An unknown letter by Joannes/Jean-Baptiste/ Thibaut, French Byzantines-musicologist 1899

Danica, Petrović

Zbornik radova Vizantoloskog instituta

41

475

483

http://www.doiserbia.nb.rs/Article.aspx?id=0584-98880441475P

2004-2020/02/08/20:16:40

This work concerns the letter sent from the French College in Phillipopoli/Plovdiv (Bulgaria) by Pater Joannes /Jean-Baptiste/ Thibaut, the French Byzantines — musicologist, to Tihomir Ostojić, professor at the Secondary school (Gymnasium) in Novi Sad, a literature historian and expert on Traditional Serbian Church Chant. At that time Thibaut was widening his research interest in Byzantine Chant and neumatic notation, to include Slavonic Chant Tradition, first Russian Chant and later that of the Balkan peoples as well. He was one of the first foreigners to show interest in the Orthodox Chant Tradition of the Southern Slavs, and perceived that, contrary of the Russians, South Slavs never adopted early Byzantine neumatic notation. Visiting monasteries in Bulgaria he tried to find reasons for this lack of Byzantine notation among the Southern Slavs. In the above letter he posed very serious questions regarding Chant in the Serbian Orthodox Church, more precisely regarding the "Karlovci Chant". Unfortunately, it is not known if Thibaut received any kind of reply from Ostojić, nor have we found the reply sent to him by the Serbian Patriarch Georgije Branković, whom he also addressed, asking for help. Answers by those experts to the Thibaut's well formulated questions would be an extremely important contribution to studies of Traditional Serbian Church Chant.