Kraledvor manuscript
| Author | Václav Hanka and Josef Linda (as forgers) |
|---|---|
| Original title | Czech: Rukopis královédvorský |
| Illustrator | |
| Language | Czech (purported Old Czech) |
| Genre | Literary hoax, epic and lyric poetry |
| Published | 1817 (purported 13th century) |
| Media type | Manuscript (12 parchment sheets) |
| Pages |
The Kraledvor Manuscript (Czech: *Rukopis královédvorský*, abbreviated as *RK*; German: *Königinhofer Handschrift*) is one of the most famous forgeries in the fields of Slavic literature and folklore, closely associated with the Green Mountain Manuscript.
"Discovery" and Characteristics
The forged manuscript, created by Czech enlighteners Václav Hanka and Josef Linda, was "discovered" by Hanka in 1817, supposedly hidden between a wall and a wardrobe in the attic of a church tower (according to other accounts given by Hanka himself, in a cellar) in the town of Königinhof on the Elbe (Dvůr Králové nad Labem). It was presented as a fragment of an extensive 13th-century manuscript (the latest events depicted in it date to that century). It was written in ink prepared according to an old recipe (yet containing modern colorants revealed by chemical analysis) on large scraps of ancient parchment (12 sheets).
Content
The Königinhof Manuscript contains 14 poems: 6 epic (dedicated to legendary plots from early Czech history, the 13th-century Mongol invasion, etc.), 3 lyric-epic, and 5 purely lyric. In the epic section, Czech heroes unknown to any other sources (Beneš Hermanov, Jaroslav) achieve victories over the Saxons or save Europe from the Mongols (while the Germans look on). The account of the 1241 victory of Jaroslav of Sternberg (purported ancestor of Count Kaspar Sternberg, one of the founders of the National Museum) over the Mongols near Olomouc enjoyed great success in Russian historiography. Hanka's fictional Battle of Olomouc found its way—many years after the manuscript had been exposed as a forgery—into the works of B. D. Grekov (*The Golden Horde and Its Fall*, 1950), L. N. Gumilev (*Searches for an Imaginary Kingdom*), and the 3rd edition of the *Great Soviet Encyclopedia*.
These texts held immense propaganda value during the Czech National Revival (serving as Aesopian language; direct criticism of German rule would have been blocked by censorship). The lyric poems feature clear plot and lexical parallels with East Slavic (Russian and Ukrainian) folklore, as well as with *The Tale of Igor's Campaign*. This aligned with Hanka's pan-Slavic views, which regarded Russia as the leader of the impending liberation and unification of Slavic nations, as well as with his own linguistic practice as an enlightener (who advocated for the adoption of Russian words into the Czech language).
Exposure
Until the mid-19th century, the Königinhof Manuscript was one of the symbols of the Czech National Revival. Its greatest figures—Pavel Jozef Šafárik and František Palacký—expressed no doubts regarding its authenticity and even co-authored a book about it (though a controversial hypothesis suggests they may have suspected the forgery but remained silent out of patriotic sentiment). Writer and dramatist František Zacrek defended the manuscript's authenticity.
The decline of the manuscript's prestige dates to the 1870s and 1880s, when prominent linguists (such as Jan Gebauer), paleographers, and historians (Jaroslav Goll) largely proved its falsification. In Russia, Vladimir Lamansky was one of the earliest critics of the manuscript. The debate over authenticity, heavily complicated by political undertones, dragged on for a long time. The view that the manuscripts associated with Václav Hanka were forgeries finally prevailed only after a series of comprehensive publications between 1911 and 1914. A major role in ridding the nation of this aggrandizing myth was played by Tomáš Garrigue Masaryk, later the first President of Czechoslovakia, who was guided by ethical considerations (the conviction that a patriotic idea cannot be founded on a lie).
Following World War II, the Königinhof Manuscript (along with other alleged forgeries by Václav Hanka) was investigated by a team of experts:
Miroslav Ivanov, a well-known journalist and documentary writer Dobroslav Sриеc, forensic expert and lieutenant colonel Jindřich Sitta, forensic expert and major Jiří Josefík, art restorer Jaroslav Šonka, philologist and translator from Greek and Latin
The group presented the public with a comprehensive set of new facts proving the falsification of all examined manuscripts.
Today in Czechia, the authenticity of Hanka's manuscripts is still defended by certain nationalist movements.
Translations
The Kraledvor and Green Mountain manuscripts have been translated multiple times (including by Hanka himself) into various languages, with bilingual and multilingual editions published. One of the poems from the Kraledvor Manuscript was translated by Goethe. There are several Russian translations; the latest was completed by I. A. Novikov in 1939 out of a sense of solidarity with German-occupied Czechoslovakia, at a time when the forged nature of the manuscripts had already been proven (a fact he may have been unaware of).
Notes
References
- Palacký Fr. *Der Mongoleneinfall im Jahre 1241*. — Prag, 1832.
- Kralodvorský rukopis od Nebeského // *Časopis Českého museum*, 1852-53.
- Vocel J. *Aesthétický význam básni Zaboj a Jaroslav* // *Časopis Českého museum*, 1854.
- Feifalik J. *Über die Königinhofer Handschrift*. — Wien, 1860.
- Květ, František Boleslav. *Aesthetický rozbor rukopisu Kralodvorského*. — 1861.
- Jíreček, Jos. und Herrn. *Die Echtheit der Königinhofer Handschrift*. — Prag, 1862.
- Knieschek J. *Der Streit um die Königinhofer und Grünberger Handschrift*. — Prag, 1888.
- *Deutsche Zeitschrift für Geschichtswissenschaft*. 1889 and 1890.
- Соколов А. И. *Краледворская рукопись и суд Любуши*. — Казань, 1846.
- Берг Н. В. *Краледворская рукопись. Собрание древних чешских эпических и лирических песен*. — М., 1846.
- Куник А. А. *Спор о подлинности суда Любуши и Краледворской рукописи* // Записки Имп. Академии Наук, 1862.
- Некрасов Н. П. *Краледворская рукопись в двух транскрипциях текста...* — СПб. 1872.
- Макушев В. В. *Из чтений о старочешской письменности* // Филол. Зап., 1877-78.
- Ламанский В. И. *Новейшие памятники древне-чешского языка* // ЖМНП, 1879.
- Срезневский И. И. *Былина о суде Любуше*. — Варшава, 1878.
- Стороженко А. В. *Очерк литературной истории рукописей Зеленогорской и Краледворской*. — Киев, 1880.
- Белоусов Р. С. *Рассказы старых переплётов*. — М.: Книга, 1985. — С. 71—138.
- Лаптева Л. П. *Краледворская и Зеленогорская рукописи и их русские переводы* // Рукописи, которых не было. Подделки в области славянского фольклора. — М.: Ладомир, 2001.
External links
L. P. Lapteva*. Краледворская и Зеленогорская рукописи и их оценка в России XIX и начала XX вв. (*Studia slavica*, Budapest, 21, 1975, 67-94). Template:Cite wikitext
This article "Kraledvor manuscript" is from Wikipedia. The list of its authors can be seen in its historical and/or the page Edithistory:Kraledvor manuscript. Articles copied from Draft Namespace on Wikipedia could be seen on the Draft Namespace of Wikipedia and not main one.
