The Publication of the Complete Collected Works of Maximus the Greek: The Beginning of the Project and the Plan for its Final Realization

Abstract

Under the supervision of N.V. Sinicyna, the first and second volumes of the academic series of the collected works of Maxim the Greek were published in 2008 and 2014 respectively. The publication of these two volumes was the first step of a grandiose project, which promises to be a major event in Slavic studies. If the project is finished, the prospect of which has become less definitive after Sinicyna’s death in 2018, the series would conclude the preliminary stage in the evaluation of the writings of Maxim the Greek, and at the same time, open up new perspectives in the study of his writings. The author of the article, hoping that such an important undertaking will not stop at the second volume, offers a plan for completing the series. Some wishes are also expressed regarding additions to the already published volumes. In particular, it is absolutely necessary to include certain texts missing in the first volumes (translations and compilations among others) as well as commentary to the texts already published. Afterwards the publication of the series has to be continued. In order to face the problems that will arise in the process of preparing the next volumes, the author recommends to make use of the experience accumulated by Russian philologists. Indeed, they have published at a high academic level, multivolume series of complete collected works of each of the most prominent Russian writers. The questions that arise with the publication of every academic series of the kind includes the identification of autographs (if they are preserved), the attribution of the compositions, the selection of the main version for each of them, a critical analysis of its drafts and of the variants relevant for publication, the models of the historical, literary and real commentaries, the selection of a bibliography, and the required indices. In the case of Maxim the Greek, the publisher should take into account his extraordinary biography as far as it is reflected in his works, his encyclopedic erudition, the extensive manuscript tradition of his works, and different strata of manuscript evidence. If the work is completed according to the proposed plan, the collected works by Maxim the Greek might become a model for similar publications of other Old Russian writers.