Whilst I am a strong believer in friendship being a two-way street, I may soon have to make an exception. Over the last two weeks since the start of my Laidlaw research period, I have spent approximately 78 hours with Matija Murko, making him my new Laidlaw best friend and confidant in Slavic studies of the 'most famous premodern text of which nobody has ever heard' [1], the Seven Sages of Rome.

Of course, this friendship is limited by some considerations: he has what some describe as an 'intense social life' [2], he's based in Prague, whilst I have been working primarily out of St Andrews Library, and he passed away in 1952 [2]. Still, he's become a guiding force in my research and together (or so I like to imagine), we have built what I am tempted to call my magnum opus: my colour-coded, date-ordered, language-sectioned mind map of manuscripts, prints and secondary literature, spanning across eight languages and five hundred years.

So far, as I'm sure you can see, much of my information is grounded in Murko's 1890 journal article, Die Geschichte von den sieben Weisen bei den Slaven [3], researched and written before sliced bread, penicillin, or, most importantly, the internet was invented. Despite this, the scale of detail he has achieved is awe-inspiring. I've counted seven languages he appears to be fluent in so far and he must have written thousands of letters to authors, merchants, and librarians across Europe and beyond. Sitting on my sofa, or at a desk in the library, with a laptop that brings the world to my fingertips, it's difficult to conceptualise this kind of painstaking effort. Now in the second stage of my research, I have been looking to more modern scholarship to compare conclusions and identify potential. I'm struck by how little of Murko's work requires correction or update.

Not only did Murko produce a scholarly overview that most senior lecturers would be jealous of today, he also translated and printed over 30 pages of stories from Old Czech which haven't appeared in other adaptations, in order to enable future scholars to better research and identify the recurring inset stories. Reflecting on this, I feel somewhat touched by the ways that he unknowingly anticipated the questions that we are asking today with our project. It's a strong reminder that research and leadership are often less about forging an individual new path, and more about picking up where someone else has left off: building bridges between languages, borders, and generations.

[1] The Seven Sages of Rome, https://db.seven-sages-of-rome.org/Main_Page [accessed 13/06/2025].

[2] Wikipedia, Matija Murko, (Wikipedia) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matija_Murko [accessed 13/06/2025].

[3] Matija Murko, 'Die Geschichte von den sieben Weisen bei den Slaven', Sitzungsberichte der philosophisch-historischen Classe der kaiserlichen Akademie der Wissenschaften, 122.x (1890), pp. 1-138.

[4] Jan z Koszyczek, Poncian, który ma w sobie rozmaite powiésci miłe barzo ku czcieniu wzięte z Rzymskich dziejów (Krakow, 1540) edited in Krzyzanowski, Julian, Poncjan (Historja o siedmiu mędrcach) przekładania Jana z Koszyczek 1540 (Krakow, 1927).