harvard ukrainian studies. volume ii. number 4. december 1978

7/28/2019 Harvard Ukrainian Studies. Volume II. Number 4. December 1978

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HARVARDU K R A I N I A N S T U D I E S

Volume II Number 4 December 1978

Ukrainian Research InstituteHarvard University

Cambridge, Massachusetts


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Cop yright 1978, by the Presiden t and Fellows of Harvard CollegeAH rights reserved

ISSN 0363-5570Published by the Ukrainian Research Institute of Harvard University,Cambridge , Massachuse t ts , U.S.A.

Printed by the Harva rd Un iversity Prin ting OfficeTypography by Brevis Press, Cheshire, Conn.


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CONTENTSARTICLESNotes on the Text of the Igor' Tale 393

RICCARDO PICCHIOA Legend about Paper Manufacturing in Thirteenth-CenturyUkraine 423

JAROSLAV STEPANIVIdeology and Reality in the Bilu Aliyah 430

YOSEF SALMONAnatomy of a Literary Scandal: M yxajl' Semenko and the Originsof Ukrainian Futurism 467

OLEH S. ILNYTZKYJ

DOCUMENTSDocum ents of Bohdan Xm el'nyc'kyj 500

FRANK E. SYSYN

REVIEW ARTICLESSome O bservations on the U krainian National M ovement and theUkra inian Revo lution, 1917-1921 525ANDREW P. LAMIS

REVIEWSW. W . Kulski, Germany an d Poland: From War to Peaceful Rela-tions (Anthony R. De Luca) 532Joseph Sirka, The Development of Ukrainian Literature in Czecho-slovakia, 1945-1975 (Danylo Husar Struk) 534


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Wolodymyr T. Zyla and Wendell M. Ayock, Ethnic Literaturessince 1776: The Many Voices of America (Myro n B. Kuropas) 536R. H. Stacy, Russian Literary Criticism: A Short History (Karen

Rosenberg) 539

INDEX TO VOLUME II (1978) 541

CONTRIBUTORSRiccardo Picchio is professor of Slavic languages and literatures at Yale Univer-sity and an associate of the Ukrainian Research Institute at Harvard Uni-versity.Jaroslav Stepaniv is a private scholar.Yosef Salmon is assistant professor of history at the Ben Gurion University of theNegev.Oleh S. Ilnytzkyj is a Ph.D. candidate in Slavic languages and literatures atHarvard University.Frank E. Sysyn is assistant professor of h istory and associate of the U krainianResearch Institute at Harvard University.Andrew P. Lamis is an undergraduate majoring in social studies at HarvardCollege.


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N O T E S ON THE TEXT OF THE IGOR' TALER I C C A R D O P I C C H I O

1. In previous articles I have discussed the particular rhythmic- syntacticpatterns that characterize many texts of Orthodox Slavic literature.According to these patterns, logical and syntactic units are grouped inseries of rhythmically marked cola with an equal number of stresses. Theregular occurrence of such features is so widespread tha t we can speak of ageneral isocolic principlegoverning literary productivity from the Bal-kans to the East Slavic lands until the eighteenth century. This clearisocolic structure characterizes the Igor' Tale, as well. It may have beenproduced either by the work's original author or by a scribe (or scribes)who worked on the text, as we know it, as an editor or compiler.1

From the formal point of view, the presence of these characteristicsclearly places the Igor' Tale within the literary norm of Medieval Ortho-dox Slavdom (Slavia Orthodoxa). In particular, the presence of isocolic1 See my articles: "On the Prosodie Structures of the Igor' Tale," Slavic and EastEuropean Journal 16, no . 2 (Summer 1972): 147-62; "The Isocolic Principle in OldRussian Prose," in Slavic Poetics: Essays in Honor of Kiril Taranovsky (The Hagueand Paris, 1973), pp. 299-331; "Models and Pat tern s in the Literary Tradition ofMedieval Orthodox Slavdom," in American Contributions to the Seventh Interna-tional Congress of Slavicists, vol. 2 (The Hague and Paris, 1973), pp. 439- 67; "IsocolicConstructions in Old Serbian Prose," in Xenia Slavica in Honor ofGojko Ruiii(TheHague and Paris, 1973), pp. 149- 61; "Strut ture isocoliche e poesa slava mdivale,"Ricerche Slavistiche 17 (1972): 419-31; "Sulla strutt ura prosdica di una paginar o m a n a di Gogol'," Strumenti Critici 20 (1973): 101-116; "Su alcune analogie fra latcnica scrittoria del Pet rarca e gli stili delia letteratura balcnica nel XIV seclo," inPetrarca i Petrarkizam u slavenskim zemljama (Zagreb and Dubrovnik, 1978), pp.411- 24. The impact of isocolic models on the style of Glagolitic literature has beenstudied by E. Hercigonja in his book Srednjovjekovna knjiievnost, Povijest hrvatskeknjizevnosti, vol. 2 (Zagreb, 1976). The isocolic structures in Old Rus'ian literatureand their significance for textual criticism have been studied especially by M. Colucciand A. D a n t i in their critical edition, Daniil Zatonik: Slovo e Molenie, Studia His-trica et Philologica, vol. 2 (Florence, 1977); see also M. Colucci, "Le strutture proso-diche dello 'Slovo Daniila Za ton ika,' "Ricerche Slavistiche 20-21 (1973- 1974): 83-124; M. Colucci, "E ' possibile una constitutio t extus della 'ZadonSCina ' ? ," Spicilegiomoderno 7 (1977): 36- 62; M. Ziolkowski, "Th e Discourse on D mitrij IvanovicD o n s k o j " ( P h . D . Diss., Yale University, 1978).


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394 RICCARDO PICCHIOstructures in both the Igor' Tale and the sections of the Hypatian andLauren tian chronicles dealing w ith the campaign of Igo r' Svjatoslavic in1185 facilitates the comparative study of these works.The adherence of the Igor' Tale to the isocolic principle providesinternal clues to the syntactic structure of the text. Besides offering a kindof rhythmic-syntactic "grid" that displays the text's segmentation, theisocolic distribution may also help the reader recognize signals of dif-ferent kinds, such as the alliterative or rhym ing marke rs in the followingexamples:

2* A poganago / Kobjaka2 izb luku / morja,2 otb zelznyxb / velikixb2 plbko vb / Poloveckixb,2 jak o vixn> / vytorze.2 I padesja / Kobjakb2 vb grad / Kiev,2 vb gridnic / Svjatbslavli. . . .

Here the distribution of minimal rhythmic-syntactic segments in aseries of two-stress cola is marked by an elaborate system of signals.Otherwise, the phrase's segmentation would have been better expressedby a different isocolic scans ion. The first four cola, for exam ple, could beread as two cola of four stresses each. In fact, most medieval texts containseries of long cola (up to seven stressed word-units in the Igor' Tale)which often correspond to full clauses.The sound signals in this series, however, display a particular organiza-tion of marked pauses. The signals (with rhyme value) are ranged con-centrically. "Kobjaka-Kobjakb" marks the sound-and-meaning bound-aries of the first ph rase, which stretches beyond the gramm atical limits ofthe first sentence to include the subject ("Kobjakb") of the second. Thesound pair "m orja-v ytorz e" marks a second rhyming line, whereas therhyming kernel of the whole phrase is represented by the central couplet(" . . . velikixb - . . . Polovec&iJtb " ) . The unity of the conclusive dicolon, onthe other hand, is marked by a sound iteration which does not occur at thecola's end, but at its beginning: "va grad Kiev - va gridnic Syjato-slavli."Sound signals can also mark the functional individuality of the cola byestablishing particular sound connections in the body of each colon, thatis, without interfering with the parallelistic system of correspondences

Numerals refer to the number of stressed units in each colon.


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396 RICCARDO PICCHIO3 srymb / 1 / po zemli,3 Sizyrrrb/ / podb oblaky. . . .

The known variants (in P, P 2, E, K, M ) 3 are of a purely graphic nature,with one exception: and P 2 read "naati e sja tbj psni," whereas has"naatiesjatb psni."4 The uncertainty of the first editors of the lateeighteenth century about these words indicates that they had particulardifficulty reading this section of th e codex, and tha t this difficulty resultedin conjectural graphic renderings and interpretations.

According to the current interpretation, the exordium may be dividedinto three sentences: (1) an initial sentence containing a rhetorical ques-tion ("Is it not fitting to begin [this composition] with th e ancient words ofth e difficult tales concerning th e raid of Igor' Svjatoslavic? ") ; (2) a secondsentence containing the response to this rhetorical interrogation ("Thenbegin this songaccording to the 'truths' of this age and not according toBojan's fancy"); (3) a sentence which explains the rhetorical comparisonin the response ("Bojan's fancy" refers to the peculiar mental activities inwhich the "seer" engaged when he undertook to compose a song).

Despite the penetrating explanations of critics and editors,5 th e impres-sion remains that in the first sentence (the rhetorical question) the directobject governed by "to begin (najati) " is missing. In resolving this gram-matical problem, we might posit that "to begin" was used intransitivelyprecisely to indicate the indeterminateness of its object, or we mightattribute the accusative function to "trudnyxb povstii." The expression"naati e tbj psni" is usually interpreted as a hortatory imperative in3 Slovo, p. 43.4 Slovo, p. 45.5 For detailed surveys of th e most popular opinions on the text of th e gor ' Tale see:Slovo, pp. 463-529; V. P. Adrianova-Peretc, "Slovo polku Igoreve " pamjatnikirusskoj literatury X I - X I I I vekov (Leningrad, 1968); V. L. Vinogradova, Slovar-spravonik "Slova polku Igoreve, "4 vols. (Leningrad , 1965- 74); T. izevska, Glos-sary of the Igor' Tale (The Hague, 1966); S. Wollman, Slovo polku Igoreve jakoumleck d'lo, Rozpravy Ceskoslovensk Akademie Vd, vol. 68, no. 10 (Prague,1958); F. M. GolovenCenko, Slovo polku Igoreve: Istoriko- literaturnyj i biblio-grafieskij oerk (Moscow, 1955). Among the older critical surveys see, in par ticular,E. V. Barsov, Slovo polku Igoreve xudoiestvennyj pamjatnik Kievskoj dru-zinnoj Rusi, 3 vols. (Moscow, 1887- 89); and V. N. Peretc, izueniju "Slova polkuIgoreve"(Leningrad, 1926). The essence of the main critical debates is presented anddiscussed by R. Jakobson, Selected Writings, vol. 4: Slavic Epic Studies (The Haguean d Paris, 1966). See also H. R. Cooper, Jr., The Igor' Tale: An Annotated Bibliog-raphy of 20th- century Non- Soviet Scholarship on the "Slovo polku Igoreve"'(Lon-d o n , 1978), with the appendix " R o m a n Jakobson's F ifth R econstruction of th e Slovo polku Igoreve." Among the many annotated translations of the tale, that of A.Obreska- Jabo ska, Sowo o wyprawie Igora(Warsaw, 1954), is part icularly useful. Itconta ins a photo- reproduction of the Editio Princeps.


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NOTES ON THE TEXT OF THE IGOR TALE 395t h a t characterizes the isocolic structure as such. The following passage ofth e Igor ' Tale is an example of this type of sound- marking:

2 Tu Nmci/ i Venedici,2 tu Greci/ i Morava3 pojutb/ slavu / Svjatbslavlju,3 kajutb / knjazja / Igorja,3 ie / pogruzi / irb2 vo dn/ Kajay,2 rky/Poloveckija. . . .

H e r e sound cross- signals based on iteration and alliteration mark theunity of each of t h e first five cola: "N em a. . . Venediri ; Gr eci . . . Morava;slavu . . . Svjatbs/avlju; fcajutb . . . fcnjazja; ze pogruz// ." The func-tional individuality of t h e conclusive dicolon is, instead, marked by soundcross- signals th at link the two cola to each other th rough a sort of rhyme-enjambment: "dn e Kajal/ . . . ."

These examples indicate that the isocolic interpretation of OrthodoxSlavic texts can be of great interest to textual criticism. When the text'ssegmentation is marked by the isocolic grid as well as by auxiliary soundsignals, inte rpret ation becomes easier. F or this reason, I will give isocolicreadings of the passages from the Igor'Tale th at I propose to discuss. Th efollowing remarks on the text of the Igor ' Tale are part of a study which Ihave undertaken in preparing a new edition of the work. The edition willbe published in cooperat ion with Angiolo D ant i of the University ofF l o r e n c e .

2. The exordium of the Igor' Tale can be scanned in the followingway:2

4 Ne lpo li / ny bjaetb, / bra t ie , / najati4 s tarymi / slovesy / t r udnyxb / povstii4 / Igorev, / Igorja / Svjatbslavlica?3 N a a t i e sja/ tbj/ psni3 po / seg / vremeni,3 a n e/ po zamyleniju/ Bojanju!2 Bojaivb bo/ veij,3 aSe / k o m u / xotjase2 psnb / tvoriti ,3 to rastkaSetsja / mysliju/ po drevu:

2 According to th e text p ublished in L. A. Dmitriev an d D . S. LixaCev, eds., Slovo polku Igoreve (hereafter Slovo), 2nd ed. (Leningrad, 1967), pp. 43- 56, R ussiant ranslat ion, p p . 57 -66 .


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N O T E S ON THE TEXT OF THE IGOR1 TALE 397which the impersonal form of the reflexive verb takes the noun ("thissong") in the dativus commodi. We would, however, need a differentinterpretation if th e conjectural reading "naati e sja tbj psni" were notconfirmed and the missing accusative were otherwise identified through amore convincing reading.

Relying on palographie indications and taking the meaning into con-sideration, we could read:3 naati e / siju / povstb3 po bylinami./ seg/ vremeni. . . .

Paleographically, the confusion between sja and siju is certainly pos-sible. It might even originate from th e period to which th e codex unicus ofth e Igor' Tale has been tentatively dated that is, from the fifteenth orsixteenth century. It was then that the graphic ligature / + malyj jus(graphic j representing the sound ja) fell into disuse, and this fact mighthave created some confusion among the scribes of later generations.

If we consider that the codex was probably written in continua (amethod of writing in which the separation of words is not marked) andthat after sja/ siju an abbreviated form might have occurred, it isreasonable to assume that the first editors read tbpsni for what shouldhave been understood as povstb. This error would imply a confusionbetween Cyrillic tb and po, between ps and vs, and between ni an d / .Because or the whole final graphic cluster could occur in abbreviation,th e distinguishing palographie element would appear to be p v. Theindirect indications that we have concerning the dating and the palo-graphie characteristics of the codex make this confusion between and very likely. The two graphs, in fact, could acquire a very similar shape,with only the lower stroke of th e Cyrillic square letter for functioning asa distinctive element in opposition to the corresponding square letter forP- 6

The possibility that the codex contained a group of signs decipherableas both psnb and povstb does not, however, constitute a sufficientlyconvincing argument in favor of th e reading that I propose. This readingmust be confirmed within the context of the Igor' Tale's exordium.The exordium of the Igor' Tale contains a programmatic oppositionbetween the historical manner an d th e fantastic(poetic) manner. The his-6 This confusion was not possible before the introduction of the "square v" into theEast-Slavic writing p ractice in the fifteenth century. Cf. the reproduct ion of Cyrillicgraphs in V. A. Pet rova, Paleografleskijalbom: Uebnyjsbornik snimkovsrukopisejrusskix dokumentov XUI- XVIII vv. (Leningrad, 1968).


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398 RICCARDO PICCHIOtorical manner seems clearly identified with "the ancient words of thedifficult povsti," which are definite truths, that is, historical truths(byliny). The fantastic manner is identified with the manner used by theseer Bojan to compose apsrtb. This response to the rhetorica l question ofwhether to employ the style of "the difficult povsti" or the style of theancient psnb of Bojan is confirmed again at the point where the directnarrative actually begins, with the following words:7

4 e/ bratie/ povstb/ siju4 otb starago/ Vladimera/ do nynSnjago/ Igorja. . . .If we now quote th e beginning of the Igor' Tale acco rding to my sug-

gestion, it reads:4 Ne lpo li/ ny bjaSetb/ bratie/ najati4 starymi/ slovsy/ trudn yxb/ povstii4 pblku/ Igorev,/ Igorja/ Svjatbslavlica 3 naati ie / siju / povstb3 po bylinam i./ sego/ vremeni,3 a ne/ po zamyleniju/ Bojanju? . . . .

In this read ing we c an join together th e two sections governed by tobegin ( " . . . bratie, najati... naati e... ") by interpreting th e second tobegin (najati e) as a rhetorical repetition within a single, rhetoricallyinterrogative sentence.

Th e logical (and stylistic) parallel with "ponem ze, bratie, povstbsiju," which follows th e conclusion of th e exordium , now becomes evi-dent. By para ph rasin g the whole beginnin g of the composition we canunderstand the dominant meaning, thus: (a) it is proper to relate thispovstb to t he historical manner of the ancient povsti; (b) we o ught to

7 The opposite opinion, unacceptable to m e, according to which th e primary in tent ofth e Igor' Tale's au t h o r was to produce a songpatterned after Bojan's primeval poetry,was already well established in the nineteenth century. Barsov, Slovo opolku Igoreve,vol. 2, believed that "avtor Cuvstvuet sebja by bezsil'nym stojat' n a vysot staragovremeni." Because of this sort ofpoetic inferiority complex, in Barsov's opinion, "ego'Slovo' byv sotkano na osnov'Staryx Sloves'dolznoustupit'im oblasti tvorceskagomateriala, Sirot tvorceskix priemov, kacestve tvorceskix sozdanij, podinjajas'novym trebovanjam istorieskogo povstvovanija. V tom imenno smysl, avtor samom nacal naimenovav 'Slovo' svoe psniju, zatm, perexodja samomu po-vstvovaniju, nazyvaet ego ue povstiju: 'Nanem ie, govorit, povstb siju.'" Theseremarks, in my opinion, are typical of a dominan t t rend in Russian literary criticismand cu l tu ral history. Most scholars were more interested in interpreting th e Igor'Tale'sreference to an old l iterature com posed "starymi slovesy" (which would represent theequivalent of Slavic "classical models" imitated by really"medieval"Slavic poets) thanin establishing the actual functional meaning of this expression within th e con tex t ofth e Igor' Tale's rhetorical exordium.


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NOTES ON THE TEXT OF THE IGOR' TALE 399distinguish this mode of narration from the fantastic manner expressedby Bojan's psnb ; ( ) in conc re te historical t e rms , th i s povstb refers to theperiod extending from the "ancient Vladimir" to Igor' Svjatoslavic.

I do not believe that this interpretation is effectively refuted by thecommon observations that (1 ) the narrative does not always adhere to thehistorical manner (although Bojan's fancy consistently functions as areference to a style different from that of the narrator), and that (2) thefollowing passage occurs at the end of the Igor' Tale:

4 pvae / psnb / starymb / knjazenrb,3 a potonn. / molodynrb / pti:3 slava / Igorju / Svjatbslavica,4 Bui Turu / Vsevolod, / Vladimiru / Igorevicu!Apart from any consideration of the particular narrative context in

which this final "song" is located ("pvSe psnb" may refer to the finalscene of the "Povstb Igorev," r a t h e r t h a n to the general c h a r a c -ter izat ion of t h e c o m p o s i t i o n ) , th e fact r e m a i n s t ha t t he reading proposedabove is confirmed an d justified within th e logical, stylistic, and c o m p o -sitional cont ext of the exordium and not apa rt from it. If the exordiumhas an a u t o n o m o u s function, it seems to me t h a t only by accepting thereading " n a a t i e siju povstb " as analogous to the words t h a t laterfollow, " e bratie povstb siju," is it possible to c o m p r e h e n d th et r u e significance of the initial rhetorical inquiry.

3. As no ted above, the phrase beginning with the words " e,br a t ie , povstb siju [Let us t hen begin, b r e t h r e n , this story (p ovstb) ]"isi m p o r t a n t because it marks the switch from the r he to r ica l exordium toth e actual n arrat ive. I propose the following reading:

4 e / bratie/ povstb/ siju4 starago / Vladimira / do nynSnjago / Igorja4 ie istjagnu / / krpostiju / svoeju3 poostr i / serdca / svoego:4 muzestvonn. / naplwiivsja / ratnago / duxa,3 navede / svoja / xrabryja / 4 zemlju / Polovcbkuju / za zemlju / Rusbkuju. . . .

This readin g differs from the generally accep ted o ne i n tha t it in ter p r e t sth e instrumental form "muestvonn>" as related to "naplbnivsja" and" r a t n a g o duxa."8 My translation is: "Let us t hen begin, b r e t h r e n , this

8 Cf., for example, Slovo, p. 44. Also see L a Geste du Prince Igor': Epopee russe dudouzime sicle. . . , ed. by H. Grgoire, R. Jakobson, and M. Szeftel, Annuaire de


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400 RICCARDO story from Vladimir of old to Igor' of our day, who lifted up his spirit withhis hardiness and made his heart obstinate: filled with the boldness of th ewarlike spirit, he led his brave hosts to the Polovcian land, for th e land ofRus' ."

The main clue to the interpretation of the whole passage is offered byth e narrator's definition of Igor' as the one "iie istjagnu krpostijusvoeju poostri serdca svoego." What has escaped the attention of pre-vious investigators is that these words represent a crucial biblical citation.The Septuagint text of Deut . 2:30 reads: - , ("because theLord our God hardened his spirit, and made his heart obstinate"). TheSlavic wording appears to be an almost literal translation of this biblicalformula. I have taken the Greek text as a point of departure for my con-sideration because we do not know what the Slavic translation of theseparticular words was at the time when the lines were included in the Igor'Tale. It is fair to assume, however, that the Septuagint text served as avery authoritative source in the early period of Orthodox Slavic litera-ture. The Vulgate has: "quia induraverat Dominus Deus tuus spiritumeius, et obfirmaverat cor illius." These words refer to "Sihon the king ofH es h bon" who "would not let us [the Jewish people] pass by him." Sihonrelied on his own strength and defied God's will. God let him be over-whelmed by his audacity, so that, as we read in the same passage ofDeuteronomy, "he might give him into your [i.e., the Jewish people's]hands ."

This biblical citation indicates that Igor' Svjatoslavic was overwhelmedby his own boldness to the point that he did not heed God's command-ments. His warlike fury was similar to that of certain biblical men, likeKing Sihon, who were deprived of their wisdom because they did not obeyth e divine law. The sin of pride led to their self- destruction so that theymight fall into enemy hands.The larger study on the Igor' Tale that I am preparing with A. Dantistates that this particular citation from Deut . 2:30 acts as a thematic cluewhich explains the general meaning of th e entire text.9 The Igor' Tale, Ibelieve, is a sort of religious "exemplum" which shows that Igor' Svjato-

l ' Insti tut de Philologie et d'H istoire Orientales et Slaves, vol. 8 (New York, 1948), p.38 ; English t ranslation by S. H. Cross, p. 151: "and sharpened his hearth with valor."Also Adrianova- Peretc, "Slovo o plku Igoreve, " p. 57.9 See my article "The Function of Biblical Thematic Clues in the Literary Code of'Slavia Orthodoxa,*" Slavica Hierosolymitana: Slavic Studies of the Hebrew Uni-versity 1 (1977): 1-31.


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NOTES ON THE TEXT OF THE IGOR'TALE 401Slavic was given into his enemies'hands because of his "sin of pride," andwas thereafter liberated from captivity because of his repentance thatis , because of his return to Christian humility.10

From the textual viewpoint it is important to underscore the syntacticalautonomy of the words that contain the biblical citat ion. In the renderingof the citation in Slavic, special attention must be paid to the two verbalforms.

"Istjagnu umb krpostiju svoeju" corresponds to the Greek = . . . (literally, "hardened his spirit"). The idea of' hard iness ' ( , t h a t is, 'spiritual ha rshn ess' as implied by thefo rm ) 1 1 is not expressed by the Slavic verb. It is conveyed,in s t ead , by the related in s t rumen ta l "krpostiju svoeju." I think that thisperiphrastic solution is deliberate. Igor's spiritual "harshness" is the resultof a motus animi, of an impulse which alters the harmony of his mind.This motus, apart from its source (i.e., Igor's "krpost"'), is described bythe verbal form "wtjagnu." The prefix is[z] ( = out, ex-) modifies the basicrange of meanings of "tjagnuti"to suggest a kind of "exaggeration, "thatis , a "heaping out," or "exceeding" of certain limits. Its opposite appearsto be expressed by the prefix vbz- ( = in- ) as in"vbitjagnuti,"which means"to curb" or "to constrain" (coartare, constringere), as, for example,passions (cf. "nstb varm vbstjagnulb gnva i poxoti," or in the reflexiveform, "ot nasixb poxotii vbstjagnemb sja" = "nos a nostris voluptatibuscoarctamus").12 "Istjagnu " therefore appears t o m e a n the oppositeof " a n i m u m cohartavit," or the equivalent of " a n i m u m laxavit": "heloosened the ties of (lifted up ) his spir i t . " T he e xp l a n a t i o n of "istjagnu...krpostiju" as an interpretative periphrasis intended to clarify the fullmeaning of can prove t h a t the Slavic wording was the resultof a thorough i n t e rpre t a t ion of the biblical text.

"Poostri serdca svoego" renders the G r ee k with exegetical precision. " P o o s t r i " suggests again the idea of" r o u g h n e s s " (cf. " o s t r b " = "asper "wi t h reference to th e "rough v.ays," i .e., , in Luke 3:5). But it conveys at th e same time the idea of "b ru te10 See my preliminary presentation of this interpretation and its discussion inMinutes of th e Seminar in Ukrainian Studies held at Harvard University 5 (1974- 75):20 -22 .1 ' Cf. th e use of this verb, as both a transitive an d an intransitive, in several texts ascited in Vinogradova, Slovar'- spravocnik, 2: 165- 67. Cf., in particular, its occurrencein Psalm 138 (139) cited byPeretc, izueniju "Slova/ 'p. 58 (see also V. N. Peretc ,Slovo o Plku Ihorevim [Kiev, 1926], p. 143). They all suggest th e general idea of a"spiritual condition." As to the particular connotation of , 'durus, ' as"spiritually harsh" (estokyj), cf. Barsov, Slovo o plku greve, 3: 259-60.12 Slovnik jazyka staroslovnskho(\\erealeT Slovnk), vol. 1 (Prague, 1966),p.342.


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402 RICCARDO PICCH IOforce" ( ) which is also implied by the Greek term (cf. th e use ofobfirmo, in the sense of "to m ake obst ina te, " in the Vulgate). 13

If, as I believe, it is proved th at the two syntac tic segmen ts "ie istjagnuumb krpostiju svoeju" and "i poostri serdca svoego" have a clearlymarked function in this context, th en a pause is needed after "svoego."The word "mu zestvonrb," which does not belong to the biblical citation ,must therefore belong to th e sentence which follows the pause, th at is, tothe succeeding "colon." The colon reads: "muzestvomb naplbnivsja rat-nago duxa." My translation is: "filled with the boldness of the warlikespirit," or more literally, "having filled himself with the boldness (valor)of the spirit of war." The question arises wheth er "boldness of th e warlikespirit" means anything special in this context. In my opinion one cananswer this question affirmatively. "Ra tn ago duxa" semantically modi-fies "muzestvomb" in a way that corresponds perfectly to the generalmessage conveyed by the passage. The crucial point is no t tha t a warriorwas filled with "muzestvo" before engaging in battle: obviously, he wassupposed t o be brave. F r o m the Christian viewpoint, however, he shouldn o t have been domin ated by the "warlike spirit, " t h a t is, by his reliance o n as "brute force." As we read in a related passage of th e Laurentian(Suzdal') Chro nicle, boldness (muzestvo) and boasting (velicanbe), aswell as fear, ar e in vain if th e Ch ristian warrior s do no t rely on G o d alone:

velicanbja / svoego / otpad oa3 ne vduace / glagolemago / :3 nstb / celovku / mudrosti,2 ni estb / muzestva,2 ni estb / dum y,2 protivu / gospodevi. . . ,14

13 In turn, represents a semantic field connected with th e preceding term "kr-postb." Cf. Barsov, Slovo opolku Igoreve, 3: 413. Examples of as "brute force"appear in A Greek- English Lexicon, . by H . G . Liddeland R. Scott , newed. byH . Stuard Jones (Oxford, 1940; repr inted 1961), p. 844.14 Polnoe sbrame russkix letopisej, 3rd ed. (St. Petersburg, 1897). Cf. N. . G u dz ij,Xrestomatija po drevnej russkoj literature XI -XVII vekov, 6t h ed. (Mo scow, 1955),p . 79 . The citation is from Prov. 21:30 -31: "There is no wisdom, there is no courage( ) , there is no counsel against th e ungodly. Ahorse is prepared for th e da y ofbattle; but help is of the Lord . "The Slavic text omits all th e words from "ungodly" to"the Lord": "ni estb dumy [. . .] protivu G ospodevi ." The omitted words are con-sidered a kind of obvious "mental integration" left to th e readers ' meditation. Thismeans that the spiritual meaning of th e reference is focused on th e "horse prepared forth e day of battle." M y citations from th e Old Testament ar e based on T he SeptuagintVersion of th e Old Tes tamen t , with an English translation byL. L. Brenton (London[s.a. ]) , and T he Oxford Annotated Bible , rev. standard version (New York, 1962). TheVulgate is cited according to Biblia S acra iux ta Vu lgatam Clemen t inam, 4th ed., by A.


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NOTES ON THE TEXT OF THE IGOR TALE 403The expression "muzestvom . . . ratnago duxa," therefore, clarifies the

biblical quotation. Igor' Svjatoslavic was guilty of obeying the impulse ofhis "krpos tb." What completely dominated him was a type of "rnuzest-vo" guided not by a pious "mudrostb," but by "duma" (i.e., pride) and"ratnyj duxb." Heedful readers should have grasped the meaning of thisbiblical thematic clue. From the very beginning of the narrative theyshould have understood that Igor"s " 1 " was doomed to disaster be-cause of the arro gant spirit in which it was conceived. Even the "no n -C h r i s t i a n " wisdom of Bojan's fancy, in th e text of th e Igor ' Tale, remindedt hem that "nstb . . . mudrost i. . . protivu Gospodevi" by conveying thesame message in different words and to a different tune:

4 Tomu / vscej / / prbvoe3 pripvku / smyslenyi / ree:4 ni xytru / ni gorazdu / ni pticju / gorazdu3 suda / boija / ne tnin uti....

T o provide a complete explanation of this crucial passage, we mustdiscuss one more problem. The biblical formula refers to Sihon, whosespirit and heart were "hardened" and "made obstinate" by God. Igor'Svjatoslavic, however, himself " h a r d e n s " a n d "makes o b s t i n a t e " his spiritan d heart. To explain this difference we might argue th at if the writer'si n t en t i o n was to illustrate I gor"s sin, he had to emphasize Igor"s personalresponsibility. F u r t h e r m o r e , we can consider the cont extual function ofth e formula as related more to the general motif of the "hardened andstubborn heart" t h a n to the particular example of Sihon, king ofH e sh b o n , according to the wording of D e u t . 2:30. This would establish alarger set of c o n n e c t i o n s between the spirit of the thematic clue and itstextual sources. Thematically, the semantic sphere of the citation wouldbecome wider. It would suggest a general biblical referent based evenm o r e on a typical example of t h e pharaoh's stubbornness and "hardenedh e a r t , " especially as described in Exodus, t h a n on that of the king ofH e s h b o n . F r o m the textual critical viewpoint, we should t he n considerth e possibility that the Slavic rendering of th e biblical passage chosen as a" t h e m a t i c clue" was influenced by oth er biblical formulae conveying thesame message, but in other words. This is the case, for example, with

Colunga, O.P., and L. Turrado (Madrid, 1965). The G reek text of th e N ew Testamentis cited according to Novum Testamentum Graece et Latine, 23rd ed., by . N estle an dK. Aland (Stuttgart, 1964). A complete isocolic reading of th e chronicle accounts ofIgor"s raid, as they are preserved in both the Laurentian and the Hypatian texts,will be included in the newedition of th e Igor' Tale that I am preparing with A.Danti .


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404 RICCARDO PICCHIOExodus 8:32, where the Pharaoh, like Igor' Svjatoslavic, "hardens" hisown heart: ("And Pharaohhardened his he a r t " ) . The G reek verb combines th e gradations ofmeanings suggested by both "istjagnu . . . krpostiju ... i poostri"and theforms used in Deut. 2:30 ( . . . ).

This combination of biblical lexical variations on the theme providedby one textual reference helps us understand the explanatory function ofth e segment "muiestvomb naplbnivsja ratnago duxa" and confirms thereading of the whole passage that was suggested above. As to the gram-matical construction of the segment (verb + instrumental + a two wordcluster in the genitive that modifies the preceding substantive in theinstrumental) , I think that its "regularity" should be evaluated in con-nection with stylistic and rhetorical considerations. "Napblnitisja (= - / , 'to fill oneself, to be full of) can take either th e genitive orth e instrumental: "naplbnisja D[u]xomb S[ve]tymb ( - ) " in the Ostromir Gospel (Luke 1:67), and "Napbl'nivbsjaS[vja]t[o]go D[u]xa" in Nestor's Life ofTheodosij.[5 This passage of th eIgor' Tale seems to combine two stylistic models ("napblnitisja muest-vomb" and "napblnitisja ratnago duxa") to produce a rhetorical formulawhich conveys a theologically marked message with a didactic conno-ta tion.

4. Igor"s blind fury is described with exegetical precision immediatelyafter the presentation of the "thematic clue." God gives him a sign, theeclipse, which any good Christian familiar with biblical examples ( - ) should have understood (on the biblical motive of darkness inth e daytime see, for example, P s. 105:27- 28, Job 5:14 and 19:18, Nah.1:6). Igor', however (like most modern readers), fails to understand it.The narrator provides an explanatory commentary which, unfortunately,th e codex unicus of the Igor' Tale has handed down to us in corruptedform. Let us first quote the text as it currently reads:

4 A vsjadenvb / bratie / na svoi brbzyja / komoni3 da / sinego / Donu! 4 Spala/ knjazju/ / poxoti4 i alost / emu / znamenie / zastupi3 iskusiti/Donu/ velikago. . . .16Isocolically, the segmentation appears irregular because of the two

15 See I. I. Sreznevskij, Materia y dlja slovarja drevne-russkogo jazyka, vol. 2 (St.Petersburg, 1902), p. 315.16 Slovo, p. 44; La Geste du Prince Igor', p. 40.


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NOTES ON THE TEXT OF THE GOR' TALE 405four-stress cola that alter the typical form of an "alternant sequence" (inthis case we would expect 4, 3, 4, 3, 4). The meaning is somewhat un-clear or, at least , it takes an effort to grasp it because of the unusualsyntactic construction.

This complex sentence has two grammatical subjects: poxoti andzalostb. I think that poxoti ("coveting desire"; "saepissime sensu malo,"according to Slovnik)xl is in the nominative for poxot[b]. The final is probably the result of a graphic c o n t a m i n a t i o n with the word iskusitit h a t , as I will try to d e m o n s t r a t e , originally followed it. Poxoti is thesubject governing th e transitive verbal form spala an d th e accusative .Spala can be interpreted as the equivalent (for s[b]pal[i]) of the 3rdpe r son singular aorist of sbpaliti, 't o b u r n out ,' 't o destroy with fire'{sbpaliti being semantically stronger t h a n paliti, which is used, e.g., tot r an s l a t e N u m . 21:14 according to th e Septuagint: . . . ; "rat b G [ o s p o d b n ] ja Zuva pali. . , " ) . 1 8 Anothercon jec tua l reading, nam ely, spa\li]la, is also possible (and perhaps evenm o r e acceptable from t he palographie point of view, if we consider thepossibility of an abbreviation).Zalostb ( ) m ea n s "passion, zeal, a m b i t i o n or en vy" an d could bec o n n e c t e d with "pride."19 H e r e zalostb is the subject governing the 3rdperson singular ao rist zastupi ("dimmed, m a d e obscure") an d th e accusa-tive znamenie ("the sign").

Literally, we can translate the passage as: "The desire burned theprince's mind and [his] passion m ade the sign obscure to h i m . " The lastc o l o n , "iskusiti D o n u velikogo (to taste the G r ea t D o n ) " remains loose,without any immediate syntactical c o n n e c t i o n . To interpret it, we musthave recourse to a sort of rhe to r i ca l it e ra t i on and read: "[th e passion] totaste th e G r e a t D o n . "

I t seems to me t h a t th e sen tence becomes m u c h clearer, with n o need ofany rhe to r i ca l (men t a l ) i t e ra t ion or "filling," if we simply invert the orderof the last two cola to read:

4 A vsjademb/ bratie/ na svoi bn>zyja/ komoni3 da pozriim. / sinego / D o n u ! 4 Spal[i]la / knjazju / / poxot[b]3 iskusiti / D o n u / velikago4 zalostb/ emu/ znamenie/ zastupi. . . .

N o w it is easier to t ranslate t he en t i r e sen t ence literally: "Th e desire to17 Stovnik, 1: 227.18 Sreznevskij, Materiay dlja slovarja, 2: 869. Pere t c , izuieniju "Slova, " p p . 58-59.


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406 RICCARDO PICCHIOtaste the Great Don burned the prince's mind and his passion made thesign obscure to him."

This is an interesting example of how effectively the "isocolic grid "canhelp locate a corruption in the text's texture. 20

5. Another important passage of th e Igor' Tale deals with th e problemof what "rhetorical manner" the narrator should use (the choice beingbetween the fantastic and the historical style) by referring directly toBojan's poetry. Its isocolic text can be read as follows:

4 O Bojane/ soloviju/ starago vremeni!3 A by ty / sija 1 / uekotah>,4 skaa / slaviju / po myslenu / drevu,3 letaja / u m o n v b / podb oblaky!5 Svivaja / slavy / obapoly / sego / vremeni,5 ria/ vb trop u/ Trojanju/ resb polja/ na gory,5 pti b y o / psnb / Igorevi / togo / vnuku:5 Ne burja / s o k o y / zanese / resb polja / irokaja,5 galici/ stady/ bzatb/ D o n u / Velikomu. . . . 6 i li vbspti/ bylo/ vacei/ Bojane/ Velesovb/ vnuce:6 K o m o n i / rutb/ za Suloju, / zvenitb/ slava/ vb Kyev,6 truby/ trubjatb/ vb No vgrad^stojatb/stjazi/vb P utivl...?

This reading is characterized by a punctuation and consequently a divi-sion into logical units different from that offered by current interpreta-tions of the text. A first pause is detected after "podb oblaky." This isintended to emphasize the general definition of Bojan's style. To describethis style, a type of bird imagery is used that is immediately reminiscent ofth e parallel description in the exordium. The beginning of th e next sen-tence ("Svivaja . . . pti bylo . . . vnuku") is marked by a switch in therhythmical segmentation from an alternant isocolic series to a plain five-stress pentacolon. This sentence shows the rhetorical models at the dis-20 That some scribal error might have affected th e syntactical setting of this passagean d , in particular, the order of its sentences had already been noticed by nineteenth-cen tu ry scholars. I do not think, however, that the text needs other major corrections.As Jakobson writes:"Suivant Sobolevskij 1888 ["Ob odnom meste 'Slova o plku Igoreve," Ctenija htorieskom obSiestve Nestora-Letopisca, vol. 2, 1888] ces versets [from "TogdaI g o r b " . . . to ... "elomom D o n u " ] au raien t l'origine occup leur place entre 25 et 26["a knjazju slave .. . Togda vbstupi Igor' knjazbvbzlatbstremenb], mais l'histoire de lacampagne d'Igor' dans Hyp. corrobore l'ordre de A: 1) Igor ' ne se laisse pasdcourager par l'clips de soleil; 2) Igor' attend son frre Vsevolod" (SelectedWritings, 4: 150).


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NOTES ON THE TEXT OF THE GOR1 TALE 407posai of the writer-narrator: ambiguity of expression (fantastic imagery)and "Trojan" pathos (epic narrative). The poetic "samples"contained inthe last two cola of the pentacolon and the following tricolon, respec-tively, exemplify precisely these poetic manners: the falcons and daws ofthe first rhetorical citation are images of the horses, trumpets, and ban-ners presented in the second poetic sample.From the textual critical point of view, however, the most serious prob-lem regards the first colon in the five-stress series. Should we read "obapoly" or "obapoly"? The prosodie structure, within a pentacolon of five-stress segments which are clearly marked syntactically, seems to confirmthe reading "obpoly." We see here a lexical unit which, according toL. A. Bulaxovskij, corresponds to the modern Russian form "obpoh>"and which commonly means "from both sides (s obeix storon)."21 Themeaning of "obpoly" in this precise context, however, seems to be moresubtle. As Roman Jakobson has indicated in his discussion of the Igor'Tale's exordium,22 and as other scholars have mentioned with respect tovarious recurrent forms in other parts of the work, it is useful to turn toGreek models other than the Septuagint, the Gospels, or the writings ofthe church fathers to reconstruct the stylistic patterns of Old Rus' prose.This certainly does not mean that the author (or editor, compiler, scribe)of the Igor' Tale necessarily had any direct knowledge of the Greekliterary tradition. The comparison with Greek formulaic models is justi-fied not by any hypothetical relationship of direct textual dependency,but by the nature of the Orthodox Slavic literary tradition as a part of thespiritual community of Eastern Christianity guided by Byzantium.

If we consider "obapoly" to be a formal equivalent of andexamine th e meaning of this Greek form within th e range of its semanticcombinations in a number of m orphological variations ( , - , ' , ' ), we might consider that thesong "woven" into the Igor' Ta l e ("svivaja slavy") refers to "two aspects"of the subject under discussion. In our specific case, these two aspectscould be good and bad fortune or even, with a more precise connotation,th e good and evil fama ("slava" or ) which is gained by a militaryexploit. This interpretation corresponds to the dominant motif of theIgor' T a l e in search of slava, Igor' Svjatoslavic fights valorously, buth is slava is n ot justified by his concomitant observance of th e religious21 Cf. Vinogradova, Slovar'- spravocnik, 4: 127; Slovo, p. 477; Adrianova-P eretc,"SIovo o plku Igoreve, " p. 60.22 Jakobson, Selected Writings, 4: 238 ff.


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408 RICCARDO PICCHIO

an d political laws of th e land. It seems quite plausible within the frame-work of a formulaic Old Rus' style modelled on the Greek tradition.Among the many possible models, or carriers of model-producing for-mulae, we might consider the following passage from Thucydides: ' . . . .23According to the words Thucydides has Archidomos, king of th e Lace-demonians, pronounce before the expedition into Attica, the great famewhich the army was about to win ( ) might beof a diverse nature, that is, might have either a positive or a negative ( * ) character depending on the course of the events ( ) . The same consideration is valid for Igor' Svjatoslavic'sexpedition. The narrator of th e Igor ' Tale could have sung his slava- doxaaccording to the example set by Bojan, "the nightingale of yore," and inan ambivalent manner. This ambivalence would have expressed "bothaspects" of the events of that time, that is, "obapoly sego vremeni ( ' ) ."

The dependence on a Greek formula of th e type ' deservesa more thorough investigation which would consider th e entire rhetorical-conceptual system of the epic account of Igor' Svjatoslavic's expeditionagainst the Polovcian land.

6. Ever since the publication in 1800 of th e Editio Princepsof th e Igor'Tale, editors and commentators have had a hard time interpreting thecrucial passage where the celestial omen of th e eclipse is combined withDiv's dreadful shriek on the threshold of th e Polovcian woods. The com-plexity of the symbols may also have affected an earlier scribe's compre-hension of the text. Any attempt to explain this difficult section of thework must consider the possibility that the text underwent some distor-tion in its transmission even before the compilation of th e codex unicusused by its first editors. Thus , th e fundamental question of whether an d towhat extent the work's editions contain a textus traditus becomes ex-tremely baffling as far as these particular lines are concerned.

O ne should not depend entirely, however, on the hypothesis of a defec-tive textual transmission. In fact, some obscure sentences may also resultfrom factors such as, for example, the use of particular techniques of23 "Considering therefore the power of t h e state against which we are march ing, andth e greatness of the reputat ion which we shall win or lose for our ancestors and our -selves according to the event. . . . " The Complete W ritings of Thucydides: Crawleytranslation, Modern Library Edition (New York, 1934), p. 90.


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NOT E S ON T H E TEXT OF TH E IGOR' T A L E 409c o m p i l a t i o n from unidentified sources in the original production of thetext.

T h e passage in question does no t show a clearly marked segmentat ion.Therefore, its isocolic scanning depends much more on interpretationt h a n on recourse to a well definable "grid." The following reading seemsplausible:7 Togda / vbstupi / Igorb / knjazb / / zlatb / stremenb / ;

7 po istomu/ polju/ solnce/ emu/ / tbmoju/ putb/ zastupae.3 Nob / stonui / emu5 grozoju / ptib / ubudi / svistb / zvrirn:3 Vb stazby / Divb / kliefb,5 vn>x[&] dreva / velitb / posluati / zemli / neznaem:3 Vlbz / Pomoriju / Posuliju5 Surou / Korsunju / teb / Tbmutarakanbskyi / !3 A Polovci/ negotovami/ dorogami pobgoSa / D o n u / Velikomu.3 Kryatb / tlgy / polunoay:3 rei / lebedi / rospuSeni. . . .

G i ven the unu sual length of th e first two cola (as a rule the longest colain th e Igor' Tale, as in most texts of Orthodox Slavic literature, contain amaximum of six verbal units) one can wonder whether this passage isactua lly isocolic. I incline toward answering t his question affirmativelyfor two m ain reasons: (a) there is a tendency in Ort ho dox Slavic literatureto adapt non- isocolic textual m aterial as, for example, certain literaltran slations to the general rhythmic- syntactic structu re of th e contextunless the stylistic insert itself is clearly marked by an independen t type ofrhe to r i c a l segmentation; 24 (b) the individuality of each segment in thisisocolic reading of th e text can be supported by consideration s regardingb o t h their logic and their referential function.

In th e first long colon, I have grouped together in a n arrative unit thetwo verbal forms that describe the action of "setting foot in the goldens t i r r u p " and th at of "star tin g off." This solution implies tha t in thiscontext " " does not express the action of "riding," but that of"beginning to move." The opposite solution that is, the commonlyaccepted reading "i po istomu polju" is supported mainly by theimpression that this semantic cluster is marked by the alliterative repeti-t ion "po- ... po." I think, however, that such a reading, which seems to beth e easiest at first glance, depends on a kind of semantic and stylistic24 An interesting example of this technique of "textual annexation" is found in theHypatian Chronicle's account of Igor"s raid.


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410 RICCARDO PICCHIOfacilior.25 If we mark the close connection of the action of "declaringwar," as it is expressed by the figurai formula "to set foot in the goldenstirrup," with that of "moving [against the Polovcians],"26 we emphasizesimultaneously the reckless swiftness of Igor's " 1 " and the suddenbeginning of th e military adventure in the narrative context of this slovo-povst '.The conceptual unity of the second seven- stress colon can be fullyevaluated if we read it in the light of its biblical subtext. It is not th e factthat the sun was obscured (because of th e eclipse) that is relevant from th eexegetical viewpoint, but that the darkness was not of a merely physicalkind. Igor"s path crossed a "istoe polje," an open field, before reachingth e Polovcian woods. Nothing on earth, besides man himself, could castshadows here. This image conveys the idea of clear daylight. Its funda-mental constituents are the wide-open space and the shining sun. Thedivine omen consists in the sudden disruption of thisvisible harmony. It isimportant to stress th e fact that " the sun barred his path with darkness"ina shadowless plain, "po istomu polju." Therefore, in our interpretativereading Igor"s path should not be separated from th e open field which itcrosses and whose physical "istota" it shares.

Both the physical and the spiritual features of th e image become clear ifwe refer to its biblical subtext and exegetical referent. We read in Job 5:13- 14: "He [the Lord] takes the wise in their own craftiness; and theschemes of the wily are brought to a quick end. They meet with darknessin the daytime, and grope at noonday as in the night." There is no doubtthat these words fit perfectly th e situation in which Igor' Svjatoslavic hadpu t himself by his reliance on his own military craftiness and by his wilyviolation of th e political and military rules of Rus'. These rules, as Svjato-slav will point out in his "golden speech," required full obedience to thegreat prince to preserve the unity of Ru s ' and to avoid thoughtless initia-tives by ambitious individuals.2725 This type of alliterative repet ition can , as a matter of fact, have a disjunctive syn-tact ical function. Cf., for example, "Proidoa val na Cistoepole/ / ipo idoa bitbsja"(Hyp. Chr., year 1151, cited by Adrianova- Peretc, "Slovo polku Igoreve/'p. 75).26 Cf. the examples of "poxati" used in the sense of "vystupit', pojti vojnoju" inSreznevskij, Materiay dlja slovarja, 2: 1339: "pod i borzo . . . na poganuju Litvu"(Pskov. I . let., for the year 6773); "A koli mi budet b poslati na ratb svoixb voevo-dovb. . . , tmb poxati sb vo evod oju " (Dogovornaja gramola . . . 1389);"Podite, gospoda, sb nami na Litvu.. "(Pskov. I. fe/., y ear 6914). Cf. also " vbTatary. . ." (Nov. I. let., year 6778), Sreznevskij, Materia y dlja slovarja, 2: 1338.27 6 R a n o / esta naali / Poloveckuju / zemlju / cveliti,3 a sebeI slavy / iskati;


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NOTES ON THE TEXT OF THE IGOR1 TALE 411Th e same book of Job provides us with an even more direct reference toth e segment- colon under discussion: "He has walled up my way, so that Icannot pass, and he has set darkness upon my paths" (Job 19:8). Toidentify with precision the biblical subtext, which extends to this passageth e spirit of th e message contained in th e thematic clue at th e beginning ofth e narration, we must refer "po istomu polju"to the daylight ( )

an d the noonday ( ) of Job 5:14; and we must, in turn ,refer this image to the almost literal rendering of with the words "emu tbmoju putb zastupaSe."

I t is clear that th e writer of th e Igor' Tale needed a biblical reference tohelp his readers bridge the gap between the spiritual and historical levelsof meaning that coexisted in his didactic account of Igor' Svjatoslavic'sraid. But did he have any special reason to select this particular sign-context of th e book of Job? Since the true context that is, the generalreferent indicated by the work's thematic clue was to be found in theHoly Writ, each citation had to be read as part of its functional an d occa-sional new context (in this case, the Igor' Tale) and as a part of th e un-changeable biblical text, too . The lines from Job 5:13- 14 cited above arefollowed by words that are not immediately related to th e scene of Igor"spath covered with darkness at noon, but are of evident interest for thegeneral interpretation of th e Igor' Tale. Job 5:15- 16 reads: "and let them[those "groping at noonday as in the night" mentioned in the precedingverse] perish in war, and let the weak escape from the land of th e mighty.And let the weak have hope, but the mouth of the unjust be stopped."

The whole thematic outline of the Igor' Tale is suggested by thesewords. Igor' and his army, that "gropes at noonday as in the night,"should "perish in war." Only after Igor"s repentance, which is thoroughlydescribed in the Hypatian account but only poetically subsumed in theIgor' Tale, will he become worthy of clemency and pardon . Igor' thestrong and boasting fighter must perish, but Igor' the weak and helplessprisoner, the captive of the mighty and boasting Polovcians, will escape

6 neiestno I odolste / nelestno bo / krovb / poganuju / proljaste.3 Vaju/ xrabraja/ serdca:5 vb iestocemb I xaraluzIskovana vb buesti/ zakalena;5 se li I stvoriste I moei / srebrenej / sdin!5 A ue/ne vizdu I vlasti I silbnago bogatago. . . (Cf. Hab. 1: 3- 4).3 Nb rekoste / "muaimeSja / sami,4 prednjuju I slavu I ,3 a zadnjujusja I sami I podlimb" . . . (Cf. 1 . 5: 56- 62).


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412 RICCARDO PICCHIOfrom their land because it is written "let the weak have hope, but themouth of th e unjust be stopped." Thus, we can translate th e first two longcola of this complex passage as follows: "The n P rince Igor' set h is foot inth e golden stirrup and started off; in the open field th e sun barred his pathwith darkness." (Cf. Job 5:13- 14, 15- 16, and 19:8.)

Abruptly, the alternan t (3/ 5) hexacolon that follows transfers th e sceneto the Polovcian woods. In accordance with the figurai formula of thebook of J o b , the "darkness ( , )" is also a fearful "nig ht ( ,nob ) . " In spite of its physical co ncreteness in the surro un ding world, itis a personal and essentially spiritual night that "howls at him (stonuiemu)" Th e pause after "e m u " is necessary to un derline Igor's persona l"grop ing. " H owever, what Igo r' perceives is not only the night that ho wlsin his mind, but also the howling night's external, physical horror.

Th rou gh this natura l horro r, as it is expressed by the horror- terror ofth e forest 's birds ("grozoju ptib"[instrum enta l + genitive p lura l]), "th enight ho wling at h im {nose stonuS i emu). . . stirred a wild hissing {ubudisvistb zvrinb)." H istorically, tha t is, on the concrete level of the narra-tive, we may assume that this "wild hissing" was th e alarm signal of thePolovcian sentinel posted on a treetop. At th is point, however, the Igor'Tale's narrator switches from a style based on the biblical dual levels oftruth to a style governed by poetic imagery. This switch is typical of therhetorical technique used thro ugh ou t the work. It is th e rhetorical combi-nation of the language of revelation with that of poetic imagery that canjustify, I b elieve, th e presence of "pa gan " elements in a religiou sly inspiredwork. Both the Scriptures and the Byzantine literary trad ition could haveacted as direct or indirect models in this connection. To interpret a"paga n" or "barb aric" and dem oniacal sym bol- character like "D iv," theOrth odo x Slavic reader could no t use th e figurai code of Christian revela-t ion. H ence cam e the switch to a language and an imagery of a differenttype.

The colon which com es after "svistb zvrinb" contains one of th e mostpuzzling loci obscuri of the entire work. M any scholars have tried toemend the text given in the Princeps, which reads "vb stazbi."28 Since thisreading does n ot seem to m ake sense, m ost conjectures are based on a dif-ferent division of th e letters into words. Roman Jakobson, for example,reads, "vb sta zbi," and translates, "a svist zverinyj ix sotnjami [S . H .2 8 This word (o r words) is omitted in ( t he copy made for Ca th er ine I I ) . Cf.Jakob son's cr i t ical edi t ion , note to verset 28 (Selected Writings, 4:135). This omissionconf irms that the first edi tors had ser ious difficulty deciphering the passage.


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NOTES ON THE TEXT OF THE IGOR' TALE 413Cross: "by hundreds"] sognal. . . ."29 Other conjectural readings requirethe addition of some letters. L. A. Dmitriev and D . S. Lixacev read, "svistzvrin vbsta, zbi[sja] Divb...," and translate, "svist zverinyj podnjalsja,vstrepenulsja Divb. . . ."30

I think that the reading in the Princeps can be preserved in substancewith only formal changes as regards spelling, namely, ja instead of a andpossibly, but not necessarily, y instead of . As in the case of "sjatbpesni"/ "si ju povstb," which I discussed above, the misreading of aligature + malyjjus (graphic j representing th e soun d ja) , as well as thepossible confusion between and the C yrillic diagraph for y(jer- y), m aygo back to an early scribe.

If we consider "stazbi" a variant of "stjazbi" we can interpret this formas a plural feminine from a singular feminine "stazba" - "stjazfbjba,"related to "stjazb" (meaning "bann er" or "stan da rd") . The relationshipbetween "stjazb" an d "stazb a" (stjaz[b]ba), on the other hand , may cor-respond to that between the G reek pair ( "b an n er , st an d ard ,vexillum") and ( "s tandard" o r "body of troops under astandard, manipulus"). Both th e singu la r and it s p lu ral m ean "a signal for ba tt le." Th e expression "vb st[j]azbi" can beinterpreted as a call "to th e banners," tha t is, an "alarm " (Latin ad a rma!,Italian all'arme!, French aux armes!) within the same semantic andp h ra se olo gic al r an ge of .

From both the palographie and the linguistic point of view, the read-ing "vb st[ja]z[y] " seems m ore acceptable. A still mo re satisfactory solu-tion would be represented by "vb stagy]," especially if we were to estab-lish a co nn ection between the expression "vb stfjagy] D ivb kliet b" andsimilar expressions which o ccur in the chron icles, for e xample: "P olovci,priSedSe valovi, postaviSa stjagy svoe" (Laurentian C hronicle, for theyear 1093) and ". . . ipostavi stjagi G alibskija" ( H ypatian C hronicle, forth e year 1153) .31 In the practice of textual criticism , however, one m ustalways ask whether a completely satisfactory em end ation might be theequivalent of an over-emendation. This risk seems particularly seriouswhen one attempts the restitutio of an unclear form in accordan ce withlinguistic p attern s th at m ay no t fit the particular linguistic tint of th e textunder consideration. As to the reading "stazbi" and its connection with"stjazb" (o r "stjagb"?), the absence of palatalization in both t[bl]a an d2 9 L a Geste du Prince Igor', p. 155.3 0 Slovo, pp . 4 6 , 58 .3 1 Ci ted by Ad r ian o va -Pere tc , "Slovo o plku Igoreve, " p . 6 3 .


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414 RICCARDO PICCHIOz[bl] (as in druba) may be explained on the basis of historical linguisticdocumentation. In this case, the palographie emendation would becomeunnecessary. I think, therefore, tha t the reading recorded by the editors ofthe Princeps should be kept in the text and all related conjectures andinterpretative hypotheses should be presented in footnotes to the criticalapparatus.With the above considerations we can provide the following transla-tion: "Then Prince Igor' set his foot in the golden stirrup and started off;in the open field the sun barred his path with darkness. The night howlingat him stirred, with the birds' terror, a wild hissing. Div shrieks to give thealarm, on the top of a tree he shouts to summon the unknown land: theVolga and the seacoast, the region along the Sula, Suro, and Korsun',and thee, idol of Tmutarakan'! And the Polovcians dashed on unmarkedroads toward the Great Don: one would say that they were scatteredswans."

The last image establishes a parallel with the birds'terror described inthe first five-stress colon. It also represents a logical response to Div's"alarm."

7. In a moving section of the Igor' Tale we read that when "the paganswere coming from all sides to inflict defeats on the land of Rus'," Karna(a n obscure symbolic name which apparently indicated something con-nected with sorrow) began mourning and 2lja (another obscure term alsoconnected with the idea of misery and suffering) "sprang upon the land ofRus' casting fire at the people. . . . " At this point the scene becomes veryunclear because of the uncertain reading of the text. The main problem istha t of punctuation and, consequently, of logical- syntactical segmenta-tion.

Here isocolic scansion can provide a rhythmic- syntactic grid of greatinterest. Only a minor emendation is needed to obtain an easily under-standable reading of the passage. In order to evaluate the locus obscurusin its full context, it seems proper to give an extensive quotation of theisocolic reading of the text:4 A poganii / sb vsxb / stranb / prixozdaxu3 sb pobdami/ na zemlju/ Ruskuju.4 / dalece / zaide / sokolb,3 pticb / bbja / morju!4 I Igoreva/ xrabrago/ plbku/ ne krsiti!3 Za / kliknu/ Karna4 i lja / poskoi / po Ruskoj / zemli,3 smagu / ljudenvb / myui.


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NOTES ON THE TEXT OF TH E IGOR1 T A L E 4156 Vb plamjan / [g] roz / ieny / ruskija / vbsplakasasb / a rkui:5 ue / / svoixb / / 16 ni mysliju/ smysliti/ ni dumoju/ sdumati/ ni oima/ Sbgljadati,5 a zlata / i srebra / ni malo / togo / potrepati!6 A vbstona bo / bratie / Kievb / tugoju/ a Cernigovb/ napastbmi.4 Toska / razlijasja / po ruskoi / zemli,6 / zima / tece / sred / zemli / ruskyj,4 a knjazi / sami- na- sebe / kramolu / kovaxu;6 a poganii/ sami/ pobdami/ nariSuSe/ na ruskuju/ zemlju4 emljaxu / danb / po bl/ otb dvora. . . .

I t is not my intention to provide an int erpretative comm entary on therich imagery of this passage, or to dwell on the origin or function of theterms "Karna," "lja," and "Toska." My remarks will be limited to thepassage's logical and syntactical distribution. In this connection it seemst h a t the segmenta tion offered by the isocolic reading leaves very fewdoubts, if any. My reading, however, implies an interpretation of thewords "i lja, poskoi po Ruskoj zemli, smagu ljudenrb myui vbplamjan roz. . ." (according to the Princeps text) very different fromthose submitted in a number of previous studies.

Among the authoritative editions of our century, those of Jakobsonand Dmitriev- Lixacev contain typical examples of how modern scholar-ship has faced this particular problem. Jakobson's solution is the closestt o the type of segmentation presented in the above scansion in that itincludes "vb plamjan roz" and "ieny Ruskija" in the same logical unit.S. H . Cross's English translation of Jakobson's t ext is: ". . . and lamenta-t i o n swept over the Russian land. Shaking up the embers in a namingh o r n , Russian women broke into tears wailing... . "3 2 Dm itriev-Lixacev,however, thinks that it is "Zlja," not the Russian women, that casts fire atth e people. That version reads: ". . . i lja poskoi po Ruskoj zemli, zmaguljudemb myui vb plamjan roz. eny Ruskija VbsplkaSasb, arku i.. .." It translates: " . . . i Zlja poneslas' po Russkoj zemle,razmykivaja ogon' plamennon roge. eny russkie vosplakalis', progo-varivaja. . . ."33

Apparent ly many editors are convinced th at there must be a direct con -ne c t ion between "fire" {smaga) and the "flaming h o r n . " Critics generallyshare this impression despite the fact that it is not quite clear what a"flaming h o r n " might actually be.

My reading submits a conjectural explanation based on both rhythmic-syntactic and textual critical considerations. Instead of "roz" I read32 La Geste du Prince Igor', p. 161. Slovo, pp. 49, 60.


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416 RICCARDO PICCHIO"[gjroz." T he Cyrillic graph forgcould already have been omitted by th escribe(s) of th e codex unicus examined by thefirsteditors, possibly underth e influence of older but already corrupted codices used by the samescribe(s). A mistake of this type could easily result from a misreading,which could be explained by concurrent palographie and interpretativefactors. The Cyrillic graphs for and g showed c o m m o n features in bothth e ustav of the twelfth or thirteenth century and the poluustav of thefourteenth or fifteenth century. In the writing practice any scribe could"make up" a jatb simply by "adding" its graphic markers to the graphicskeleton provided by a glagolb. It was easy, therefore, to omit one of th etwo similar letters when they occurred one after the other, especially if th escribe copied letter by letter. If this type of mechanical mistake affectedletters marking the end and the beginning of a word, respectively, itsimpact on the further handing down of th e text was likely to be greater ifth e misreading produced a new word which made sense. This appears tobe the case with grozI roz.u

Assuming tha t this restitutio is technically correct, it remains to be seenwhether the reading "[g]roz" makes better sense in th e particular contextof this controversial passage of th e Igor'Tale. Th e image of "lja" castingfire against the people of Rus' is certainly very close to tha t of a biblicalpunishment or plague. This may justify the interpretation of th e flaminggroza, in which the women of Rus' begin their lament, as a divine groza("threat- wrath"). It may also be "terror - horror"as in the topical expres-sion "i b groza velika, i sea silna i strana" (Povst' vremennyx let, forth e year 6532). There are good reasons, however, to think of a more pre-cise connotation for the term. Groza also means hell ( ,

34 Concern ing the interpretat ion of t h e "flaming h o r n " as an allusion to the "Greekfire,"see Adrianova - Pe re tc , "Slovo opolku / greve, "p . 63 . A. M a z o n , L e Slovod'Igor(Pa r i s , 1940) writes: "l'vocation de Plainte [lja] ' r p a n d a n t la cendre d ' une cornebrlante' ('soufflant la flamme dans une corne brlante ') a tout l'air d'une compositionacadmique o une allgorie la Rubens est traite suivant le gout de l'poque deCatherine. . . . Les commentateurs s'arrtent sur cette finale pour discuter gravements'il s'agit de cendres funbres ou de feu grgeois, mais sans paratre s'inquiter del'tranget d'une syntaxe qui offre l'emploi de vj> avec le locatif (vbplamjanroz) l ol'on ne peut attendre que soit avec le gnitif, si l'on adopte la premire interprtation('rpandant la cendre d'une corne brlante' ), soit va avec l'accusatif si l'on adopte laseconde ('soufflant la flamme dans une corne brlante'). . ."(pp. 135-36). Jakobsonreplies: "Les flambeaux corns faisaient partie du rituel funraire dans l'ancienneRussie, comme l'indiquent les miniatures de Radz. ff. 29a et 133b. Cf. dans le parlersgrand-russes roiki bec du flambeau au copeau et d'autre part l'ancien nom russe d'unrite funraire prosvti. . . . Notons que "l'tranget" de la syntaxe que Mazon 135impute a ce verset est galement imaginaire: la prposition v avec le locatif (vsplamjan roz) est l'unique que le russe tolre dans cette construction, et non pas v&avec l'accusatif ou iz avec le gnitif. . ." (Selected Writings, 4: 225-26).


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NOTES ON THE TEXT OF THE GOR' TALE 417 ) : "tako estb msto to, idee estb i skreetb zubovb, nari-cajemaja groza" (Pouenija Efrema Sirina, fourteenth century).35 Theparticular adjective- noun cluster that we find in "Vb plamjan groz"canbe interpreted as a "hell of fire" if we think of the very similar Greekexpression that occurs in Matt . 5:22, ' , ("and whoever says 'You fool' shall be liable to thehell of fire"), and in Matt. 18:9, ("than with two eyes to be thrown into the helloffne"). It is important t o note, in any case, that all these connotat ions ofgroza converge in a common idea of infernal suffering and tormen t.Whether we interpret the "hell of fire (orflames)" in a realistic or figura-tive sense does not affect the term's fitting this context perfectly. If weaccept this emendation and translate "I n a hell of fire th e women of Rus'were shedding tears and they were sayin g.. ., " it seems to m e that the textmakes sense. The "flaming h o r n " might well be the un intentional creationof some inaccurate scribe.

8. The combination of the isocolic reading of th e text with the tradi-t ional methods of philological analysisparticularly those of textualcriticismcan also be very useful in interpreting th e enigmatic passage ofth e Igor' Tale that describes Great Prince Svjatoslav's nightmare. Here,too , an extensive citation of isocolic scansion helps to evaluate singleobscure expressions within their syntactical and rhetorical contexts:

4 A Svjatbslavb/ muterrb/ som,/ vide2 vb Kiev / na goraxb.4 Si / Sb vecera / odvaxUe mja /, ree,2 rbnoju / napo lomoju.2 N a krovaty/ tisov3 crbpjaxutb mi / sinee / vino2 sb trudo mb/ smSeno.3 Sypaxutb mi / tbSimi / tuly2 poganyxb/ tlbkovinb.3 Velikyi/ enjugb/ na lono,4 i ngujutb mja/ ue/ dbsky/ knsa3 / terem / zlatovrbsm- .4 Vsju noSb/ sb vecera/ bosovi/ vran i3 vbzgrajaxu / u Plsnbska / na bolon i.

35 Sreznevskij, Materiay dlja slovarja, 1: 595; cf. s.v. "groza" in Vinogradova, "Slovoopolku greve,"pp. 179-81.


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4 1 8 R I C C A R D O P I C C H I O3 B [g o ]s a / d e brb [ s ]ki / s a n [ i]3 i nesofa] [mja]/ s i n e m u / m o r j u . rkoa/ bojare/ knjazju:2 U e / k n j a e ,3 tuga / / p o lon i la .2 Se bo / dva sokola4 sltsta / Sb otnja / stola / zlata,3 poiskati / grada / Tbm u t a rok a n j a ,4 a ljubo / ispiti / Selom omb / D o n u .3 U e / s o k o lo m a / k r il b c a4 pripaali / poganyxb / sabljami, / / a samaju3 oputaSa / \ pu t i ny / e l e z n y . . . .

Because this reading differs significantly from the interpretationsoffered by previous scholarship, it seems appropriate to translate thewhole passage:. . . And Svjatoslav had a troubled dream in Kiev, on the hills. "Last night early inth e evening they were clothing me," he said, "in a black shroud. On a bed of cedarthey poured me 'livid' wine mingled with bitterness. They strewed me with emptyquivers of pagan infidels. A great pearl [is] on my chest; and boards without arafter are already taking care of me in my gold-domed hall. All night long fromevening onward gloomy ravens were croaking on the swamp near Plesnesk. Aninfernal sledge was running away an d it was carrying me to the 'livid ' sea. "And theboyars said to the prince: "Sadness, Prince , has already possessed thy mind. Fortwo falcons have flown away from th e golden throne of their father to seek th e cityof Tmutarokan', or else to drink of the Don with their helmets. Already thefalcons' wings have been clipped by the sabres of infidels, an d they themselves gotfettered in fetters of iron."

T h e harmo nic distribution of the rhythmical units is remarkable. Theentire episode is related in sequences of alternant cola, the only exceptionbeing the three- stress dicolon . I n fact, the function of this dicolon is pre-cisely to in terr upt the altern ant series in order to mar k the end of Svjato-slav's words. By reading the text according to this isocolic grid we obtainsyntactic segments that show their logical individuality very clearly.Ther e are on ly two cola whose limits are marked m ore by the context t h a nby their intrinsic characteristics. U p o n closer examination, however,these characteristics can be detected. In the first case the reading of "sbo / dva sokola" with two stresses is well suppo rted by the sound effectwhich results from the iteration of clitic clusters. In the case of the post-pause word "/ / a samoju," the major emphatic pause before "oputaa" isjustified by the fact th at both alliteration an d paran om asia link "oputasa"an d "putini" to each other, thus separating these words, emphatically,


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NOTES ON T H E TEXT O F T H E IGOR' TALE 41 9from the preceding colon. I do not th ink th at the clitization of "si- no b"and "vsju- no sc," which are well-established lexical un its, presents anyserious problem.

Both Jakob son and D m itriev- Lixacev include "na krovaty tisov" inth e first sentence of Svjatoslav's account. In fact, this segment m ay have abivalent syntactical connection. I prefer the solution suggested by th e iso-colic grid because in th e dream 's rhetorical comp osition, th e entire sceneof Svjatoslav's death app ears to be divided into four parts, each markedby a pictorial clue. The four isocolic sequences, including th e conclusivedicolon, correspond to these panels. The first scene, which takes place inthe palace "on th e hills," is characterized by the pictorial dynam ism of them oribun d's clothing. In the second scene, the prince dies on h is bed ofcedar, where he receives final m ilitary ho no rs (the empty qu ivers repre-sent, I think, a military trophy).

In the th ird scene th e prince is dead. Here, again, I link the segment"velikyi enjugb na o n o " to what follows, whereas both Jakobson andD m itriev- Lixacev co nsider the "great p ear l" an accusative governed by"sypaxutb." In my opinion, the action of "strewing" can well be con-nected with the instrumental "tbimi tuly," 36 for a "great pearl on thech est" is no t supp osed to be "dropped ."The image suggests th e stillness ofa precious object lying on a dead body. In fact, the essence of my inter-pretation lies in concluding that in the third "isocolic scene" th e prince isdead . If my reading of the colon "i ngujutb mja u ie dbsky knsa" iscorrect, there can be hardly any doubt in this connection. Nobody, Ibelieve, is "caressing" Svjatoslav. He is already embraced by "boardswithout a rafter," that is, by a coffin. That "dbsky knsa" is a meta-phor for a coffin seems very clear to m e. The metaphor is no t uncommon:in modern Russian a "domok est' do sok" m eans a coffin or a t o m b ; 37 acoffin is also often referred to as "[a ho use] witho ut a rafter." Th e imagehas a particu lar function in the present con text: its irony- and- hum ilityconnotation is clearly opposed to th e earthly pride of the "gold- dom edhall" where, apparently, the coffin lies for th e funeral. C roaking ravensann oun ce the prince's death all night long. They are perhaps in the dream ,but perhaps not. Th eir precise location in tim e and space seems to un der-line th e half- con sciousness of an obsessive dream. I believe that "u36 I.e., if we interpret the verb in the sense of "[po ]sypati," as in "zemleju posypavbsegrobb svoi" ( la kova mn ixa skazan i e Boris Glb, vb sp. XII ., in Sreznevskij,Mat e r ia y dlja slovarja, 2: 1282) , or " [o]sypat i , "as i n " i osypi j gnoemb" (S lovnik ,2: 576).3 7 V. Dal ' , Tolkovy j slovar' iivogo velikorusskogoj a zyka , vol. 1 (St. Petersburg andMoscow, 1880; reprinted 1956) , p. 476.


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420 RICCARDO PICCHIOPlsnbska na boloni" the words that mark the end of this isocolic seriesand parallel the preceding formula "vb Kiev na goraxb" belong to thegloomy landscape of this panel.The final "isocolic scene" is that of the "last journey," ad inferos. Un-doubtedly this dicolon, which has been discussed by various scholars,needs textual emendation. The editors of the Princeps read: "u Plsnbskana boloni bsa debrb Kisanju, ne soSlju sinemu m orju." Their trans-lation of these words is typical of their methods: "usevSis' u Plnska navygon vb debri Kisanovoj, ne poletli morju s inemu" ( pp . 23-24).This clearly defective text is, for the most par t , preserved in the 1967edition by D mitriev- Lixacev, with only one correction, "nesoasja"instead of "n e soSlju" (translation: "serye vorony grajaly u Plesn'ska naugu, byli debri Kisanovoj poneslis' sinemu morju") . 38 Under theinfluence of a different critical tradition, Jakobson , on the other hand,corrected the text in a more complete an d convincing way: "U Plsnbskana boloni bSa debrb[s]ky san[i] i nesofja] [g] sinemu morju" (S . H.Cross's translation: "At the foothill by Plesnesk a sledge appeared, andwas borne towards the blue sea").39 The crucial part of this reading isrepresented by "debrb[s]sky san[ i ] , " which Jakobson renders, in hisRussian translation, with "drovni," that is, "un traneau forestier (oudrovni, d'aprs la terminologie russe plus rcente, long traneau pourtransporter les arbres abattus)."40 I keep this particular reading byJakobson in my own text, but interpret the adjective "debrbfsjski" tomean "infernal" in the sense of "related to the infer," that is, a kind of"sledge-hearse." I think that this interpretation is well supported by theadjective's clear connection with "dbbrb" as the antonomasia of "thevalley" ( ), that is, the G ehenn a ( ) . 41 I also accept Jakob-son's emendation "neso[a]," but submit the conjectural reading [mj]instead of []. It seems to me that this emendation is supported by logical(Svjatoslav is still dreaming his own death) as well as by palographieconsiderations. In fact, the letters of the words in the Princeps ("i nesoSlju") that need correction are the Cyrillic / and ju. Only one obliqueline is needed to obtain the graph for m by uniting /with the vertical strokeof the adjacent graph for ju. The shape of the second component of thediagraph for ju could easily be confused with [j~\a.38 Slovo, pp. 50, 61.39 La Geste du Prince Igor', p. 165.40 Jakobson, Selected Writings, 4: 154.41 Sreznevskij, Materiay dlja slovarja, 1: 767; Slovm'k, 1: 538. Cf. G . Abbott- Smith,A Manual Greek Lexicon of the New Testament (Edinburgh, 1921; reprinted 1956),p . 89.


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NOTES ON THE TEXT OF THE IGOR' T A L E 421There are no textual emendations in th e last two isocolic series given in

my citation.9. Some conclusions of general interest can be drawn from this dis-

cussion of several controversial readings of the text of th e Igor ' Tale.Isocolic scanning should not be interpreted as a technique for th e study

of purely formal structures. Its main purpose is not that of describing th eornatus or tha t is, the "ornam ent" or "cosmetics" of a text.What is important is to investigate th e text's texture byanalyzing th e dis-tribution of its cola, that is, its "members" or "segments. " In principle, it isno less useful to study the interconnections of hetero- than to studythose of so-cola. The presence of wo-colic structures in a text createsparticularly favorable conditions for its analysis, but one should not ruleout the possibility of discovering in the old texts of Orthodox Slavicliterature other types of recurring connections which might also bereduced to a "principle." It is due to the opportunity it offers of "dismem-bering" a text according to a philologically proved principle that isocolicreading can be of great value in textual criticism.

In several instances the text of the Igor' Tale bears traces of misread-ings that seem to be connected with a centuries-old scribal tradition. Thehypothesis about the text's recent and artificial origin then becomescompletely untenable.If the textual damage due to scribal error goes back to stages of trans-mission which precede not only the Editio Princeps but also its basis, theno longer extant codex unicus, it is certainly methodologically incorrectto consider the Igor' Tale . work deprived ofa textual tradition which canprove whether we are dealing with a textus traditus. Formally, we shoulddescribe the Igor' Tale as a work "handed down by testimonies of thenineteenth century," namely, {Princeps), P 2 (Variant of Princeps), E(Catherine's copy), (Karamzin's notes) , and M (Malinovskij's notes) .We can use both direct an d indirect information to prove tha t this textualdocumentation derives compactly from a single antecedent. The fact thatth e extant testimonies are so recent does n ot pose any difficulty from th emethodological viewpoint, because a gap of several centuries is certainlyn ot unusual in the handing down of a work.

The questions that do remain open for discussion from a technicalviewpoint are these:

(1) On the basis of the extant textual evidence, how far back in timecan we go in studying the text's transmission?


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42 2 RICCARDO PICCHIO(2) To what extent should the tentative dating of parts of the extanttextual material be extended to the whole?(3) Does the history of the handing down of this text coincide with thatof the handing down of an unchanged work!

Yale University


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A L E G E N D ABOUT PAPER M A N U F A C T U R I N G INT H I R T E E N T H - C E N T U R Y UKRAINE

JAROSLAV STEPANIV

The earliest stage in the history of paper's t r ium phant m arch from east towest is shrouded in mystery. Legends of improbably early dates of ma nu -facture exist throughout Europe. Historians have sought to verify thedisputable dates for paper manufacturing in various localities in Westernan d Central Europe, as, for example, in Hrault as early as 1189, inMontefano 1276 (or 1275, 1278), in Cologne 1320, inN eudegh obder Au 1374, in Cheb (Eger) 1370, etc.1 The dates of th e initial ma nu -facture of paper in the Ukraine and the allegation that paper was pro-duced there as early as the thirteenth century have long puzzled scholars,too .

The Ukrainian historian, ethnographer, and linguist Ivan Vahylevyc(1811-1866), a prominent figure in the cultural renaissance of th e nine-teenth century in the Western Ukraine, wrote on 8 March 1836 to theRussian historian M. Pogodin (1800-1875) that he presumed "at that time[i.e., in the twelfth or the beginning of the thirteenth century] there weretermitni [i.e., paper] mills in Ruthenia ." Vahylevyc's letter was publishedin Moscow that same year,2 and so the legend of paper's early history inth e Ukraine was born.

The prominent Ukrainian scholar Jakiv Fedorovyd Holovac'kyj (1814-1888) explained how the hypothesis arose in the memoirs he published in1 A. F. G asparinet t i, "Zwei alte Papiermhlen die nie existiert haben," Papier-geschichte (Mainz) , 7 (1957): 23-26; F . Pabich, "Dzieje najstarszej papierni w PrusachKrlewskich," Przegl d Papierniczy ( d ) , 21, no . 8 (1965): 34-36; M . Vykydal,"Bya prvn esk pap rna Chebu? Prhled literatury," Papr a celuloza (Prague),1968, no. 4, pp. 111-12; . Jalke, "Gegen fortdauernde Legendenbildung in papier-industriellen Publikationen," IPH- Information, n.s. (H a n o v e r ) , 1970, n o. 2, p. 34; .G ache t, "Lance pour les moulins ( papier)," Le courier de 'Unesco (Paris), 1972, no.7, p. 16; O. Emery, "Beharrliche Irrtmer,"IPH-Information, n.s., 1975, no. 2, p. 30ff.2 M. P. Pogodin, "Slavjanskie novosti,"Moskovskijnabljudatel'l, no. 5 (1836): 295.The text of the letter is quoted in Russian translation by O. Bodjans'kyj; the Ukrainianoriginal has been lost. It is reprinted in I. S. Svencickij, M a t e r i a y po istorii vozrozde-nija Karpatskoj Rusi, vol. 1 (Lviv, 1906), p. 150.


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424 JAROSLAV STEPANIV1883 and 1885.3 In the spring of 1835," Vahylevyc and Holovac'kyj who had become friends were working in the library of Count J. F.Tarnowski in Dykiv (today Dzikw, Po l an d ) when they discovered an oldmanuscript. The manuscript, a translation from Greek into Old Ukrainianof canons compiled by an ecumenical council and church fathers, wasknown as the "Korma knyha." On the basis of its linguistic and palo-graphie peculiarities, Vahylevyc dated the manuscript, which was writtenon a fine grade of paper, to the twelfth or the beginning of th e thirteenthcentury. To Pogodin Vahylevyc wrote: "This Korma knyha, lacking thefirst pages, should, by its language and spelling, be referred to the twelfthor to the beginning of the thirteenth century. It is written on exquisitepaper (termitka)."5

In subsequent discussions with friends Vahylevyc referred to a Polishhistorian of law, W. A. Maciejowski (1793-1883), who reputedly saidthat already in the thirteenth century two brothers living in the town ofHaly were making paper from rags. Buttressing his argument with lin-guistic evidence, Vahylevyc claimed that in the East Galician regionwhere he was born, termitka was used specifically to mean paper. Fur-thermore, he maintained that the word was probably of Greek origin andthat it was unknown in other languages.6 Following this idea deter-minedly, Vahylevyc used the word to mean paper in all his writings. It3 Ja . G . [Holovac'kyj], " istorii galicko- russkoj pis'mennosti: Neskol'ko zameanijna pis'mo I. Vagilevica K. M. P. Pogodinu," Kievskaja starna (Kiev), 6 (August1883): 655- 56; idem, "Vospominan ija o Markiane Saskevice Ivane VagileviCe (Izzapisok)," Literaturnyj sbomik (Lviv), 1886, n o. 1, p. 238. The texts differ on datesan d in style.4 The dat e is open to discussion. Holovac'kyj himself referred to it as being in thespring of 1834 in the memoirs published in 1883. The date "Spring 1832," whichappeared in the text published in 1886, is obviously wrong, although it was accepted byth e compilers of the compendium Pys'mennyky Zaxidnoji Ukrajiny 30- 50-x rokivXIX st. (Kiev, 1965), p. 238. Also see M. Voznjak's article "Z romantynoho periodufol'klornyx zanjat' Jakova Holovac'koho ," published in his U stolittja "Zori"Markijana SaSkevyla (1834- 1934): Novi rozSuky pro dijalnist' joho hurtka, pt. 1(Lviv, 1935), p. 78. Voznjak accepted the date of spring 1834, mistakenly presumingtha t Holovac'kyj h imself had corrected it from 1832 to 1834 (in fact, th e memoirs withth e date 1832 appeared later, in 1886). J. Kozik, Ukraiski ruch narodowy w Galicji wlatach 1830-1848 (Cracow, 1973), p. 254, supposes tha t the traveling took place notearlier than the end of May 1835. J. Kozik follows the view of M. Handelsman,Ukraiska polityka Ks. Adama Czartoryskiego przed wojn krymsk (Warsaw,1934), p. 67.5 Pogodin, "Slavjanskie novosti," p. 295.6 Pogodin, "Slavjanskie novosti," p. 295. In his lett ert o P . Safafik of 3 October 1836,written from Lviv, he remarked t h a t the word termitka ( char ta ) was of ancient origi

harvard ukrainian studies. volume ii. number 4. december 1978

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