1. Electronic Corpus of Slavic
Manuscripts and Texts with
Relevant Metadata
Prof. Anissava Miltenova
Department of Old Bulgarian Literature
Institute for Literature
Bulgarian Academy of Sciences
Sofia
Vienna, November 30, 2012
2. Cultural context: medieval
literature of Slavia Orthodoxa
• More than 90% of texts are translated from Greek;
• Byzantine texts were not only translated, but
transformed;
• Old Church Slavonic texts were very often modified, they
have many versions;
• The prototype of text often remains relative, or even
unknown; Slavic scribes created a new recension based
primarily on divinatio, or often under the influence of
multiple sources (contaminatio);
• Very often one manuscript is scattered in 2-5 libraries/
collections /countries.
Vienna, November 30, 2012
3. E-corpus of
Medieval Slavic Manuscripts
• Cataloguing of manuscripts, analytical description
• Facsimiles in the form of computerized image files,
linked to the catalogue database
• Sets of text files linked both to the relevant catalogue
database entries and facsimile image files
• Corpuses of Old Church Slavonic texts and parallel
Greek sources (CPG, BHG, others)
• Dictionaries
• Ontology of terminology
• Workstation for medievalists: real or illusive?
Vienna, November 30, 2012
4. Principles of processing
• TEI P5 guidelines;
• The encoding of Old Church Slavonic is based
on Unicode 5.1;
• Standardization of document file format;
• Multiple use (ensured by the separation of data
from processing);
• Portability of electronic texts (independence of
local platforms);
• Orientation towards well-structured divisions of
data in XML;
• User friendly and fast access.
Vienna, November 30, 2012
5. Repertory of Old Bulgarian Literature
and Letters: Content and Metadata
• To make possible access to medieval manuscripts for all
purposes of research in medieval studies
- textology
- codicology
- paleography
- identification of text and analysis of context of every
text, etc.)
• As much as bigger is the corpus, so important is the help
of computer tools for searching and extraction of data.
• Access: http://clover.slavic.pitt.edu/~repertorium/
Vienna, November 30, 2012
8. Outcomes
1. Model for highly structured description of manuscript
materials based on XML format (designed joint with Andrej
Boyadzhiev, Sofia University) TEI P5;
2. Corpus of over 350 Slavic manuscripts (11th--18th
centuries);
3. Model for electronic editions of Old Slavonic texts in XML
format and approximately 370 pages electronic texts;
4. Model for comparison of the content of miscellanies and
visual presentation in SVG format;
5. Glossaries of terms, authority files and and thesaurus of
terminology (8 languages –Bulgarian, Serbian, Russian,
English, German, French, Old Church Slavonic and Greek),
over 750 articles in Moodle software:
http://moodle.ilit.bas.bg/
Vienna, November 30, 2012
13. Cooperation
✔ Project “Electronic Description and Edition of Slavic Sources”, 2002-
2003 (UNESCO)
✔ Project “Slovo” (2007-2008): Transfer of knowledge among working
teams of five countries (Austria, Bulgaria, FYR of Macedonia, Serbia,
and Slovenia) and joint research work.
• Digital collections of manuscripts of monasteries: St Catherine's on
Mount Sinai, Dečani monastery, Markov monastery, Rila monastery
• Organization of a workshop on digital libraries of Slavic Manuscripts in
Sofia in February 2008 and a round table on the Balkan monastic
culture.
• Production of a specialized portal on medieval Slavic culture ”SLOVO”:
http://slovo-aso.cl.bas.bg/
✔ The project with Slavic department in the University of Göteborg
(2003-2011) and Uppsala (2012-2014)
✔ Project with British Library (2004-2011): “Machine-readable
description and electronic catalogue of Slavic Manuscripts”
✔ Project “Digital Scholarly Editions and Developments in the
Slovenian and Bulgarian Literary Studies” with ZRC Slovenia (2010-
2013)
Vienna, November 30, 2012
14. Project “Encyclopedia Slavica
Sanctorum”
• Encyclopaedia Slavica Sanctorum is a joint project of St.
Kliment Ohridski University of Sofia and Institute of
Literature, Old Bulgarian Literature Department.
• Main goal is to build a repertory of medieval and early
modern Bulgarian texts for saints in combination with
ethnological data and some visual sources.
• During the project IMI-BAS team produces a digital
repository for on-line Web access to the Bulgarian
information on saints, i.e. Encyclopaedia Slavica
Sanctorum Calendar (ESS)
• Online access: http://www.eslavsanct.net/
Vienna, November 30, 2012
15. Achievments
• Repertorium database are very powerful research
instruments, more accurate and more comfortable
for the users;
• Scholars changed their point of view on the
effectiveness of the applications of modern software
tools to manuscripts and medieval texts;
• Strong international cooperation and exchange of
information in the field of computational medieval
studies and computational humanities in general;
• Bridge over the gap between West Europe and East
Europe is also essential today and even more for
the future.
Vienna, November 30, 2012
16. A digital edition of
Codex Suprasliensis (2010-2012)
• To unite digital images of all three parts of the Codex
Suprasliensis;
• To create electronic version of the OCS text in Unicode;
(a prior electronic version was transliterated in 7-bit
ASCII distributed by the Corpus Cyrillo-Methodianum
Helsingiense and the TITUS project);
• To create electronic version of Greek texts;
• To develop searching system;
• To add translation in English;
• Edition is freely available under a Creative Commons
BY- NC-SA license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-
sa/2.0/ )
Vienna, November 30, 2012
17. What is the Codex Suprasliensis?
• Cyrillic
• Late tenth century
• 37 quires
• 285 folia, 1о
• Leaf: 31 X 23 cm
• Text box: 23 X 15 cm
• One column
Vienna, November 30, 2012
20. Preservation of the Codex
Supasliensis
• University Library in Ljubljana: 118 folia, Kopitar
collection;
• Russian National Library in St. Petersburg: 16 folia, A. F.
Byčkov collection;
• National Library in Warsaw, 151 folia, counts Zamoyski
collection, lost at the time of the World War II, reemerged
in the USA and was returned to Poland in 1968;
• listed in the UNESCO’s Memory of the World Register
since 2007;
• The project is supported by UNESCO.
• Main page of the project: http://csup.ilit.bas.bg/
Vienna, November 30, 2012
21. Contents
• Primarily vitae of martyrs
from the 3rd-4th centuries
– Paul and Juliana
– St Basiliscus
– Forty Martyrs of Sebaste
• 1st-2nd centuries
– Conon of Isauria
• 6th-7th centuries
– St Gregory the Great, Pope of
Rome
• 9th century
– Forty-two Martyrs of Amorium
• Anchorites
– Paul the Simple
Vienna, November 30, 2012
23. Browse the text: main view
http://suprasliensis.obdurodon.org/
• Paragraphed OCS
– Helsinki ASCII transcription converted to Unicode and corrected
manually against facsimile in Zaimov/Capaldo edition
– Paragraphing introduced by editors
• Linked to
– Parallel Greek (from Zaimov/Capaldo edition)
– Parallel English (new translation by Thomas Lysaght)
– Folio views (see below)
• Linguistic commentary
– Word-for-word, scrolls and highlights
– Back-linked
• Web fonts
Vienna, November 30, 2012
24. Browse the text: folio view
http://suprasliensis.obdurodon.org/pages/supr027v.html
http://suprasliensis.obdurodon.org/pages/supr218v.html
• Interlinear OCS and Greek on left
– Mouse-over linguistic commentary
• Facsimile on right
– New photographs, contributed by repositories
– Magnifying glass
• Links to other folios
• Links to main view and searches
• Same OCS and Greek text and linguistic annotation as
main view
– Single source = multipurposing 2012
Vienna, November 30,
26. Incorporation into PROIEL
Vienna, November 30, 2012
http://www.hf.uio.no/ifikk/english/research/projects/proiel//
27. Thank you!
Pitagor award, 2009
Acknowledgements:
Working team: Department of
Old Bulgarian Literature,
Institute of Literature BAS:
www.ilit.bas.bg
Methods: Commission to the
ICS:http://www.obshtezhitie.ne
t/commission/index.html
Anissava Miltenova,
anmilten@yahoo.com
Andrej Boyadzhiev
aboyadzhiev@gmail.com
David J. Birnbaum,
djbpitt@gmail.com
Hanne Martin Ekhoff
h.m.eckhoff@ifikk.uio.no
Vienna, November 30, 2012
