Attribution of the Old Believer manuscript of the 20s of the 19th ct. from the collection of Andrey Sheptytsky National Museum in Lviv

Abstract

The article is devoted to the attribution of a music manuscript (РКК-69) from the collection of Andrey Sheptytsky National Museum in Lviv. Often upon describing the decoration of the Old Believer manuscripts they were identifi ed with the “sea coast” style, which is not completely correct. In various regions of compact dwelling of the Old Believers their own original styles of book decoration were formed. Each of those has its own specifics of script, miniatures and ornamental decoration, which almost have not been described yet. This causes certain diffi culties at the attribution of the Old Believer manuscripts. The investigated manuscript is no exception. The codicological and fi ligree analyses of the manuscript allowed narrowing the ranges of its creation to the fi rst quarter of the 20th ct. The text structure analysis discovered that the studied manuscript was a music book known as the “Holidays” rather than the Irmologion, as it was indicated in the museum description. The art study analysis allowed attributing it as the Old Believer manuscript of the Guslitsy style. Besides, in the fonds of the Russian State Library (Moscow), the State Historical Museum (Moscow) and the State Universal Scientifi c Library of the Krasnoyarsk Krai (Krasnoyarsk) six manuscripts similar in the execution craft, drawing, ornamental arrangement composition, picture coloring and hand to the studied manuscript were discovered. Researchers associate them with one workshop acting in the 20-30s of the 19th ct. and name famous rewriter and miniaturist of the fi rst half of the 19th ct. from Guslitsy Mikhail Ivanovich Shitikov as their creator. Two of those - the Chimes 1835 (the State Historical Museum) and the Octoechos 1838 (the Russian State Library) - have a rewriter’s note, and their decoration is as similar to the investigated manuscript that there is no doubt that it is also M. I. Shitikov’s work. The attributed manuscript is the earliest of his works, it supplements and extends our vision of the prominent rewriter’s activity

Keywords

• music manuscripts, Old Believer, book embellishment, Guslitsy style and writing, attribution of the Old Believer manuscripts, rewriter and miniaturist of the first half of the 19th ct. Mikhail Ivanovich Shitikov.