Secular Texts Research Articles

Women Readers and Writers in Medieval Iberia: Spinning the Text by Montserrat Piera

Reviewed by: Women Readers and Writers in Medieval Iberia: Spinning the Text by Montserrat Piera Connie L. Scarborough Piera, Montserrat. Women Readers and Writers in Medieval Iberia: Spinning the Text. Brill, 2019. 483 pp. ISBN: 978-90-04-40037-5. In this ambitious project, Piera focuses on women’s production and reception of texts and on how women’s interaction with other forms of material culture has, or has not, been woven into the historical record. From the outset, the author recognizes the complexities of studying women’s participation in the literary as well as the socio-economic spheres due to the nature of the documentation and sources available. Despite this acknowledgement, she skillfully navigates existing materials and presents a coherent thesis. The book is divided into two main sections: women as readers and women as writers. The latter consists of two subsections: women writing in the court and those writing in the convent. In the first part, Piera points out that reading for women heretofore often has been viewed as a challenging endeavor due to the widely-accepted paradigm of the virgin-prostitute dichotomy so prominent in literary texts. But she disputes this divide, noting that women were capable of seeing this dichotomy as an abstract one and she examines other material sources available to them, such as oral instruction or the visual arts, which would have presented them with more nuanced forms of knowledge. While the author devotes an extensive chapter to the works of preachers and moralists, she focuses on the fact that not all women would have internalized their teachings about the inferiority and rightful place of women in society. In discussing their interaction with secular texts, for example, works of courtly romance or querrelles des femmes, she notes that women readers would have been exposed to the principle of sic et non and thus would have participated in active engagement with these texts —intellectually questioning, criticizing, and resisting them. In the section on women writers associated with the court, Piera devotes one chapter to the writings of Violant de Bar, Queen of Aragon, and another to Leonor López de Córdoba. She asserts that they “could be as close to [the] epicenter of power as men and that they were capable of employing a variety of tactics to ensure that they would remain in that valued position . . . writing was one of the most advantageous and indispensable of such tactics” (176). The author’s analysis of Violant’s writings and other performative acts calls into question some earlier evaluations [End Page 181] of the queen as vain, overly ambitious, or meddling in the affairs of state. In her study of the Memorias of López de Córdoba, she challenges the usual interpretation of this work as female autobiography and places it in its historical context, participating in revising Trastamaran efforts to legitimize the reign of Enrique II and seeking to obtain her own political and social advancement. The author’s reassessment of the Memorias highlights one of the central purposes of her book —to recognize the resistance element in women’s writing and in their interaction with written texts and other forms of cultural production. Turning her attention to women writing in the convent, Piera examines Constanza de Castilla’s Libro de devociones y oficios. Rather than simply analyzing Constanza’s treatise as a private devotional or as a spiritual aid intended for the nuns of the convent Santo Domingo el Real, she sees it as part of larger sensorial and emotional experiences that included illuminations, songs, and reenactments. The author also postulates new readings for two works by Teresa de Cartagena —Arboleda de los enfermos and Admiraçión Operum Dey. With regard to Arboleda most critics have evaluated it as autobiography and as a consolation text in the tradition established by Boethius and Pedro de Luna. She stresses that Teresa is not “writing about her own self as a modern subject might in an autobiography but to bond with her readers and listeners, particularly those who suffer illnesses, which, incidentally, is what gifted preachers would also do in order to emotionally reach his listeners . . .” (334) Admiraçión, in which Teresa defends...

О ВЛИЯНИИ СТИЛИСТИЧЕСКИХ ПРИНЦИПОВ С. И. ТАНЕЕВА НА ОТЕЧЕСТВЕННУЮ ХОРОВУЮ МУЗЫКУ XX ВЕКА

The article touches upon the unique combination of Taneyev’s stylistic principles, which consists in an organic synthesis of protective and innovative features. Taneyev consciously turns to the polyphony of strictly writing, Baroque music and Viennese classicism in forming his own individual compositional style. The paradox is that Taneyev acted as an innovator who foresaw a vision for the future of music through the prism of the distant past. Stylistic principles such as historicism of thinking, rational approach to creativity and leading role of counterpoint forms became the basis of new trends in music art of the XXth century. A special area of the composer's innovative achievements is choral music. Taneyev founded of a number of genre trends that developed in the XXth century, among them a lyrical-philosophical cantata, "spiritual concert" vocal-instrumental and symphonic music, a choral a cappella cycle to secular text.

Aspects of rendering the sacred Tetragrammaton in Medieval Slavic religious and secular texts

Aspects of rendering the sacred Tetragrammaton in Medieval Slavic religious and secular texts

New Legends of England: Forms of Community in Late Medieval Saints’ Lives, by Catherine Sanok

Following the Norman Conquest, there was a resurgence of interest in, and writing about, English saints. Catherine Sanok argues here that, by the end of the fourteenth century, there was barely any interest in them apart from the South English Legendary (SEL). This situation had rapidly reversed by 1420, and there began an outpouring of Middle English writing of English saints’ lives which continued after the introduction of print and was still visible at the Reformation and Dissolution. In a detailed and thought-provoking new study, Sanok proposes that this should be regarded not simply as a narrative revival but as a literary phenomenon which explored ‘competing forms of secular and religious community’ at every level. Using complex-system theory following Sassen, Sanok offers a new methodology for examining these apparently diverse texts. Her key assumption is that late medieval English saints’ lives constitute a system of formal networks which use form variably to explore a concept, in this case community. Her threefold approach is to identify and question how these literary works reveal concerns about community; to examine how these concerns were played out in a ‘dizzying array’ of literary genres (epic, prose, verse and even translation between genres) in a manner more usually seen in secular texts; and to study all these different texts and forms as a whole, searching for communality underlying their variety, to see how they engaged with topical issues of interest to the historian of the late medieval period.

BACHELOR’S MANUSCRIPT COLLECTIONS AS A AS PREVIOUS SCHOOL SONGS COLLECTIONS THE LAST THIRD OF THE NINETEENTH CENTURY

Relevance of the study. Prerequisites for the emergence of the practice of printing special school singers (60-ies of the XIX - the first third of the twentieth century) in Ukrainian scientific thought have been little studied. Today there is no music-bibliographic information base on these publications, analysis of their repertoires, no creation of song lyrics. Only a small number of these singers have been partially investigated so far. Before the first printed singers appeared, the primary function of codifying song lyrics was performed by private handwritten singers who composed in the 18th and first half of the 19th century. Most of them have not been investigated either. The subject of the study is to draw attention to the manuscript singers of the 18th – mid 19th centuries. which were concluded and transcribed by bachelors (students) and regarded as having become the prototype of the first printed school singers in the second half of the nineteenth century. The main focus is on the unique Galician-Volyn manuscript singer (compendium), which included parts of various baccalaureate collections created for the period 1759–1821. The manuscript is kept in the Ivan Franko Archive (Institute of Literature of Ukraine. No. 4791). Methodology of the study. The basis of the study consists of: the method of historical reconstruction, applies the historical review analysis and synthesis are applied. Scientific novelty. The article analyzes a unique handwritten school singer from 1759 to 1821. Among the scribes and owners of some parts of the collection, as evidenced by marginalia, were bachelors from the cities and villages of Galicia and Volhynia was presented to Ivan Franko by a well-known Enlightenment figure in Galicia, Bohdar (Bohdan) Kyrchiv. circulation of important marginal records of the collection, evaluation of the singer’s content, analysis of individual song texts, etc. The overwhelming majority of analytical material was introduced before the scientific circulation, and some secular texts were first considered by Ivan Franko. Conclusions. The source analysis of the handwritten singer, which included fragments of several manuscript collections of 1759 – 1821, allows marginal records to confirm: during the XVIII - the first half of the nineteenth century. The prerequisites for the appearance of the first printed school singers were gradually formed. This is evidenced by the song repertoire of the collections, partly by their structure, the need and the interest of bachelors in creating handwritten singers for their own needs. It is remarkable that this evolutionary path from the manuscript to the print edition has passed through the centuries Ukrainian literary writers, collectors of spiritual songs, the first printed singers with texts of secular (folk). In the second half of the nineteenth century. the need for the creation of printed school singers, whose genesis has been documented since the beginning of the eighteenth century, has finally matured.

My 600 Pound Pilgrimage

This essay studies the TLC channel reality show My 600 Pound Life as a manifestation of the religious ritual of pilgrimage. The influence of popular culture upon religion, and of religion upon popular culture, is well established. Of special interest is the study of ritual, a highly formal discourse and practice. Because of its formal nature, ritual may be found across both sacred and secular texts and practices. Discourses may perform a ritual function vicariously for an audience. When a ritual is of religious origin, it appeals to an audience’s sense of religious meanings and authority. One central ritual pattern, of religious origin but found widely in secular discourse and practice, is the pilgrimage. This essay explains the major formal components of a pilgrimage, and then using a method of rhetorical homology, identifies My 600 Pound Life as formally a pilgrimage. The ideological commitments induced in an audience through formal appeal are discussed in this particular case. The essay shows the value of looking for religious form in the secular, the value of studying pilgrimage specifically, and the value of the method of rhetorical homology.

Phraseological Unit <i>Judgment Day</i> (rus. <i>Sudnyy den’</i>): Its History and Semantic Shifts in the Modern Political Discourse

The modern political discourse has actualized the word combination “sudnyy den’” (judgment day) known to many languages and cultures practicing monotheistic Abrahamic religions. The article analyzes the meanings of the phraseological unit in different discourses and its functions. It has been found that the unit “sudnyy den’” can perform the nominative function when it names one of the main Judaic holidays - Yom Kippur. The word combination becomes a phraseological unit with a characterizing meaning when it denotes a religious concept - judgment of the people in the end times. The article reveals and describes the differences in the understanding of the unit in the Christian (Orthodox) and Islamic Russian language discourses and shows the process of metaphorization of the unit in secular texts in which the actualization of the component “sud” (judgment) brings about the emergence of a new meaning of the unit not recorded in dictionaries (the phraseological unit begins to denote a vitally important event: the judgment day or the judgment hour is looked forward to as a moment of truth). Special attention is given to the semantic shift of the phraseological unit under the influence of films and computer games (elimination of the moral-didactic component, its substitution by salient visual images), and to the phraseological derivatives which have become urgent in the political discourse and are associated with the threat of a new world war.

Spiritual Exercises in Three Humanistic Contexts

Spiritual Exercises in Three Humanistic Contexts Matthew Wickman Spirituality is famously transformative, a quality that is at once promising and threatening. In December 2014, my department asked me to teach a capstone seminar for English majors the following year. One may build this course, designed to help graduating seniors synthesize aspects of their education, around any topic. I had taught it several times, though not for many years. I considered teaching it around a large project I was completing on literature and mathematics but I had covered that material several times in other classes, and was dissatisfied with the thought of reprising it here. I had commenced another project reading high philosophy by way of detective fiction, but I had also taught that in other courses and felt uninspired by the prospect of doing so again. I then considered current trends in literary studies such as modes of reading, processes of mediation, and matters of scale (temporal and spatial) and mused over a course built around one of these topics. They also left me flat. Then I paused and asked myself a different question: What if I designed a course around a subject I find inherently meaningful, irrespective of discipline, project, or trend? A response leapt to mind, bearing a vibrancy that felt familiar if also a little strange, even uncanny: spirituality. Spirituality is indeed an uncanny subject, even or especially relative to itself. If one takes it generically to denote a connection to some force outside oneself, or else to what is most essential to oneself, then spirituality becomes a dynamic concept, no sooner defined in a particular context than already outmoded, already pointing to something perpetually lingering beyond or more deeply within. For Karl Barth this self-undoing quality inflects Christian spirituality with particular poignancy: "spiritual life… begins at the very point where spiritual skill ends," where ingrained routine, or what John G. Flett, adopting sociological language, calls habitus, opens onto a transformative call, beckoning one from or pointing one toward some other place.1 To be a Christian in Barth's sense is to be perpetually drawn away from what is most familiar, becoming a stranger to oneself in order to come closer to God. It was precisely such dynamism that compelled me, some three decades ago, to take up serious study of the humanities. The impetus was not an impactful college course, but rather the cumulative effects of the two-year mission [End Page 324] I served for my church in France and Switzerland. While I was fairly quick to pick up a foreign language, the foreignness of worldviews came to seem increasingly strange over the duration of my time there. Beguiled, but fascinated, by the existential impact of deep cultural differences, I began turning to secular texts—to literature and philosophy—as a kind of implicit spiritual record, an index of peoples' divine imaginary. Higher education would be, for me, a spiritual quest, or so I thought. And now, some three decades later, thoroughly enculturated in the habitudes of my profession and discipline and, as a result, less naïve if also less idealistic, the situation seemed reversed: responding to a routine request from my department to teach a seminar, and recognizing how steeped I had become in the discourses that suffuse the humanities, I felt moved to consider spirituality as a way to synthesize the ethos of my fields. And that threatened, in its way, to propel me outside the humanities altogether. (Seriously, spirituality? A course on, say, spirituality and literature? There is virtually no precedent for such a thing, as spirituality bears little presence in literary studies, certainly not at its forefront. How would I devise such a course and then explain it to students, colleagues, peers, and even to myself? And what if, in teaching it, I felt moved to begin writing on it? For whom would I write, and what could I possibly say of any value?) These questions were admittedly naïve, but I sensed myself on the track of something important. A few additional years have passed and, as it turns out, I have published a handful of articles and chapters on the relationship between literature and spirituality, with...

Сибирская конфессиональная идентичность конца XIX — начала ХХ веков: фактор палестинского паломничества

The phenomenon of Russian religious identity in Siberia is considered. Religious and secular texts of Siberian authors of 19 th - early 20 th centuries, documents of regional archives are used as a material. Special place is given to the issues of “religiosity” and special “mores of Siberians.” The aim is to analyze the process of actualization of traditional conservative Russian values in Siberia. The author concludes that the transformation of the regional Siberian identity was influenced by the concept of “Russian Palestine.” It was one of the unique “repositories” of national cultural memory and Russian identity. The intervention of the Russian tradition in Palestine was carried out for centuries, as a result of which a unique religious and cultural phenomenon arose thousands of kilometers from the borders of Russia. Despite the changes and upheavals within the country, “Russian Palestine” retained its functions as a “repository,” became a kind of intertemporal field on which the formation, verification and consolidation of new, specific religious and cultural ideas and values took place, through the Holy land the connection of Siberia with Central Russia occurred. The main communication bridge between Siberia and the Holy land were Siberian Orthodox pilgrims. The main purpose of the pilgrimage, according to the Siberian clergy, was to raise the religious feelings of believers, “the improvement of the Orthodox faith.” The way to Palestine for the Siberian Gentiles who converted to Christianity was the way to acquire Russian identity.

The religious statement of the Voortrekker Monument as a site of Afrikaner memory: Origin, composition and reception

The religious statement made by the Voortrekker Monument is part and parcel of its meaning and symbolism. This aspect of its composition and intention has not yet been submitted to thorough theological-critical investigation and scrutiny. Stepping into the gap, this article traces the religious intention and intonation of the Monument. The first part of the article entails the history of the Moerdyk design, based on antique Egyptian religious architecture. Then a discussion of the way in which the architect blended his (Egyptian) design with the religious spirituality and nationalism of the Afrikaner is presented. The last section deals with the altar text in the heart of the building: ‘We for thee, South Africa’. This secular text constitutes the religious statement of the memorial. Care should therefore be taken to embed the symbolism and meaning of the building in the Christian faith or the so-called Calvinism of the Afrikaner. The engagement with the Monument’s religious statement revealed a sacrificed religion trapped in a still remarkable commemorative building.

La «Biblia filosófica» y la Reforma: el caso de John Locke

La transición de la Escritura como una obra sobrenatural a un mero texto es algo que tiene que ver con el movimiento reformado, sin embargo, no se puede atribuir como tal a la Reforma, sino sobre todo a la corriente filosófica ilustrada, nutrida de las convicciones que movilizó la Reforma. El artículo analiza esta corriente en uno de sus predecesores: John Locke. Su obra contribuyó a generar la «Biblia académica», como contrapuesta a la «Biblia escriturística». En la obra de Locke se pone de manifiesto una dialéctica entre el carácter sobrenatural de la Escritura y la consideración de la razón como revelación natural, que la conduce a numerosas aporías. De ahí que la bibliografía haya considerado a John Locke alternativamente calvinista, latitudinario, arminiano, sociniano o unitariano. El artículo presenta estas aporías y procura una evaluación de su aportación a la cuestión de la interpretación bíblica, que es indisociable de su fe, de su epistemología y de su teoría del lenguaje.

Arguing Over Texts: The Rhetoric of Interpretation

Arguing Over Texts: The Rhetoric of Interpretation

The fidus interpres and the fact of slavery: Rethinking classical and patristic models of translation

ABSTRACTCicero and St Jerome are often thought to belong to opposite schools of translation theory. This assumption neglects an important continuity between the two translators, namely their understanding of translation as a master–slave relationship. A far more important discursive break occurred in the work of St Augustine, who was the first to project onto translation the religious role of a fidus servus (faithful slave) in relationship to the divine word. His theorization of how truth could be revealed in both original and translated texts is radically different from our received ideas about the hierarchy of source and target. It also initiated an epistemological shift that would have a profound effect on later Christian translators. The scholar Boethius was the first to use Augustine’s model of translation with secular texts, paving the way for this eschatological theory to take precedence throughout early medieval Europe.

‘Poor heathens’, ‘Cone-headed natives’ and ‘Good water’: the production of knowledge of the interior of Australia through German texts from around the 1860s

ABSTRACTThis essay critically reviews the textual archive related to the two German mission stations in the South Australian Lake Eyre basin: the Lutheran Hermannsburg mission at Killalpaninna and the Moravian mission at Kopperamanna. The multiple entanglements of these stations far beyond their missionary activity become evident through examining distinctly religious material, such as mission journals, and secular texts, in German-language newspapers and scientific journals. These include entanglement in German domestic affairs as well as German diasporic politics; and in debates over scientific advancement and British colonial expansion.

Devotional Biology: A young-age creationist, college-level, conceptual biology textbook

Devotional Biology is being developed as a one-semester college-level conceptual biology textbook for non-science majors. Except for presenting a survey of organisms and an introduction to organismal anatomy and physiology (typically reserved for a second-semester course), Devotional Biology covers all the major topics of biology presented in secular texts as well as a few others not usually covered at all. Student surveys indicate students believe they learn biology through the Devotional Biology text. At the same time, Devotional Biology presents biology from the perspective of a distinctly biblical worldview—and on surveys, Devotional Biology students believe they improved their appreciation of biology as well. Devotional Biology also focuses on God, and how His attributes are evident in the biological world—and on surveys, Devotional Biology students believe they improved their recognition of God in the creation, their understanding of God, their relationship to God, and their use of the creation in witness to others. Devotional Biology also assumes a young-age creationist interpretation of biology, critiquing the naturalistic perspective of the field in the process—and on surveys, Devotional Biology students believe they grew in their faith and learned to defend their faith. Devotional Biology also includes responsibilities of believers as priests and kings in God’s creation—and on surveys, Devotional Biology students believe they grew in their understanding of their ethical responsibilities, in their worship of God, and in better ruling over the creation.

СТИЛІСТИЧНІ ОСОБЛИВОСТІ КИРИЛИЧНИХ ГРАФІТІ ДОМОНГОЛЬСЬКОЇ ДОБИ СОФІЇ КИЇВСЬКОЇ

The article examines the peculiarity of the concept of the linguistic style of the literature of Kyiv Rus, which is closely linked with the traditions of the scientific study of this very “red writing”. The specificity of Old Russian literature as medieval leads to its almost church character, and the specific "simplicity" in the structure of secular literary works of its own, such as "The Word of the Igor's Regiment," forcing researchers to engage in secular business texts, for example, the chronicles that are works of historical the genre. That is, in this case, the peculiarity of the concept of literary language reflecting the peculiarity of the notion of ancient Russian literature, which is by no means the "artistic" literature of the modern type, or fiction. Accordingly, the volume of materials that should serve to study the stylistics of literature of the Kiev Rus era is determined by the peculiarity of scientific ideas about the very literature itself and about the literary language in which it is created. These considerations make us propose as an auxiliary "meter" to study the style of literature of the Kiev Rus age the criterion of reflection or absence of certain poetics in the texts. As is well known, the phenomenon of poetics is legitimately extended to folklore, to contemporary business writing, and to non-folklore oral speech activity. Thus we get the opportunity to define in the same graffiti Kiev Saint Sophia's Cathedral style of church writing and oral canon, folklore and business law. But with such an approach, the bright feature of the stylistics of graffiti Sofia of Kiev in the comparison with the volume similar to the volume of graffiti texts of Novgorod Saint Sofia Cathedral is immediately striking: among the Kiev graphite there is practically no folklore of origin, not to mention the reflection of the pagan rituals that we find on the walls of the Novgorod Saint Sofia Cathedral. This conclusion can be reliably based on statistical data. But when the researchers find in the texts of the XI–XIII centuries. syllabic or "elements of sillabotonism", it is worth reminding of the very probable chance of an appropriate combination of sounds and syllables. It is much more reliable to refer some graffiti to the clerical poem. But we must not forget the hypotheticalness of such identification in general, as well as the fact that only the adaptation of the Byzantine poem to the Slavic language context can be considered.

Wychowanie młodzieży w ruskojęzycznych drukach bazyliańskich

Printing was one of the elements of various missionary activities of the Basilians. Their typographies were functioning in the 18th century at monasteries in Vilnius, Suprasl, Uniev, Pochaiev and Lvov. They printed texts written in Polish, Latin, Orthodox Church language, but also in prosta mova, which was the basic means of communication of the Uniate faithful. In that language, not only religious but also secular texts were printed. In both types of texts, you can find elements related to the upbringing of young people. The analysis of those texts leads to the conclusion that they should be considered in terms of social didactics. They shaped the social culture (issues of civil society, shaping social justice, etc.) and personal culture of the Ruthenians (savoir vivre rules) in 18 ct.

Babylon under Western Eyes: A Study of Allusion and Myth. Andrew Scheil. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2016. Pp xvi+343.

<i>Babylon under Western Eyes: A Study of Allusion and Myth</i>. Andrew Scheil. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2016. Pp xvi+343.

"Mein Gmut ist mir verwirret": die kontrafaktuurpraktyk in die Liedboek van die Kerk

The contrafactum-practice which utilises secular melodies and/or texts as sources in the creation of sacred hymns, is an age-old tradition. This practice generated amongst others a few Protestant hymns (particularly in the German Reformed context), which are viewed today as important hymns in the hymn corpus. One example would be the hymn for lent, “Herzlich tut mich verlangen”. In several historic sources the use of secular melodies in church hymns is motivated: the fact that the melodies are already well-known amongst the congregation would make it easy to learn the new texts. Sources also confirm that this practice makes the songs more accessible for the youth. This article explores the development of selected hymns from the Liedboek van die Kerk (2001) (“Afrikaans Hymn book of the Church”) to determine their secular roots and describe how they developed into sacred hymns. It is pointed out that the utilisation of the melodies as settings for different sacred texts, illustrates their quality and flexibility and is instrumental in their acceptance as hymn tunes. It is also argued that historic distance between the secular source and the church hymn contributes to the weakening of the original secular association. The ongoing debate on the secular versus the sacred is also touched upon, and finally the renewed interest in contrafacta in the late 20th and early 21st century is discussed. Die kontrafaktuurpraktyk, waar sekulêre melodieë en/of tekste as bronne gebruik word in die skep van geestelike tekste en/of melodieë, kom al eeue lank in kerkliedere voor. Hierdie werkswyse het onder andere ʼn aantal Protestantse liedere opgelewer (veral in Duitse Reformatoriese verband), wat deesdae as groot liedere van die kerkliedskat geag word. Een voorbeeld is die lydenslied “Herzlich tut mich verlangen”. In verskeie historiese bronne word die gebruik van sekulêre melodieë by kerkliedtekste gemotiveer: die melodieë was reeds bekend en daarom kon die nuwe liedtekste makliker aangeleer word. Die toeganklikheid vir die jeug staan ook voorop. Hierdie artikel ondersoek enkele liedere in die Liedboek van die Kerk (2001) ten einde vas te stel wat die sekulêre wortels daarvan was. Voorts word aangetoon hoe die liedere as geestelike liedere ontwikkel het. Daar word verwys na die hergebruik van sekere melodieë by ʼn verskeidenheid tekste, wat dui op die aanpasbaarheid van die kontrafakmelodieë en die mate waarin dit inslag gevind het as kerkliedmelodieë. Verder word daar geredeneer dat historiese afstand tussen die sekulêre bron en die kontrafak daartoe bygedra het dat so ʼn lied sy sekulêre assosiasies mettertyd verloor het. In hierdie artikel kom die voortdurende debat waarin die geestelike teenoor die sekulêre musiek staan ten opsigte van gebruik in die erediens ook ter sprake. Die hernude belangstelling in en skepping van kontrafakte vanaf die laaste dekades van die 20ste eeu word ook ten slotte onder die soeklig geplaas.

Catherine the Great of Russia. The 'Cultural Translation' and Its Role for the Moldavian 'Mirror of Princes' at the End of the 18th Century

The secular texts that enter Romanian soil in the second half of the 18th century play different functions for the intellectuals of the time. Mostly translations from Greek, they aim to wire the new-forming Romanian modern culture to the Enlightenment’s ideas of Western Europe. Through this massive import of cultural goods, the Danubian Principalities try to escape from the cultural and political exclusion and to re-position themselves in the European order. Therefore “historical” text such as the History of Catherine the Great, receive almost automatically an ideological and propagandistic value. A text that illustrates this movement was written in Vienna, by J.M. Schweighofer, as part of a weekly journal and was intended to help forming a public opinion favourable to a Russian-Austrian alliance. This text was translated the same year into Greek and from Greek it traveled to Moldavia were it was translated into Romanian one year later (1788). In the target culture, the text gains an informative role. The “mirror of princes” offered by the text serves as an information-note, containing important data on the political and military movement in Central Europe. The shift in target public is visible at a textual level, by means of translation strategies that give nuances and pin-point certain aspects of the text. As an ideological discourse with traits of an enlightened nature, the image of the tsarina receives involuntarily the literary traits of a heroine who acts only for the benefit of her subjects and the educational value (visible in the Russian history overview) becomes a secondary scope. The Romanian translation, as a faithful translation of the Greek intermediate, fails to reproduce word by word the German original and transforms the text intention in accordance to a new kind of public and according to a new reception reality of the target culture a value that would be appreciated by the posterity.