»Alas, Poor Yorick«: Critical Editions, Critical Traditions, and Gundulić’s Osman

U priređivanju teksta Gundulićeva Osmana za tisak mitsko mjesto pripada Ivanu Luki Volantiću (1749-1808), dugogodišnjem notaru i podtajniku Dubrovačke Republike te zaslužnom pregaocu u polju jezično raznovrsne no vremenom poharane književne proizvodnje dubrovačkih pisaca. Volantić je prema nekim svjedočanstvima proveo dvanaest, a prema drugim dvadeset godina mučeći se da iz mnoštva nesložnih prijepisa Gundulićeva djela sastavi pouzdan tekst te da ga opremi priređivačevim uvodom, pregledom povijesti koju Gundulić obrađuje, objasnidbenim bilješkama i rječnikom manje poznatih riječi. Od tog je Volantićeva priređivačkog posla sačuvano vrlo malo, i to isključivo dijelovi koji se tiču uvoda u izdanje te objasnidbenog aparata. Njegov pak rukopis Osmana koji bi čuvao tragove rada na prijepisima, njihovoj usporedbi i uspostavi kritičkog teksta ostao je znanstvenoj javnosti nepoznat jer se smatralo da je zauvijek izgubljen. Poznato je, međutim, da je nakon Volantićeve smrti Ambroz Marković, priređivač prvog potpunog tiskanog izdanja Gundulićeva Osmana (1826), imao pristup nekim Volantićevim materijalima, od kojih on kaže da je iznašao »jedan ne vele obilan dio, ter još i ovi rastrkan i razmetnut po razlicijeh kusih i komadih knjižina pometnutijeh i odvrženijeh«. Nikada nije razjašnjeno što je to točno Marković našao, a njegovo izdanje ubrzo nakon objave postalo je povodom prvom velikom prijeporu o prisvajanju tuđe priređivačke muke u hrvatskoj filologiji. Iako nije bio poznat nijednom proučavatelju Osmana od Markovića do danas, Volantićev rukopis koji je Marković upotrebljavao preživio je u cijelosti. Ovaj rad donosi prikaz tog novootkrivenog rukopisa kao i drugih dosad sasvim nepoznatih svjedoka Volantićeva rada na prvoj, i po koječemu još uvijek nenadmašenoj, kritičkoj priredbi Gundulićeva Osmana. Osvrćući se na dosadašnja znanstvena dostignuća, autori zaključuju da je potrebno novo i sveobuhvatno proučavanje rukopisne predaje Gundulićeva veledjela.In the editing of Gundulić\u27s Osman a mythical place belongs to Ivan Luka Volantić (1749-1808), long-term notary and undersecretary of the Ragusan Republic as well as a worthy, steadfast worker in the linguistically diverse but considerably devastated literary field of his native city. According to some testimonies, Volantić spent twelve, and according to others twenty years struggling to extract from a multitude of conflicting manuscript witnesses a reliable text of Gundulić\u27s poem and to furnish it with an editorial introduction, an account of the historical material underpinning Gundulić\u27s poem, explanatory notes, and a glossary of unfamiliar words. Very little of Volantić\u27s work has survived, for the most part limited to the editorial introduction and the explanatory apparatus. Volantić\u27s own manuscript of Osman, preserving the record of his work on different manuscript copies, their comparison, and the establishment of a critical text, has remained unknown to scholars because it was presumed lost for good. What is known, however, is that after Volantić\u27s death Ambroz Marković, editor of the first complete print edition of Gundulić\u27s Osman (1826), had access to some of Volantić\u27s manuscript materials, of which he had found, as he puts it, "one not very great part, and even this disjointed and scattered among various bits and pieces of abandoned and discarded volumes." It has never been ascertained what it was exactly that Marković had found. Soon after its appearance, his edition gave rise to the first great controversy in Croatian literary studies over the misappropriation of other people\u27s editorial efforts. Although it was not known to a single student of Osman from Marković until this day, the Volantić manuscript that Marković used has survived in its entirety. This essay provides a detailed account of this newly discovered document as well as of other hitherto completely unknown manuscript witnesses of Volantić\u27s work on the first, and in some ways still unsurpassed, critical edition of Gundulić\u27s Osman. After reviewing the critical tradition, the authors conclude that a new and comprehensive study of the surviving manuscripts of Gundulić\u27s masterpiece is in order