At the Intersection of Textual Transmission and Linguistic Interpretation: Cases from the Czech Church Slavonic Tradition

This article offers a methodological contribution to the complex relationship between the critical editing of Old Church Slavonic texts and their linguistic interpretation. It focuses in particular on the challenges of reconciling textual criticism with both the reconstruction of a text’s original form and the identification of its place of composition. Given the unique nature of these texts and their transmission across different regions, editors often face considerable difficulties in accounting for historical linguistic shifts and manuscript alterations while attempting to restore an original version (Urtext or archetype). The study examines specific complications that emerge when textual variation, scribal interventions or errors, and diachronic linguistic developments intersect in the editorial process. Through the analysis of concrete examples from texts of probable or possible Czech provenance, it explores the challenges of restoring texts shaped by transmission across different territories and historical periods. These issues, in turn, raise critical questions about the creation of comprehensive and reliable dictionaries based on such editions, or used to justify specific linguistic decisions. Together, these two dimensions of editorial work create a dual dilemma, one that is particularly difficult to resolve, as it requires balancing textual restoration through a stemma codicum with rigorous linguistic analysis.