The Codex Suprasliensis is an 11th-century Cyrillic literary monument, the largest extant Old Church Slavonic

Old Church Slavonic

Old Church Slavonic or Old Church Slavic was the first literary Slavic language, first developed by the 9th century Byzantine Greek missionaries Saints Cyril and Methodius who were credited with standardizing the language and using it for translating the Bible and other Ancient Greek...

 canon manuscript

Manuscript

A manuscript or handwrite is written information that has been manually created by someone or some people, such as a hand-written letter, as opposed to being printed or reproduced some other way...

 and the oldest Slavic literary work in Poland

Poland

Poland , officially the Republic of Poland , is a country in Central Europe bordered by Germany to the west; the Czech Republic and Slovakia to the south; Ukraine, Belarus and Lithuania to the east; and the Baltic Sea and Kaliningrad Oblast, a Russian exclave, to the north...

. As of September 20, 2007 it is on Unesco

UNESCO

The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization is a specialized agency of the United Nations...

's Memory of the World list.

The codex contains a menaion

Menaion

The Menaion refers to the annual fixed cycle of services in the Eastern Orthodox and Greek-Catholic Churches. Commemorations in the Menaion are tied to the day of the calendar year.-Service books:...

 for the month of March, intersecting with the movable cycle of Easter. It also contains 24 lives of saints, 23 homilies

Homily

A homily is a commentary that follows a reading of scripture. In Catholic, Anglican, Lutheran, and Eastern Orthodox Churches, a homily is usually given during Mass at the end of the Liturgy of the Word...

 and one prayer, most of which were written by or are attributed to John Chrysostom

John Chrysostom

John Chrysostom , Archbishop of Constantinople, was an important Early Church Father. He is known for his eloquence in preaching and public speaking, his denunciation of abuse of authority by both ecclesiastical and political leaders, the Divine Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom, and his ascetic...

. The 284-folio (or 285-folio, according to some sources) codex was "discovered" in 1823 by Canon Michał Bobrowski in the Uniate Basilian monastery in Supraśl

Suprasl Orthodox Monastery

The Monastery of the Annunciation in Supraśl , also known as the Supraśl Lavra is a monastery in North Eastern Poland in the Podlaskie Voivodeship...

.

Upon discovery, Bobrowski sent the manuscript in two pieces to Slovene philologist Jernej Kopitar

Jernej Kopitar

Jernej Bartol Kopitar was a Slovene linguist and philologist working in Vienna. He also worked as the Imperial censor for Slovene literature in Vienna...

 so that he could publish it: the first part (118 folios) was never returned to Poland and is currently held by the National and University Library of Slovenia

National and University Library of Slovenia

The National and University Library is one of the most important national educational and cultural institutions of Slovenia. It was established in 1774 by a decree released by the Empress Maria Theresa. It is located in the centre of Ljubljana, in a building designed by the architect Jože Plečnik...

 in Ljubljana. The largest part was bought for the private library of the Zamoyski

Zamoyski

Zamojski, plural: Zamojscy is the surname of an important Polish nobility family of Jelita coat of arms. The name is sometimes spelled Zamoyski. It is the Polish for "de Zamość" - the name they originally wore as lords of the place...

 family in Warsaw

Warsaw

Warsaw is the capital and largest city of Poland. It is located on the Vistula River, roughly from the Baltic Sea and from the Carpathian Mountains. Its population in 2010 was estimated at 1,716,855 residents with a greater metropolitan area of 2,631,902 residents, making Warsaw the 10th most...

. This part of the codex disappeared during World War II

World War II

World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...

, but later resurfaced in the United States

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 and was returned by Herbert Moeller to Poland in 1968, where it has been held by the National Library of Poland

National Library of Poland

The National Library of Poland is the central Polish library, subject directly to the Ministry of Culture and National Heritage of the Republic of Poland....

 in Warsaw until the present day. The third part, consisting of 16 folios, is held by the Russian National Library

Russian National Library

The National Library of Russia in St Petersburg, known as the State Public Saltykov-Shchedrin Library from 1932 to 1992 , is the oldest public library in Russia...

 in Saint Petersburg

Saint Petersburg

Saint Petersburg is a city and a federal subject of Russia located on the Neva River at the head of the Gulf of Finland on the Baltic Sea...

.

The codex was published by Fran Miklošič

Franc Miklošic

Fran Miklošič , was a Slovene philologist.-Biography:Miklošič was born in the small village of Radomerščak near the Lower Styrian town of Ljutomer, then part of the Austrian Empire....

 (Vienna, 1851), Sergej Severjanov (Suprasalьskaja rukopisь, Saint Petersburg, 1904), and Jordan Zaimov and Mario Capaldo (Sophia, 1982–1983). Alfons Margulies produced a significant volume on the codex titled Der altkirchenslavische Codex Suprasliensis (Heidelberg, 1927).

Folio 260 of the manuscript contains the note g(ospod)i pomilui retъka amin. Some experts think that this represents the name of a scribe (hence the occasional name Codex of Retko) and that the text was copied from several sources. Research indicates that at least one of the sources may have Glagolitic (for Epiphanius' Homily on the Entombment). Vocalizations of yer

Yer

The letter yer of the Cyrillic alphabet, also spelled jer or er, is known as the hard sign in the modern Russian and Rusyn alphabets and as er golyam in the Bulgarian alphabet...

s, rarely-occurring epenthesis, change of ъ to ь behind hardened č, ž, š and some other linguistic traits point to its Bulgarian linguistic provenance.

External links

• Codex Suprasliensis manuscript - UNESCO - Memory of the World, at the Institute for Literature, Bulgarian Academy of Sciences
• Codex Suprasliensis transliterated in 7-bit ASCII, at the Corpus Cyrillo-Methodianum Helsingiense
• Codex Suprasliensis, at TITUS project