Ђура Даничић и стара српска књижевност

Abstract

У овом раду представљају се резултати у истраживању доприноса Ђуре Даничића српској медиевистици током његовог активног деловања у Друштву српске словесности (1841–1861). Пажњу аутора рада најпре заокупљају Даничићеви прикази посебно значајних књига објављених на страни и код нас, а посвећених српској средњовековној књижевности. Публикујући ове приказе, Даничић је настојао да српску јавност упозна са најновијим научним сазнањима, али и да подстакне трагање за још неоткривеним књижевним делима и ствараоцима. Аутор рада затим представља Даничићев непосредни допринос упознавању са књижевном баштином (описивао рукописе, приређивао издања). Унеколико осветљава Даничићев текстолошки рад, а знатнo већу пажњу посвећује његовим настојањима да вреднује књижевна дела и одреди им место у оквирима средњовековне књижевности. Темељнијој анализи подвргава садржаје Даничићевих сачуваних предавања на Лицеју, у којима се, на систематичан начин, приказују карактеристике српске средњовековне књижевности и оцртава, унеколико, њен развој.

In this paper, the author presents the results of her research into the contribution of Đura Daničić to Serbian mediaeval studies during his active participation in the work of the Slavic Literacy Society (1849–1861). She also takes into consideration Daničić’s scientifi c projects initiated during this period and completed somewhat later. The author considers the forms of Daničić’s engagement in the sphere of mediaeval studies. She points out that Daničić, striving to present the latest scientifi c insights, early on began to publish reviews of particularly important books and editions published abroad and in our country. His aim was undoubtedly to inform the Serbian public, and also to stimulate searching for the as yet undiscovered literary works and writers from the medieval era. He presented the signifi cant works of P. J. Šafarik, F. Miklošić, Vuk Stefanović Karadžić and others. As this paper points out, Daničić strove to contribute himself to getting acquainted with the literary heritage. He therefore took upon himself to provide descriptions of signifi cant manuscripts and edit the actual works. He provided descriptions of manuscripts from the collections of the National Library and the library of the Slavic Literacy Society. In separate books, Daničić published the writings of some of the most important Serbian writers of the Middle Ages – Domentijan, Teodosije, Danilo the Second and his Disciple. He also published a number of smaller works. The author also partially sheds light on Daničić’s work in the sphere of textology. Her attention was drawn, to a signifi cant degree, to Daničić’s observations on the formal and stylistic characteristics of works and his value judgements. The contents of Daničić’s preserved lectures at Belgrade’s High School were subjected to a thorough analysis. In them, Daničić systematically reviewed the essential characteristics of old Serbian literature, its dominant genres, and partly delineated its development. Daničić dedicated his lecture entitled The Beginnings of Serbian Literature primarily to the literature of the era of Nemanja and St. Sava. However, he manifested a very lively interest in the literature that preceded this very well known one, of which there are no visible traces left (no works were preserved). In Daničić’s view, Serbian literature reached its peak achievement (“fl ourished to the utmost”) at its very beginnings. This happened, Daničić thinks, on account of favourable social circumstances (the state was growing stronger). Daničić sees the subsequent development of Serbian literature as regressive; his evaluation of literary works from the centuries that followed is that they were less successful artistically. He ascribes this line of development to changed social circumstances (the upheavals and power struggles in the Serbian state). Daničić’s understanding of literary history as a regressive process, as the author of this paper observes, is not an isolated phenomenon; P. J. Šafarik had an identical view of mediaeval Serbian literature. Like other scholars of that time, Daničić saw literature as a forceful refl ection of the current political and social circumstances. In his lecture entitled Offi ces to Serbian Saints, Daničić pointed to the time of the creation of Offi ces, to the works and authors known to him. The author’s attention was particularly drawn to the segment of this text dedicated to Jefi mija’s Praise of Prince Lazar; it appears in a manuscript (that of Kiprijan) as an integral part of The Offi ce to Prince Lazar. Daničić evaluates Jefi mija’s work as exceptional and presents an interesting hypothesis on the circumstances that contributed to its being included in the Offi ce. He even posits a rather bold hypothesis that Jefi mija is the authoress of the Offi ce. It is the conclusion of this paper that Daničić undertook archaeographic and textological work, preparing editions at a time when there were not many scholars equal to these tasks. He adopted methods from European science, but also founded them himself, through concrete work on manuscripts. Daničić was undoubtedly oriented towards philology in the original meaning of the termExcept in his lectures, he did not undertake literary-aesthetic analyses and evaluation of literary works to such an extent. That he was gifted for such an undertaking is evidenced, most of all, by his concise but exemplary essay on Jefi mija the nun’s Praise to Prince Lazar. It is to be assumed that in those lectures of his that have not been preserved he dealt with the work of other writers known at the time.