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Syrská středověká vzdělanost

Nina V. Pigulevská
Translated by Michal Řoutil and Michal Téra from the original publication “Культура сирийцев в Средние века”, Moscow 1979, and Syriac sources.

N. V. Pigulevskayaʼs monograph "Syriac Culture in the Middle Ages" signifies a new stage in her study of Syrian sources. It marks a transition from the use of these sources as a back­ground material for the study of the history of Byzantium, Iran, Southern Arabia and India, to a comprehensive research into the history of the Syrian people proper, and to the re-crea­tion of their economic, political, ideological, cultural and scho­larly life. N. V. Pigulevskaya set herself the task of providing an all-round characterisation of the spiritual culture of the Syrians and of showing its singular place in the history of the medieval world. She treats the history of Syriac culture not as a mechanical combination of parallel developments in literature, historiography, religion and science, but as an inte­gral totality of knowledge and concepts, ideology and ethics. She discusses the cultural level of the people as a whole, inclu­ding the spread of literacy and the scope of knowledge of an educated Syrian of this period.

The Czech version of the book was subjected to a thorough revision, the notes were supplemented to take account of up-to-date scholarsip in the area, and the volume includes a bibliography clearly categorised by subject, which was updated by the editor. The book concludes with an afterword which place N. V. Pigulevská's life and work into the context of the Russian Oriental studies of the 19th and 20th centuries.