The existence of fifteenth-century translations of Christian texts from Czech into Ruthenian is due to the intensive Western influence that Ruthenian lands experienced as a result of their political affiliation with Lithuania and Poland. What remains to be explained is the means by which Czech texts found their way into the Ruthenian cultural environment. This is the issue that I will address in my paper.
Of all the Slavs, the Czechs were the first to translate the Bible
into vernacular language and those translations were well known both
in Poland and Lithuania. A copy of one of the earliest Ruthenian
translations from Czech, of the
The Ruthenian codex in which the
The hypothesis that I will present is that both Ruthenian translations, from Croatian and from Czech, have the same origin. I will touch upon the connection between the Kleparz monastery and the famous Emmaus monastery in Prague that was established in 1347 by the Czech King and Roman Emperor Charles IV. Charles intended it for the Croatian Benedictines from Dalmatia whom he invited to establish a Slavic liturgy according to the Roman rite. Some scholars assume that Charles, being a zealous Catholic, contemplated missionary work in neighboring Slavic, non-Catholic countries and intended to use the Roman Slavonic liturgical tradition as a medium for bringing together Western Christianity and the Eastern Slavs. The foundation of the Kleparz monastery in Kraków where there was a large Orthodox community could thus be regarded as a confirmation of Charles's design. However, this assumption has not yet been strongly supported by any evidence of textual transmission.
In the proposed paper I will try to confirm the realization of Charles' intention by looking at the two above mentioned Ruthenian translations (and, probably, some other texts presently under examination) in light of the missionary activity of the Czech monks from Emmaus monastery.