about the undertaking? And when the
manuscript was discovered, why no one would come forward? No one knew or
they all swore to a lie and no one told the truth even on the death bed?

Is there anything else in the history of world literature where a hoax was
created and whose author was not discovered till two hundred years later
based on circumstancial evidence?

Respectfully,
Alina Israeli

**************************************************************
Alina Israeli
LFS, American University                phone:  (202) 885-2387
4400 Mass. Ave., NW                     fax:    (202) 885-1076
Washington, DC 20016

aisrael at american.edu

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