Oxymoral PI Diweg-Pukanec at the international conference “Christian Missions in the European Middle Ages and their Intellectual Heritage. History, Notions, Ideas”
The International Scientific Conference on “Christian Missions in European Middle Ages and their Intellectual Heritage. History, Concepts, Ideas”, organized by the Cyrillo-Methodian Research Centre of BAS (CMRC), was held in Sofia, Bulgaria, from 21 to 24 May 2025. It was attended by more than 60 participants from 14 countries, representing 40 world research institutions, including OXYMORAL PI Prof. Diweg-Pukanec. He presented at the conference the paper Phonological, morphological, and semantic features of the Kiev Leaflets, which was funded by the EU NextGenerationEU through the Recovery and Resilience Plan for Slovakia under the project No. 09I03-03-V04-00670 Inverted Morality: Reversed Semantics in Old Church Slavonic Moral Words (OXYMORAL).
In determining the origin of Old Church Slavic texts, the most important arguments are phonological and morphological features. Lexemes and syntax as other major components of the structure of language are not so relevant. Semantic arguments are even less relevant than lexical ones. However, the semantics is important as an argument that the Kiev Leaflets are not a copy, but a protograph, which shows important phonological and morphological features from a different perspective, and from another point of view, it also shows the fact that the language of this Old Church Slavic monument is a specific and established cultural dialect, either Pannonian, which is an older theory supported by prominent linguists, or Sotak. Moreover, the semantics can be used secondarily to research whether there could have been a South Slavic and Central Slovak metathesis of liquids *orC– > raC– in the Kiev Leaflets alongside the West and East Slavic *orC– > roC-. For if there were two different results of metathesis in this relatively short text of 38 prayers, it would show that the cultural dialect was not very established or cultivated. This lack of cultivation can be admitted in syntax, since Slavic written culture had only just begun to develop. In a number of instances, the Kiev Leaflets was influenced by a Latin original, or alternatively, it was indirectly influenced by Greek syntax. Nevertheless, in the case of the two different results of the metathesis of liquids, we would have to admit lack of cultivation in general, and, moreover, because of a phenomenon that affected, among other names, the name of Charlemagne, so that we can date it fairly accurately about a century before the dating of the monument on the basis of the semantics of the prayer 20. It is for these two reasons that the semantic analysis is so exceptionally significant for determining the paternity of the Kiev Leaflets.
Prof. Diweg-Pukanec’s contribution was concluded with a thunderous applause and was followed by a lively exchange of scholarly literature between OXYMORAL PI and other conference participants. It will be announced soon where the conference papers will be published.