Research of the Old Slavonic hymnographical August Menaion

The main goal of the project is a linguistic and general philological research of the Old Church Slavonic hymnographical Menaion for August. For the present project, the oldest manuscript is being prepared for printing. The plan of the research project consists of four parts. 1) A study of linguistic features of the Slavonic texts. 2) A research of Greek Menaia manuscripts in the National Library of Austria and other European collections in order to reveal Greek originals of all of the Slavonic texts and to collate variant readings, which are not attested in the editions of Greek Menaia. The investigation of Greek sources will set the textological basis of the Slavonic translation. 2) Complete textual analysis of the Slavonic text will be aimed to establish the Greek impact in the language of the translation; to reveal the semantic and grammatical calques in the Slavonic texts; to examine Slavonic divergences from the Greek text and to define text corruptions. On the base of comparison of Greek and Slavonic texts and their variants the reconstruction of initial readings in the corrupted texts will be done. On grounds of translation technique and choice of vocabulary the status of the texts represented by the Old Russian manuscripts will be defined: whether they reflect efforts to improve or to copy the translation made in the South of the Slavonic world, or they reflect an independent translation. 3) Liturgical analysis of the structure of Slavonic texts in comparison with Greek Menaia will be based on the results of comparative study of Byzantine and Slavic liturgical traditions. The expected result of the research project is a critical edition of the Old Church Slavonic Menaion for August with parallel Greek texts, Greek and Slavonic variant readings, and philological commentary and word index. Since complete scientific edition of Greek Menaia does not exist, such publication will be meaningful for Slavic and Byzantine philology as well.