Manuscrisele slavone de la biblioteca filialei Cluj-Napoca a Academiei Române. Studiu monografic şi antologie de texte

Abstract

Even if Romania takes its name from ancient Rome and its inhabitants speak a Romance language, its Slavic heritage is of considerable importance. Situated between Serbia, Bulgaria, and Russia, medieval Moldavia and Wallachia adopted Slavonic both as the language of public administration and as the liturgical language of the Orthodox Church.1 As such, it was also used by Romanians living in Transylvania.2 Until the nineteenth century, the Romanian language was written in Cyrillic characters, then superseded by a Latin alphabet.3This Slavic heritage is reflected in rich collections of Slavonic manuscripts conserved in Romanian libraries, such as the Library of the Romanian Academy in Bucharest and its branch in Cluj-Napoca, the country’s second-largest city. This book by Anca Libidov, based on her PhD thesis and recently published by Editura Etnologică, presents and analyzes the thirty-seven Slavonic manuscripts conserved in Cluj. Among them are epistle books, gospel books, psalters, prayer books, hymnals, lives of saints, collections of religious and philosophical writings, and an Italian grammar written in Russian. Overall, these texts were compiled between the fifteenth and the eighteenth centuries in countries such as Transylvania, Moldavia, Wallachia, and Russia. Displaying vast erudition, Libidov accurately defines their peculiarities from various perspectives, with reference to structure, content, and language.More precisely, in the first part of the book, she describes every manuscript based on the following scheme: dating, geographical provenance, format, number of pages, language, paper, watermark, binding, decoration, ink, index of contents, margin notes, state of preservation, and places where the manuscript was conserved before reaching the Library of the Romanian Academy branch in Cluj. Bibliographical references complete each summary.The second part of the book examines about fifty different kinds of watermarks on the paper of the manuscripts with the goal of more precisely dating the texts. Watermarks also offer interesting information on the economic, political, and cultural relations between the Romanian lands and the rest of Europe. Those of Venetian origin, for example, refer to the extensive trade between the Italian city and the Balkans in medieval and early modern times. As is well known, Venice played a leading role not only in glassmaking, but also in papermaking and book production. In addition to paper, Latin, Greek, and Slavonic books printed in Venice reached Romania (as their presence in libraries of Wallachian metropolitans and princes demonstrate),4 not to mention other luxury articles like Venetian silverware, which were purchased by Wallachian noblemen.5The third part of the book investigates the language of the manuscripts, ranging from stylistic problems to linguistic aspects. In particular, the author dwells upon the peculiarities of five gospel books conserved in the collection. This highly technical section is especially useful for scholars and readers with a good command of Church Slavonic.The book concludes with an anthology of facsimile texts, an exhaustive bibliography in various languages, and a rich iconography.Beyond its contents, the monograph by Libidov confirms and strengthens the image of Romania as a bridge “between East and West.”6 The provenance of some manuscripts from Russia, as well as watermarks from Polish, German, and Italian paper mills, clearly reflect the international relations of Romanian principalities, with their identities balanced among the Latin, the Byzantine, and the Slavic worlds.