Valeriya Anatol’evna Esipova,
Doctor of Historical Sciences, Tomsk State University Research Library, Tomsk, Russia, e-mail: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
On the Question of Old Russian Hagiographies in the Composition of Late Old Believer Manuscripts
DOI: 10.31518/2618-9100-2023-2-13
The article considers the variants of the existence of hagiographic texts in the late Old Believer written tradition by the example of the life of Princess Olga. Two versions of the life of Princess Olga are known, reflected in the short and lengthy redaction of Prologue, they date back to the last third of the 12 century and the end of 12 – the beginning of the 13 century. It is also known about the text of the life of Olga in the Book of Degrees, it was created in the middle of the 16 century. The aim of the work was to identify the texts of Olga’s life as part of the Old Believers manuscripts of the 19–20 centuries, stored in Siberian collections. The continuous scanning method, the comparative method as well as a complex of textual methods were used. As a result, three texts of the life of Princess Olga were discovered: two – as part of the Tomsk State University Research Library, one – as part of Elfimov collection of Tumen State University. It is shown that the first two copies are the text of the life of Olga from the Prologue (lengthy redaction) with some discrepancies. The copy from Tyumen State University is an extract from life of Olga, located in the Book of Degrees. The analysis of discrepancies showed that in its text there are readings both from the Tomsk copy of the Book of Degrees (short redaction) and from Piskarevsky (lengthy redaction). That is, the scriber of the collection from Tyumen State University used, perhaps, a certain contaminated copy. In general, it can be said that the texts of Old Russian hagiographies existed in the written tradition of Old Believers according to various sources: for example, the life of Princess Olga reached the end of 19 century both as a part of the Prologue (lengthy redaction) and as a part of the Book of Degrees and was present in the living manuscript tradition in both versions.
Publishing: 28/02/2023
The article has been received by the editor on 11.01.2023
How to cite: Esipova V.A. On the Question of Old Russian Hagiographies in the Composition of Late Old Believer Manuscripts // Historical Courier, 2023, No. 2 (28), pp. 151–159. [Available online: http://istkurier.ru/data/2023/ISTKURIER-2023-2-13.pdf]
The work was carried out with the financial support of the Russian Science Foundation, project No. 22-28-00742.
Links: Issue 2 2023
Keywords: Old Believers; paleography; textology; hagiography; life of Princess Olga; Tomsk; Tyumen