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Education, learning, literature, and art
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Page 10
The epic of Digenes Akrites is preserved in several manuscripts, the oldest of which belongs to the fourteenth century. The study of it has recently entered a new phase in the illuminating researches initiated by H. Gregoire and brilliantly carried out by his collaborators, M. Canard and R. Goossens. It is almost certain that the historical prototype of Digenes was Diogenes, the turmarchus of the theme of Anatolici, in Asia Minor, who fell in 788 fighting against the Arabs. Many elements of the poem date from the events of the tenth century, when the Byzantine troops established themselves on the Euphrates and the tomb of Digenes, near Samosata, was identified about 940. Extremely interesting connections have been discovered between the Byzantine epic and Arabian and Turkish epics, and even with the Tales of the Thousand-and-One Nights. This epic, with its historical background and ramifications in the field of Oriental epics, presents one of the most fascinating problems of Byzantine literature.
Byzantine epics in the form of popular ballads have been reflected in Russian epic monuments, and the epic of Digenes Akritas has its place there. In ancient Russian literature The Deeds and Life of Digenes Akrites appears; this was known even to the Russian historian, Karamzin (early nineteenth century), who at first viewed it as a Russian fairy tale. It was of no little importance in the development of old Russian literature, for old Russian life and letters were profoundly affected by Byzantine influence, both ecclesiastical and secular. It is interesting to note that in the Russian version of the poem on Digenes there are sometimes episodes which have not yet been discovered in its Greek texts.
A History of the Byzantine Empire - Table of Contents
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Reference address : https://ellopos.net/elpenor/vasilief/literature-education-learning-art-5.asp?pg=10
