Читать книгу Memory of the World: The treasures that record our history from 1700 BC to the present day - UNESCO - Страница 36
ОглавлениеInscribed 2011
What is it
The 11th century Ostromir Gospel, written less than 80 years after Christianity was accepted in Russia. The manuscript is written in Old Russian using the Cyrillic alphabet.
Why was it inscribed
Written in 1056–57, the Ostromir Gospel is the world’s oldest-known East Slavonic manuscript. The text introduced Christianity to previously isolated and pagan East Slavonic tribes. As an art object, it also represents the genesis of Russian literature and culture.
Where is it
National Library of Russia, St Petersburg, Russia
Christianity was adopted in Russia as late as AD 988 and the Ostromir Gospel was commissioned during its first century as the official religion. The manuscript was created between 21 October 1056 and 12 May 1057, according to an inscription by its scribe, Deacon Grigory, by the order of Ostromir, the governor of Novgorod, then one of the richest cities in Russia.
The manuscript is an aprakos, that is, a lectionary of the Gospels as used in Orthodox Catholic Church services, arranged in weekly order. Unlike Western Church lectionaries, the works of the evangelists begin with John rather than Matthew. It was created as a donation to St Sophia’s, the new cathedral of Novgorod, where it remained for several centuries until its removal to Moscow. In 1806, it was moved to the then Imperial Public Library, now the National Library of Russia in St Petersburg.
The Ostromir Gospel is an expression of the dynamic religious and cultural development in 11th-century Russia, encompassing the dissemination of Christianity among the pagan Slavs, the moves towards a unified state of the Eastern Slavs and the growth of writing. The Gospel is the oldest known manuscript in the Old Russian language and is written in the Cyrillic alphabet which was devised in the 10th century. As an early example of how Russian Cyrillic became the new means of expression of the Christian religion, the manuscript is centrally important in the dynamic evolution of the religion, language and culture of Russia at that time.
More specifically, it expresses the confidence of Russia in its new religion and its place in the world. Russian princes had close connections with the leaders of the Byzantine Empire and European nations further afield, and the cultural and artistic traditions of those lands were influential in Russia. The Gospel is the only book of the 10th and 11th centuries that fuses elements of Byzantine and Western illumination and decoration. It was also among the last major works produced within the unified Christian Church – although the Great Schism between East and West is officially dated at 1054, before the Gospel was produced, in practical, day-to-day terms the church carried on as before. The calendar of saints in the Gospel is drawn from the unified Christian tradition.
A miniature from the Gospel depicted on a postage stamp of the former USSR.
