Den slaviska översättningen av Onufrius vita i den medeltida ryska handskriftstraditionen

This dissertation is a study of manuscript material containing the Life of Onuphrius (Onuphrius vita). The purpose of the study is to investigate the history of the Onuphrius text in the Slavic hagiographic tradition and to publish a critical edition of the Slavic text. The Life of Onuphrius circulated widely throughout the entire Christian world. It is unclear whether the original was written in Coptic or Greek. The present study is the first attempt to survey Slavic, above all Russian, hagiographic material that contains the Life of Onuphrius and an attempt to understand how the manuscripts relate to each other. The text critical examination leads to the conclusion that the texts concerning the Life of Onuphrius known to the Slavs originate from two Greek versions. Everything points to the fact that the text which circulated most widely among the Russians was made from a Bulgarian translation. The study does not rule out the possibility of other translations. Text T was chosen as the main text for the present edition since it is the earliest and best preserved Russian version of the Life. An archeographic description and a linguistic analysis of the main text are given. The study concludes with the edition itself with a critical apparatus presenting variant readings that allow a reconstruction of a further six Slavic manuscripts. The main text is presented in a diplomatic edition without any emendations. The work also contains a lemmatisized index of all the words that occur in our edition of text T