Authors

Margaret Dimitrova¹;  ¹ St. Kliment Ohridski University of Sofia, Bulgaria

Discussion

Josif Bradati’s sermons stigmatizing magic and superstitions are a typical example of the hybridization of the literary language of the eighteenth-century Bulgarian church literature. The autograph of Josif does not survive but his sermons are preserved in two copies and moreover, there exist a revised version witnessed by two copies, all four manuscripts dating from the second half of the eighteenth century. The language of these manuscripts combines Bulgarian vernacular elements and literary components coming mostly from East Slavonic printed books circulating amongst the Bulgarians in this century. Josif Bradati, a monk from Rila Monastery, followed the seventeenth-century tradition of church collections of narratives, known as damaskini, which used both vernacular language and literary vocabulary for Christian concepts, but he included many Church Slavonic elements. My paper discusses the interplay of Bulgarian and Church Slavonic components and analyses the flexibility of the literary norm in Josif Bradati’s sermons. The presence of Church Slavonic elements is seen as a didactic technique that assured the authoritative position of the preacher and that underlined the significance of his assertions. On the other hand, he relied on the Bulgarian vernacular syntax and lexis to make his ideas understandable for monks, priests, and the flock. In the same century, Priest Puncho, for example, mentioned that many monks and priests did not understand Church Slavonic books. Therefore, they needed church texts written in a hybrid language combining vernacular syntax and lexis with literary elements, such as Church terminology and formulae, abstract nouns and morphological features that differentiated the preachers’ speech from the everyday language making it more impressive and respecting. The ratio between the vernacular and bookish components depended on the sources, education, genre, expected audience, and personal predilections of the authors. From this standpoint, the language of the manuscripts containing Josif Bradati's sermons against witches and superstitions will be approached in my paper.