The Venetian manuscript by Pavle Solarić on the origin of the Slavs (Belgrade, Arch. SANU 220)

Abstract

The subject of this paper is manuscript No. 220 on the origin of the Slavs, Рода славенскога почетакъ, размноженїе, породе и изроди, by the Serbian philologist Pavle Solarić (1779-1821). This document is preserved in the Archives of the Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts in Belgrade. Similar in genre to a treatise and never completed, the text was written entirely in Italian during the author’s stay in Venice. Conceived as a philological dissertation dedicated to Asia and Europe, this text should have been divided into nine sections according to the initial project. Through the comparative study of languages, history, and traditions, Solarić aimed at crowning his research in philology with an organic analysis and systematic description of the origin of the Slavs. His goal was to prove the dignity and ‘sacredness’ of the Slavic idiom and attest that the “glorious verb” of this family of peoples lay at civilization's foundation.