The Russian Review, vol.43, 1984, pp. 161-166

The Present Status of Medieval Slavic Studiesin the USA and Canada*

RosBnr MATHIBSEN

I propose to talk about the present institutional base for MedievalSlavic Studies as a profession in North America. In many ways I am aconflrmed Aristotelian, not the least in insisting-as against Plato-thatvirtue and excellence are absolutely impossible in the complete absenceof material resources. For a learned profession such as Medieval SlavicStudies, these material resources are (a) trained scholars, (b) primarysources for them to work on, and (c) ttre cash and the caretakers neces-sary to maintain the institutions that house, perpetuate, and conservethese sources and these scholars. Here we touch on questions thathave interested me deeply since the very first years of my professionallife.

The picture that I will paint for you-I paint it as I see it in mymind's eye-is in chiaroscuro: there are masses of darkness, but alsomuch brilliant, shining light; and the light shines largely due to theefforts of a small number of extremely dedicated individuals, who haveheroically labored to do more with skimpy material resources than onemight reasonably expect.l I shall begin with the darker elements of thepicture, then turn to the lighter ones, and end with desiderata for thefuture.

1. The Dorker Elements.1.1 Medieval Slavic Studies lack any single professional home of

their own. Rather, they are subsumed under several different scholarlyprofessions, such as Slavic Languages and Literatures, Soviet and EastEuropean Studies, Balkan Studies, Medieval Studies, History, etc.Medieval Slavic Studies are no more than a marginal field on the

0*This was the opening paper at the First Annual Hilandar Research Project Confer-ence, held May 3-4, 1984, at the Ohio State University. Pruned of topical references, it ispublished at the request of the Managing Editor ol this journal.

rcf. R. Picchio, "United States," Polata knigopisnaja, no.5, October, 1981, pp. 78-83,for an overview of these scholars and their researches.

t62 The Russian Review

periphery of these professions, and as such they have no independentsources of funds.

1.2 Moreover, their principal professional home-SlavicLanguages and Literatures-has relatively little independence in NorthAmerica, but as a profession is intimately connected with thecorresponding European profession in a way that strikes my colleaguesin, say, French Studies or Hispanic Languages and Literature as bizarre,if not downright harmful. Our professional agenda are still largely setin other countries, principally in Slavic ones. This relative lack ofscholarly independence is largely the result of the profession's smallsize: there are no more than about twenty-five universities that grantthe doctorate in this field in the USA, and their number is not greatlyincreased when we look at Canada as well.

1.3 The profession of Slavic Languages and Literatures-and per-force the profession of Medieval Slavic Studies as well-is furtherdisadvantaged in two ways, when compared with, say, French orHispanic Studies: (a) it has to cover a dozen languages and three majorcultural-historical groups of people, whose histories have largelydiverged during the Middle Ages; and (b) most of our students beginthe study of their first of these dozen languages only as undergraduates.In these respects we share the problems of, say, departments of Egyp-tology, of Near Eastern Studies, and of Oriental Languages more thanthe problems of departments of other European languages.

1.4 There is relatively little student interest in Medieval SlavicStudies, as compared with Modern Slavic Studies, or even with Egyptol-ogy and Classics! We cannot draw on the topicality that attracts stu-dents to Modern Slavic Studies, nor on the archeological romanticismthat draws students to Egyptology, nor usually on the feeling for one'sown heritage and traditions that leads many students to enter depart-ments of the Classics. (The actual number of students with Slavic rootsat most of the twenty-five or so universities with doctoral programs istoo small to really keep a program of Medieval Slavic Studies going onsuch a basis.)

1.5 There are relatively few professional positions in MedievalSlavic Studies, and virtually none of them are open in any given year.It is very hard to place a graduate student in Medieval Slavic Studiesafter he has earned his doctorate, unless he is willing to settle for worknot closely related to his field of specialization, such as teaching Slaviclanguages or Modern Slavic literatures and cultures.

1.6 The primary sources (i.e., manuscripts and early printedbooks) are relatively inaccessible, being in far-away and sometimes hos-tile lands; and the relatively few manuscripts and early printed books

The Present Status of Medieval Slavic Studies 163

that happen to be in North America are poorly known (althoughEdward Kasinec and I have been laboring to remedy that).2

1.7 Even access to the secondary literature can be difficult, sinceuntil recently very few libraries were engaged in developing Slavic col-lections of any sort, let alone collections in Medieval Slavic studies.one still occasionally runs up against important titles in the secondaryliterature that are not held by any North American library.

1.8 It is almost impossible to secure the publication of MedievalSlavic texts according to the highest standards of the last century, sim-ply because the printing houses that could handle that sort of text areall gone, and their typefonts have perished with them. The currentlyavailable fonts are much less flexible and satisfactory than those that,say, vatroslav Jagic could use in his day. Even specialists in the Slaviccountries have to make do with fonts that would have been judged lessthan perfectly satisfactory one hundred years ago.

2. The Lighter Elements.2.1 The profession of Medieval Slavic Studies has picked up, on

the whole, in the Slavic countries and in western Europe during thelast two decades. we in North America can only beneflt from that! Inparticular, we now have: (a) more journals that publish studies onMedieval Slavic matters; (b) many more editions of old manuscriptsand even some early printed texts; (c) much better archeographic con-trol of the primary sources; and (d) better bibliographical control of thesecondary literature, than was the case twenty-five years ago.

2.2 Access to the secondary literature is much easier now than itwas twenty-five years ago, for (a) photocopies are cheaper by far; (b)the reprint and microform publishing industries have been flourishing,and some of the firms have concentrated on Slavic publications: and (c)we have much better published Union catalogues and even cataloguesor shelf lists of individual important collections (Harvard Universityand the New York Public Library, in particular). ttre Inter Documen-tation company (zug, Switzerland) must be singled out for specialmention here, because of its excellent program of microfiche editionsof the most important archeographic literature.

2.3 A large number of microfilms and other photocopies of pri-mary sources are now in North American hands, and this material, too,is slowly being brought under bibliographical control, as are the

2E. Kasinec, "Notes on old cyrillic Printed Books and Manuscripts in AmericanRepositories," Polata knigopisnojo, no.3, March, 1980, pp. l2-19; cf. N. S. Demkova."Drevnerusskie rukopisi i staropechatnye knigi v nekotorykh sobraniiakh sShA," i"rurlyOtdela drevnerusskoi literotury, vol. 34, 1974, pp. 388-405.

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equivalent Western European holdings.3 Access to such material is rela-tively unimpeded by the political climate'

2.4 A fair amount of this material has been centralized, indifferent places for different parts of Medieval Studies, including Slavic.The Greek and Latin material can chiefly be found in the Vatican FilmLibrary at St. Louis University (St. Louis, Missouri), in the Ambrosi-ana Microfilm Collection of the Medieval Institute at the University ofNotre Dame (Notre Dame, Indiana), and in the Hill MonasticManuscript Library at St. John',s College (collegeville, Minnesota).Biblical manuscripts in many languages are available on microfllm inthe Ancient Biblical Manuscripts center (claremont, california). TheSyriac material collected by Professor A. V06bus is housed at the Luth-eian School of Theology (Chicago, Illinois). The Slavic material, ofcourse, is principally to be found in the Hilandar Research Project atohio State university (columbus, ohio).a The development of suchcenters can only be welcomed, and their growth encouraged in everypossible way.

3. DesiderataHow, then, can we improve our professional status as specialists in

the slavic Middle Ages? I am disposed to make the following recom-mendations.

3.1 We must establish independent professional agenda that willbe of considerable interest to our colleagues in the Slavic lands and inWestern Europe. There are two ways to achieve this goal: (a) Uy study-ing those relatively few major questions on which Eastern Europeanscholars find it difficult to publish the results of their works, for exam-ple, questions of Biblical and liturgical textology; and (b) by developingnew and powerful methods of work, or by borrowing them from otherbranches of scholarship, which our Western and Eastern European col-leagues have not yet employed in Medieval Slavic studies. My ownfeeling is that the second route is the better one to follow here.

There is a great amount of innovative methodological work beingdone, for example, on medieval paleography and codicology, which sofar has completely escaped the attention of Medieval Slavists. Much ofthis work is laboratory work. For example, Professor Benton at the

3Most of this information appears in Polatal knigopisnaja [ISSN 0165-1862], publishedat Nijmegen since 1978.

acf .1,o* Medievalis, vol. l, 1984, pp. 17, 20, 24: Bibtical Archeologt Reure4 vol' 8,1982, p. 8; A. V60bus, "In Pursuit of Syriac Manuscripts," Journal oJ Near Eastern Stu-dies,vol37, 1978, pp. 187-193; M. Mateji6 et al., "Hilandar Monastery and other Reposi-tories of Medieval Slavic Manuscripts: Research Needs and Opportunities (A WorkingConference)," Polan knigopisnaia, no. 5, October, 1981, pp. 43-90.

The Present Status of Medieval Slavic Studies 165

California Institute of rechnology has managed to recover the readingof an obliterated text-a colophon-by means of the technology other-wise used to enhance photographic images sent back from othei planetsby space probes; his method works on photographs, without necessaryaccess to the original. I could multiply examples considerably.s

clearly this line of research would benefit all sectors of MedievalStudies, not just the Slavic sector: we can all profit from the contents ofour colleagues' "tool-kits." Here North America may have the essen-tial technological edge over the Eastern European world.

3.2 we must develop improved methods of publishing MedievalSlavic texts, probably from computer-generated camera-ready copy. Allthe vagaries of paleocyrillic and even glagolitic can be handled muchmore easily by the laser printer than by the typewriter, not to speak ofthe composing stick; and in general the computer is superior to thetypewriter as a word-processor and text-editor. This is another area inwhich North American technological superiority can lead the entire pro-fession. only nostalgia or poverty can still impel us to prefer oldermethods of editing and publishing.

3.3 we need independent sources of funds, and independent pro-fessional status, apart from the fields on the periphery of which we arenow situated. we have not yet begun to explore the possibilities ofnon-traditional, non-governmental sources of money. we also needwell-deflned institutional structures to administer this money.

It is my conviction that a new era is presently'beginning for thestudy of Medieval texts-in all languages, not just in slavic. we standat a moment in the history of scholarship that is rich in opportunity.

sJ' F. Benron, A. R. Gilrespie, J. M. Soha, "Digitar Image-processing Apptied to thePhotography of Manuscripts," scriptorium, vol. 33, 1979, pp.40-55, plates-9-ii. ci., ..g.,R. N. Schwab, T. A. cahill, B. M. Kusko, D. L. wick, "cyclotron Analysis of the Ink inthe 42-Line Brble," Papers oJ the Bibliographicat society of America, vol. 77, 19g3, pp.2g5-315; E. Ziesche, D. Schnitger, "Elektronenradiographische Unteisuchungen der wasser-zeichen des Mainzer catholicon von 1460," Archiv fitr Geschichte des Buihwesens, vol. 21,1981, cols. t303-1360. G. B. Richards, "The Application of Electronic video Techniquesto Inlra-Red and Ultra-violet Examinations," Journa! of Forensic sciences, vol.22, 1977,pp. 53-60; N. H. Mackenzie, "Forensic Document Techniques Applied to LiteraryManuscripts," Bodleian Library Record, vol.9, 1973/18, pp. 234-240; i. R. sternberg, i.M. Brayer, "composire Imagining: A New Technique in Bibliographic Research ;, pip"rsof the Bibliographical society oJ America, vol.7i, 1983, pp. 431-445; and the conferenceproceedings Les techniques de loboratoire dans l'btude des manuscrits, paris, 1974. As can beseen from these titles, some of the most exciting recent work has been done by speciat-ists in early printed books rather than in manuscripts, but it is equally applicable to thestudy of manuscripts.

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what we make of this opportunity is up to us, of course. I myself amreminded of a similar moment about sixty years ago when liguistics-not just Slavic linguistics, but general linguistics-confronted a futureripe with the possibility of exciting, pioneering work. At that time itwas in large part Slavic linguists, at Prague and elsewhere, who seizedthe opportunity. May we who are slavic Medievalists show the samekind oi initiative and intelligence today and over the next decade thatthey displayed then.