Natalia Viktorovna Sokolova,
Candidate of Historical Sciences, Institute of Slavic Studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow, Russia, e-mail: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
The Library of the Annunciation Cathedral of the Moscow Kremlin at the Beginning of the 18th Century (Historiographical and Source Study Aspects)
DOI: 10.31518/2618-9100-2025-3-1
The article introduces into scientific circulation the sources that arose as a result of the activities of the Monastic Prikaz in pursuance of the decree of Peter the Great dated June 8, 1701 on the description of cathedrals. According to the tsar’s decree and the nakaz from the Monastic Prikaz, the inventory of the Annunciation and Archangel Cathedrals in the Moscow Kremlin was to be made by stolnik S.G. Koledinsky. The copy of the inventory books of the Annunciation Cathedral by stolnik Koledinsky, discovered by the author in the archives of the Moscow Donskoy Monastery, has signatures from the Monastic Prikaz dyak Ivan Ivanov, meaning that it is an official copy of the original. The copy can be dated to the second half of 1703 and, apparently, is chronologically closest to the description. A comparison of parallel texts in the currently known copies of 1703 and 1726 showed that the latter (from the collection of F.F. Mazurin in the Russian State Archives of Ancient Documents, RGADA, according to which the source was published) is not entirely correct. The fragments devoted to the book collection of the Annunciation Cathedral in the 1703 copy are fully completed, satisfactorily preserved texts, representative and suitable for analysis. Some preliminary work was carried out, due to the state of the manuscript after the fire and restoration. In particular, it was necessary to restore the original sequence of books and sheets. The existing gaps in the text can be restored by meaning and/or by analogy with the previous inventory of 1680 and the list of inventory books of 1701 (in the copy of 1726). Significant copying errors in the 1720s include the absence of four books of two titles in the inventory of the library of the Annunciation Cathedral. Another book from Koledinsky’s inventory is missing only in the 2018 publication. It is stated that in studies on the history of libraries and book culture, the 1703 copy, despite its gaps, is still preferable. It seems promising to study the book collection of the Annunciation Cathedral in dynamics, according to all three early inventories − 1680, 1701 and 1721.
Publishing: 28/06/2025
The article has been received by the editor on 13/03/2025
How to cite: Sokolova N.V. The Library of the Annunciation Cathedral of the Moscow Kremlin at the Beginning of the 18th Century (Historiographical and Source Study Aspects) // Historical Courier, 2025, No. 3 (41), pp. 15−27. [Available online: http://istkurier.ru/data/2025/ISTKURIER-2025-3-01.pdf]
Links: Issue 3 2025
Keywords: church reform of Peter the Great; Monastic prikaz; Annunciation Cathedral of the Moscow Kremlin; stolnik S.G. Koledinsky; clergyman Ivan Afanasyev; hieromonk Iosif (Blagoveschensky); library of the Annunciation Cathedral; Moscow Donskoy Monastery