Stojan's letter from prison, Serbian in Cyrillic (DECODE R688)

Summary. DECODE R688 (three pages, "Non-decrypted", simple substitution, graphic signs, no language) entered the catalogue as item 270, a ciphered letter of an unknown sender to an unknown recipient in 1664. Both DECODE images were viewed here. Nothing on them is enciphered. The script is Cyrillic, in an untrained upright hand with Church Slavonic spellings, and the language is Serbian. The letter opens Сїи листь писа Стоянь, "this letter was written by Stojan". Stojan greets the aghas, knezes and odabaše, "small and great", and his Vlachs by name, and begs them to get him out of "the German prison". A slip on f. 31 carries four damaged lines of a second note of the same kind. The letter was probably bound with the ciphers because no clerk in Vienna could understand it. The pages were transcribed line for line; about a quarter of the words stay doubtful because of blots, deletions and the torn slip.

01 The document

Fascicle 327 of the Hungarian conspiracy files in the Haus-, Hof- und Staatsarchiv holds a bundle headed Chiffres 1664–1668. DECODE catalogued its items one by one, and dated each with the bundle's span. R688 is ff. 30–31. The nearest key record, R707 (ff. 60–61), is a Latin numeric nomenclator, and it has nothing to do with this letter.

The upper half of f. 30r: lines of Cyrillic capitals, beginning with a cross — F. 30r, lines 2–10: *ѿ града … поклонь и животе здравїе агамъ кнезїамь …*, the greetings and the list of names. Image: Österreichisches Staatsarchiv, HHStA, Verschwörerakten Fasc. 327 Konv. D f. 30r, via DECODE R688 (image 1).

Image 1 of the record is f. 30r. Image 2 shows an opening: f. 30v on the left, and on the right a small slip mounted on f. 31, with an endorsement in Latin on its edge that begins Epistola.

02 What the letter says

The opening, with doubtful words marked [?]:

✝ Сїи листь писа Стоянь … ѿ града З[?]вачь поклонь и животе здравїе агамъ, кнезїамь, ѿдабашамъ[?] и маламъ и великимъ. И пакъ посло и животе здравїе влахомъ моема: Вуку, Гаврилу, Радонѣци[?], Вучиту[?], куму Продану, Мирку, Павлу, Димитру, Марку с всемь христианомь. … Братїа, да ми се смилуете, можите мене извадить из немачкий тамнице а ваше душе из пакле.

"This letter was written by Stojan from the town of Z[?]vač: greeting, life and health to the aghas, the knezes, the odabaše [company commanders], to small and great. And again I send life and health to my Vlachs: to Vuk, Gavrilo, Radonja, Vučeta, my kum Prodan, Mirko, Pavle, Dimitrije and Marko, with all the Christians. … Brothers, have mercy on me. You can get me out of the German prison, and your souls out of hell."

The rest of f. 30r is about groschen, money he lacks, pledges and "what is needed". The last line is struck through and blotted. On f. 30v he says to bring the money to the town of Bor[?], and "I know horses and men, we can get [me] out, and all be glad, amen". The letter was written for him by someone else: Писа намъ Младь Бакиі[?] у градъ Бор[у]. A postscript sends greetings to his wife and asks kum Prodan to go himself to the Magyar[?]. Most of this postscript stays uncertain.

The slip on f. 31 begins Сїи лисъ писа Х[?]саань[?] у Пет… and sends life and health to the writer's mother and brothers. It is too damaged to transcribe further.

03 Why it was catalogued as a cipher

A letter in Cyrillic would have been as opaque to a Vienna chancery clerk as a cipher. It was bound in the Chiffres bundle, and DECODE described it from that bundle heading as a substitution in graphic signs. The same thing has happened to other items in this project. The DECODE record should read: not a cipher, cleartext Serbian (Cyrillic). This correction is queued with the transcription.

04 What stays open

The place names Z[?]vač and Bor[?] are uncertain readings. Settling them would help to place and date the letter.
About a quarter of the words, mostly in the money passage and the postscript, are doubtful (grade M or I in the README Conventions scale). These are gaps in the transcription of a rough hand. A reader of early modern Serbian working from the original would close most of them.
Why a Serb prisoner's plea sits among the conspiracy papers is not known. It may have been intercepted, or it may come from a prisoner held in the Habsburg border garrisons.

05 Sources

ÖStA HHStA, Ung. Akt. Spec. Verschwörerakten VII, Fasc. 327, Konv. D, ff. 30–31: DECODE R688 (login; the images are not in the public domain).
Nearest key record in the bundle: DECODE R707, ff. 60–61, Latin numeric nomenclator (not related).

Transcription, English gist and notes: r688/ in the repository.