The Latest Revision of the "Slovo o polku Igoreve", or Was Jaroslav of Halyč Really Shooting from His 'Altan' in 1185?

Abstract

SEER,Vol. 82,1O. 4, October 2004 Review Article The LatestRevisionof the Slovo opolku Igoreve, or WasJaroslavof Halyc ReallyShootingFromHis 'Altan' in i I85?* ANDRII DANYLENKO Keenan, Edward L. Josef Dobrovskj and the Originsof the Igor' Tale. Harvard Series in Ukrainian Studies. Ukrainian Research Institute andDavis CenterforRussianand EurasianStudies,Harvard. Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA, 2004. xxiii + 54I pp. Appendices. Bibliography. Indices. $49.95: /32.95. LONG anticipated and pre-advertised in the milieu of Slavic, and especially Russian medievalists'who are familiarwith the outstanding scholarly achievements of Edward L. Keenan, the book under review may be regarded as one of the latest attempts to revive the debate concerning the origins of the SlovoopolkuIgoreve or Igor'Tale(hereafter, the IT). Along with his articlein the Festschrift of Roman Szporluk2and, in Ukrainiantranslation,in the literaryjournal K?ytyka,3 both published in 2000, as well as a note in TheSlavonic andEastEuropean Review about Andrii Danylenko is a lecturer in Modern Languages at Pace University, New York. * I would like to express my sincere thanks to the following scholars who provided valuable bibliographical suggestions for revision of an earlier version of this review article: Michael S. Flier (Harvard University) and Diana Gosselin Nakeeb (Pace University, New York City). 1 It is worth mentioning a special roundtable on the Igor' Taleat the Convention of the American Association for the Advancement of Slavic Studies in Pittsburgh (November 2002), and a reference to Keenan's research in footnote 33 in H. Birnbaum and R. Romancuk, 'Kem byl zagadocnyj Daniil Zatocnik? (K voprosu o kul'ture ctenija v Drevnej Rusi)', TrudyOtdeladrevnerusskoj literatury, 50, I997, p. 583. 2 E. L. Keenan, 'Was Iaroslav of Halych really shooting Sultans in I I 85?', in Z. Gitelman et al. (eds), Cultures andNationsof Central andEasternEurope.Essays in HonorofRomanSzporluk, Cambridge, MA, 2000 (hereafter, 'Was Jaroslav of Halych really shooting Sultans'), PP. 313-29. 3 E. Kinan [Keenan], 'Slovo pro te, jak Jaroslav, knjaz' halyc'kyj, u sultaniv striljav', Kgytyka (Kyiv), I2, 2000, 38, pp. 4-7. Several reviews of this publication, all written by Ukrainians (!), appeared subsequently in Ukraine and Russia: 0. Mysanyc, 'Dovkola 'Slova", LiteraturnaUkrajina(Kyiv), 30 August 200I, p. 7; B. I. Jacenko, 'V plenu sobstvennykh mistifikacij (po povodu statej E. Kinana [Keenan] i G. Grabovica [Grabowicz ])', Russkajaliteratura, 2, 2002, pp. 98-i o6. The most interesting review was published in a newly-founded Ukrainian scholarly journal: V. Nimcuk, 'Juvilejna ataka na "Slovo o polku Ihorevim" ' (hereafter, 'Juvilejna ataka'), Ukrajins'ka mova(Kyiv), I, 2002, pp. 3- I 7. Unfortunately, the latter review remained unknown to E. L. Keenan. Otherwise, he might have made necessary corrections in some of his most audacious readings. 922 THE LATEST REVISION OF THE IGOR T TALE Turkiclexical elements in the ITand the Zadonscina,4 Keenan's volume fits well into the paradigm of scholarly scepticism about the Russian Beowuzf. Heralded by a series of studies published in the 1930s-40s by Andre Mazon, a persistent challenger of the authenticity of the IT, the scepticism triggerednumerous replies by no less staunch defenders of the ITs authenticity,headed by R. Jakobson in the West and, almost simultaneously, by D. Lichacev and others in the Soviet Union. As Keenan argues, Jakobson's was the most trenchant refutation of Mazon's hypothesis, although the bulk of the subsequent defence of authenticitycame from the work of Soviet scholars (pp. I8-20). They also led the charge against a dissenting view expressed in I963 by A. Zimin, a Soviet medieval historianwho, after substantialresearch, mounted what became a major challenge to the traditional view as cultivated in the Soviet world. While esteeming Zimin's approach to the textual nexus in the IT as compared with the Zadonscina and the Apostol of 1370, Keenan asserts,in a wittingly deprecating aside, that Zimin's attempts to deal with the complex questions of comparative Slavic historical grammar and lexicology were often unconvincing, especially in the light of amateurish endeavours to find acrostic or numerological 'keys'to the riddlesof its origin(pp. 22, 26).5 Based on Keenan's introductoryremarks,one might expect him to carryout in his researchseveralinterrelatedtasks,which pertain both to the 'externalevidence' about the originsof the IT, and to the realm of 'comparative Slavic...