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Communication Dans Un Congrès Année : 2021

Palia de la Orăştie: Translators, motivations, readers

Adriana Serban

Résumé

In this paper, I would like to revisit a landmark translation in the Romanian language which had numerous implications—cultural, historical, linguistic and theological—at the time when it appeared and also in subsequent years. The text, published in 1582 by Şerban Coresi and Marian Diacul, is known as the Palia de la Orăştie and it is the first (partial) translation into Romanian of the Old Testament. The Middle Ages are conventionally thought to start in the 5th century (the decline and fall of the Western Roman Empire) and end with the Renaissance, in the 15th century. Palia de la Orăştie, which came out towards the end of the 16th century, does not, then, fall within this period. It is nevertheless my contention that a case can be made for its relevance to the topic of the conference, within the Romanian context, in which the circulation (in the original or in translation) of religious writings, literary texts, not to mention scientific production, was rather delayed by comparison with Western Europe. According to its preface, the initiative for the translation belongs to bishop Mihai Tordaşi; the context is that of the Reformation, but in a predominantly Orthodox country. The alleged motivation is the desire to spread the word of God in the Romanian language (“Că vădzum cum toate limbile au şi înfluresc întru cuvântele slăvite a lui Domnedzeu, numai noi românii pre limbă nu avem”) and the question of the sources is an interesting reminder of the vagaries of the circulation of texts: although the preface states that the translation was made from Hebrew, Greek and Slavonic (“den limba jidovească pre greceşte, de la greci sârbeşte şi într-alte limbi şi din acelia scoase pre limbă românească”), it has been established that the translators used a Hungarian version of the Pentateuch, as well as the Latin Vulgate. While the linguistic dimension of the Palia is extremely interesting (Popovici 1911; Gafton 2007) and so are the aspects concerning its complex web of filiations (Roques 1913; Gafton 2007), I propose to focus on the figures of the translators, within their context, on their (known or assumed) motivations, and the intended target audience.
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Dates et versions

hal-04406763 , version 1 (19-01-2024)

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  • HAL Id : hal-04406763 , version 1

Citer

Adriana Serban. Palia de la Orăştie: Translators, motivations, readers. The medieval translator: Fragmentation and inclusion, Université de Bologne, Jun 2021, Online (Bologne), Italy. ⟨hal-04406763⟩

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