Legendary bohemian rulers

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Bautzen manuscript of the Chronica Boemorum, 12th century. At the bottom of the page is the list of names of the seven legendary Bohemian rulers after Přemysl.

The legendary Bohemian rulers are pre-Christian ancestors of the Přemyslid dynasty in Bohemia . Their names are recorded in the Chronica Boemorum des Cosmas of Prague from the beginning of the 12th century and embedded in a description of the beginnings of Bohemian history . The origin of the Bohemian " tribe " and the ruling dynasty after Cosmas is the subject of mythological research. Its depiction of the oldest regional history has been preserved in the form of legends up to modern times.

Lore

Cosmas names the forefather Čech as the first ruler of the Czechs , who led the tribe into the country, and the second the judge Krok , father of three daughters. Libuse , the youngest of them, was as the wife of the plowman Premysl matriarch of the dynasty. The Cosmas Chronicle also relocates the founding of the Prague Castle and the description of a war between the sexes in Bohemia in which women are defeated in the lifetime of Libuše and Přemysl .

After the death of Přemysl, Cosmas added a succession of seven rulers. In today's Czech their names are written Nezamysl, Mnata, Vojen, Vnislav, Křesomysl, Neklan and Hostivít. This notation does not correspond exactly, but largely to the original. The complete passage reads in the Latin original and German translation:

Premizl iam plenus dierum, postquam iura instituit legum, quem coluit vivus ut deum, raptus est ad Cerris generum. Cui Nezamysl successit in regnum. Hunc ubi mors rapuit, Mnata principales obtinuit fasces. Quo descente ab vita Voyn suscepit rerum gubernacula. Huius post fatum Vnislau rexit ducatum. Cuius vitam dum rumpunt Parce, Crezomizl locatur sedit in arce. Hoc sublato e medio Neclan ducatus potitur solio. Hic ubi vita discessit, Gostivit throno successit.
When Přemysl's days were numbered, after he had established the law, he was taken as Ceres' son-in-law, whom he had worshiped as a god during his lifetime. Nezamysl succeeded him in the government. When death brought him, Mnata received the stately badge. After his death, Vojen took the helm of the rule. After his death, Vnislav ruled the duchy. When his life was divided by the Parzen, Křesomysl came to the high chair. When this was torn from life, Neklan seized the manorial seat. When life departed from this, Hostivít ascended the throne.

The chronicler does not know more about these princes, only with Neklan he connects the story of a war between the Czechs and a neighboring tribe of the Lučané . The rulers are described as uneducated and "devoted to the stomach and sleep" in a subsequent sentence, but this is to be seen as a learned cliché based on ancient models.

Interpretations

The first part of the story, from the arrival of Čech in Bohemia to the marriage of Přemysl and Libuše, is clearly recognizable as a myth . His figures and motifs can be found, albeit in a different form, in the Christian legend from the end of the 10th century. However, it is disputed whether the names in the register of rulers can be assigned to specific historical persons. Apart from Cosmas they are not recorded in any other source. The first Přemyslid ruler to appear in contemporary sources is Bořivoj I at the end of the 9th century . He becomes a son of Hostivít with Cosmas.

Research in the 19th and early 20th centuries developed numerous theories about the origin and meaning of the directory. The personal names were interpreted as place names, names of gods or names of days of the week, a pure invention of the chronicler was also discussed. Today there is broad consensus that the descent list cannot be considered as Cosmas' creation. The rhythmic form speaks against this, as does the chronicler's approach, who is certified to have used his sources carefully.

In more recent times, Vladimír Karbusický has again argued that the list does not contain personal names, but rather torn apart words from a sentence. Cosmas took over fragments of an epic song that told of the victory of the Bohemians over the East Franconian army of Ludwig the German in 849. The sentence, which contained an offer of peace by the Bohemians to the Franks, reads in the reconstruction:

Krok 'kazi, (Thetka?), Lub ... premysl ...,
nezamysl ... m ... na ta voj'n ... ni zla,
kr'z ... my s ... neklan ..., gosti vít ...
Interrupt your steps (salutation), think better:
We don't think of a war with you and no evil
we do not bow to the cross, we welcome strangers.

Karbusický's thesis is still being discussed, but the majority rejected it as implausible. The interpretation of the historian Dušan Třeštík , which is widely accepted today , however, assumes that Cosmas actually passed down names. Accordingly, it is a recording of a public lecture that was originally given orally. Comparable lists of family names can be found in many Indo-European cultures. They were recited, for example, when the Irish and Scottish tribal kings were installed, and the Piast and Rurikid dynasties also know legendary rulers at the beginning of the lineage. Since such directories often begin with a god or hero figure and then continue with historical personalities, the authenticity of the tradition cannot be completely ruled out. However, it has not yet been proven.

Přemysl and Nezamysl are certainly legendary because of their similarity of names, because such typical “divine twin pairs” can be found, for example, with the Romans with Romulus and Remus or with the Anglo-Saxons with Hengest and Horsa . Only the last in line, Hostivít, is considered to be a likely historical person and actual father of the first verifiable Přemyslid ruler.

Say

The tradition of the Cosmas Chronicle remained part of the “official” history in the Middle Ages. In Dalimil and Přibík Pulkava , as in Cosmas, after Přemysl there is only a sequence of rulers' names. In the chronicle of Václav Hájek z Libočan from the 16th century, however, the picture already looks different. The seven rulers are not only provided with family, place of residence and life dates, Hájek also recorded numerous events that are said to have occurred during their lifetime. In this embodiment of the mythological motifs of folk tales , the legendary Přemyslids have remained known until modern times, even if Hájek's detailed version is no longer widespread today.

The best-known literary version was written by Alois Jirásek in 1894 under the title "Old Bohemian Legends" (Staré pověsti české). Jirásek essentially follows the original weighting. It describes the events from the arrival of Čech to the death of Přemysl and the war in the days of Neklan. He takes on two heroes from Hájek: Bivoj, who defeats a dangerous wild boar in a fight, and Horymír, who skips the castle wall of Vyšehrad with his speaking horse Šemík and thus escapes a death sentence. The résumés of the seven rulers between Přemysl and Bořivoj have again been cut into a simple sequence of names. In this version, the story of the pre-Christian Přemyslids is part of today's Czech literary tradition.

gallery

literature

Remarks

  1. ↑ Chronica Boemorum , I, 9, 21, in the edition by Berthold Bretholz , Berlin 1923.
  2. ↑ An overview of older research can be found in Záviš Kalanda: České pohanství . Prague 1947.
  3. ↑ Vladimír Karbusický: Nejstarší pověsti české. Fantasy - Doměnky - fact. Mladá Fronta 1966, p. 173.
  4. ↑ Full text of the Old Bohemian sagas on Wikisource (Czech)