MUNICH, Sept 25 (Hina) - The Bible, translated into Croatian by Bartol Kasic in the 17th century, was published in Germany Monday. Kasic's translation of the Bible was published by a renowned German publisher, Ferdinand Schuningh, in
the line of Biblia slavica, comprising various Slav bibles. This oldest translation of the complete Bible into Croatian is the result of twenty years of work and cooperation between German and Croatian scientists.
MUNICH, Sept 25 (Hina) - The Bible, translated into Croatian by
Bartol Kasic in the 17th century, was published in Germany Monday.
Kasic's translation of the Bible was published by a renowned German
publisher, Ferdinand Schuningh, in the line of Biblia slavica,
comprising various Slav bibles.
This oldest translation of the complete Bible into Croatian is the
result of twenty years of work and cooperation between German and
Croatian scientists. #L#
The New and Old testaments were translated by Jesuit Bartol Kasic
under the heading Biblia sacra - Versio illyrica selecta in
Dubrovnik and Rome somewhere between 1622 and 1636.
The edition was prepared under the heading Kroatische Bibel des
Bartol Kasic in two big volumes (on 671 and 453 pages), in the format
of 35 by 25 centimetres, in leather binding with gold carving. It
was edited by German slavists and professors Hans Rothe from Bonn
and Christian Hannick from Wurzburg, with a foreword from Croatian
Cardinal Franjo Kuharic.
The text was prepared according to scripts found in Zadar, Zagreb
and Odessa by Petar Basic, Julije and Zlata Derossi.
The second volume is a scientific commentary on an edition
containing features by Petar Basic on the scripts, by Radoslav
Katicic on the language of translation, Christian Hannick about the
relation of this translation with older Croatian translations of
the Bible (before Kasic's translation there were Croatian
translations of the Gospel and epistles, but not an entire Bible),
and so on.
The most extensive section of the commentary (on about 250 pages and
about 20,000 words) is a complete scientific dictionary of the
biblical text with phonologic and morphologic characteristics,
prepared by Darija Gabric-Bagaric.
The commentary also gives a reply to the question why the
inquisition had prohibited press and thus sealed the fate of this
work which could have become a Croatian Vulgate and influence the
development of the Croatian language in its breadth.
According to the foreword by the publisher, the most responsible
person for this edition of Kasic's translation of the Bible,
although he had not lived to see it published, was Reinhold Olesch
from the Cologne University, who agreed on the edition with Ivan
Golub during the World Slavist Congress in Zagreb in 1978.
The expensive press was financed by the Alfried Krupp von Bohlen
foundation with more than DM100,000. The price of the Bible is
DM520.
Olesch, also known for other Croatian issues, in 1977 re-published
Kasic's, also the first, Croatian grammar Institutiones linguae
illyricae (1604).
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