Ексцерптите от Шестоднев на Йоан Екзарх в Диалозите на Псевдо-Кесарий. (Common excerpts in John the Exarch's Hexaemeron and in the Erotapokriseis of Pseudo-Caesarius) (original) (raw)

В: Многократните преводи в Южнославянското средновековие. София, 2006, 139–148.

When it was created in Byzantium in the 6th century PsK was designed as a sort of theological encyclopedia of Hexaemeron type. The subject of Genesis is the main line throughout the text, in relation to which there are explanations of the origin and nature of the firmament and the celestial objects, of rain, the rainbow, of fire, earth, water, plants, animals and man. With a view to clarify this circle subject-matter a considerable number of fragments from works of the most famous theologians were incorporated in the Greek original of PsK, including excerpts from the homilies of St. Basil the Great on the six days of Creation known as Hexaemeron. St. Basil’s Hexaemeron was used in two ways – by literal borrowing of small excerpts and borrowing at which the passages are entirely revised. Among the literal quotations from St. Basil’s Hexaemeron there are such that also found their way in the Hexaemeron of John the Exarch (Hex). Thus in the Slavonic version of PsK and in the work of John the Exarch there are passages with coinciding Greek text, which constitute two different Old Bulgarian translations of fragments from the Hexaemeron of St. Basil. This allows one to study the technique and the basic principles applied by the translators who worked at the Preslav literary center at nearly one and the same time. In both compared works the translators follow their original without changing it, without introducing or extracting parts of it. The fragments under review show that although sometimes there are dispositions in word order and the translation does not always follow word for word, the general desire being to relay correctly the original in terms of content and after that, if possible, in terms of form too. As regards the lexis, we find implementation of the opportunities of Old Bulgarian to activate a high number of equivalents of identical Greek lexemes. Hex and PsK usually demonstrate a difference in the choice of correspondence, do not relay on preliminary terminological basis, adopt lexis, lend new meanings and wherever necessary avoid a literal translation of the original. There are some important lexical coincidences which lead one to think that one of the translators may have been acquainted with the translation of the other, but examples in this direction are isolated and cannot lead to categorical conclusions. In any case, even if there is some influence it is indirect and reflections from it can be sought only on a lexical level. More Greek borrowings are used in Hex, particularly when it comes to terms from various fields of natural science (botany, zoonymy, anatomy, astronomy, etc.), while in PsK this approach is more limited. Nevertheless there are a considerable number of Greek borrowings in both translations and they are even frequently used together with their Slavonic equivalents. The use (or non-use) of borrowings is related to the main characteristic feature of the translations under discussion – a desire to select such means of expression that would achieve two objectives: precision according to the original and finding an adequate means of expression of the nuances in the meaning of the text. On the level of syntax there are also different approaches, which outline the translation style of John the Exarch – for example, sporadic translation of participles and adjectives with subordinate clauses. While in PsK the deviations from the Greek text are mainly on lexical level, in Hex one can distinctly see free treatment of the morphology and syntax of the original. The balanced desire to achieve variety on all linguistic levels is one of the undoubted assets and advantages of John the Exarch’s style. This conclusion is, of course, relative since one can find a sufficient number of examples in evidence of precisely the opposite approach of the two translators under certain conditions – sometimes inadequate deviations are affixed in Hex, while PsK gives relevant translation. It is precisely these “certain conditions” are related to the Greek prototypes – complexity of text, stylistic and semantic nuances on lexical level, context, etc. – that are decisive for the technique of translation. That is why the most important conclusion from the observations made is the negative result at an attempt to seek for some strictly defined system of translation. PsK and Hex are texts for non-liturgical use, intended for individual reading and having Greek prototypes difficult in any respect. They are a result of a long theological tradition and of a certain cultural context with which a Slav writer or reader could not “catch up” in their entirety. With such parameters it was quite natural for Old Bulgarian translators in the earliest period of Slavonic literature to be guided by intuition and the sense of how to communicate the meaning of the text, by the skill to work with the lexical wealth of Old Bulgarian with a view to synonymy, polysemy, word coinage, stylistic nuances, not by abidance by formal rules. On the basis of the quality of translation in Hex and PsK one comes to the conclusion that Old Bulgarian had a sufficiently large wealth of means of expression to communicate the entire range of stylistic and semantic nuances of the originals – according to the opinion of the respective translator and regardless of the complexity of the Greek text.