Medieval Serbian literature

Medieval Serbian literature or Old Serbian literature (Serbian: Стара српска књижевност) refers to the literature of the Medieval Serbian state, written in Old Serbian.

Background

The Old Church Slavonic literature was created on Byzantine model, and at first church services and biblical texts were translated into Slavic, and soon afterwards other works for Christian life values (including Latin works) from which they attained necessary knowledge in various fields. Although this Christian literature educated the Slavs, it did not have an overwhelming influence on original works. Instead, a more narrow aspect, the genres and poetics with which the cult of saints could be celebrated were used, owing to the Slavic celebration of Cyril and Methodius and their Slav disciples as saints and those responsible for Slavic literacy. The ritual genres were hagiographies, homiletics and hymnography, known in Slavic as žitije (vita), pohvala (euology), službe (church services), effectively meaning prose, rhetoric and poetry. The fact that the first Slavic works were in the canonical form of ritual literature, and that the literary language was the ritual Slavic language, defined the further development. Medieval Slavic literature, especially Serbian, was modeled on this classical Slavic literature. The new themes in Serbian literature were all created within the classic ritual genres.[1]

Origin

Saint Sava, founder of the medieval Serbian literature.

Between the 11th and 13th century, the foundations of an independent Serbian literature was formed. In this period, the direction and character of literature was built with an elementary system of genres in its main guidelines, with a selected and modified literary language. Only with the works of Saint Sava and the development of the autocephalous Serbian church did the Serbian literature receive its content that would make it an equal and active participant in the literary life of the Orthodox Slavic world. Hence, the 13th century was not only the new, but main stage in the constitution of Serbian medieval literature. This stage ended sometime prior to the end of the century, with the ultimate standardization of the Rascian orthography in literacy and completing the creation of the main genres of the period: the Hagiography (žitije) and Divine Service (služba). The main literary centres of the early Nemanjić state were finally established by the end of the 13th century: Hilandar, Studenica, Žiča, Mileševa, Peć; in which the supply of Old Slavic general literature was filled with works of Serbian, domestic literary workshops. In the course of this century Serbian literature sought to reach the height of Byzantine-Slavic literature, to join the community. The motive of these activities, its main driver, is in the creation of Serbian Orthodox cults, cults of the holy dynasty (the Nemanjić) and the autocephalous church. In order to enter the world of Byzantine and European civilization of the Middle Ages it was necessary for Serbia not only to have its independent state and independent Church, but also to have its role in the general Christian culture of that time, especially participation in holiness, in a higher spiritual community, where the Serbian people was represented through "their [own] people". Its own literature was thus a necessary expression of social and national independence, but at the same time integration in the spiritual ecumene of the Christian civilization through which it showed maturity and justified the political existence of the state itself on the world scale. On this basis, all of the specificalness of the old Serbian literature developed, as well as its universal, global identity: specificities are expressed in the creation of general genres, mostly in the hagiographical literature, i.e. the so-called "ruler historiography"; far less pronounced in hymnography, in poetry, where the canons of Byzantine poetics are quite obvious. The role of founding father of the independent Serbian literature is held by Saint Sava, the youngest son of Grand Prince Stefan Nemanja, founder and first Archbishop of the independent Serbian Church.[2]

Poetry

Works

This list is incomplete; you can help by expanding it.

See also

References

  1. ↑ Marinković 1995.
  2. ↑ Bogdanović 1999, Предговор, para. 3–5.

Sources

Books
  • Milan Kašanin (1990). Srpska književnost u srednjem veku. Prosveta.
  • Mateja Matejić; Dragan Dennis Milivojevič (1978). An Anthology of Medieval Serbian Literature in English. Slavica Pub. ISBN 978-0-89357-055-2.
  • Stojan Novaković (1867). Istorija srpske knijževnosti: pregled ugađ. za školsku potrebu. Državna Štamp.
  • Tihomir Ostojić (1923). Istorija srpske književnosti. Izd. G. Kona.
  • Đuro Šurmin (1808). Povjest književnosti hrvatske i srpske. Tisak i naklada knjižare L. Hartmana, Kugli i Deutsch.
  • Momir Veljković (1938). Jugoslovenska književnost: Srednji vek. Za Narodnu štampariju M. Drobac.
Internet books
  • Jovan Deretić (1983). "Stara književnost". Kratka istorija srpske književnosti (Internet ed.). Rastko.
  • Marinković, Radmila. "Srednjevekovna književnost". Istorija srpske kulture (in Serbo-Croatian). Retrieved 4 September 2013.
    • Marinković, Radmila (1995). "Medieval literature". The history of Serbian Culture. Rastko.
Journals
  • Milosavljević, Boris (2008). "Basic philosophical texts in Medieval Serbia". Balcanica. 39: 79–102.
  • Petrović, Sonja (2008). "Oral and Written Art Forms in Serbian Medieval Literature". In Mundal, Else; Wellendorf, Jonas. Oral Art Forms and Their Passage Into Writing. Museum Tusculanum Press. pp. 85–108. ISBN 978-87-635-0504-8.
  • Špadijer, Irena (2014). Светогорска баштина: Манастир Хиландар и стара српска књижевност. Чигоја штампа. ISBN 978-86-531-0113-8.
  • Bogdanović, Dimitrije (1999) [1986]. "Свети Сава: Сабрани списи" (Internet ed.). Belgrade: Просвета, Српска књижевна задруга; Rastko. Archived from the original on 2009-01-22. (in Serbian)
  • "Spisi o Kosovu" (Internet ed.). Beograd: Prosveta, Srpska književna zadruga. 1999 [1993]. (in Serbian)
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