Der neugefundene Text eines Briefes von Maximos Katelianos: noch eine Fälschung von Karl Benedikt Hase

Abstract

In July 1816, answering a request of the Russian count Nikolay Petrovič Rumjanzev, Karl Benedikt Hase wrote him that the Byzantine toponym Sarat should be identified with today’s town of Sudak. Hase’s hypothesis relied on a letter by a certain Maximos Katelianos, dating to the late 13th or early 14th century, preserved - as Hase assured - in the Bibliothèque royale of Paris. In 1971, Ihor Ševčenko argued that Katelianos and his letter had been merely invented by Hase for the satisfaction of Rumjanzev’s curiosity. Actually, Hase attached an autograph copy of Katelianos’ letter to the letter he wrote to Rumjanzev, which the author of this article has recently found among the papers of Alexej Nikolaevič Olenin. In 2006 Ševčenko identified the Oratio gratiosa of John Eugenikos from Par. gr. 2075 as Hase’s direct source for composing the letter of ‘Maximos Katelianos’. The present article includes the letter in Greek with Hase’s Latin translation, accompanied by a new one into German.