Рукописна та книжкова спадщина України (Jan 2023)
Polemic texts in manuscript compendium of 18th century from collection of National Museum of the History of Ukraine
Abstract
The goal of the research is to present and introduce into scientific circulation a manuscript compendium RD-203 of the 18th century from the National Museum of the History of Ukraine, which comes from the collection of the famous collector Andrii Tytov. The article provides a definition and contextualization of the texts included in the compendium. The methodology of the research consists of basic textual and codicological methods as well as the methods of comparative and his torical analysis. Scientific novelty: for the first time, the compendium-convolute is described, its history is traced, and its texts-components are defined and analyzed. Conclusions. The compendium RD-203 is an artifact of Old Believer culture of the 18th century. Most likely, it is connected with the Solovki Monastery. The compendium consists of two works. The first of them is the translated polemical text “Conversation with Ahmed the Saracen”. Its dating and origins are debatable. There is a tradition of attributing the text to Samon of Gaza, a Christian bishop of the 11th century. However, there are more reasons to consider the “Conversation” a pseudo-epigraph of the 16th century. It was translated into Slavonic language by the Likhud brothers at the end of the 17th century and included to their work “Spiritual Sword”. The second component of the compendium is the extensive edition of the Fifth Solovki Plea. This work appeared on the eve of the uprising of 1668-1676 in the Solovki Monastery against the church reform of Moscow Patriarch Nikon. The author of the Plea was Gerontius, one of the ideologues of the uprising. The composition of the convolute and its codicological features illustrate the history of reception and circulation of these works in the Old Believer milieu of the 18th cen tury. The “Conversation with Ahmed the Saracen” is reproduced in full. Instead, the extensive edition of the Fifth Solovki Plea is presented in a truncated form. This may indicate the priorities of the compiler of the compendium, who attached more importance to the translated work. The compendium came to Kyiv by chance around 1928 in connection with the transportation of Ukrainian manuscripts from Russian libraries and museum repositories.
