Article by Professor Alin-Mihai Herman about the museum manuscript

In the Romanian scientific journal "Limba română" (Year LXXI 2022. Nr. 1– January 2 – June) виишла райтира "An unknown manuscript of Teodor Corbea" ("The Unknown Manuscript of Theodor Korbe") dedicated to the handwritten poetic Psalter of the Romanian diplomat, writer and translator Theodor Korbe, kept in the collection of the Chernihiv Historical Museum named after V.V. Tarnovsky.

The author of the article is a specialist in the field of Romanian literature, Doctor of Philological Sciences, professor of the University "December 1 1918 year" m. Alba-Yulia Alin-Mihai Herman, who carefully studied the literary heritage of Theodor Korbe and published some of his works (including the poetic Psalter).

The article presents a comparative analysis of two preserved manuscripts of Theodore Korbe's poetic Psalter - from the Library of the Romanian Academy (branch in Cluj-Napoca) and recently attributed copy from the funds of the Chernihiv Historical Museum.

The author highlights the following important differences in the two manuscripts. Thus, in the Chernihiv copy there is a word to the reader, which differs from the preface in the Cluj manuscript. Also, it is the copy from our museum that makes it possible to accurately establish the time of writing of the poetic Psalter, а саме 1720 рік. This is indicated in the word of Theodor Korbe to the reader.

Professor Alin-Mihai Herman emphasizing the scientific significance of the manuscript, stored in the Chernihiv Historical Museum emphasizes its important feature. Unlike the book in Cluj-Napoca, the Chernihiv manuscript contains the complete text of the poetic Psalter, which makes it possible to fill significant gaps in the text of the Romanian version of the manuscript.

The museum manuscript is particularly valuable and unique for that reason as well, which is a draft with working edits. It allows you to follow the author's thoughts, the genesis of the poetic Psalter. A copy, located in Romania is the final version of the work.

According to the Romanian researcher Professor Alin-Mihai Herman, the discovery of the Chernihiv manuscript motivates the republishing of Theodore Korbe's poetic Psalter, making important corrections and adding the text of those psalms, which are missing in the manuscript from Cluj-Napoca.

Старший науковий співробітник музею,
Candidate of Theology Miroslav May-Boroda

The original text of the article:

Alin-Mihai Gherman

AN UNKNOWN MANUSCRIPT BY TEODOR CORBEA

Thanks to the hard work and dedication of a distinguished Ukrainian researcher, Mr. Miroslav Mai-Boroda from Chernihiv (ucr. Chernihiv, rus. Chernigov), care, in his effort to elucidate the origin and fate of a manuscript preserved under the quota AL 947 in the collections of the Museum "V. V. Tarnovski" from the locality called on Romanian specialists, I was able to identify it as the original manuscript of Teodor Corbea's Psalter in verse1 in its first redaction. In addition to the great similarity of the writing in this manuscript with that in the Latin-Romanian dictionary2 of Teodor Corbea and the identity of the text with the manuscript kept at BAR Cluj-Napoca under the ms.rom quota. 45, edited by boy3, we must make a few observations about each of the two manuscripts.

Regarding the structure of the text, we note that the Chernihiv manuscript lacks the dedicatory epistles and prefaces to the readers, written in Ukrainian Slavonic and Romanian. Are, instead, at the end of the text, a Word to the readers different from the predoslavia in the Cluj manuscript.

At a first examination, we can state that the manuscript4 was written on separate sheets and bound later, for this is the only way to explain the small additions of text included in the link and the fact that Psalms 17–22 are after Psalm 82. Editing the text on separate tabs explains why, at the time of binding, the beginning of some of the verses is subsumed by the connection made later. The graphic signs also support this fact (mostly geometric) which marks the continuation of text from one tab to another. The pages that restore the order of the psalms are accompanied by indications such as "return to sheet 17 from the beginning". All text editing on independent tabs (and its preservation, for a piece of time, in the same condition) its state of preservation can also be explained: the lower part of the tabs shows more or less signs of damage, unlike the side and top edges, which are intact. We can deduce that, for a while, it was saved with the tabs rolled, fact that also explains the more pronounced damage of the last tabs.

The external appearance of the binding and the fact that smaller pieces of paper with additions to the text were interspersed in the binding lead us to believe that the manuscript was bound later also during Teodor Corbea's lifetime.

The manuscript has 278 of tabs written on both sides, with a spelling very similar to that found in his Romanian-Latin dictionary, the writing being a little altered both by the more careless duct, as well as the age of the author. In the Chernihiv frame we find numerous lines that mark the page segmentation of the festive text from the Cluj manuscript.

Although, compared to the copy from Cluj, the original manuscript also contains text corrections made during the original writing of the lyrics (especially corrections in terms of rhyme or meter), however, the differences between the two manuscripts are minimal, which can be explained in most cases as copying mistakes; exist, however, the possibility that some of them are improvements made voluntarily by the author. Unlike the copy from Cluj, the Ukrainian manuscript contains the complete text of the versified psalter, allowing, like this, filling in extensive gaps in the text, absent in the Cluj manuscript, due to the loss of some sheets. Also, the first draft does not contain the two prefaces, Romanian and Slavonic, to the readers, nor the two dedicatory epistles (Romanian and Slavonic) dedicated to the emperor Peter the Great. Contain, but, at its end, a Word to the reader (reserved, unfortunately, incomplete, being, probable, outer part of manuscript preserved rolled until binding). From this, however, we learn some important information, care, on the one hand, refutes some of the conclusions of our previous research, on the other hand, confirms other advanced conclusions.

lyrics:

"This psalm you sing

Written in cursive and drawn, care

Sing and read without laziness

Receiving it with love seems

And your holy grail.

Do not forget

For the one who put effort

For your use

They wrote and brought

In this face with sweet corn

Todor Corbea from Brașov

When he walked from Christ the year

One thousand seven hundred

And twenty of his court

This is from Chiov

To receive pocloane noao

For his sake I will tear[tate]”

disproves the opinion advanced by us that the text was drafted before his flight with Toma Cantacuzino to Russia after the failure of the Stănilești campaign (1711) and I say explicitly that the writing took place in Kijv (Kiev) in the year 1720. Future research in the archives and libraries of Kyiv will be able to provide information about Corbea's activity and life in the locality.

The festive copy of the versified psalter kept in Cluj was intended to be handed to the tsar, certainly for obtaining benefits and, probable, and in hopes of a future printing of the text. The event did not take place due to the death of the Tsar in January 1725, on which, by the way, military campaign in Persia (1722–1723) and disease (1724–1725) they kept him away from where Corbea was. The copy was sent to the "Saint Nicholas" Church in Şcheii Brașovului, in whose inventory we find it recorded at 17265.

But the lyrics

"Written in cursive and drawn, care

Sing and read without laziness

Receiving it with love seems

And your holy grail.

Do not forget

For the one who put effort

For your use"

confirms our assumption that, unlike Dosoftei's verse Psalter, Corbea's intention was to compose a literary text with aesthetic valences and with many versification experiments. Composed with this intention, Corbea's text turns out to be part of a trend frequented in European Baroque poetry6.

The beginning of the pre-Slovian Către cititori puts us in front of an emphasized affirmation of the idea of ​​Latinity and the unity of the Romanian people, as few texts do until those of the Transylvanian School:

"Oh, the remains of Trajan

Go out for thousands and hundreds of years

Din Ram, you have brothers and Peminteans,

Hungarians, mountaineers and Moldovans […]7”

The Chernihiv manuscript contains, on the inside covers, and a series of notes (mostly in Ukrainian Slavonic), which we will come back to when deciphering them. A detailed research of the above-mentioned manuscript and notes will provide, certainly, more information.

Data provided by Mr. Miroslav Mai-Boroda, which I could not even verify, nor proceed by personal research, say that the descendants of Teodor Corbea, some of whom were related to the hetmans of Ukraine, they settled, after the Kiev stop, in Chernihiv, where they maintained close relations with the intellectual and aristocratic milieu there.

The discovery of the Chernihiv manuscript will oblige us to a complete re-edition of the Psalter in verse by Teodor Corbea, which turns out to be, with the passage of time, alongside his Latin-Romanian dictionary, one of the major texts of our ancient literature.