OSTROMIR GOSPEL

The Ostromil Gospel is an eleventh-century Gospel book, and the earliest dated Slavic manuscript.

According to its postscript, the Ostromir Gospel was copied by the scribe Gregory for the governor (posadnik ) of Novgorod, Ostromir, in 1056 and 1057. The manuscript contains 294 folios, and each folio is divided into two columns. Gospels or evangeliaries were books of Gospel readings arranged for use in specific church services. In the Slavic tradition they were called aprakos Gospel, which derives from the Greek for "holy day." Because of their important function in the celebration of the liturgy, they were very frequently copied. There are two types of evangeliaries. Short evangeliaries contain readings for all days of the cycle from Palm Sunday until Pentecost and for Saturday and Sunday for the remainder of the year. Full evangeliaries have Saturday and Sunday readings for Lent as well as for all days of the week for the rest of the year. The Ostromir Gospel is the oldest of the short evangeliaries. It is notable for its East Slavic dialect features, its remarkable miniatures depicting three of the Gospel writers, and its dignified uncial writing, which was often used in copying biblical texts. Some scholars have maintained that the Ostromir Gospel goes back to an East Bulgarian reworking of an earlier Macedonian Glagolitic text, while others deny a Glagolitic connection. The pioneering Russian philologist Alexander. Vostokov produced an influential edition of the Ostromir Gospel in 1843 (reprint 1964). Facsimile editions were published in St. Petersburg/Leningrad in 1883 and 1988. First preserved in the St. Sophia cathedral in Novgorod and then in one of the Kremlin churches in Moscow, the Ostromir Gospel is now located in the Russian National Library in St. Petersburg (formerly the State Public Library).

See also: kievan rus; religion

bibliography

Schenker, Alexander, M. (1995). The Dawn of Slavic: An Introduction to Slavic Philology. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.

David K. Prestel