Slavic Byzantine Manuscripts

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The Ohio State University has established a microfilm archive of all the Slavic manuscripts and several rare printed books held by the Hilandar Monastery, Mount Athos. The collection consists of some one thousand codices and hundreds of Bulgarian, Byzantine, Russian, Serbian, Turkish and Wallachian edicts and characters dating from 1009 through the nineteenth century. These have been supplemented by Slavic and Greek codices from other Athonite monasteries, Rila Monastery in Bulgaria, and major libraries in Greece and Bulgaria.

The microfilming project was initiated and carried out by Prof. Matejic of Ohio State, largely by his personal efforts in the monasteries concerned in the years 1970, 1971 and 1975. Cumulative check lists have been published in 1971, 1972 and 1976. Present plans include completing the furnishing of the Hilandar Room, Main Library, and a detailed survey of the contents of the approximately 80 codices containing miscellaneous material, now simply labeled "Collections" in the checklists; a survey of the Liturgies in the Collection; and a survey of original literary works in the codices.

As you see all the Slavic languages mentioned except of any kind or form Macedonian language. Of course mentioned and the Turkish as Slavic but this is other issue.

All that mentioned in a annual Byzantine conference that took place in University of Michigan in 1978.

http://www.byzconf.org/1978abstracts.htm

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Slavic and Greek Manuscripts, 9th-19th Centuries

This collection comprises about 1510 Slavic and 150 Greek Manuscripts. Its universal character resides in the wide diversity of religious and profane books embracing the culture of the Middle Ages and early European Modernity. The Slavic collection represents unique copies of Bulgarian, Serbian, Valachian, Moldavian, Ukrainian and Russian manuscripts. They are for the most part biblical and church service books providing valuable information on the history of religious life in the Balkans under the jurisdiction of the Greek Patriarch of Constantinople and Ochrida Archiepiscopacy, about Slavic liturgy, language, script and literacy, leading scriptoria and scribes on the territories of the Balkans, cultural interchanges between the Balkan orthodox countries, development of the ornament and miniature in the context of the Byzantine tradition and later stylistic influences of Islamic art.

The Greek Manuscripts form two main groups - liturgical manuscripts and manuals, notebooks and profane literature gathered from different regions of present day Bulgaria, but also from Ochrida, Mount Athos, the Island of Chalke where there was a Greek School of Theology, and others. Two fragments dating from the 9th and 10th c. are examples of the Byzantine liturgical majuscule that influenced the oldest Cyrillic script. Among the most valuable liturgical manuscripts are those containing church songs in Greek notation, so called Psaltikia, and theoretical treaties on Greek singing. The manuscripts of scholarly character from the 18th-19th c. are perfect examples of the dissemination of modern Greek education.

http://portal.unesco.org/ci/en/ev.ph...CTION=201.html