Published: 2023-05-291

Polish-Ruthenian song from the 18th century about St. Vasili

Abstract

The early modern Ruthenian paraliturgical lyric, written in the Latin alphabet, belongs to the literary heritage of the Polish-Ruthenian cultural borderland. It has been poorly recognized so far due to its scattering in Polish manuscripts of the silvae rerum type and has not entered historical and literary circulation, remaining on the margins of research on the popular religious works of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. The article contains a critical edition of the narrative Song of Saint Vasili found in the manuscript of the Jagiellonian Library, which is a hagiographic-penitential variant of the so-called Ruthenian religious song. By evoking the legend of Basil the Great's expulsion of demons from a sinner, the work is a poetic call to prayer and penance that strengthens faith, symbolized by the steadfastness of the universally revered Father of the Church.

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Dzierżanowska, B. (2023). Polish-Ruthenian song from the 18th century about St. Vasili. Theological Yearbook, 64(2), 397. https://doi.org/10.36124/rt.2022.14

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