International congress of byzantine studies belgrade, 22 27 august 2016

Dieter Stern
Ghent University, Ghent, Belgium; 
[e-mail]
Double Translations of Byzantine Hagiographic Texts – 
Reflections on the Slavonic Translations of the 
Life of St Eupraxia of Thebes
Double translations of Byzantine sources into Slavonic are a common and widely known 
phenomenon which, however, only recently attracted special attention. Up to this date no systematic 
survey has been done which texts have in fact been translated twice, - ‐ an undertaking which is 
particularly impeded by the difficulties of telling variation due to transmission from those due to 
translation. There are, however, reasons to believe that among Slavonic hagiographic translations 
many a variant text which has hitherto been preliminarily classified as a redaction of the same 
Slavonic source translation might in fact turn out to be another independent translation of the same 
Greek source text on closer investigation. A case in point is the Life of Eupraxia, which will serve as a 
material witness to the phenomenon in question. Independent double translations like the Slavonic 
Life of Eupraxia raise questions about the reasons and circumstances that favored them. Can it be 
shown that double translations are in fact independent from each other, or are they to be addressed as 
retranslations which attest to a culture of systematic reevaluation of written sources? The presentation 
will among others address the question whether double translation can be told from retranslations on 
principled grounds, making diagnostic use of general rules and considerations. As the case of Eupraxia 
is also hoped to demonstrate a close and thorough mapping of highly divergent translations onto 
their sources will reveal intriguing insights in which ways translators may differ in their translation 
strategies beyond the commonly known basic principles of literalism and 
fidus interpres
.