Life of Stefan Dečanski by Danilo's Student and by Grigorij Camblak: Comparative Analysis

Abstract

The purpose of the article is to show how two authors, one Serbian and the other Bulgarian, saw the great Serbian ruler and how they composed his biography. Even though the authors were not contemporaries, their work exhibits similar pattern. However, they write in different styles, and their views and opinions differ. In this article, we will try, with a comparative method, to reliably present the life of Stefan Dečanski from the point of view of two great medieval writers. We set the goal to research biographies of Stefan Dečanski as accurately, neutrally, and objectively as possible, which were written by Danilo's student and by Grigorij Camblak. Our task is to identify all the parts in the biographies that are similar, and then those that are mentioned only in one of the listed works. Given the complexity of the topic, we used a set of methods of which the comparative is dominant. The article consists of two parts - the first gives an overview of ancient Serbian literature and explains medieval biography as a genre, while the second talks about Danilo's student and Grigorij Camblak, the similarities and differences in their work, and then compares what they wrote about. In the end, we concluded everything that was said. The beginnings of authorial literature and works, which are the subject of the article's research, brought with them a new approach to the process of writing, which reached a higher level of artistic formation of biographies. Even though the authors wrote within the canon and observed, to a greater or lesser extent, the stylistic features of everyday literature, they participated in the creation of reality and the spiritual world, as well as a selection of excerpts from the biography of the ruler. Old Serbian literature is rich in genres such as biographies, words of praise, prayers, liturgical songs, messages, etc. The genres of Serbian literature of the Middle Ages and the new century do not match: in the old Serbian literature, there are no novels, stories, historical stories, which we will display in this article. Our research does not stop at the fact that Danilo's student writes in one way about a great historical figure, while Grigorij Camblak writes differently about the same person. We set out to show, through a genre definition, the extent to which these two writers differ and what their view of Stefan Dečanski was. We will try to explain that both authors created their works for certain reasons, which are mostly different, but sometimes similar. Both wrote intending to create a cult of the Serbian king. This article will try to achieve this goal - to answer the question and show the result of a comparative analysis of the works of two authors with the same topic.