TRANSLATION OF CANONICAL VISITATIONS OF SLOVAK EVANGELICAL CHURCH COMMUNITIES IN VOJVODINA FROM 1835 AND 1836

Abstract

Senior church dignitaries realized more or less correct controls of certain church communities in their area and kept detailed records of that, which are of immense importance for church history. Due to the fact that the text was written in modern Latin (which is different from classical Latin), this invaluable primary source was available only to a small number of researchers. Thanks to the translation of about 200 pages of Latin text (out of that several pages of biblical Czech, German and Hungarian) into Slovak, as well as additional explanations in the footnotes, records of canonical visits of Slovak Evangelical Church communities in Vojvodina from 1835 and 1836 are now available, not only to the scientific, but also to the general public.

Decoding the text, manuscripts of almost twenty clergymen (of different writing styles and different levels of Latin language skills, with the use of common abbreviations in church language vocabulary of the time) and its transcription into digitized form was a great challenge. The Latin text is full of long sentences, lack of verbs and punctuation and ornate stylistic formulations, and requires detailed analysis of words and sentence structures in order to preserve the accuracy of translation in the spirit of time, while forming meaningful sentences in the target Slovak language. The work on these manuscripts exceeded the task of mere translation. The complexity of the translation of this type of text, specific both in form and content, is manifested primarily in its critical publishing. In addition to transcription and translation, as a result of detailed research, the footnotes provide closer information on significant events, circumstances, individuals, church and school literature.

An aggravating circumstance was the lack of translation of canonical visitations or other similar church records among Slovak evangelicals on the territory of Southern Hungary and the impossibility of relying on the translation skills of other researchers-translators.

At a time when the entire Slovak historiography lacks interest in critical publishing of historical sources from the 19th century, this translation fills a large gap in this area and has a tendency to be a starting point for future research in (not only church) history of Slovaks in Vojvodina.