The First Publisher, Deacon Ivan Fedorov’s Books in the Collection of the Moscow Theological Academy

Abstract

The medieval culture of Ancient Rus has survived up to these days only in a few grains such as church art objects which like precious pearls are scattered across the globe reminding us, modern people, that once these spiritual beads ran not only though the liturgical life but also through an everyday life and area of human life. Such clirical culture incessantly reminded medieval people of the purpose of a human life, salvific way of spiritual life and protected them from making mistakes, so called led them to holiness. Handwritten books and later printed ones, being mostly religious, were an integral part of that culture. Few of these books have survived. Nowadays they are not just objects for pious reading, which give readers an opportunity to gat an accsess to the divine truths and the Orthodox culture. First of all, they became a subject of research. The article presents a scientific description of three books of Psalms and New Testament (1580) as wells as two Bible copies (1581) printed in Ostrog by a pioneer publisher, Deacon Ivan Fedorov, from the collection of the Moscow Theological Academy Library. The Bible (the inventory number 4026) and the book of New Testament and Psalms (the inventory number 188177) were not originally ment for the liturgical use, howerer, some readers’ liturgical notes testify that these books were used in churches during the 20th century repressions due to a lack of liturgical literature. While comparing two copies of the Ostrog Bible (the inventory number 4026 and the inventory number 209563) with 29 typing variants of the same edition identified by Zernova it was concluded that they do not correspond to any of these types and could be identified as two extra typing variants. All three books have readers’ notes.