Sede amministrativa: Università degli Studi di Padova Dipartimento di Filosofia, Sociologia, Pedagogia e Psicologia Applicata Scuola di dottorato di ricerca in Filosofia Indirizzo: Filosofia e storia delle idee Ciclo XXIV The Cultural Project of Krastyo Peykich (1666-1730): A ‘Spiritual Weapon’ for the Catholic Undertaking in Eighteenth-Century East Central Europe Direttore della Scuola: ch.mo prof. Giovanni Fiaschi __________________________ Coordinatore d’indirizzo: prof. Fabio Grigenti __________________________ Supervisore: ch.mo prof. Gregorio Piaia __________________________ Dottorando: Iva Manova __________________________ SUMMARY Krastyo Peykich (1666-1730) was an early modern author, Bulgarian by birth, Roman and Venetian by education, active as a Catholic missionary in central and east-central Europe in the decades around the very end of the seventeenth and the beginning of the eighteenth centuries, whose polemical works dealt with controversialist theology and political and juridical issues. This study discloses his cultural project and the historical relevance of the latter, by means of a reading of his works and an analysis of a number of published and unpublished sources. Peykich was born into a Catholic family in the small town of Chiprovtsi, in north-west present-day Bulgaria, at the time well within the borders of the Ottoman Empire. After the failure of the Chiprovtsi uprising against the Ottoman rule in 1688, Peykich fled to Italy. After a sojourn in Venice, in 1689 he became a student at the Collegio Urbano of the Holy Congregation de Propaganda Fide in Rome. He remained there until 1698, when he left the College – without however obtaining a degree – in order to become a missionary in Transylvania and Wallachia. From 1704 to 1709 he was prefect of the Pia Casa dei Catecumeni in Venice. In the following years, he worked once again as a missionary, parish priest and canon in Hungary, Transylvania, Wallachia and Croatia. He died most probably in 1730 in Vienna. Peykich was the author of four books. For the purposes of the present study, we can divide them in two groups. The first group concerns the question of the schism between Eastern and Western Churches and consists of three publications: Zarcalo istine, Speculum veritatis and Concordia orthodoxorum Patrum orientalium et occidentalium. Zarcalo istine (Venice 1716) was Peykich’s first publication and was written in a variant of Southern Slavic 3 (“Illyrian”) language. Speculum veritatis (Venice 1725) was an enlarged version of the Zarcalo in Latin. Concordia orthodoxorum Patrum orientalium et occidentalium (Trnava 1730) was a closer examination of an aspect of the question. All three are designed according to the literary genre of controversistic theology, yet seem animated by a concordistic spirit, aiming to promote the reunification of the Eastern and Western Churches. The second “group” of works actually consists in only one publication: the Mahometanus in lege Christi, Alcorano suffragante, instructus (Trnava 1717), a “catechism” for Catholic missionaries carrying out their activity among Muslims. A first objective of the present study consists in offering a new, significantly enriched biography of our author. As a result of our research, we are now able to trace Peykich’s life in much greater detail than before, especially as far as his missionary activity and editorial projects are concerned. We uncover, to give an example, Krastyo Peykich’s exact date of birth: 14th September, 1666. However, our main objective is to disclose Peykich’s cultural project. For this purpose, we have described the cultural and political context of his activity, placing it within the wider perspective of the Hapsburg’s policy: a policy aimed at the religious integration of their subjects and the consolidation of Catholicism as the “state religion” in their Empire. Within this context, Peykich’s books had to serve the cause of the union of the “schismatic” Orthodox Church with the Catholic Church and of converting Lutheran and Calvinist “heretics” and Muslim “infidels” to Catholicism. Through this direct purpose, our author aimed at a final, supreme end. It consisted in the “liberation” of all Christian peoples – Peykich’s Bulgarian compatriots among them – from the Ottoman domination. According to Peykich’s view, the European Powers were to join forces under the leadership of the Catholic emperor in order to form a Christian front united against the Ottoman Empire. The project of our author as a missionary and a man of letters was to contribute to the fulfillment of that end by providing the militia christiana with the “spiritual weapon” of his polemical works. This “spiritual weapon” was actually two-edged. It had a conceptual – religious and political – aspect, on one side, and a linguistic one, on the other. 4 In the present study, we have tried to disclose both of them. Peykich’s polemical book against the Muslims and his works on the schism and the union of the Church are analysed – with regard to their context, sources, intentions and content – in two distinct chapters. A futher chapter is dedicated to his linguistic endeavour. Our study of the Mahometanus improves the previous current knowledge of its sources and shows that it was designed with a view to a possible audience of Muslims: if not to be read directly by them, at least to be applied on the occasion of their proselytization and in the process of their catechization. This is a significant difference with respect to the standard medieval and early modern Christian anti-Muslim polemical treatises addressed to a Christian audience. Our analysis of Peykich’s works on the schism and the union of the Church illustrates his cultural project for the conversion of all Orthodox Slavic peoples in the Balkans to Catholicism and his political ideal of an all- embracing Christian alliance to triumph over the Ottoman Empire. Among the results of our researches we can mention the discovery of an autograph of Peykich’s Speculum veritatis. Still in the context of the project for the conversion of all Orthodox Slavic peoples in the Balkans to Catholicism, was Peykich’s attempt to reach a broader audience among diverse, and not necessarily highly or “classically” educated, social strata by writing a work in a variant of a Southern Slavic idiom. In his eyes, this language had to be an instrument for religious unification, which in turn was interpreted as the necessary basis for the political unification of Southern Slavs with other Catholic nations under the Catholic Emperor. Zarcalo istine was the first book on Orthodox-Catholic theological controversy ever written in a Southern Slavic language. A standardised technical apparatus for translating the Latin terms was lacking; there were no models to follow when writing on theoretical or abstract matters. Although Peykich was not able to elaborate “Illyrian” counterparts for the whole range of technical terms applied in trinitarian theology, his attempt to create a 5 theological and philosophical “Illiric” terminology is still memorable. Our contribution to the study of this topic is principally a table of the equivalences of theological, philosophical and ecclesiological lexemes and syntagmata in Zarcalo and in Speculum, wich we offer in chapter four of the present dissertation. With regard to his books, Peykich never tired of insisting that they were the fruit of his practical experience and were in point of fact meant to be used in practice. In accordance with his own statements, our analysis gives an account of Peykich’s polemical works as a manifestation and a revealing example both of post-Tridentine Catholic expansion in eastern Europe and of the Hapsburg’s policy towards religious minorities in the borderlands of the Empire. 6 RIASSUNTO Krastyo Peykich (1666-1730) fu uno scrittore vissuto in età moderna. Bulgaro di nascita, di formazione romana e veneziana, attivo come missionario cattolico in Europa centrale e centro-orientale negli ultimi anni del secolo XVII e nei primi decenni del secolo XVIII, fu autore di opere di teologia controversistica ricche di elementi politici e giuridici. Il presente studio disvela ed esamina il suo progetto culturale e la rilevanza storica di quest’ultimo, attraverso un’analisi delle opere del nostro autore e di fonti edite e inedite che lo concernono. Peykich nacque in una famiglia cattolica a Chiprovtsi, nell’attuale Bulgaria nord-occidentale, all’epoca ben all’interno dell’Impero Ottomano. A seguito del fallimento dell’insurrezione del 1688 dei cattolici di Chiprovtsi contro il dominio turco, Pejkich fuggì in Italia. Dopo un soggiorno di alcuni mesi a Venezia, nel 1689 divenne studente nel Collegio “Urbano” della Congregazione de Propaganda Fide, in Roma. Qui rimase fino al 1698, quando lasciò il Collegio – senza però conseguire la laurea in teologia – al fine di recarsi come missionario in Transilvania e in Valacchia. Dal 1704 al 1709 fu priore della Pia Casa dei Catecumeni a Venezia. Nei venti anni che seguirono fu di nuovo missionario, parroco e canonico in Ungheria, Transilvania, Valacchia e Croazia. Alcuni dati documentali inducono a ritenere che sia morto a Vienna nel 1730. Peykich fu autore di quattro opere. Ai fini del presente studio, esse possono essere ripartite in due classi. La prima classe concerne la questione dello scisma tra la Chiesa Orientale e quella Occidentale. Essa è composta da tre testi: lo Zarcalo istine, lo Speculum veritatis e la Concordia orthodoxorum Patrum orientalium et occidentalium. Lo Zarcalo