The ''Codex Zographensis'' (or ''Tetraevangelium Zographense''; scholarly abbreviation ''Zo'') is an illuminated

Old Church Slavonic Old Church Slavonic or Old Slavonic () was the first Slavic literary language. Historians credit the 9th-century Byzantine missionaries Saints Cyril and Methodius with standardizing the language and using it in translating the Bible and othe ...

canon

manuscript A manuscript (abbreviated MS for singular and MSS for plural) was, traditionally, any document written by hand – or, once practical typewriters became available, typewritten – as opposed to mechanically printed or reproduced i ...

. It is composed of 304

parchment Parchment is a writing material made from specially prepared untanned skins of animals—primarily sheep, calves, and goats. It has been used as a writing medium for over two millennia. Vellum is a finer quality parchment made from the skins ...

folios; the first 288 are written in

Glagolitic The Glagolitic script (, , ''glagolitsa'') is the oldest known Slavic alphabet. It is generally agreed to have been created in the 9th century by Saint Cyril, a monk from Thessalonica. He and his brother Saint Methodius were sent by the Byzan ...

containing

Gospel Gospel originally meant the Christian message (" the gospel"), but in the 2nd century it came to be used also for the books in which the message was set out. In this sense a gospel can be defined as a loose-knit, episodic narrative of the words a ...

s and organised as Tetraevangelium (Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John), and the rest written in

Cyrillic The Cyrillic script ( ), Slavonic script or the Slavic script, is a writing system used for various languages across Eurasia. It is the designated national script in various Slavic, Turkic, Mongolic, Uralic, Caucasian and Iranic-speaking co ...

containing a 13th-century

synaxarium Synaxarion or Synexarion (plurals Synaxaria, Synexaria; el, Συναξάριον, from συνάγειν, ''synagein'', "to bring together"; cf. etymology of '' synaxis'' and ''synagogue''; Latin: ''Synaxarium'', ''Synexarium''; cop, ⲥⲩⲛ� ...

. It is dated back to the end of the 10th or beginning of the 11th century.

Discovery and publishing

The manuscript originally belonged to the Bulgarian

Zograf Monastery The Saint George the Zograf Monastery or Zograf Monastery ( bg, Зографски манастир; el, Μονή Ζωγράφου, ''Moní Zográphou'') is one of the twenty Eastern Orthodox monasteries in Mount Athos (the "Holy Mountain") ...

Mount Athos Mount Athos (; el, Ἄθως, ) is a mountain in the distal part of the eponymous Athos peninsula and site of an important centre of Eastern Orthodox monasticism in northeastern Greece. The mountain along with the respective part of the peni ...

. It is said that it was kept at a conventual church near Ierisso and later transferred to the monastery's library. In 1843, the Croatian writer and Habsburgian diplomat Antun Mihanović discovered the manuscript during his stay at the monastery. The codex's importance was announced by the Russian historian and folklorist

Victor Grigorovich Victor Ivanovich Grigorovich (russian: link=no, Ви́ктор Ива́нович Григоро́вич; 30 April 1815 – 19 December 1876) was a Russian Slavist, folklorist, literary critic, historian and journalist, one of the originators of ...

who visited the monastery one year later and who is regarded as the founder of Slavonic studies in Russia. Izmail Sreznevsky published a first transcription of some parts of the manuscript in 1856. In 1860 monks from the Zograf monastery donated the Codex to the Russian emperor Alexander II. The donation was transferred to Russia during an archaeological expedition of Pyotr Sevastyanov (1811-1867). In 1862, this archaeological collection was divided and transferred to different institutions in Moscow and Saint Petersburg. The Glagolitic codex became part of the collection of the Imperial Public Library, where the Codex is kept until today. The first who described the codex was Victor Grigorovich in 1877, and two years later the Glagolitic part of the codex was published by the Slavist

Vatroslav Jagić Vatroslav Jagić (; July 6, 1838 – August 5, 1923) was a Croatian scholar of Slavic studies in the second half of the 19th century. Life Jagić was born in Varaždin (then known by its German name of ''Warasdin''), where he attended the el ...

in Berlin as ''Quattuor evangeliorum codex glagoliticus olim Zographensis nunc Petropolitanus'', completely transcribed in Cyrillic, with an introduction and an extensive philological commentary in

Latin Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic languages, Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through ...

. Jagić's edition has been reprinted as a

facsimile A facsimile (from Latin ''fac simile'', "to make alike") is a copy or reproduction of an old book, manuscript, map, art print, or other item of historical value that is as true to the original source as possible. It differs from other forms of ...

edition in

Graz Graz (; sl, Gradec) is the capital city of the Austrian state of Styria and second-largest city in Austria after Vienna. As of 1 January 2021, it had a population of 331,562 (294,236 of whom had principal-residence status). In 2018, the popula ...

in 1954. Other scholars who have extensively studied the language of Codex Zographensis were Josef Kurz, Leszek Moszyński and the librarian Vyacheslav Zagrebin who was responsible for its restoration during the 1990s. During January 2016, monks of the Zograf monastery visited Saint Petersburg in order to report about a digitisation project of the manuscript which intended to make it available to the public. As result of their diplomatic visit a Zographensis room was established at the

SS. Cyril and Methodius National Library The SS. Cyril and Methodius National Library (Национална библиотека „Свети Свети Кирил и Методий“) is the national library of Bulgaria, situated in the capital city of Sofia. Founded on 4 April 187 ...

in Sofia, and a virtual exhibition of the whole manuscript with a modernised transcription was published at the homepage of the Russian National Library.

Content

The manuscript contains 304

folios. The first few ones have not been preserved, and thus it begins with Matthew 3:11 and ends with

John John is a common English name and surname: * John (given name) * John (surname) John may also refer to: New Testament Works * Gospel of John, a title often shortened to John * First Epistle of John, often shortened to 1 John * Secon ...

, with Mt 16:20-24:20 being later insertion in Old Church Slavonic Grammar. In total, the first 288 folios are written in Glagolitic and contain Gospel text. In addition, several additional folios from the middle of the manuscript are missing. At the end of the 11th or beginning of the 12th century some missing folios (from 41 to 57) were replaced with 17 new ones, written in square Glagolitic. They were themselves most likely a palimpsest. The rest of the 16 folios contain 13th-century

Origin and linguistic features

Along with the slightly older Codex Marianus it is an important document for its use of the round

Glagolitic script The Glagolitic script (, , ''glagolitsa'') is the oldest known Slavic alphabet. It is generally agreed to have been created in the 9th century by Saint Cyril, a monk from Thessalonica. He and his brother Saint Methodius were sent by the Byza ...

, the oldest recorded Slavic alphabet. By analyzing the language of the codex it was established that the style and antiquity of the text is nonuniform, second part being more archaic than the first part. Some scholars explain this by gradual adaptation to the language of the source from which the manuscript originated. Generally, phonology of the language of Codex Zographensis is archaic - vocalizations of strong yers are rare, epenthetic ''l'' is preserved, though in most parts of the manuscript ''yers'' are being assimilated. It is a bit less archaic with respect to morphology and syntax, though the forms of definite declension of adjectives and older forms of participles are well-preserved (e.g. ''prošь'', ''nošь'' and rarely ''prosivъ'', ''nosivъ'').

Gallery

Image:ZografskiyKodeks.png, Codex Zographensis with the Gospel of St John (Zograf monastery, Ms. глаг. 1, f.225r) Image:Kodex.Zograf.JPG, A page from the ''Codex Zographensis'' with text of the Gospel according to St Luke XIV, 19-24 (Zograf monastery, Ms. глаг. 1, f.187v)

Footnotes

References

* * * *

External links

Manuscript

Editions

Codex Zographensis transliterated in 7-bit ASCII
at the Corpus Cyrillo-Methodianum Helsingiense *

Description

Biography

* {{cite web , title=Sevastyanov, Pyotr Ivanovich (1811–1867). St. Petersburg – Moscow , url=http://germanprints.ru/reference/collections/sevastianov/index.php?lang=en , website=German prints , publisher=Pushkin State Museum of Fine Arts , ref=Sevastyanov , location=Moscow Church Slavonic manuscripts Zographensis Medieval Bulgarian literature Medieval Bulgarian literature of Macedonia Zographensis Zographensis, Codex Zographensis National Library of Russia collection 10th-century biblical manuscripts 11th-century biblical manuscripts 10th-century illuminated manuscripts 11th-century illuminated manuscripts Cyrillo-Methodian studies Zograf Monastery