Monuments of old Russian lexicography in the manuscript of Prokhor Kolomnyatin

Abstract

The article describes the monuments of Old Russian lexicography recorded in a manuscript created in 1668 by monk Prokhor Kolomnyatin, a Russian teacher and lexicographer. The dictionary “Tolkovanie o psaltyrnykh slovesekh” (‘Interpretation of the Psalms’), following a well-known tradition represented by numerous copies, could have been borrowed by the author from the Moscow edition of the Psaltyr of 1641. The dictionary “Latinskie rechi” (‘Latin Words’) is a translation of the Latin-Greek dictionary attributed to Matthew Blastares and included in his “Sintagma” (‘Syntagma’); one of the Slavic copies of this book served as a source for a Latin dictionary in the manuscript of 1668. The third text, “Perevodnye rechi s grecheskogo yazyka na slovenskii” (‘Translated Words from Greek into Slovenian’), is a Greek-Russian dictionary which is built on a thematic principle. This monument is based on the materials of the azbukovniks (‘alphabet books’), as well as the words and phrases of “Rech’ tonkosloviya grecheskogo” (‘Words of Greek Subtlety’), which were borrowed by Prokhor Kolomnyatin from “Vtoroi azbukovnik” (‘The Second Alphabet Book’). In the division of the lexical material into thematic groups, one can assume the influence of the works of Jan Amos Comenius. Although the work on compiling the Greek-Russian dictionary remained unfinished, it was the principle of its construction that served as a model for the recording of three new phrasebook dictionaries created by Prokhor Kolomnyatin.

Keywords

• collection of manuscripts
• old russian lexicography
• azbukovnik
• latin-greek dictionary
• greek-russian dictionary
• tradition of manuscript writing
• thematic vocabulary groups
• phrasebook dictionaries