Vol 12, No 2, 2013 pp. 183-189
UDC 821.163.41-94 St Jovan Vladimir
GESTE OR JOVAN VLADIMIR'S BIOGRAPHY
Đorđe Đekić
University of Niš, Faculty of Philosophy, Serbia
Email: djekicdj@ptt.rs
The Chronicle of the Priest of Doclea included, among other things, the life of St Jovan Vladimir. The Chronicle itself indicates that there was a geste, a story of heroic deed of Jovan Vladimir, where the information about him was taken from. On the other hand, the writing style indicated a biography. The very part describing his life, in the literature, was called an epic, a deed, a myth, an oral legend or a novel. It was this sort of curiosity that led us to resolve whether it was a geste or biography. Literature prescribes which parts a biography has to have, so a piece of text talking about Jovan Vladimir was compared with the elements of a biography, and the following was found: nine of the elements are present in their totality, two in their summarized form while four are missing. Two of the missing four were not even significant enough to be included – one where the author of a biography was supposed to talk about himself in a humble way and another that was supposed to state the source of the information. The celebration of the saint's homeland is not given in its direct form, but the entire Chronicle could be taken as an honor to Doclea, i.e. his homeland. The only element which could not even be assumed to have existed is the question of Vladimir's name. On these grounds, therefore, we are of the opinion that there was a regular biography whose shortened version was included in the Chronicle. A scribe introduced it under the term geste, as his cult had more of a local character and the saint was not even canonized by either the Pope or the Patriarch. The fact that he occurs as a motif in literature indicates that there must have been some secular works about his.
Key words: St Jovan Vladimir, Doclea, biography, geste.
GESTA ILI ŽITIJE O JOVANU VLADIMIRU
Letopis popa Dukljanina obuhvvatio je između ostaloge i živvot Sv. Jovana Vladimira. Sam Letopis upućuje na postojanje geste o njemu odakle su preuzeti podaci. Sam stil pisanja je takav da je u literaturi ukazivano da je u pitanju žitije. Deo o njemu se naziva sem toga u literaturi i narodnim epom, aktom, legendom, usmenim predanjem i romanom. Upravo nas je to navelo da posvetimo posebnu nažnju da li je ovom vladaru posvećeno gesta ili žitije. U literaturi je ustanovljeno koje delove žitije mora da sadrži te je s toga upoređen sadržaja teksta koji se odnosi na Jovana Vladimira i elemenata koji čine žitije i ustanovljeno je: da je devet elemenata zastupljena u potpunosti, dva u skraćenom obliku, a četiri nedostaju. Od elemenata koja nedostaju dva nije bilo bitno uneti. Prvi, gde autor žitija o sebi govori sa uniženjem i drugi o izvoru informacija. Slavljenje otadžbine svetog nema u direktnom obliku ali ceo Letopis se može shvatiti kao proslavljanje Duljklje tj. njegove otadžbine. Jedini deo žitija za koji se ne može ni pretpostaviti da je postojao je bavljenje Vladimirovim imenom. Upravo na osnovu sveta toga smatramo da je postojalo puno žitije koje je u skraćenom obliku uneto u tekst Letopisa. Gestom ga je nazvao prepisivač jer je njegov kult bio lokalnog karaktera i nije bio kanonizovan ni od pape ni patrijarha. Činjenica da se on pojavljuje kao motiv u književnosti upućuje da su morala postojati sekularna dela o njemu.
Ključne reči: Sv. Jovan Vladimir, Duklja, žitije, gesta .
