iphigenia as a bestseller: the sacrifice of abraham and its slavic and ottoman nachleben

The Cretan religious drama The Sacrifice of Abraham (Η Θυσία του Αβραάμ) enjoyed great popularity among Orthodox populations of the wider cultural realm of Southeastern Europe. Soon after its composition the text entered the sphere of oral tradition and it was written down in various forms throughout the Greek-speaking world. In addition, the Cretan text also surpassed its initial linguistic framework by a series of translations which in turn became very popular: the Serbian translation by Vićentije Rakić (Žertva Avraamova, which is also the first known stage performance of the text, set up by Milovan Vidaković in the Serbian gymnasium of Novi Sad in 1836), the Bulgarian translation by Andrey Popdoynov Robovski (Služba, ili žertva Avraamova), as well as at least two Karamanlidic Turkish translations by Sophronios of Şile and Ioannikios of Kazanlık (Hazreti Avraamin... kurban hekyaesi). My paper focuses on the diachronic interaction of the elements of oral tradition, performativity, and Biblical myth characteristic of this text. The (post-)Ottoman Nachlebenof the Cretan version raises some important questions about the modes of construction of literary histories and their narratives in Southeastern Europe, simultaneously comprising a somewhat unanticipated example of an early modern transnational literary text.