St Cyril of Turau [*] is chiefly known for his sermons which earned him the name of a second Chrysostom among the Eastern Slavs. They were not, however, his only literary works; not even his best. Apart from the sermons, the saintly bishop of Turau left us some writings on monastic life as well as many prayers and a few canons. It may be noted that, while in recent times his sermons have attracted the attention of the scholars, in the past it was his spiritual writings, and first of all his prayers, that enjoyed the greater popularity. In his native Belarus in the 16th-17th centuries the prayers of St Cyril were printed in several editions while his sermons continued to spread in manuscript form.

St Cyril lived in the middle of the 12th century (c. 1130-82). Little is known about him, because his only written life contained in the so-called Prologue (Lectionary) and composed probably at the end of the 13th or beginning of the 14th century, is very short and lacking in detail. [1] He was born in Turau and was the son of rich parents. The ancient city of Turau in south-eastern Belarus was at that time an important ecclesiastical and cultural centre. It was one of the earliest Belarusian episcopal sees. The vicinity of the powerful State of Kiev for a long time prevented Turau from attaining political importance, but in the middle of the 12th century it became the capital of an independent principality, comprising practically the whole of southern Belarus. Thus the life of the saint coincides with the 'golden age' in the history of his native city.

Cyril received an excellent education, probably having Greek teachers. As a young man he decided to dedicate his life to God and entered a monastery. There, according to his biographer, "he strove most of all to please God, tiring out his body with fasts and psalmody and making himself a pure dwelling of the Holy Spirit". His way of life, piety and, no doubt, learning soon attracted the attention of others, who began to come to him for spiritual advice or instruction. As a spiritual director Cyril "became useful to many, teaching [the people] and instructing monks to be humble, and to obey the abbot as God himself, and to listen to him in everything. For a monk who does not obey, as he vowed to do, cannot be saved." After a time, however, his personal inclination towards a solitary life prevailed. Cyril became a recluse, shutting himself off completely in a small cell. There "he remained for some time, praying and fasting still more and commenting much on the sacred scriptures". It was most probably at that time that he wrote his prayers.

Cyril's search for solitude produced the opposite effect. His fame spread, and when the bishop of Turau died, the prince and the people asked the metropolitan to appoint Cyril to the vacant see. This occurred about 1169. As bishop, Cyril left the memory of a good and zealous pastor of the flock entrusted to him. Between his pastoral duties he found time to take part in affairs that concerned the whole of the metropolitan province of Kiev to which his see belonged. His famous sermons were also composed during this period.

St Cyril of Turau is considered the greatest 'byzantinist' among the early East Slavonic writers. On the whole there was a strong Byzantine influence among the East Slavs of that period. This was only to be expected. The East Slavs received the Christian faith at the end of the 10th century from Byzantium, and for a long time almost all their metropolitans and the majority of their bishops were Greeks. They had no literature of their own before the advent of Christianity, and the first written works that reached them, apart from the sacred scriptures and liturgical texts, were the writings of the Greek fathers and ecclesiastical authors. They came, it is true, not directly from Greece, but from Bulgaria in the already existing Slavonic translations. Thus it is not surprising that the first East Slavonic writers strove to imitate their Byzantine models. St Cyril differed from the majority in that he was a keen disciple, but never a slavish imitator. Possessing a remarkable literary talent, he tried, with considerable success, to adapt what he learnt to the needs of his native language. Thus his works, apart from their religious interest, are part of the Belarusian literary heritage and he is certainly the greatest early Belarusian writer and the first poet. This does not prevent his works from being very Byzantine in spirit and does not free his style from the common vices of that time, such as an excessive use of allegory.

The memory of St Cyril is celebrated on 28 April.

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[*] Usually known in England as Turov, from the Russian version of this Belarusian place-name.
[1] For a more detailed life of St Cyril and the text of the Prologue see: A. Nadson, The Writings of St. Cyril of Turau, The Journal of Byelorussian Studies, vol. 1, no. 1, London 1965, pp. 4-15.

PART II, III and NOTES »

Saint Euphrosyne (c. 1105-1167) was the granddaughter of the famous prince of Polatsk, Usiaslau (Vseslav) whose long reign (1044-1101) and many exploits - in particular his determined struggle against Kiev - made such an impression on his contemporaries that they refused to believe him to be an ordinary mortal. Thus the contemporary Kievan chronicle ascribed his birth to enchantment: "In that year (1044 - A.N.) Brachyslau died … and his son Usiaslau born to his mother by means of sorcery, sat on the throne. When he was born there was a mark on his head and the wizards told his mother: 'Put a band round his mark, and let him wear it all his life.' Thus Usiaslau wears it till the present day: that is why he is merciless when it comes to the shedding of blood." Almost a century later the author of the Lay of Igor's Campaign gave the following description of Usiaslau: "Prince Usiaslau judged the people, granted cities to the princes, but at night he prowled about in the guise of a wolf. He would race from Kiev to Tmutorokan' before cock-crow and, in the shape of a wolf, would cross the path of the great Chors. For him the bells of the cathedral of the Holy Wisdom at Polatsk would toll for matting in the early morning, and he heard them by me time he reached Kiev."

Young Pradslava - such was the name of Euphrosyne before she took the veil - seems to have inherited many traits of her grandfather's character, in particular his strong with energy and determination to persevere in a chosen path. This became manifest early in her life when she refused all proposals of marriage and without her parents' knowledge, ran away to the convent of which her aunt was the abbess. Later she founded a convent of hex own and was joined there by her sister, her cousin and two nieces. This was то mean achievement, for - unlike the custom in the West and in Byzantium - it was unusual for a young girl in Belarus and the other East Slav lands of that time to choose the monastic life in preference to marriage. This may partly explain why Euphrosyne has up to the present day remained the only East Slav virgin saint.

In addition to a convent of nuns Saint Euphrosyne founded a monastery for monks and remained superior of both establishments - another unusual occurrence in the East, although not unknown in the West. Finally, towards the end of her life, she undertook a pilgrimage to the Holy Land, where she died sometime after 1167. Her body, after the conquest of Jerusalem by Saladin in 1187, was earned by the monks to Kiev and deposited there in the Monastery of the Caves. It was only in 1910 that the relics of the saint were brought back to her native city of Polatsk.

There are in existence several manuscript copies of the Life of Saint Euphrosyne, the earliest of them dating from the 14th century. However, the essentially archaic Church Slavonic language with only a few traces of the vernacular, as well as the wealth of concrete details seem to indicate that the original Life must have been written much earlier, perhaps at the end of the 12th or beginning of the 13th century. The author was a native of Polatsk and either knew Saint Euphrosyne personally or had recorded first-hand accounts from those who knew her.

The best known copy of the Life of Saint Euphrosyne is one which was in the possession of the Metropolitan of Moscow Macarius (1542-1563), who included it in his Chetji-mineji (Martyrologium) and Stepennaja kniga (Book of Degrees). Kljuchevskij has this to say about the version: "The Menea of Macarius has preserved the Life of the Polatsk princess Saint Euphrosyne. Its composition and literary style remind one of the rhetorical Lives of the 15-16th centuries; however, the liveliness of the narrative and the abundance of biographical details, together with some traces of archaic language, lead one to the conclusion that the biographer had in his possession an older source." Gorskij and Nevostrujev in their description of the Chetji-mineji make the following comment: "Judging by the preserved linguistic traits and by the description of events, the story is ancient, most probably not far removed from the lifetime of the saint." Other scholars concur with this judgment.

CONTINUATION »

The Belarusian version of the Tristan roman, the only extant Slavic version of the Prose Tristan, exists in a single 16th century-manuscript located in the Raczynski Public Library in Poznan, Poland (MS. 94). The story of Tristan (title: Povest' o Tryshchane) by an anonymous author-translator takes up the first 127 pages of the codex, which was first discovered there in 1842 and described in 1846 by a Slavic philologist Osip Bodianskii. Though the first reference to Povest' o Tryshchane appeared in 1822 in J. U. Niemcewicz's Zbior pamietnikow historycznych..., it was mentioned under a slightly different title than in our manuscript, which caused some researchers to speculate that another copy of the story might exist. However, no other text is known at this time, and the Poznan text remains the only manuscript of a Slavic Prose Tristan. The manuscript was subsequently transcribed and analyzed by Alexander Veselovskii, a Russian literary critic, and his critical evaluation of 1888 was for many years the only scholarly work on the topic.

Prior to that, in 1886 Alexander Bruckner, a Polish philologist, made a linguistic and paleographic study of the manuscript, identifying it as a Belarusian text of the 16th century, more precisely of 1580. The exact date, later confirmed by other scholars, was determined by a comparative study of other materials in the same codex. Especially helpful were the Belarusian rendition of the Story of Attila, the Hungarian King, based on a Polish translation of the Latin original done by Cyprian Bazylik and published in 1574, and a chronicle of the Unikhovski family, in whose possession the manuscript remained for several generations.

In order to understand 16th-century Belarusian society, a few remarks of an historical nature are in order. The Belarusian territory at that time constituted the core of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, a commonwealth made up of Belarusians, Lithuanians and Ukrainians. The Grand Duchy, in turn, joined Poland to constitute a commonwealth in 1569, with Belarusian as the official language. The documents of the Duchy, the Code of Laws, chronicles, and diplomatic correspondence with neighboring Slavic nations were conducted in this language. Besides its official use, the Belarusian language was the language of the nobility, which in the 16th century still professed the Eastern Orthodox religion and Belarusian culture for the most part. The Polonization of the Duchy, and especially of its noble classes, began later in the 17th century, well after the religious union of 1596 with Poland had occurred. The noble classes were educated, knew foreign languages, and had economic and cultural relations with their western neighbors, the Poles and the Czechs, the South Slavs, and other Europeans, especially the Italians and the Germans. Through travel they amassed sizable libraries, and then supported persons who were in charge of those libraries and had private scribes for their correspondence. These few rich and powerful titled families set an example for and influenced the lesser nobility (Shliakhta), who emulated them in every way possible. Thus, it is not surprising that in this atmosphere of a community of culture and languages, a literature for translation developed which was especially vigorous in 16th-century Belarus. The codex owned by the Unikhovski family is only a part of this literature; besides the Tristan it contains a translation of Buovo d'Antona and the Story of Attila.

The Unikhovskis belonged to the class of lesser nobility, the moderately rich landowners, in the Navahradak region of West Central Belarus. In 1594 Hrehory Unikhovski made the first inscription in the family chronicle, which concludes the codex (pp. 340-344). Hrehory was born in 1549, the son of Paval Unikhovski and Kataryna Tryzna, the scion of another rich and influential family. In 1571 Hrehory married Zofia Ulatovskaia, a widow of one year of Karp Tishkovich, both of whom belonged to the same lesser nobility as Unikhovski. His father, Paval, died in December of 1593, shortly before the first inscription in the family journal was made. In 1589 Hrehory was a tax collector in the Navahradak region. When Hrehory died in 1606, his elder son Jan began making entries in the Journal. The Unikhovskis were not a particularly educated family. They were administrators, politicians, men of action who took part in many military campaigns. The Grand Duchy was frequently at war with Muscovy and the Cossacks during the turbulent years of the late 16th and early 17th centuries. It is doubtful, then, that Hrehory Unikhovski was himself the translator of the Tristan or the other stories of the codex. He was undoubtedly instrumental in sponsoring the translation: his position in the society, his circle of friends and associates, and his interest allowed, indeed, entitled him to be patron of such an enterprise.

The translator (or translators) were apparently well-read men who knew several languages and foreign literatures, and were intelligent enough to know their masters' tastes and the limitations and requirements imposed by society. Hence, they made various editorial cuts, which will be discussed in the chapter on Artistic Achievement.

The language of the manuscript, with its rich vocabulary, is well established. It is the 16th-century Belarusian literary language, but with enough dialectal characteristics to make the researchers speculate about the time and provenance of the work and the place of origin of the translator or scribe. Teresa Jasinska-Socha in her System fleksyjny starobialoruskich zabytkow does just that, and her conclusions are (a) that it is unlikely that the manuscript could have been written prior to the 1580's and (b) that the unknown scribe, who was probably from the southwestern part of Belarus, was well acquainted with the norms of the Belarusian language. It should be noted here that we must make a distinction between the translator-author and the scribe. The manuscript was written by a single experienced hand, except for a few passages copied in another, probably a scribe's helper's hand, or, as Bruckner suggests, they may even have been made by Hrehory Unikhovski's own hand. However, the manuscript was almost certainly dictated by two or more persons, since the vocabulary and spelling, especially that of proper names, is different in the first and second parts of the text. We can only assume that the translator-author was the same person who also dictated the text, or there must have been another text for the copyist to work from. Regardless of the technique, however, there must have been several persons involved in the production of the manuscript: the inconsistencies noted in the text attest to this. A sole author-translator would have been more careful to keep the names of his characters consistent throughout the text, even if there were several versions of Tristan at his disposal.

Why did they choose to translate Tristan? The answer might lie in the interests and tastes of the audiences, 16th-century Belarusian society, or more precisely, the society of the lesser nobility of the Navahradak region, where the manuscript circulated. The ancient Belarusian town and castle of Navahradak and its environs, at one time the seat of the Grand Dukes, was the home of many old noble and rich families, one of them being the Radziwills. Besides being very powerful and influential in the Grand Duchy, especially in the mid-16th century they enjoyed an almost legendary fame. One of them, the beautiful Barbara Radziwill, was a lover and then a not very happy bride of the Grand Duke Sigismund August, who later became the King of Poland. The story of their secret love, the reluctant acceptance of Barbara at the Polish court, and finally her tragic death in 1551 and the King's subsequent despair were still very much alive in the people's memory at the time of our povest; it became the stuff of legend. Thus, other legends of unhappy love, especially when they were enhanced by adventure and combat, were understandably welcomed and, in fact, became quite popular.

It is interesting to note that, although the Renaissance influenced the way that secular Belarusian literature developed, its translated literature, instead of following the European Renaissance novel, remained true to the medieval romance. Here, again, one sees reflected the tastes and the conditions of a society that more readily accepted medieval love stories and knightly adventures than the more sophisticated literature of the European Renaissance.

CONTINUATION
Artistic Achievement. Tristan. King Marko. Izhota. Sources and Influences. Editorial Policy »