Мучеництво і терпіння святого Евстатія Мцхетського / Переклад із давньогрузинської, вступна стаття та примітки Н. А. Назарова

Abstract

In the publication, a Ukrainian translation of one of the key texts of Old Georgian literature, The Martyrdom and Patience of St. Eustathius of Mtskheta, is presented. It was composed at the turn of the 6^th and 7^th centuries CE. Despite its relatively small size – approximately fifteen pages – the text is extremely rich in historical, cultural, and religious details and is highly original in terms of its literary form. The narrative concerns a craftsman (a shoemaker), a Persian by origin, who was born into the family of a Zoroastrian priest (a magus). In the thirtieth year of the reign of the Persian king Khosrow I of the Sasanian dynasty (reigned 531–579 CE), he came to Mtskheta and converted to Christianity. However, still being in his native city of Ganzak in north-western Iran he felt interest in Christianity. His apostasy from his fathers’ religion provoked outrage among the Persian colonists, who lodged complaints against him with the Sasanian administration. After interrogations, Eustathius was executed. In the course of interrogations, however, he recounted the story of his conversion, and another narrative is inserted into the story – a catechetical account of the entirety of Holy Scripture, put into the archdeacon’s mouth. Such a framed narrative form is not characteristic of other texts of the same period, whether Old Georgian or the Syriac or Byzantine hagiographies known in the region. The principal probable source for borrowing such a framed narrative is the Pahlavi recension of Kalila and Dimna, which appeared under the same King Khosrow I. The anonymous author may have been familiar with Pahlavi literature and borrowed from it then unusual mode of narration, which would become relatively well known only several centuries later in the literatures of Asia and Europe (as in the collection One Thousand and One Nights, for example). Presented in Ukrainian for the second time in a translation that is more accurate and more faithful to the original than the previous one, the text will be of interest to historians, literary scholars, scholars of religion, theologians, biblical scholars, and all those interested in the cultures of the East and the Caucasus.