The present paper examines the Sunday troparia of the Byzantine-Slavic liturgical tradition as performed nowadays in Slovakia. The research, which took into the consideration their history, text, and music, tries to determine original forms of the music, as close as possible to the originals lost by 17th-18th centuries, and points to the possibilities of selecting the proper textual variants.
The study deals with one of the youngest translations of St. John Chrysostom’s Eastern liturgy into Czech. The translation analysed represents an innovative act not only within the Eastern Orthodox Church, but also outside it, and for many reasons has been accepted in different ways. The study also aims at providing space to critical voices and endeavours to discuss these views in the context of theory and practice of translation. Equally, it strives for an complete analysis of the linguistic-translatological characteristics of the translations by Marek Krupica and Jiří Stránský. One of the important factors of the concerned translation by Krupica and Stránský was an attempt at an intelligible Czech language which could be used for liturgical purposes as well. On the textual layer, there is the already mentioned intelligibility which does not contradict the observance of the textual poetics. After all, these two factors are not easy to observe, in particular regarding the translation of poetry. Marek Krupica and Jiří Stránský give preference to generally known, mostly Christian terms, such as Bohorodička [Mother of God] or svátosti [sacraments]. These terms replace the previously used borrowings, such as Bohorodice [Mother of God, an older term] or Tajiny [mysteries] which are still found e.g. in Gorazd’s Dictionary. These terms appear in the text in symbiosis with the eastern terms, such as aer [aër], diskos [paten], tropar [troparion]. Despite these innovative tendencies, the text maintains a number of poetic figures and tropes. It also does not avoid word-order inversions. Therefore, the text does not lack a certain “eastern touch” and at the same time does not seem archaic or bookish. The translation strategy thus unites all the factors mentioned here, without making a fragmented or split impression. In the given context, e.g. a translation of theological vocabulary is carried out. In this sense, the focus of this contribution is shifted from one particular translated text to general problems of translatability of certain cultural background, or the choice between free and word-for-word translation. This choice has been known in the history of translation since at least the time of Hieronymus’ Vulgata.
JavaScript is turned off in your web browser. Turn it on to take full advantage of this site, then refresh the page.