Download PDF | Ivan Biliarsky - The Tale of the Prophet Isaiah_ The Destiny and Meanings of an Apocryphal Text- (2013).
323 Pages
PREFACE
This book is a translation of my monograph, Skazanie na Isaiah proroka
i formiraneto na politicheskata ideologija na rannosrednovekovna Bulgaria
(= Tale ofthe ProphetIsaiah andthe Formation ofthe PoliticalIdeology of Early
Mediaeval Bulgaria), which was published in 2011 in Sofia. I had almost one
year after the publication of the Bulgarian text to take into consideration
all the suggestions of my colleagues, and now the reader has in his hands
a noticeably modified book. It is significantly enlarged and enriched with
ideas, some of which are new, others have been neglected in the Bulgarian
version. I strongly hope that my new study is more consistent and clear
and I would like to thank to all my colleagues who helped me achieve this
result.
I would like as well to thank Vladimir Vladov for the translation of the
text and to express my special gratitude to Christopher Bonura for editing
manuscript and improving the English. Without his help, the book would
not be the same.
Following the common practice, the titles of books and articles published
in other alphabets are transliterated in Latin characters. With Greek, I used
the classical transliteration, while for Cyrillic, I have employed the general
rules in use for the Library of Congress system. However, I have preferred the
common English spelling wherever that would help a reader unfamiliar with
Bulgarian, Serbian, or Russian.
For example, I preferred “archiepiskopia”
(archbishopric) to “arkhiepiskopija” or “arkhiepiskopiia,” and “Sofia” (the
capital of Bulgaria) to either “Sofija” or “Sofiia”.
Several other points of clarification are given in the text itself. The book
was shaped by recommendations from the readers, Christopher Bonura,
Florin Curta (the editor of the series), and Marcella Mulder (assistant editor
at Brill). I assume responsibility for any error or absence.
Sofia, June 11, 2012
The day of Sts Apostles Bartholomew and Barnabas
Mother of God Axion Estin
INTRODUCTION
A book is conceived gradually, even though in the beginning there is always
a sudden spark that rouses the author’s interest in a certain theme, a certain
source, in certain figures and events. The spark might come on some concrete occasion, at times an insignificant one, perhaps even unrelated to the
author’s research. Afterwards, the spark might ignite a short-lived interest,
or be the initial cause of concrete research that will subsequently be left off
and never resumed, or else resumed much later, rekindled by some other
spark. However, another course is also possible: the author might proceed
towards his goal at a regular pace, moved by a lasting interest in the problem;
or by the fact that the work has been ordered—and this is an incitement to
which all, or nearly all, intellectuals submit.
This book is the result of such momentary gleams that eventually led to
the idea of a new reading of a mediaeval treatise, and along with this, a new
examination of many stereotypes that have been imposed for more than a
century and are now ingrained in society—and from there in historical science. The first steps on the path that led to this book were taken in Rome in
the second half of the 1990s, incited by the seminars organised by Professor
Pierangelo Catalano and Professor Paolo Siniscalco, and entitled “Da Roma
alla Terza Roma”.
Dealing with the idea of Empire, of the City and citizenship, and of the religious foundations of state power and law, these seminars
provided me with the environment I had long been seeking in my desire
to fill my researches with a deeper meaning, to give them a greater completeness, integrity, that would go beyond the concrete work with sources
or with amassed literature; to situate my writing in the context of History
viewed not only as a chain of events but as a road to a destination, a purpose, a meaning.
The second stage of conception developed in Bucharest
during my stay in New Europe College, where a group was formed, a group
of people with shared interests in the problem area related to translating
theological terms into the vocabulary, conceptual framework, and essence
of political and legal thought. This is an area of study that Carl Schmitt designated as“political theology”, and that was subsequently taken up and further
developed by various Catholic, Protestant, and, more recently (though not
very systematically) by Orthodox authors.
I will not enumerate here the
friends who are part of this basically informal group, for they know very well
who they are, and I wish to avoid the risk that someone might be omitted
2 introduction
from this enumeration and hence feel unjustly offended. And the last step
towards defining the direction of my work was taken in Dumbarton Oaks,
Washington D.C., in the course of very interesting, indeed, unforgettable,
talks with Professor Irfan Shahîd. The result of that stay was not only my
research about Tsar Arev (its idea sprang from a remote childhood memory
of my father relating to me events that had taken place in Iraq) but also the
general orientation to search for the Near Eastern roots of the literary work
I purposed to study.
That was how the idea was born; as for its course of realisation, it spanned
from Sofia through Jerusalem, then through the little village of Hawarden
in Wales, and finally to Paris. It was during my stay in Jerusalem, on a
scholarship at the Albright Institute of Archaeological Research (AIAR),
that the main parts of the work related to the Old Testament tradition
were completed. These sections are easily recognisable within this book,
for they would have been impossible to write had I relied only on the
resources available in Bulgaria.
That is why I want to specially thank the
team at AIAR and particularly the institute’s director, Professor Seymour
Gitin, for the opportunity provided me. There is also an exceptionally rich
theological collection at Gladstone’s Library in Hawarden, Wales (which
at the time of my stay there was still called St Deiniol’s Library), and I
had the excellent opportunity to use it thanks to the specially kind attitude of this institution towards Bulgaria and Bulgarians, an attitude that
is a legacy from the time of William Gladstone. I would like to personally
thank the warden, Father Peter Francis, and the other colleagues at the
library.
And so we come to the text itself, which is the basis of this book.It is called
Tale of the Prophet Isaiah of How an Angel Took Him to the Seventh Heaven.
This work is known in Bulgarian historical science, and internationally as
well, as a Bulgarian Apocryphal Chronicle of the 11th Century. Evidently, the
latter title is not derived from the text itself, and it is not present in the only
preserved manuscript copy. What is more, the work has its own title, which
is written and clearly declared in the manuscript. Then where did the title by
which it is known to scholars come from? From the publishers of the text,
of course! Long ago Lj. Stojanović put the following heading to the almost
fully normalised text he published: “Kao bugarski letopis”. This is not a true
title and evidently involves no claim of renaming the work. It was part of
the overall attitude of science in that time (in Serbia and elsewhere), which
looked upon the publication of a text as inseparable from its interpretation.
This approach led to the normalisation of the work’s spelling and punctuation, and to all sorts of intervention. I am not expressing disapproval of this
introduction 3
here, especially as the Serbian scholar did a good job and his intervention
in the text has not led to any deviations or misinterpretation.
The abovementioned title, popular even today, was actually composed not by the first
publisher of the text but by Jordan Ivanov, who later republished the Tale.
Jordan Ivanov’s title does contain an interpretation of the source, and also
a preliminary assessment of it (inasmuch as every title is situated above,
which means “before”, the work). His assessment was evidently influenced
by his milieu and his time. By this title, he basically posited the parameters
of interpretation, which later became almost the norm for other scholars. I
say “almost” because the Tale is so confusing that it would be impossible
for its interpretations to be unanimous and to follow a single model.
These
interpretations will be discussed in a separate chapter on historiographical problems, but here I will deal with the title Jordan Ivanov gave to the
work.
Bulgarian Apocryphal Chronicle ofthe11th Century is a designation encompassing several characteristics. The work is defined as a “chronicle”, even
though it quite clearly follows the tradition of Near Eastern and especially
biblical prophetic literature.It is true that it includes an enumeration of consecutive rulers; part of this account resembles a mythical pre-history, and it
all seems to end in the future.
Nevertheless, this does not make it a “chronicle”, does not put it in that genre.
In addition, the chronicle is “Bulgarian” and “apocryphal”; the latter is
understood as meaning—again “thanks” to Jordan Ivanov—a mostly Bogomilian work, or in any case a heretical one. As to whether the work is Bulgarian, there is a basically unanimous opinion in Bulgarian historiography
that it is, and this opinion rests on the previous characteristic. Most scholars consider it to be an original, national work, and if there is any difference
of opinion among them at all, it is whether the Tale is folkloric, dualistic
(Manichaean or Bogomilian), or simply a patriotic historical account.
As I
said, the apocryphal nature of the text is usually thought of as dualistic and
Bogomilian, and only recently have other interpretations appeared. In fact,
the Talereally is “apocryphal” but not in the usual sense. In various cultural
and religious environments, “apocrypha”, “pseudoepigrapha” or “deuterocanonical” books are the names given to texts that are in the line of the Holy
Scripture tradition but do not belong to its normative body of texts; specifically for Orthodox Christians, this body is defined by the Septuagint and the
Gospel-Apostolic tradition. In this sense, but in no other, I accept the thesis
that the work is apocryphal.
The title’s last point for discussion is its dating from the 11th century.
This
question has a place further on in the presentation; here I will only note that
4 introduction
I believe this to be a compilatory work in which some of the ideas reflected
datefrombeforethe indicated time, and that itwas probably completed after
that time.
Here, at the beginning of this book, I must make a point in order to avoid
a grave misunderstanding of its purpose: the objective of the research I am
offering here is not to study the text of the Tale of the Prophet Isaiah as
a source of knowledge of historical events. I state this from the start, and
the reader should not expect any other approach here.
The other approach
has been the topic of other studies by other researchers. I should also state
that I do not mean to, and cannot, completely reject that other view. It
has arisen and exists in a certain social milieu and, in the opinion of that
milieu, it undoubtedly carries information about events. This approach
elaborates ideological theses based on a view of history that is at least
partially imaginary; but the theses cannot be isolated from the aspect of
positive events in the work. That is why some authors have succeeded in
finding some quite interesting data in the story.
If I object to the positivist
approach to the work, it is because there is a tendency for this approach to be
applied in interpreting all elements of the work, situating them in real time
and a real environment. This exclusive interpretation is, in my opinion, an
insufficient and dangerous way of approaching the source, and is dictated
by ideological considerations rooted in the 19th century, considerations that
I discuss separately in this book.
We come to the question of what I intend to present and prove in this
book.
Tale of the Prophet Isaiah is certainly one of the most interesting but
also one of the most ambiguous and unclear texts of mediaeval Bulgarian
literature. It is not an original work but a compilation consisting of various
layers, its essential basis being neither folkloric nor dualistic, and—least
of all—patriotic. The Tale has its origin essentially in biblical and Near
Eastern prophetic literature of the apocalyptic type, a genre in which the
presentation of the past serves as an occasion to express views on the
meaning of existence and on the future, understood as the Salvation of
people. To put it in modern terms, this is a work that states very significant
positions on issues of identity, the state, ideology, the origin and purpose
of power.
These positions present the religious nature of state power on the
basis of, using terms and images from, Holy Scripture, and especially the Old
Testament.
Tale of the Prophet Isaiah reflects the initial steps in the creation of a
new identity for the baptised Bulgarians and, in my opinion, it stresses two
main ideas in this respect. The first emphasis concerns the view that the
neophytes are the New Israel, a very familiar thesis both in the Byzantine
introduction 5
Empire and in Western Europe. The second emphasis is on a unity between
Romans/Byzantines and Bulgarians, which are presented in the text as practically a united people on a single territory and under the same rule, especially since the time of Tsar Constantine and after it. These two emphases
combine in the general idea of the New Israel as the earthly kingdom of
Romans/Byzantines and of Bulgarians.
These are the general theses that I will attempt to present and prove further on in this book. The evaluation of this attempt is not for me to make
and not to be placed in the introduction—it is left to you, the readers of this
research. I can only be thankful for the interest shown and express my gratitude to all those who have supported me in the creation of this book. Some
of them were already mentioned, with or without their names, as the people who helped me in Sofia, Rome, Bucharest, Jerusalem, Washington D.C.,
Hawarden, and Paris.
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