Recently, a parchment written in angular Croatian Glagolitic was found in the M. Lacko´s Archive of the Centre for East-West spirituality (Archív Centra spirituality Východ-Západ M. Lacka). By further investigation, we found out that it is a text in Old Czech written by angular Croatian Glagolitic originally from the Prague monastery Na Slovanech, where such manuscripts used to be created in the last quarter of the 14th century and the first quarter of the 15th century. The aim of this paper is to describe the fragment, check its content and to place it among the other known manuscripts of this type.
The fragment “Predhovor k Vojne [Foreword to the war]” is part of the literary estate of Janko Kráľ (1822 – 1876), best known under its first editorial title Dráma sveta [Drama of the world]. The fragment has no title in the manuscript and it was not published before 1938. However, with regards to its genre and poetics, , the text is a clear example of Slovak Romantic fragment – an emblematic genre of the Slovak Literary Romanticism. The article bases its interpretation on the culturological and philosophical take on the theory of the point (A. Kunce) and research of the fragment as a genre, especially on its position in the writings of the representative of early Romanticism, Novalis (1772 – 1801) and in German philosophical school in Jena in general. The article tackles “Foreword to the war” as an example of a text in which modern aesthetics (labelled as “the poetics of the ruins”) blends into the theological disposition of Slovak literary practice (figuratively termed as “speech from the catacombs”) which appears to be a modality of Slovak literature within the Romantic paradigm. The analysed fragment testifies to the hermetic and apocalyptic profile of the “Slovak fragment” and in this way addresses the issue of the literary genre of the apocalypse in Slovak Romantic literature.
Messine-Gothic notation is the most frequently used medieval notation on the territory of Slovakia. Over 3/4 of all complete manuscripts or fragments document the Messine-Gothic notational system in the time period from the first half of the 14th century to the beginning of the 16th century. In Slovakia it is documented in the former capitulary libraries in Bratislava, Spiš Chapter, and other cultural and ecclesiastical centres. Messine-Gothic notation from the territory of Slovakia exhibits a clear stylistic structure, which may be divided territorially into two extensive areas. The western group of extant monuments (Bratislava, western and most of central Slovakia) inclines to the scribal tradition of the Austrian and Moravian notational workshops (Bratislava Antiphonaries I, IIa, IIb, IV, Bratislava Missal “H” etc.). The eastern group around Spiš Chapter (eastern Slovakia: Spiš Chapter, Levoča, Košice, Prešov; part of central Slovakia: Banská Štiavnica) in style and form approximates to the Polish manuscripts from Krakow (Spiš Gradual, Spiš Antiphonary and others.).
The sources of medieval musical culture from the territory of Slovakia are the foundation stone in the musical history of our land. The most recent investigations of 62 medieval fragments from the Slovak National Archive in Bratislava have indicated a wealth of original and imported written culture from a time period from the late 12th to the early 16th century. Newly discovered fragments fill out the complex picture of the sources of medieval musical culture, which despite severe material losses (manuscripts lost, destroyed, or removed abroad) is rich and unique. In the latest research in the Slovak National Archive many fragments have been identified from manuscripts which are currently known and more or less complete.
During source research in 2021, a medieval notated fragment was discovered, which currently forms the upper cover of a book of accounts, Regestum pecuniarum ecclesiae xendochii et orphanorum, of 1607. The State Archive in Trenčín holds a relatively large number of extant medieval notated manuscripts. In total, the archive has preserved twenty-two, along with the newly discovered fragment twenty-three, notated manuscript fragments, seventeen of which contain Bohemian notation. Among the fragments notated with Bohemian notation, six fragments were identified as having originated from a single, today unfortunately incomplete, liturgical codex. The newly discovered fragment also belongs to this group. The aim of this study is the musical-liturgical and music-palaeographic analysis of this newly discovered fragment.
An important fact has been highlighted in the recent times by the complex source study of the medieval musical codices and fragments from the territorial area of Slovakia: written culture in the late 14th century and throughout the 15th century in the Slovak area was strongly under the influence of the learned culture of Bohemia. We have registered the direct impact of the Czech scribal tradition on the evolution of notation practice in Slovakian written sources, particularly within the time period 1370 – 1520. The codices, and some tens of fragments, which give documentary evidence of Czech notation in our geographical space were taken as a research topic, together with systematisation, analysis and evaluation of all currently known and processed musical sources from the Slovak area. The aim of research was to systematise knowledge of source materials, as well as establishing the fundamental structural features of Czech notation in Slovakia.
Nitra has a special status in assessment of the liturgical musical codices from the territory of Slovakia dating from the medieval period and early modern period. Only one liturgical manuscript has been preserved in its original place from Nitra’s church institutional funds– the Nitra Codex from the 12th century (ekphonetic symbols, elements of German unlined neume notation). Religious books with notation have not been preserved from the subsequent period (12th to 16th century). All the more surprising, then, is the discovery of 7 antiphonary fragments from the turn of the 16th century with the Estergom notation system in the Nitra Diocesan Archive, which is one of the oldest church archives in the Slovak Republic. On account of the historic status of the Nitra diocese and its church archive, we regard the finding of these fragments as an exceptional discovery in the field of medieval musical research in Slovakia.
Esztergom notation is an achievement of medieval Hungarian scriptoria. Two codices (Bratislava Missal I, Nitra Gradual) and several tens of fragments coming from 12th-18th centuries have been preserved proving the presence of the Esztergom notation on the whole territory of Slovakia. However, it is not a dominating notational system of the medieval materials. The preserved sources document much more margin use of this medieval notational system in Slovakia. The Estergom notation is originated as an independent product of the scriptorium of the main church centre of the medieval Hungary-Esztergom.
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