Song manuscript in the Library of the Lithuanian Academy of Sciences

(ProQuest Information and Learning: ... denotes non-USASCII text omitted.)Song manuscript in the Library of the Lithuanian Academy of Sciences*This impressive volume falls into two major parts, a 375-page Kommentar and an almost identically sized edition of song manuscript F 19-233 (pp. 389-767). The Commentary consists of six chapters: I. The manuscript (origins, formal description, etc., pp. 15-48); II. Language and orthography (pp. 49-88); III. Versification (pp. 89-125); IV. Subject matter (Stoffe) and motifs (pp. 126-168); V. The history of the spiritual song (pp. 169-303); and Vl. The place of the spiritual song in the East Slavic genre system (pp. 304-347), followed by a condensed outline (Zusammenfassung, pp. 348-353), a list of abbreviations (p. 354), and a list of relevant literature (pp. 355-388).Chapter I records the history of F 19-233, namely, that it was originally compiled by monks in the Basilian Monastery in Suprasl' and was brought to Vilnius sometime before 1871, when Gil'tebrand noted its presence there. The ms. contains four sections, the major grouping of which divides its 164 songs into subject categories: (A) Songs to the Lord (Herrenlieder, songs 1-97); (B) Songs to Mary (Marienlieder, songs 98-150); (C) Songs to saints (songs 151 -175); and (D) General songs (..., songs 176-195).1 Stern attempts to identify songs originating in Catholic rites (i.e., Polish) vs. those of Orthodox or Uniate origin, but can conclude only that the bulk of the songs in F 19-233 are Orthodox, albeit with certain Catholic traits. He next looks for traces of specific writers and compilers, but the evidence is inadequate for this search to be successful. The available evidence does, however, permit Stern to localize its compilation in the Basilian Suprasl' Monastery, which by 1750 had some 300 inhabitants, a rich library, a theatre, and a typography. Attaching dates to individual songs is next to impossible, since sections A and D have no watermarks in their 183 songs, while section C includes 136 watermarks, many of which, however, cannot now be distinguished one from another; and section B has legible watermarks, but these are hardly necessary, since every song in this section also carries its own date.Chapter II (orthography and language) finds that sections A, C, and D (first hand) show coarse and careless handwriting, while section B (second hand) has a fine and careful script. Stern provides a great many orthographic facts, often too detailed to be reported here, but one fact is worth noting, namely, that related letters are sometimes connected with differing grammatical categories, e.g., the new genitive plural is written ..., while the possessive adjective formant is written ....2 A similar distinction is also used to disambiguate personages with similar names, e.g. Herodes Ascalonita = ..., while Herodes Antipater = .... Stern traces the various languages that, in one or another combination, were used in Ruthenian, Lithuanian, and Muscovite songs: East Church Slavic, East Slavic dialects and regional koines. Polish chancery language, slavenorosskij, prosta mova; the details are again too complex to be dealt with here; we note only the facts that Ruthenian and Muscovite songs were distinguished not by the use of standard Ruthenian vs. Russian, but rather prosta mova vs. Russian Church Slavic, and that the one language not utilized in Muscovite songs is standard written Russian.3The section on language includes quite detailed descriptions of the phonology and nominal and verbal inflectional morphology of the songs in F 19-233. The phonology lists such features as ukan'e (...), hardening of P as in ..., lenition as in ..., and the frequent labialization of {1}, such that the old l-participle is preserved as -... in 148 cases, while in 85 other cases the ending is rendered as .... Similar pairs occur in the section on inflexional morphology, e.g., in the first person plural indicative and imperative, where the indicative ends in

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