Studi Slavistici XXII (2025) Special Issue
Special issue

For the History of the Texts of Slavia Christiana. Some Considerations

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  • Giorgio Ziffer
Giorgio Ziffer
University of Udine
Bio
DOI: https://doi.org/10.36253/Studi_Slavis-18374

Published 2025-12-12

Keywords

  • Slavia Christiana,
  • Transmission,
  • Textual Criticism,
  • Witnesses not extant but that can be reconstructed

Copyright (c) 2025 Giorgio Ziffer

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

Abstract

The author initially observes that most literary works of Church Slavonic literature written between 863 and the middle of the 11th century are as a rule handed down in manuscripts from the 14th century onwards when of South Slavic origin, and in manuscripts from the 15th century onwards when of East Slavic provenance. He then emphasizes that the method of significant errors allows interrelationship among textual witnesses to be established; he hints at some causes of perturbation – from the point of view of modern scholars – as contamination on the one hand, and corrections autonomously introduced by scribes on the other hand; and he concludes by stating that for the transmission of the literature of Slavia Christiana (as also of other literary traditions) the witnesses that were lost but can be reconstructed, and the extant ones depend on, are in fact more important than the latter.

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