Chernorizets Hrabar
Template:Short description Chernorizets Hrabar (Template:Langx, Črьnorizьcь Hrabrъ)Template:Efn<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> was a Bulgarian<ref name="sedlar">A history of East Central Europe: East Central Europe in the Middle Ages, 1000-1500, Jean W. Sedlar, University of Washington Press, 1994, p. 430., Template:ISBN</ref><ref>Template:Cite book</ref><ref>Template:Cite book</ref><ref name="franklin">Template:Cite book</ref> monk, scholar and writer who is credited as the author of On the Letters. He worked at the Preslav Literary School in the First Bulgarian Empire at the end of the 9th and the beginning of the 10th century.<ref>A concise history of Bulgaria, R. J. Crampton, Cambridge University Press, 2005, pp. 16-17., Template:ISBN</ref>
Name and historicity
His appellation translates as "Hrabar, the Black Robe Wearer" (i.e., Hrabar the Monk), chernorizets being the lowest rank in the monastic hierarchy (translatable as "black robe-wearer", see čьrnъ and riza), "Hrabar" ("Hrabr")Template:Efn supposed to be his given name. However, sometimes he is referred to as "Chernorizets the Brave", "the Brave One"<ref name="fine">Template:Cite book</ref> or "Brave" which is the translation of Hrabar assumed to be a nickname.
The authorship of his work and his identity have been a matter of scholarly debate.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> His name has been theorized as a pseudonym used by some of the other famous men of letters such as Constantine, John the Exarch, Clement of Ohrid or even by Tsar Simeon I of Bulgaria himself.<ref name="petkov">Template:Cite book</ref><ref name="brown">Template:Cite book</ref>
On the Letters Template:Anchor
Chernorizets Hrabar is the credited author of only one literary work, "On the Letters" (Template:Langx, O pismenehь), a popular medieval treatise written in Old Church Slavonic.<ref name="petkov" /><ref>Template:Cite book</ref><ref>Template:Cite book</ref> The work was written in the late ninth or early tenth century.<ref name="sedlar" /><ref name="petkov" /> It was partly based on Greek scholia and grammar treatises and expounded on the origin of the Glagolitic alphabet and Slavic Bible translation.<ref name=Veder>Template:Cite book</ref>
He also provided information critical to Slavonic paleography with his mention that the pre-Christian Slavs employed "strokes and incisions" (Template:Langx, črъty i rězy), a form of writing that was, apparently, insufficient to properly reflect the spoken language. It is thoughtTemplate:By whom that this may have been a form of runic script but no authentic examples are known to have survived.Template:Citation needed The dominant view among scholars is that Hrabar was defending Slavonic in response to Greek criticism, while others have argued that his text was a defense of Glagolithic against Cyrillic.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref><ref name="brown" /><ref name="fine" />
Manuscript copies
The manuscript of On the Letters has been preserved in 79 copies in seven families of texts, including five contaminated manuscripts, plus four abridgements independent of the seven families. All of these families probably ultimately share a common protograph. Not one of the textual families contains an optimal text, and none of them can be established to be the source of any other. None of the text families can be shown to have dialectal features, albeit some of the individual manuscripts in the families do have them. The protograph was written in Glagolitic, and it underwent significant change or corruption in the course of its successive transcription into seven families of Cyrillic texts. Only the Cyrillic manuscripts are preserved. The hyparchetypes of all seven families give the number of the letters in the alphabet as 38, but the original Glagolitic alphabet had only 36, as attested in the acrostic of Constantine of Preslav; however, one of the abridgements instead gives the number as 37 and another gives it as 42.<ref name=Veder />
The oldest surviving manuscript copy, contained in Template:Interlanguage link, dates back to 1348 and was made by the monk Laurentius for Tsar Ivan Alexander of Bulgaria.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> The work has also been printed in Vilnius (1575–1580), Moscow (1637), Saint Petersburg (1776), Supraśl (1781). It is the earliest printed work of an early Bulgarian author, included as part of the 1578 version of Ivan Fеdorov's East Slav primer.<ref name="franklin" />
Excerpt
From the opening of the 1348 manuscript text:Template:Efn
Transliteration (with adapted punctuation, removed diacritics, resolved abbreviations):
- Prěžde ubo slověne ne iměhǫ knigъ,Template:Efn nǫ črъtami i rězami čьtěhǫ i gataahǫ pogani sǫšte; krъstivše že sę, rimьskami i grъčьskymi pismeny nǫždaahǫ sę [pisati]Template:Efn slověnьsky rěčь bezъ ustroenia. Nǫ kako možetъ sę pisati dobrě grъčьskymi pismeni b[og]ъ, ili živōtъ, ili ʒělō, ili cr[ъ]kovь, ili čaanie, ili širōta, ili jadь, ili ǫdu, ili junostь, ili ǫzykъ,Template:Efn i inaa pod[o]bnaa simь?Template:Efn I tako běšǫ mnoga lěta. Po tom že čl[ově]koljubec b[og]ъ [...] posla im s[vę]t[aje]go Kōstantina filosofa naricaemago Kirila, mǫža pravedna i istinna, i sьtvori imъ [30] pismena i osmь, ōva ubō po činu grъčьskyhь pismenъ, ōva že po slověnьstěi rěči.
Translation:Template:Efn
- In the past, the Slavs did not have books,Template:Efn but read and divined by means of strokes and incisions, being pagans. Having been baptised, they had to writeTemplate:Efn the Slavic speech with Roman and Greek letters without any system. But with Greek letters how can one write words such as God, or life, or very, or church, or waiting, or width, or meal, or where, or youth, or tongue, and other similar ones?Template:Efn And so it was for many years. Then the mankind-loving God [...] sent them Saint Constantine the Philosopher, called Cyril, a just and upright man, and he created thirty-eight letters for them, some in the manner of Greek letters, and some in accordance with Slavic speech.
Legacy
Hrabar Nunatak on Greenwich Island in the South Shetland Islands, Antarctica, is named for Chernorizets Hrabar.