page_title: Goražde Psalter
section_title: Description
hierarchical_section_title: Goražde Psalter / Description
caption_attribution_description: English: Folio 124 verso of the Goražde Psalter Српски / srpski: Гораждански псалтир, лист 124 verso
context_page_description: The Goražde Psalter is a printed psalter published in 1521 in Church Slavonic of the Serbian recension. It is counted among the better accomplishments of early Serb printers. With its 352 leaves, it is the largest of the three books produced by the Goražde printing house—the first printing house in the territory of present-day Bosnia and Herzegovina. The production of the psalter was managed by Teodor Ljubavić, a hieromonk of the Mileševa Monastery.
  Ten copies of the book are known to exist today; none is complete, though only the first and the last leaf are not present in any of them. The copies are kept in Belgrade, Kiev, Krka Monastery, Lvov, Novi Sad, Patriarchate of Peć, Prague, Saint Petersburg, and Zagreb. The book is printed in uncial Cyrillic with elements of cursive, in the orthography of the Resava literary school. Beside the Psalms, it contains the Canticles, Horologion, Menologion, and other Orthodox religious texts. There are three additional texts, one of which describes the capture of Belgrade and the devastation of Syrmia by the Ottomans in 1521. The psalter is decorated with 4 headpieces, 149 initials, and ornamental headings, printed from woodcuts.
context_section_description: The Goražde Psalter, ten copies of which are known to exist today, is counted among the better accomplishments of early Serb printers. The book contains 352 paper leaves in the quarto format, and its original size was probably 225 by 170 millimetres. Each of the preserved copies was trimmed at some point, the largest of them now measures 205 by 140 millimetres. None of the copies is complete, but only the first and the last leaf are not present in any of them. A transcription of the last leaf from a copy that belonged to the Krka Monastery was published in a Slavist journal in 1901.
  The psalter is written in Church Slavonic of the Serbian recension, the medieval literary language of the Serbs. The book's text contains no vernacular or dialectal traces, as can be found in some Serbian manuscripts. The Cyrillic orthography used in the psalter mostly adheres to the norms of the Resava literary school, which developed in the last quarter of the 14th century and the first decades of the 15th century. The Resava orthography became dominant in Serbian literature, but it never fully ousted the rules of the older Raška literary school. The usage of the Raška orthography in the Goražde Psalter is comparable with that in the Crnojević Psalter published in Cetinje in 1495, though there are also notable differences between the two books. The former uses both yers, ъ and ь, as prescribed by the Resava school, while the latter uses only ь.
  The Goražde Psalter begins with an introduction occupying the first ten leaves, which is followed by the Psalms (folios 11r–137r), the Canticles (137v–149v), Horologion (150r–189r), Menologion (189v–265v), the Rules of Fasting (266r–303r), a text about the Catholics ("On Franks and Other Such Anathemas", 303r–304r), the Paraklesis and Akathist to the Theotokos (305r–326r), the Paraklesis to Saint Nicholas (326v–334v), the Service on Holy Saturday (334v–350v), three additional texts (350v–352v), and the colophon (352v). In the first addition, Teodor Ljubavić, the editor of the book, reports that he found the texts on the Great Fast and on the Franks in the Hilandar Monastery on Mount Athos. The second addition is a short chronology from Adam to Stefan Uroš V, the last Serbian Emperor (1355–1371). The third addition describes the capture of Belgrade and the devastation of Syrmia by the Ottomans in 1521:
  вь лѣто ҂з҃.к҃.ѳ҃. Сїѥ лѣто паде Сѹлтань сѹлеимень на рѣкѹ Савѹ сь множьством измаилтень и прѣхождахѹ рѣкѹ Савѹ ꙗкоже по сѹхѹ... и ѡпстѹпише ѿвьсѹдѹ словѹщи бельградь ї иннїе ѡкрьсниѥ гради. и лѣтехѹ ꙗкоже змиѥ крилате села и градове палеще... и вь тои земли гл҃ю срѣме дивна места и села запѹстеше а црькви и градове разорише. а словѹщи Бѣльградь и неволѥю ѹгринь прѣдасть измальтеном... А госпожда Ѥлена бывьша деспотица и неволею ѡстави славни градь кѹпїнникь и дадѣ се бѣгьствѹ прѣко рѣке дѹнава ѹ вьнѹтрьнѹ ѹгрїю, а славнѹ и дивнѹ землю деспѡтовѹ тѹрци попленише, а лепи градь кѹпїнникь разорише м҃сца Сек .ѳ҃. дьнь.
  — In the year 7029 (AD 1521): This year Sultan Suleiman fell upon the Sava River with a multitude of Ishmaelites (Turks), and they crossed the Sava as if on dry land... They besieged the famous city of Belgrade and neighbouring towns from all sides. They flew like winged serpents, burning down villages and towns... In that land called Syrmia, they devastated magnificent villages, and they razed churches and towns. The Hungarians were forced to surrender the famous Belgrade to the Ishmaelites... And lady Jelena, the former despotess (the widow of Serbian Despot Jovan Branković), was forced to leave the famous city of Kupinik, and she fled across the Danube to the interior of Hungary, while the Turks looted the famous and magnificent Despot's Land (Syrmia), and they razed the beautiful city of Kupinik on 9 September.
  The print of the Goražde Psalter is clean, clear, and easy to read. The text in red was printed first, followed by the text in black. The faces of the cast metal types used for its printing were designed in the manner of uncial Cyrillic of medieval Serbian manuscripts, with certain 
caption: Folio 124 verso, Psalm 130 and Psalm 131:1–4 (in the Septuagint numbering)
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